Go Fly A Kite + BFF

Stéphane has been talking about flying a kite with Liliane since last summer.

She was way more into it this year than she was last year.

He bought one for $2.29 and we went to a park near our house and hoped for the best.

She had a good time.

She ran around.

And ran some more.

Hey, it wasn't raining! Major victory for us Montrealers.

She only slowed down when I tried to take her picture. Natch.

Nope, not old bruised bananas, those are my baby's legs!

On Sunday we went to visit Rosie, freshly returned from a trip abroad.

We were happy to see her parents as well. Here is Julie with her guitar. Sorry Joyce - no guitar, no photo.

Julie did her Maria from the Sound of Music impression...

Ray, a drop of golden sun!

Liliane contributed by strumming a little herself.

Rosie contributed by just generally being adorable.

Stéphane playing our new game: statue! Play music, dance around. When the music stops, you must freeze! And make a silly face!

It's a hit with the toddler set.

Just a quick post before I hit the road for NYC tomorrow morning. Am driving down to meet my new nephew Asher and attend his bris! I'm strangely nervous about the 7-hour drive (example #74967 of how I feel OLD now that I've hit 35. Next I'll be raving about raisin-based desserts. It's a slippery slope.) but I'm trying to think of it as a luxury. 7 hours of listening to whatever music I want, singing loudly, stopping for treats, whatever I want. No compromise, just me and the open road. Alllriiight!

In the morning I'm dropping Liliane off at daycare, doing a quick errand or two, then heading south to hopefully arrive in Brooklyn around dinnertime. Asher is living the rock star schedule that newborns are so fond of so I'm not too worried about my timing or anything. My baby fever and I can't wait to start the snugglefest!

I just need to pack now. This is what I must remember: I'm only going for two days, only two days, only two pairs of shoes are necessary. Two pairs of shoes only. Repeat.

Or three pairs. What if it rains?

Shoes -Starting Early and Baby Asher!

Since I haven't taken any photos of any of our new setup yet (read: because I don't feel like it's all SET UP yet), I will distract you with photos of my now 21-month old.

Blowing kisses is one of her more charming habits these days. As opposed to WHINING for example. A skill she is working on perfecting in her spare time.

Note the footwear. Stéphane bought her this outfit, sandals included. Whenever she spots them, (despite my cunning attempts to keep them out of sight) she MUST wear them.
Although cute (and matchy), they must be completely uncomfortable.

Doesn't matter, she loves them so she endures the pain. Even at her tender age, she is already crazy for shoes. Must be from her father's side of the family...

Better start stocking up on bandaids.

Now, to the really big news! We're celebrating the birth of my new nephew - Asher William Piercy! He came into the world this morning at 8:05, weighing 8 pounds, 9 ounces. My SIL Bari sent out photos this afternoon. Since she went through 32 hours of labour, I'm impressed that she has any hand-eye coordination, not to mention energy to write coherent emails.

Hi baby! I can't wait to see you next week!

I'll be the loud one smelling your head and nom nom nomming on your cheeks.

Newly minted Papa, my brother Matthew.

I'm just so proud of him. Love you, bro!

Can't wait to hear the whole story in person next week. Oh, and take about a jillion photos of your son.

OTHERWISE... Almost all the boxes are gone around here, we have a new BBQ, patio table and chairs, a DVD shelf, living room lamp and container garden! Wouldn't it be good of me to share all these good things by posting photos? Yes, yes it would. I'm working on it.

À bientôt!

We're Baaaccckkkk...

I'll spare you the details, but this is what happened on Monday June 22nd:


Yep, that's ALL OUR STUFF. We filled that baby UP.




The amazing boxspring-from-balcony stunt. So glad we're not living on the third floor anymore.



I. Hate. Everything.


It took just over three hours to get it all out. And down the two sets of twisty stairs. And our guys Sébastien, Andreas and Jorge did it all without breaking anything. Stéphane and I survived it by taking valium. (Just kidding! But look at that picture of my husband - don't you think some kind of medication could have helped?)


It only took another 2 hours to load it all into the new place and once that was over, we celebrated with our new best friends.

Our first official houseguests.

Look how cute they are. They were really sweet actually.

Bye! Hope we don't see you again for a long time!


I don't remember at when I took these, but at some point after Liliane came back from her grandparents to the new place. She LOVES it.





Now I have room to do all my kung-fu moves!



I call this one "Winston Churchill Takes The Baby for a Walk."


This is how we generally look most of the time these days.




Wednesday June 24th was St-Jean Baptiste Day so we took a break from the boxes to get outside. I wrote about the significance of St-Jean last year (click here for refresher) but all you need to know is that a) it's all about Quebec and b) it's all about beer.

We took a stroll in our new neighborhood down to Jarry Park.


Jarry Park is where the Expos first played, it's where the the Rogers Cup (tennis) is played, plus it has an AMAZING new playground and water park/wading pool. We're pretty excited to live a short 15 minute-walk away.

Liliane was ready to follow those ducklings into the water. It was pretty hot so I couldn't blame her.


For my B.C. readers: This fountain totally reminds me of Stanley Park!

We ended the day with a BBQ at Pierre and Ariel's - our new neighbours! They live about two blocks down from our new place.

