Generally, when someone does something stupid it can be referred to as “Pulling a Nicole.”

The Big Guy rarely does stupid things and I do stupid things, um…with astounding regularity.

Last week while we were on vacation (which I’ll totally tell you about when I have a second to upload pics and unpack some underwear…we just got home) he had one of his rare “Nicole” moments.

We spent a lovely day at Funtasia. (Aside: My pictures are way better than the one on that site, and holy crap is that a bad website. Terrible! In this day and age, that can’t even be called a website. Anyway…) So, yeah. We spent a lovely day at Funtasia and as we were leaving I was struggling to hold Bella, my Ergo, my camera and my cell-phone holder. I finally dropped my cell phone holder (a fab little mini-purse that holds my phone, ID, a few cards and a bit of cash, eliminating the need for lugging a purse in addition to all my other crap) and my chivalrous (hah!) husband picked it up for me with an “I’ve got it” and took it to the van for me. We each buckled in a child on our respective sides of the van and headed off for our villa to barbecue supper. (Do you call it supper or dinner?) With the kids still bucked, we began to gather our plethora of crap and the BG asked “Do you have your cell phone?”

“No,” I replied. “You took it from me and I’m not sure where you put it.”

“Ummm, I think we need to go back. I think I left it on the roof of the van.”

He felt absolutely sick about it, not only because we he had potentially lost my prized phone but because we’re really broke and can’t afford to replace it. Also, there was almost $100 cash in it - my entire fun-fund for the holiday.

We drove the few kilometres from our villa parking lot back to the entrance to Funtasia, all the while watching the opposing lane and shoulder for any sign of a black leather case or a sparkly red phone. As we were turning into the parking lot, we spotted it just back from the highway. The BG jumped out of the car and grabbed it. He held it up, seemingly torn apart and empty. “Well, that didn’t take long. It’s empty.” It had literally been six or seven minutes since we had driven away with it on top of the van.

Within seconds, though, he had found my key ring (which held my van key - I was using his - and the key to our villa - which had the villa number engraved right on it - hello, 1975 called and it wants its key back) and the battery cover from my cell phone. When I finally was able to pry the torn up zipper open, I saw that every penny of my cash was still there. We never did recover the rest of the phone. It appears that it had fallen off our roof as I accelerated onto the highway and whoever left behind us ran over it, tearing up the case and crushing the phone.

So I’m down a phone, but I’m home safe with all my people. I’m not mad at all, and I never was. I’m just glad that it wasn’t me…for once.

To celebrate our great nation’s 141st birthday, we…

-had a sleepover with my mother in law and her husband,
-spent the morning at the spray park
-had subs for lunch
-got an amazing deal on 25 tenderloin steaks…half price because the butcher ordered too much
-got 45 mm of rain in two hours
-watched the lovely park that our yard opens on to become a lake
-heard our city declare a state of emergency
-had a barbecue anyway…once the rain died down and the lightening stopped
-had great friends over for tenderloin, sausages and potatoes on the barbie
-ate a maple leaf cake…with the maple leaf made of strawberries
-watched Primo and his friend play on his new back yard climber in the rain
-were just told we can’t shower or flush our toilets
-realized how lucky we are to have such a great home with a functional sump pump, live in this amazing nation of ours, and have such an amazing family.

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Edited to add: OMG - I completely forgot!

-walked in to our bedroom to a shower that wasn’t in the ensuite. It was coming from the attic entrance!
-watched my husband and mil’s husband crawl up on to the roof to caulk a big crack in our roof vent tube
-sopped up a lot of water from the carpet and emptied roasting pans as they filled with rain. (Well, I watched the BG do that stuff, too.)
-were really glad for the “coincidence” of the BG taking a late shower and noticing the leak. If it were a “normal” day, the floor and ceiling would have been ruined before we noticed it.

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Happy Birthday Canada! Our home and native land…

For the first and only time ever in my lifetime, my birthday was on Easter Monday this year. I’m 32. That’s pretty old. Good thing I have kids to keep me young!

I plan to spend my birthday money and gift cards on a Cuisinart panini press/griddle thingy. Paninis are my new addiction, and I’ve been making them on a cookies sheet sandwiched with another cookie sheet in the oven. I also have enough for some spa services, which I’m pumped about, and the BG is getting me my choice of a couple of services as well. I’m thinking facial with microdermabrasion, a pedicure and a massage. Any suggestions? I’ll spend my leftover money on the kids, of course. We really need to get them a good climber this year for the yard because what we have is way too small. The ones that will last us more than two years are between $500 and $1000 so we’ve got some saving to do.

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We spent 5 days at my parents’ house and visited with tons of family and friends. Primo and my niece were old enough to enjoy the festivities for the first time and everyone had a blast. We feel better than we have in ages because my mom slept with Primo every night so we got to stay in bed and sleep in every day!

