Maggs

A friend of mine recently mentioned that she was unaware that we had a new dog (even though she's no longer new). She didn't know that we had gotten a new puppy when we had Belle put down a year and a half ago. We got Maggie a few days after losing Belle because Chris really needed a replacement. Now, Maggie is no Belle (Belle was my baby for 4 years...) but I can't neglect that she is now a part of the family. So, in case you didn't know, allow me to introduce...

Maggie.

Shaggy Maggie.

Maggs.

Gee-gee.

May-Nay.

May-May.

Geege.

Chelsea's most recent pronunciation - May-NEE!

and well, a few other names probably not appropriate for public. ;)

Chelsea's law

Why, my darling daughter, when we want to sleep in, do you without fail get up at 6:30 - 6:45 am?

But, on a day like today, where I need you to be up and ready to go, are you still sleeping at 7:45??

I love you, but can we see more of this action on a Saturday??

Brrr... cold.

Chelsea was begging to go outside on Friday. She put on her winter boots and kept saying, "Side? Side?" so I convinced Chris to take her outside while he shovelled the snow. He bundled her all up and a few minutes later I look outside to see this.
She was having a blast!! Good idea, daddy!

For my mom...

When mom was out a few weeks ago, she primed and painted the ceiling and primed the walls twice. They were an ugly red colour, but the red was on the ceiling and the trim too. So we had to prime and repaint all the trim and the ceiling.

I'm proud to say though, it's done! The colour is Benjamin Moore's "Raindance." I like it.

Now it's just waiting for me to haul out the baby stuff and well, the baby!

PVO Love.

Reason #84 why I love pembinavalleyonline.com....

Look at how cute these table and chairs are. I posted a wanted ad for kids table and chairs.

Guess what I paid.

$25.

$25!!

Love it.

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.

buns of steel

Finally moved in. Thanks to my husband, sister, and mother-in-law, I haven't had to unpack a single box. Not one. Now, that means that I don't know where anything is, but I'd rather look for a few minutes than unpack.

This house is huge. I like it. I will have buns of steel in a few days because of all the walking up and down the stairs. I might not like that in a few months as I get bigger, but for now, I remind myself that it's my exercise.

As for this pregnancy, I often have to remind myself that I am pregnant. I have no nausea, no heartburn, nothing except for a growing belly and a constant need to pee. I'm quite enjoying it. The midwife says everything is going great, so that's good. We heard the heartbeat on Wednesday - that's always my favourite part.

I'm glad this last week is over. Moving, a busy week at school, a concert in Winnipeg and then SAG in Winnipeg... it was crazy. I'm looking forward to a more relaxing week this week.

la maison d'hildebrand

La la la... I'm not sure what to blog about. Today, I painted and painted and really enjoyed it. I think one of the reasons that I didn't like the house that we are in right now is because I didn't get to pour any of myself into it. Sure I got to pick paint colours, but it's not the same as getting my hands dirty making changes. I love renovating and changing and painting and pouring of myself into something. Today, I just did a quick paint job, priming and painting some spots and tomorrow or Tuesday, I'll get the chance to do the final coat, and voila, we move on Thursday.

Today when I was in the new house, it became a little more real, that on Thursday it would be our house. Ours. For some reason, this is the hardest move yet. This house that we are in now, I love lots of things about it. I'm sure I'll love lots about the new house too. For some reason, I'm just hesitant about the change this time. I have a lot going on. This week will be crazy busy. Here's my secret.

I haven't started packing yet. Nothing. Well, that's a lie. I packed one box, but have rifled through it three times in the past week. So, I don't think that counts. I'm thinking of packing on Monday, and Tuesday nights... I like doing it all at once rather than dragging it out.

I think that's all for now. I'll probably be busy this week, so the next time I blog, it may be from my new house!

lots of nothing

I promised to blog more, but I don't know what to blog about. Life is crazy, crazy busy right now as we're preparing to move. This means hiring a mudder to do some touch ups in the house and trying to get it painted before we move... on THURSDAY(the 27th)!! Wow. That's soon. Not sure I'm ready for that. I really like this house and this time, I'm kind of resisting change. Normally I'm okay with moving.

I'm so in love with Chelsea right now. She is just sooo much fun and full of so much personality. She has tons of new words and repeats everything we say. It's fun. I'm loving it.

As for this new baby, I've been feeling fine, other than being extremely exhausted and not being able to eat very healthy. For some reason, vegetables and meat aren't sitting well with me, which is basically what I lived on while doing the South Beach Diet. SBD is completely healthy for pregnant women, and I wish I could have stayed on it, but I'm so far off, it isn't funny. I've already gained 10 pounds - not a good start! I'm not stressing about it, but I will be hoping that soon I can eat healthy again, and maybe lay off the fries a bit.

hmmm.. think that's it though. But because everyone likes pictures, I'll leave you with this. "Yeehaw" and "giddy-up".

No more secrets...

Well the news is out. I'm due June 3rd with baby #2. My goal was to not really announce it until after parent-teacher conferences because that way parents talk about the students and not my belly. And I did it! Parent-teacher conferences were great - the best ones I've had yet!

This "secret" is part of the reason that I haven't blogged. I wasn't sure what I could say without giving anything away - so I didn't blog. But now, it's out! So here's the story...

When school started, and I went back to work full time, I was having a really hard adjusting and would come home every day just more and more exhausted. I just thought that maybe I was doing too much or just taking a long time to adjust to working full time, being a mom, and doing cakes. But I never thought much more than that.

About the third week of school, I was absolutely hating it and I told Chris it was time for baby #2. :) With Chels, we tried for 11 months and were told we wouldn't be able to have children, so when we thought about starting to try, we assumed it might take a while. Little did we know that by the time we were starting to try, we were already a few weeks along.

Anyways, long story short, we took a test, called the midwives, and were scheduled for an ultrasound to determine a due date. We then found out we were over 6 weeks along! Fast forward another 6 weeks and here we are!

:) Life is full of surprises.