Housewarming and Pregnancy Bonding!

Yesterday we did some running around during the day (I picked up the new Harry Potter book!) and we headed out to a housewarming party in the evening. Our friends Jean-Michel and Laurence bought a duplex with Jean-Michel's brother and they moved in last month. They did an enormous amount of work - cleaning, painting and laying their own floating hardwood floor! We were impressed to no end. We had a good time catching up with them and hanging out on their lovely backyard patio. The weather yesterday was PERFECT - clear, breezy, maybe 25 degrees. Today is the same so we are thinking that we might have to stop working on the baby room project and do something nice outside! We'll see...

Here are some photos from last night:


The sun was setting through the windows of this nearby Orthodox church so Stéphane took this photo from the patio.

Us with the proud homeowners!


This is Isabel - she and her husband Sylvain are expecting a baby girl on October 6th! We haven't seen them since we found out that they are also pregnant, so I was super excited to chat with Isabel and compare notes. They haven't finished their baby room either (phew!) but since they got married only two weeks ago (congratulations!) they've had a few other things to think about... Note that Isabel has a gorgeous round belly that I envy. I know no two bellies are alike, but I wish mine would get with the program and start to look like that... If that's all I have to complain about, that's pretty good!

Off to pack now for a my NYC-Vancouver pre-baby tour getting underway tomorrow... Can't wait to see everybody!

Hanging out with Friends - Part 2

Last week we had our friends Sue and Dave staying with us for a couple of days along with their adorable son Louis. They were in town visiting Dave's family but we were lucky enough to get to spend some time with them as well. They're ahead of us with the whole baby thing so it was great to ask lots of questions! It was great to see them.





1,2,3 wee!

Louis making friends with the taxi drivers.



Sushi feast!

We're already planning our road trip out to Nova Scotia next summer - all three of us!

Hanging out wtih friends

I've been meaning to post these photos all week! Here are some from André's 60th birthday party on July 7th:

Surprise!

The DVD/photo montage we did (and everybody watching it)

Blowing out the candles!

Salsa demo




Party animal!

Happy Birthday serenade

An altogether swanky soirée! And the first time in ages I stayed up past 11PM...

We Saw Baby! (And it's definitely a girl!)

We got a 3-D ultrasound today and we really saw our baby girl! Here are a few of the best pictures:


Baby bum! (And confirmation that we can stop arguing about boy names...)

One eye open... (a little scary looking but cool at the same time, yes? I'm already checking for possible cataract issues).





Her thinking pose...


She was pretty sleepy and yawny and her face was kind of squished up against the placenta most of the time. I even got up and wiggled around to wake her up but she was pretty determined to get her nap. It doesn't matter, we completely enjoyed ourselves. We also have a DVD of the whole session that we'll be watching later.

Continuing on the baby theme, we checked out a store that's not far from where we live called Bébé Dépôt. They have all kinds of furniture and accessories, everything you need pretty much. We just wanted to get an idea of what was out there and how much things could cost. We were pleasantly surprised actually. Then I dragged Stéphane to Home Depot for a couple of things but he had the good idea to start looking at paint colors for the baby room. We're looking at pink (surprise, surprise!) but not TOO pink.

That's all the excitement around here for today! I still have photos of André's birthday party from last week to put up as well as some photos of our friends Sue and Dave and their adorable 14-month old Louis who were staying with us for a couple of days this week. Maybe after naptime...

Yesterday I finally made strawberry jam! I haven't tried it yet but as soon as I can convince my husband to go get us some fresh croissants around the corner, I will crack the first jar...

We both had busy weeks at work so we're already a little sleepy this weekend. Yesterday we finished off the video/photo montage that we did for our friend André's 60th birthday party last night. I will post some of those photos later today. What a swanky soirée! My feet however are very sore and swollen this morning which is why I am updating my blog right now instead of going to church :)

Otherwise today we'll be continuing the baby room clean-up/clean-out project and hopefully getting some groceries otherwise we may be having strawberry jam for dinner. It's cool and rainy here today so it's perfect weather for getting things done. Or lying on the couch all day.

If anyone has tips on how to soothe sore feet, please pass them along!

I got a present from my boss actually on Friday of Clarins Energizing Emulson for Tired Legs and wow, it's amazing. She noticed that my feet and legs were starting to puff up and she really enjoyed this cream when she was pregnant so she picked some up for me. Isn't that so sweet? My problem today is really my tired tootsies so I'm looking for something along the lines of "oh, just mix some baking soda with hot water and soak your feet for fifteen minutes and you'll be good as new." Something like that.

