Vancouver Aquarium

Declan loves hanging around with his cousin Mikayla. He will follow her anywhere!

Good thing about Vancouver in Juneuary - your ice cream doesn't melt.

Declan's first 4D movie. He lasted about 45 seconds before he had to be removed from the theatre shrieking in terror.




Learning about butterflies from schoolteacher Auntie.

Karin and Dayton visit!

Karin and Dayton have come to visit, and we are having a grand old time. The boys are getting on like a house on fire, and having so much fun together. They are full of mischief!

Cruising for chicks!

s There is a whole lot of monkey see, monkey do going on around here.

Summer is here!

Meet Owl.

So yesterday we were watching "Little Bear" which features an owl, and Declan discovered he could say "owl" which was very exciting. He immediately ran upstairs and dove into his tub of stuffies to come out with this stuffed penguin, which he brought back to me and excitedly declared to be "owl". He has been dragging Owl around for a couple of days now.

Unintended Consequences of Forward Facing...

Now that Declan faces forward in the car, he has become extremely interested in the actual act of driving. When he gets out of his carseat, he hops right into the driver seat, and it takes a lonnnnng time to lure him out. It reminds me so much of a young Aidan Sakich!

In other news, Declan said THREE new words today - ice, bike, and up. This is quite the accelerated pace from his normal one new word every week or so... Very exciting! Maybe it was MMR shot that he got last week- maybe he's been *short* of neurotoxins. Hopefully this is the beginning of the fabled language explosion we've been waiting for lo these many months. Regardless, we are very proud!

Egg Quest Fail!

So my IVF cycle got cancelled today for poor response. I got a much better response from my gmail account getting hacked. It turns out that mass spamming everyone you have ever emailed inthe past few years with an ad to cure ED is actually an effective way to reconnect with forgotten friends. In your face, Facebook! I even got an email from my Auntie Betty. It really brightened my day to hear from everyone.

To brighten your day, here is a cute picture of my dad and Declan at Wrigley Field. A silver lining to my IVF fail has been the opportunity to spend so much time in Chicago. I really like this town.

I had been lining planning to go to do my next cycle in Denver if this one didn't work, but as of today, I loathe Denver and everything it stands for. So now who knows where we will go!

The Smartest Thing I've Done in a While...

d

was to get Declan a leash for his birthday. He actually loves it, because he has more freedom to explore because he doesn't need to hold my hand. He can run ahead or lag behind. Sure, strangers are pointing and laughing at us everywhere we go, but hey, at least it keeps him from running into the street on a wild goose chase.

Declan's Double Digits

Declan turned two on Sunday with a minimum of fanfare on Sunday, with just me and my mom and dad in attendance in Chicago. We are looking forward to partying when we finally get back to Little Rock.

Declan and the Bean

Posting some pictures for Shane, working hard today!

Three cheers for me...

After really some subpar results from my ovaries last week, things are turning around a little. Just when the plug was about to be pulled, my eggs started to grow. Downside is that the injections continue, and we had to buy another $4k in medication, bring our total so far to $10,700 just for medication. But that's okay because they offer free shipping. Gory details: one of my ovaries seems to be a dud. I wonder how long that has been the case. I have only 5 eggs developing right now which is pretty subpar, so there's still a good chance that we might convert the cycle to IUI. We should know after my monitoring appointment on Thursday. That will be a tough decision. Until t hen, injections injections and more injections! My legs are black and blue.