At the end of that big week we had a little tidying up to do at the old place before we turned in our keys. Given our troubles with the crazy owner, we took the time to document exactly how we left it. I did one last scrub of the bathtub and those wacko, mold-friendly, teeny tiny tiles:

We dropped our keys in her mailbox and it was over. Done! She left us a message later that night to remind us that we are supposed to make an appointment with her so that she can inspect the apartment together and make sure that everything is in order. Needless to say we didn't call her back. We are completely happy with the clean and tidy empty apartment that we left behind. We're so outta there!!

It's been a bit of a whirlwind since then. We went back to work, we're figuring out the new routines, trying to get the new place all set up. Liliane had a few nights of random waking up at 2AM but then she got over that (thanks to Papa and his firm yet gentle GO TO SLEEP LILIANE technique) and has been sleeping like a champ ever since.

We're heading to Ikea this weekend to finally get the big DVD shelf! We figured out what we want the last time we were there so all we have to do now is go and buy it. Oh, and put it together. I'll definitely get pictures of that once it's done.

I also have some flowers planted now on our cute back patio stairs which I will also take photos of this weekend while Stéphane puts our new BBQ together! Oh, projects, projects.

Somewhere in there I turned 35. Had an excellent date night with my husband, saw Transformers, completely enjoyed ourselves. We had dinner out the next night with Jean-Michel and Laurence also who gave us all kinds of great decorating advice. It was really fun to have people over and get a different perspective on things. Where we just see box-filled space punctuated by our old crap, they see potential. Fun.

The other thing is that I'm so excited for my nephew to come into this world! My brother and SIL have already passed the official due date (yesterday) so it could happen any minute. Everytime my cell phone rings I have a heart attack, but so far, nothing to report. I'll be going down for the bris which will take place 8 days after his grand arrival so I'm standing by to make travel plans.

That's it for now. Gotta go, bag of baked Cheetos calling from my new kitchen.

Packing is for Wienies

Taking pictures of your 20 month old is waaaayyyy more fun.

As you can see, I'm getting a LOT done.

In my defense, it's been ages since I took pictures of her just for fun (since my Rebel has been in the shop AGAIN recently plus this whole home-buying thing has really taken up a lot of time, man) so I say less boxes, more blogging!

We got her a little step stool so that she would stop standing on the heaters to look outside.

This is one of her top five all-time favourite activities.

The other four, in no particular order, would be: shouting "ballon!" ball or balloon or "fleur!" flower or leaf or "chee!" cheese or dog, depending or "shee!" shoe; standing at the sink "brushing" her teeth; swinging on the swings, preferably while holding her ballon; and drinking juice. Which doesn't happen very often around here because juice = sticky. No can do. I have issues.

This was probably her spotting a Chee! (chien/dog).


What is this "chee" of which you speak so knowingly?

Me: Okay baby, it's bathtime! (duh duh da dum duh duh da dum dum de dum de dum! There is music that goes with bathtime in our house and it happens to be the music from Batman because Stéphane is the Bath-man. Get it?! We like puns. And movie theme songs. OK, anyway....)

Liliane:

Whachoo talkin' about Willis?

I can't help it! The corny captions just COME to me! Dear Liliane, sorry for embarrassing you in front of the entire internet, but your expressions are too delicious not to share. Plus it makes me laugh which you should think of as a wise long-term investment. Love, Crazy Maman xo

I took these so Stéphane could see that yes indeed I got some work done. Or that I at least documented our child getting some work done. She was all over my idea of putting the tupperware in a box.

So where do you want it?

Oh man, somebody stop me. I am killing myself over here.

OK, back to it. Now this time I MEAN it when I say that I won't be back until sometime next week. We move on Monday so wish us luck! (No, seriously, please leave me an encouraging comment otherwise I might just sneak off to Mexico, Swine Flu be darned, until this whole thing is done...)

Muchos gracias!

Movin' On Up

Oh internet, what a crazy crazy last few weeks! Here is quick list of some the highlights:

• no less than 4 (minor) medical mishaps to to my clumsiness
• went to the notary, signed all the papers, we are homeowners!
• made our first mortgage payment
• did our wills
• bought more insurance than I even knew existed
• no less than 4 freakouts about money (we take turns, will it ever end?)
• met our new neighbours and LOVE them
• bought a new toaster
• bought a new microwave
• got rid of my credit card and now am paying back the bank - debt free in 5 years!
• had a nice visit from my Dad. He approves of the new place AND its handy proximity to DQ
• confirmed an excellent new daycare starting in August
• Liliane's molars may be starting to come in. Great.
• On standby for my brother and SIL's cupcake to come into the world so I can dash down for the bris. I even have a job to do!
• endless crunching of numbers
• boxes, boxes, boxes and more boxes...

Of course our list of upcoming TO DO is about eight times longer (and a little dull, frankly) so I will spare you all that. Stéphane and I are on vacation as of Thursday next week when operation "get the heck outta here" hits the ground running. I'll post when we're set up... with pictures!

Speaking of pictures, I found these on the camera from a while back - Stéphane spotted a deal on this Eddie Bauer stroller (I think it was $30 down from $80) so we grabbed it.

While he was there he also picked out the outfit she's wearing. My husband is a wicked shopper and secure enough in his manliness to be OK with my sharing that information. I think.

I KNOW she doesn't look like me, OK?

Not to belabour the point, but he also bought her the outfit she is wearing in these photos:

In THIS photo I find she looks like me. Perhaps it's the double chin??

And this sweet little hat from Mexx:

My child officially has a better summer wardrobe than I. But that's OK.

Back to errands and high finances. Back soon!