Happy New Years (Eve)! We would like to wish each of you a safe and exciting New Years Eve. May it be filled with love, laughter and awesome times! Looking forward to sharing more Lily adventures with you in 2007. Cheers, Pamela, Michael and Lily Szala

Greetings from Regina, Saskatchewan! Lily, Mike and I have been enjoying staying at Mike's brother Christopher and his fiancee Dana's house in the City. We've enjoyed some great games and Lily sleeping through the night - yippeee!!! Mike's Auntie Susan and cousin Lacy dropped in to see us and they brought their puppies, Mona and Munchie to visit. Lily enjoyed Munchie's singing while Mona enjoyed eating carrots. Chris and Dana have two birds, Speck and Flex that Lily enjoys hanging out with. I've included a shot of Lily's feet as I think they are super adorable! We're enjoying our visit with family and friends and our first two weeks have passed quickly. We're returning to Ontario the 9th of January so we still have 11 days for visiting. Not sure what our plans for new years eve are but we'll be sure to let you know! Wishing each of you a very safe and Happy New Year! PPS

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Well, we've managed to secure much faster internet, no thanks to the bums at SaskTel, who provided us with an "accelerated dial-up" download, which was about as effective as the United States' "War on Drugs." My good old laptop has managed to find a wireless connection somewhere in the vicinity of Craven, Saskabush, so here's to progress!

Lily has been great with everyone so far on the trip: she's just as happy and giggly as ever, and she really likes it when Daddy pretends to sneeze. It's when he really sneezes that she's not a fan. What she has not been so great with thus far on the trip has been sleeping. For those who've been keeping score, she's been sleeping through the night for months now, occasionally waking up once, maybe twice in the middle of the night. However, these days, she is getting up three, four, even five times in an evening, last night being the worst of all at Pete and Carla's place. Mom and Dad are very tired and a little bit cranky... wait a second. No I'm not! You do it! Get off my back, stupidhead! Oops, sorry, a little bit got through there, won't happen again.

We've got some great updates for you folks here - the images of landscape are of the hill here in Craven and the view of Craven from the top of said hill. The photo of Lily and the puppy are when Lily visited her Grandmama (Mom's Mom) and met Pugsly. The four of us are featured here to. Since being here we've attended Ryelin's (my 6 year old nephew) Christmas concert, here Lily is featured with her 7 month old cousin, Olyvia. Lily has experience Saskatchewan snow and has made her own snow angel!

Now that Uncle Todd came over to the house tonight, Lily has now met all of her immediate uncles, aunts, and cousins, assuming there are no unaccounted for little ones running around there somewhere. She's also visited with both great-grandmas, met Andy Claus, my good friend Ryan, spent time with Pete and Carla and Pete's wonderful family (she got a new pair of Robeez and got all sorts of attention from Dan, Judy, and the gang).

Happy birthday wishes go out to cousin David, now 3 years old, and Christmas wishes to everyone. Our Christmas will include brunch with Great Grandma Szala tomorrow, along with a "midnight mass" at Grandma's church, where she sings. After church will be one present, one or more scotches, and on Christmas Day, we're playing host to the whole famn damily. We'll post more pics soon, enjoy this bunch!

Greetings from Craven, Saskatchewan! We've been here for a week and are doing quite well! Lily has met her Great Grandma Szala (four generations of Szalas are featured here), her Great Grandma Wolfe, her Aunt Jennifer and cousins Ryelin and Olyvia and her Uncle Christopher and his fiancee Auntie Dana. We've hiked up the hills here in Craven and have visited with some friends and creatures. We're in a rural area where there is dial-up internet access and it takes a LONG time to upload photos, so photos may be sparse for the next few weeks! The photo of Lily with her tongue hanging out was taken Dec 13th in Beeton as we attempted to take a photo worthy of going in the local paper that announces births. She is quite the character! This seems to be the extent to which I can upload photos, so keep an eye out for more in the near future! PPS

We are sad to announce the loss of our beloved kitty 'Shadow'. Shadow has been a loved member of our family for years and will be missed. Shadow spent the day today lounging in front of the fire having his tummy rubbed, then he passed this evening due to old age, or as some would call it - a lot of living. Lily will miss her Shadow kitty as we all will. PPS.