Here’s a mini-summary of our weekend, in pictures…

On Good Friday, my nieces came over and we all coloured eggs. It was Primo and his same age cousin’s first time and was rather hilarious! Especially when Primo bit into a hardboiled egg through the shell!

I spent some time relaxing and playing on the computer. (I killed another laptop. Apparently mine are sorely over used.) Primo sat beside me and played on the most annoying laptop in the world, and showed us all that he knows all of his numbers from 0-10 and all of the shapes except rectangle!

Bella sported her very first Easter dress and the cutest ruffly butt you ever did see. Primo had a great outfit too, but refused to sit for a picture!

I couldn’t help but take more pictures. In this one, she had just woken up from a nap and was stretching when she spotted me taking her picture and flashed a grin.

On Sunday afternoon, my brother brought his girls over to my parents’ house and we went to the park for an Egg Roll. The kids rolled raw eggs down the hill and tried not to break them. They had a blast!

After our Easter treasure hunt, we headed out to the back yard and played for the afternoon. Primo loved Trac Ball, but couldn’t quite figure out which ball to use. The dogs’ soccer ball actually worked quite well!

One of the treasure hunt prizes was sidewalk chalk, and it was a huge hit with all the kids. The girls drew on the sidewalk. Primo drew on the house, the fence, his cousin’s back, the bikes…

We got home Monday evening and spent the rest of my birthday visiting with a friend who came from out of town to meet Bella and bring her the cutest outfit of all time, putting kids to bed (which still takes many hours) and watching tv snuggled up on the couch.

Tuesday morning, my friend and former teaching partner whom I adore came over and brought me a belated birthday latte in a new cup along with some gorgeous flowers in a cool jug and some wheat-free baking stuff. Thoughtful people are few and far between, and my special friend is one in a million!

Of course, pretty flowers and a pretty girl must pose together.

Hope you all had a great long weekend!

Like, really early!

A friend (three of them, actually) sent me this in an email and it’s rather interesting:

Easter is always the 1st Sunday after the 1st full moon after the Spring Equinox (which is March 20). This dating of Easter is based on the lunar calendar that Hebrew people used to identify passover, which is why it moves around on our Roman calendar. Based on the above, Easter can actually be one day earlier (March 22) but that is pretty rare. This year is the earliest Easter any of us will ever see the rest of our lives! And only the most elderly of our population have ever seen it this early (95 years or older). And none of us have ever, or will ever, see it a day earlier! Here are the facts:

* The next time Easter will be this early (March 23) will be the year 2228 (220 years from now).
* The last time it was this early was 1913 so if you’re 95 or older, you are the only ones that were around for that!).
* The next time it will be a day earlier, March 22, will be in the year 2285 (277 years from now).
* The last time it was on March 22 was 1818.

So there you go. Some useless information for you. Just call me Cliff. (You know what I’m talking about,right?)

Have a great long weekend!

Around here the holiday season begins as soon as Halloween ends. (The BG doesn’t agree with me, but that’s when I say it starts and I’m the decorator!)

We wanted to make sure Santa got the boy’s letter on time, so we wrote it yesterday. Christmas letters and labels are all I can do while I wait for our damn basement to get finished so I can get to my Christmas bins in the garage. Only six days into November and I’m already starting to get bitter about it! I love my sparkly silver tree (decorations, not branches) and am itching to get it set up! I need to sip cider and watch the lights twinkle as I sit in front of the fire in the evening.

(Speaking of which, have you started shopping for the Much More Christmas Swap? I have!)

Dear Santa,

Merry Christmas! Did you notice my new address at the top of this letter? We moved to a bigger house this summer because I’m getting a brother or sister for Christmas! We’ll be at home this year because my mommy can’t travel until the baby is born, so you can visit all of my family at our house for the first time!

For Christmas this year, I would like my puppies Thai and Mavi to both get a new toy, and my cat Chloe would like some catnip please. I would like our new baby to be born and get home safe and sound, and I’d also love to have some new stackable lead-free-not-made-in-China building blocks (maybe with animals on them?) and, of course, some books to read. I love to read!

Thanks Santa! We hope you have a great holiday season and find some time to relax and enjoy your family.

Love,
The Boy

We’re back from our first Easter as a family of three. We had an awesome time! Poor BG had to work overtime all day Good Friday and Saturday so he joined us on Sunday. Since it’s a 4 day weekend he still had some time to relax and enjoy my mom’s cooking. I, being there for four days, gained no less than ten pounds. Mmmmmm. Nothin’ better than mommy’s cooking! The animals always like going to Grandma & Grandpa’s place too.

My father in law and his wife were able to join us for Easter dinner and some play time.

Click here to see a short and crappy quality video of the boy playing with Grandpa K before bed.

