Not the Same

I'm at camp and I miss Neesha.


...and Sarah and Phil and Melissa and Jeff and Karen and Ron and Josh and Greg and...

We live in Hondaworld

Ever since we were expecting our fourth, I've been eyeing a new van. We got our first mini-van after Verity was born, in 2005. Before that we all fit into our Accord wagon. (We're somewhat fond of Hondas). (Ok, we're Honda fanatics). (Blame my uncle, he started it).

But when I had to ride squeezed into the 10 inch space between the girls' carseats in the back seat of the Accord, we realized we needed to give in and get a minivan. An Odyssey, of course. There didn't really seem to be any way we could afford that though. The Accord had come second hand from the aforementioned uncle who gave us a sweet deal. But I looked at the autotrader anyways. To my surprise and excitement, there were some old Odysseys out there that we could possibly handle purchasing. We went out to the Kitchener area to check out the cheapest. This 95' was going for about $3500 and once we got there it was obvious why. As I went to shift into gear during a test drive, the gear shift got stuck and wouldn't move. The salesguy nervously suggested that I just needed to really reef on it. Ok...buh-by now.

We ended up buying another 95' (earliest year Honda made the Odyssey) from some little place in TO for 5K. We were thrilled.

Now, this isn't actually our Odyssey. I realized when I went looking for a photo of big red, that we got our digital camera after that point, hence no pics of our first minivan. But google obliged me with this pic, quite close to ours. Except we didn't have a sunroof. Or those funky visors over the windows.

I'll bypass our unfortunate Hyundai experience...(You stray from the formula, you pay the consequences) and move onto the next Honda purchase, a little civic for James to take to work.

Unfortunately, we made the mistake of buying privately and that wasn't so rosy an experience. By now however, I would think you're starting to see our trend....

So back to the present. I got pregnant and we realized that our decision to buy a van with two bench seats was not so practical for 4 kids in carseats. Space overall became a bit of an issue, as the early Odyssey's were quite small. And I was having heartattacks in every parking lot with three kids trying out their independence on a four door (read: no sliders). So last week I started looking at Pilots. My brother had been razzing me that we should get a Pilot next, so I went to the Honda site to check them out. I clicked away, deciding that nope, I still liked the Odyssey better. On I clicked to autotrader and what did I find?

A mere 5 minute drive, over on Upper James, this 2000 (Yes!! Into the 2000's!!) Honda Odyssey was going for $5449. It wasn't red...but I didn't care...could we do it?

YES WE CAN!!

I want......this one.

http://www.trader.ca/powerpage/details.aspx?vlotid=95564&adid=6834267

Would anyone like to buy it for me?

Kentkids

I've recently made a couple posts on the kids' blog....

You should really hop over and see.

:-)

Kewl

These are taken by my friend Leanne. Very Ann Geddes-like, non? Thanks Leanne!

Say it ain't so

The other night I was at my moms, looking over her shoulder when she was checking her email, and my eye caught a news story on yahoo that made my heart sink.

Last Saturday, James and the kids and I spent a good portion of the day at a friends house, celebrating her youngest child's birthday with a BBQ. There were lots of friends over, and James and I met and spent some time talking with a couple who had two teenagers. We talked about all sorts of things, one of them being a discussion about our children's names, what they meant and why we had chosen them. Our new friend, who had a rather unique name himself-----Gideon--- joked that just as his daughters name----Hannah--which had been fairly uncommon when she was born and now is not, our children's names might someday be commonplace as well. I laughed and thought in my head about how completely impossible that was.

And then Jessica Alba had a baby. Do you know who Jessica Alba is? I think she might have started out as a pop singer, kind of like Mandy Moore, but turned actress and model. She's quite gorgeous. I remember her best from a fav movie, Never been kissed with Drew Barrymore. She played one of the stuck up popular kids, who dressed up as a Barbie Doll for the themed high school prom, and got in an argument with her equally popular and ditzy friends about which Barbie doll she was (Malibu Barbie? Disco Barbie? Truly mindboggling stuff).

I'm sure by now you're getting the idea, if you didn't see it on the news yourself.

Babies
Honor Marie 'Looks Just Like' Mom Jessica Alba
Originally posted Tuesday June 10, 2008 06:55 PM EDT
Jessica Alba and Cash Warren Photo by: Alex Berliner / Berliner Studio / BEImages
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Jessica Alba has passed on her natural beauty to 3-day-old Honor Marie Warren, according to the star's brother, Josh. "She is gorgeous. She looks just like my sister," Josh Alba told E! News of his newborn niece. "Jessica did everything natural ... It went really well." Born June 7 in Los Angeles, Honor Marie is the first child for Alba, 27, and husband Cash Warren, 31. In recent months, Alba has been in full nesting mode, and now that the baby is here, the Alba family couldn't be happier. "We are all just ecstatic," Josh said. "She definitely looks like an Alba to me."– Arnesa A. Howell

DO YOU KNOW WHAT THIS MEANS?!?!

