Last weekend Jon surprised me with a birthday party and baby shower. I was beyond surprised, he even managed to make me cry (darn hormones!). It was wonderful to see so many friends and family at the same time and have them together, almost like a wedding minus all the stress of getting married. I was treated to a pre-natal massage and then forced to eat a lot of chocolate cake during my baby shower. I can think of many worse things to be forced to do, thank you for being kind to me ladies! All in all, the day/evening was amazing, I cannot thank everyone enough for being a part of my life and hopefully we'll be able to introduce baby KJ to them all very soon. Thanks to my family for coming over from the Island for the day, it was a real treat to see my nephews.

HEre are some pictures from the shindig...

Marcus and Isabel - too cute.

Kira playing catch with the balloon - Aubrey is in the background doing the same

Wearing my "happy birthday" hat -- or as she calls it "Birthday Cake Hat"

A Kira Original - my left leg.

Not from the party, but a cute photo

Kira's Halloween costume - Thomas the Train. She picked it herself

Kira tucked her baby Tweety Bird into the little baby bed, then she decided that it needed water too.

It's hard to get her to pose sometimes....

Jon has been taking Kira to the pool in the hopes that she will get over her fear of the water. The pool has a "beach" entry so Kira is able to walk in. After about 10 minutes of tears, Kira discovered that jumping was fun. After about an hour, Jon was able to get her into the 4' deep area of the pool - but she refuses to wear the life jacket, so Jon is still holding her. Progress though, so we're happy with it.

We've been keeping ourselves busy the last week or so by unpacking more stuff and trying to get some things organized in the downstairs area. Motivation is not as high as it was when we first moved in, but we have lots of time to unpack now at least.

Kira has been settling in with little issue. She is the tour guide when people come visit and loves to show off her room. In the next few weeks we will be attempting to move the crib into her room, but we will need to purchase a new wardrobe first as there is no closet in the room and no space for dressers, a crib, and a bed.

Baby KJ seems to be coming along well and has progressed to the point where it keeps me awake most of the night because it is constantly moving. I swear that the arms are pushing on my pelvic bone! The lack of sleep is making the "baby brain" come into full effect, and making work quite challenging. Fortunately, my replacement will be starting on Monday so I won't have to focus as much. I am very much looking forward to starting my leave and will hopefully get a lot of things wrapped up before the baby is born...either that or sleep the day away while Kira is at daycare :)

Last week we had a large rainstorm here and Jon discovered that we get a large puddle under the deck in the backyard; this worked out perfectly for Kira as we could let her play in the puddle while it was raining and not have to worry about her getting soaked as she was under the cover of the deck. She found a stick in the yard and used it to 'stir' the water around and then would jump down into the puddle to make a bigger splash. It's nice to let her play outside in the puddles while we stay dry.

In case you are wondering why most of these photos have a 'glow' to them, here is your answer...

...one of hundreds of pictures that Kira took of her own finger as it sits on the camera lens.

Kira, Marcus, and Daddy watching Thomas the Train on YouTube

She decided that her toy chest was a boat and climbed in.

As you can see, she likes to climb into things; here she is in the empty Cheerios box.

Here are a couple of photos of the inside of the new house. We moved in on Thursday and for some reason agreed to host a big dinner on Friday night. It seemed to work well for getting unpacked though as we had the full upstairs (2 bedrooms, the kitchen, and living room) set up before the company arrived 30 hours later. Jon also managed to get the man cave set up (aka his office) as well as some of the downstairs.

The master bedroom...

Kira's room --- now in blue!

More of Kira's room and her bedroom window

The Kitchen

Dining/Living Room

Apologies, these are not the greatest pictures - Jon has far better ones on his camera - but they give you an idea of the place. We have a downstairs as well which has our tv/playroom, a spare bedroom (currently storage) and the washer dryer. There is also an attic upstairs where Jon lives with his computer stuff. It's a bit tight to get up there (the stairs are super steep and with tiny steps) so Kira isn't allowed up there and in my condition, I can't easily make it up there; so, as you can imagine, Jon is very happy up there with his peace and quiet.

KIra seems to have settled in very easily to the new place. She loves going up and down the stairs (no surprise there as this has been an obsession of hers for at least the last year) and quite enjoys that she can go outside pretty well whenever she wants. The former owners of this house had a 2 year old boy, so most of the drawers and cupboards have been kid-proofed, this was a nice touch for us. I'm hoping that we will be able to stay here for at least the next 10 years, we may have to do some reno's down the road to create more space, but for now, this place will be just perfect for our little family.

Finally, here is an updated belly shot for you Maya. I'm almost 31 weeks now, haven't seen the toes in a month or two, I'm sure all is well there though. Ha. The baby is moving like crazy, all the time - even now while I type this. I'm into my last month of work, I'm heading off early to try and rest and relax before KJ comes. Kira came early, before I had even started my mat leave, so I'm hoping to avoid that happening again. I'll be about 35 weeks when work wraps up.

The move is complete! We are in our new house and couldn't be happier. We've just got the internet and stuff all set up, so I'll try to get some pictures posted in the next couple of days.

Hope everyone is doing well!

Kira at her friend Karina's celebration of birth dinner

Kira took over the camera at the dinner...

She took this photo of her friend Natasha and her Mom Georgina

Cheeeeeeeeese!

At the park where we we supposed to be watching her cousin Ben play soccer. Somehow she managed to find the playground on the opposite side of 4 fields....guess those glasses are working well.

Kira has been doing well lately, her vocabulary continues to expand - she sure loves to talk! She now kisses my belly good night and says night night baby, but I'm still not sure if she really understands that there will be a baby invading her life soon. Oh well, she'll figure it out quickly when the baby arrives. We are doing well too, I'm very excited to be moving into our new house in less than 2 weeks, it will be lovely to have our own place with our own yard! Jon is excited to be getting his dream barbeque, ha.

Tomorrow we will be going to a baby shower for Kira's newest cousin, Sophia Janine LaBonte (great name huh?). My brother and his wife welcomed a little girl into the world on September 4. She is absolutely adorable, but it is still hard to believe that my little brother is a Daddy now...makes me feel old.

Here are some pictures from Kira's park trip yesterday...

Building a fort with all the sticks on the ground

Posing for the picture

One of my all-time fave pictures, this is from the summer. Kira loves taking her bear with her to the park.

The last couple of weeks have kept us busy with lots of birthday parties. Kira went to a little farm/petting zoo last week and had a great time feeding the ducks and bunnies, of course, I forgot the camera. This weekend we have her Uncle Mike and Jeffy's birthday's (and with any luck, her new cousin will arrive this weekend too!). With all the birthday parties in August, Kira has grown a slight obsession for birthday cake. She loves drawing it, saying it, and staring at it, but she still won't eat it. Perhaps she will enjoy the ice cream cake this weekend...