2008

A not so quick recap of '08.

January - Chelsea started to walk along walls and furniture, and even started crawling on her hands and knees instead of doing her army crawl. My parents came out for a few days and we started finishing the basement. Big month for me. On January 31st (so I guess this could be considered Feb), I started the South Beach Diet. I was tired of always feeling self conscious and avoiding the camera. Pictures like this one below made me sad. So I decided to make a change and I did. Losing weight and becoming a healthier person is definitely one of the things I am most proud of for '08.

February - I started this blog. We dealt with Chelsea getting a pretty bad ear infection, and me developing a rather large bald spot. :D That's a big secret I told only a few people. I'll share now, because my hair has completely regrown. See - bald. I was traumatized. I got over it.

Chelsea turned 9 months and was introduced to her new best friend - "the soo." Since then, these two have become inseparable. March - By March, I had lost about 25 pounds. Chelsea was learning to walk, taking more steps daily, but we were still struggling with more ear infections. I also left Chelsea for 8 hours and went to the city with Chris. This was huge as I was still BFing and had never left Chelsea for that long before. We both survived, imagine that!

April - I was proud that I was no longer in the 200s, but in the 100s. I returned back to work, subbing about 3 days a week. My beautiful daughter turned 1. A whole year. I baked and decorated my first (of many) cakes. May - I accepted a Gr.1 term teaching position. I started taking a cake decorating class. We went with some good friends to the zoo in Winnipeg. I had lost over 40 pounds. I enjoyed celebrating my second Mother's Day.

June - I turned 27. I finished teaching at Pkld. I had to deal with a nasty ear infection and the medicine forced me to wean Chelsea. It was bittersweet. We started the summer event of playing on the driveway. Good times all in all. July Spent most of July hanging out on my front lawn with Chelsea and the DiFrans. We also went to the PC Beach. July was by far one of the best times I've ever had. So relaxing, slow paced, and enjoyable. It was good good times.

August - August was spent celebrating anniversaries. Chris and I had been married for 5 years and my parents for 20 years. We went away to Elkhorn Resort for a few days to celebrate. Chris rode a horse for the first time. A beloved member of our family went to doggie heaven (or the dump, one of the two.)

September - We finally finished the basement on Chevy Drive. We were finally able to clean out the garage and park one vehicle in there for the first time since January. I started teaching again - full time. I dealt with some major guilt issues going back to work full-time. Chelsea got some good rug burn on her nose. October - Need I say more? Most of October was spent like this, as I was too tired to even think straight.

In October, I reached my lowest weight ever, having lost 64 pounds, but was unable to shake the last few pounds before finding out I was expecting. Oh well, it'll happen soon enough. A picture of me with the cutest little pumpkin.

We also bought a house, and put ours on the market. Keeping a house show-clean is no fun at all.

November - an absolute blur. Report cards, MCC school kits, parent-teacher interviews, painting, packing, moving... it was a busy month for me. Chelsea and Chris just hung out.

December - Which brings us to now. We're mostly settled and adjusted in the new house. I've been loving my holidays, spending so much time with Chelsea. I'm not sure how I'm going to adjust to only seeing her for a few hours a day again. I'm also not sure how I'm going to survive working full days without sleeping in or naps.

Alright, this entry is finished in just the nick of time. I wish you all a very happy new year filled with many blessings!

Merry ho ho and all that jazz.

Christmas has come and gone. I wasn't really ever in the Christmas mood this year - just too busy, I guess. We did put up a pre-lit tree, and although we didn't decorate it, we had it up for about a week to put the presents underneath and to take a few pictures of Chelsea.

This was Chelsea last year...

And this is Chelsea this year. She doesn't even look like the same girl!


We headed to my parents' house for a few days this Christmas. Chelsea is so much fun. I know I say that all the time, but she really is a blast. For example, when we were getting ready to hang stockings at my parents' house, she decided she wanted to wear them all. So this was the end result.

I love the tradition of stockings, and it was so much fun watching Chelsea discover hers this year. I did, however, learn that the toys need to be strategically placed within the stocking, because once she found her camera, the rest of the stocking was no where near as interesting. She loved her camera and takes every picture of herself.