Happy Birthday to me!

So I turned 33 yesterday and really enjoyed my day! I got a bagels and OJ celebration at work in the morning, (instead of an afternoon cocktail - quite appropriate given my mommy-to-be state) went out for delicious Indian food lunch with my colleagues at work then dinner with friends in the evening. Stéphane also sent me these gorgeous flowers:

Here I am with my pals Paola, Joyce and Julie. Julie is also my massage therapist - I've mentioned her and her talent on this blog before. I was spoiled with lots of great gifts from these girls. My husband would like me to also say that this photo is out of focus because it was taken without a flash and it's not his fault that it's blurry.

Here we are with our friends Pierre and Ariel who brought me a gift certificate for Indigo. More baby books?

Yet another tummy picture:

I also got lots of lovely phonecalls and emails including ones from my best pals Julie and Julie (one on each coast) and was sung to no less than four times! My Dad's "French" version of Happy Birthday is pretty priceless.

Just got back from seeing "Transformers" and I have to say that it's a really great movie! We both highly recommend it - something that happens rarely... Good for kids and big kids that remember playing with Transformers!

One other thing I did today was to speak to the Rental Board and go through some of the things our crazy landlords said to us on Friday. Basically, we are right, they are wrong, they can't force us to do much of anything so we will be composing a very polite letter this weekend to inform them that we have reinstalled the air conditioner as per their request and won't be repainting the ceilings anytime soon. Among other things. Feels good to know that the law is on our side.

Got to get to bed! Tomorrow night I really have to make strawberry jam...

How I Spent My Holiday Weekend

And that's only part of it! Why are we scrubbing the brick wall outside of our window and taking pictures of our airconditioner and it's oh-so-sightly water-draining contraption? The short answer is: we have CRAZY landlords. CRAZY. They stopped in on Friday and we had a big fight with them because they don't like how we installed our air conditioner. The special funnel/plastic hose combo was a result of last year's spat when they claimed that water was streaming out of our air conditioner and ruining the brick wall and practically drowning their daughter who lives on the main floor. This year, we didn't install the plexiglass in the right spot because rain might seep into the brick via the METAL windowframe if we don't move it. Can you say paranoid delusion? Stéphane and I were both overtired from tough weeks at work and I admit, my hormones were a little out of control, so it turned into a big fight. We have been living at our place for 9 years and have been exceptional tenants so it's discouraging to be continually treated like our main goal in life to destroy their property. Their general attitude is that we should just be happy that we get to live here and therefore comply with whatever random, crackpot notion they get into their fuzzy grey heads. Like that we should not leave the hallway light on all day in case the lighting fixture gets too hot. That's my personal favorite. Especially since WE pay the electric bill! I put an end to that idea pretty quick let me tell you.

Anyway, we know that it's just not worth it to fight them on this so we took apart the whole thing, cleaned off all the tape residue, bought some TSP and Stéphane scrubbed the brick to hopefully improve that situation. Then we reattached last year's funnel/hose contraption and Stéphane had to go buy more Plexiglass plus the special Plexiglass cutting knife because no one will actually cut Plexi for you. Now we know why! It's a totally maddening, frustrating, inexact procedure! I enjoyed the part where I got to squeeze clear caulking over everything to make sure none of that evil rain would get in and after spending at least 10 hours on the whole thing, we finally finished at around 5 today. What a way to spend a weekend! Not just doing the work but feeling resentful towards our landlords for being such jerks in general.

ANYWAY, besides all that we had a lovely BBQ dinner last night at Julie and Joyce's. I brought my camera and completely forgot to take pictures. My contribution was to bring rhubarb crisp and I have to say it was delish! I also found time to get a much-needed massage (thanks Julie!) and Stéphane helped our friend Eric move to his new condo. I have everything I need to make delicious Quebec strawberry freezer jam but I chose to update my blog instead :)

BABY NEWS: Last Wednesday night while lounging around watching TV I was really feeling the little kiddo moving around so I put Stéphane's hand on my tummy and he felt her! Then we saw my tummy move - twice! Very trippy. I took this picture:`

I'm 25 weeks along - only 15 more to go!

Well, time to get to bed. I'm turning 33 tomorrow and after this weekend, I really need to get a lot of sleep!