We're Baaaccckkkk...

I'll spare you the details, but this is what happened on Monday June 22nd:


Yep, that's ALL OUR STUFF. We filled that baby UP.




The amazing boxspring-from-balcony stunt. So glad we're not living on the third floor anymore.



I. Hate. Everything.


It took just over three hours to get it all out. And down the two sets of twisty stairs. And our guys Sébastien, Andreas and Jorge did it all without breaking anything. Stéphane and I survived it by taking valium. (Just kidding! But look at that picture of my husband - don't you think some kind of medication could have helped?)


It only took another 2 hours to load it all into the new place and once that was over, we celebrated with our new best friends.

Our first official houseguests.

Look how cute they are. They were really sweet actually.

Bye! Hope we don't see you again for a long time!


I don't remember at when I took these, but at some point after Liliane came back from her grandparents to the new place. She LOVES it.





Now I have room to do all my kung-fu moves!



I call this one "Winston Churchill Takes The Baby for a Walk."


This is how we generally look most of the time these days.




Wednesday June 24th was St-Jean Baptiste Day so we took a break from the boxes to get outside. I wrote about the significance of St-Jean last year (click here for refresher) but all you need to know is that a) it's all about Quebec and b) it's all about beer.

We took a stroll in our new neighborhood down to Jarry Park.


Jarry Park is where the Expos first played, it's where the the Rogers Cup (tennis) is played, plus it has an AMAZING new playground and water park/wading pool. We're pretty excited to live a short 15 minute-walk away.

Liliane was ready to follow those ducklings into the water. It was pretty hot so I couldn't blame her.


For my B.C. readers: This fountain totally reminds me of Stanley Park!

We ended the day with a BBQ at Pierre and Ariel's - our new neighbours! They live about two blocks down from our new place.

At the end of that big week we had a little tidying up to do at the old place before we turned in our keys. Given our troubles with the crazy owner, we took the time to document exactly how we left it. I did one last scrub of the bathtub and those wacko, mold-friendly, teeny tiny tiles:

We dropped our keys in her mailbox and it was over. Done! She left us a message later that night to remind us that we are supposed to make an appointment with her so that she can inspect the apartment together and make sure that everything is in order. Needless to say we didn't call her back. We are completely happy with the clean and tidy empty apartment that we left behind. We're so outta there!!

It's been a bit of a whirlwind since then. We went back to work, we're figuring out the new routines, trying to get the new place all set up. Liliane had a few nights of random waking up at 2AM but then she got over that (thanks to Papa and his firm yet gentle GO TO SLEEP LILIANE technique) and has been sleeping like a champ ever since.

We're heading to Ikea this weekend to finally get the big DVD shelf! We figured out what we want the last time we were there so all we have to do now is go and buy it. Oh, and put it together. I'll definitely get pictures of that once it's done.

I also have some flowers planted now on our cute back patio stairs which I will also take photos of this weekend while Stéphane puts our new BBQ together! Oh, projects, projects.

Somewhere in there I turned 35. Had an excellent date night with my husband, saw Transformers, completely enjoyed ourselves. We had dinner out the next night with Jean-Michel and Laurence also who gave us all kinds of great decorating advice. It was really fun to have people over and get a different perspective on things. Where we just see box-filled space punctuated by our old crap, they see potential. Fun.

The other thing is that I'm so excited for my nephew to come into this world! My brother and SIL have already passed the official due date (yesterday) so it could happen any minute. Everytime my cell phone rings I have a heart attack, but so far, nothing to report. I'll be going down for the bris which will take place 8 days after his grand arrival so I'm standing by to make travel plans.

That's it for now. Gotta go, bag of baked Cheetos calling from my new kitchen.

Packing is for Wienies

Taking pictures of your 20 month old is waaaayyyy more fun.

As you can see, I'm getting a LOT done.

In my defense, it's been ages since I took pictures of her just for fun (since my Rebel has been in the shop AGAIN recently plus this whole home-buying thing has really taken up a lot of time, man) so I say less boxes, more blogging!

