House Update

We dropped by the house - this time with Sophie.

The main floor has been framed up -- next will be the top floor plus the roof.

All looks good!

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Will be taking a blog break for a couple of weeks. See you soon!

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle (and Rot)

Did you know there was a 4th "r"? It is for rot or compost.

I learned that and a few other things today when I went with Sophie's daycare down to Bill's Bottle Depot and the Recycling Centre.

The daycare has had a bin at Bill's for people to drop in their returnables. They have raised over $4,000 for our daycare expansion project, so the cheque was presented today.

I drove Sophie down and it totally threw her usual routine around. She grabbed my leg and was extremely clingy since Mom was there. She finally came around, but not until towards the end of the trip. (That's her in the red with the scowl on her face).

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There is a showing on our house tomorrow. That means Vic and I have been tidying/cleaning tonight getting things in good shape. I'll be taking Fynn and Sophie out to Motoring Munchkins in the morning so we are well away.

We are really hoping there are showings while we are away -- it's tiring having to prepare the house.

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Fynn completely melted down at 6pm tonight. He went straight into his bath. Poor guy was out and about with me today so his normal naps were interrupted.

My name is Sophie.....

And I have the most fun:

1. First, I got up and got to watch cartoons (pre-empting mom and dad's news program). As usual.

2. Mommy took me to my first gymnastics class. Poor mommy had to wait with the other parents drinking her coffee (again) while we children had the whole gym and teacher to ourselves to play/run/leap/tumble. My friend Jacob was there too.

3. Then, a special car ride to Kamloops to see a fancy doctor called a derma...something. He gave me a sticker and peaked at my nose. I'm going back to see him in a few weeks for a little laser treatment to clear up the redness. Poor mommy got liquid nitrogen zapped on the brown spots on her face. She's 40, after all.

4. Lunch at Micky Ds, including ice cream.

5. Home to watch my Arthur video from the library.

6. Mommy's friend Elizabeth emailed her a cool children's book recommendation all about a gymnast. Knowing my mommy, she will search high and low until she finds this book for me.

7. Did I tell you about the snack I got to eat after gymnastics? Grapes, dried apricots and yogurt. I burned up a lot of energy in that class, I tell yah.

8. We had tacos for dinner. Doesn't get much better than that. Mommy forgot to buy cheese, so we used cheese slices (even better). She also forgot the lettuce. Daddy mumbled something about that.

9. Daddy took me in the hot tub after dinner. Just because.

10. Auntie Donna phoned just to tell me that she personally knows Micky Mouse and be sure to say "hi" to him when we see him at Disneyland next week. Connections are everything in life.

11. In spite of getting out of bed three times after mommy tucked me, she was still nice to me.

Oh, to be me.

10 for Tuesday (and House Update)

1. Yes, it's Earth Day. In honour of said day, here is a photo of
Sophie's bean seed. It finally sprouted!

2. I finally figured out how to reserve library books on-line (it's not hard, but I was late to the party). Yeah - that's quite exciting to me.

3. Fynn was "Fynning-out" (melting down) before lunch. I bundled him up, and off we went for a walk. Our walk takes us all the way down Okanagan Avenue (a steep hill) which ends near dad's office -- just in time for lunch.

4. He slept through the night last night! 8pm - 6:30am. Two thumbs up for Fynn.

5. Almonds are my new favourite snack.

6. Our house is moving right along. The basement has been basically framed up.

7. Sophie starts gymnastics tomorrow. She is quite preoccupied with not letting me forget that we MUST bring a snack to eat following her class.

8. A really interesting website to check out.

9. I really find Oprah annoying. Yech. Her Earth Day episode was stuff that Sophie's daycare has been doing for years. Nothing new there. And does Julia Roberts always have to say her husband's last name. As in, "my husband, Danny Moder." Yes, Julia, we know. Oprah says it that way too. Turned it off after 20 minutes. Sorry, O.

10. Happy Tuesday

House for Sale

Do you know of someone who wants to buy a house?
We just listed our's today. It is exciting --- it (hopefully) means we
are a bit closer to moving into our new house sometime this July. The market has slowed a little bit in our area, but nothing too significant.

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Fynn and I had some fun mugging for the camera today. What a ham-bone!

