Tiny Bubbles

This week has been RAIN RAIN RAIN, COLD RAIN and WIND and then... THIS!

Our friends Manon and Luana came over yesterday and we hung out in our urban backyard a.k.a., the back alley.

I know, it sounds ghetto. But look! It's really nice back here!

And it comes complete with polite, funloving neighbour kids!

L, foufling the bubbles. (To blow in French is "souffler" but L says "fouffler" which cracks me up every time. I don't even correct her. She may be the only high schooler with a speech impediment but man will she kill at parties!)

Time for corde à danser. Yeah, in English it's jump rope or skipping. In French it's dancing. They must have been starved for good moves when they came up with that one.

Mohammed's turn. He did pretty well. That's Miriam on the left, she came to join us.

It must be said that Luana is a dancing QUEEN. She was leaping and spinning in the air and generally amazing the heck out of us.

Liliane not so much. No photos because I was busy turning the rope for her but she could usually get the first jump.

Looks like we're back to rain and general gloom today but on the up side it's been good for my plants!

Off to see Kung Fu Panda. Not sure but Stéphane may be more excited about this than Liliane. I'll let you know how it goes.

All good on the bébé II front. Lots of movement. Lots of ice cream and a renewed need for raspberries.

Air conditioner coming next Friday! I may have sold Liliane off to the highest bidder in order to pay for it but I figure that will be one less person to have to keep cool.

Kidding!

Happy Sunday!

If This Was Jeopardy, This Post Would Be Potpourri

First things first. I am happy to announce that I am officially famous. Oh yes, it's my time to shine, I finally MADE IT, I am ready for my close-up Mr. deMille, I- huh?

Sorry, I may have gotten a little carried away by the size of my EGO. It's famous now after all so it needs more space.

If you missed my soul-baring interview on the ISpy website, you can read it here. Now please go peel me a grape.

OK, back to reality. Which at this moment, thanks to our new iMac, looks a lot like this:

Not shown: my pajamas, empty cup of coffee and crazy long list of things I should be doing. Although I think the caffeine crazy in my face kind of speaks for itself, no? And the soundtrack? Season ender of Glee songs. Even that overused version of Somewhere Over the Rainbow gets me every time. Finn+Rachel 4 evah.

Continuing along the theme of stream of consciousness.... My friend Paola (who is a brilliant Twitter-er-er-er, follow her and her squirrel/TV show producer issues here) sent me this:

Ha ha ha ha ha! Spelling issues aside, I love it.

Oh, and these are photos I meant to post in my home improvement segment last week. Liliane got some fancy blinds thanks to our dear friend André. A big time improvement over the blanket that used to hang here:

Fab. Love it. So happy.

Remember I said waaaay back in my last post that we went to the Eco-Musée? Here are those photos. They look a lot like the first time we went in 2008 except Liliane has quadrupled in size.

Remember this?

Yeah, a little different now:

(Thank you for ignoring the ROLLS on my NECK. Cardio class here I come!)

The animals were kinda the same, although Stéphane had a good time shooting with our fancy long lens:

We did not get a picture of our picnic lunch afterwards which was actually the nicest part of the day! It was hot and ONE of us was cranky:

But she was getting over being sick AND she peed in the public bathroom with relatively little fuss so we forgive her.

Moving on to yet another subject... Our friends Julie and Joyce, parents to Liliane's best friend Rose had another baby! They were actually going to come with us to the Éco-Musée but ended up staying home at the last minute because, well, Joyce was IN LABOUR.

Turns out it was worth missing the zoo because this little boy came into the world:

Samuel Joe arrived on May 25th and has been feeding ever since!

Officially the only thing cuter in that household, Sam's big sister:

We're so happy that our girls play together so well...

Which means good times for us Mamas! (Which we spent mainly taking photos...)

Holy cow, could I have run out of random photos to post and subjects to address?

This blog post has been brought to you by my longtime friend PROCRASTINATION. My brother and SIL and yummy nephew are arriving sometime tonight for the weekend and I have the whole day off to get stuff organized and to clean. It is now noon and as you may have noticed from the photo up, up, waaaaay up (name that Canadian kids' TV show!) at the top of this epic entry, I'm not actually dressed. But hey! I blogged! And answered emails! And drank coffee!