The Easter bunny brought the boy a new mega-blocks dump truck, which was a huge hit. He also got a very cool Body Glove float suit from Grandma & Grandpa for Easter.

He kindly modeled his float suit. It was like watching a sad little turtle stuck on it’s back for the first few minutes (but funnier).

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Wanna know something kinda funny? (I’m actually not giving you a chance to answer because I don’t really care if you want to know or not. I’m going to tell you. You knew that right?)

If you’re not excited that I’m back here, you’ll still be happy to know I’m back over there too, where the freebies are.

Happy New Year, dudes.
I hope your 2007 kicks butt…
just like the Flames did to the Oilers last night.

Don’t care what we did for the last week? (I don’t blame you, unless you’re related. Then you have to look at the pictures.) Scroll down for the two links in block quotes at the bottom of this post.

We’re ba-ack! It’s been a lovely relaxing week away and the absolute best Christmas ever. A baby does that. The boyand his 9 weeks older cousin made our Christmas a lively one. Santa and the non-magical people were uber-generous, as usual, and now we have a lot of stuff to find room for in our house. We love everything (no returns!), but there’s something to be said for gift cards and money.

We spent a couple of days with the BG’s dad and his wife…

We had a great time (and I can’t forget the delicious food!) but the boy had the worst sleep of his life due to a combination of teething and not having a crib. He refuses to nap or sleep in his playpen anymore, so he slept screamed between us all night.

Then we spent Christmas Eve keeping the boy from opening everyone else’s presents.

After a great sleep in his crib at my parents’ place…

Christmas morning, he thoroughly enjoyed tearing into his loot (in his cute new Christmas-eve jammies from Grandma).

Throughout our mini-vacation, he rode on his new car…

had his first piano lesson with Grandma…

played with his cousin…

a lot…

went for his first horse dog ride…

and had the dreaded family photo session, in none of which he was facing forward.

We also did pics (unedited as yet) of my brother’s family…

and my folks.

Lots of playing, beer drinking with friends for the BG, lots of shopping and lots of sleeping in while Grandma babysat followed that. The BG and I went on our first car ride together without the boy in 8 months (to the mall-woopie!).

We ate all of our traditional favourite foods (mmmm…meatpie…) and way too much of all of them. My mom makes the foods that the BG grew up with too (cabbage rolls, his favourite salad…), so that he feels at home, so there’s always a ton of food. I need to lose 10 50 lbs now.

I have a new review up at MMO…you want to win this one. Trust me!

…to plop a kid in a big fat dude’s lap and walk away to snap pictures, no?

“Help me, Mama!”

“Who the heck is this guy?”

The BG didn’t want to miss the boy’s first Santa Claus visit so we waited until after work Friday to brave the hell that is the mall. We decided to avoid the lines by going to the crappy mall. There was, indeed, no line. And for a mere $20 donation (to the Children’s Hospital, which is why we gave so much), we got one really crappy looking Polaroid. Good thing I brought my camera! Not that mine turned out that well, but they’re better than the Polaroid, that’s for sure!

If we have any free time and are feeling brave, we may try the good mall later this week. Or not. Meh. At least we’ve got something for the scrapbook, right?

We had a super day today! (Edited to add…now, yesterday. I’m slow.) The boy’s Auntie Sasha came to visit and stayed for the whole day. We shopped (naturally), ate (naturally) and opened Christmas presents because she’ll be in Mexico for the holidays. She is a fantastic shopper and always finds things that we all love. The BG got 4 new shirts (which he really needed and are all super nice - he’ll look hott in them - which I’m sure his sister didn’t think of when she bought them but it’s true). The boy got 2 new adorable outfits, 2 toys, a baby Gund stuffed lamb and a gorgeous Asian-inspired satin blanket with dragonflies on it. I got a watch, a silver rubber bracelet with the boy’s name all around it (cool!), an Asian inspired diaper bag (which I’ve always wanted but was too cheap to buy for myself), angora socks, Chai tea, pineapple jalapeno sauce with recipes and some Burt’s Bees stuff. See what I mean? She’s rather amazing. It’s kind of weird to list Christmas presents, I know, but aren’t you impressed with her uncanny ability to find what we love?

Here are a couple of pics of the boy with his Auntie today…

And a gratuitous pic of my beautiful kid. Because I can.

Catching up. How’ve ya been? This’ll be a long one to make up for my slacking of late. And fairly random. Prepare yourselves.

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Remember when my sweet husband bought me an espresso machine? I’m pretty sure it’s the best gift (other than, of course, my engagement and wedding rings) that he’s ever given me.

Every year, my mom and I try to get to pottery/craft sales featuring local potters. Both of us collect pottery but have so much that we’re now just looking for specific things. I still want large platters, a sealing jug to keep my milk in, and a girl can never have enough coffee mugs. I don’t like mine to match. No two are the same. Our favourite table is the one full of the ‘crap’ that the potters can’t sell at full price because of flaws. I can rarely even spot the flaws, and besides, just like in people, I think those little idiosyncrasies make the pieces more special. A few weeks ago, my mom and I hit one of these sales and check out my $5 (regular $20) purchase!

