SUMMER VACATION

July started off with Marina going back on the payroll at ING – immediately taking six weeks vacation, and myself taking six weeks of parental leave from the 407 – so we were off at the same time for a good chunk of the summer! Marina had already been off work for ten and a half months, but this six weeks was the most time I’ve ever had off at once…

We kicked things off with a one week trip to Cuba, where we stayed at the Oaisis Hotel Las Morlas in Varadero. It was a great time of rest and relaxation – and the perfect time to get away since it rained back home all week long – but was over 30 degrees everyday and sunny in Varadero. Makayla especially enjoyed the trip. She discovered airports, airplanes, palm trees, beautiful white sand and salt water. She is definitely a water baby!

After we got home the summer weather arrived and we enjoyed a good five weeks of taking it easy around town, enjoying long walks by the lakeshore, some biking and day trips to different places including the zoo.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MAKAYLA!

On August 27th we celebrated our little munchkin’s 1st birthday.

Its hard to believe she’s already one year old! She is growing up so fast. She hasn’t figure out crawling yet, but she loves to walk. She is always walking around (on on) all the furniture and has graduated to holding on to one pinky finger and taking off from here to there – but always playing it safe. We expect that she will be taking off by herself any day now – then we’re in trouble!

GROWING FAMILY

Finally, the cherry topping of our six weeks off concluded with the birth of Louis and Tanya’s baby girl – Sophia (our niece and Makayla’s new baby cousin). She was born on August 28th, exactly 1 year and 1 day after Makayla – she didn’t make it out to share Makayla’s birthday, but she shares it with Makayla’s uncle Patrick. Next year is going to have a bunch of birthday’s in August!

GALLERY UPDATES

As usual, hit the PHOTOS link and check out the new galleries added – Cuba, Makayla’s birthday, and baby Sophia.

See you next time.

Its June.  Spring is almost gone and summer is almost here… and its been way, way too long since my last post.

Things have been pretty busy around here.  So much has happened in the last 5 months, so I’ll try to remember some of the recent highlights as best as I can – quickly – as the munchkin is teething like crazy and is not a happy camper right now.

GROWING UP SO FAST

Our baby is such a big girl now.  She sits up by herself, loves to stand, walks with pinky’s, rolls over (to the left) and even started babbling last Wednesday.  I finally discovered the power of iMovie on the Mac and have now joined the YouTube community – check out some of Makayla’s first gabbs in the video below:

Click here to view the embedded video.

**Standby for future video updates – Coming Soon!**

Let’s see, what else?  Makyala eats great – ever since she started eating solid foods she’s been all over it.  She loves to try everything.  I think she’s a ketchup lover like her dad too.  The other day we had broccoli and baby noodles – there was a little fuss, but once some ketchup went on it – down the hatch it went!  She loves feet – she plays with her own all the time while changing, playing, and even while on the potty.  Oh, and we can’t forget about how much she loves mommy’s toes – they get a giggle every time they wiggle too.  Lastly, she’s also teething – she’s got 3 little bunny teeth (two on the bottom and one at the top) with another top one on the way.  It’s the one that seems to be causing the most grief so far!  I know there’s more, there is something new everyday, but that’s about all my head can remember for the moment – it’s getting late in the evening.

GALLERY UPDATES

I finally managed to update the photo galleries.  Hit the PHOTOS link and check out the several new ones such as Makayla’s Baptism, March and June updates and the master bathroom renovation that we are currently in the midst of.

Until next time.

Dad

HOLIDAYS 2008

We hope everybody had a great holiday!  Makalya had her first two Christmases…  For those who don’t know, we are fortunate to celebrate Christmas on December 25th and following the Orthodox calendar on January 7th.  Check out the sled that Santa brought!!

With all the excitement, she was so pooped out on her Christmas in Brantford at Nagymama & Nagypapa’s (Grandma & Grandpa Biro’s) that she slept through opening up all her gifts.  Next year I’m sure she’ll be much more interested in the wrapping paper…hehe

We are so happy that our little angel arrived this year!  It was the best gift that we could have ever received and we look forward to Christmas in 2009 when Makayla will be able to enjoy it even more.

