it's not a phone call

ben and avery at 4 months

2012-01-24T23:13:00.001-08:00

ben at four months :

every picture of him at this stage makes me laugh out loud. he's so round! and this little face doesn't look anything like him now which makes me wonder what our little avery is going to look like!

avery at four months :

maybe round but her hair balances it out!

sleep nazi

2012-01-24T22:49:00.001-08:00

you already know i'm a sleep nazi. i was crazy about it with ben but i thought i'd be more relaxed with the second kid. why did i think that? i don't think sleep is less important for my second kid. anyways, this weekend, i was rocking avery for 100th nap of the day (okay, that's an exaggeration) and she laid in my arms, very still and calm but with her eyes open. everytime, i tried to lay her down, she thrashed about. i thought to myself, "this is crazy - we've got to get you going down for naps on your own." because when i'm doing this 4 -5 times a day, where is ben? usually in front of the tv. NOT ideal.

monday morning, first nap: i wrapped avery up tight in her blanket, laid her in her bed, stuck her soother in, patted her head and walked away. instantly asleep. next nap: repeat. asleep. next nap: repeat. a little crying then fell asleep. WHAAT? HAS MY ROCKING BEEN KEEPING YOU AWAKE? crazy. crazy awesome. but if i check the time when she wakes up then put her to bed 90 min - 2 hrs later even though she might not look tired, she falls asleep. of course, she had perfect 1.5 - 2hr naps each time yesterday so it was the perfect day but will this method work on a non-perfect day?

today was day two of putting her to bed with no rocking. definitely not as beautiful as yesterday - not even close. she had a complete meltdown, crying her eyes out right during ben's nap time (i'm freaking out because i don't want HIM to wake up!), but after some swinging and half a bottle, and some more crying while wrapped up in her little cocoon in her bed, she DID fall asleep after just being laid down in her crib. even when i put her down at 5:30pm after longer than 2 hours of awake time (aka. not ideal because she's probably a little overtired which makes it harder to go to sleep), she cried/talked a little but i just kept going in every couple minutes, putting in her soother again, and rubbing her forehead. 3 times of that and she was asleep. LOVE it. oooooh, how i hope this continues.

avery at 4 months

2012-01-24T13:25:00.000-08:00

(love that permanent little rooster tail in the back)

roar!

all smiles! love this little baby girl.

back on the wagon...?

2012-01-19T16:42:00.000-08:00

is that what you'd say after you've fallen off the wagon? anyways...i'm talking weight watcher points wagon and i'm on it. one whole week of point counting and i survived! not just survived - i didn't go over on points this week which is stellar. once i get on a roll, i can stick with something but it's that initial kickstart that is the killer. i think after having ben, i probably started counting points about 10 different times only to go over on points before the week was out. i'm sticking with the "old points" system because that's what i know how to do and i'm not actually signing up with WW - just going about it the free way. the first time i did ww the free way, i had a friend who was paying - she got me all my goods (aka point scale) and she was my "weigh - in" buddy with whom i could points talk with. it's important to have that buddy. so anyone out there also on old points and want to swap thoughts/recipes/etc.? let me know. i could use a buddy this time around too.

for judy

2012-01-18T21:14:00.001-08:00

here's a little more subdued background and i like it because there's some colour to the main column as well instead of the stark white.

new everything

2012-01-17T15:45:00.000-08:00

new font, photo, colours, background, etc! phew. hopefully not too bright for you.

snoooow....

2012-01-17T10:37:00.001-08:00

yesterday, tim had already planned to work from home so when we woke up to piles of snow, i was so happy that he wasn't going in! this way, ben got to spend a ton of time outside playing and i was able to stay inside with avery. we really have no way to lug her around in the snow except to carry her though tim was pretty sure the old zooper could have handled it. turns out that avery decided to have a 4 hour nap this morning which meant loads of time to myself for a long shower, an omelette breakfast, and lots of pinterest/blog-reading catch up time. what a great morning...a great day, really.

the first couple times that ben and tim went out, tim wanted to pull ben around on the sled but ben wasn't too enthused. tim says to me, "all ben wants to do is dig." i said, "great - let him dig." tim replies, "but that's no fun!" haha.

this is actually sunday's little bit of snow. ben left this shovel somewhere on the ground and it was covered by monday morning. tim dug and dug around for it but it has yet to be found!

ben and tim were out for an hour or so first thing in the morning then came back in to warm up for bit.

making a mid-morning "second breakfast" with daddy.

first time having hot chocolate at home!

back out for round 2 - this round lasted at least a couple hours! obviously, tim gave in to digging and he and ben made a mountain on the driveway. other people take the snow OFF the driveway, we like to make it bigger. ;)

out for round 3 - this time with avery.

when avery was finally awake at the same time as ben, i took her outside to check out the snow. as you can see - she's not impressed. we went for a little walk with her inside my jacket but it just didn't cut it. after avery and i went back inside, tim and ben stayed out and went back to the park. when they returned, tim excitedly says, "ben got over his fear of the sled!" i guess they went down the hill many, many times and had a lot of fun sledding until it was dark. love it.

what would have made this one of my most favourite days would have been pizza for dinner...but pizza is hard on the ww points. (i'm almost done my first week of point counting and it looks like i'm going to make it without going over! phew. now if i could just get some more regular gym time and hopefully i'll start losing some of this weight!) i indulged a little with chicken strips instead.

before bed, some songs on the guitar. my favourite was the one that went, "bunnies, bunnies, bunnies, fire trucks, bunnies."

what a great snow day! if only i could have gotten tim to stay home again today! no such luck.

park day

2012-01-15T08:57:00.000-08:00

i'm feeling the pressure to be a slave to avery's nap times which leads to a lot of time spent inside. on these cold, rainy days, it's not so bad but when the sun finally came out, i was feeling stressed that i wasn't getting ben outside. it was definitely avery's nap time but i had to meet someone to pick up something i was buying from the kids swap site on facebook. wouldn't you know there was a park across the street from where i was meeting? and ben spotted it? i thought avery had fallen asleep in the car seat (i couldn't quite tell because i had a blanket draped over her car seat but she seemed very still) so i said, "sure, let's go to that park!" i parked, pulled ben out of the truck and set him loose then went around to the other side of the truck to pull the car seat out. when i peeked under the blanket, i realized avery wasn't asleep at all and now it was over an hour after she should have been sleeping. (i know this makes me sound like a crazy person - oh well) it was too late to turn around and tell ben that we couldn't stay so i took avery out in her car seat, plopped her down on the edge of the playground and figured we'd stay until she was wailing. ben got some good playing in. it was a gorgeous day.

ben really wanted to swing in the baby swings, of which there were two. there were two moms standing by the swings talking up a storm with their swarms of children milling around them. (it was weird - like about 7 kids but none were playing, they seemed to all just be standing around) one baby swing had a toddler in it who had fallen asleep. the other baby swing had a 6 or 7 year old in it who was not swinging but just sitting there stuck while the moms were engrossed in their conversation. ben was pretty desperate to swing so we stood around near the swings which i found awkward because i didn't want the moms to think i was listening to them but i wanted them to the get the hint that ben wanted a turn. they didn't get the hint. after many long minutes, the 7 year old asked her mom to get out of the swing and after another couple minutes, the mom noticed her kid and took her out. ben charged the empty swing. i got him in and he had a great time swinging though he was very intrigued by the kid who was asleep in the swing next to him.

after a couple minutes, it was close to lunch, avery was still awake, and i told ben that it was time to go. as we walked towards the car, the group of kids from the swings were standing around a mud puddle throwing rocks while their moms called unconvincingly, "get away from there! come on! time to go!". the kids didn't move a muscle. i said to ben, "why don't you throw a couple rocks in that puddle while mommy puts avery in the car?" (this is about 3 metres from the car ON grass - not in a parking lot) ben loves to throw rocks in puddles so he starts looking for a good one while i got the truck unlocked, the car seat in, and i turned around to go back for ben. i turn around in time to see ben trying to walk around the kids by stepping onto a dirt pile...but the dirt pile was a disguise for a mud sink hole. ben sinks right in and is screaming because he can't get out. i rush over, step onto a different dirt pile, and sink in to my ankles. oh. my. goodness. my entire converse sneaker cannot be seen because it is in mud. i don't panic. i pull out my kid, throw him to dry land, bootless, then trying to rescue his boots and myself, i take another step. i sink my one clean converse sneaker deep, deep into more mud. yes, the strange group of kids are still standing there. now, the mothers are standing there too. everyone cannot believe that i'm up to my ankles in mud (i assume they can't believe it because i sure can't). i step out of the sink hole and manage to keep both shoes on my feet though you wouldn't know it because all we can see is mud. i don't let it show on my face that i'm surprised or upset and the one mom says, "they should put a fence around this area." "yeah," i reply. and then ben and i walk away, ben wailing BECAUSE HE LOST HIS ROCK. you've got to be kidding me, ben. standing outside the truck, i strip ben down (he also fell in the mud in his struggle to get out) to just his shirt and his pull-up, all while using a happy voice so that he calms down. i took off my shoes, rolled up my pants, put all offensive clothes/shoes in the trunk, and we went home.

let me just say, this day's nap time was most appreciated.

project life: week 1

2012-01-14T09:32:00.000-08:00

yes! i did my first project life layout! last saturday, in fact - not even behind schedule yet. (she says on week one) here are my things laid out on my dining room table...

there are about a million items in my amazon.com "wishlist" right now - products that i've seen around the blogosphere. a corner chomper, an "attacher" (uses tiny staples), 6x12 inch page protectors, etc. for now, i'm cutting the corners by hand (gasp!) and just NOT attaching anything. haha. but every page protector has 3x4 pockets for journaling and photos but you can print that size photo at walmart unless you stand in store and use their machine (which i don't have time to do) so on this first layout, i traced a journaling card on a photo and cut it out. then i used that old photo with a hole in it to hold over other pics to see if they'd look good small. do you see what i mean in this below pic? at this point, i'm feeling like i'm going about this archaically when i read all these beautiful project life blogs...no one is blogging about chopping up their pics! they're printing them from their photo printers. i originally thought i'd print my own photos but then when i started setting up a printer, it seemed like so much hassle AND a new thing to learn AND printing your own pics averages 30 cents a photo. maybe if 2012 goes well, i'll aim for that "new" technology for 2013. :)

finished layout (minus the one photo that i hadn't gotten printed yet). it's bare bones simple - just pics and my own writing on the cards but i have actually DOCUMENTED a week of our lives in a two page spread that you can look at withOUT being on the computer! woohoo!
i find that i want way more pics than i have room for because i also have so many stories i want to add. i could do numerous double page spreads for every week i bet. i'm currently working on this past week and it's so painstaking choosing my photos. i used www.picnik.com to edit some photos and to add writing right onto a couple photos so that i didn't need a journalling space for them.
this spread took time planning on paper before i sent my photos to walmart but then only took about 45 minutes to finish once i had photos printed! i'm hooked! :)

good bye, diapers!

2012-01-14T08:50:00.001-08:00

have i mentioned we're potty training over here? we startedlast saturday so that we'd have two full days of training with two adults before going down to just me on monday. if you're like my dad and can't believe how often we talk about pee and poop...you may want to just skip this post.

back story: the potty entered our bathroom when ben was about 18 months. we've mostly used it as a stool but at 18 - 20 months, ben understood what it was and would sit on it fully clothed making peeing sounds. then around 2 years, he started telling us when he needed to pee during bath time. we were so excited that when he did, we'd give him a treat - a few chocolate chips or M&Ms. we discovered how obsessed he was with getting treats during our five minute potty training fail back in november. after being so annoyed with his desperation for treats, this time we set up a sticker chart - 8 stickers for #1 and 1 sticker for #2. (had to make that poop worth doing on the potty)

a friend of mine had told me that when she started, she would set the timer for 20 minutes and every 20 minutes, they put their son on the potty. sounded like a good idea to me. so i made up a chart, got out some new stickers, had M&Ms on hand and then next morning we started. i described to him what we were going to do. i showed him the sticker chart and mustered all the excitement i could about stickers verses treats. i set the timer but all ben wanted to do was sit on the potty. we had the potty in the kitchen so it was close-by for these learning days. so ben sat and sat. when the tiniest amount of pee would trickle out, he'd stand up and ask for a treat. "treeeeeeat!!!" "nope, sticker!", i'd reply. i was trying to fill him up with juice, water, and milk but the stickers seemed far and few between for the amount of time spent sitting on the potty. i was starting to feel a little badly about the new system because he was working hard. so after a couple times of getting a partial pee in his pants but getting to the potty to finish the pee, when he finally got to the potty BEFORE peeing at all, tim suggested he get two stickers. that helped get us closer to the treat and he'd gotten a couple by the end of the day.

one week later, ben has done really well - very few accidents and no pooping in his underwear! amazing! he filled up his entire chart of stickers and got his toy. he helped me make a new chart for the next toy - 56 pees (aka. 8 a day) and 8 poops. whoa...that seems a long ways away. but there are treats in there along the way to make the wait worthwhile. i already have lots of funny potty training stories from the week and am trying to pick just one for Project Life. i'm sure there will be many more to come.

maybe for a new header?

2012-01-11T14:59:00.000-08:00

haha...loving www.picnik.com for editing. this blog may be getting a new look soon...

schedules?