He IS the happiest little guy....until about 6pm every night. Then he slowly loses it. Vic and I joke that Fynn then gets to the "end of his rope" or "is on his last nerve" or "has come unglued" or whatever funny thing we can think of to help alleviate the agony of watching him completely melt-down. A health nurse told me once that babies get "disorganized" at the end of the day. They really don't know what to do with themselves.

When Fynn gets to this point, we get him in his bath to calm him down followed by nursing, and then bed. Works like a charm each night.

Sunday

We got back from a visit down to see family this weekend.

Once we got home, we:

- Vic took Sophie to the playground, so I could go for a walk with Fynn and get some exercise.

- had dinner at the Thai place. Sophie is a nut over green tea.

- refilled groceries

- went over to the building site so we could see the how the placement of the pool would look. The pool contractor had spray-painted the outline of the pool on the ground so we could see how it would look/fit. Looks good!

Here is a layout I did this weekend with Sophie and her little friend Abby.

House Project

The weather has been great here and the work has been steady on our house.
The basement level is being framed right now.

Here are a few photos from the site today. (The crew was having lunch; hence they are shown sitting around taking it easy).

The world of work

This morning we had the neat opportunity to experience
a reversal of traditional work roles.

We needed our bathroom painted before we put the house on the market this week, so we hired a painter...her name is Lisa.

Sophie watched quite intently as she worked on our bathroom. As she watched Lisa remove some hardware, like towel bars and such with a screw driver to ready the room for paint, Sophie asked, "how does she know how to do all that stuff?" I thought that was a great question and I explained how Lisa had trained with someone and then went out and got lots of experience. Then Sophie said, "Mommy, she is so careful." Lisa chuckled and told her that she has to be careful, otherwise she would have to redo her work.

I thought it was neat for Sophie to see a female painter doing her work first hand in our bathroom.

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It was time for Sophie to get her hair cut. She has become quite a little shampoo queen and loves having her scalp lathered up in the fancy shampoo chair.
The lollipop is also a plus.

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The Barbie franchise never ceases to amaze me. Today we rented this one. Mermaids, Fairytopia, Mariposa Barbie....

10 for Tuesday and House Update

The house is moving right along. Today some trusses arrived, they were tamping down the dirt, backfilling, and nailing the sills for the framing.

1. I am going to try to "coax" Fynn to take a bottle. He hasn't had one yet. He really likes the boob.

2. I have not had a good night's sleep in over 6 months. (Is that related to #1)? He only gets up 2x a night, but after 6 months, it is quite tiring each morning.

3. I got my hair cut yesterday. I go in for maintenance trims every 4 weeks or so. It is a must with a pixie cut.

4. I got some new shoes last weekend. I quite like them.

5. Fynn is "saucering" (see photo). He has officially moved from the baby play mat to the saucer. Big step - and one less piece of equipment we need to have around.

6. We are adding ground flax to our yogurt now. Must keep refrigerated to prevent it from going rancid.

7. So far, I have a playdate (with Jacob, our neighbour), hopefully a haircut and a video rental lined up for Sophie tomorrow. On her daycare days off, she (I) need lots for her to do. Or we all go a bit wacky.

8. This book came in for me at the library. I am really getting a handle on the system at the library. Do not look on the shelves for books you want. Order them in. I'm savings lots of money this way -- sorry Chapters.

9. We are meeting with our builder's wife tomorrow to go over our very hrrmph large invoice for our cement pour. It's okay -- needed to be done. The house took a lot of cement and we had concrete blocks placed for a back retaining wall to enlarge the yard.

10. I really think this is a neat idea -- podcasts for kid's book that a mom and dad do in a cafe. The book choices are great and the title of the site is exactly what Sophie says to me each night.

the magic of a power washer

Have you ever used one? We had two particularly dirty decks that needed to be blasted clean. Vic borrowed one from a friend. This was one of the gas powered kind. It works like a hot knife going through butter. The dirt was blasted off -- we could actually see it disappear. Vic also did our patio table -- it now sparkles.

And Fynn is just being Fynn. Drooling.

"Look out, mama. I'm close to crawling."

Our little man wants to crawl so badly.

Foodie Fridays and our risk taker

No baking from scratch this Friday. We went straight to the Banana
Muffin Mix. They still smelled really good baking.

