Attack of the Tickle Spiders

I made this Rachael Ray Spring to Summer Ziti recipe for the first time a week or two ago. In all the excitement, I forgot to take a picture of all it's cheesy, tomatoey, vegetably deliciousness, so when I made it last week, I grabbed the camera:




So yummy. Or yummo as RR would say. Who knew ricotta was so delicious? (Besides millions of Italians I mean).

While we were having that for dinner, this is what Liliane was having:


Not so yummo, but she likes it!


Yo, where's my ziti?


I didn't take ONE SINGLE PHOTO all weekend long so I tried to make up for it today.

I like to call this one: Sittin' up straight, ur doin' it wrong.


Liliane's new favourite gadget is this cool musical table thingy from Grandma.


Sometimes she likes to sing along:


Or just hang out looking cute.


Uncle Matthew started the tickle spider game when we were visiting last month. It's a favourite around here. This is how it works:

Here is Liliane, minding her own business, checking out the blanket tassles:


Do you hear something?


Oh no, it's the tickle spider!








Hours and hours of fun!


In other news... We signed our contract with the daycare yesterday! Hooray!

That's it for now. Gotta get out and do a few errands. Hope y'all got your taxes done. :)

Gifties and Girlfriends

I truly had every intention of leaving my blog be for today, but then darn it all, my longtime best friend Julie, (this is my best friend Julie on the EAST coast, not my best friend Julie on the WEST coast that shared rhubarb with me at 3 years old), sent Liliane a care package yesterday and so I took a few photos of her first experience with wrapping paper!

Julie on the EAST coast loves telling the story of how I came up to her in grade three to inform her (in my own modest way) that I was the smartest girl in MY class and asked her where she ranked in HER class. Something like that.

For the record, East coast Julie far outranks me in pretty much every way: she has an undergrad degree in physics from McGill for crying out loud, she is also a brilliant writer and poet, she is athletic, spritual, she is a mother of not one but two kids under 5 (one of whom is adopted on top of it all), she has travelled all over the world doing missions work, actually HELPING and TEACHING people alongside her equally adorable husband, Kevin. Don't even get me started on how cool that family is (not to mention good looking).

We are taking our family vacation out to Nova Scotia this summer and I can't wait to meet Miss Kecia and introduce Liliane to this lovely family:

Love you Joob!

Anyway, enough gushing about girlfriends, back to photos. Stéphane did the ultimate Dad move yesterday and put Liliane on his shoulders! Good thing the camera wasn't far...

Hockey comes back tonight - we're taking on the Philadelphia Flyers. Just to show you how crazy this city is about our national sport, check out this sculpture downtown:

Stéphane's office is not far from here and one of his colleagues took these photos. Merci Annabelle!

I just want to point out that all that nasty hooliganism that went down after the the last game has nothing to do with hockey. Those bozos are not actual Canadiens fans, just jerks looking to cash in on the mob mentality. Everyone is pretty revved up for tonight's game and the police are already geared up and standing by to avoid a repeat of the other night.

It's another glorious day around here and I am even starting to see green buds appearing on the trees. Enfin!

Liliane and I are off to visit a local Baby Guru - my friend Kirsten who had her #3 baby in February. She and her husband Mark already have two cutie boys (aged 5 I think and around 18 months) so she's got her hands full. I haven't met the new kid (born after about two hours of labour - you go, girl!) and Kirsten hasn't seen Liliane for a few months so this should be fun.

Go Habs Go!

The Eyes Have It + In Praise of the Sushi Bib + Turnover!

WARNING: repetitive close-ups of my "so-cute-I-can-hardly-stand-it" daughter with dorky captions ahead!

Liliane was looking at me just like this as I was feeding her chicken and carrots for lunch today so by the time we got to the pears for dessert, I had the camera out... Her peepers were popping against the blue fabric, I just couldn't help myself. You know how it is.

I took the photos below to show you my most favourite bib of all - the sushi bib. A gift from my Auntie Jean this Christmas, the sushi bib is a wonder. It's made of leather, it's reversable, it's stylin', it's CANADIAN and it attaches and detaches so easily thanks to handy magnets in the back. I LOVE it.