2012-01-10T08:17:00.000-08:00

from what i've heard about second children, they are more likely to be schlepped around to the first child's activities and less likely to be on a schedule. that sounded good to me. i was pretty crazy about ben's sleep schedule...oh wait, i still am. as it turns out, those second children that i've heard about are not mine. i am me and i can't help but be somewhat tied to this girlie's routine! why would i want to sacrifice a nap just to have a cranky girl all day? i wouldn't. but this is just a new thought since yesterday.

yesterday, i popped avery in her carseat at nap time and figured she'd sleep in the car when we went across the border to pick up my new camera (!). she didn't fall asleep until about 30 minutes after she would have at home. then, since she was sleeping, i lugged the kids into tim hortons with a blanket over avery's carseat so she wouldn't see all the lights and such and hopefully keep sleeping. nope. immediately awake. so instead of a 45min - 1hr nap in her bed in the morning, she had a 10min nap in her carseat. it threw her for the entire day. bottles were crazy. she seemed constantly tired but couldn't get a long nap in. it was very "hey mommy! i need to have normal naps please!" moment.

then this morning she was up at 5am, i got her to sleep until 6am then i got up to feed her. she literally cannot eat if she's tired. other babies need a bottle to go to sleep? this kid chokes and shakes and is a crazy person when she's tired - it doesn't matter that she hasn't eaten in 12 hours. so after attempting to force feed her (seriously? you're not hungry after 12 hours?) and her crying her eyes out, she fell asleep in my arms after i rocked her for a little. oh man. i hope i can get her back to normal today.

uhh...maybe i should stop blogging and go feed her...

photo header

2012-01-04T08:37:00.000-08:00

i just want to make an announcement to all you old school folks who actually read my blog on the page instead of on google reader...i know that's a really old photo as my header. in fact, it's now over a year old since that photo was taken christmas day 2010. but here's the deal...i find it ridiculously hard to put new photos in there. it took me so long to get that photo to the right size to put in THAT header. i don't have any type of photoshop and i used to make the photos a different size in Word then put them in the header but i don't even have Word anymore. i'm not blogger savvy even though i use it all the time. i would LOVE a blog make-over with buttons for different topics and maybe even a title name change/font but unless there's a reader with time on their hands that wants to help me...you guys are stuck looking at our 2010 family for a little bit longer! i'll get on it soon! promise.

mornings

2012-01-04T08:34:00.001-08:00

i have this crazy baby who has been sleeping past 7:30am every morning. i have this crazy toddler who has been waking up between 6 - 6:30am every morning. today, when the toddler decided to SLEEP PAST 8:40am, the baby woke up at 6am. classic. will they never be in sync? :)

what?

2012-01-02T18:10:00.000-08:00

i regularly make a dinner that consists of rice and chicken cooked in a sauce. ben had referred to this meal as "yucky chicken" and rarely ate a bite of it. weird that 2 year olds can have such strong opinions. tonight, i put it on his plate. he ate some of the chicken and said, "good chicken, mommy." i said, "i'm glad you like it." then he said, "i love that chicken." seriously? he doesn't even say "i love you, mommy or daddy" without being prompted! ahh, how i love conversations with this kid.

project life 2012

2012-01-01T10:35:00.000-08:00

happy new year!

this year, i have a new project. "Project Life". i stumbled upon this scrapbooking system in one of the many blogs that i follow. the concept is that it is scrapbooking for people who don't have time for scrapbooking AND instead of just scrapbooking the big events, project life is all about the everyday. you have 12x12 plastic sheets with pockets (like those ones for hockey cards) and then you buy a kit that has colour coordinated papers in 4x6 and 2x3 (the two sizes of pockets). everyday, you're taking photos (which i already do) and doing a little journalling then you slide those cards and photos into the sheets and voila! a scrapbook page. the idea is that a 2 page spread would be one week. you do a two page spread every week and after 52 weeks, you have an amazing, personalized, scrapbook of your year! check out ali edwards' blog and her version of Project Life and check out this photo of her scrapbook below.

i love the idea of scrapbooking and i have made a couple for specific occasions (one for my first year of teaching...umm...which i haven't finished yet...and one for my mom's 50th birthday). i didn't like how much money i invested in paper and stickers etc etc yet still felt like i was always going out to buy one more thing. i like my digital scrapbooking system but it's still somewhat time consuming to get those perfect pages and i already spend too much time on the computer.

here's the kit i purchased - the turqouise edition. i also ordered a package of 60 plastic pages with assorted designs.

i, unfortunately, am not a project finisher. i am a project starter. i peter out part-way through many a project (example: not having everyday ready for the advent calendar and then getting sick of posting about the advent calendar! haha). SO - my new years resolution...drum roll, please...is to finish this project! i'm dedicating a space on my desk to the scrapbook so everything is in one place and easy to grab. i also have bought myself a new camera with my christmas money!!! the main feature that i'm super excited about is that it takes pictures in low-light with no flash - something i'm always trying to do with my current camera but they're always blurry/dark. but it also has manual settings that i can learn more about changing my aperture and shutter speeds with which is something i've always wanted.

i'm so totally excited about this project and am hoping it doesn't cut back on my blogging.

other plans for 2012: make a will, get life insurance, keep my room cleaner, get an estimate on replacing all our windows (yes, just an estimate for now), have one tupperware party a month minimum, and get the carpets cleaned professionally.

what are your plans?

favourite christmas photo

2011-12-31T23:30:00.000-08:00

the rest you'll have to see on facebook...

the days leading up to christmas...

2011-12-26T21:15:00.000-08:00

day 21: wrap presents with ben's wrapping paper

day 22: give a gift to our downstairs tenant, rebekah.

he was excited but shy when we got there. he had wanted to see her cat but didn't want to pet it when she brought him out. after we came back upstairs, ben talked about the cat for the next 10 minutes. haha.

day 23: give a gift to the garbage man

this was too funny because all morning, we listened for the garbage truck and it never came, never came. then we had friends over (see photos below) and while they were here, we forgot to listen and didn't realize the truck was here until it was picking up our garbage. in that split second of deciding if we skip it or if i make a mad run for it...i made a mad run for it. got ben's boots on, my shoes, present in hand, ben and i started running down the driveway. the truck was next door. we got to the end of the driveway and the truck was around the corner and ben was crying. i picked him up and start jogging around the corner. everytime the truck would stop then go again, ben would start to cry again. oh my goodness. we finally reached him about 5 houses down. he saw us and started backing the up the truck. we handed him the present, said merry christmas, and walked home. it was pretty funny. it definitely took me a few minutes to catch my breath.

playing with avery.

playing with friends from the island whom ben has not seen since summer 2010. he had SUCH a great time with the big kids.

ben talks

2011-12-26T20:56:00.001-08:00

things i don't want to forget ben said this month:

when asked if he was going to be a fireman (because of his fire boots), he responded, "no. a fireman goalie." and then he jumped into goalie position.

singing to himself: "christmas lights. christmas tree. santa is coming. baby jesus is born."

when we passed a hospital, "ay-wee (avery) born at the hop-e-tal?" "yes, but avery was born at a different hospital. mommy was born at this hospital." (i'm all about saying things that i know will make no sense to ben. haha) then ben asked, "baby jesus born at this hop-e-tal?"

we were driving down the road and saw a man on a motorized scooter on the sidewalk. he had a big white beard. ben shouted, "santa!"

i am LOVING all the talking with ben all day. it's so great to be able to communicate and it's totally mind-blowing the things that he remembers that we have told him.

advent calendar: day twenty

2011-12-26T20:20:00.001-08:00

"visit uncle matt at the fire hall"

after a week or two of early, early mornings with ben and cranky, cranky mid-day crashes, i wasn't sure how the pre-planned "drive-all-the-way-to-burnaby-to-see-uncle matt's-firehall" was going to go. (that's about an hour and a bit away - longer with traffic) but cranky or not cranky, we were out the door at 8:15am and on our way to make it happen. ben was great most of the way to burnaby. i armed myself with the desirable soother in case of emergency which was a good call on my part. when we got to the hall, matt was heading out to another hall to switch trucks so ben and i were on our way to a tim hortons to wait for them to return. ben pointed out the skytrain that we were driving under and i thought, "why not?". we parked and hopped on the skytrain to ride a few stops then come back. we probably spent about 25 minutes getting on and off skytrains and ben thought it was pretty great.

when we got to the hall, ben had this very reserved exterior as he tried to contain his excitement. i don't know how to describe it but while anyone who looked at him might have thought he wasn't all that excited to be at the firehall, i could see that he was unbelievably thrilled to be there. he's a funny, little boy. ben got to get in the truck, try on masks and helmets, and pretend to drive.

while we were looking at the truck, a call came in, and all of a sudden, all the firemen were in action changing from their navy uniforms into the yellow suits. i was trying to get out of there as fast as possible so that ben wouldn't be scared by any loud sirens or anything but we were safe - no sirens blared while we were inside. we watched through the window as the guys jumped on the truck and we waved at them as they sped away, sirens roaring. very exciting stuff. ben and i were still sitting in the parking lot deciding whether we'd wait for them to come back or if we'd go home when the truck came back to the hall - they'd been called off because the accident wasn't as bad as they'd thought it was. the chief told matt that they could take ben around the block in the truck so matt came over to see if ben wanted to go. the potential loud noises that the truck might make kept ben from taking matt up on his offer. matt and i did our best to assure ben that it would be fun and there would be no sirens but ben said, no, he didn't want to go. i resisted yelling, "I want to go!" ;)

instead, we got to check out the kitchen, gym, sleeping quarters, fire pole, etc, etc. which was very cool. when another call came in, we said our goodbyes and got to see the truck fly out of the hall again. then we were on our way home. ben was asleep before we even got on the highway. a big day and a good day.

getting to know avery

2011-12-26T19:36:00.000-08:00

about a week after avery was 2 months old, there was a moment that everything changed. all of a sudden, it felt like we finally knew this little girl. we knew when she needed to sleep and we could usually know why she was crying. as soon as we got the sleeping and eating schedules flowing better, avery's little tiny personality started shining through.

avery seems to be a fairly mellow girl. if she doesn't need to eat and she's not tired, she's content to sit and watch the household flurry of activity. she got a new swing as an early christmas present from the shulba grandparents which she likes so much more than her old swing. she'll spend much longer in it and even catches a nap or two in it if ben is also sleeping. she also still loves her play mat. avery seems to be a quiet girl - not too much cooing and "talking" yet though she often opens her mouth like she wants to say something. when we talk to her though, she's all smiles. tonight was the first giggle that i've heard from her which was so sweet.

a couple of weeks ago, i was at a friend's house and when avery was fussing, she picked avery up and wrapped her tight, rocking her to sleep. it's hard for me to let someone else do this but she seemed to be getting avery calm so i resisted butting in. when avery was asleep, my friend laid her down on the couch, wrapped a second blanket around her, and avery slept for TWO hours. two. it was unreal. it was my re-introduction to swaddling. why did i ever stop? i knew that my kiddo was a wiggler so it seemed restrictive to swaddle her. plus, she was sleeping great at night without being swaddled so why swaddle for naps? well, this lightbulb moment has changed everything. while i still rock avery to sleep for her naps (and i know i'm supposed to let her fall asleep on their own), i keep her wrapped tight and it makes transferring her to her bed so easy. sometimes she sleeps for only 30 - 45minutes but once in awhile it's 1.5 - 2hours but no matter how long or short the nap is, i'm just thankful that it's no longer in my arms. now for the next step of letting fall asleep on her own...maybe next month!

ben still loves to show avery whatever it is that he's doing. he got a ukulele for christmas (his "a-tar") and spent many minutes serenading avery throughout the day today. he gets the giggles whenever avery smiles at him.

avery is so distracted by everything - she can't resist watching whatever is going on. when we were at a christmas party last week, my friend alyssa's baby (who is 8 days older than avery) just fell asleep against his dad's shoulder during dinner. it was unreal to me, whose kid can't even be in the same room as everyone if we are going to have any chance at all at getting her to sleep. but every kid is different. it makes me wonder if this is a tiny glimpse of the child/teenager/woman she's going to be - always wanting to be a part of what's happening but regretting it when she doesn't get enough sleep? maybe. i guess we will have to wait and see.

avery at 3 months

2011-12-21T19:06:00.001-08:00

advent calendar: days 13 - 19

2011-12-21T18:51:00.000-08:00

day 13: "take your bookmarks to give to people at the seniors care home"

when we were kids, we always went up to the seniors homes with our school to sing carols or take crafts that we had made. i thought it would be a good experience of the giving season for ben to visit a care home as well. it hadn't occurred to me that i should be calling ahead but i'd made the plan with a friend to look after avery already. in the morning, i called the only care home that i knew of in abbotsford and the woman informed me that we needed to go through the volunteer coordinator because of the level of care these people needed and the coordinator wasn't in that day. because we were going to go to a friends' house for avery and then were supposed to play there afterwards, we went for a playdate instead. i should have followed up on this one and made it for another day.

day 14: "make christmas ornaments"

we used Crayola Model Magic which i'd heard about on pinterest as being easier to mold than playdough but dries nicely. it turned out to be more like rubbery foam - very light but a lot of work to roll out. this craft turned out to be more mommy than ben but we were making star ornaments with cookie cutters.

then we pushed a straw into the top so that it would dry with a hole in it for a ribbon. (ben liked putting the straw into all the dough as you can see by the blob with a straw in it in the background here.)

day 15: put up ben's own pretend christmas tree in ben's room

the felt christmas tree finally makes it debut! i would have liked to have this as one of the earlier days in the month but i left this project hanging for a little while when i hit the roadblock of how to attach the felt pieces together. i ended up using fabric glue but i think it's pretty toxic...you wouldn't want a kid to put it in their mouth or anything. but i made a large star and an angel so that ben could choose which one he'd like on the top of his tree. both grandparents have angels but we have a star on his. as you can see, the angel made the cut.

ben hasn't played as much with this tree as i would have liked. it could be because it's away in his room and he doesn't often play in there. maybe there will be more playing with it next year when avery is 1. :)

day 16: a bust.

buuut, we did continue to work on ben's ornaments. we painted them with gold glitter glue. then the following morning, we strung them with ribbon and wrapped them up to give away as gifts.

i asked ben who we should give an ornament to and he said that he wanted to give one to avery. since she wasn't grasping it when ben was putting it in her hand, i suggested we hang it on her ear. ben loved this, as you can see.
wrapping gifts is ben's favourite thing to do. he often wraps letters in washcloths while he's in the bathtub then sings happy birthday so he thought wrapping christmas presents was great.

day 17: go to kai's house for a christmas party

this was our third annual christmas dinner with this group of friends. the camera was barely out at the party so we don't have a picture of ben but we have this picture of avery by our friends' christmas tree. they put on an awesome spread for us

day 18: nothing in the calendar - we headed out to white rock to hang out with my parents and i hadn't had anything planned for the calendar. fun day nonetheless.