*****

Last year some moms with a vision raised money to rebuild a playground in our town.
Through community support, they raised enough money to enable the City to purchase
some very cool playground equipment. Couple that with an adjacent spray park, and you have the makings for a fun afternoon. We try to get there a couple of times a week (not for the spray park this time of year).

Playgrounds teach children about appropriate risk taking and challenge their balance, strength and agility. We've cautiously stepped back and let Sophie climb to the top of a fairly high slide structure by herself that is meant for kids a couple of years older than her. She climbs it with quite a bit of confidence and has a blast coming down the slide.

House update

Today the crew backfilled in the foundation walls. Framing should start next Tuesday.

Fynn was quite intrigued with the dump truck action.

Happy 6 months old, Fynn!

life

Life is full and chaotic and a bit crazy with these two.

Sophie asks me each night when I tuck her in to "tell me about your day mama."
That means I need to recite to her what I (we) did. If I get events out of order, she usually notices. Here was today:

7:00 am - awoken by Sophie and asked to watch cartoons. Shortly thereafter, awoken by Fynn for food and a diaper change.

8:00 am - Vic is off to work and I'm back in bed because I'm getting over a cold. Fynn sleeps beside me, while Sophie watches this DVD on our bed. I doze in and out hearing that annoying donkey.

9:00 - 11:00 am - a blur of making coffee, shower, and dressing the three of us for the day. Sophie decided she needed to "clean" our hardwood floors by spritzing hair detangler on them. I then really did need to clean the floors.

12 - lunch was something. I don't remember what.

1:15 pm - hit Tim Horton's drive-thru for a bagel and coffee for me. I'm ravenous from nursing.

1:30 pm - Library Storytime. The last one until July. We will miss Ellen, our librarian. Today she treated the kids to this book, complete with a caterpillar puppet that the kids "fed."

2:30pm - back home to finish wrapping Abby's birthday present. Abby is turning 4 and she is Sophie's best friend.

3:30 pm - Abby's birthday at Junglemania (celebrated with her brother Rod who also has a birthday the same month). Fynn naps on a "rainforest" stump.

5:00 pm - party wraps up and Vic picks up the kids so I can go to my fitness class and he can prepare dinner.

6:30 pm - pasta for dinner. Sophie was full from pizza at the party. Fynn is still getting used to his cereal.

7:00 - 8:00 pm - baths, books and bed. From all the excitment of the day, they both crash.

ahhhh.....

when one door closes....

Vic and I were down in Kelowna today with our builder looking at front doors and bathroom fixtures (tubs, sinks, faucets, and toilets).

We really like this door in the photo. It should look quite nice on our house since it would suit the style we are aiming for. The price of bathroom fixtures (faucets, etc) seems to have come down -- a nice surprise when we were visiting showrooms today. We suspect this may be due to pricing pressures from the U.S. where you could buy faucets quite a bit cheaper than you can in Canada. We know of some folks who have travelled to Bellingham Washington to get their faucets. It doesn't look like we will need to since the prices here were reasonable.

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Very busy day. As soon as we got back from Kelowna, it was time to pick up Sophie from daycare, grab some quick dinner and head out the door for a daycare board meeting. Unfortunately no time for fitness today for me --- does nursing count?

Little Kaboose, fitness and a house update

Today Fynn and I went to a new playgroup. It is called Little Kaboose and it is
government funded (meaning free) and extremely popular. It ran from 10-12 noon today and it was bustling when we got there shortly after 10.

A couple of facilitators run it - there is a structured storytime (with props), snacks (for mom and children), songs, and lots of playtime. The ages are 0-3. Fynn is a little young to be too involved but he soaked up all the stimulation -- especially laughed his way through the "banana song" and was so pooped out he slept for over 2 hours after. I got to catch up with a couple of other moms who I haven't seen in ages too. Our government's funding for the 0-6 age group does show up in the variety of programs we seem to have access to.