Tis the season for lots of family! This past week Lily and I stayed with Cora and Connie while Anthony finished at work so that he can start his three month leave this coming Wednesday. While we were at Con's I took the opportunity to lay the girls down to document the size difference! Cora is around six pounds while Lily weighed in at 15lbs 15oz at her Dr's on Thursday. That's right - Lily gained 8oz (1/2 pound) in seven days! The girl is growing! The photo of the little guy smiling at the tree is Joey, my older sister's youngest. There is also the classic family photo in front of the tree. As we're going to be out West for Christmas (we leave this Thursday) my family got together yesterday for our brunch and exchanging gifts. We were spoiled! My younger sister is a talented stainglass artist and she did up a beautiful Lily for us to hang, along with some maple wine that I'm looking forward to! My older sister has the ability to turn yard into heirlooms! She made Lily a pink stocking that we're going to use as well as a precious blanket. She hooked Mike and I up with some swanky scarves that'll keep us warm out West! My 9 year old nephew Johnny and 7 year old niece Katie know us well as they bought me a fun gold scarf, Mike a funky glowing toy and Lily an alphabet book (they made sure that Lily could eat it!). My parents spoiled me with a gift card to Black's and chocolate :-) Mike got a hockey bag and a Family Guy jersey with Stewie on the front proclaiming victory - very Mike :-) The photo of Papa 'attacking' 2 year old Whalen and 1 year old Joey with 3 year old David 'saving' them is classic. Cora was peaceful during the day as she just went from lap to lap to lap enjoying the love. Connis is beside herself as 0-3 month clothes is too big for Cora so she had to do a quick stop and pick up some premie clothes, and even them some of it is too big! It was chaos having 16 of us all together for lunch, but it was awesome for us all to be together! PPS

What a great start December has been! The photo with Lily and her orange butterfly was taken on December 2nd to capture her at the start of her fourth month! We had a Dr's appt on the 1st. Lily weighs 15lbs 7oz which is average for her age but she's tall for her age. The photo of the three of us by the decorated tree was taken at the Russell Christmas on Dec 3rd. Whalen and Lily each made a sign to welcome Cora. On Dec 2nd, in addition to Cora being born, we went out on our annual tree hunt! This is where we go to a tree farm and pick out our family Christmas tree then have Papa haul it home. Whalen to carry a tree just like Papa so we found one his size. We also had a wee family shot to capture Lily's first tree hunt! The photo of Lily hugging Shadow (our black cat) is very true to their relationship. Shadow will let Lily do anything to him and not retaliate! The close up of Lily will give you an idea of what the chicken pox have done to our happy peanut! She is doing really well with them, with only the one on her left ear that really seems to bother her. With any luck, they will soon scab over and she'll be more comfortable! I have to warn you that the next few bloc updates will be sporadic as Mike, Lily and I are staying with Connie for the next few days to help her out and get the house ready for core then we leave first thing on the 14th to head out to Regina to spend a month with his family. In any case, we will definitely do our best to keep Lily's fans up to date! PPS

Welcome Baby Cora!
Cora Patricia Spittachine was born this morning at 0h30 at Royal Victoria Hospital in Barrie, ON. Cora was due on December 24th, but Connie was scheduled for a c-section on Dec 14/06 (due to serious complications from her first delivery with Whalen in 2004) but Cora decided to arrive three weeks early! Cora weighed 6lbs 5oz at birth! Cora, Connie and Anthony are doing awesome! Whalen is still quite confused why they're calling the baby in the room his baby when the last time he checked, the 'Baby' was Mom's tummy! Lily wasn't able to visit with Cora as Lily has the chicken pox! That's right folks, our four month old (as of today!) has the chicken pox. I'll update the blog soon with photos of her and her pox - they're mainly on her face the poor kid! Lily is now 15lbs 7oz. It was quite the adjustment to go from holding Lily to holding Cora!
Congrats Connie & Anthony on your new baby daughter! PPS