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Updates

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June 8, 2007:
Megan went pee on her toilet today!! Yaaa! We made a big fuss over her.
Megan likes to pull Emily around the house on her wheeled horse. Emily loves being chauffeured around!

May 25, 2007:
Megan likes to sing songs. Her favourite one is "Mr. Sun". Sometimes I will know she is awake in her room because I can hear her singing the song to herself! Emily is standing up against the furniture now, and loves to walk while holding our hands. She walks along the furniture. Emily also waves now when she is going to bed or leaving someone's house. Megan and Emily play better together now, and Megan will even share her toys with Emily (with some prompting!) Emily thinks Megan is funny and frequently laughs at her.

April 29, 2007:
Emily likes to copy now. She will clap hands and say 'ba ba' and 'ma ma'. She is crawling better all the time, and is trying to play with Megan. Megan likes to give Emily a toy to appease her, in hopes that Emily will leave Megan's toys alone. This does not always work, and Emily tries to barge right in to play with whatever Megan is playing with. They played well together, side by side, for several minutes the other day, but most of the time, Megan is annoyed that Emily is trying to play with "Megan's" toys.

April 27, 2007:
Megan apparently swallowed a small bead tonight. She was wearing a bracelet on her wrist that had some beads on it. She has worn it before with no problems, but today I caught her putting the bracelet to her mouth. I sternly warned her not to do that, and then less than a minute later, she started gagging and choking! It was a bit scary. She worked herself out after a few seconds, but then started to cry. I guess it scared her, and probably hurt her throat a bit. I quickly examined the bracelet and found a spot where a bead was missing. I was always watching to make sure that the bracelet didn't get near Emily; I didn't expect Megan to have a problem with it! She was OK again within a few minutes, and had no problems after that. The bead was about the size of a green pea.

April 22, 2007:
Emily seems to be unstoppable now! She crawled the length of the hallway today. She continues to climb on things and has succeded in standing a few times!
Megan has become quite a chatterbox. She talks about things that happened in the day, and things that happened several days ago. She loves to go outside and 'KICK the soccer ball', with a stress on the word kick. She knows the names of all of her favourite foods and asks for them at every meal.

April 21, 2007:
Emily is now trying to climb on things in order to stand up. She is crawling more efficiently now, and can actually cover some short distances. It also means she can now spit up in a wider range!
Megan no longer wants to sit in her highchair. She always goes to 'her chair' at the big table. She prefers to eat while kneeling in her chair at the table.

April 20, 2007:
Emily can now get into a sitting position from a laying down position on her own! This gives her a lot more freedom, as she used to complain when she was laying down too long and could not get up. Now she can move as she pleases. She has started to put her hands on things as though she is thinking about climbing on them.

April 12, 2007:
Emily is crawling now! She can take a few 'steps' on all fours. Megan doesn't know what to think of this, and spends a lot of time running from toy to toy, trying to keep it away from Emily!
Emily has her 2 top teeth coming in, as well as her 2 bottom incisors.

April 10, 2007:
Emily is now inching herself along the floor. I wouldn't say 'crawling', but she does move forward if she sees something she wants and you give her enough time.

April 3, 2007:
Emily has her top front teeth coming in now.

March 29, 2007:
Emily is feeling better now. She is almost crawling! She gets on her hands and knees and rocks back and forth. She can actually drag herself forward along the floor if she sees a toy she wants to reach.
Megan's favourite word lately is "zooming". Everybody is zooming! If she runs fast down the hallway, she says she is zooming. If there is a car going down the road, it is zooming. If someone is leaving to go somewhere, they are going zooming in their truck or car. I think it started when we were in the plane and Dave told her when we were taking off that we were zooming. That was it.

March 27, 2007:
Happy Birthday to Seth!
Emily did not throw up today, but was still not acting like herself.

March 26, 2007:
Emily was still sick today but looked very bright this evening. She is keeping liquids down. Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day for her. This is day 5 for Emily. Megan was sick over 5 days, so we are hoping that Emily will have a better day tomorrow.

March 25, 2007:
Megan had her second birthday party today! She had a great time. Thank you to everyone for helping Megan to celebrate being TWO!
On the other hand, Emily did not have such a great day. She threw up on the carpet and then spent the rest of the party sleeping in bed.

March 24, 2007:
No one was sick today! Yaaa! I can take a break on the laundry - thank goodness! Hopefully Emily is done with throwing up.

March 23, 2007:
Emily threw up a few times today. Poor thing.

March 22, 2007:
Happy 2nd Birthday Megan!
She is still not well, but did not throw up today. She slept a bit more than usual, but seems on the mend.
Emily spat up an unusual amount of milk tonight. We are hoping she doesn't have what Megan had...

March 21, 2007:
Megan is still sick today and now has it at both ends. She slept most of the day.