day 19: use stamps to make your own wrapping paper

i'd been saving ben's paintings in the last month and on this day, we flipped them over and sponged shapes on the backs to make wrapping paper. i cut some sponges into the shapes of a star, christmas tree, and a candy cane and ben stamped until his heart was content.

advent calendar posting burn-out

2011-12-20T20:13:00.000-08:00

are you wondering what's been happening around here in the last 7 days? yikes! falling behind! we've been getting some advent activities in, ben's been waking up so early, and i've been going to bed much too late. not a good combo. a re-cap on the last 7 days (including my baby girl's 3-month birthday!) is coming soon. but tonight, i'm headed to bed by 9pm to prepare for ben's 5:30am wake up call.

advent calendar: day twelve

2011-12-14T18:37:00.000-08:00

"read lots of Christmas books"

yes, this is veering away from the original list but we can't go big everyday. ;)

a quick favourite has been The Christmas Gift by Emily Arnold McCully. it actually has no words but it's a pretty cute book about a mouse family on Christmas day. each mouse gets a different present and ben likes to point at each one and say what it is. the other day, i asked ben what he thought uncle matt might like for christmas and he said, "a teddy bear." then i asked him what daddy would like for christmas. he said, "a trumpet." he was just going through the list of gifts from this book in his head. i definitely think we should get tim a trumpet for christmas.

aha! moment

2011-12-13T08:44:00.000-08:00

the other day, i took ben to Strong Start (a drop-in program run by the school districts for ages 0 - 5 that is FREE and kind of prepares kids for preschool/kindergarten - and one of the locations is the school behind our house!) and all he wanted to play with was the wooden trains. SERIOUSLY, ben? we bought you a train table with track and trains! we gave you trains as a gift! my aunt mailed you track and trains from ontario! you never play with them! tim and i were just discussing if we should pack them up and store them for awhile until he's a bit older. but it's almost all he played with that morning at the school.

hmm...what is different about the trains at school and the trains at home? ours are on a table. at school, he played with them on the floor.

the next day, i brought all the track and trains out from his room into the kitchen. he sat and played trains off and on all morning. he loved it! he's just learning to put the tracks together himself and really can only build in a straight line so maybe the table was hindering that? also, the kitchen is central. he can play with me nearby AND i join in to play here and there if he's in the kitchen. since this discovery, he's played with his trains everyday. what a great discovery!

turns out, i love building these tracks and making them all connect. so yes, i did build this one.

advent calendar: days nine, ten, eleven

2011-12-13T07:37:00.000-08:00

day nine - nothing was written in the calendar but we had a friend over to ice cookies AND we went to wendy's for supper AND looked at christmas lights. so definitely some advent events in there despite the lack of organization.

this place in abbotsford is amazing. this is just the one third of the lights display that i could fit into a photo. if you look carefully in the bottom centre of the picture is a little hut. there is a santa claus inside for kids to come see and get a candy cane! he was the realest santa i've seen in a long time too! we parked the car and walked along the sidewalk in front of the display while ben ate his candy cane. (yes, santa still gave him one even though ben wouldn't venture even CLOSE to santa!)

excited face (washed out by the flash! boo.) standing in front of some lights,

holding his candy cane! cute.

day 10: watch Charlie Brown Christmas movie

ben's favourite part...okay...it's also tim and my favourite part.

day eleven - another bust. oops. sorry, ben. mommy will be more on top of things next year when you care more. this is my practice year! however, we DID manage to make it to church for the first time in a month so that was great. avery went to the nursery for the first time. aand we got to go hang out at grandma and grandpa's house.

all sugar cookies are not equal

2011-12-09T14:12:00.000-08:00

i made these sugar cookies with ben on day 2. they were reported to be the "best sugar cookies ever". she gives very specific directions in regards to the flour: "it's important to correctly measure your flour or you will end up with a dry, crumbly dough. Never, ever use your measuring cup to scoop up the flour. Use a regular sized spoon and spoon the flour into the cup and then level it off with a knife." i read this step, rolled my eyes at "bakers" and scooped my flour with the measuring cup. i had a dry, crumbly mess. it was so frustrating but i managed to get it rolled out and get some cookies out of it. sure, they were good cookies but i didn't feel they were worth that frustration. a sugar cookie is a sugar cookie, right?

not so.

today, i made a different sugar cookie recipe. it was fast and easy. the dough was perfect. i baked them up and right away i could see a difference. they were puffy and didn't hold their shape like the other ones. they were kind of a little tasteless and definitely in need of icing whereas the above cookies never got iced and we still ate them ALL very quickly. these are far inferior to the first recipe.

it looks like i will have to try the first recipe again and this time, i will follow the directions. and even if i still get a crumbly dough, i will know that the work to roll and re-roll is worth it.

advent calendar: day eight

2011-12-09T13:11:00.001-08:00

"help mommy mail christmas cards"

put the photo in the envelope...

put the stamp on...

(and always keep your mandarin oranges close by while addressing christmas cards)

put the cards in the mailbox!

advent calendar: day seven

2011-12-07T13:54:00.000-08:00

"make bookmarks to give away as gifts"

glitter glue dot

stick a jewel on the dot

and repeat.

add some stickers.

advent calendar: day six

2011-12-07T13:38:00.002-08:00

"decorate cookies with elias"

"why would i put this candy on the cookie when i could eat it?" - ben

parental assistance necessary

ben's new face when you say, "smile!" yikes.

decorating paper trees with glitter glue and eating cookie time

advent calendar: day five

2011-12-07T13:38:00.001-08:00

it was a bust. some days are harder than others.

advent calendar: day four

2011-12-05T08:15:00.000-08:00

"after nap time, go to the Christmas tree lighting fair"

abbotsford has the "christmas tree lighting" every year for the last 20-something years hich is when they light up this giant evergreen tree that's right in the heart of old downtown. this year, it looked like they were making quite an event of it complete with booths, santa, and free hot chocolate and cookies! wedecided to try out this one instead of the one at central city that you read about in our list.

craft table but it was better suited for taller kids...

shut down the main street

liquid sugar...i mean, hot chocolate.

most of this got poured down the front of me when i was holding ben. yuck.

loving the musical entertainment. after every act, ben would say, "more!"

woohoo! it's more beautiful than ever this year!

the view from a block away!

advent calendar: day three

2011-12-04T14:23:00.000-08:00

"decorate the christmas tree"

getting ready

hanging every ornament on one branch

"good one, ben." - avery

ta da!

since yesterday morning, the bottom half of the christmas tree has been decorated and re-decorated numerous times. only one ornament has been broken but the top half of the tree is pretty full with all our favourite/breakable ornaments. but ben's loving all things christmas and is very put out if ever turn off the tree lights.

sleeep

2011-12-04T14:20:00.000-08:00

when avery is fighting sleep, her little arms wave around wildly. as she begins to succumb to sleep, her hand often rests on her face in this pose. it always makes me smile.

advent calendar: day two

2011-12-03T07:29:00.000-08:00

"bake Christmas cookies and deliver them to our neighbours"

while waiting for the dough to chill, ben practiced his cookie cutting skills...

"playdough, mommy?"

ben's favourite cookie cutter was the angel but as you can see, it broke the easiest. when it was time to eat a cookie, ben picked the angel and it broke, so he picked another angel and IT broke. at this point, i was like, "sorry but it tastes just as good broken." and didn't let him break another.

what these sweet photos don't show is the total and utter frustration i had with that dough being way too dry and ridiculously hard to roll out THEN the playdough was SO sticky and gross. two extremes. after working so hard to roll the dough to get these few cookies, i forgot to buy parchment and my cookie sheets are awful. i could barely get a cookie off the sheet in one piece. during all this time mixing dough, rolling dough, helping unstick playdough from the table, i'd left avery on her own forever (not sleeping like she should have been), so she was screaming and needing to be held. all of a sudden it was nap time for ben and we hadn't even had lunch but i'm holding a sleeping baby whom i didn't want to wake but had to so that ben could get down for HIS nap. then ben cried and screamed for over an hour in his crib because i think i missed the nap window. total gong show. delivering our cookies to the neighbours seemed much too difficult so instead we stayed home and ate them. what a day. but hey! we've got the happy pictures so the bad time we had post-cookie making will be magically erased from our memories 10 years from now. ;)

advent calendar: day one

2011-12-02T14:51:00.000-08:00

"set up ben's new nativity scene and read the Christmas story"

playing while eating breakfast

his favourite one - the angel

showing avery how it makes music

park attempt

2011-12-02T09:25:00.000-08:00

other kids are dressed in little parkas...my kid is just in a hoodie. sorry, ben. mommy tends to underdress for the weather...

too bad avery wouldn't sleep in her stroller - made things super difficult. at one point, i was holding avery in one arm and trying to reef ben out of the swing with the other arm. it didn't work. i'm sure the other parents were watching me and thinking, "oh dear. that woman doesn't put a coat on her kid and then doesn't know that she'll have to put that baby down before she can pull a 2 year old out of a swing..." haha. after that moment, i told ben, "we need to go home." being the good little boy that he is, he came with me and didn't start to cry until he was in his car seat. i cried too, i felt so frustrated - the poor kid needs to get out and having a baby with us who can't put herself to sleep makes us stay in. oh well. we will try again another day.

hey momma!

2011-12-01T14:07:00.000-08:00

the other evening, i was driving (with no kids!) to michaels to pick up a few last supplies for my felt christmas tree craft and i was wearing old, black lulus, hiking shoes, and my husband's fleece which is currently the only jacket that fits me. i thought to myself, "if stacy and clinton could see me right now, they'd say, 'it looks like you've given up!'." but some days, i have given up. really, how cute do i need to look to raise my babies at home? i find that when i put the effort in, wear some of the tiny handful of clothes that actually fit me, and do my hair, i wind up feeling more terrible about myself because i'm not the size or shape or look that i want to be. so i'm trying to remember that this is just a short period of my life in the grand scheme of things. it's okay if i'm thinking more about christmas activities for ben than doing something with my hair other than a ponytail.

that being said...i do usually wear jeans when i leave the house. and my hiking shoes were just the closest pair of shoes that night. ;)

i read this blog called the anderson crew for the first time today - it was a good day for it. apparently, it's a weekly thing (?) called, "embrace the camera". "it's not always easy to get in front of the camera", she says and i agree. but i'm linking up today and i'm remembering to embrace myself in the role that i'm currently in.

linking up here:

potty fail

2011-11-30T13:41:00.000-08:00

i'd been saying that i'd start potty-training after christmas then ben started getting out of the bath at bathtime to go on the potty. he was pretty keen and i'd always give him a treat (like a few chocolate chips or smarties). i figured this was a good way of getting him to like going on the potty and was a pre-cursor to real training. i thought that perhaps i should start potty-training while he's showing an active interest but the task seemed insurmountable when having to constantly hold a baby for all her naps. so i put it off. then the bathtime peeing stopped when he started getting to eat halloween treats. it seemed all that peeing was directly linked to the extrinsic rewards. for the month of november, i've been lamenting that perhaps i missed my "window"...are there potty-training windows?

after hanging out with a friend who's kid is 4 months or so younger than ben (you know who you are...haha), i thought, "why am i waiting? if he's old enough to tell me that he wants his diaper changed, he's old enough to tell me that he needs to go to the bathroom." so we went to walmart, bought fun underwear and potty seat for the toilet.

i figured that we'd start the next day and i'd be all ready with a chart and such but when we got home at 5pm, ben seemed excited to sit on the new seat and try on his new underwear. i figured we might as well get started. he told me that he had to go to the potty 4 times in the next 6 minutes, each time getting a few drops out, and then saying, "treeeeat!". i'd give him one smartie with the plan in mind to definitely change this system the next morning.

then he was standing on a chair in the kitchen and to his bewilderment, found himself standing in a puddle. "wet, mommy!" i explained that he'd peed and that next time he feels like he has pee coming, tell mommy and we'll run to the bathroom. he helped me clean up, we changed his underwear, and he asked for a treat. umm...no. 10 minutes later, pee all over the floor again and tim calling at me from the kitchen while i'm rocking a screaming baby, "i don't think he gets it..." i put a diaper on him.

ben and i sit down to dinner (tim's now rocking our screamer) and ben's whining for me to take the lid off his milk. i take the lid. 30 seconds later, milk is knocked over and everywhere. oh. my. goodness. i managed to not scream and instead cleaned up the third puddle in the last 15 minutes then put a lid on his new cup of milk.

sure, two accidents and some spilled milk shouldn't be that big a deal but everything is more frustrating to me when avery's crying at the same time. am i totally selfish to want to just enjoy my christmas season without pee on the floor and having to ask ben a million times a day, "do you have to pee?" i suppose so but hopefully this delay in potty training will not scar him for life and we can get it started after christmas. if you could just tell me that i'm not scarring him instead of the other advice you're thinking of, that would be great. ;)

the joys of felt

2011-11-29T08:59:00.001-08:00

i've never worked with felt but it is EVERYWHERE on pinterest. everyone is creating quiet books, busy bags, and other projects with felt. the concept that it can be a "no-sew" project because felt won't fray made me think that felt and i could be friends. i saw this project on pinterest and thought it would be fun for ben. i went to the fabric store and bought 0.8m of green felt for a horribly expensive price. this tree better last us at least 10 years. haha. then i went to michaels and bought a few 8x10 sheets of felt for .49 each.

last night, tim was out, the kids were in bed (!), and there was nothing on tv. i spent some time pinning potential projects to my pinterest boards and then thought, "i should be MAKING something instead of just reading about making something." i dug out my very dull scissors, my felt pieces, and started brainstorming some ideas for ornaments. the blog on which i found this project just uses a few coloured balls and a oblong shaped ornament that i tried to replicate but it just looked silly. i got out my cookie cutters and used them to trace some shapes - this was more of a trial and error process because they were small cutters and i wanted bigger shapes. i would paper clip the paper shape onto the felt and cut around it. once it was done, i pulled the clip and paper off and trimmed any edges that didn't look right.

two and a half HOURS later (eep!), i had two candy canes, two gingerbread men, and 3 balls with a star, tree, and the letter B on them. i got so sick of tracing shapes onto paper, cutting those, then putting them onto felt so i just freehanded the letter B - much faster! tonight, i plan to make a few more ornaments and cut out the tree.

i bought one sheet of white felt that had a sticky back on it so i could see how that would work - that's how i made the candy canes. i'd buy it again, though i don't know how well it will stay stuck if a kiddo wanted to pull it apart. for the other two-piece ornaments, i have Heat-N-Bond which apparently sticks to the back and then you iron it to make it fuse. will let you know how it goes.

dull scissors are not the best tool for working with felt. neither are small cookie cutters. i feel these two things directly affected my finish time. i'm apprehensive about cutting my big tree so i'll be borrowing my m-i-l's fabric scissors. however, FELT rocks. it's the greatest! i've found all these other projects on pinterest and thought of some of my own that i can make with felt and can't wait to do so! i may need to invest in good scissors though!

