Wishing You A Very Merry Christmas

Hooray, I successfully escaped Chateau Chaos Saturday morning and trucked it up to my parents house for the holidays. I left my beloved DH home to finish filling, sanding and painting the mouldings as it does nothing for my respiratory system. I loaded him up on food at my branch's Christmas party the night before and had him well socialized with a game of Rock Band that went until after 1 in the morning. Originally we had planned on having people come to us ofer the holidays but with the finishing lingering and this pregnancy not always agreeing with me, I sought solice in my old home :)

Needless to say it's been great. I finally got around to getting my cards done. It's amazing how much pressure we put ourselves under to get everything done. I'd facebook'd one of my Ottawa friends to find out her address and I got the 'are you crazy? you don't need anymore stress', true! But then again she's a bit more understanding with a 6'ish month old at home ;) I got to help out at a leisurely pace instead of the Martha Stewart mode that no matter how crappy I feel or how immobile I've become in the last month would surely have felt compelled to be, regardless of what others expected of me. I finished off one last stitched gift and actually had some time to make something for me! Omigosh! So here's my latest Mill Hill ornament:

Tomorrow Matt is supposed to join us for a couple of days and then it's back to Freddy and some decluttering.

Merry Christmas One and All :)

Katie

Christmas Bells Are Ringing

Today after a relatively uneventful trip to the OB\GYN I got to attend Alex's Christmas concert, his class and choir sang beautifully :) What a crazy day though, apts, concerts, meeting people and now getting someone's supper on the table at precisely 6:30 so he can sand Alex's window mouldings...C'est la vie.

Garden Creek Harmony and Boy's Choirs

Pain in the Butt

Oye, I thought being sick was bad enough but apparently my daughter and I disagree. I've been hobbling around most of the day with symptoms very similar to sciatica, which apparently in my case is more than likely PGP. Great! Just what I needed at least I have an appointment with my dr tomorrow to discuss if there are any sort of exercises that could help. Well at least the decorating is done so I can take it a bit easier.

Other than that I've been sneaking a little stitching on the side, nothing I can show at the moment unfortunately as it's personalized :) Oh well a couple of weeks should be worth the wait :)

Greetings from Chateau Chaos

For some people the Christmas season means decorations, baking, shopping, gift exchanging...then there's my husband. Christmas to him seems to involve renovating! Which makes the task of decorating, baking, wrapping and the list could go on and on, very difficult.


Last year we needed to redo the children's floors after a bout of Norwalk turned Alex's white carpet into one with an unbleachable stain dead center. This year? New Windows! I love them! The original ones on the house were wood, with thin mouldings that weren't always mitred properly, cracking, mildewed and sucking energy. Although it has come at a price, absolute chaos. It's not just clearing out one room it's cleaning and minimalizing every room! Plus my box of exterior lights was used as a stand for the moulding painting that took up our entire storage room! It wasn't safe to put my precious decorations out until they were done. Even with all of our precautions, there was one casualty...our 46 inch plasma. We moved it far away from the window and covered it but apparently one of the workers tripped on his equipment with a board in hand. One very expensive reason to always double check that your contractor has insurance! Although goodness only knows how we love dealing with that profession. It is supposed to be resolved by Monday.

This picture doesn't do justice to how truly annoying it is, sigh.

But on the brighter side here's a glimpse of what Alex's room used to look like pre reno

Alex's room Circa 2006 - dingy chaos

With new larger (building code req) window, new heater, new floor, decluttered, fresh coat of paint and just missing those last two pieced of mouldings :)

Replaced closet door, door and thermostat as well

Now to just find window coverings! So now I'm desperately trying to get caught up on Christmas stuff and get back into that stitching groove I had not so long ago :)

Define Frustration

Arghhh...I signed up to refresh my french and my placement makes me miserable :( It's so frustrating. Yes, I graduated 15 years ago bilingual but didn't use it. I retained comprehension and pronunciation but to regurgitate? That theory is long gone. So based on the first two I got placed higher than I'm comfortable with. The whole point of me taking the course was to redo the grammar portion but now I'm looking on about.com for what on god's green earth a préposition is, sigh. There...that's my rant for today ;)

Plus this crap is impeding my stitching, bummer!

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?