We got her a little step stool so that she would stop standing on the heaters to look outside.

This is one of her top five all-time favourite activities.

The other four, in no particular order, would be: shouting "ballon!" ball or balloon or "fleur!" flower or leaf or "chee!" cheese or dog, depending or "shee!" shoe; standing at the sink "brushing" her teeth; swinging on the swings, preferably while holding her ballon; and drinking juice. Which doesn't happen very often around here because juice = sticky. No can do. I have issues.

This was probably her spotting a Chee! (chien/dog).


What is this "chee" of which you speak so knowingly?

Me: Okay baby, it's bathtime! (duh duh da dum duh duh da dum dum de dum de dum! There is music that goes with bathtime in our house and it happens to be the music from Batman because Stéphane is the Bath-man. Get it?! We like puns. And movie theme songs. OK, anyway....)

Liliane:

Whachoo talkin' about Willis?

I can't help it! The corny captions just COME to me! Dear Liliane, sorry for embarrassing you in front of the entire internet, but your expressions are too delicious not to share. Plus it makes me laugh which you should think of as a wise long-term investment. Love, Crazy Maman xo

I took these so Stéphane could see that yes indeed I got some work done. Or that I at least documented our child getting some work done. She was all over my idea of putting the tupperware in a box.

So where do you want it?

Oh man, somebody stop me. I am killing myself over here.

OK, back to it. Now this time I MEAN it when I say that I won't be back until sometime next week. We move on Monday so wish us luck! (No, seriously, please leave me an encouraging comment otherwise I might just sneak off to Mexico, Swine Flu be darned, until this whole thing is done...)

Muchos gracias!

Movin' On Up

Oh internet, what a crazy crazy last few weeks! Here is quick list of some the highlights:

• no less than 4 (minor) medical mishaps to to my clumsiness
• went to the notary, signed all the papers, we are homeowners!
• made our first mortgage payment
• did our wills
• bought more insurance than I even knew existed
• no less than 4 freakouts about money (we take turns, will it ever end?)
• met our new neighbours and LOVE them
• bought a new toaster
• bought a new microwave
• got rid of my credit card and now am paying back the bank - debt free in 5 years!
• had a nice visit from my Dad. He approves of the new place AND its handy proximity to DQ
• confirmed an excellent new daycare starting in August
• Liliane's molars may be starting to come in. Great.
• On standby for my brother and SIL's cupcake to come into the world so I can dash down for the bris. I even have a job to do!
• endless crunching of numbers
• boxes, boxes, boxes and more boxes...

Of course our list of upcoming TO DO is about eight times longer (and a little dull, frankly) so I will spare you all that. Stéphane and I are on vacation as of Thursday next week when operation "get the heck outta here" hits the ground running. I'll post when we're set up... with pictures!

Speaking of pictures, I found these on the camera from a while back - Stéphane spotted a deal on this Eddie Bauer stroller (I think it was $30 down from $80) so we grabbed it.

While he was there he also picked out the outfit she's wearing. My husband is a wicked shopper and secure enough in his manliness to be OK with my sharing that information. I think.

I KNOW she doesn't look like me, OK?

Not to belabour the point, but he also bought her the outfit she is wearing in these photos:

In THIS photo I find she looks like me. Perhaps it's the double chin??

And this sweet little hat from Mexx:

My child officially has a better summer wardrobe than I. But that's OK.

Back to errands and high finances. Back soon!

Spontaneous! Trip! To Ottawa!

Who said having a baby means you can't be impulsive and adventurous?

Okay, perhaps a 2-hour drive to our nation's capital does not qualify as "adventurous" to most people, but throw a 19-month old into the equation and anything can happen!

Who, me?

There is a very fine line between "fun day full of new things" and "fun day ending badly screaming all the way home." But we'll get to that later...