March 10 - March 20, 2007:
Tucson! We had a great time with Jim, Tess, and Cameron! It was great to relax and enjoy the warm Arizona sunshine. Both Megan and Emily were very good and adapted to everything with no problems. Megan was thrilled to be able to play outside anytime she wanted, and without bundling herself up in layers of clothing! She loved riding in the golf carts. Many times it was the first thing she wanted to do as soon as she got out of bed. Both Megan and Emily liked the pool. Emily splashed around contentedly, and Megan was an animal - jumping into Daddy's arms and saying 'again!' about a thousand times. I think she really enjoyed herself.
Megan threw up once on Sunday night (18th) and again on Monday morning (19th) (in the van - yuck). She was not well on the plane ride home (20th) and basically slept off and on all day.

March 6, 2007:
Megan has been feeling better over the last week or so, and her tantrums have decreased in quantity. She still has them though, but not everday. She can get quite frustrated and we really have to watch for the warning signs in order to divert or diffuse a coming spaz attack. She is getting better and communicating and using her words, which really helps. Emily continues to eat and eat!

March 2, 2007:
Happy 'Birth' day to Austin Trevor Stephen! Austin was born at 6:58pm. He weighs 8lbs, 8oz and both Karen and Austin are doing great! See their website at http://members.shaw.ca/trevorandkaren/

March 1, 2007:
Emily had her immunizations today. Dave took her and Jenny stayed home with Megan. Emily weighs about 18 lbs! She has gained 4 lbs in the last month.

February 19, 2007:
Megan was better today, but still had about 2 small tantrums. She went to bed early.

February 18, 2007:
Emily is 7 months old today!
Megan had her first major 'temper-tantrum' today. She also had her second, third, and fourth major temper-tantrum! She has learned the word NO and used it a lot today. She hit octaves and notes that we had never heard before!

February 13, 2007:
Happy Birthday to Great Nan in Wales!

February 11, 2007:
Megan is still not feeling well, despite her long sleep the day/night before.

February 10, 2007:
Emily has 2 teeth coming in! Her 2 bottom teeth are poking through her gums and they look very sharp! She continues to eat very heartily.
Megan has been sick since last night. She has a mild fever and has just generally been out of sorts. She had a nap today starting at 1:30. At 6:00 we opened her door to see if she was ready to wake up and maybe have something to eat. She eventually woke up, but was not happy about it. She said 'Mommy - door - close'. So I shut the door and checked on her again at 9:00 - same thing! She slept right through until the next morning.

January 31, 2007:
Megan and Emily had checkups at the Doctor's today. Both are doing great! Emily weighs 14lbs 3oz, and Megan weighs 23lbs.
Emily is eating rice cereal now and she is doing really well at it! She eagerly waits for the spoon and only complains when you stop!

January 28, 2007:
Megan had her first haircut today! Auntie Sian gave her a nice trim, and not only was Megan was very good the entire time, but she seemed to like it too!

January 27, 2007:
Happy Birthday to Grandpa Chidlow!

January 18, 2007:
Emily is 6 months old today! She continues to drink from a bottle and she drinks a LOT! She seems to really like it now. She enjoys being fed by Daddy and being able to look around while she eats.
Megan is using more and more words all the time. She is saying words in a row, trying to make sentences. She also knows several letters of the alphabet. She points letters out on her yogurt container and anywhere else she sees them, like on the front of the TV or on a magazine.

January 10, 2007:
We woke up to quite a bit of snow here. Megan and I went out in the yard, but that only lasted for a few minutes. Megan did not like the snow and would not walk in it. Eventually she fell to her knees and that was the end of the snow fun! She kept saying 'Snow. messy.' Messy seems to be her favourite word lately. Later she dropped a puzzle piece on the floor and thought that was messy too!

January 9, 2007:
Emily drank from a bottle for the 2nd time today! She drank 60ml. Megan is starting to string words together. For example she says 'Emmy bed', and 'Daddy car' and several other phrases. She is saying new words every day. Another one of her favourite things to say is 'uh oh messy'! She says that several times a day, and mostly about things that aren't really messy at all.

January 7, 2007:
Emily drank from a bottle for the first time today! After a couple of days of trying, Dave finally got her to drink about 50ml! Way to go Emily!
Megan is using more and more words now. She likes to make things 'fall' by teetering them on the edge of something and then violently pushing them off. She says 'fall' before and after she does it. She is saying please more often now, and today I heard her say No when Dave asked her if she wanted to do something!

January 2, 2007:
Happy New Year! We started the new year with our second major computer problem in 2 weeks. We have determined that our hard drive is not good. Luckily, we have a small spare hard drive from our old computer and we were able to transfer over our data to that one. We had most of our data on DVD from our last crash 2 weeks ago, and we were able to get our additional data that we collected over the last 2 weeks. I don't wish this on anyone!

January 1, 2007:
We had a nice New Year's Eve with our friends Dave and Nancy Tremblay, and their children, Destiny, Mackenzie, and Cameron. We got together at Darren and Arista's, who have 2 boys and were looking after another boy. Megan stayed up until midnight! She was thrilled playing with the other kids and chasing them around.

December 27, 2006:
We had a great Christmas. Megan quickly got the hang of opening gifts, and at one point she could not seem to open them all quickly enough! Emily was content to watch (more like 'study') everything that was going on. Thank you to everyone for making Christmas special for the girls.
Our tree is down and all of the decorations have been put away. I just came in from helping Dave take down the outside lights. Done for another year!