Going To The Birds

I love animals, I'm just scared to death of anything non cat/dog. So imagine my surprise when I walked down the four flights of stairs in our work's parking garage half asleep to have a raven fly up near me. Eep! After first contact I didn't see it below and ran to the door, well I found it again. I shreiked! All I could think of was it landing on me, or crapping on me. Needless to say I took the first available door out and snaked out. This must have been very amusing to the offices across the street as the stairs are fully windowed. All this just a couple of weeks after I left my van windows open for about an hour to air it out, only to drive to work the next day and find a bird had flown through and did it's business on my dash. That's NEVER happened before. Eww. I'm telling you, life's going to the birds :)

Reconnecting

It's amazing how much being comfortable with where your child is staying can affect your ability to reconnect with your significant other. We haven't had much luck in the evening/weekend babysitter department so we got used to being a unit of 3 all of the time. We've had alone time other than camp but it always hasn't worked out as well. Needless to say I was a bit nervous with the thought of Alex being gone for more than the 3 days earlier this summer that was disastrous. If I know he's going to be truly happy I'm soo much more at ease.

This week has been great, we've had the guilt free time to do alot of little projects in and around the house. I've taken a break from cooking so we had lots of time to talk uniterrupted over delicious meals out and we've vegged out watching adult content movies without worrying what impressionable ears might be listenning. Our extended alone time has definitely been positive in helping us prepare for an upcoming wedding this weekend and casually hash out issues. The only other place I'm that comfortable sending my son is my parents home, he begs to go there without me continually.

So I'm counting down the hours until I get to pick Alex up tonight, time alone with Matt was great while it lasted but I'm eager to get some monkey hugs and kisses this evening. :)

Pretty Things

In my blogging absence, Eleni has introduced me to the world of jewellry making. I'm not a die hard convert, you probably won't find a huge stash in my home but it is nice to know suppliers, skills, etc to build the sparkly bobbles you see in the downtown boutiques to make for yourself. Again, I'm not a big jewellry person and tend to save up for big pieces (diamonds are a girls best friend after all) and well after browsing one boutique that was selling a set of earrings atleast 5 times the cost to make them, I found myself motivated.

So...I'm currently awaiting the arrival of the materials for the following bracelet that I adore, except in purples, silvers and minus the gaudy charm and a clasp that's more me (ie: star shaped) .

I dunno, for me it works. It's random enough to not look like just a set of beads on a string but also not 'out there' enough to look like my nine year old was playing in my craft room, two qualities that have kind of held me back from jewellry making. So, when the mats arrive and are assembled hopefully I'll have something pretty to show, if my purple subsitutions aren't to garish ;)

Lazy Days of Summer

Inadvertantly taking some time off does wonders for wanting to resume blogging. With the renovations drawing to a close for this year and the house in much better shape than it was with a defined easy to maintain schedule set it allows for a lot more freedom in activity. There is no more nagging guilt that something else needs to be done. Sure there are the nooks and crannies that could still be decluttered more but in the grand scheme of they are small manageable tasks that can be dealt with now that there isn’t a backlog :)

So for renovations in 2009:
New laminate, paint, doors, closets, moldings, hardware for Alex’s room and the computer room
Fresh coat of paint on the deckings of our two decks (I curse the previous owners for this every year)
New shrubs to fill in our back flower bed.
New kitchen faucet
New pulls in bathroom and finish restored on cabinet, existing mirrors painted.

We’re still wrapping up replacing our heaters in the upstairs and putting in modern light switches (I loathe our current ones)

If I could wish for one last thing it would be to have the border removed and the kitchen/dining room repainted before we put in the new heater. We purchased a convection heater and the space that the baseboard sits probably has the pre blue paint….and as much as I detest the blue it’s a step up from the old colour!

One of these days the house will be exactly how we want it. ;)

Crafting wise I’ve been getting back into stitching. I do need to par down my stash though, some of it I’ll never use or it no longer suits my taste and I need to review what scrapbooking materials I’m going to keep. I’m hooked on digital scrapbooking and the beautiful bindings, and compact storage are definitely bonuses. I can definitely use up my existing supplies on cards and tags so that’s not a worry. I have two of my current books up at http://kscott77.shutterfly.com to check out.

I have been getting back into stitching. I have some projects that currently can’t be shared but they have been great gateways to restoring my interest in it again. Although I must admit, I have really rediscovered my joy of reading which does cut into this. It was so hard when Alex was young to get enough undisturbed time to read, stitching I could pick up and put down or watch a movie with him, reading not so much.

In other events we celebrated both Dad turning 60 and Alex turning 9 in June, very exciting time. We also took our first family out of province trip to Prince Edward Island which was a blast and far too short. Alex went for a sleepover on one side of the family and is off to camp this week. He’s counting down to our trip to the Miramichi and hoping to sneak off alone there later this summer.

