Progress

Well here's my In The Arms of an Angel as of dinner time last night with 2 weeks and change in. The blogger gods were working against me last night so I couldn't post :( Thankfully there's been a bit more progress but I decided to not tempt the fates waiting to process another picture ;)

Stitching For The Princess

One advantage to feeling like crap for the next 5 months is that I definitely have alot more time for stitching :) I set aside the ornament I have been working on in order to work a bit more on TIAG's In The Arms of an Angel. I'm pretty impressed with my progress after two weeks of work and hope to post a little picture of it this evening.

Alex and I had our first trip out baby shopping/looking and after alot of research I think we're going to definitely give cloth diapering a try with some of the new products out there. I picked up Baby C's first cloth diaper Friday at a tax free sale. It's pretty cool, it has an insert that you whip out and replace, instead of having to wash the liner and the shell. Will we be completely independant from disposable, probably not, they have their place when out and about and travelling but if we cut back our waste a little bit, it should definitely make the world a greener place :) Now to pick up a shell and soaker pack about once a month to get our supply up.

We also spotted a bedding set we absolutely adored, although considering the markup on this side of the border we'll definitely be sucking up the hit in duty and shipping, if we can get Matt on board.

It's quite amusing, I had alot of people ask if we were finding out or even to let them know if we found out the gender of our baby. So of course now that it's out there we've told people who weren't in the original group and most of those have been 'didn't you want to be surprised'. Ironic ;) Believe me, it was no less special finding out. There were no less tears of joy and quite honestly I feel the bond deepened that day beyond any bond I had while expecting my delivery day surprise son. I was actually quite jealous the other day when I was getting my hair cut and my stylist was talking about enrolling her son Logan in daycare, who is due in February. There are no more impersonal he/she's, it's, the baby, no more trivial well if it's a boy here are the names, if it's a girl here are some more...Looking for names is much more passionate, I want one that fits her, not random baby. Heck, it should also cut down on an argument or two with DH, now that we've eliminated boys names ;) So yes, I'm happy I know what we're having (even if she had have been a boy), and am even more anxious to meet her. She's not just a bun in the oven any more, she's the ultimate cake :)

It's A....

!!!!!GIRL!!!!!

Needless to say, we were all 'tickled pink' to find out. Matt took one look at that little face and instantly changed his mind about finding out. Which is good, his son has been scheming for ways that 'we' could find out and not him...who knew a nine year old would be that interested?? One of them involved bonking his dad 'lightly' over the head and asking...of course in his plan I was the one doing the bonking, lol. After two brothers and a son, I've been hoping desperately for a little less testosterone in the house, and even though the Old Wives tales were all pointing girl (verysick, high heart beat, etc), I tried hard not to get my hopes up too high.

Our little girl has all 10 fingers and toes, ok...8 fingers and 2 thumbs, is right on track with our dates, and everything else was either 'strong' or 'solid'. She's also extremely flexible, she spent most of the exam with her feet above her head and her arms either tucked behind there too or grabbing on to her toes, except for the brief moment it took her to 'wave' in another picture.

Now I can finally start picking out an SB stocking for her, I was dreading that task if it was a boy, with stockings for Matt, Alex, my dad and maybe someday my brother's all picked out I was running out of nice boy stockings that didn't have the ridiculous hand dyed perle cotton that made an already expensive project insane. I can also go back to some guilt free stitching with my L&L In the arms of an angel and Mirabilia's Mother's Bliss, those two pieces can now stay up much longer in the nursery :) I've also avoided the conundrum concerning the pink arm chair we inherited. It's been here in the 'office' for awhile and fit in with the neutral colour scheme, it's perfect for late night feedings (daytime I see myself in our extremely comfortable reclining furniture in the living room) but pink didn't work for a boy and it's actually a style that's pretty hard to find a slip cover for...and reupholstering was crazy expensive, especially over a silly colour. At least we dodged that bullet ;)

Let the shopping begin! :)

Sponge Bob Scary Pants

Apparently we were able to make Sponge Bob look a little scary ;) It's almost a personal challenge each year to take a cute and innocent costume and make it creepy for Alex. So this year it was either a haunted pumpkin or this ;) In the past he's been a haunted warlock, a haunted crayon, etc...

Hopefully the new baby will want to be a cute little skeleton or bumblebee...or may I dream of a princess? Only time will tell.

H1N1 Vaccinations - Done!

