The first birthday

Ok... so it's been almost 6 months since Tristan's birthday... but it still boggles my mind... how in a mere 12 months we can have a person transform from a teeny, tiny (ish) beautiful little baby...

... to this unbelieveably gorgeous little boy who can run, talk, eat with cutlery, sign (yes, sign language) a whole whack load of words and whose energy and vivacity fills our days with joy... and who was already in dire need for a hair cut (we thought we'd celebrate his birthday by getting it done!) My goodness how time flies...
We went to First Choice (they give you a certificate... oooh!) for the big event:
And here we have a list of things we have learned Tristan was not impressed with (but tolerated just for us):
1: Getting head sprayed right after nap time... "where's my water to spray back???"

2. Having a wet head after nap time... 3. Having a strange lady play with my hair ("what is she doing??? Does she not realize I JUST WOKE UP???")

4. Having things falling on my face (aka - hair pieces)... it tickles... hey! There's a monkey on this thing!

5. The air blower thingy that Mamma teases me with... 6. Not getting that mowhawk that I asked for... well... Mamma says I look handsome so I guess that's okay...
Tada! One short/even haired baby/toddler... so handsome :)

Dadda was working at Dell when Tristan turned one, and had a night shift, so he missed out on birthday dinner at the abuelo's... the highlight of the dinner.... CAKE!

Trying to eat his piece without making too big a mess.... Oh whatever... it's chocolate!!!
And a couple of days later (when Dadda was not working at night) we had yummy carrot cake (with cream cheese icing!) for a second, little more intimate birthday celebration...

Next... the birthday party!

Marcy's new toy...

Forgot the picture!

For all Nissan fans out there... enjoy this pretty thing:

Marcy's update

So I’ve been keeping myself quite busy (hence the slow updates of the blog...) First there was Tristan’s birthday party to plan (more on that on his blog update) and that went pretty well I think - we had tons of kids but enough adults as well to have a nice mix... The week after began the preparations to get Will off to Basic, and mental preparations for being essentially a single mom for 3 months. So far, that’s been hard. Really hard. I have a slightly better understanding of what my mom had to do (I say slightly because first, my situation is only temporary, and second, because I’ve got an awesome support system) and I am in awe and have a much deeper amount of respect towards her and all single moms who manage to keep it together every day! Driving Will to Borden was I have to admit, pretty fun. OH! I forgot one big thing that happened shortly before Tristan’s birthday... I got a new toy! His (yes, it’s a boy) name is Fire Bolt (to any Harry Potter fans - yes, I’m that big of a geek), and he’s a 2004 Nissan Quest. The story behind that - well, to put it shortly, we wanted a 2004 to begin with (I like the speedometer & all the gadgets to be in the centre, and it has a nice little console in front of the steering wheel, and after not being able to find the 2007 model we wanted, by luck we ran into this one (not literally!) So I’m a Nissan girl now - and LOVE IT! We are going to have this van for years and years until it dies and then I’ll replace it with another Nissan, then another.... that’s assuming I don’t fall for a newer model... Overall everything’s going pretty well considering I’m missing my much better (and taller) half... of course, we (Tristan, Watson and I) stayed with my parents after surviving a month on our own... leaving a very disorganized house behind... that pretty much saved my sanity (so Mum & Dad, you have an official record that I will be forever grateful for all you did for us) and it kept Tristan very, very happy (mama gets boring after a while!) The 3 months were pretty hard without Will... I was lucky to see him almost every weekend, and that was hard on me and Tristan - the switching of routine was a lot to handle. The little guy is such a trouper though, and he loved seeing his Dadda! Back to me (it’s hard writing just about me!)... one of the downfalls of being on my own is that I could not be a full-time mom, a carry a full-time job and still have free time for me stuff... so I had to put my Karate on a semi-permanent hiatus :-( It’s hard not having that time to focus on me alone, and I’m feeling the lack of exercise (although Tristan gives me quite an aerobic exercise AND muscle work!) It’s also hard not to see all my dojo family... Will graduated on Dec 13th, and we got to drive him home on the 14th - and we were a family for a whole 3 weeks! Hurrah for Christmas breaks :) So by the time that Will graduated, we knew what the next stage in his training was - moving to Kingston to do almost a years’ worth of training for his trade. The nice thing is that they’ll move us so we can together! The bad thing is that we weren’t sure when this would happen, and on top of that, he was supposed to back to Borden to wait for the course to start... which would mean me alone with Tristan in Ottawa again (well, more like "alone"...) This past week was Will’s first week back (and he actually halfway through the week had to check out of Borden and get to Kingston as his course starts this Tuesday!!!!) and I’ve actually done well - I stayed at home and totally kicked home-tush (I’ve baked, cooked, cleaned and worked!) I think I’m finally getting a hang of things (it only took how long????) Now I just get to wait for Will to tell me that we’re moving... I’m very much on the mixed up in how I’m feeling on moving... I’m excited because first, I get to be living with Will again! I don’t care where we live, or what we do, I just want to be together again. Secondly, although anyone who knows me knows how much I hate moving (because of moving over, and over and over again) this time it’s different, because we will have packers AND movers. This is going to be easy, breezy! And Kingston is a beautiful city (not like Barrie, which in my opinion, is a hole in the ground due for filling) and it’s not too far from Ottawa. On the down side, this will be the first time I’m leaving my family EVER. Yes, it’s only at the most 2 hours away, but I’m now joining a group of people who don’t have their parents in the same city, and I’ve always known how lucky I’ve been to have them nearby for support! It’s going to be hard not seeing them almost every day (well, lately I’ve seen them every day because we’re all at the same office building!) and that will be tough... It’ll also be hard leaving all of our friends, and starting completely new in a different city... In the end, this is the start of quite an adventure!
Now I don't have a lot of pictures to go with my update (I'm usually the picture taker!) but here are a few...
Here we (T and I) are at Beechwood Memorial Cemetery on Remembrance Day shortly after seeing Will on Parade...
Here is Tristan and I on one of our favourite afternoon activities... playing horsey with mama! The camera was nearby, so I was able to squeeze out a couple of shots and this was my favourite (isn't it adorable how mischievous Tristan looks???)
Here we are at Will's graduation - and I'm sporting my amazingly sexy red leather coat I got for my birthday!
Here is Tristan and I coming back from shopping for our yearly Christmas ornament - it's a tradition we started when one of my very best friends Kristina gave Will and I an ornament the first year we were married - we've been buying one every year since, and this year, with Tristan being old enough, we let him pick. He was so cute! After searching, and picking a few, putting them back and searching again, he settled on not one, but two! And we couldn't say no - he picked his favourite things - one had a car on it (it was Lightning McQueen from 'Cars') and the other had a doggie on it (it was a dog standing at a vending machine with doggie treats)
This is one of my favourites because it's something that we don't photograph often enough - Tristan sleeping after nursing.
Lately (the last 6 months or so!) he's become quite an acrobat while nursing (especially while lying down) and when he doesn't end up lying down upside down (so I end up with his feet by my head), he will end up perpendicular across my torso - as he did on this picture. He was so sweet when he fell asleep, his lips were pursed and he just snuggled so I had to whisper out to Will to get the camera...
Well, it's almost 11pm, and I gotta hit the sack - up at 5am every morning to get T to daycare before I head to work (I'm at the office halfdays)...
Good night to all!
Oh, and Tristan's posts (I'm breaking them up because he's got the most to update on!) will be coming soon - I promise!

The problem with drafts...

Is that if you're working on a draft and you post another post while you're still working on the first draft, is that they end up in the order you started them anyway... so please look after Tristan's entry for our latest blog update!
Love,
Marcy, Will, and Tristan :)

Tristan's first post!!!!

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Update on Will :-)

Well, we never technically said which weekend the posts would be up by...