PROGRESS UPDATE

Makayla is still sleeping incredibly well *knock on wood* and is growing like a weed.  Sleeps range from 8 to 10 hours a night and sometimes longer when Makayla and mom don’t get out of bed until noon.  She is now 24.5 inches tall and weighs 13.95lbs.  She is also starting to become very gabby…  The mornings are great because for some reason our little pumpkin is all smiles and loves to talk, talk, talk when she first gets up.  Unfortunately dad misses the chats most mornings because he has to go to work…

She is really getting good at sitting up and holding her head too…  Our little girl is growing up so fast and we can hardly wait each day for what new thing she will do next!

GALLERY UPDATE

For more Christmas pictures, hit the PHOTOS link and check out the new gallery.

See you in 2009.

Dad

HAPPY NOVEMBER!

Almost two months have gone by since our last post.  Halloween has come and gone, winter is upon us, Makayla is now 10 weeks old… and she is doing great!  Weighing in at 9lbs 11oz she is just a bundle of joy.  She continues to eat and sleep great.  There are daily meltdowns, but thankfully they tend to only occur during the daytime/evening hours.  Overnight our little princess sleeps the night away even though she still gets hungry every 3 to 4 hours… she is only awake long enough to chow down and then its right back to sleep (thank heavens!).  She is such a happy baby who loves to smile!

Makayla is seeing a pediatrician who has given her a clean bill of health during her last couple of visits… Woo-Hoo!  She took her first set of immunizations like a champ as well.

FLU SEASON NOTICE…

As we get nearer to the holiday season… it also means “flu season“.  Makayla’s doctors have urged us to ask all our family and friends to get their flu shot this holiday season in order to minimize the risk that she get sick.  Otherwise Makayla won’t be able to visit :(

PHOTO GALLERY UPDATE

We’ve added some pictures our photo galleries.  Click here to check them out or click the PHOTOS link above.

Stay tuned for future updates…  Thanks for reading.

Dad

On September 15th, we experienced another joyous event.  This was the day we were told that Makayla was finally coming home!

THE LONG ROAD…

During her 19 days in the hospital (which felt like months!), we tried our very best to visit every 3 hours for her meals at 8:00AM, 11:00AM, 2:00PM, 5:00PM and 8:00PM.  Thanks to Mom for covering the shifts during the day time while Dad went back to work and came to visit every night.  Also, a special thanks goes out to the Special Care Nursury staff at Oakville-Trafalgar Memorial who helped take care of our little princess day and night when we could no be there.  Her progress was incredible over the last few weeks as she continually ate more and more, gained steady weight and slept like an angel.

A WELCOMED ADDITION

It feels so good to have Makayla home at last, and to be able to care for her full time.  Nothing feels better than to hold her and shower her with kisses day and night in the comfort of our own home.  She is still eating great and sleeps incredibly well…which is awesome! This is really helping out during the overnight hours.  Hopefully it lasts :)  The grandparents are ecstatic too!  Now everyone can take a turn and get some cuddle time in…

She is happy, healthy, and finally home.  We couldn’t ask for anything more.

Check out her new photo gallery by clicking here or by clicking the PHOTOS link at the top of the page.

Welcome home Makayla.

Love, Mom and Dad.

It’s a little early, but we’d like to introduce you to our little princess, Makayla Abbigail Biro. Born August 27th at 6:28am, weighing in at a healthy 5.05 pounds. It appears she just couldn’t wait until her scheduled arrival in October…

Mom and baby are doing extremely well.  Marina has been quite calm, cool and collective right from the moment things began, right through to her excellent recovery. The entire ordeal only took 18.5 hours from the time Marina reported “It’s Time!” to contractions starting mildly 12 or so hours later, and finally giving birth via caesarean within 4 hours of the strongest contractions. 

Even though Makayla is seven weeks early and is considered a “premie”, her 5.05 pounds upon arrival tell a healthy story.  The nurses took one look at her and did the math… “If she’s 5 pounds and 7 weeks early, think of how big she’d be if she waited until around 40 weeks…”

In the photo above you’ll see that because she’s early she need to undergo some special care.  She needs to play catch up with her lungs a bit right now so the nurses have been supplementing her with some oxygen because her breathing rate is very rapid.  Hence the “head box” (as they call it) around her head to circulate some extra O2.

After her first 24 hours of heavy breathing, they had to move forward with hooking her up to a more direct form of oxygen where she had to have tubes directly in her nose pushing more oxygen in to her body. Also, a slight bit of jaundice showed up in her tests so she was given treatment with antibodies and a special light treatment called phototherapy (Check out those funky purple sunglasses!).

Fortunately her breathing settled within 12 hours and they were able to remove the (extremely uncomfortable!) oxygen tubes.  She spent the rest of the night basking in the nice warm phototherapy lights.