24 days of Christmas activities

2011-11-27T14:53:00.001-08:00

Here's my list of activities to put in our new Advent Calendar:

1. decorate our Christmas tree

2. set up our new Fisher Price Nativity and read the story of Jesus' birth

3. go the Christmas Tree lighting at Central City & buy a new game (a tradition that pre-dates Ben)

4. set up new felt Christmas tree in ben's room (idea found here)

5. bake Christmas cookies

6. invite two friends over to decorate cookies & play

7. make Christmas cards and mail them

8. make Christmas tree ornaments (recipe for dough here)

9. give a present to the mail man and the garbage man

10. watch Charlie Brown Christmas movie

11. help grandma and grandpa decorate their Christmas tree

12. make bookmarks and take a local care home to give to the elderly

13. bake cookies again - deliver to neighbours

14. make birdseed ornaments to hang outside on the trees (instructions here)

15. paint presents for grandparents (oops - spoiler alert)

16. visit uncle matt at work and see the firehall

17. go to kainoa's house for a Christmas party

18. use christmas stamps to make wrapping paper

19. go with daddy to buy a present for mommy

20. go with mommy to buy a present for daddy

21. wrap presents & make and attach name tags that have recipients' faces on them

22. pancakes in the morning & drive around looking at lights at night

23. open presents at home

24. go to grams and pop's house for shulba Christmas

25. go to grandma and grandpa's house for macdonald Christmas

can't wait! now to begin prepping things and finding my camera battery charger!

advent calendar

2011-11-27T14:33:00.000-08:00

two years ago, i started making an advent calendar. the stage at which you see it in this blog post was as far as i got. i put it all in a shoebox and stored it away. what can i say? i like the IDEA of crafts better than actually getting them finished.

this year, i wanted to come up with 24 christmas-y activities for our advent calendar. but what to put them in? i saw a couple advent calendars with little doors to open each day and i could have bought one of them and put my activities inside. but in the back of my mind, i kept thinking of my failed attempt at making my own advent calendar. why had i abandoned it?

i think i had run out of ideas for decorations to put the numbers on. i also didn't know how i was going to mount the tins - on cardboard? on plywood? both seemed too cumbersome to store all year long. yeah - it doesn't take much for me to scrap an idea.

after looking at advent calendars on pinterest, i saw one that was magnetic. aha! maybe that would work for my advent tree! i reopened the dusty box and faced the problem of coming up with more little decorations. it occurred to me that not every number needed a decoration - some numbers could go straight onto the tin. brilliant. i finished it in about half an hour and a trip to michaels.

i figure if it works this year, next year i could always start over with the tins and laminate the circles ahead of time. and if sticking the tins to the fridge isn't the best idea, i can always remove the magnets and mount them to a board.

now to fill them up...

avery at 2 months

2011-11-24T13:29:00.001-08:00

we're still getting to know this little person. avery joy has many more smiles and she loves to sleep in her carseat. at about 6 weeks, i figured out that she didn't want to be fed as often as i was trying to feed her so now she eats about every 3.5-4hrs. i also figured out around 6/7weeks that she is a big napper...she doesn't necessarily nap easily but she needs a lot of sleep between bottles. if 4 hours go by since her last bottle but she hasn't had enough sleep, she chooses sleep over eating. she'll scream and cry if you try to feed her because she's so tired. she's getting better at having some naps in her bed - some days are better than others for this. the evenings are the hardest to convince her to sleep. you watch her eyes begin to droop and then she pops them wide open again. we still hold her in our arms for her evening naps IF we can even get her to sleep. if we don't - it's a very cranky evening and a difficult bedtime routine. if she naps in the evening, she takes her bottle like a champ and goes right to bed at bedtime. she's great at sleeping through the night in her own crib - usually going down between 7 - 9pm and sleeping until 5am-ish. avery is a wiggler. she waves her arms and legs constantly. if you put a hat on her, she shakes her head back and forth until you remove it or she has a fit. she seems to like her soother and she loves her play mat. she lays on it and smiles at the animals that are hanging above her. i often worry that she's not getting enough attention because we can so easily lay her down somewhere so that we can focus on ben or do chores around the house but hopefully we're not scarring her for life. ;) we love this little girlie and are looking forward to all the fun times to come.

sibling love

2011-11-13T14:27:00.000-08:00

ben loves having avery around. when he wakes up in the morning, he asks, "baby aywee wake?" and runs to find her. when she's on her playmat, he's often there too. if she flails her arms around and touches him, he laughs and laughs. when ben is eating something, playing with something, or learns something new, he'll tell avery or hold up the toy or food and explain what it is. "a ball, baby aywee." "a chocolate, baby aywee." when we're eating a meal, he's concerned as to when avery will need her bottle since that's all she eats. when we're holding avery, he's asking us to put her on the floor so that he can see her. when it's time to read books at bedtime, ben demands, "baby aywee too!". it's been very fun to see how much he's enjoying avery at this stage.

the other day, ben was laying on the floor, next to avery and he was rolling around. he accidentally flung his arm out and hit avery in the face. avery started to scream and i picked her up. ben looked so horrified and i told him that it was okay, it was an accident. he's just looking at me with a quivering bottom lip and i said, "she's alright. you didn't mean to hit her. she's fine, ben." ben burst out sobbing - he was so sad that he'd hurt her. it was pretty sweet. i hope that he always wants to look after her and protect her.

dear frustrated mothers...

2011-11-12T21:52:00.000-08:00

when we were driving to the hospital and my contractions had very few minutes between them, i just talked to myself aloud, saying, "you can do this. you've done this before. you're going to have a baby after all this is over. you can do this." etc, etc. it worked for me. but after i had avery, the chanting aloud stopped of course.

after describing my frustration with avery, someone said to me recently, "you really have such a good baby - there are much more difficult babies out there." i think it was meant to encourage me but it made me feel like i shouldn't have these feelings of frustration when avery won't nap or when she's crying incessantly in the evening because i KNOW that she's a good baby. i KNOW that there are much, much, MUCH more difficult babies and here i am upset with my healthy, beautiful, smiling girl. the guilt of this is skyrocketing. but you know what? the knowledge that i have it good doesn't make the frustration go away because my frustration isn't with avery. my frustration is usually with myself. why haven't i figured out why she's crying? i can't i figure out why her feeding is so frantic? why didn't i trust myself to know that she needed to sleep earlier and now i'm paying for it with so much overtired screaming? why do i care what someone else is thinking of me?

if you're a mother, you've been here. and it's occurred to me that perhaps my encouragement chanting shouldn't have stopped with avery's birth. verbally encouraging ourselves may be just what we need. so to all the moms out there, here's what i want you to know:

you're doing a good job. don't second guess yourself based on the comments of others - you know your baby better than they do. it's okay to be frustrated. you're doing a good job. this is just a phase. it's okay not to know. you're doing a good job. trust yourself. you're a good mom even though it doesn't feel like it right now. you're doing a good job. soon, this will be a distant memory. it's okay to cry. you're doing a good job. don't worry that you sound crazy - you know what's best for your baby. it's going to get better. don't forget, that baby is worth every tear shed and every sleepless night. you're doing a good job.

an avery series: smiles

2011-11-09T12:25:00.000-08:00

poor second children - i'm already seeing that parents take fewer photos of them. but remember my ben series'? i will attempt to continue the tradition.

(smiling with her eyes...can't you see it?)

ben and doctor

2011-11-03T08:53:00.001-07:00

since ben was 18 months, he's had a rough relationship with our doctor - whom i'll call dr. D. my doctor is fantastic - funny, nice, normal, etc. i think ben remembers having his shots with him and now is terrified. i was looking forward to bring ben to my pregnancy check-ups so that HE wouldn't have to be the patient - he could just watch. no such luck. one time, ben wouldn't get off my lap in the waiting room because he was nervous and then when he mustered enough courage to run over to the toy bin, dr. D came out and walked past him to get to the door. ben's little lower lip started to tremble as the doctor said, "hi buddy!" and when dr. D left the room, ben burst into tears and ran to my lap. oh brother. so i didn't make him come to very many of my appointments. the ones i had to bring him, he stayed in the waiting room by himself in the chair farthest away from the examining rooms. (the receptionist kept an eye on him but said he never moved a muscle) the one good part of the visits in his mind, was getting a treat at the end. the doctor always invited him to come around the corner of the counter and pick a treat and he was willing to get this close to dr. D for this - even letting dr. D open the package of fruit snacks for him. thankfully, ben hasn't been sick very many times to warrant a doctor's visit for himself...until yesterday.

i made an appointment for avery as she's had some goop in her eyes, i've had a lingering cough forever, and ben has some eczema on his arm. we're a sorry mess. so i warned ben in the morning that we'd be going to the doctor for avery and that avery needed him to come and look after her. i suggested he pick out a treat from his halloween stash to bring and share with the doctor - he picked one for himself and one for dr. D. i put them in a baggie and told him he could have his treat when we got to the office. he held the baggie for the entire 30 minute drive to office. he ate his lollipop while we waited for our appointment and when dr. D showed his face, ben held up the baggie with a box of smarties inside and ran over to him. when i explained that they were for him, he said thank you to ben and asked if he was going to come with mommy in the room. ben turned and ran back to his safe zone - the waiting room chair.

i went in with avery and had our appointment and explained that ben had this eczema on his arm. when avery and i were done, dr. D came out with us to the waiting room and sat in a chair farthest from ben. there were other people in the waiting room, waiting for their appointments. he opened the box of smarties and asked ben if he wanted to share with him. ben came over and took some smarties, dr. D checked out ben's arm, continued to share the smarties with ben and another kid in the waiting room until they were gone. then he took ben around the counter to pick a treat, as usual. dr. D was so pumped - "that was a HUGE step!" he said to me. haha. but it really was.

and THIS is why i drive to langley for all my appointments, sometimes having to wait an hour to get into my appointments. this guy is good.

halloween at home

2011-11-01T08:31:00.000-07:00

lately, ben has learned the word "scary" and has started being scared by many things. halloween is not a great time of year of an easily scared 2 year old. though he went trick-or-treating last year on my parent's street, this was our first time in our own neighbourhood. the people across the street go to a TON of work to decorate their yard...i thought ben might not even want to leave our house when he saw it.

(this doesn't even show half of the scariness since it's taken from the window at our house!)

thinking that ben wouldn't be leaving the house, we prepared to trick-or-treat at the mall where i figured most of the costumes would be little kids. the stores hand out candy from 3:30 - 5pm. we left avery at gram and pop's house and we got to the mall at 3:45pm. some of the stores were already out of candy - there were SO many kids! it was a little overwhelming for a two year old but he was pretty pumped once he realized he was getting candies in his bag.

we met up with ben's friend tyson.

"people are giving me candy?"

we had to stop at many of the couches in the mall to "rest" and eat a candy. ben had a great time. but that costume was not made for indoors - it's made for colder trick-or-treating . despite just having shorts and a t-shirt underneath, he was so hot at the end of our 45min.

we picked up avery, ate a couple more treats at grams', then went home for supper. while supper cooked, i asked ben if he wanted to go out to the houses on our street and he seemed keen. we even crossed the street towards our scary neighbours house but he understandably wanted to go the opposite direction down the street. we skipped all the houses that had something scary by their doors. at one point we were walking and he said, "scaydy hands, mommy." i looked at his hands, my hands, and nothing looked scary. then i looked over and saw we were passing some "graves" with hands sticking out of them. poor kid.

ben hit quite a few houses for being on foot but after a street and cul-de-sac, when i asked if he wanted to do one more, he was tired. we headed home to eat. he had just as much fun handing out candy at our door for the next hour, until we ran out (and i was unwilling to give away ben's candy)! when it was bedtime, i put ben in bed and as soon as i'd left the room, the firecrackers/works started. one loud pop outside our house and ben was screaming. i ran in there and ben was face down with his hands over his head, crying - so sad. i pulled him out of bed and popped him in our bed. i layed there for a minute with him and then said goodnight and left. again, more fireworks. again, more terrified screaming. so ben came out of bed and sat with us on the couch and we let him watch monster trucks (very soothing...haha) until ten to 9pm - probably the latest he's ever stayed up with us. i finally tried bed again but he just cried and cried (now, totally overtired and having a major sugar crash, i'm sure). i ended up singing to him until he fell asleep.

then tim and i raided his candy bag...

so, it was a good night and it was a tough night. today, he woke up full of smiles and excitement to eat treats. i sent him to gram's house at 9am with a lollipop in hand - oh dear.

more pumpkin patching

2011-10-31T08:31:00.000-07:00

this weekend, we tried out Maan Farms - you have to pay to get in (we had a groupon) and it wasn't that great in comparison to my fav, Willowview Farm. but maybe it's just because my expectations were higher because it cost money. here are our highlights.

we were the only family without some kind of baby carrier...they hurt my neck/shoulders and tim refuses to wear one. haha.

bunnies at the petting zoo

ben loved being in the duck/chicken pen though he didn't want to get too close to any of the birds. in this pic, i said, "ben, go close to the ducks and i'll take your picture." that's as close as he got - and you can see the wary look on his face.

the giant sandbox is definitely a highlight of Maan Farms...though they just had this one shovel which ben monopolized.

avery never woke up.

the only pumpkin we went near - we were really there for the animals and the good times.

back to the bird pen.

(we've switched computers here at home so normally i would have cropped a couple of these pics so you could the see the facial expressions better but i can't figure out the software on this computer.)

sentences

2011-10-31T08:06:00.000-07:00

here's ben's longest sentence so far:

he was looking at a guy who was standing in the back of a pick up truck and said, "a tat man doing up there?"

i love this learning to talk stage.

on the rare occasion...

