Windblown

So I’ve definitely been keeping up with my morning Seawall walks with Gwen, and sometimes Taylor joins me as well. He’s still working from home two nights a week, Monday and Friday, which means those mornings he can come out with us when he finishes work.

There have been some really beautiful days recently- last Monday was so still and clear and cloudless that we could see (what I think is) Vancouver Island to the west (on the left of the picture behind the container ships)…
You can literally see forever today
…and Mount Baker (in Washington) to the southeast (about 2/3 of the way across this picture).
You can kind of faintly see Mount Baker in this pic. I CAN SEE AMERICA FROM HERE
TRUST ME THEY’RE THERE.

Today was a little different. It was still sunny and clear, but it was THE WINDIEST DAY EVER. The ocean was crazy, waves were breaking & crashing against the Seawall so hard it was sending up some serious spray.
Windy
This was by English Bay, and I had to take Gwen’s stroller up onto the grass so we wouldn’t get hit with water. Once we got into the Stanley Park part of the wall there were no grassy areas beside the path, just trees and/or cliffs. There were more than a few places were we just had to try and time it correctly and run like hell to avoid the water. The corner by Siwash Rock was especially intense, with the spray from the crashing waves going AT LEAST 8-10 feet up.

There were also piles and piles of seafoam jiggling around on the beaches, which I’d never seen in real life before. And yes, jiggling. It jiggles! So weird.
Foamy
Once we reached the leeward side of the park by Burrard Inlet the water was much calmer and the sun was very warm. We had a good time secretly giggling at all the people walking/jogging in the opposite direction as us, who had no idea what they were heading into. NO IDEA.

Gwen had a great time on this walk. She slept through part of it, but woke up in time for the majority of my running and yelling OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD while trying to avoid getting soaked. The wind was pretty cold but we had her bundled in a bunch of blankets and actually put the raincover on the stroller in case the spray hit us, although we actually managed to avoid getting soaked, although Taylor did run through a puddle of seawater and ended up with wet shoes.
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Weekended

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This weekend (like all of my weekends recently) was most spent on one thing: working on the dining room. And after all the priming and painting and rearranging, I’m finally finished!
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Okay, truthfully I’m not 100% done: I need to put up some art, fill the shelves and reupholster some seat cushions, but the bulk of the work is done, including:
• refinishing the table & chairs
• going on a craigslist adventure to get a highchair for Gwen
• painting the walls, and then painting them more when I decided to extend the look of the living room mural
• taking down my DIY chandelier and changing the light fixture back to the old one, which I gave a totally different look with a new paper shade & some grosgrain ribbon wrapped around the cord
• moving two shelving units from Taylor’s half of the office, mounting them on the walls and adding a couple cupboard inserts (okay, only one so far)

The best part about this is I hardly had to buy anytihng to give this room a whole new look. The only things I bought were the high chair ($45) and a cushion for it ($6), the grosgrain ribbon ($4), the cupboard inserts ($30 for two) and the seat cushion fabric ($20). All the other furniture and all the paint I already had!
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A few other things: Friday I met Jenn for lunch at a bakery/cafe between her office & my apartment. Saturday I got a new phone of my own instead of one of Taylor’s hand-me-downs and on Saturday night we made bacon white cheddar nachos for dinner. Sunday we made the mistake of taking a walk on the Seawall on the weekend and it was super crowded and unpleasant; I guess all our quiet, midweek walks on the empty Seawall have spoiled us. Sunday night Taylor’s mom visited- she’s taking every opportunity to come to town for work so she has an excuse to come see Gwen.
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Gwendolyn at Five & a Half Months

My heart ❤
I feel like I’m supposed to wait until Gwen is 6 months old to post an update about her but I hate rules and anyway calendars are arbitrary and meaningless so I’m posting this at 5 1/2 months. Basically, DON’T TELL ME WHAT TO DO, TIME.

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On the weekend I went through her clothes and packed up everything that was too small, so basically all of her 3-6/4-6 month onesies and most of her pants/sleepers with feet. It was kind of sad, I had a lot of favourite outfits in that size. Packing those clothes away though meant I got to unpack all her 6-9/6-12 month clothes, so now I can have all new favourite outfits!

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Gwen is still a professional at sleeping and generally sleeps 10-11 hours overnight. Sometimes she wakes up earlier than I want her too but if I roll her over and give her Elke she’ll usually go back to sleep for another hour or so. I have almost got her daytime naps worked out, sometimes it’ll get screwed up if I lose track of time but overall it’s going well. She is basically on a 2-hour schedule, something like this:
awake 7-9am
nap 9-11
awake 11-1pm
nap 1-3
awake 3-5
nap 5-7
awake 7-9
sleep 9pm-7am
Obviously she’s a human being not a robot so times can vary, ie sometimes she’ll be awake for 2.5-3 hours and she might only nap for 1.5 hours in the morning and 3 hours in the afternoon, but I try to stick as close to the schedule as I can and if I do she is content and happy with no meltdowns.
Photo on 13-04-21 at 8.48 PM #5
Once she started unswaddling herself at night I was planning on getting her a sleepsack of some kind, but I couldn’t find anything I really LOVED, so for a while we were just putting her to bed uncontained. That worked alright but she tended to shove her feet through the bars of her crib and crying when she realized she was stuck/hurting herself. I started looking at sleepsacks/wearable blankets/etc again and the other week we picked her up a Mod Swad bamboo sleeper (she’s wearing it in the pic above). It’s basically just a very long nightgown that you knot below the feet. I like that it is lightweight (Gwen is prone to overheating/sweating prodigiously) and the extra length/the fact that it can be knotted anywhere mean that it’ll fit her for much longer than a sleepsack with a fixed length.