Here we have Liliane playing imaginary rock band with her rock star bib:

Power to the babies!

Welcome to Hotel California...

Imaginary duet

In the development milestone department, I am proud to report that Liliane actually turned over all on her own this morning! I put her down on her mat and not ten seconds later, this it what happened:

Can I help you with something?

It's finally warm and sunny around here so yesterday I got Liliane a hat. Here we are packed up to go do a couple of errands this afternoon. I know, crazy cute, right?

Gotta go, kiddo is waking up and cranky. She now has a habit of rolling on to her tummy and getting completely irritated when she can't do much besides kick her feet and lift her head when she gets there. Better go rescue her.

PHEWF!

We're still in the game! My two hockey fans and I cheered long and loud for the Habs during a fierce match last night that ended 5-0 for us. Buh bye Boston! See Stéphane's blog for a brand new micro-film on this subject :)

The other reason to Phewf! is that I got a confirmation this morning that Liliane has a spot in the daycare I posted about. The one with the educator that is so sweet who has a dog and three cats and completely fell in love with our chubby little bundle. What a relief! We're going back on Friday to sign the papers and Stéphane is coming along to check it out, too. She won't be starting until the end of August, but at least now we can spend the whole summer having fun without worrying about what's going to happen when I go back to work.

What I should say is, now I only have to worry about how sad I will be to not be spending all day with her when I go back to work. But (à la Scarlett O'Hara) let's not think about that right now! We have a while before I have to deal with all that. Gulp.

Lots o' Photos

I got a little trigger happy with the camera yesterday, so I figured I'd share the results ASAP before this post gets any bigger... Liliane used her high chair for the first time! As with most all new things, she wasn't thrilled (see above), but I'm sure she'll get used to it. Here is approximately 345 photos of her and her new eating situation (with a few captions, I couldn't resist!)

Can I get some service over here?


What light through yonder window breaks?


How to eat a rice cracker. Pay attention all you newborns.

Step one - Take it carefully from your mother.


Step 2 - Move it towards your face, keeping your eyes on it at all times.


Step 3 - Stick it in that thing where all the drool comes out.


Step 4 - Take it out and contemplate.

Keep contemplating.


Step 5 - Squish it in your fist. And you're done.


Next we moved on to sweet potatoes:

How about we just bypass the whole spoon thing...

NOW can I have a cupcake?

The fun really never ends around here.

Speaking of which, after yesterday's post, I did go to the hairdresser and got another good cut and... streaks! It was time for a change. I'm not 100% sure that I don't look like a soccer Mom escaped from suburbia, but I think it's good.

Last night we celebrated my Mother-in-law's birthday. I took these on the sly... Bonne fête Denise! T'es belle avec ta petite fille qui t'adore :)

There was lots of love to go around...

A lovely evening en famille, thanks everyone!

As some of you might know, it's hockey playoffs time and we, the 1st place Canadiens were supposed to finish off the 8th place Bruins in four games. A piece of cake en principe since Boston did not win ONE SINGLE GAME against Montréal all year. Well, surprise, surprise, we're going into game 7 tomorrow night and anything could happen. Last night we started watching the game before heading to the restaurant for dinner, then our waiter kept us updated on the score throughout the meal. As we headed out to go back to my in-law's for cake, we could hear people cheering (literally no one outside, everyone at home in front of their TV or in a bar or restaurant with the game on) so we knew that the score was up again. We turned the radio on in the car and within five minutes Boston scored again and by the time we were inside, it was all over.

Anyway, all this to say that we have our fingers crossed for tomorrow night. Stéphane bought this flag last week that we put on whatever Communauto we are using:

I forgot to post these yesterday... Bath time on Friday night. Her new favourite thing is to suck on a wet washcloth. A teething thing maybe?

These are from this morning, random glamour shots:

More bisou fun with Papa:

This might be my choice for her 6-month portrait.

On the schedule today is more work on the wedding video and Stéphane promises to post a new micro-film. I promise to not take any more pictures today. Ha ha, good one.