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!

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!