2011-10-27T14:06:00.000-07:00

avery dislikes her swing but will sit contently in her bouncy chair sometimes. two or three times, she's even fallen asleep in it. gotta love those rare occasions... quick, rebecca! go nap! ;)

$1.50 well spent

2011-10-24T19:54:00.000-07:00

a month or so ago, i went to the new local dollar store. i'm always surprised that different dollar stores can have that many different things from each other. this one that i went to is a dollar plus store so there are more expensive things...but really, much better selection. i bought a bunch of random things. one of them was a bag of foam letters and numbers for the bath.

turns out - these were the best $1.50 investment ever. ben loves them. they stick to the walls so well with just water. i would spell out "ben" for him every night in the tub and pretty soon, he started spotting the letters b, e, and n in other places - books, signs, etc. i was so surprised and realized i should be telling him the whole alphabet! now, we line up the letters and sing our ABCs. we also organize the letters into colour piles. ben also likes to pretend they are pizza and pretend to eat them. they're a very versatile toy. if you have a kid, i'd highly recommend some foam letters for your tub.

cleaning up

2011-10-22T21:17:00.000-07:00

i get ben to clean up toys here and there throughout the day. i don't want to have a stand off so i try to suggest we better clean up in a nonchalant way to ward off the "no"s. "ben - we better pick up these cars so we have room for playing in the ball pit - quick, let's clean them up!" then we both put them away together. for the most part, he's a great helper but i think it's key that i pitch in as well.

yesterday, tim had to work from 7:30am - 7:30pm. avery would not sleep. i had to hold her and walk around bouncing her to put her to sleep and then if i laid her down, she was awake again. i'm sure i accidentally overfed her because the crying sometimes seemed like hungry crying but it was actually tired crying. we didn't have a car to get out to have her sleep in her carseat and do something to entertain ben AND it poured rain all day so no walks. it was a very, very long day.

ben was a doll. he played and played and even though he has come down with a cold, was in a pretty good mood. but there was no cleaning up yesterday. i didn't want to tell him to clean up and have to hold him to it if he said no. i couldn't really help him clean up because i was always holding avery. so i let the house fall to pieces. i was surprised at how unsettling i found it to have toys everywhere. and my poor feet stepped on many a tiny, sharp toy. haha.

BUT we made it through the day, of course. i had to take a couple photos of the clutter for memory's sake. (though they're a little dark as it was nearing the end of the day and i'm not a big flash fan.)

today, avery slept a little better and we did much better to pick up one activity before starting the next. plus, i cleaned off that little green table so that there was room for colouring, painting, and play dough (all things that we did today). it's so much easier to enjoy toys when they're easy to find and there'a a space to play with them in.

getting me through...

2011-10-21T20:30:00.000-07:00

looks like post-baby weight-loss will have to wait...

at one month

2011-10-19T09:37:00.000-07:00

avery is already one month and it feels like we just got her. when ben was a month old, it felt we'd had him forever because he was my only focus all day, everyday whereas i'm still looking at this wee girlie and asking, "who are you?".

here are some things that i know about avery:

> she's not a fan of swaddling and likes to sleep with her arms out or up.

> she is definitely going to be a soother baby like ben.

> she does not like the swing.

> she loves the bath.

> she hasn't been liking wearing hats but hopefully that will change.

> she loves to sleep...during the day.

> in the evenings, she needs to sleep but can't do it alone - she wants to be held close.

it may not be a long list but remember, babies don't do much other than eat, sleep, and dirty their diapers. just seeing this list makes me feel like i know avery better than i realize.

one month old mother of two

what's your level?

2011-10-15T20:31:00.000-07:00

i think everyone has different levels of tolerance when it comes to their babies. a friend was telling me today that she'd told her husband that her son was good during the day. then her husband spent all morning with the baby and informed her that he was fussy, cried, pooped, fussy some more etc. etc. and asked her, "is this normal?" she was like, "yeah. that's a good day."

when it comes to avery, i think she's probably a pretty content baby overall...but it's looking like the problem is that i have a low tolerance level. i want to feed her, burp her, let her fall asleep in my arms, then lay her down and have her sleep for a solid few hours. in fact, stay and awake and be happy if you'd like. once in awhile this is what happens. i think to myself, "this is it! we've passed the weird newborn stage and life is going to be normal and happy now!" then we have a day like today where avery has slept only 30 minutes about three times between 3pm to now (9pm) and all the rest of that time has been spent crying. oh. my. goodness. it's a ton of crying. (thankfully, tim's taken a ton of time with her and we've been watching hockey with my dad so you don't really have to hear what's happening.) the crying makes me crazy. we try everything we know...which is feed her and change her diaper. these things are not working. i find it very "you don't know how to look after a baby!" which is stressful.

but you know? it's one day. tomorrow will be different and it will be a day of perfect naps, bottles, and quiet, happy awake time which will be very "you are the best mother ever!" and that will make me feel better. today will have increased my tolerance level a bit and any crying that happens tomorrow will seem like nothing.

not so sleepy

2011-10-15T09:50:00.000-07:00

avery seems to be beginning to spend more time awake these days. i guess that was bound to happen, right? a couple weeks ago, all awake time was spent either trying to get her to stop crying or worrying that she was about to cry. now, we're vaguely remembering that babies are able to spend time awake and be content - it's been much nicer.

(an iphone photo of avery dressed in something other than a sleeper for the first time)

pumpkin patch trial run

2011-10-12T13:41:00.000-07:00

ahh yes - i found my camera. i found it on saturday morning before we left for the pumpkin patch - i was on the verge of insisting we go and buy a new one...good thing we found it.

we actually have a groupon for a local pumpkin patch and we were going to use it but we realized that we were going to be a little rushed because it takes us forever to leave the house nowadays AND we were planning on driving to Hope (an hour and a half away) to see tim's grandparents that afternoon. instead of going to the pumpkin patch that we'd PAID for, we went to the free one that we went to last year so we wouldn't feel ike we hadn't gotten our money's worth. haha. my photos from last year are so cute and i want some good family photos this year. BUT since this was our "trial run" of the pumpkin patch, i wasn't worried that i was wearing tim's big spit-up stained hoodie, and that i couldn't find ben's jeans that morning. also, looking back at last year's picks, i'd like to get another plaid shirt for ben this fall. but the kids are always cute so i took a few photos of them of course...

what a big boy!

my b-boy

2011-10-07T10:34:00.000-07:00

a common question that people ask once you have a second kid: "how is _____ [insert first child's name] adjusting?" maybe you are wondering also.

ben is doing pretty good. he definitely loves avery and asks to have her come read books at bedtime or he lays down on the floor beside her when we're changing her diaper. he looks concerned when she's crying and he calls her squeaky mouse.

in the past few days though, the "helping" has definitely increased - i don't know if it's that avery is awake a little more which means mommy is holding her more but if i'm holding avery, chances are that ben is trying to sit on my lap. if i'm giving her a bottle, ben is sitting on me and trying to hold the bottle. we were at the beach on sunday and i was walking and holding avery because she'd been screaming in her carseat - ben HAD to hold my hand and not daddy's hand. good thing avery is so light, i can carry her with one arm.

but overall, he's doing well. i'm so happy that he likes her at this stage because as she gets older and more communicative, i imagine that will be more fun for him to entertain her.

at my parents' place on sunday, ben placed his cars around avery so that she could see them.

then he laid beside her for a few minutes.

then he tried playing in this position - it didn't last long.

he'll love it when she can sit in her bumbo.

2011-10-06T10:41:00.000-07:00

avery. avery. avery. i'm still getting used to this name. sometimes tim or i will accidently call her the other name we'd had picked for her (which was allie) or after hanging out with our friend's daughter, we both kept calling her that name. and the fact that we picked the name, avery, goes against my strong opinions on nicknames. but we're glad we picked this name. we'll stop calling her "the baby" soon. ;)

augh

2011-10-06T10:29:00.000-07:00

when i can't find my camera, i try not to think about it very hard. i'll casually look through a bag here or there but i don't want to actually LOOK for it. that would be admitting that it is lost. and then when you look for it and can't find it, you feel a bit panicked. but if it's not lost, you just don't know where it is, there's no panic. you feel like, "i'll see that camera one of these days."

but in case you're wondering why i haven't been posting any pics of my kids in the past week...umm...i haven't seen my camera around lately.

2 years olds get it

2011-10-05T16:41:00.001-07:00

this morning, i was so tired. then ben was up earlier than i'd hoped he'd be. after he ate breakfast, i realized that he'd just dirtied the diaper i'd just put on him. i said, "oh dear - maybe you could change your own diaper today." he walked away and two seconds later i heard a velcro ripping sound and an "uh oh. poop." ben had walked down the hall, taken off his pj pants, and ripped off his diaper. thankfully, it wasn't messy and everything stayed in the diaper when it fell to the floor. what an obedient little boy! too funny.

reminder to self: two year olds understand what you're saying to them - don't make jokes.

jeepers creepers...

2011-10-01T13:56:00.000-07:00

tim and i recently learned that you are born with your eyes full sized - they don't grow. the other day we were looking at avery and tim said, "you can tell that her eyes are huge in there." pause as we continue looking at her. "it's a bit freaky."

relearning

2011-10-01T13:19:00.000-07:00

after a week of having avery scream her heart out each evening between 9pm - 12am, we slowly began to figure out that she was hungry. it seemed crazy when she'd just eaten an hour and a half earlier so we kept assuming it was gas or something. i guess because she'll go 4 and 5 hour stints without eating during the day, eating every 1.5 - 2hrs in the evening isn't that weird...unfortunately, it took me a week to figure this out. the last three nights though, we've barely had any crazy crying. night time periods of sleep are lengthening but i have not yet figured out that i need to get into bed as soon as possible in order to maximize the first long "nap" from 9pm-ish to 1:30am. and i'm sure this will change any moment anyways, right? that's something i DO remember about babies. avery is spending more and more time awake with her eyes open which is nice but it always feels just one step away from a meltdown so i'm always a little fearful of the awake times...but i'll get over it soon. you feel a little bit zombie-ish that first week and you're not quite sure of this new person in your life but the second week brought a little normalcy back and i actually spent a lot more time enjoying this little girl. it was a good feeling. now if we can just get the napping schedules coordinated and remember that i should go to bed at 9pm, we'll be out of the first month in no time.

what are you watching?

2011-09-30T09:03:00.001-07:00

this was a fantastic week to love tv AND have had a newborn because all the new seasons of our favourite shows started. ALSO, there were tons of new shows and we taped and watched most of them. how did we ever survive without a pvr before? they are a must-have for life with newborn. i wasted some major time that i should have spent cleaning up my house and wrote a little bit about each show that we watched. don't leave me hanging - let me know what you're watching or what you thought of any of these shows.

shows that we already were watching previous seasons (spoiler alert - don't read if you haven't watched these yet):

parenthood: i adore this show so much that my hopes were probably too high for the season opener and therefore, i was a little disappointed. second episode this past week though started getting good. love that adam and crosby are going into business together - that's going to be a good, continuing story line. not sure about this sarah dating the teacher thing but i do love that actor so since his acting gig on "the event" was cancelled, i'm glad he's got a spot on parenthood.

community: not a strong start but last season we stopped watching for awhile and then it got awesome halfway through the season and i was sorry that we'd missed a bunch of episodes. i like the new role of security guard for chang and the fact that pierce looks like he'll be back to normal - those are two characters that i was hating last season.

parks and rec: we love love this show. like the new role for andy as amy poehler's assistant. an okay opening episode.

office: i had low expectations for the season premiere though i was glad to see in the ads that robert california was going to be on the show because i thought he was so funny in the season finale. when i actually watched, i was pumped that andy is actually the manager AND robert cali is going to be on the show. nice little twist. i thought it was a great premiere and was pleasantly surprised. (laughed aloud at the second episode this week)

survivor: if you listen to the open mike from my wedding video, you'll know that i used to be a crazy survivor fan. at about season 10, i took about a 10 season break from the show. but tim and i watched the last two seasons and have really liked the show again so i was happy to discover that this season looks pretty good too. i am weirded out that coach is here again as an all-star when i don't think he was that great at the game the last two times but he seems to have mellowed a bit (or so the editing tells us) making him not as annoying to watch.

new shows that we were looking forward to:

person of interest - benjamin linus from Lost and Jim Caviezel - it looked like a good match to me. i figured this would be a Lost or The Event type replacement but the premise of the show (which you'll have to google because i can't explain it) will make for a new episode every week as opposed to a story that keeps building and building. it got a little more "shoot em up" at the end than i would like to watch but overall, i really liked the show and will definitely be watching this one regularly.

new girl - zooey deschanel's new show. this character was MADE for her and it was actually a great first episode. funny and quirky. can't wait to see more to see if they can keep it that way.

up all night - i was SO looking forward to this show as i love will arnett and christina applegate. the fact that it's about parenthood was total bonus. after having watched two episodes now, i'm a little disappointed that the characters are so...for lack of a better word, dumb. i'm still going to keep watching in hopes of improved character development... ;)

prime suspect - we thought we'd try out a new detective show and i really liked this one. it seemed like a more believable account of being a female cop in a department of men. the main actress is awesome - no annoying chip on her shoulder, not overdone on the attitude, just cool. i'm looking forward to more episodes - this was a good find.

unforgettable - this was a random "we just had a baby and have no where to go and nothing to do" pvr choice. the main detective has some kind of medical, can remember everything, syndrome. it was interesting enough for us to tape the episode the next week.

pan am - i fell asleep with the baby on chest...i don't think it was the show's fault. i was just tired. anyone else watch this one?

terra nova - tim thought this could be our new LOST. i couldn't get through the first hour. i found it hard to connect with the main characters and then when the dinosaurs showed up, i told tim he'd have to watch this show on his own if he wanted to keep watching. haha. i think he's bailed as well.

two and a half men - i hate this show. but ashton kutcher? i had to just watch the first couple episodes and see what his character was going to be like. i kind of liked ashton's character! but i most likely won't be watching.

hmm...maybe i should be embarrassed that i watched this much tv in a week...and then took the time to write about it. but now it's done and even though i'm embarrassed - i'm super interested to hear what you watched.

mommy amnesia

2011-09-28T13:50:00.000-07:00

as it turns out, i've completely forgotten what it's like to have a newborn. i was assaulted by this realization when i met alyssa's son, huxley, a few days before avery was born. i was afraid to move with hux in my arms for fear of breaking him and when he started to cry, i had no idea what to do except hand him back to his mother. i thought to myself, "oh no...what am i going to do when I'M the mother?"