As things stand now, she is doing tremendously well.  It’s been over 48 hours now and her breathing has stabilized extremely well.  So good in fact that this morning she finally got her first taste of real food, instead of just her IV.  Although things are looking up, unfortunately Makayla’s stay at the Oakville-Trafalgar Memorial Hospital may last anywhere from 3 to 7 weeks until they class her as “full term”.

We’ll be keeping a watchful eye on our munchkin and try posting more information as it becomes available. For now, here is some more photos we have put together in a beautiful gallery of our little angel for you:

Click Here! to jump directly to Makayla’s photo page, or click the Photos link above to see them.

Its been a while since our last post.  There’s lots of things on the go right now.  Work has been keeping us both busy, and I just completed my fourth Microsoft Certification exam this past Saturday which has given me my Microsoft Certified Systems Administrator (MCSA) designation.  I still have three more exams to complete before my goal of the end of the year, in order to obtain a designation of Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE).

Marina has been doing extremely well during the past 7 weeks of the pregnancy, with the exception of some fatigue that has set in.  Her 9:00pm bed time can’t come soon enough some nights.  We’ve been fortunate enough to have had two additional ultrasounds at 19 and 20 weeks.  The reason being is that our little monkey won’t stay still for the camera.  The ultrasound nurses have been trying to get the required photos for the doctors (of our baby’s development), but the pictures never seem to turn out.  It just seems that when they get that right moment… Bam! our little one if off doing another little dance in there.

The best picture from the latest ultrasound is pictured above.  Its a nice profile of our little one’s head, a hand, the body and the even the heart.  It’s hard to see it, but if you look closely just below the jawline you’ll see a black circle in the upper belly with some more definition in the centre… that’s a still of their little heart beating away.

We keep getting asked the question: Do you feel the baby moving yet?  Unfortunately during the day Marina hasn’t noticed any movement, however last week we finally made our first contact.  It was late in the evening one night and I heard marina’s stomach going like crazy.  She said she wasn’t hungry, so I rested my head on her belly to have a listen and see what was going on in there.  It sounded like fish in an aquarium swimming around and making gurgling noises.  Then out of nowhere, I received what can only be described as a boot to the head!  Yup, not just once but twice even.  There was no mistaking it, we both felt it.  It was apparent that my cheek was invading our little monkey’s space, so they decided to give me a boot and let me know that I was in their territory :)  It was pretty awesome to say the least.

Things are moving right along and we’re very much looking forward to what comes next… so stay tuned.

Until next time…

Jason, Marina and Baby

Things have progressed very well since our last post, and I’m happy to write this one much sooner than anticipated.  We were expecting to only have a good update after the 19 week checkup but we managed to sneak in another ultrasound this morning.  How you ask?  Well, we went to visit the family doctor for a checkup of the baby’s heartbeat last night.  The doctor got a hold of the heartbeat for only about 3 – 5 seconds before our little monkey must have moved away and hid (a little shy maybe?).  As a result, the doctor was not able to get the proper beat count so she made us another appointment at the ultrasound clinic where they have the *super-duper* high tech gear.  This made it much easier to see where our monkey was hiding and get an accurate heartbeat count.  Everything checked out A-OK and is just fine.

It was awesome to see our little monkey again!  This time in full action…with arms and legs moving around, twisting and turning with their body…it was great!  Marina can’t feel any of the movement yet, but it’s only a matter of time.

The ultrasound nurse was kind enough to provide us with another photo, as you can see above.  You can see our little one’s head facing downwards, along with a clear view of the spine.  It was pretty hard to get a decent photo again, this time because of all the activity going on in there.

Thanks to everyone for their comments and best wishes so far, we really appreciate them.  We look forward to posting again soon.

Thanks for listening.

Jason, Marina and Baby

Welcome to the first entry in our new weblog. We got it up and running just in time to announce to the world that we are having a Baby!

Our little peanut is just over 14 weeks old now, and will be due this October (approximately October 15th, according to the experts). We can hardly wait! We are in the process of letting all our family and friends know, and we hope that this will help to spread the word to everyone who is close to us both near and far (..even across the ocean as far as Hungary, Germany, Italy and Macedonia).

We’ll be using this site to keep everyone informed as to our progress, and to post lots of pictures!

Our next checkup is at 19 weeks, and we’re hoping to get a better picture of our little one, so stay tuned.

We’ll talk again soon.

Jason, Marina and Baby