A Working Weekend

There are days where I swear that I work more being on leave from work than when I actually had to go in the office. Saturday we had a potential playdate for Lily so I did a complete clean of the main living areas, which was well overdue. What a job that was!! Throw in a little christmas decorating and wow there went the day. I took the evening off to work on my sock monkey ornament though ;)

Sunday, I finally tackled my nemesis, the fridge. I banished the science experiments, and those glass shelves finally shine again :) I love the look of glass shells but they are terrible to keep clean with two foraging males in the household that don't always notice when they knock things over :/ I treated myself to some Christmas baking after though and made the filling for some peanut butter balls. There's just something about getting started on Christmas baking that gets past that daunting feeling and makes it seem manageable and of course fun!!

Then this evening we had a lovely dinner with my sister in law and her family. It's definitely feeling a little more like Christmas!!

Stitchy Pics

Finally, some stitching... Lily's Stocking
Santaberry Pudding ~ Shepherd's Bush

Travels

Well, Santaberry Pudding is almost finished! We travelled up to Grand Falls as Matt needed to put on his winter tires that are stored there and there was a mass for his grandmother. I'm not Catholic and don't understand but that's besides the point. Ughhh...travelling with a baby is NOT fun. There's soo much to lug! Plus depending on where we're going Lily's sleep gets thrown off. Oye. I definitely am hoping to not have to juggle travelling into the holiday mix, it's just too crazy with two kids! Anyway, back to Santaberry Pudding. It turns out, surprisingly that Michael's had the two colours that I needed! Amazing, considering their selection, and even more amazing to find them because they are not stored in numeric order...no matter how many times it's pointed out to them that they'd sell better that way. At least I didn't have to order them in! Because of the aforementioned mass being at 7 pm, Lily's bedtime, I got to stay at the inlaws and stitch for three hours until everyone returned home. Now if only I hadn't forgotten two colours here! I could have screamed. So hopefully after I get my work hours in tomorrow I'll have a chance to finally take a picture of what I've been working on :)

One Down

Yay, one item down on the Maternity bucket list :) It's amazing how many clothes a little boy can accumulate over 10 years! In addition to that item I also decluttered our video cabinet, yippee!

Thankfully that's not all that's been occupying my spare time. I've almost finished Shepherd's Bush's Santaberry Pudding, I can't figure out how out of all of my stocking stitching how I could possibly be missing two colours of perle cotton! Oh well, at least I still need to order the charms for Lily's stocking so I can add those two in. Although tonight I'll be finally kitting up an ornament from the ornament issue to take for an over night trip :) Definitely exciting, especially where I haven't picked out my next big project.

It's amazing how much more you can get done when you're finally getting a little sleep again ;)

Some Much Overdue Pictures

Now for some very overdue pictures of the little rascal that takes up all of my time ;)

Look Who's Sitting on her own

Being Inspected by Uncle Steven

My Trick or Treating Cuties

Yummy pumpkin fingers

Going Green for Halloween

Lily and Alex on her half birthday

Showing off her first tooth

The Maternity Leave Bucket List

If I learned anything after Alex, it's that having as much as possible in order before you go back to work is a sanity saver...needless to say, moving back to Freddy days before returning to work taught me this life lesson. I believe that not having a big nagging to do list when you're already trying to balance work hours with the few precious awake hours you have with your kids when you get home is crucial. Also not having to spend weekends and vacation time decluttering and reorganizing any more than a season's worth of clothes would definitely have saved me some guilt I've felt over the years. So in an attempt to stick with my goals, I thought I'd put it on the blog :)

1) Sell the 10 years of boys clothes I'd saved in case we had another boy
2) Have Lily's outgrown clothing sold/ready for sale
3) Reorganize and clean kitchen cupboards
4) Declutter tupperware shelf
5) Declutter crafting supplies
6) Paint headboard for double bed that Alex wants to upgrade to
7) Lose at least 15 lbs
8) Clean freezers to make room for some premade casseroles
9) Establish a consistant cleaning routine with the boys
10) Setting aside Sunday afternoons for meal prep

and if possible
11) paint bathroom
12) paint kitchen

Why the last two? The rest of the main level has been painted in the ongoing renovations and if we've learned anything, it would have helped to paint these before doing the other renovations in each room when you're contending with dust. Plus the renovations for those rooms will be quite costly so having something in the interim to make small improvements to the rooms doesn't make the end task as daunting, at least in my mind. :) Plus I hate wallpaper borders and they are in these rooms and looking ratty and dated...they need to go while I have the time to deal with them :)