10 days later, i've remembered how to hold newborns and am slowly remembering what to do when she's crying. but i'm constantly trying to think back to when ben was a newborn and cannot for the life of me remember what he was like.

after the first few nights of avery screaming her tiny lungs out for a couple hours at a time, tim was like, "something is wrong with this baby - we should put her in her bed to let her cry it out." i'm shaking my head, "i don't think you do that with newborns..." we remember ben being a "good sleeper" but i think that was a little while into his life - not in the first week, right? and when i saw my friend, rachel, the other day, she asked, "does avery grunt in her sleep like ben did?" i was like, "did ben grunt in his sleep?" she replied, "yeah - you couldn't sleep in the same room as him because he made so much noise." huh. yeah, she does make a lot of noise in her sleep. i guess that's the same.

i started reading back through old blog posts from june and july of 2009 and found some helpful stories about ben being fussy in the evenings which really encouraged me that there's nothing wrong with this girlie. also, many posts about being so "busy" with my one infant - now with the 2 year old in tow, those stories make me smile.

avery joy - the birth story

2011-09-21T09:58:00.000-07:00

after i had ben, i never wrote down "the birth story" because i figured, how could i possibly forget any of this. this time, i'm writing it here. it's long - i understand if you would rather just jump ahead to the photos.

last wednesday (about a week before my due date) at my doctor's appointment, my doctor was surprised that the baby was sitting SO low and he gave me the impression that she could come any day now. trying not to get my hopes up, i responded, "ben sat really low for like over a month though..." and dr. said, "first babies can sit low for a long time but it's rare for a second baby to be low for very long because your body knows what it's doing now and it will trigger labour."

for the next 4 days, i wondered, "maybe this is it!" at every pain. by saturday, i was so annoyed at myself for having switched my mindset from "she'll be late" to "maybe this is it" that i told myself i needed to go back to NOT expecting the baby. it's a much easier state of mind.

sunday morning, we headed to church. i was having some pains but nothing unlike the ones i'd been having all week. i chatted with people about my due date and joked about hopefully having a baby for next sunday. after church, we headed to white rock as usual. i was having these cramps still and i laid on the couch for a bit after lunch but then thought of a couple things i needed at walmart so my mom, ben, and i went over there. i had a couple pains that i had to stop walking and wait them out but overall, not too bad being out and about. by late afternoon, i was moaning and groaning but kept thinking, "i'm probably just being a big baby - these probably aren't anything." we ate dinner at about 6pm and i wasn't feeling like eating so i mostly had salad. at this point, i had to leave the room for each contraction. i was starting to think that this could be labour. halfway through dinner, the contractions were hurting enough that i needed to lean over a chair or table and have tim press on my back to help the pain. at 7pm, my mom put ben to bed and i went in to sing a song and pray with him before he went to sleep. we started timing the contractions and they seemed about 8 - 10 minutes apart. and then the next one was closer and the next was closer - but i couldn't quite tell when they were ending so i thought my timing must be off. at 7:30, my mom found the langley hospital phone number and called. they said that i could come and get checked and if i wasn't dilated, they would just send me home. i figured it couldn't hurt to get checked and know what was happening.

tim and i got into the truck at 7:55pm - i was having such painful contractions that i couldn't get into the truck. tim's saying to me, "as soon as this one ends, you have to get in quick - we need to get to the hospital." i got in and we started our half hour drive to langley. (we have our doctor in langley which is why we thankfully were not driving to abbotsford) of course, there were many a slow driver in front of us and at one point, we almost hit a deer that jumped across the road! every contraction, i'd start to scream a little but then would tell myself that screaming doesn't help. i'd start trying to breathe and tim said i talked to myself the entire way to the hospital. i remember saying things like, "i can do this. i've done this before. i'm going to have a baby at the end of this. i can do this." etc etc. we pulled into the parking lot at 8:25pm and i had three contractions from the truck to the front desk. there, they got me a wheelchair and tim zoomed me away. hospital hallways are confusing and nurses who are exiting an elevator but don't hold the door for the obviously pregnant woman in the wheelchair are frustrating but when we got to the third floor, all the nurses jumped up and got us straight into a room. it was 8:30pm.

now, flashback to being at this hospital for ben's birth. when i got to the hospital that time, they put me in the triage room, hooked me up to monitor and left me for two hours, writhing in pain in a terrible position. i would tell tim to go find a nurse and tim would come back saying, "there's no one out there," because 4 other women were in labour that night.

THIS time, as they wheeled me straight into a room, i was thinking, "oh no. aren't they going to check me before they give me a room? what if i'm not even dilated yet and these contractions are actually not that bad? i'll look like such a wussie." i got on the bed and found out i was already 7cm dilated. phew. not a wussie.

i had 4 or 5 contraction with laughing gas which was more helpful this time than last time and it also muffled my screaming which i'm sure everyone appreciated. because of the gas, i couldn't barely open my eyes so people were talking to me but i don't think i was responding. definitely still self-talking though. my water broke during one of the contractions and one of the nurses said to me, "if you need to start pushing, that's okay. we've delivered babies before." then my doctor walked in. phew. he didn't have time to get a gown on so he's in his shorts and t-shirt and saying to me, "don't push yet, rebecca. i just need to get my gloves on." 9 minutes and some wild screaming later, avery was born at 9:02pm. wow. my doctor declared that it was definitely a girl and i was so thankful.

tim cut the cord and they put the baby on me right away which was something that i didn't get to experience with ben because he wasn't breathing when he was born. it was an amazing feeling to get to watch this purple baby turn pink and start crying right before my eyes. a few minutes later, i sent tim to go get our bags which had the camera in it. i joked with the doctor what a great patient i am to have my baby on a sunday night - not messing up anyone's appointments during the day or waking him up in the middle of the night. he said, "yeah, i got the call at 8:32 and you had this baby at 9:02 - if i go home, my wife won't even believe that i delivered a baby that fast!"

my mom came out that night. we spent a couple hours reliving our experience, marveling at avery's dark hair, tiny hands and feet, and long fingers. tim and i stayed overnight obviously but had a terrible sleep. i seem to have pulled some muscles in my legs because i could barely walk or even roll or in bed. just when i'd get to sleep, a nurse would come in or avery would make some noise. i couldn't remember how to swaddle tight enough and she didn't seem too happy about that. at about 6am, we gave up trying to sleep and tim and i just sat there looking at each other for awhile. he went to get coffee eventually and breakfast was delivered. our doctor arrived at 8:30am and asked when we wanted to go home - we said, "right now". so he said he'd come back at noon to discharge us. tim and i wondered what the heck we were going to do until noon but thankfully tim's parents showed up and stayed for a long time and then my brother and sister in law came (with frap in hand). when ben finally came with my parents, all his favourite people were already there.

ben walked into the room very tenatively as i'm sure he was expecting the doctor to be there. (he's quite scared of the doctor despite me having the friendliest, nicest doctor ever) i wasn't holding the baby so i was able to have him come over to the bed (which is scary looking in itself) and hoisted him up to sit on my lap. he looked at each person in the room and i told him that baby avery was here. we'd been calling her baby avery for about a couple weeks so e knew who i was talking about. my brother brought her over and he checked her out. he seemed happy about meeting her. i told him that we had a present for him and he sat on my lap and opened up a set of Thomas trains that i'd bought him. he was pretty happy about that and quickly got of the bed to play with them. the apprehension was gone and he was more at ease being at the hospital.

at about 1pm, we were discharged and off we went home. i rode in the backseat with avery - i couldn't help myself. once at home, we had this feeling of, "wait a sec...how do you look after a newborn again?" we're slowly re-learning the art of baby calming and straining to remember if ben was like this in his first week. but mostly, we are excited to have our family of four home.

BC's Top Baby Names

2011-09-15T14:51:00.000-07:00

you know how you read those lists of the top baby names of the year but they're for all of the US or all of Canada? (or is it just me reading lists of baby names? ha) well, a friend of mine recently told me that BC (and probably other provinces too) posts ALL the names of babies every year and the NUMBER of each name! how great is that? a much more accurate reading on whether your kid will have to go by their last initial in their kindergarten class or not. :) it looks like ben will - apparently, there were 195 Benjamins in BC in 2009 and 210 Benjamins in 2010! but it's a pretty interesting list to go through. click here to check it out.

great days

2011-09-13T08:08:00.001-07:00

yesterday was one of those days that ben is in a good mood all day. he played and had fun with friends at a playdate so i could mostly sit and chat with my friends. he was happy to eat grilled cheese with me for lunch. he woke up happy from his nap and helped me make muffins and burritos before we headed outside to play in the sandbox. these days are the greatest. i'm trying to relish the one-child days that i have left and this was a good one.

Tupperware commercial!

2011-09-12T14:27:00.000-07:00

speaking of freezing food...all Tupperware's Freezer Mates went on sale this month! how great is that? here are the deals:

everyone's FAVOURITE freezermate size: the large 2. you can RARELY buy these separately (like i've only seen them on sale once in the last 2 years) and now you can get TWO for $38.50! that's less than $20 each and they are PERFECT for baking -they hold a dozen muffins/cupcakes or i always fill mine with the costco bags of berries and peas so they won't get freezer burned. Or as you can see, they fit big batches of soup or i just used mine yesterday to hold 8 pre-made burritos. these are the BEST!

here's what i call the "go big or go home" set if you really want to get that freezer organized - 24 pieces for $132. this many would normally be $214! you're saving a TON of money and they have a lifetime guarantee. where else can you get that? or SPLIT this set with someone and just pay $66 for half - that's such a good deal to get your freezer started looking awesome.

look how much nicer the one side of my freezer is with these! they are lego for the freezer - make them fit perfectly depending on the sizes of things you're putting in there.

read about my idea for hosting a Freezer Meal Tupperware Party here - everyone preorders their Freezer Mates and then I'll send you a list of potential recipes, you choose a handful, we set a date for all your mom friends to come over and we PREP! Everyone will go home with their containers full of meals all ready to go!

if you're not ready to commit to 24 containers, there are a couple other sets for you but they are "purchase with purchase" sets. let me explain...

if you are buying $120 worth of Tupperware, THEN you can get this set for just $23.50: the Family Set of 4. these are my most used sizes. because the medium 1s are so thin, they thaw quicker - in fact, i have a pound of prebrowned hamburger in a medium 1 sitting in my sink thawing right now. getting ready to make burritos for dinner. other ideas?

a medium 1 holds 4 chicken breasts or...

two cups of mashed bananas, for example.

or if you are spending $85, you can get the Starter Set for $15.50. these look ridiculously small in real life but you want to freeze food with the least amount of air possible and small containers is one way to do that.

the small 1s hold 2 chicken breasts and the small 2s hold a pound of ground beef (among many other things as well).

want to order some Freezer Mates or book your party? email rebeccashulba@gmail.com

pinterest recipes

2011-09-12T08:14:00.000-07:00

click on the links to find the recipe!

Best Ever Zucchini Bread - this is a great recipe especially because it makes so much. i'd bought a couple zucchinis at the farmer's market which makes me want to grow my own next year. i made one large loaf and two small loaves with one recipe which was great. we immediately ate a small loaf and were able to throw the other ones in the freezer for another day. i substituted 1/2cup applesauce for 1/2 cup of oil which worked great - i'd like to try to substitute the whole cup of oil for a whole cup of applesauce but have yet to try that out.

ben eating his cake on the deck

Easy Blueberry Cake - i tried this out because i had bisquick in the house and i thought it sounded easy. what i discovered was that i don't mind taking an extra few minutes to throw a couple extra dry ingredients in instead of using bisquick! but it was pretty good cake nonetheless. best warm.