December 22, 2006:
Megan, Emily, and I visited Grandma and Grandpa Chidlow today.

December 18, 2006:
Today we had a major computer problem! Suddenly our computer would not start up. It kept saying 'we are sorry, but windows could not start...'. We tried several things to get it going, but none were working. We were faced with the fact that we may have lost several months of photos, including every single photo that we have taken of Emily. Also all of our emails (I have several emails to do with genealogy, going back to 2000 or so), and some genealogy data. I was devestated and cannot even describe how awful I felt. Anyway, a few days later it was Dave to the rescue! He worked some magic and... presto! Here was all of our data intact! Needless to say, we immediately backed everything up.

November 25, 2006:
Emily rolled from her front to her back today! She can now do a complete roll. She also went into the jolly-jumper for the first time today. She seemed to like it! Megan was excited about it too. She gave Emily several kisses on the head. Most of Megan's kisses are reserved for Emily only (and the odd doll). Megan suddenly started blowing kisses today.
It is starting to snow - our first snow of the season!

November 04, 2006:
Emily rolled over onto her front for the first time today! She rolled from her back onto her right side, then onto her front.
Megan spontaneously gives Emily kisses all the time now. Also, when Emily is laying on the floor, Megan has to lie right beside her.

November 03, 2006:
Megan has started saying the word 'no'. She does it when trying to put her blocks into the shape sorter. If one doesn't fit she says No - as in 'no, that doesn't fit there', then she tries it somewhere else. She also says 'no' when trying to drag her bus behind the couch.

October 27, 2006:
Megan now has been asking for her blanket periodically during the day. She wants to walk around with it - like Linus from 'Peanuts'.

October 26, 2006:
Emily slept last night from 7:00 until 5:30am!
Megan gave me a kiss on the cheek for the first time. Later, she kissed Emily.

October 19, 2006:
Megan and Emily both had their immunizations this afternoon.

October 17, 2006:
Megan seems well today. Emily has been sleeping through the night off and on.

October 16, 2006:
Megan was sick tonight. She threw up several times between 6 and 9 pm.

October 13, 2006:
We just returned from our trip to Tucson. Everyone is well and the time on the airplane was not bad! Megan had her own seat on the way back because the seat beside Dave happened to be empty. That was way better for both Megan and Dave, and Megan slept for most of the flight from Tucson to Seattle. Emily slept through every flight there and back!
Today in Victoria Airport, Emily smiled and made a noise that we think was laughing for the first time.

September 30, 2006:
Emily is now smiling when she sees us and we can sometimes make her smile with our funny faces.

September 25, 2006:
Megan had a doctor's appointment today. Just a checkup. All is well. She is good at the doctor and is fascinated by the stethescope and the tools to look in her ears and eyes.

September 18, 2006:
Emily is 2 months old today!
She has smiled at us several times, but we are not sure if she is doing it in response to seeing us, or if she is just figuring out how to use her face muscles. We keep making funny faces at her to see if she will smile in response, but so far we have only succeded in making mommy and daddy laugh at each other.

September 15, 2006:
Happy 2nd Birthday Ashley!

September 08, 2006:
Emily met her Great Grandma Chidlow for the first time today. Karen and Ashey came also. Grandma shared her ice cream with Megan.

September 06, 2006:
Emily had a check up at the Doctor today. She is 7 weeks old! She is doing well and now weighs 9lbs, 9oz. Her length is 56 cm and her head circumference is 37.5 cm.
Dave used our new shower for the first time last night. It works great!

September 04, 2006:
We helped Jasmine McCall celebrate her 2nd Birthday at Gorge Waterway Park. Megan played on the swings and the slide, and even got a balloon!
Dave has been working hard over the last 3 weeks at renovating our ensuite bathroom. He is almost done and it looks fantastic!

August 27, 2006:
Our first family trip to Beaver Lake! Karen, Trevor, and Ashley met us there. Dave and Megan went in the water, and then we had a picnic lunch on the grass.

August 25, 2006:
Today is our wedding anniversary. Megan spent the night at Nan & Grandpa Lewis' and had a great time!

August 20, 2006:
We went to Sidney Spit today on board 'Precious Times'. Megan went in the dinghy with Dave and they played on the beach. Megan waded in the ocean with her life jacket on, and Dave helped her to 'swim' on her back. She liked it!

August 18, 2006:
Today we took the girls to the petting zoo at Beacon Hill Park. Megan liked pointing to all of the goats. She says 'got' for goat. We met Auntie Karen and Ashley there and ate lunch in the park. Megan played in the playground then home to bed.

August 17, 2006:
Happy Birthday Auntie Sian!
Today Emily had her 1 month doctor appointment. She weighs 8lbs, 4oz. All is well.
We visited Jim and Tess and new baby Cameron in the hospital!

August 16, 2006:
Emily is 4 weeks old now! All is well. She is getting big, and is already wearing outfits that Megan wore at 12 and 13 weeks! Megan is doing great and is not bothered by Emily at all. Megan is getting in some molars now, and that may be affecting her a little bit, but not too much. Dave is on holidays for 3 weeks.