So Will has been quite busy since the last post (in July!) He has since quit his job at Dell (for those who have been completely out of the loop) as he got accepted by the Canadian Forces! He has joined the Air Force, in the ATIST position. We celebrated our 10th year anniversary (of togetherness, not wedding!) on Wednesday, September 5th, then left on early Saturday, Sept 8th to make the drive to Borden, Ontario where he has been since for Basic Training (he comes home on December 14th and I'm counting down the days!!!!)

Here he is on his second weekend visit from us looking very handsome in his combat gear (I'm not even sure if that's the right term... still learning the lingo!)... this was before he got his "brass" (a shiny pin that sits on his hat - he actually had to pass a test to receive it!)

And here we are in our first picture as a military family :-)

So he had "visitation" for the first 4 weeks of their training - they were only allowed to have visitors from 1-4pm on Sundays, and they were confined to the front of their barracks (the building where they live) and a relatively good-sized meeting room on the first floor of their barracks. So the first two weekends, we drove about 6 hours (little more with baby/food/rest stops) and spent the night in Barrie so we could see him for 3 tiny hours! Let me tell you folks, it's all so worth it though! One of the big things I realized is that after spending 10 years together where I think the longest time we've spent apart has been no more than 10 days, those 3 little hours are so precious, I'd gladly drive more just to see him. And seeing how Tristan reacts to seeing his daddy is an even bigger and better reason - he misses him terribly! He's so cuddly with Will when he does see him, that it just breaks my heart. We're almost done though!
We spent 3 weeks without seeing him at all - since his building had their visitation priviledges revoked (due to some 'young ones' acting up during one of the Sundays they were allowed to have visitors)... but the next weekend we got to have him all to ourselves from Friday night right through to Sunday afternoon! We booked a hotel room in Barrie and had a nice mini-holiday just the three of us. It was great to be a family together again. Last week we had the same thing (and on that trip we brought Watson with us - boy was he ever happy to see Daddy!)

Here are the 3 boys taking a nap at the hotel (Watson's at the foot of the bed...)

Poppa Doug drove Will's car down on the next Sunday so from then on Will's been getting to drive home!
His platoon (all 4 platoons in his building actually) came to Ottawa for Rememberance Day (hurrah for living in the Nation's Capital!) and we got to see him all spiffied up in his dress uniform (I was REALLY looking forward to that! There's just something about a man in uniform...) We got to visit the War Museum with him and then Tristan and I had the honour of joining him and the rest of the platoons for dinner at the Mess Hall where they were staying here in Ottawa - it was so great to be able to be part of his military life, even if it was for a bit! (For now anyway!)

Here he is at the Military Cemetery - it's a bit of a "Where's Waldo" type of picture! (he's smack in the middle, and you can't really see the blue of his hat because of a shadow)

So very, VERY handsome... don't you agree??? (oh, and he looks serious because they don't allow them to smile for pictures in uniform! Seriously!!!)

The Oliver family after the Remembrance Day ceremony:-)At the War Museum (Tristan had a camouflage sweater so he could match with dadda... ) :-)
Well, other than buffing up, learning to maintain a spotless room (yippee!!), how to make proper hospital corners on the bed, to fold a tshirt into a perfect 7" square (in 20 seconds! It's a neat trick!) and learning everything there is to know about the military, Will's been busy making a great impression with the commanding officers there, and being quite a leader among the young ones (he's one of the 'older guys' there! Hee hee!) and overall, really embracing the military life... we're all so proud of him!
Till next time...

Love,
Marcy, Will & Tristan

Sorry we've been gone for so long!

My goodness, we've been so busy!

A thousand apologies to all our families and friends who've been waiting...

So rather than putting one giant blog post, we're splitting them up into an update per person/dog... and we're going by age, so no favouritism is showing :-)

We should have all the posts in by the weekend... please be patient! :-)

Love,
Marcy, Will & Tristan