9 months... and a few days

Nine months already. This guy is halarious.

He is getting into all sorts of trouble, now that he can move.

Plus, he's hungry all the time. There's not much he won't eat.

He has figured out how to use his walker to chase his sister. She has learned how to escape the wrath of the walkerfootram.

He is such a happy baby, usually smiling and talking away. Still no teeth, but dang, do we have dimples! He can crawl so fast. It's crazy. It's so stinkin' cute. Chelsea never really crawled on her hands and knees, so I'm getting a kick out of this.

Plus, he's been pulling himself to stand on furniture, in the bathtub and even using some of his toys. He tries to use Chelsea, but she gets mad and pushes him away.

Oh and stairs are his next mission, I think. He stands and tries to climb them for a good 20 minutes a day. I'm not sure what I'll do when he figures it out!

I can't believe how fast time is going... soon I'll be planning his first birthday. Ack!

Proud mama moment

Every day I become more and more amazed by this sweet little girl. Every day. I can't tell you how much joy she brings me (when she's not on the time out step, that is.)

She is so stinkin' smart too. The other day she was drawing me a picture and then she said. "Look at my lady, mom." I was so impressed!

It is recognizable! We have hair, eyes, nose, mouth, arms, legs and feet! I was so excited!!!

Lately she's been obsessed with her My Little Ponies. Today she discovered that they stick to the light fixture in the kitchen. She thought it was halarious.

Yes, she's wearing a tutu dress and yes she's sitting on the table. The toys are too small to keep on the floor because of Gavin crawling all over, so she gets to sit on the table to play.

Dodged that bullet...

So, tonight I went and got a puppy. Chris has been giving me those puppy dog eyes for a few days. His eyes light up when he's around a dog and Chelsea has been acting as a puppy constantly since we gave Maggie away.

So tonight I drove and picked up the cutest, most perfect puppy. She's adorable. She's cute and fluffy and she is a Bichon, just like our beloved Belle. She waddles when she walks and she's very cuddly. I wasn't sure if I was ready for a puppy, but sometimes, it's not about me. I knew my family would be ecstatic.

So I went and picked her up and talked to the lady for over an hour. I gathered the puppy's toys and blankets and food and brought her home. Chris got all lovey eyed and played with her for a few minutes and then said,

"I don't think we should get a puppy right now."


....


Are you kidding me?? But, since I was feeling it too, I phoned the lady and fumbled my way through a conversation and now, Chris is driving that cute, perfect puppy back home. We didn't want to deal with the puppy whining all night, or Chelsea seeing that puppy in the morning and wanting to keep her.

I'm a little sad, but mostly relieved. Now, we aren't going to talk about puppies for a while... a long while. I don't want this to happen again. I kind of like being dog free, but at the same time, dang! I hate sweeping my kitchen 5 times a day!

Real.

Had a rough day yesterday. I was feeling sorry for myself and was pretty cranky. It was not a good day. Chris only took a short lunch and then was only home for 20 minutes before having to leave for the evening. I had to leave my baby with the neighbours so I could sit in Urgent Care with a princess for an hour and a half. (Victory though, as we exited with a magical piece of paper.) Rather than focus on all that junk though, let's focus on the good things.

Good things!

- had a great weekend that ended with a swimming birthday party for my friend's little girl. Although it emphasized how much we miss grandma and grandpa's pool, we had a blast. Chelsea learned the valuable lesson of only jumping into the pool while wearing a lifejacket and Gavin just loved every second of it. Makes me so excited to celebrate C's birthday here in just over a month.

- Although not seeing any results on the scale (hence the me feeling sorry for myself) I do workout hard every day. My running is coming along great and I can't wait to run outside. I'm hoping to start this week. It was also a nice surprise to do a p90x workout that my husband said was super hard only to discover that it was easy for me. Chris was shocked. :) Thanks Turbo Jam and Jillian!

-so glad for friends who get me where I'm at and love on me.

- I am pretty proud of the gift I gave my friend's little girl. It's totally copied from what Heather gave me when my girl turned one, but I loved mine so much I had to make one for my friend. I am not a scrapbooking person and so it was a bit of a stretch for me, but I think it turned out great!

- G is officially crawling on his hands and knees. It allows him to move faster in order to pull his sister's hair better.

- I'm taking on fewer and fewer cakes. I'm all booked for March and pretty much April and even have 4 in May already. I want to concentrate more on myself and my family and enjoying time outside while my matleave is quickly coming to an end.

- Feeling a lot of peace about a pretty major decision that Chris and I made last week. Major announcement about that coming soon. (Ha! You like that? That's right. You have to wait to find out.)

- loving my husband and how helpful he is. I realize that he's not the majority every time I read on someone's FB page that someone is excited because thier husband washed the floor or did dishes or laundry. Mine does things like this all the time and I am very thankful for this.

- good friends who laugh loudly at Boston Pizza.

- thankful I don't have to cook tonight as we're going to a friend's house tonight.

- Friends who love my kids almost as much as I do.