Homemade Vanilla Creamer - this turned out to be pretty great. i used to use the vanilla creamer that you buy in the store which doesn't go bad for like, 6 months, and you wonder what the heck is in it. if you use that everyday, this homemade version probably won't cut it. HOWEVER, after having not bought that other creamer for SO long, this ended up being a great substitute. (i keep it in a Tupperware Mod. Mate with a dripless pour spout which has turned out to be fantastic and seriously dripless.) tim says it's too sweet for him but i use it as both my creamer and sugar. no extra sugar needed.

ben grabbing for his smoothie

Green Smoothie - i didn't follow this recipe really but what i took from it was that you can throw whatever you have in the fridge into your smoothie. if you add juice, it takes some of the vegetable flavour away. ben's a big smoothie fan so i started adding spinach ice cubes (just blended spinach saved in ice cube trays) or fresh if i had it, cucumber, whatever fruit i had on hand or in the freezer and then a little juice and sometimes a little water to make it thinner (so it can go up a straw). these are so great! AND practically ben's daily intake of fruits and veggies! i pour them into an opaque cup so that he doesn't notice on the days that the smoothie is a little greener than usual.

one shirt

2011-09-09T08:09:00.001-07:00

last pregnancy, i got down to really only having one shirt that fit over my stomach. i resisted buying anything new for the entire last month of pregnancy because i was only going to be pregnant for so much longer. after i had ben, i realized that you still need some of your maternity stuff for awhile as your tummy slowly deflates. i thought to myself, "next pregnancy, i'm not holding back if i need something new."

but here we are...i have only one shirt that fits over my stomach (that i'll wear in public - i have two tank tops that i wear around the house). i've been in this situation for probably at least 2 - 3 weeks already and despite doing my best to shop for a couple new shirts, nothing in STORES fit will over my belly! (without being way too huge on top) and so, we have yet another one-shirt-wonder that i will want to burn post-pregnancy but will have to continue to wear for another 4 months while i attempt to slim down. at least this one is a step up from a blue t-shirt.

the problem with having this one shirt is that you're constantly washing it. and that might be three (maybe 4?) wears then wash in my (not-so-clean) world BUT as a pregnant person, i am CONSTANTLY spilling things on myself. i don't know if spill this often when i'm not pregnant and it just doesn't hit my stomach because it's usually not this large but i've had to start washing this dumb shirt daily (at night when i'm sleeping)!

the other day, i put it on to wear to my doctor's appointment and i was kicking myself for not having washed it the previous night because i had a faint little blackberry spot on the white collar. but did i have a choice? no. i had to wear it. oh well. at the office, i walked into the fully mirrored elevator and saw that the tiny spot on my collar was the least of my worries because at the bottom of the shirt (where i cannot see) was a HUGE blackberry stain. and i thought all my stains were top of the belly stains! shoot.

so we're 10 days away from the due date (20 days away from my personally predicted date) and i guess i'm just glad that i have ONE shirt that fits because having NO shirts would be a REAL problem. :)

first day of school

2011-09-06T13:38:00.000-07:00

well...not for us. but when ben got up, his first priority was to find his backpack and fill it with stuff from around the house. seems appropriate for the day after labour day, hey?

everyone needs markers and a small ladder, right? (there's a tape measure in there too)

he LOVES to wear his backpack - blurry but too cute not to post.

shoot - the drill is too big...

ready for school...hmm...maybe he needs pants and couple more years.

we baked blackberry muffins instead of going to school today.

beginning the freezer meals

2011-09-05T20:44:00.001-07:00

messing about with raw meat makes me SO paranoid. on saturday, i finally got started on my freezer meals that i've been talking about making for so long. i had bought 16lbs of boneless, skinless chicken breasts and was ready to make about 10 meals (that serve 4-6 each) from my cookbook The Big Cook. i started cutting up the chicken into chunks and separating it into bags (my T.ware freezermates are all already full of other things like berries, veggies, and mashed bananas!) and i started feeling a little panicky that i'd waited too long after buying the chicken (two days) and that it was getting warm sitting there while i cut. what if i am making meal after meal of contaminated meat that will make us sick when we eat it? so i'd cut up one package of chicken into bags then put the bags in the fridge and get the next package out of the fridge and repeat. it took awhile but i'd had enough sense to do all this chopping while sitting down.

then it was time to make the different marinades. the idea is that it takes the same amount of time to make one meal as it does to make 4 or 8. i did two recipes for 4 meals. i hadn't exactly thought about how MUCH of each ingredient i'd need for such large quantities - i'd just bought the ingredients. when you multiply everything by 4, it meant that i had barely enough honey, not enough soy sauce, i used our entire bottle of ketchup, and ran out of lemon juice. woah. i ended up not being able to make the two recipes i'd originally intended and had to switch to one that i had different ingredients. oh brother. but anyways, i got 4 meals of Cantonese Chicken, 4 meals of Maple Chicken, and 2 meals of Pasta Chicken Casserole (in which you add pasta later).

so i have other chicken frozen meals that i wanted to make but will wait a bit. i should get some beef and maybe some pork chop meals prepped first so that we don't get super sick of chicken. i browned a bunch of beef the other day as well and tonight i made one lasagna to freeze but think i might as well make the rest of the beef into lasagnas as well since i've had a bit of an aversion to red meat lately and lasagna is one of the few red meat meals i still like. oh - but i could make burritos maybe...hmm...

now if only my feet didn't hurt so much - it would make all the kitchen work so much easier.

2011-09-03T09:17:00.000-07:00

one of the great things about being a mom is that even if you've had a frustrating day with your two year old, you go to bed at night and think of how great your kid is. it's been hours since he's been in bed and all the memories of whining, tantrums, or both that happened that day have been replaced by thoughts of his happy little face when you cheered him on in his bike riding efforts or the feeling of his little hand patting your hair as he laid his head on your shoulder. these thoughts remind you to try to play more and have patience again the next day.

back berries

2011-09-01T10:07:00.000-07:00

ben's LOVES blackberries. i'm not sure if it's the berries themselves or if it's more the fact that you can pick them from bushes in so many places. this past weekend while we were on the sunshine coast, the short road to the beach was lined with blackberry bushes. we couldn't walk to the beach without ben scarfing berries as fast as he could pick them. his little mantra was "geen? no. wed? no." (aka. don't pick the green or red ones).

personally, i like blackberries well enough but when i pass a blackberry bush, it's rare that i stop to pick some to eat. blackberries seem so dirty. they have those little brown bits on them and the white core that you see in the middle once you've picked one kind of looks like a bug. and chances that you're going to have bugs ON them are high. i cringed at ben's picking/eating, thinking of all the weird bugs he could possibly be eating because he doesn't analyse each berry for a couple minutes like i do. ha.

the other night, tim and i went for a walk with ben on his little glider bike. we walked to a path that goes along a ravine and we discovered tons of blackberry bushes. ben started chowing down and tim was like, "we should get a pail and pick a bunch of these." last night we went for the same walk and this time took a bowl with us to put our berries in. there aren't too many low berries on these bushes so ben had to mostly rely on us to hand him berries. we sstarted by letting him hold the bowl. then we realized that he could eat much faster than we could pick - we took the bowl back. i didn't eat too many (due to the unwashed nature of the berries...) and despite the berry monster being with us, we managed to bring home at least a couple cups of blackberries.

after ben went to bed, i filled the bowl up with water to wash them and then pulled them out a handful at a time, rinsed, and put on a cookie sheet so that i could freeze them. as i was imagining the recipes i could make and thinking that we should go back and pick more, i pulled out a handful that had a huge worm on it! AUGH! i screamed, threw the handful back in, and had multiple shivering fits. i said to tim, "how did this worm get in here? were you looking carefully at the berries you were picking?" he responds, "yeah. it was probably inside a berry." INSIDE? like my kid probably ATE a bunch of worms and now he has worms? (is that how that works? ;) i finished washing the berries and stuck them in the freezer.

i think my blackberry picking day(s) are over.

the naming process...

2011-08-28T21:11:00.000-07:00

i've had a girls' name that i've loved since i was pregnant with ben. i've thought about it for two years and since i was pregnant, i've said it's nickname and full name over and over aloud to tim. we continued to agree that it was our name. when ben started referring to my baby bump as "baby blake" because we have a friend with baby named blake, i thought maybe i'd start calling the baby by her name to ben so he could get used to hearing the name. and since we were using the name to ben, the name came out to a friend here or there in the last month. and all of a sudden, i'm like, "maybe i don't like this name!" i suggested one of our alternates to tim this past weekend and he was very agreeable. "that could be the name," he said in reference to the new name. what? how can we change now after having a name picked for 2 years? oh my goodness...naming children seems like such a big decision yet after you've done it, that's it. we don't think of it again! augh! too much thinking...

free "is time-out a waste of time?" webinar

2011-08-23T12:21:00.000-07:00

i have mentioned Rookie Moms, a favourite blog of mine, a few times on my blog. they are hosting a free, online, one-hour class by a parenting expert, Amy McCready that will answer the question, "is time-out a waste of time?" it's for parents of children ages 2 - 15yrs and like i said, it's FREE! i've never done a webinar before but you don't need a webcam - you just watch and there's a chat feature so that you can ask your questions to Amy. read Rookie Moms' experience taking her class here and then follow the links to sign up. then you and i can discuss later! it's set up for an afternoon session and evening session on Aug. 30 and it's EST so it happens here on the westcoast at 6pm...hopefully we can drop ben off with the grandparents that night so tim and i can both watch it without disruptions.

we'd tried doing time outs with ben before he was 2 where we'd put him in his crib and leave him for a minute or so. when i'd come back in to get him, i'd say, "you're in time out because ____. can you say, "sorry" to mommy for ________." and he'd do the sign for sorry. this wasn't all that effective though.

then i tried doing logical and immediate consequences for misbehaviour. misbehaviour was usually having a tantrum and throwing something all over the floor. logical consequence: sit next to the stuff you threw and you can't leave until you've picked it up. this worked pretty well until misbehaviour was no longer as easy as this to come with the consequence.

i tried having a spot in the kitchen (in front of the pantry door) where he had to sit and wait for the timer to beep. we did this about 3 times and then ben would do something "bad" on purpose and then run to the time out spot and say, "beep, beep, beep". hmm... we immediately stopped doing that.

this past week, we've had a couple run-ins with ben over throwing sand/bark mulch at the park. we say, "stop", and he keeps going. we try to put him in a time out until he's willing to say sorry and he's all like, "bye-bye mommy. bye-bye." grr... the problem with having to say sorry is that pretty soon sorry means nothing and he knows he can just say it glibly and finish his time out. we don't want to have this happen so the other night, tim and i brainstormed as to what would be a better punishment. we decided we'd try to come back around to logical consequences again. if he's throwing bark mulch at the park, give him a warning that if he throws again, we're leaving the park. then actually LEAVE the park when he does it again. etc etc. sounds good in theory but i'm interested to see how it works.

so when i read about this webinar, i thought, "perfect!" - i'd love to get some tools and strategies that we can use right away! comment here if you're planning to register so that i know who i can chat with about it afterwards!

early mornings

2011-08-19T08:45:00.001-07:00

when tim and i got married, i would sleep in until 11am or so on the weekend. tim would be up between 7 - 8am. if he made any noise between 7 - 11am, (before i got up) i would be choked. poor guy. after about a year of this, i started getting up earlier because it seemed like that's what grown ups did.

i was always amazed at people who were up at crazy hours (like 8am) and mowing their lawn or hammering something that seemed to need 100 nails. who WERE these people? go back to bed!

one summer, i was sleeping and it was only about 7:30am so tim was sleeping too and the doorbell rang. it didn't just ring once, it rang about 10 times quickly - like you'd ring it if you were pranking some house in the middle of the night. i was like, "what the heck?" and rolled over - i wasn't going down to open the door at 7:30am. then the person rang it again like a crazy man. i was so angry, i got up, threw on a sweatshirt, opened the door and it was the neighbour from behind our house. we'd never met before. i opened the door and said, "it's SEVEN THIRTY!" and i burst into tears. he was like, "sorry about that. i just wanted to let you know that there are some guys here to cut our tree in our backyard. some of the branches hang into your yard - could they come into your yard to cut them?" of course, that was fine with me. i went back upstairs to bed but the sound of chainsaws outside our window made it a little bit difficult to sleep. i was SO annoyed to be missing a morning of sleeping in during summer vacation.

fast forward 4 years and 7:30am is now what we consider to be sleeping in. when ben asks to go outside, he knows that my response will be "you have to wait until 8 o'clock". sometimes that means waiting 2 hours before leaving the house. once he gets outside, he's loud and often whiny. if you are my neighbour and trying to sleep in, i'd just like to apologize for now being "those people".

tool man

2011-08-18T21:56:00.000-07:00

sporting the new tool belt - that's a "cell phone" in the front center pocket - essential.

a book nook

2011-08-18T12:14:00.000-07:00

here i am about to blog again about ben's room being in the works - you must be thinking, "what the heck is taking you so long to finish that room?" haha. wellll, technically, we could definitely move ben in now but it's not going to look like my imagined finish product because we're going to have both the "big boy bed" AND the crib in that room for awhile. but we're okay with that. however, before we do that, i was waiting for my cousin to come visit and use ben's big boy room as her guest room. now that she headed home yesterday, ben's crib is moving in TONIGHT! after buying a train table that is huge, we put it in the room and those three items fill up the room completely. so for a few months, it will be a little crowded in there. BUT once the crib has left, we will move the train table into that space and voila! a book nook will be born.

we already have the shelves up for it with some books on them. we used IKEA Picture Ledges as shelves so that we could have the fronts of the books facing out for easy choosing.

while i'm loving how they turned out and how much ben likes putting the books on the shelves then taking them off, i found this book shelf idea where they've used IKEA spice racks. these are nice because the books have a little railing to keep them in. (coincidence that their child is also named benjamin...)

so there are a couple very cheap and space efficient book nook ideas for you! let me know if you've done something else!

super moms

2011-08-15T22:16:00.000-07:00

today, my cousin sarah (visiting from ontario!) and i took ben to the "choo choo park" (one of the many parks around mill lake). lately, when we go to the park, i hope that ben will play on his own so that i can sit under a tree in some shade...i'm not the most mobile these days. after pushing ben on the swing for awhile, he got tired of that and headed off to the bouncy teeter-toter thing. i headed the opposite direction to the shade. sarah and i sat in the shade watching ben sit on the teeter totter until a little girl his age (and her mommy) came over and bounced with him. all seemed to be going well so i stayed put. then the mom pulled out some bubbles - ben was right in there with her daughter, wanting to blow bubbles. i'm sure the mom was thinking, "where's this neglected child's mother?" - i headed over. we chatted and she was super nice - i joked about sitting in the shade and watching ben from afar. the mom was happy to share the bubbles with ben.

after a bit, ben headed off in another direction so i followed him and bid farewell to the nice mom and daughter. once i had him playing on his own again, my stomach has just been SO achy (because it's HUGE) so i went back to the shade to sit down. minutes later, ben is back with mom and girl and the mom is pulling out two velcro-y board things that the kids put around their hands then can throw a beanbag back and forth and try to catch it. ben has one and the girl has one and they are throwing and catching like two year olds... :) the girl is quickly bored and heads off but ben is still keen to keep playing so this mom is playing with him! i jump up from my shade and head back over. i can't believe this mom has brought so many OTHER toys with her to the park! to me, the park is what it is - i'd never thought of supplementing the park play equipment!

ben and i play together with this board/bean bag game and when the girl and mom return, i have ben give back the game and say thank you. i suggest the slides and we begin to walk that way. mom and girl are walking with us and the mom says to girl, "do you want something to eat?" ben looks at me and says, "eat! eat!" uhh...sorry, ben - YOUR mom didn't bring anything to eat. the mom asks me if he'd like some fishy crackers. oh my goodness - this mom is a SUPER mom! it was pretty impressive. i declined the crackers as i knew he wasn't actually hungry and we parted ways as our kids found interest in things on opposite sides of the park.

there are some pretty cool moms out there - i hope to meet this one again one day. hopefully, i'll at least have a snack for my kid (and an extra for her kid?) on that day.

