Officially Done With Winter, Awards Night and Haircut

What a snowy nightmare! We got another foot or so of snow on Saturday and was it ever fun trying to get around yesterday! There is so much of the white stuff around here that the sidewalks are piled up with packed snow and ice and getting to the street entails some serious Indiana Jones type moves over the snow banks. I didn't even take a picture of it because it's just too depressing... It's sunny and almost nice out today, but I can't get out with the stroller and it's crazy slippery under all that snow so I don't want to bring Liliane out in the carrier either. We're enjoying the day from inside! I actually tried to shovel off the back balcony (to at least get SOME exercise today) but a lot of it is frozen solid. Oh well, it will all melt eventually. In theory.

Back to the weekend... Our friends Laurence and Jean-Michel made it to our house on Saturday via taxi although they got stuck trying to turn on to our street so they ended up walking down the block. We had a great evening with them hearing stories about home-owning and sharing stories about baby-owning. I mean, parenting :) Here is Laurence with Miss Lili:

The roast chickens turned out really well! The gravy was really tasty, too, thanks to my fabulous roasting pan (thanks Mom!) No, Jen, I didn't end up browning them first (I tell you, I saw that somewhere...) but they got all yummy and crispy on their own. Another Martha success story!

I got my hair cut on Saturday morning and forgot to take a picture of it when it looked really nice, so here are Liliane and I in front of the mirror this morning...

First attempt:

This one's a little better (plus my new double chin is disguised!):

Okay, now you can kind of see:

This is Lilane being so over this photo exercise:

It's a lot shorter lighter around my long face so I don't look so droopy and draggy. I'm really happy with it, although we'll see what happens when I wash it!

I took these of Liliane this morning. Note the scratch on her face under her eye - I did that on Saturday when I was pointing to something on her face and she moved and ouch, there it was. She looked at me for a second and saw the horror on my face and let loose with a huge wail. Horrible, horrible, horrible!! Oh well, there goes my mother of the year award:

On Sunday we went to the Jutra Awards which is the Quebec equivalent of the Oscars. With all the snow everywhere it was a pretty big adventure to go get our Communauto, almost get stuck in the snow loading baby and all her paraphenalia into the car, driving out to Stéphane's parents' place in Laval, coming back and leaving the Communauto at the parking lot ten minutes away because there is absolutely no parking on our street, taking a taxi to and from the event, picking up the car and driving out to Laval at 12:30 to pick up the baby, get stuck at the top of our street, drive around and park a block away and schlep baby and all her crap through piles of snow, then Stéphane had to drive the car back to the parking lot and scurry home in the minus 14 degree wind. Ah, city living!

It was nice to get all cleaned up again (that's TWICE this week!) and hang out with people from work, do some networking and generally enjoy the after-party because it's one of the best there is. Last year I was about 6 weeks pregnant for this event and nobody knew about it yet, and I was so nauseous! Such happy memories :) This year we skipped the buffet but enjoyed the movie snack theme - popcorn, nachos, chocolate bars, Twizzlers and even Haagen-Daaz ice cream bars were all available for noshing. I avoided the chocolate fountain because that's just a disaster waiting to happen as far as my clumsiness and I are concerned and stuck to the Twizzlers.

Thanks to Stéphane's parents, we had a worry-free evening out and we so appreciate their willingness to take care of our little lovebug. She was still awake when we went to pick her up, but in all fairness, since all the clocks were ahead, she was pretty much on schedule for her usual sleepy time. She fell asleep in the car on the way home and neither of us woke up this morning until 10:30. Sleep is good. Now I've got chicken curry simmering in the crock pot for tonight and if I could just squeeze a shower in somewhere, this day would be just about perfect!

Let It Snow...

Well, tonight Stéphane and I were going to have our first night out together (Liliane was going to stay with my friend Colleen and her two girls) but we chickened out. Yes, yes we did. It's too snowy and she just seems too little. What if we get stuck somewhere and she drank up all the milk I pumped and Colleen got stuck for hours with the frantic, screaming version of our baby daughter? All you parents out there (especially Colleen!) are laughing at me, the rookie, but come on, it's the first time!

This is the view from the apartment this morning...

We're expecting about a foot and it's still falling. And windy. Oh well, we'll have our night out soon. She is only going to be 7 weeks old tomorrow after all! This is how cute she looked snoozing this morning. I'm feeling particularly in love with her today because she slept from about 1AM to 7 this morning. 6 hours in a row! Wahoo!



On Saturday our friends Jean-Michel and Laurence came to meet Liliane! Here are two of the about 5000 pictures we took:



They brought her two pairs of adorable Christmas PJs (photos to come) and we had a lovely evening catching up. On Sunday we put some of our Christmas decorations up, although I decided that we wouldn't put up our tree this year since we'll be leaving for Vancouver in a few weeks. (That cheering you hear is Stéphane being grateful to not have to deal with the tree this year.) This is the teeny tiny tree that we put up on the end table instead:


I also had some fun this weekend treating thrush! Just in case you were wondering, thrush is a yeast infection in your breasts that is fairly painful although thanks to the Dr. Sears website, I figured out what it was before it got too bad. Luckily my sister (the baby guru - I call her AT LEAST once a day) had already had one so she told me what to do. Turns out that the cure for thrush is Gentian Violet - a super purple liquid (extrait of said violet) that goes on the nipple and in baby's mouth. It gets everywhere and looks pretty hilarious. Here is Liliane looking like I suddenly started dispensing grape juice:

I'm already feeling better and Lilane isn't any worse for wear - it does come off the skin eventually.

So today has been an inside day (heck, it's 4 and I'm still in my PJs) but when Stéphane gets home, we will all venture out for groceries. Stay warm everyone!