Now that’s what I call a latte!

Incidentally, since I got it I’ve had approximately 250 lattes and saved $1250. Twice the price of the machine. Well worth it!

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We got our tree up last week, finally! I prefer to get it up as soon as Halloween is over so I have more time to enjoy it, but for some reason I was kind of busy this year…

The boy’s face lit up and he squealed when he got up from his nap and saw the sparkling lights. That’s what Christmas is all about. (Okay, well not really, but it was cool.)

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We had the boy’s paternal grandpa and his wife here last weekend (and yesterday Grandpa came again!) and finally got some pics of them with the boy. I don’t know why I always forget to take pictures when we’re with them. I always remember right after they leave!

Don’t they look like nice grandparents? They are.
Notice the boy’s “girl boots?” That’s what his daddy called them, so I exchanged them for the dark brown which look much better. I was originally trying to save money by getting something that both genders could wear should we ever have a girl. Apparently that was a bad idea.

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The boy got several new Christmas outfits - check out this cute bum flap!

and this is the front…

(Okay, that was a section purely for grandparents. I know you’re not interested in every new outfit. But it’s my blog. So there.)

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Now, for the infamous Christmas meme. Ahhhh, Christmas….

Christmas is my favourite time of year. I love when everyone has time off together to relax and have fun. Everything about it is great. Unlike some people, I don’t find it stressful at all. I enjoy every minute, and I’m sure it’s only going to get better with our own kids.

1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate? Hot chocolate. Dark and rich. Once a year, an eggnog with some spiced rum, but only once. I find it too rich. And I’m kind of scared of drinking raw eggs.

2. Does Santa wrap presents or just set them under the tree? He wraps them. Everything is wrapped - every tiny stocking stuffer!

3. Colored lights on tree/house or white? Only white on everything. I like it classy. (Not that I’m classy ~ I just like my house to look that way!)

4. Do you hang mistletoe? No. We don’t have any. I think I’ll get some next year and make it a tradition so I can still kiss the boy once he won’t let me anymore!

5. When do you put up your decorations? As soon as Halloween’s over, it’s fair game.

6. What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert)? Acadian tortiere. (Click for our Christmas recipes)

7. Favorite Holiday memory as a child? There are too many to pick just one. Probably one of (a) going to bed and trying really hard to stay awake to see Santa and the reindeer, (b) getting to stay up late for midnight mass and a midnight snack with friends of tortiere and chocolates or (c) playing with my new toys all day!

8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa? I have no idea what you’re talking about.

9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? Always! Usually something from an aunt/uncle or something. Not anything huge. I think we’re going to start a Christmas PJ’s tradition with our kids.

10. What kind of decorations are on your Christmas Tree? White lights, silver bows, silver balls & stars, silver Victorian tinsel (real tin).

11. Snow! Love it or dread it? Dread it, because I hate driving in winter. I like a white Christmas, but only after everyone’s arrived and then it can melt before anyone leaves!

12. Can you ice skate? Yes! I figure skated for about 13 years. Sadly, I suck now, but I can still get by.

13. Do you remember your favorite gift? That would have to be my engagement ring in 2002.

14. What’s the most important thing about the holidays for you? Family, friends and traditions.

15. What is your favorite holiday dessert? Grasshopper pie or DQ ice cream with teddy bear sauce.

16 What is your favorite holiday tradition? Again, it’s hard to pick, but one of (a) Christmas Eve games with family and stuffing stockings with my mom, (b) Boxing Day (and the 27th at our little boutique) shopping with my mom.

17. What tops your tree? An angel. I want a new one, but I haven’t found a nice silver one yet.

18. Which do you prefer ~ giving or receiving? Giving! I love giving. I don’t really care what I get.

19. What is your favorite Christmas Song? I love all of them. Lately, I really like “Santa Baby”, but also the more traditional “I’ll Be Home for Christmas,” and all the rest.

20. Candy Canes! Yuck or yum? Yum, but only one a year. Unless they’re in my hot chocolate!

From Michelle and Deb.
If you haven’t done this one, feel free!

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One last thing (which I saved for last, lest I piss off the sleep gods) - the boy slept 12 hours without waking last night. I’m not even going to put an exclamation mark, even though that sentence deserves it after 2 months of crap sleep. Maybe that will help?

(We’re on an elimination diet - rice cereal is a no-no here. It looks like he has an aversion to “white stuff” like the Big Guy. We’re working on other stuff, but so far that’s the one that got us some sleep. Have any of you fed your babies chickpeas?)

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Oh, and go enter that contest!

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