2011-08-09T14:15:00.001-07:00

like i've mentioned before, i read a LOT of blogs. when i find projects/activities/recipes that i want to try out, i either email myself the link so it will be SOMEWHERE in hotmail, blog about it here, OR i'll post it to my facebook wall. neither of these work that great to keep track of things.

after a couple days of friends posting facebook statues about pinterest.com, i thought i'd check it out. i wasn't sold so after setting up an account, i just left it empty. then 5 friends started "following" me. ack! i can't leave it empty now, can i? so i went back and put in a little more effort to figure it out. WELL! this site was MADE for me! when i find a blog post somewhere out there that i want to remember to check out further, i just log into pinterest and post it to one of my boards. all my boards are organized into categories. i already have a handful of toddler activities, crafts, personal DIY ideas, home organization ideas, etc! i'm loving it.

the other great thing is that cool people everywhere are posting stuff too and you can browse through your friends' boards or other peoples' boards and if you see something you like THERE, you can "repin" it to your own board. so what this means is that this is a perfect procrastination tool for anytime!

so, i thought i should warn you that now that i'm reading more and more DIY/recipes/toddler crafts, you may be seeing the word pinterest pop up on the blog a lot. now you know.

(if you're wanting to set up your own account and need an "invite", send me an email rebeccashulba@hotmail.com and i'll send you one.)

a great read

2011-08-08T18:15:00.001-07:00

i subscribe to a blog called "dear baby" and today's post was so well-said. every mom has gotten fed up and frustrated and the author just reminded me to remember the big picture. go read it if you've ever wanted to pull your hair out because of your kids.

predictions

2011-08-05T19:38:00.000-07:00

the other day, (actually, after the agrifair) we went to wendy's for supper. (yay!) all the ladies working were east indian and they were chatting away with each other in punjabi while we ordered our meals. after we'd ordered and were standing there waiting for our food, the cashier said, "do you know if you're having a boy or girl?" "i'm having a girl!" i replied. the couple women who were standing there looked surprised. i asked, "did you think it looks like a boy?" they all nodded. then they shouted to their coworker at the take-out window, "it's a girl!". the fry cook missed it so they repeated to the fry cook, "it's a girl!" apparently, they'd all been talking about whether it was a boy or girl in punjabi while i was ordering! haha. pretty funny. people love to predict.

agrifair

2011-08-02T09:41:00.000-07:00

i'd never been to abbotsford's agrifair before and tim hadn't been for at least 20 years. this past weekend, we decided to check it out. we figured it would be fun for ben to see the animals and hear some live music.

we went in the morning right when it opened and walked around then went home for lunch and nap time. we came back in the afternoon and stayed until dinner. we definitely made the most of our $10 entrance fees.

ben's favourite animals - the baby chicks.

"big gacor!" - ben

checking out the old tractors too...

we watched a couple shows in the kidzone - a trampoline show which was way better than it sounds and this trails bikes show - stunts from standing still positions. pretty cool. (the pic is of a guy jumping from a 7 ft high box to a 4ft box - a distance of about 10ft.)

watching the stunts.

back to visit the chicks. see the one poking it's head through the fence? ben's staying a safe distance away from them. we also soaw lots of chickens, roosters, sheep, horses, cows, and goats.

playing.

watching some of the rodeo from a shady spot on the hill.

a fun day for all of us. i love summer stuff.

something for your slow cooker...

2011-07-26T12:01:00.000-07:00

if you're a regular reader, you know my aversion to recipes with ridiculous ingredients. you also know that i have big plans for preparing some freezer meals pre-baby. so in preparation for this freezer meal making and sticking with my "easy ingredients meals", i've been reading a cookbook called "The Big Cook" which gives you every recipe in "one meal", "4 meals", "6 meals", and "8 meals" measurements. The concept is that you make many meals at once, separate into bags and freeze. when you want a meal, you thaw a bag, and then put in a slow cooker (or there are oven instructions too) to be ready for dinner. i'm planning on making a bunch of meals by the end of august to stock my freezer with - it's just a lot of money up front for all that meat.

anyways, i love that they have the ingredients for making just ONE meal because then you can use the book like a normal cookbook as well. the other day, i made "Saucy Chicken" which is super easy, i HAD all the ingredients on hand, AND by making it at nap time and putting it in the slow cooker, it was ready at dinner! i'm making it again today - here's the recipe if you're interested and have simple tastes like mine:

2 lbs chicken (breast or thigh)pieces (last time, I used 1 lb of chicken but the full amount of sauce - this time i'm using 2 lbs so i can have leftovers but i doubled the sauce because it's great on rice)

3 Tbsp water

1/3 cup brown sugar

1/3 ketchup

2 Tbsp. vinegar

1 Tbsp. worcestershire sauce

1 pkg or 3 Tbsp onion soup mix (i buy mine in bulk)

Cut chicken into pieces and put in slow cooker. Mix all other ingredients in bowl and pour over chicken. Cook for 4-5 hours on high OR 6-8 hours on low. Serve over rice. Can also be stir-fried with veggies.

treat receipt

2011-07-26T07:41:00.000-07:00

have you been to starbucks lately? now that there's a starbucks in our mall, i have been there more often this summer than last. rainy days and very hot days are spent inside for this pregnant girl.

i discovered that if you buy a brewed coffee in the morning, your $1.75 tall is actually upsized to a grande. that's a lot of coffee for $1.75. THEN, if you keep your receipt and bring it back after 2pm, you can get a grande cold drink (frap, anyone?) for $2!

that's 3.75 for a grande coffee AND a grande frap! it's really a pretty great deal. unfortunately, i have not yet cashed in a treat receipt. but one of these days...

prints

2011-07-25T11:51:00.000-07:00

how totally cute is this set? click on it to make it bigger. i bought this set of 3 8x10s to hang in our baby girl's yellow and pink room from mateo&tobias on etsy. i can't wait for them to come. i have a couple others that i'm planning to buy soon too for ben's room. LOVE this shop.

playing pretend

2011-07-23T08:40:00.001-07:00

coming very soon is a stage that i'm looking forward to - playing pretend. i've played a little of it with ben when we go to the park and play on little train they have. i ask him to bring me soup or milk and then i pretend to eat or drink. he thinks it's so funny and i can see the wheels turning in his head while we play. we were recently at a friend's house and their 2 1/2 year old pretended that he was a dog for awhile and then a cow (complete with making himself a barn with hay). ben wasn't sure what to make of him. so we're not quite there yet. :)

the other day when ben woke up, he brought his curious george and his baby out from his crib and into the kitchen. while i made his cheerios and poured his milk, he set his two peeps on their own chairs then sat down himself. he happily looked at them for a bit and then moved to sit with baby with a concerted effort not to squish him (just hug him tightly). i know this is the just the beginning of hanging out with pretend friends. i'm a fan.

one year

2011-07-20T12:17:00.000-07:00

june 2010

our new tree, our one year old, and the resolution to take a photo of ben with the tree every year

july 2011

our poor tree is a little worse for wear after the 2010 attack and since the main trunk was broken off at the top, it doesn't really look like the tree has grown much. but look that boy! he's definitely grown.

success!

2011-07-19T08:31:00.000-07:00

the stripes turned out great! turns out, pressing the tape down with a metal putty knife and then painting the base colour coat first totally stops paint from seeping under the tape - even in the corners. the thin brown stripe is not at all the colour i'd thought it was from teh paint chip which is a little disappointing but it's high enough above the bedspread that it's not a big enough deal to do anything about. :)

when we originally moved into the house, the room was light pink and yellow. too bad we didn't keep that, right? but when we painted, we just left the closet light pink. we must not had had enough paint because we couldn't find the leftovers when we wanted to paint the base this time. so with half a quart left, tim finished off the closet which looks so much nicer.

my mom found the ikea trofast for FREE somewhere (side of the road, mom?) which turns out is a kids room staple! we were pretty excited about it but now that we bought a train table that we want to keep in ben's room, we moved the trofast into the closet. it will now be clothing storage which will be super handy since we hadn't thought about a dresser yet. i'm sure it will hold some toys as well. we've already filled the biggest bin full of stuffed animals.

while i'd put some shelves in for a little reading area, it's currently being taken up by the train table because we're going to move ben's crib into the spot where the table will eventually go. yes, we're moving ben's crib into the room. we just want him to be in the blue room so that we can work on the yellow room to make it more girly but we didn't want to rush him into the big bed. this is our solution for a few months until it's time to get ben into his bed. right now, i'm relishing the extra 30 - 40minutes that he'll happily stay in his crib in the morning when he wakes up too early. why would i want to lose that, right?

so we're on our way to reorganizing the rooms of our house. we just need a roller blind for ben's new room and maybe do a little shopping for some fabric to make a little valence and we'll be done!

stripes!

2011-07-17T13:32:00.000-07:00

after posting about ben's move to his new room, we used some painter's tape to make stripes along the ceiling and i used ben's new bedding to pick a few colours for these stripes. tim painstakingly measured, leveled, and taped each stripe which led me to think that maybe i didn't need 5 stripes...i could do with 3. after taping, we began to paint the first colour on the biggest stripe: dark blue. after doing some corners, tim discovered the the paint was seeping under the tape. abort! abort! he washed the paint off with little damage done and announced that we weren't going to paint stripes. i said, "no way - people paint stripes. it's doable." i read up some more on painting stripes and one tip many people had was to first paint the stripes with the base coat colour. this may seep below the tape but it's the correct colour so it won't matter and it will seal off the crevices for the other colours. i went to home depot, bought a quart of our base (since we didn't seem to have any leftover from when we painted it the first time) but being the procrastinator that i am, we didn't do anything with it until about a month later: this weekend.

yesterday, we painted the base coat. yesterday night, after ben was in bed, we did our dark blue stripe. this morning before church, we did the much needed second coat of the dark blue stripe. right now, while ben naps, i painted the bottom green stripe and tim painted the skinny tan stripe. each colour, i say, "this doesn't look like the bedspread" and tim reassures me that it will dry darker and we can and will do second coats on them. here's where we're at right now:

i'm just desperate to peel that tape off now so we can see if it worked! we didn't check ANY of our tape yet so this could be a total washout and we'll be painting over it all with the original blue. eep. hopefully not. the dark blue needs one more coat for good measure and we'll do one more coat on the other two as well just because we have SO much paint leftover.

we'll keep you posted!

signs of summer

2011-07-15T09:17:00.000-07:00

huge raspberries!

corn on the cob - ben almost ate that whole ear

confession

2011-07-14T09:28:00.000-07:00

i'm pretty happy about the weather we've had this summer. sorry to all you sad folk who are wishing for your sunshine to return. but i'm huge and very warm on the cool days. when you're shaking your fist at the clouds, maybe it will make you feel better to think of me appreciating the cool? or maybe you'll just be shaking your fist at me now...either way - i thought i should let you know that it's me behind this rain. ;)

photo from here

make bread?

2011-07-13T17:00:00.000-07:00

i'm almost tempted to try this it sounds so easy...

berry season

2011-07-13T13:33:00.000-07:00

i'm not the greatest produce shopper. sometimes i just buy that red pepper at $3.69/lb at the store because i'm THERE and don't want to go somewhere else. the fruit that really gets me and makes me wonder, "is this a good price?" is berries. i think it's because they're not around all year long for me to get used to seeing their prices. but come berry season, i'm looking at the prices and can never be sure whether i'm getting a good one or not. in the past, the fear of buying overpriced berries has made it so that i completely miss berry season altogether and barely get any! after a couple summers like that, it occurred to me that i better just indulge in fresh berries while i can - whatever the price.

i drive by this produce place everyday that had a sign out a couple weeks ago saying cherries were $2.99/lb. it didn't sound like a particularly good price so i drove by many times. after i'd had a look around the grocery stores and saw cherries at $3.49/lb, i thought, "i love cherries. i'm going to get some for $2.99/lb." and i did. pat on the back. while i was there, i bought a small container of raspberries too for who knows how much. the next day, the paper came with the flyers in it. all three of the main grocery stores had cherries on for less that $2.99! one even as low as $1.99! so i guess i didn't do that great.

but now it seems that the local strawberries may have passed me by. i looked at all the stands at the berry festival and they just didn't seem to be that great in price. so i left them. and now, i'm regretting it. and raspberries! are they gone too? augh!

i did make one batch of raspberry muffins this weekend and they were great. fairly low in sugar and butter, i thought. here's the recipe if you find yourself some berries:

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/2 brown sugar (packed)
2 small to medium size apples (any type), peeled, cored, chopped or grated
1 cup fresh raspberries (or blackberries)
2 eggs
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup butter, melted

Line a muffin tray with muffin papers.

In a large bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and the brown sugar and mix by hand, to combine.

Lightly beat the milk and eggs (with a fork).

Add the melted butter, and then add the fresh raspberries and the apples, just to combine.

Mix the fruit mixture gently into the dried ingredients, just until combined. Do not over mix! The batter will look "lumpy".

Spoon the batter into the muffin cups.

Bake at 400° F for 10 - 12 minutes, or until golden brown, and when a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean.

Makes about 12 muffins.

baby moves

2011-07-12T20:31:00.001-07:00

i don't know if i just don't remember my pregnancy with ben very well (which is highly likely) but this baby is so unbelievably active. it feels like she's right up against my skin (even though i know she's not) and she just goes crazy all evening before i go to bed. so much moving that tim can see my stomach going crazy from across the room. no need to feel for the baby kicking here! just watch it! augh! it's pretty weird. and really, it shouldn't be that weird because it's my second. this should feel normal.

oh man. i gotta go lie down.

"summertime and the livin's easy"

2011-07-12T12:22:00.001-07:00

after hitting up the abbotsford berry festival in the morning, i drove out to vancouver to meet alyssa, go for an early dinner, and then make our way to stanley park. all weekend, there were free concerts in the park in celebration of vancouver's 125th birthday. it was quite the trek for a couple of pregnant girls who needed frequent bathroom breaks and had to walk barefoot on the grass to cool down swollen, hot feet. but we were pretty proud of ourselves for getting out, enjoying the sun, and taking in some great music. a big thanks to sharelle who inspired me to get out there with her enthusiasm for free, outdoor concerts.

happy start to summer!