She carried it around almost the entire time. Good gift!

(I'm posting this picture to show not only Chelsea holding the camera, but that my husband READ A BOOK! This is huge news.)

I bought Chris a few Wii games for Christmas. Here is a picture of us playing Wii, the entertainment unit designed to increase your activity level. To be fair, we were playing Brain Academy, so we were working our brains, not our bodies.

So there you have it... my Christmas holidays in GP.

Since then, I've just spent some time organizing, shopping, and relaxing. We painted the first coat of the nursery tonight and the baseboards are all done and ready to go. Soon, it will be done... yay!

Gangsta.

She's just so dang cute.

Norwex love #7739

Seriously love the cleaning paste. For some reason in this house, we have issues with rust lines in the toilets. They start up at the very top where the water comes out and streak down the bowl. When my mom was here, so bought this super strength rust remover toilet bowl cleaner. Pretty potent stuff. It did an okay job, but there was still rust at the very top that didn't really go away.

Tonight, I used an old spirisponge and the norwex cleaning paste and the rust is gone. Gone.

Norwex Love.

Randomness

• Last day of school - seriously sooooo happy. SO HAPPY.
• Christmas party with the girls tonight. Again, so happy. So much food and good times will be had.
• I finally am starting to have heartburn. I like it. lol. Not that I like the feeling, but with C, I always had heartburn and she had a beautiful head of hair. I am hopeful that this baby will too.
• I'm eagerly waiting to find out the sex of this baby... we'll be going in the next few weeks I hope to find out.
• I have a tree up in my house, but it isn't decorated. C's big thing is to barely touch the tree with her finger, say "ouch" and then pull her hand back really fast. So cute. I do know however, that I have to put a bit more energy into decorating.
• I'm working on a really cool cake. It's turning out really good. I'll post pictures on Monday night.
• I'm buying pizza for my students today. That was an ordeal and a half, but the kids are excited. Nothing like food to get Gr 6s hyper.
• I really like my new house, now that it's been a few weeks. Hopefully over Christmas we'll get the last few things in place and then it'll really feel like home.
• We're going to GP for a few days over Christmas. I guess word has been getting around about my cakes because I was asked to make a cake while I'm at my parents. Crazy.
• Well, my prep is almost up, so I should get ready to go back to class. Hooray for holidays!!

Finally. I know.

A post, a post! Yes, yes, I'm here and I'm finally feeling somewhat settled and more social. It's been a ridiculously crazy few weeks and holidays are finally just around the corner. We are somewhat settled into the new house, but I am hoping during the time off at Christmas, we will finish the nursery and hang all our pictures, and do a few more random little things.

Chelsea is growing so fast and seems to have turned into quite the little girl over night. She's definitely not a baby anymore. It's crazy how intensely you can love someone. I must tell her at least 50 times a day that I love her. She's fun.

She was quick to discover the one room in the house where she isn't allowed, and if you leave her when she is playing with her toys downstairs, she will run into daddy's room as soon as she is unsupervised.

This picture was taken of her today. Look at that mop of curly hair! I'm not sure what to do with it, so I've been doing nothing but that doesn't help the situation. She hates having hair in her face, so she'll often bring me hair ties and will sit very still for me to do her hair.

One of her favourite things to do is colour. She colours on her whiteboard, on paper, in her coloring book, on her hands (thanks Grandpa Jerry) and she tries so hard. It's awesome to see her as such a little girl. She's learning her colours so fast and parrots pretty much every word I say.

In this house, the set up in the main bathroom allows for some good climbing and playing in the sink. She didn't do this in the other house, but now, she's often caught in the bathroom playing with the water. We have to remember to keep the door closed.

So I know I haven't blogged in a long time and a big part of that is that I like posting with pictures, and Chelsea is really not fun to take pictures of right now. She demands to take the camera and will throw a fit, if she doesn't get her way. That's why most of the pics in this post were taken today. But, I'll finish off with this picture - a self portrait, taken by Miss C herself.