We have had an amazing and blessed day.  We feel so grateful to God for this gift of life we have been given.  This morning at 10:45 AM we had a healthy and good sized baby girl.  She weighed in at 9lbs 1oz and measured 21 inches.  She came in to the world with some fun….the doctors had a bit of a task trying to get her out.  After making the incision, she moved out of the way….so they had to try and coax her out.  First the cord popped out without any sign of the baby, then a hand popped out.  They had to try using forceps but they weren’t working….and when they tried to pull the forceps out, they realized she had grabbed onto them, still inside Kelly….funny.  Finally, with some effort she came out butt first….but nonetheless she came out and met the world pretty calmly.  After about 10 seconds she let out her first cry and we found out we indeed had a girl.

We have given her the name Arabella Lizabeth Courtney.  Her name means that God has answered our prayer.  Lizabeth is named after Liz Maxwell (Kelly’s aunt who passed away years ago).  Kelly was very close with her and we admired her very much.

Welcome to the world Arabella.  We are so happy you are here.

****WARNING….INCLUDED IN THE FOLLOWING PICTURES ARE SOME MOMENTS RIGHT AFTER BIRTH.****

Had a blast celebrating Conner’s 5th birthday last week.  He was so happy to be with all his friends and he felt so special.  Can’t believe he’s 5 already.  We loaded up all the kids and took them bowling.  That was a fun one in itself.  Made it through 7 frames of bowling with 9 kids.  Entertaining to say the least.  This was my favourite capture of the day (thanks Andrew for taking the shot!)  I call it the “lob shot”.

I put a little video together for him to be able to remember the day.  I love being able to package their memories up in a video for them to be able to remember….so fun to see them relive these when they watch.  Happy birthday Conner.  So proud to be your dad.

Jon

Well…it seems I was more excited than Conner was to start our (well his) first day of pre-school.  This was our first official day of school with any of our children.  Hard….scratch that….easy to see him move to the next level.

Being his first day, I was allowed to go and sit in on the class and observe.  He fit in with new friends and a very intuitive and warm teacher.  I think it was funny that he wasn’t playing dinosaurs, tools, or cars with the rest of the boys but instead chose to be with the girls in the play-kitchen making and serving chocolate strawberry banana smoothies to the class.  ”STRAW OR SPOON” he’d yell.  He does love the kitchens but I’m sure he’ll settle in with the other boys soon enough.

We have found a pre-school that has French exposure to help prepare him for French immersion next year.  He began to learn how to count and spell in French.  Although he can now count to 159 in English, this is a bit of a new learning curve for him.  He also learnt the words for all his winter gear and his basic greetings.  By the end of the day all he retained was hello and goodbye but it was a great start.

He was as we expected a bit independent and a little lost.  He seems to need some time to settle into new social situations before relaxing into his role.  His eyes lit up when his teacher said Friday was show and tell.  He already knows what he wants to bring….a new boat he just bought with his own money.

He was a funny kid today….he wouldn’t walk anywhere but was skipping everywhere doing a bit of jig everywhere he went.  I said to him, “you are kinda twinkle toes today”, to which he said “no I’m Happy Feet.”  He was just excited.

We are excited he is now in a form of school.  He’s been ready for a while.  He will be in his element we think….but who knows.

A big day in the Courtney household.

Kelly

(while mom and Conner had a special time at school, daddy and Aidan hung out at Tim’s drinking hot chocolate…)