Omigosh, it feels so good to put that worry somewhat behind me. For months, weeks, I’ve agonized over what to do and how we were going to coordinate this as a family. Thankfully after almost a week of persistant phone calls citing my concerns about me being high risk and waiting in the inevitable 4 hour line ups with 700 plus people I managed to get Alex into the prenatal clinic with me with just a 1 hour wait with a whole lot of bellies around. Yes…you read that right, WE'RE FINALLY PREGNANT AGAIN!! :)

To be honest, that’s part of the reason my blog has fell to the wayside. We managed to keep it a secret (well except from some close friends) until Thanksgiving. Mathieu had this GRAND idea to make our family announcement at our annual Thanksgiving dinner. Arghhh… I had to be ultra secretive to find a way to ‘get’ maternity clothes for my birthday from my family without telling them two weeks before. Plus I’ve been uber nauseated, and it’s only ‘controlled’ with Diclectin. I still can’t eat much but at least I don’t feel like being sick all of the time. It was fun trying to avoid food and commitments and people just thinking your flaky...yeah right!

Back to the vaccination clinic, Alex was a real trooper. I honestly wasn’t looking forward to taking him to any needles, it’s been a long time since he’s had one so he’s got ‘that’ apprehension. Factor in a lot of screaming toddlers also being done and he was pretty white in there. He didn’t even blink, said a little ow when they were putting the bandaid on and he was done. He was wiggling around less than me after ;) I was soo proud.

In stitching news, I’ve been on an ornament kick, while waiting for fabric for the two pieces I want to do for the nursery, L&L’s In The Arms of An Angel and Mirabilia’s A Mother’s Bliss. Now that they’ve arrived I really need to figure out which I want to do first :)

Vacation

After a week long vacation I finally feel recharged!! The last Friday in July Alex and I packed up the van and headed north to the Miramichi to visit my parents for the week. The weather finally decided to cooperate and there was only a couple rainy evenings and the rest was glorious sunshine! Despite lots of sunscreen, Alex and I are two of the most golden red heads going :)

It was fun not to have to be 'somewhere' or doing 'something', there were lots of visits to the outdoor pool, the beach in front of my parents home, a nice girls only shopping trip to Moncton, trips to market and a lazy afternoon at the Escuminac beach. I got to the gym, caught up with some old girlfriends that were also vacationing in the area and got to have some great walks and dinners out. I don't think there's any other place in the world I'd take off for a 10k walk at 8 at night to catch up for hours :)

Matt joined us for the last weekend of our stay which was nice. His back wasn't cooperating with doing anything extravagent but who cares. I can veg quite well with my stitching (2 more pieces down) and some books :)

Playing with Pappy

Hiding out in the hole he dug to China...

Catching up with his favorite four legged friend

Involuntarily going for a dip

My view every evening

Nice Surprises

Who doesn't like a nice surprise now and then? I had a little time to check out the Silkweaver site for a new piece of fabric for a pattern I recently picked up and saw that the gallery winners had been announced. I was thrilled to bits to see my Trick or Treat fairy in the finalist, but even more excited to see her in first place, you could have pinched me! I love the way she turned out but to actually win, wow. I'm going to have soo much fun picking out my prize :)

If The Shoe Fits...

Buy it! In my case anyway ;) My feet are a blessing and a curse. I love strappy little shoes, but my feet are far too wide for 80% of what's out there, that's still affordable. It's a pain to find something, but it saves me from being a shoe hog. Maybe this is why I prefer to be barefoot quite often? :)

Well, after a very busy weekend due to a family wedding I was left with just a couple hours on Sunday to pick up my groceries at the local Coop and check a sports store for their remaining bicycle stock. Well it must have been my lucky days as I picked up two awesome deals.

First:

Nike Impax PTU's on clearance (except mine are in a lovely purple)

Ok, maybe not as flashy as I usually get, but the were a heck of alot cheaper than the Shox I have been pricing for the last couple of months. It wasn't looking good, there was one box on the table and they were an 8. Thankfully Nike's sizing is horribly inconsistant (I've worn every thing from an 8 to a 9.5) but low and behold, they fit! My walking sneakers at work are just about toast and my indoor aerobic shoes have lost their springyness in the ball of the foot and were ready to be designated as outdoor walking so the timing was perfect.

So after picking them up and some groceries I popped by a sports store to see if they had bikes and low and behold when I walked in they had these on clearance and in my size!

Omigosh, they are soo comfy! Bonus, my hoof isn't hanging over the side. If only I'd found these before the wedding I went to on the weekend as my feet are still getting over the shoes I wore to that. These even go perfectly with the skirt I bought! My husband actually complimented me on my shoes (he's not a croc fan) and even a couple of coworkers commented on them and were shocked when I said they were crocs (one of these was even a male!)

Now if only a pretty pair of winter boots would pop up for say 30$, that's not too much to ask right?