We have a new nephew, the kids have a new cousin and little Serenity has a baby brother! Sage William Kingwell arrived safe and sound on Feb. 4.

Welcome to the world little man!

This is day 10 of not being able to eat properly. I get my stitches out on Monday and as far as I’m concerned that moment can’t come soon enough — the stitches seem to be coming out anyway, and there’s a piece behind my teeth that I can play with using my tongue, and the whole thing is driving me crazy. Argh.

The boys had a couple friends over today for a play date, and it was a bit of a wild time. Justin got up at 5 a.m. and hardly touched his lunch, so he was going loopy from fatigue and hunger, and doing all the things we’ve been working on not doing: being bossy with his friends, asking the same question over and over, not engaging with the group and wanting to play computer/do his homework/listen to his iPod (basically anything to be by himself)…sigh. He perked up a bit after a snack, but it was far from his best performance. Oh, well.

The big news this week was that I signed Brayden up for kindergarten. He was so excited about it that he shared the news with his preschool teacher — and with his best friend, who’s a year younger and still has another year of preschool. The friend burst into tears. It’s really unfortunate that those two will never be in the same class again. But such is life.

We have dinner with our Asperger parent group tomorrow (we’ll see if I can actually eat anything on the menu), we’re planning to take the kids to the science centre in Vernon on Saturday, and Saturday night is autism moms at a friend’s house. It should be a good weekend.

Happy Groundhog Day!

I’m puffy and sore, I can’t bite anything for the next four weeks and I can’t have any chips until March (sob), but I think at the end of all this I will have a healthier and better looking set of gums, so I’m still calling it worthwhile. The surgery actually went great, even better than he expected, and Chris took the day off to handle things around here so I could lie down with a drool cloth and try to rest. I’m really glad I used donor tissue — I can’t imagine recovering from this while also having a hole in the top of my mouth. As it is, eating is a pain cause all my food has to be cut up into chewable pieces and I can’t have anything salty or spicy. Call it a new diet plan, I guess.

Three days down, 25 to go…

It was a great weekend of birthday celebrations for me (and my birthday isn’t even until Thursday!) Dave and Tanya came down from Kamloops on Saturday and then a few other couples came over to play some party games, eat cake and drink lots. It was awesome. We should do that more often.

The next day the four Lees plus Dave and Tanya went out for brunch and then drove up to Silver Star for an afternoon of tubing. The weather was perfect and it wasn’t even that busy, so we got lots of runs in. I got my exercise pulling Brayden around in his tube, but I think that was still easier than it would’ve been to corral him if he was walking (Justin pulled his own tube for the first time, so that was a relief). Good times all around.

Next weekend looks good too: I’m going out with the girls on Friday, I have a date with Chris on Saturday, and Sunday is a birthday dinner at the in-laws’. Ahh…

It’s been loose for months, and its replacement has been in place for almost as long…and today it finally fell out. The tooth fairy comes tonight!

Well, that’s certainly one way to lose the holiday weight. Shortly after my last entry I caught the same virus that plagued the kids, which wiped me out for a few days (Chris caught a slightly milder version of it too, but we’re all feeling better now). I’m pretty sure I gained a couple pounds over Christmas, but I lost that and more from stomach flu. It’s not a dieting technique I’d recommend.

So now that we’re all recovering, we’re trying to get back to a normal routine, which means getting the kids to understand they can’t have TV/video games/computer all the time. I think there was one day last week when Brayden was camped out on the couch that we watched something like six straight hours of Treehouse. ‘Twas the good life, but alas, it’s back to reality.

I’m turning 35 in a couple weeks, but celebrations will be pretty low-key for a couple of reasons: we’re trying to save money for our big trip in June, and I’m about to have dental surgery that will leave me with a sore mouth for quite a while. Isn’t January fun? (Sigh.)

Christmas just isn’t Christmas unless someone pukes (or is that just my family?) Justin came down with a nasty stomach flu a couple days after Xmas and was laid low for most of a week; Brayden was fine while we were in Saskatoon but developed a fever on the flight home and is now in the throes of it. Their one-year-old cousin was also ill, but miraculously none of the adults seem to have gotten it. Happy new year!

Despite the plague that struck the house, it still managed to be a good holiday. We took the kids to a couple movies, checked out a new waterslide pool and visited with lots of family and friends. We even booked another trip to Toon Town for the end of March so we can meet our new niece/nephew, who is scheduled to arrive next month.

Enjoy the photos!

Welcome to the new look. I’ve been using the same blogging platform for nearly seven years, and it finally dawned on me that there’s probably a newer and better way to do this. I’m still working out the kinks, but I hope to be providing new and improved content to all four of my dedicated readers. Stay tuned.

We had just enough snow over the last few days to really have fun. Check out how the kids spent this fine morning at Grandpa’s.

It’s been a busy year (aren’t they all?), but there were no major crises, and I’m pleased to report that everyone in the Lee household is healthy and happy. Here’s the latest scoop on each of us:

Justin is still enjoying grade one and is keeping busy with swimming lessons and his all-sport class. Throw in play dates, OT sessions and time with his behavior interventionist, and he’s one busy boy. He continues to amaze us academically and he’s had very few social issues, so we’re happy about that. Several parents have commented that if I hadn’t told them about his Asperger’s, they would never have guessed, which is really good to hear.

I’m about to sign Brayden up for kindergarten for next fall — my baby’s growing up! He’s also in swimming lessons (getting oh-so-close to actually putting his face in the water) and will be starting gymnastics in January, so hopefully that will help burn off some of his endless energy. He still moves like a flea on speed but so far has only required one trip to the ER for stitches, so knock on wood.

Chris is busy at work, but in a good way. He still finds time to shuttle the boys around to some of their activities and his schedule is flexible enough that he can cover things at home when I have appointments or whatever, so it’s all good. He really enjoyed the boys-only trip to Seattle this year for Dave’s stag, but so far hasn’t made any more plans to ditch me and the kids (at least none that I know of…)

My technical communication course is about to end but the next one begins in March, so it’s nice to have something to look forward to. And of course we have something else to look forward to: Chris and I are off on our next cruise in June, this one to northern Europe and Scandinavia, so we’re super excited about that.

Happy holidays everybody!