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?