Sure, she spells it American, but still, this spells death for the uniqueness I've cherished in my babies' names. Ach, I'm probably overreacting....but I guarantee there will be a few more Honour's out there in the next few years. Alba might not be a superstar like Julia Roberts or something, but a quick google tells me that she's got a significant following.

Sigh. Maybe she'll pop out 2 more kids in the next 2 years and we won't hear diddly about her...she'll slowly fade from the public eye......Is that an evil thing to wish? So sorry.

The early weeks

As you can imagine, I haven't had a whole lot of time these past few weeks to blog. But, it's Saturday morning, James is holding the baby, the kids are watching Dora....so I have a few moments to myself....incredibly.

First off, I wanted to post to extend my condolences to the Allen family. Ronalee (who you might notice has left comments here as of late) is a good friend of my moms. Tragically, she was killed in a car accident yesterday. Her soon to be adopted baby boy was with her and he is apparently at McMaster right now; I don't know what his status is, but I'm sure he needs your prayers. Ronalee leaves a husband and I think 4 other children; one grown daughter and others younger. They were well known at Fair Havens. Please pray for this family.

I'm going to tentatively say that my family is finally well.....knock on wood....First I continued to fight off a wicked cold that I had before the baby was born. That took a good week and a half after Afton came. Then last weekend, about 3am Saturday morning, Verity woke me up by throwing up all over her bed. This continued for the next 12 hours. When she started with a fever, I had James take her to Mac. 6 hours later, they were home with the diagnosis of a stomach virus. Brilliant. We had been planning her birthday party for that day--she turned 3 on the 20th, and we were supposed to be going to Barrie on Sunday for a family shindig. Instead, I sent the older two to my parents, hoping to shield them from the germies....and give us a break. With a tiny baby who, as my babies tend to be, doesn't sleep for long periods and doesn't care to sit by herself, tending to a vomiting toddler was tricky. I couldn't sit in Verity's room to watch over her with the baby in arms, because then I couldn't jump up and help Verity when the next wave hit. So it took both James and I...which was leaving the older two roaming the house stealing food from the pantry. (Ok, that's just Jairus). (Who does that even when his parents aren't preoccupied with his sisters).

I had hoped that the virus would be a 24 hour thing, but instead it just kept progressing through phases....I won't detail those. But most disturbing was just how much pain she was in. At times she was rolling around on her bed, wailing about her painful tummy. Finally, on Tuesday morning, after a couple hours of her wails I decided to take her back to the doctor. As my family doctor didn't have any openings for a week and a half, I took her to a local walk in clinic. Even though the vomiting had pretty much stopped, what do you suppose she did all over me while we were in the waiting room? Of course, because....that's what kind of week I was having.

The doctor dismissed us with the same diagnosis. I asked him how long it should be lasting and he said 36 hours. I leveled a look at him and said it had now been 3 days. He didn't have any good answer for that.

Meanwhile, I had dress rehearsal on Monday night, a concert on Wednesday night and tonight is our final concert. I would have been somewhat stressed about that anyway, never mind doing it with a newborn in tow and a sick girlie at home. It was difficult to get my mind on my job, which is my excuse for why I led the choir off the stage on Wednesday, completely forgetting to sing the last song, an acapella canon. My kids (choir kids, that is) were absolutely gleeful to catch Mrs. Kent in a huge blunder. Oh well, I have tonight to make up for it.

I prayed all week that none of the rest of us would get this, but internet searches on gastroenteritis and it's highly contagious status were not giving me much hope. Sure enough, on Thursday afternoon, Jairus refused his lunch and went to bed instead, crying and pointing to his tummy. I sat on his bed and cried with him. Got him a gravol and he went off to sleep.

And then that evening, a sense of dread began in my gut when the baby seemed a little warm. Her diapers started looking a little....odd (I'll spare you any further details). I took her temperature and it was a little high. We went to bed and I woke around 3 to change and feed her...and her temperature was higher, nearly 101F. I called the midwife in a mild panic and she told us to take off a layer and get her some tylenol. We did both and I was relieved to see the temp come down....but why was it up in the first place? She couldn't possibly have the virus too....NOOO!!

The entire next day I took her temps hourly, logged every feed and detailed every diaper change. Perhaps I was being a little overly paranoid, but after the week I'd put in.....and with her only being 3 weeks old....sigh.

But today seems better. Her temps have stayed down without Tylenol since early evening last night, and she's not complaining as much. Jairus also perked up without any further signs of virus. I'm SO thankful. Yesterday was Verity's first normal day, with only one or two wails. Now I just have to remember to sing that dang canon tonight and I will be on top of the world!!

Here's another picture of my newest girlie....taken yesterday when she was not feeling so well....I think it shows!