- pedicures. friend. Saturday night. Excited! 'nuff said.

- my dining room table. And the fact that it is covered with a little girl's idea of heaven. My Little Ponies, anyone?

- There is way more good that I could list, but one of the good things just woke up and needs some hugs and cuddles. Laters.

Say "Cheese!"

Here's the face we get when we ask her to smile. I'm not excited about her 3 year pictures if this is the smile we get.




And then there's this guy. I see this face a million times a day. A big, silent, eyes closed, head thrown back, melt your heart grin.




(And yes, he's wearing a pink bib. Benefits of having an older sister.)

Busy, busy.

Too many hobbies.

I've just finished sewing a table runner and 8 placemats for my new table.

My beautiful fabric arrived from The Fabric Shoppe to start making Gavin his quilt.

I have 5 various cakes this week - 2 smash and 3 birthday.

I bought a cute little dresser thing from MCC on Saturday that I'm refinishing to put in my dining room.

I'm in the middle of making a really cool gift for someone's birthday. This one is a little out of my comfort zone, but I'm loving it!

And on an unrelated note, now that the carpet is gone, G can easily run his walker around the house. He found the bathroom, of course!















Reminds me of when this girl discovered the same thing!















Happy Monday all!

C'est fini!

Before.

After. (We moved a big chair up from downstairs. I'm not sure if it'll stay.)

I like it. I like it a lot. What I like almost as much is having my kitchen and dining room back. One more day of cleaning and tidying up and life should go back to normal.

gum in hair, poop on stair.

What a day.

It started with a wad of gum in her hair. Some olive oil and lots of combing later, we only had to cut out a small chunk.

Then she was off to Grandma's for the morning and nap time. We're all good.

Then she woke up. Oh. my.

Trouble. She went to the bathroom and came out without her undies or pants on. Whatevs. In our house, pants are always optional. The problem was apparently she didn't wipe and when I gave her a time out for hitting her brother, she wiped her bum all over the carpeted stairs. Her dirty bum. I don't have to draw you a picture, I'm sure. I was not impressed.

I went into the bathroom and discovered probably half a bottle of soap squirted all over the counter, floor and toilet. Another time out followed with a good dose of her trying to clean it up.

As you know, our livingroom is down to the bare boards right now. We had Corner2corner in this morning to spray the floors down with an odor eliminator, so the boards were a little damp.

Around 4 or so, I noticed that all the knots in the wood had water in them. I called Chelsea into the room and asked her if she had sprayed water onto them.

"Nope. I drank from my sippy and spit it out on the holes."

Seriously?

There was a "consequence" and a time out. Followed again by Chelsea having to clean up her mess.

Hmm... what else? I know there was more. By about 4:30 I was done. I'd had it. Chris could not come home soon enough. I knew I had run out of patience, if I even had any today to begin with. I wasn't doing well because my house is in disarray. The toys the kids always play with are moved around, there's no room to move in the dining room, the basement is overcrowded and I was frustrated with all the setbacks during what was supposed to be a quick renovation (I know - is there such a thing?)

Then my little C walks up to me, out of the blue and says, "I forgive you, mom."

"For what?" I ask.

She gives me a hug. "For yelling at me today."

...

Aw. Shucks. Guess this is one of those bad mommy days.

We had some snuggle time and I apologized. I'm so glad children are so forgiving. We talked about how she needs to listen and why mommy says no. We hugged and kissed and said some "I love you's" and then I gave her to the neighbours for a while because I still needed a break. I'm so grateful for my neighbour friend who loves my children but more importantly, gets me and totally understands where I'm at right now with no judgement. It means a lot.

Eventually, she returned from next door and when tucking Chelsea into bed tonight, she pulled me close and said, "I'm happy with you, mom. Are you happy with me?"

I reassured her that indeed, I was very happy with her, and that I was glad that we could start all over tomorrow. Sometimes, I'm not happy with her behaviour, but I'm always happy with her. She has such a way of knowing just what to say.

What a way to end the day. Just knowing that someone is happy with me. Isn't that what we want every day? On those days when we find it so hard to be happy with ourselves - the way we look, the weight we are, how tidy the house is, how high the laundry pile is, how many dirty dishes there are... Just to have someone look at me and say something as simple as "I'm happy with you."

Loves.

P.S. I'm happy with you, too. :)

Just sayin'.

The resemble is uncanny. Even the wispy hair...


Those cheeks are incredible, Chubbs.

(And yes, I'm aware he's holding his gums funny, but it does really emphasize the cheeks!)

The pee-pee palace

The carpet in our house has never impressed us. The house is only 3 years old, but the carpet always looked dingy and matted and dull. It was professionally cleaned when we moved in and then when we bought our new tv, we had to clean it again because we moved some furniture around. We've talked about taking it out, and now seemed like a good time.

Here's some progress pictures - mostly for Shelly who is begging for them. But since my sister did give me "permission" to blog them, I figured I should get on it!

The before shots.

Woah! Where did all the furniture go?? This is great.