With 5 months to go, I'm hoping this list is reasonable

Life in the Twilight Zone

Omigosh, I forgot how time consuming having a little one in the house was. Factor in the craziness of summer and here I am blogging almost 2 months after my last post. Summer has seen it's usual stitching slow down, although I do make it a point to get to stitchy night to get out of the house once in awhile! Not quite up to going to a friend's place to stitch just yet, my energy level is still day to day, and I hate showing up somewhere only to turn around an hour later. At least at the community room no one seems to notice ;)

I have been getting some stitchy gifts lined up and of course Lily's first stocking! I was so excited when the fabric arrived Friday. Alex and I decided on SB's Mary's Stocking. If she were older I might have chosen one of the ones with the hand dyed threads but where she's little I'm scared of christmas goodie covered finger prints that'll need to be washed! Now to go back to debating the Lily or Lillian labelling.

Life here is great, although Alex is starting the Emo preteens, combine that with adjusting to a sibling no matter how much he claims to adore his sister is making me pull out whatever hair was left after the whole postpartum shedding mess...I swear anything I stitch has a red hair in it :/ Lily is starting to sleep better, or at least nap better. She gets up between 4-7:30, and depending how late she sleeps, usually goes for a morning nap and lately we've been getting an afternoon nap, hooray! There are quite a few things I'd like to reorganize around the house before I go back to work so the house will be in basic cleaning mode without that 'elephant in the room' feel. It's nice to have a chance to recharge the old batteries to have the energy to start tackling said projects :)

Lily also had her first photoshoot a couple of weeks ago. A good friend of mine pointed out that the second child hardly ever has their 'own' pictures so we made a point to get at least one done with just Lily and went all out to capture her sweetness. No cookie cutter portraits for her. Needless to say I LOVE her pics. We had the very talented Faye Kingston come to my parent's home when we were on vacation to snap up our little cutie.

Little Miss Lily

Framing

Oh yes and in the last month things are getting a bit more 'normal' although far from what we're used to (or I should say I'm used to). I actually got some lacing done. Something I can mindlessly do when I have some downtime. I might not get to stitch much on leave but maybe I can get the 'to be framed/finished' drawer closer to being ready to take advantage of framing sales ;)

Mom's Sweet Pea Pixie Framed

Lily's birth sampler before sending it in to be framed

Lily - Almost Month Two

We're rapidly coming up on Lily's 8 week and 2 month markers, what a change in that girl :) We've made the move in the last week to exclusive pumping, and my goodness that girl eats! She's had a content couple of days recently which is such a relief. Colicky inconsolible days are hard on the nerves and break your heart.

In the last month she's rolled from front to back, smiled and gained ALOT of control over her head, if only I didn't have yet another unpleasant experience with attempting to get a bumbo off of Kijiji for her :( She's still very much a bath girl, she can be screaming but as soon as that bottom of hers hits the water she's in heaven. She has no fear of water like her brother...you can dump it on her head, although that prompts her to try to lick it up and that's just gross ;) As much as I love itty bitty babies, I'm really looking forward to the upcoming month when she really starts to get interesting. In the back of my mind is that Angelina Jolie quote where she referred to her daughter as a 'blob' in the early months and got alot of flack for it. I can relate, although there are probably 'warmer' ways to say that. Lily is amazing but it's hard knowing there's sooo much personality coming really soon.

Thankfully she's having more good days of getting sleep and hopefully the growth spurts or what I think were partially at least feeding issues are going to be a bit less frequent. In most of the growth spurt literature there are alot of little spurts in between months 0-2 with larger gaps...I could deal with that. I'm interested to see her weigh in this week. She might catch up to her brother's birthweight on his birthday ;) Although I think she might have even surpassed it, she is really growing and changing. I feel a little better knowing how much food is going into her system. They keep telling you mother nature takes care of things when you are breast feeding but I'm the kind of person that needs to see numbers and not rely on diaper counts to know everything is going ok.

Lily @ One Month

Things are still hectic here. Lily is a good night sleeper considering her age, she usually gets a 4-6 hr stretch followed by a 1-3, she's had a flukish 8 even, daytime however not so much. It's only been recently that she's truly taken to the swing so instead of trying to get her into bed during the day I'll be content for now just letting her swing. She's a pretty advanced little tyke, I feel weird saying that but that girl just baffles me. She's been smiling since 3 weeks, laughing at 6, rolling at 5 (scary) and can scoot herself a good foot on tummy time she gets soo ticked off.