Our plan was to spend time with my SIL Nathalie, her husband Christian and their son Jonathan so we invited ourselves to their house. Hi! Hope you don't mind us coming to visit! We need to flee our cramped, crap-filled, bad-vibey apartment!

I didn't get any photos of the delicious BBQ lunch or Liliane jumping on their trampoline or Jonathan's aaahhh-inspiring flips. Or our trip to their neighbourhood park. But it was all lovely!

I remembered the camera for our stroll around around Parliament Hill.

It was the last day of the tulip festival and as you can see, the tulips were DONE for the season thanks very much.

Babezilla here had a grand time yanking the crispy little petals off.


This year:

Last year!

Can you tell that we went at the BEGINNING of the festival last year?

Is this the way to Harper's office?

Liliane's new party trick is to walk around holding someone's hand. She usually does it for Stéphane, but her Uncle Christian had the pleasure this time:

And you know what I'm gonna ask Harper when I get there?

Why do you HATE THE ARTS?

One, two, three...

WHEE! It's a classic.

I can't get enough of babies in sunglasses.

It's an addiction.

We strolled on over to where the stray cats have a special shelter. Liliane likes to meow whenever she sees one, so we thought it might be fun.


Oh, hello kitty. My, what sharp teeth and beady little eyes you have! Oops.

Cute stray cat sighting: FAIL.

We hightailed it back to the house for a quick dinner of BBQ burgers then packed up and hit the road just before Liliane's bedtime. I brought her PJs and a blanket along so that she could fall asleep on the way home. It was all going according to plan until we stopped for gas. She was asleep for like a half an hour when we stopped. She did NOT fall asleep again until I placed her into her bed at 10:30, protesting all the way. The next day was a little squirrelly (we forgot to warn the daycare) and she was so overtired the next night that she yowled for AN HOUR when she went to bed at her usual 8PM bedtime. Ah, good times.

Last night she went to bed at 7:45 and we didn't hear a peep until 7:15 this morning. Oh, the joy of a full night's sleep! We did the same tonight - I think it's a question of getting the bedtime routine started BEFORE she gets too tired and 15 minutes is enough to make a difference.

Anyway, that's my parenting revelation of the day.

Otherwise, starting to pack stuff and get our finances organized. We're signing the papers in two weeks!

Tomorrow I have a completely luxurious afternoon planned: a pedicure appointment (yay! finally!) and I'm going to see Star Trek and have a little dinner with some pals. Stéphane is taking over so I can sneak away. Merci mon amour!

I Made a Tidy Baby! And Some Other Stuff...

My very first homemade Mother's Day card!

Yay for daycare artwork!

After church we went to Stéphane's parents for dinner. It was so great to not have to cook. Merci Ma et Pa!

Is it me or are those eyelashes just plain RIDICULOUS??

Liliane loves playing with this little bag of rubber bracelets I have. Remember the ones from the 80s? I got a bunch a few years back (Madonna concert outfit. Long story.) and she has really taken a shine to them.

First I dump them ALL OUT and lay them side by side very carefully like this.

Then I bring them all in to the kitchen to play a very organized game with Papa.

Then we put them back.

One by one.


Don't be jealous of how we pass our time around here, OK? My baby likes to clean things up, she's kinda like her Dad that way. I wonder how long that will last?

Loving this long weekend despite some REALLY CRAPPY weather out here. I put the heat back on in Liliane's room today. The funny thing is that in barely a month from now, we'll be begging for mercy from some evil, sweaty heatwave.

We went to visit our new house today to take some measurements and figure out what to paint the living room/dining room wall. I had an idea and dragged one of our couch cushions along to double check. Yep, the way it is now will definitely not work. Definitely. BUT, the blue that is in the bathroom right now, will be perfect!

This is the blue I'm talking about (on the wall, not the painting):

The wall I'm referring to is on the left, behind those stick thingys.

So not only does the current owner have a paint chip, she has some actual paint leftovers! (It's Debbie Travis, "40 Winks.") I think it'll be great with our sagey green couches. I'll let you know.