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A few times a year I work out with a fitness trainer - Karen. She's a bit of a fitness nazi, but in a good way. We work out in our basement, so Fynn can nap. Today she worked my core pretty hard and showed me a great stretch for my calves -- which are usually pretty tight. She also took my measurements so we will keep track of how the baby weight is (hopefully) coming off. I am trying to do some fitness everyday. Yesterday I ran out of time, so when Vic and Sophie went to the playground, I told them I would walk there with Fynn -- down a big, steep hill which worked my quads as I had to hold Fynn back while he sat in the stroller.

Karen has exposed me to a bunch of activities -- mountain biking, water aerobics, and hiking one of our mini-mountains. Because of her encouraging me to "like" the pool, it got me interested in Masters Swimming a few years ago, which in turn, got Vic interested in swimming, which then turned into his love of triathalon training. So there you have it.

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The forms came off the house and the foundation was sealed in this black tar-smelling stuff today. What I find most interesting about this, is that the fellow who did the sealing brought his wife along as his assistant. What really impressed me is that she did the work in a long skirt and big rubber boots. I believe she is Mennonite.

my little man

Here he is -- almost 6 months old!

Official stats as of this week's Health Nurse appointment:
15 lbs, 12.8 ounces (50th percentile)
25 1/8 inches long (10th percentile)

He's starting to take even more interest in his dinner time rice cereal.
A very happy little guy who makes so many people smile.

*****

We all went for a walk after Vic got home from work tonight. We are a family who is into fitness and we generally need to "shake off" the stress of the day by exercising late afternoon/early evening. Whether it is swimming for Vic or group fitness for me, we usually are doing something each evening. I find Sophie really benefits when she gets out for some exercise too. She runs around a lot during the day, but I find she settles down so much better if she can burn off any excess energy just before we sit down to dinner. It cuts down on "TV-itis" too...that prolonged vegetation in front of the TV watching cartoons.

Happy Wednesday

Our Wednesday anchor activity is going to be gone after next week. The library storytime will be on hiatus until July 3rd. That's kind of a bummer, as it is a nice, easy afternoon activity that we all enjoyed. It was also the thing that I planned other things in the day around (like grocery shopping, snack time, etc).

In other news: for $1.67 we rented this video. I see some of the reviews on Amazon weren't great, but as one reviewer said "IT IS FOR KIDS, PEOPLE." I completely agree. I try not to judge what Sophie watches through my own internal critique. She's 4; I'm 40 (which explains why I'm tired most days). I wouldn't expect us to have the same tastes. She was happy with it and it kept her entertained. For $1.67 that's good enough for me.


While at the mall, we checked out what was new at Rickis. We have extremely limited shopping where we live, so every once in awhile, I'll check them out. Some cute stuff for Spring -- and a new cropped jacket and shirt in my closet for some work meetings.

We are having this tonight.
Anything that has a 5 min prep time is my idea of a good recipe. I leave the serious prep recipes for Vic.

I'm pooped -- signing off.

10 for Tuesday and House Project update

1. The foundation was poured for our house today. They had to use a lot of cement - it was a big pour.

2. Our toilet in our current house has finally been replaced. We should have gotten this toilet ages ago -- it works! Vic said (and pardon the pun), "but why have we put up with the old crappy toilet for so long!?"

3. Little Fynn had his 6 month vaccines today. He was a little cranky going into them, so as expected, he didn't get much happier when the nurse jabbed him twice.

4. He is chunking his way along to a nice 16 pounds. About the 50th percentile.

5. This movie was a big hit with Sophie (great rental).

6. This movie was "eh" with Vic and I. It's okay. Nothing that we got too excited about.

7. Sophie has been invited to yet another daycare buddy birthday party. This time the mom forgot to put the little girl's name on the invitation so I had no idea who it was for. Luckily someone knew. That makes 2 little girl parties in about a week and a half.

8. I did two things for myself today. I completed an on-line mini-course for work (at home). It wasn't mandatory or anything like that, but it was a chance to engage myself in a bit of work related communication stuff. And I went to a Tuesday night fitness class. Usually I settle into a sedentary (?) evening after dinner on Tuesdays, but since this class is only 45 minutes, I managed to sneak it in before dinner. Worked out well and felt good. I'm hoping to manage at least 3 workouts this week.

9. When we were over at our building lot, I noticed the children's librarian walking her dog. Could that mean she lives near us? I told Sophie and she thinks that is pretty neat.

10. The Real Housewives are on tonight!!!