Although she is a bit colicky, some days are amazing, other days I consider going back to work where it's nice and quiet ;) I think you really have to have been off on Mat leave to truly get how exhausting constant crying can be. It's frustrating to go out in public when they're like that as well , you could have given them 2 L of breastmilk or formula (if that were possible), have an automated diaper changer and just had them wake up from a 24 hour coma and you get the experts, 'oh they're hungry, dirty, tired', which is frustrating when you know that sometimes baby's just cry. At times though I think she does it just to get Gripe Water, she treats it like liquid crack! ;)

We have a loose schedule for her which is all we can hope for at this point. I'm looking forward to her hitting that magic 10 lbs and getting up to 12 weeks when her little body should start producing melatonin, making a schedule more reasonable...all without trying to wish our last baby days away. We are also cloth diapering her which definitely isn't 'our mom's diapers'. I was disappointed with the first set we bought, although from the research I did they sounded like 'the ones' however now she uses a combo of Flips, Bum Genius and Fuzzi Bunz. I can't get over how easy it is to be green, plus we've paid off a chunk of our fuzzy stash (yes there are other stashes besides stitching ;)) and that's just with phasing them in. I'm looking forward to years 2 and 3 where we're really in the black...then I can spend it on real stash ;) Speaking of which I've finally gotten a couple of stitches in! I'm hoping to have Lily's birth sampler ready to frame tomorrow.

Now for some eye candy :)

A Little More Lily

Welcoming Miss Lily

She's finally here...or should I say I'm finally close to a pc again to announce it ;)

Miss Lillian Madeleine arrived April 6, 2010 at precisely 7 pm and weighing in at 6 lbs 12 oz, born at 38 weeks 5 days

To say April 6th was a busy day would be an understatement. I'd been pretty miserable all weekend with some pregnancy complications and after my apt on Wednesday I had shown no signs what so ever of being close to delivery. Although...I did get a whole lot of cleaning done before I got sidelined, heck I even cooked a turkey for the boys on Easter Monday.

At 5:45 I woke up to a weird sensation and thought I should run to the bathroom. It would have been quite amusing to watch in hindsight because I was waddling down the hall with my knees together whispering 'sh*t, sh*t, sh*t' the whole way there. I was worried that if it really was my water breaking I'd ruin the finish on the new hardwood floors. Needless to say it was that...and the floors are still in tact ;) This time around wasn't nearly as bad as when I had Alex, I wasn't trapped in the bathroom for half an hour.

So after I got myself comfortable, it was close to when we get up for work and get Alex up for school so I woke Matt early and I think he was running on pure adrenaline and shock. We decided not to tell Alex and then unleash the waiting big brother on the school system. He seemed to have a sixth sense though as every little thing we did he asked if I was having the baby. So we got him ready, I demanded we make a pit stop into Tim Horton's knowing they wouldn't let me have anything delicious again until this kid was out and dropped Alex off at the sitters as per the norm.

We arrived at the hospital just before 8 and because I was positive for Group B strep the wired me up immediately. My OB just happened to be finishing up rounds and dropped in to check me, I was soo discouraged that besides my water breaking I had no progress what so ever :( I began to panic. They wheeled the ultrasound machine in to make sure Baby C wasn't breech and I had a really unsettling feeling. Head was down so we were good to go.

They started me on Pitocin because apparently my body has no problem breaking it's water on it's own, which is only supposed to happen in 25% of all pregnancies but it just does not want to go into labor. After my experience with Alex I knew I was in for a long day. Mid afternoon I made it to the grand 4 cm but there was something in the monitoring that was beginning to worry my nurse, and the dr on the floor and subsequently my OB. When they started talking surgery I was needless to say devastated. I wasn't the screaming patient (although the one beside me was frigging hilarious, nothing breaks the mood like someone screaming 'poop'/'pee' every so often), I was polite, I wasn't complaining through my contractions , I was trying to go as long as possible without meds to get things working, and darn it all I'd done all of the walking, sitting on the ball, exercise you're supposed to leading up to delivery...why was I getting the shaft? When my OB, who is one of the most cool calm and collected doctors I ever met came in and said his recommendation would be a section I was hysteric. I wasn't at an emergency point so he let me see how things went for the next hour. It was the fastest hour ever, I spent it all crying, or more precisely in chest racking sobs.

The hour passed and my body had done nothing, I was so mad. I think signing those consent forms was one of the most laborious things I have ever done. I'd love to have a writing analyst tear apart my signature as it looks nothing like my loopy lofty signature that I'm used to signing with. The worst part was being wheeled to the OR, all I wanted to do was crawl in a corner and die. No one wants to be seen mascaraless (or at least when you're a redhead this is not ideal), puffy, scared crapless, disappointed beyond belief...