In other news... I went to a workshop yesterday with a bunch of ladies from my church. Now, I realize that I don't talk about my spiritual life on my blog, but that's only because: a) there are no baby photos or cute captions to go along with that subject and b) it's not a part of my life that I am comfortable sharing with others by throwing it at the wall of the internet and seeing what sticks. Does that garbled, food-related metaphor make sense? Anyway, all this to say that I went to a workshop organized by the Women's Baptist organization of Quebec (I know I so totally got the name wrong, sorry Ann!) given by Ethel Rowntree called Beyond Ordinary Living: Dream, Dare and Do. It was like having a spa day for the soul. Lovely ladies, good company, good food and some really inspiring ideas. We got homework to do so I'm looking forward to revisiting some of the things she talked to us about and rising to the challenge of following my dreams. Cool stuff.

We decided today that we would spend the day in Ottawa tomorrow with Stéphane's sister and family at the Tulip festival so we'll be hitting the road first thing in the morning.

Enjoy your long weekend everybody!

Happy Mother's Day!

Hi Grandma!

I was just thinking back to the first time we met.

Remember when I got home from the hospital and my Mom and Dad were SO TIRED and couldn't figure out why I was crying and how you snuggled into bed with me and we slept for 5 hours in a row? My Mom STILL talks about that.

Good thing you were there for my first bath, too. They really didn't have a clue.

And the blanket you made me - it's my favourite thing to bury my face in to sleep at night.

Sigh. Those were the days.

I miss our face time :)

I understand that 'Round and 'Round the Garden... is yours, too. Love that game!


Thanks for showing my Mom how to do such a good job. I appreciate it. And keep it coming, OK?

I think she's going to need the help - I'm turning 2 soon you know.


Happy Mother's Day Grandma! See you this summer!

Love,

Liliane

PS - Happy Mother's Day Mom! We love you! Treese xo

PPS - Bonne fête des mères grand-maman Arbour! On a hâte de venir te voir! xo

Spring = Ice Cream (Plus a touque)

The snow has melted, the birds are chirping, time of renewal, rebirth, blah, blah, blah. Spring means Dairy Queen!

We took Liliane for her first time a couple of weeks ago.

Only in Canada (well, east of B.C. anyway) do we need a hat and mittens for early spring visits to DQ. Did I mention that there's a Dairy Queen just around the corner from our new place? I don't know why they didn't list that as one of the amenities in the description frankly.

Back at the park... A couple of new interests.

Sand. Big time.

I grab a bunch of sand and squeeze it in my fists like this!

Then I let it go like this!

Then I put it in my mouth and spit it out like this!

Then my Dad freaks out like this!

She is getting more and more interested in hanging out with other kids:

Especially if they share her thing for sand.

We took her to the park this past Sunday, but very early in the morning. She wakes up around 7 so we were out the door by 8:30 or so.

She always walks like she knows where's she's going.

We did the usual...

Then we got to her other new big thing: playing with a ball. We got her one last year and she didn't really pay attention to it until about 2 weeks ago. Now she's all excited to play with her ballon (yep, she's bilingual!) and she talks about it a lot.

Since we were at the park so freaking early we had the soccer field all to ourselves!

David Beckham, eat your heart out...

So that's life for us these days! Besides going to the park and eating ice cream, we've got a couple of other things going on. In fact, ONE MONTH from today we'll be taking possession of our new house. Seriously? Crazy. We have a couple more weeks after that until we move, but time is flying by.

Still having difficulties with our landlord but we're trying to just focus on all the good stuff in store and blocking out all the rest. Turns out she's a petty, cheap, vengeful nutbar like her parents before her. Have I mentioned that? Did I really type that out loud? Can you tell that we're a little on the edge around here??

Had a great visit from my pal Deb who came in from Ottawa with Doug to spend her birthday weekend here. We went out for DELICIOUS dinner on Saturday night. I think I'm still full. Happy Birthday week Deb!

