Adventures in Calgary

It's taken us 5 months but we've finally broken in the smoker. Thanks to Andrew (a veteran of BBQ), we had a front yard Bernie would be proud of yesterday. 2 smokers laden with meat, beer in a snowbank, lawn chairs and lots of neighbours dropping by. The only thing we were missing was a quad or two to complete the picture. We ended up with pulled pork, pork side ribs, salads, buns, chili and cornbread for supper. Yum yum.

I'm not sure when the transformation took place but seemly overnight our normal little girl turned into a princess. She now wears a dress everyday. EVERYDAY! No matter how cold it is outside. She really wakes up every morning and says "What dress shall I wear today mum?" She gets completely upset if the exact princess panties she wants to wear aren't clean. She wears princess panties everyday. And sleeps in barbie princess panties. There are days that she goes outside wearing nothing but pink. Pink boots, coat, hat, tights, dress, panties...all pink. I have one pair of pink mittens that I've had for years and when I put them on earlier today she looked at me and said "Why are you wearing my mittens? Those are mine because they're pink!" I guess there are worse things in the world. But I must say I miss seeing her in her jeans.

I've just finished my first trimester of pregnancy with baby number two. This is one of the photos from our 12-week ultrasound. The first 3 months have been really up and down. I've been tired...but not as tired as I was with Molly. I've been nauseous on and off. But mostly I've been really, really emotional. I can't even count the days I've been reduced to a blubbering mess while Noel just stands by trying to offer some sort of support. I'm also quite large already. They say that happens with second babies but I didn't realize how big I'd get so soon. Last time I don't think I started wearing maternity clothes until month 5 or so. This time I barely made it to 8 weeks before I broke out the elastic pants. The other major difference is that this time I'm really, really craving junk food most of the time. Ice cream, chips, chocolate, pudding, fish'n chips. If only I still lived near Chess's.

We've been talking about the pregnancy around Molly but haven't really talked to her directly about it yet. We're thinking of waiting until after our 18 week ultrasound so that when we do talk to her it will be specifically about her new brother or sister and we can even start using a proper name.

That being said, she woke up this morning talking about her baby sister and when we asked her what her name was she said "Kelp". I don't think she'll be getting a vote when it comes to new baby's name.