The OR was so bright I was blinded, or maybe it was the initial 'happy' drug they'd given me, a small concession they'd made because I was pretty adament about not being awake through this whole thing. Although as soon as things stopped looking like a supernova I happened to notice one of my old elementary on friends behind all of the scrubs. I never thought I'd want someone I knew in L&D with me but she was a godsend. I could at least relax some, or at least behave knowing someone would later keep me accountable for my actions.

A section has to be one of the most degrading things in the world. Being strapped to a table fully exposed, and poorly shaved for that matter did nothing for my dignity. You'd think if you have an epidural in they could at least do a bikini wax ;) It's about the only way I'd get one done. Anyway, I was back to cracking jokes, and attempting to get a liposuction out of the whole ordeal by the time it started. It wasn't too long before Lillian made her entrance into the world. It seemed like forever between Matt looking over the curtain to see her head (I would have passed out) and hearing her first cry. Apparently my little girl tried the same sunny side up position her brother did but because she hadn't dropped like he had (the joys of a first pregnancy) she just wouldn't come down and had her cord tangled up. I got to see her before she was whisked away, the sleepy time doctor gave me some wonderful concoction that made 'putting humpty dumpty back together again' as she put it go by in a blur and while they did that Matt disappeared to whatever location they were cleaning up Lily.

Shortly therafter I was wheeled to recovery, which would in fact top the degrading experience surgery was. I hated my postpartum shower with Alex but the 'sponge bath of shame' as I've dubbed it was worse. Being moved on a blanket and then having two older ladies scrubbing you down and rolling you around, isn't fun, no matter how stoned you are. I was so frustrated with my arms too which weren't as under my control as I'd liked. I couldn't hold Lily unassisted although we somehow managed to get breastfeeding going.

All that aside, my heart grew about 10 sizes that day. Lillian is adorable, extremely petite compared to the 8 lb 6 oz brother I delivered. She's strong, loves to smile and has hair that depending on the light, either looks strawberry blond or blond. I love her to bits. By the time I was cleaned up visiting hours were over so her big brother had to wait until the next day, he was not pleased with this. It's hard to keep him away from her, he's deemed himself her protector and loves to cuddle with her, this warms my heart. :)

We're home now and recovering well, and without further ado, some pictures :)

Now to go feed one demanding little monkey again as I can hear her from down her on another floor... ;)

Finally - Some Non Baby and Non Reno Pics :)

See, I still stitch. Or in this case frame as this pregnancy finally has my hands too swollen to do much detail work :(

Lizzie Kate's Beware of Cat - Finally framed for Halloween (frame a lucky find from the Dollarstore)
Lizzie Kate's Happy Hoppers, omigosh it's up in time for Easter after almost 3 years in the craft room. Another Dollarstore frame find (both painted by moi of course)

Mill Hill Treasured Diamond kit stitched up over the March Break

1 Month Until Baby - Let's Renovate!

Dear goodness, I'm being punished for my hours logged in HGTV. 5 weeks before our EDD my wonderful DH decided to pull all of the carpet in the main floor of the house...yep the living room, hall and bedroom. To say we live in chaos at the moment would be an understatement. I've also learned that if you don't have your ceilings finished when you rescrew your subfloor, any exposed areas of your semi finished basement will look like a beaver upchucked in it! Anyway, here's some in progress photos of what's been going on ;)

Our living room in October 09, at this point we'd replaced the ugly old beige baseboard heater and all of the old light toggles for deco white ones
March 2010, picture window replaced in December, carpet replaced with Cappuccino Ash hardwood, upside down chair rail stripped to make room for wainscotting, 46 inch tv replaced after contractor scratched it with a 50. God bless the previous owners and their sense of sadism for painting up to that border. You won't catch me doing that!!

Painting in progress, Behr Crimson Red on top to eventually have white wainscotting on the bottom.My sexy painter painting the entry (one end of the living room) and hall Behr Pumpkin Butter.

Update:

A little dark but an idea of what the red kind of looks like with the white, and some new drapes ;) Not all of our furniture has been added back in, mainly the lamps, hence why the pic is sooo dark!

And the entryway fixed up a bit. My poor china cabinet's contents are in the basement :( 6 panel white bifold closet door to go in this weekend and MAYBE some trim.

Now onto our room, no pictures exist of it before hand because lets face it...it became the catch all rooom. The room where clutter piles went to hide when company came ;) So here's a start. DH is in the process of painting it Behr Skipper so I should have another update tomorrow.

What it looked like when I got home, and the suitcase I lived out of for most of the first week!My closet, what a mess it was now it's almost fully organized!! I hated the semigloss paint in the room, the colour not so bad with the floors but we didn't have the swatch. There's nothing worse than trying to read or having your spouse read, you turn in the opposite direction of the light but it just bounces back in your face regardless!DH's closet and eww more semigloss paint.

