Ok, so yesterday I was playing with Charlie at the fridge with the magnetic letters and we were making short (3-letter) words; she and I were sounding them out and she was ‘reading’. Well, last night, when I was putting her to bed I pulled out some really beginner-type books and she read me one!!! Can we say “HOLY S-H-1-T!!!”, talk about a new type of ‘high’. I’m abslolutely over the moon about this!!! (In case you can’t tell). The book was nice and short and consisted of things like, “Mat/Mat sat/Sam/Sam sat/Mat sat. Sam sat/Mat sat on Sam” that type of thing. But she was really reading!!! I’m just so chuffed about this, I wanted to share it with all of you. A date to mark in the baby-book — April 7th, 2004 — the day Charlene Shiobara read her first book, at the ripe old age of 4 years, 1 month, 1 week and 3 days old!!!

Well, after not being able to update the website for two months, I’m happy to say that it’s now updated. We were out of disk space so I was unable to put anymore pictures up, but now that our new 80 gig drive has been installed (thanks Ed for putting it in), we have plenty of disk space which should last us a while.

Suzie’s first birthday was a big success, and her party went very well — we even practiced blowing out the candle! Charlie’s gearing up for her fourth birthday, and Mom’s gearing up for the party (I’ve got over 20 kids coming so far!!!). Well, it’s sure to be an interesting day ;-)
We’re all doing well and plodding along in our lives. Trying to keep busy (as the pictures and movies will show).

Please enjoy looking at them — Ed and I put a lot of time into this website for our friends and family to utelize. We hope you like it!

Well, it’s January 2004! Another year is upon us. Ed’s been working feverishly and helping out at home in his ’spare time’. Charlie’s started pre-school — many of you know that it was something Ed and I had been milling over for some time. She’s adjusting quite well, and after one week of class, seems to have made a new friend (actually, after the first day of school they wanted to have a ’sleepover’). Charlene is growing nicely, with one or two minor hiccoughs from time to time, but that’s to be expected with an almost 4 year old…

Suzie is up and walking; and her toothless grin is disappearing with the addition of teeth. She’s got two on the bottom and I think another four coming out (two on the top & two bottom). She’s got quite a personality already! She knows what she wants, and doesn’t want — and she has no qualms about letting you know.

As for me, I’m trying to get used to the idea of three hours, three times a week, without Charlie. It’s nice to have only Suzie for a while, but it’s also strange not having Charlie around. I’m still in a ‘newbie’ state, where I’m not quite sure what to do with the time (other than the usual errands, cleaning, laundry, sorting, etc).

We’re starting to plan for Suzanne’s first and Charlene’s fourth birthdays next month. We’re having parties for both of them this year. It’s going to be hard doing two parties in such short succession, but I guess I’m going to have to get used to it! I’ll be doing it every year for a while!

So, that’s it for my first blog entry of 2004. Hope it was a bit newsy, at least!

As we enter the last few months of 2003, I figured it was time to give the family website a new look for 2004. What you see isn’t necessarily final, but there’s three distinct changes. First, the color scheme, which I don’t know if I’m happy with or not. The second, is having the 5 rotating thumbnails which get selected at random from the pictures (not the videos) from the past three months. Yes, the code doesn’t prevent the same picture showing up multiple times, so it can happen. Third, the homepage shows the excerpts for the three most recent blog entries, so you can see if there’s a new one right from the homepage without having to click into the blog itself.

Well, for those of you who have been involved with our little attempts at getting Charlie onto the toilet, you will be able to appreciate this headline! For the rest of you, allow me to illuminate you!

Several months ago, whilst shopping at BJ’s, we spotted a plush-covered hippity hop (this is a bouncy ball for kids to sit on, with a handle on it). The plush on the bouncy ball, in this case, was in the shape of a kangaroo with a joey in it’s pouch. Well, Charlie fell in love at first sight. I agreed to purchase it for her, if she would go to the toilet all day. She, of course, said yes, and didn’t make it through the day.

For the last few months, the Hippity-hop has been sitting in our dining room closet, waiting for the day that Charlie would stay dry (and clean) from the time she woke in the morning, to bedtime…

Yesterday (29th September 2003) was that day!!!!

Now, I know that all you experienced moms, etc. are saying, “Yeah, that’s just one day — she’s not toilet trained yet…” And, of course, we realize that. But it is, undeniably, a most notable day in our little family’s life!

So, on that happy and enthuastic note, I will leave you with the knowledge (or just the thought) that, you can make someone increadibly happy, just by going to the toilet!!! Isn’t life grand???!!!