york neighborhood sleighride (sort of)

the weekend after my birthday andrew and jess came down for a sleepover. and they came bearing presents! they brought us an awesome cast-aluminum crepe pan for christmas, which aaron and jess put to use for breakfast on sunday. and for my birthday i got... a WALLET MUFF! just like suzy's! it's awesome. jess's friend sandy from regent makes them, and they're really lovely--all fuzzy inside, pretty ribbons and cordouroy outside, and a little zipper pouch for valuables. i tested it out saturday night at the york neighborhood sleighride.

...which involved a horse-drawn trolley, not a sleigh, and we didn't end up riding on it, but the idea was nice. it ended up being super crowded with kids and teenagers, and we didn't feel like fighting for a seat. but it was fun to see the percheron horses and to eat some yummy cookies.


the percheron draft horses


goofing off on dad's shoulders




noah and aaron cozy and warm


the wallet muff!

the next day we all walked around downtown and to fairhaven, and then took the bus home. big adventure! aaron and i kept saying, wow, taking the bus is so fun! we should do this more often! but jess and andrew are pro urban vancouver bus riders. they weren't phased by the five minute ride through bellingham.

here's noah checking out a train set at the holiday craft fair downtown.



jess also made this gorgeous lino-cut print patch for noah. grandma bev sewed it on and now he's the most artsy eight-month-old in town. all the moms and babies in our mother's group want one. maybe we'll have a block printing party soon.

eric's visit

this year i had a great birthday present--eric smith came to visit! we hosted eric in the middle of his west coast tour, after his visit with his sister and the ex-hutterites in lethbridge, alberta, and before his friend jesse's wedding in ellensburg. he happened to arrive in bellingham on december 13th! we celebrated by making his mom's meatballs. (i come three thousand miles to see you and you feed me my mother's meatballs? says eric. but i couldn't help but notice they were gobbled up.)

noah and eric became fast friends, maybe because they're both whiny and like to lounge around a lot. eric was a pro at schleping noah around in the ergo and even putting him to sleep, which is a task. we had a lovely two wind and rain-stormy days with him before he braved steven's pass in his rental car. maybe we'll see him for a longer bit in the spring...


hanging out in the kitchen


noah playing with a frozen cube of sweet potato. not eating it. the boy won't eat food! maybe we should just move right to meatballs.


cozy boys (maybe eric wants a paci too?)

henry arden francis carlson-lier

more babies! more boys!!

sarah and andrew had a little boy on sunday, december 10 at the beverly birth center in MA. i like to think of little henry arden francis as my birthday buddy. i'll help make sure people don't slight him because his birthday's so close to christmas.

andrew said i can call him hank.

visiting santa

sarah and i decided to take jessa and noah to see santa at the public market, mostly because we were hoping they would cry and the pictures would be really funny. no such luck with my boy! he loved santa--cozied right up to him and smiled away. jessa, however, wailed and wailed. real tears. poor girl. (sorry the pics are not clear--i photographed photos.)

afterward we had a photo shoot in the kid area. noah's blazer was already off, but he's still in his christmas oxford and his new wrangler jeans. jessa is decked out in her fancy christmas dress.






i love how noah is reaching to touch jessa's neck, while she lowers her little lashes shyly

noah's parents

we recently came across these pictures of me and aaron as babies. who does noah look more like?





for comparison's sake (colin and nic recently gave us these pictures of one-day-old noah)









how will he grow?

lactivism revisited

after our nurse-in at the airport, jessa (one of the moms in our mother's group and a friend from church) wrote this letter-to-the-editor of the cascadia weekly. hopefully you can read the text in the picture. it's funny--aaron pointed out the same thing to me when i asked him to make a sign with the international breastfeeding symbol on it. it does seem in a way to defeat the purpose of establishing a mother's right to breastfeed anytime, anywhere. but i guess i still like the idea of having a symbol that shows solidarity with an idea or movement. what do others think?

blaise josiah cowan

i've been meaning to post this picture of blaise for a while. it's not a close-up, but it's the only one we have so far. blaise was born in september in juneau, alaska, and his birth was a successful VBAC (vaginal birth after cesearean), giving me hope for our next try. jenny says maia is a great big sister. hopefully we'll get to meet blaise and see little maia again soon (maybe next summer?).


jenny with blaise


maia in the new woodshed on their property in petersburg. she looks so grown up!

victoria

i can't believe it's already been three weeks since we spent the weekend in victoria with john, jess, kate and aaron's folks. i've been such a bad blogger!

anyway, we had a lovely weekend in victoria, bc, at the beginning of december. aaron's brother john had access through his work to a timeshare condo on the water, walkable to downtown and with a cool view of houseboats from the deck. the timeshare was small but great, including a "murphy bed" which popped right out of the wall. kate and noah had a grand time stealing toys from one another, and the grown-ups enjoyed good food, conversation and lots of good old fashioned cable tv. (we found aaron's dream show: "how is it made" or something like that. he was in heaven.)


noah is not happy about this


noah and kate munching stuff


kate seriously munching


the view from the timeshare deck


we went for a cold evening walk into town


...and happened upon a christmas truck parade!




noah and kate traded hats for the night


grandma and grandpa bandstra in seventh heaven with their two grandkids

snowstorm

this snow has been so fun! i feel like i'm back in new england. (except that in new england the roads would be plowed. here all the roads are sheer ice.)

we've had a couple snowy walks around town, although it's been so cold i don't like having noah outside for too long. yesterday his little nose stayed red all evening. how do eskimo babies take it? and sarah and jeff watched noah for a bit monday night while aaron and i went cross-country skiing in cornwall park. it was bright and quiet and lovely.

here are our house and our street:





here are some pics from our walk yesterday with sarah and jessa:

thanksgiving

we had the perfect thanksgiving day on saturday--a few days late! no macy's thanksgiving day parade, but we did have a lovely slow day full of cooking, fellowship (as colin would say), eating and snow! aaron and i were in charge of the menu this year at his parents' house, and we had a lot of fun planning and cooking. highlights included pumpkin cheesecake and classic green bean casserole. jess, andrew and suzy came for the day, as well as new friends dana and andrew telep (rick's brother and his wife) and irene and kevan and colin and nicole. the snowstorm that began so gently on our walk saturday afternoon continued with force for a few days, making vancouver and bellingham traffic nightmares but a snowbunny's paradise!


suzy, jess, andrew, me, aaron and noah on our afternoon walk


noah was concerned about his grandma (who was sick last week but is feeling better now)


andrew fed noah some butternut squash. i think it's clear how he felt about it.


roughhousing at the dinner table


taking it easy with irene and kevan


snowy backyard!


suzy's lovely "wallet muff"


noah slept in the crib at grandma and grandpa's house and seemed pretty happy to do so!


playing peekaboo. where's grandma?


oh there she is!