Be sure to check out my Shutterfly site for some of the photo updates from the past little while. I highly recommend this business as their products are fantastic, shipping is reasonable and quite fast considering their location. Until next time…

Some Finishes

Omigosh, I'm soo bad at blogging lately. Apparently running three nights straight for Alex-tivities, working full time, renos and landscape/gardenning will do that ;) But not to fear, my needle has actually been near ;) Although to be truthful I've been more on a fitness/reading kick (obviously not at the same time)

A little exchange prezzie for a dear friend :)

SB's Fright Night, finally a finish!!

Tidbits

Omigosh, I want this reno to be over! It really zaps the life out of my stitching ;) I can honestly say I haven't picked up my SB piece since I went back to work. Who'd want to get dust on those lovely silks ;) Plus after you've been sanding and painting most nights who'd want to do more crafty stuff? However the end is in sight. All mouldings (excluding the exterior wall baseboard as we're waiting on an electrician) are up. I love the look of the boston headers in the two rooms that we did. However my dh filled the nail holes before I could get a picture so I'll have to wait to take a picture.

In other goings on, I took advantage of Matt's basketball tournament up north to take Alex for a quick jaunt across the border. The boy kind of has a skewed idea about international travel, because two of his uncles live abroad he thinks he's entitled to travel whenever and wherever he wants, ha! So I took him to this little 'town' in Maine where he doesn't 'remember' his last trip as an infant. Well, you'd think I'd taken him to Disney instead of a town that exists solely because there is a Walmart and a grocery store. lol. It was quite funny watching my quite well educated almost 9 year old going completely nuts.

Upon getting about 10 seconds away from the border "It's sooo beautiful"
20 seconds later "Can we go to Ruby Tuesdays"...45 minutes from where we were going, no thanks
Upon jumping out of the van "I've finally arrived and I'm now touching the United States"
Upon seeing a crow fly off of Walmart "Look Mom, a bald eagle"
Less than 30 seconds into Walmart "Do you think we'll see Jon & Kate plus eight here?"

So much for blending in ;) We picked up some of our favorite groceries that we can't get in Canada, Alex begged and pleaded his way into getting a Star Wars figure we haven't seen around here, had a treat of some Friendly's sundaes to go and headed back. I was not looking forward to crossing the border, our enterance into the US was not smooth, between my birth certificate faulter (the town I was born in no longer exists since it merged into a city 14 years ago) and the fact I was crossing the border without Matt with Alex in tow (and I'd forgotten my wedding band at home) lead to a nice search of the van. Oye. However, getting back into Canada was quite smooth, the border guard got a good laugh out of my stock pile of Crystal Light flavors on my receipts and Alex's one toy. Needless to say every day since Alex has been inquiring as to when he can go back.

Also since the last time I blogged we ended up staying put for Easter again and it was wonderful :) It's soo much more fun to spend holidays in your own home. Also, I was quite pleased that a package I'd prepared had arrived. I'll have to post a picture of it's stitched content when I get home :)

Other than that, we're back into crazy season with basketball and karate taking up three consecutive nights in a row. At least there will be plenty of opportunities to read and get out walking ;)

Sweet Georgia Brown

Wow, where did March go? Well, I guess I could answer that. Renos, travelling, then entertaining the inlaws and stress due to impending civil service cuts apparently wore me down enough to turn the cold that rocked our house and my office into full blown pneumonia. Eventhough I had no energy and had looked better, I don't think I'd do well on long term bedrest as the 5 days mandated by the doctor had me ready to crawl the walls. I got a little stitching in on SB's Into the Night, finished another ornament and mainly read...Matt rented me quite a few movies, and I think we firmly established what movies are and aren't my genre ;)

The two rooms we've been working on are nearing completion, hopefully this weekend they'll be done so I can truly have a 5 day break over the easter holiday. Then I can go back to organizing and purging my craft room :)

Last night we went for an early treat for Matt's upcoming birthday...a trip to see the Harlem Globetrotters! Needless to say they don't 'give' tickets away anymore. One middle of the road ticket alone was about what we paid for two courtside 20 years ago. Alex LOVED it! He's been begging us ever since to take him when they come again. Normally I wouldn't spend that much on an 'event' but when they only come around every 5-10 years...well he won't be a 'kid' then. Not that Matt and I weren't enjoying the show as much as the first time we saw it back in the late 80's :) This marked my 3rd time going and definitely not my last. This time around there was a really neat autograph sesssion that lasted 30 minutes and the kids could circulate around and get what signatures they wanted. Alex managed to get the entire team, the announcer and Globey the mascot with 2 minutes to spare. We also got this pic as a reminder of a really fun family evening!