Alex-isms

Today marks the first storm day of the year for my son's school district. So Alex made himself comfortable on the couch watching the Women's Hockey Medal distribution. Last night on facebook I noticed that Jennifer Aikman-Smith's (Dragon Dreams) status mentioned her uncle was handing out the golds which I thought he'd find cool. So when team Canada's turn came about I mentioned it. 'Gee, he's not looking to bad for his age'....so apparently anyone I know who 'still has' living relatives must have ancient ones??

Then it was on to women's figure skating and Joannie Rochette's bronze medal, God love that girl, to put on a performance like that in such a tragic week. Anyway, we kind of talked about that and I commented on how beautiful her skating outfit was (oh the bling) and Alex pipes up 'Well she's not wearing too much mom'...oh how in a couple of years he'll 'appreciate' that soo much more ;)

A Note to Canadian Sports Editors - You Suck!

Seriously, I'd be ashamed to be one today. Rewind to yesterday February 25. 2010, and if you want even rewind a day more. Complete coverage & build up to the 'great' showdown between the men's Canadian Olympic team and Team Russia in hockey. Sure it's what we claim to be 'our sport' and yes the game was very exciting but it wasn't even a medal match.

Yes, Canada beat the Russians and completely dominated the ice, but there is no way that this should be the top story on just about every single sports page. Especially if you consider the other accomplishments of the day.

Has Canada ever had another 4 medal day in Olympic history? Apparently it's not news worthy enough to make the top billing. Clara Hughes' swan song bronze, Canada's highest medal holder in both Olympics...that barely made a blip. A surprise silver in the women's speed skating relay, mentioned like a footnote. A gold-silver women's bobsleigh wins, again treated like a side bar. However, the world knows we beat the Russians because we beat them over the head with it.

It's truly a sad day when we glorify 'just' a game, a game played by professionals that are paid millions to train for their sport as a job instead of celebrating people that actually pay to train and have medals to show for their hard work.

Hockey may be 'our' sport...but it shouldn't be the only thing we're proud of :(

Realty Bites

No, that's not a typo ;) Although I wholeheartedly agree that reality is highly over rated as well.

The other night I was unwinding watching some shows on HGTV and there was a show 25 biggest mistakes to make in real estate. They went on to comment on paying too much for a home that it should be around 1/3 of your salary. Anyway, my husband has had 'garage fever' which somehow wasn't even on the list when I bought the house. And yes...I bought the house. So, giving due consideration to his whole 'garage' obsession just for giggles I looked up what houses that would be double the price mine was 5.5 years ago would be, say if someone else was chipping in the same amount that I currently do for the mortgage. Now before I go further, just to be fair, he covers the majority of the renos.

Anyway, so on to MLS I got trolling. For comparison's sake I didn't even take in location as a major consideration. I popped in the area we live in and the city we border and boom, a little list appeared. What a disappointment that was! Any of the double garages were not attached and on a smaller house, the 'attached' ones compromised basement space and were the 1.5 variety. Any of the remotely promising ones had pending renos to do that we've already done in our current abode and I don't think any of them had the 5 bedrooms and semi finished basement ours does. Mind you I didn't take into consideration how much my home has appreciated in value, but still... So the hubby can wait it out and build what he wants sometime down the road. It'll be a heck of alot cheaper ;) To justify the pain in the butt it is to move, I had better be moving into my dream house, otherwise the good things will come to those who wait ;)

Hello 2010!

So much for my New Year's Resolution to blog more, I've done much better on my resolution to take more bubble baths ;)

To be honest I've been very preoccupied. Before Christmas it was confirmed that our hospital had removed it's nursery and has an expectation that new mother's just seem to be able to pick support people out of a hat. While that may be a safe assumption for first time moms, for us 'pro's' it is a terrible step in the wrong direction in my opinion. Seriously, I wouldn't be staying in the hospital if I didn't think I needed rest and observation, I really don't give a crap what some university professor thinks is the best way to establish breastfeeding. I love every member of my family, I would never think to spend 24 hours in the same room as any of them. Bonding does not necessarily mean proximity for me. I think what ticks me off the most about this is how sweeping a change it is...and how quiet they've kept it.

2010 is shaping up to be a decent year for stitching at least, apparently lack of mobility helps in that case ;) Alex is already contemplating what dragon he'd like for Christmas ;) Although I think there will be a stocking that'll have to come first. He's already informed me that he would like to help choose his sister's stocking from my SB collection. It's so cute to have a son that's actually interesting in some of my 'girly' hobbies :)