You'll be relieved to hear that I finished the Twilight book series. Compelling in an angsty, adolescent girl kind of way right to the end. But I couldn't put it down, so what does THAT mean? Whatever, Edward is hot not matter how old you are. Right Jaime?

Boston Mini Vacay (Caution: No Baby Pictures Until the End of this Post. Scroll if Necessary, it's OK.)

Since I've been putting this off for so long (blogging as homework, so sad), I'll let the pictures do the explaining...

The reason we were in Boston in the first place...

I think it's good to keep it real and post dorky photos when they are available. So here you go.

The game was crazy fun. Bruins fans are just plain crazy but we made it out alive. Now that the Habs are out of the playoffs, we are officially a Canucks household. For now.

Got a great Priceline deal at the Copely Square Marriot. This room service breakfast was almost as expensive as one night of accomodation. I won't even get into the valet parking... But it was worth it.

Boston Public Library

Took a Duck tour of the city and had a good time. That's me with my duck lips.

One of the Duck fleet that has a cool name.

That's Sergent Meatball, our Duck tour leader.

We learned a lot about the history of Boston.

None of which I will bore you with here. (Like I remember now anyway!)

I just thought this was cool. It's on the ground by the way.

I do remember that this is the USS Constitution. Historical significance? Hmmm.. must be the same place my keys are...

Oh yeah, it's spring!

After tooling around the city in our giant yellow banana (to quote Sergeant Meatball) we cruised the Charles River!

We got chased by these scary looking pirates. Er middle-aged accountants on vacation. Whatever. The kids thought it was hilarious.

Yeah, so what, I like a good pun. (It's an antiques store, get it?!)

Where everybody knows your nay-a-a-me!

(see sign on fence below middle awning)

It's hard to see, but those window boxes have running shoes in them filled with flowers. This is traditional decoration for the upcoming Boston marathon. Cute, right?

More spring.

Now this is where the angry mob got riled up enough to storm down to the docks and throw the King's tea overboard. The same exact building!

It's OK, I'm a total history nerd.

The only other thing I can't get enough of when I'm in an oldey-timey town (besides punny signs and historical buildings, oh and churches) is cemetaries.

Hello!! Paul REVERE is buried here!

Plus I love how it's right in the middle of town. There's like apartment buildings and what looks like a daycare butting right up next to it.

The Boston version of our usual self portrait.

Oooh, shiny. And important. Legislature?

Look how classy the Starbucks sign is! We also saw a fancy lookin' 7-11.

I think the Commons was our favourite part of the whole city. It's so pretty in there!

Sorry, we don't have any of these yet in Montréal so I went a little spring flower crazy...

If I was a little more with the program I would be able to explain the significane of these ducks. There is a children's story about ducks coming to the Commons but that's about as much as I can gather. They look cute anyway.

I like these kinds of statues too.

After all that history and walking around, we got down to some serious business. I read somewhere that the best place to get authentic Boston Cream Pie is at the Oak Room which is in the Fairmount Copley Square hotel. We strode in there in our jeans and running shoes and politely asked if we could sully their lovely dining room in order to indulge our (my) need to try the definitive Boston Cream Pie. They were very sweet and invited us in (picture a lavish gentlemen's club with lots of mahogany and rich fabrics and heavy furniture) and we blatanly had just dessert.

But what a dessert it was.

That stuff on the top and on the plate is big huge curls of white chocolate. It kinds of looks like cheese in this photo and actually it was kind of like overkill on top of all the rest, but I appreciated the effort.

Aren't we classy?

The lady who took this picture for us asked if we were on our honeymoon. We laughed and explained that it was merely our first time away from our 18-month old for TWO WHOLE nights. Then we kept laughing. She backed away slowly...

That night we went out for dinner at Legal Seafood and splurged on a brilliant, fishy meal that even I appreciated. I also bought a magazine and just SAT AND READ for like an hour in the afternoon. Amazing. Saturday we got up slowly, grabbed a Starbucks (in our hotel thank you!) and hit the road by 11. We got to Stéphane's parents by around 5:30 and got Liliane home and tucked into bed by her usual 8PM.