To close, I will share with you that my beloved Grandmother is currently in the hospital after having a fall earlier this week. Thankfully she doesn't have any broken bones, but there is bleeding on her brain and although she's as sweet and cute as ever, she's not herself. And at 90 years old, chances are she won't ever be quite the same. My sister Jennifer has been at her side for the last few days and keeps me updated on her progress. She makes me smile when she asks Grandma to tell her about her favourite granddaughter who is also named Jennifer!

I don't know if God's plan to bring her home anytime soon but I know I'm (selfishly) not ready for that.

My Uncle Darrel brings Grandpa down to sit with her which always makes her a little more cheerful. He and my aunt Jeannette are pretty much running a shuttle service back and forth.

Someone has to pretty much sit with her all the time as she cheerfully insists on pulling her IV out and would dearly love to remove her catheter if she could.

Please pray for me and for our whole family as we come to terms with what seems like a bleak situation. I can see why God would want her in Heaven, but we need to keep her for a little longer, okay?

Now I officially have to get going. Hope to be back, dressed and in my right mind sometime before the end of summer ;)

Wait! One last thing: am currently hunting down running shoes for my Cardio Class starting at the end of the month. They should also be good for my daily walk to and from work and not cost a mint. Any suggestions? Please let me know in the comments!

BFF!

This is Rose. She just turned one this month. Yay! She's been featured here before.


She and Liliane have had semi-regular playdates for all of their short lives.

Her Mum, my dear friend Julie, and I have decided that they will be the best of friends.

Another example of baby Viking face! (Sorry, inside Thomassen family joke).

Earnest baby conversation.

Rose very sweetly shared all of her playthings.

Liliane shared her Papa and his mad reading skilz.

Liliane, sporting her daring, midriff-baring spring look. Julie seems OK with that.

This is Rose's Gran (Victoria) who was visiting from England last week.

Such lovely girlies, all three.

Not pictured, Rose's other Mummy Joyce who was away in California last week. Hi Joyce! Sorry you missed out on a good visit!

I promised an update like a week ago and never did do it. Liliane has had a wacky few weeks of random waking up at all hours of the wee morning, with the recent addition of barfing just to make it interesting. Did I say interesting? What I meant was COMPLETELY INCONVENIENT. Anyway, I just didn't have it in me last weekend to do much but loll around and try to get some sleep. Oh, and get Liliane some new shoes. Check out these babies:

Her aunt Danielle gave us a gift certificate for Panda at Christmas and we were so happy to use it on these little beauties. Merci beaucoup!

As an interesting side note, the blanket in this photo is currently in the washer due to its close proximity to the spray of aforementioned nocturnal emissions. Too much information? Sorry.

So, back to the new house. Long story short, we're signing on June 5th and taking possession June 18th. The owner of our new place and I had a lovely conversation (no evil agent M lurking in the background) so it was easy to figure out a compromise. They will take care of expenses incurred until the 18th (ie - mortgage payments! gulp!) and we get the satisfaction of knowing that we helped get them out of a tough spot. Done.

Back to the barf for a minute (sorry folks but I have learned that a disproportionately large part of this job revolves around vomit. They don't tell you that in What to freaking Expect, do they?): we decided not to give her a bottle before bed last night thinking that a big ol' belly full of milk can't be good if you're already feeling vomity. Surprise! A puke-free night. She didn't really even mind that the routine had changed, just a little whining for about a half an hour until she conked out. Geniuses that we are, we didn't give her a bottle tonight either! I swear, if she hurls tonight anyway I'll turn in my Mama license but I think we may be on to something here...

So.... that picture I posted of her with Stéphane and her bottle? One of her very last ones. Ever. I think we'll take advantage of this to end the bottles before I wake up one day driving over to her dorm with to replenish her stock of Playtex liners and nipples.

And on that inspiring visual, I will end this post and go celebrate the Earth by turning off the computer. Bonne nuit!