Mom!! I found all our stuff!!

(sneak peek of the new table and chairs and the laminate that will be going in)

Here's when we started to get a little suspicious. The carpet is rolled up and the foam underlay is revealed. It is at this time when the overwhelming urine smell is also unveiled.

Shocked and horrified when the foam comes up.

Gross - gross - gross. At first I was like "MAGGIE!!!" but then when we were looking we realized it was all really old and huge stains. Since Maggs is only 7 pounds, it couldn't have been her. Also, alot of the stains were covered by our furniture, so they couldn't have possibly been Maggie. I should add that when we moved in, even after the professional cleaning, we could always smell pee in the stairwell going down into the basement. We soaked it one day with Norwex's odor eliminator and didn't smell it again. So although we were shocked last night, it did make sense to see all these stains.

So yeah. That was my last night. The cleaner guy is coming tomorrow morning to soak the wood with neutralizer. The wood can't be replaced because it is structural to the home. We could lay another sub floor overtop, but that would mean the livingroom would then be higher than the rest of the flooring and we don't really want that.

Bubye Geege.

So many things to blog about and I have just no time!

I guess the biggest news is that we gave Maggie to a new home this week.

Allow me to explain.

We love Maggie. She's awesome. But when we got her, we were told she was a poodle/shitzu. Great. Non-shedding, hypoallergenic. Good to go.

But as she grew older, it became apparent that she shed. As she got older, the shedding got worse. It wasn't that big of a deal, but it bothered me.

However, since Gavin was about 2 months, he's been congested and stuffed up. It's been horrible. I have also been really stuffed and we began to wonder if it was Maggie. Every day, I became more and more convinced that she was the source. I started suggesting to Chris that perhaps we needed to find Maggie a new home. He was heartbroken, but eventually agreed.

I listed her on PVO and Kijiji with a price attached. We didn't want to list her as free because we wanted serious inquiries and we wanted her to be wanted and well cared for. We weren't going to just ship her off to the first interested person. I also mentioned that we were looking for a new home for her on FB.

Here's where I think God stepped in. I love that He cares for all our needs. I read a lot of blogs and one of the blogs I read was Shelly's. She is a good friend of some friends of mine and although we had never met, we felt like we knew each other from the blogging world. Well, Shelly finally joined FB just a few days before I posted in my status that we were selling Maggie. Just a few days before this, Shelly and her husband had been talking about how much they wanted another small dog, but they didn't want to deal with a puppy and housetraining. Shelly casually joked in my status that she'd love Maggie but couldn't convince her husband to fork over the mulah. Since money wasn't really the issue, we started to chat.

It was so awesome. They have 3 kids. They have a small dog and a cat already. They love thier animals a lot, and this was evident in their animals' sleeping arrangements. ;) Our dog is a little spoiled and it sounded like she would fit in just fine. As hard as it was actually handing Mags over, we knew she would be well cared for and adored. We felt such peace about our decision.

Chelsea hugged Maggie tight and handed her over to her new family. She didn't ask about her again until this morning. "Where's Maggie at, Mommy?"

"Remember we gave Maggie to a new family?"

"Oh yeah."

That was it. Gavin has spent more time looking for her. This becomes evident when he's eating in his highchair. He throws fistfulls of food onto the floor and then bangs his hand against the side of his highchair, as if he is calling for her.

I miss her eating the food off my floor. I've had to sweep sooo much. Not fun!

My husband is already asking when we are getting a new dog, but I'm making him wait. I need to make sure that I really really want another dog, so that I don't feel burdened when I have to train another puppy.

Although we miss gee-gee, we know it is for the best. We are cleaning like crazy and ripping up carpet and praying that soon our kids will be able to breathe again. We are also praying that Maggie fits in and loves her new family.

I know to some of you this is silly because she is "just a dog" but she's been in our family for 3 years. You get pretty attached to those little furballs!

:)

Thank you Dollarama, for your $1.50 hats. We played for almost 2 hours with them. I think I'm going to try and sneak away to get the other two hats in the store. Too cute!

On a side note, thanks to all who came to the Norwex party. I had a lot of fun!

My baby loves me just the way that I am.

This girl makes me laugh, all the time. She's big into funny faces and dressing up.

or dressing down...

She wears pajamas pretty much all day long. We change in the morning when she wakes up, but she changes back for nap time. Hey - I don't really blame her. I don't wear my jeans when I nap.



She talks. A LOT. She did this to herself. It lasted until I took the photo.


But occasionally... okay - about a gazillion times a day, I have to deal with the whining and the crying and the boundary testing.

Here's a hint, sweetie. Mommy wins, dearie. Mommy always wins.

(Yes I realize I won't always win, but for now, against an almost 3 year old, I still win.)

loves.

dating. 2001

engaged.2002


married. 2003

sometime. 2006.

edmonton - where we escaped after being told we may never have babies. 2006.

pregnant with that baby. 2007.

5th anniversary. 2008.

pregnant with baby#2. 2008.

Today. 2010.