And voilà! An excellent little trip, I highly recommend it.

Speaking of Liliane, I took this at the park yesterday:

That kid LOVES the swings. The only thing she loves more is the slide:



And the only thing she loves more than the slide is ice cream! We had our first trip of the season to Dairy Queen (for my west-coast readers, DQ isn't open all year round out here!) but since this post is already huge, I'll leave those for the next one. Which will not take two weeks to finish. Promise.

Easter Bunny (Just Before Church This Morning)

Liliane has had this outfit since she was born.

It's Tommy Hilfiger (fancy!) size 18-24 months.

I remember not being able to imagine how she could ever be big enough to wear it.

And now she is.

(See those dimples? Killer.)

Happy Easter my baby! Having you around for Easter is better than chocolate! (Even Mini-Eggs.)

Love,

Maman xo

PS - Pix to come of our Boston trip!

Cookie Monster in Training

These photos are actually from last weekend, but we seem to be running about a week behind all around these days. Case in point: I had carefully written TAXES in the spaces in my agenda alloted to this very weekend. It's now Sunday after 10PM and I assure you, not a T-4 in sight. But, given the rhythm of things lately I'm right on schedule - by the time I actually sit down to DO my taxes, it will be NEXT weekend. I may even over-achieve and not get to them until even later! Oooh. Living dangerously is fun.

Anyway... I wanted to make cookies last weekend (this amazing PW recipe incidentally) but couldn't find a quiet moment to do it so I dragged a chair up to the counter and introduced my baby to the joys of baking.


Please ignore her wacky PJ combination. It's a long story. Thank you.


And her bed hair. And my hair to for that matter. I got it cut yesterday. Phewf.



She totally got into it. I mean that literally. I've been cleaning flour out of the kitchen crevices ever since. But she was really interested in everything and had fun getting her hands dirty.

Then I introduced her to the best part of making cookies!

I have seen the light, the light of chocolate shining down on me.

Food show!

I can haz moar?

Delish. Looking forward to doing that again!

UPDATE ON THE BOTTLE SITCH: It's done! No more bottles! Go figure, she didn't throw up anymore in the night once we stopped giving them to her... (insert smack to the forehead here) And it just seemed like a natural time to stop.

UPDATE ON THE SLEEP SITCH: The Baby Guru warned me about the hidden dangers of nighttime activities such as rocking and cuddling when our precious bundles wake up because they're teething. I lived with two weeks of spending a couple of hours (usually from 3-5) with my cranky babe, soothing her back to sleep by lying down on the couch with her (our bed never works for her. I think that's a good thing). After the first 5 nights or so, I raised my haggard face to the heavens to beg for this torture to end only to realize that she wasn't really waking up in pain anymore. She was waking up for cuddles! That's the horror of sleep deprivation. Your BRAIN STOPS WORKING. Anyway, we basically made a pact to let her just cry for a bit when we knew she was otherwise OK and it worked. It was painful, but it worked. Actually, it's painful to realize that you THOUGHT you were comforting your child in pain, but in fact, it's all an evil charade. Hey, betrayal is betrayal! Well, it went down to one wake-up per night for a soother replacement and a little whining then next to nothing last night. Seriously, keep the bedroom doors closed. I think it's the key to sleep success.

UPDATE ON THE HOUSE SITCH: All is well with the new place. Our current landlord however... sigh. Two words: CA-RAZY. She has decided to make our lives decidely unpleasant but we're dealing with it, dignity and sanity intact. So far.

And besides that, we're taking a mini-vacation! Stéphane and I will spend over 48 blissful hours together driving down to Boston this weekend (while Liliane gets the royal treatment at her grandparents') where we will catch a Canadiens hockey game and do a bunch of touristy stuff and stay at a hotel and everything! Can't wait.

OK now it's really too late to even think about taxes. See how easy it is to procrastinate? And I didn't even have to go on Facebook!