Breakfast date #tinybuttonsblog
Since we got her high chair we’ve been sitting her in it during meals that she’s awake for. After a rough start (she HATED it the first time, but she hated her floor seat at first as well) she has started to enjoy it. We usually give her a couple of toys to play with so she doesn’t get bored, but she is mostly fascinated by watching us eat. I’m looking forward to starting to give her solid foods in a few weeks, and I’m hoping she enjoys it as well! We are planning on doing BLW (baby-led weaning) because I haaaaaaaaaaaate spooning mush into babies, it’s so tedious (does that make me a bad person? WHATEVER IDC).

She hasn’t figured out rolling from her front onto her back yet, which can be very frustrating for both of us. Sometimes I worry that I’m not giving her enough floor time to learn and practice this skill, but she is so prone to spitting up when she’s on her belly, and she’s always on her belly! I always hold her upright for a long time after she eats to try to prevent it, but it doesn’t seem to make any difference; I could hold her up for an hour and a half after eating and a soon as I put her on the floor she’ll immediately roll onto her belly, get frustrated, spit up and then rub her face in the spit up. I’m clean her up, put down a new blanket and lay her on her back again, just for the whole process to repeat. Yesterday her whole face, both ears and the front of her hair all reeked of spit up by noon. GROSS. Hopefully she develops this new skill sooner rather than later.

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She still hasn’t got anything teeth. Her two bottom front teeth are chilling right below the surface of her gums. You can feel & see them, but they haven’t broken through yet. Soon, I hope. She is drooling and gnawing on things constantly from teething, but she’s weaned herself off of soothers and spits them out whenever I try to give her one. She does sometimes suck her thumb (mostly when she’s tired), but not nearly as often as she used to, and a lot of the time she just hooks her thumb or fingers into her mouth, rather than sucking on them.

Some favourites:
Her favourite toy right now is this Haba Perlina clutching toy . I am OB.SESSED. with Haba toys, so if anyone is looking for ideas for what to buy as gifts for Gwen for her birthday or Christmas (they are coming up okay!) you can’t really go wrong with something from Haba (I’m especially into their block sets).

I’ve tried putting on baby shows for her and I have that visual development iPad app, but Gwen’s favourite thing to watch BY FAR is screensavers. Taylor has one on his computer that has constantly changing swoops and arcs of colour on a black background and she could literally watch it for hours (not that we’d leave her to watch a screensaver for hours, we just could).

The cutest story ever told ❤
More than toys, more that screensavers, her absolute #1 favourite thing in the entire world that she loves more than anything is dogs. She is always watching Georgie and laughs and crows with delight at anything she does. Of course the only thing better than one dog is two dogs, so if Kichou is also around her happiness goes into overdrive. She sometimes laughs so hard at the dogs that she almost starts crying. She also really likes when the dogs lay or sit near her, but she’s still in the hair-pulling stage, which the dogs have learned, so they don’t get too close too often.

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Weekended

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Our weekend was pretty low-key; I’m still working on redecorating my dining room (and actually decided to paint MORE this weekend, whyyyy) but we did manage to get out of the house a couple of times.
ocean view
On Saturday morning we went on a family walk on the Seawall, which you’d think was a forced death march from the way Sym acted about it. TWEENS, I tell ya.

I will literally never be done painting
After we got back I started the aforementioned more painting. I decided to extend the “hills” of my children’s living room mural into the dining room. I’d originally used my Ikea Mammut round table to make a template, but I’ve since sold it, so I had to use some math to make a new template. I went on the website and got the diameter of the table (85cm), divided that in half and using a pencil, a pin and 42.5cm of string was able to approximate the same arc. It’s not perfect but I think it’s close enough.
Geez what a mess

Sunday turned out to be a day of weird coincidences (I unlocked my phone one second before someone was called, two people tried to buy the same listing in my etsy at the same time< etc) and HORRIBLE LOST DOG RELATED HEART ATTACKS. I just washed this dog and I can't do a thing with her #pomsofinstgram #pomeranian #whydoesitsmelllikewetdoginhere
Taylor and I were going to run a couple of errands, so while he was changing Gwen I propped the door open to take the stroller out. Somehow Georgie managed to sneak outside without me noticing, and by the time I realized she wasn’t int he house she was nowhere to be found! I ran around to the front of the house and out into the back alley, calling and calling, and one of my neighbors came outside to help look as well. I was sure she was gone forever; if she didn’t get hit by a car she’d be scooped up by someone and I’d never get her back.

I decided to quickly go across the street to the dog park to ask the people there if they’d seen a little orange dog, and just as I was opening the outer gate who should come running around the corner of the community garden but my naughty dog! I couldn’t even get mad at her for running away, I was just so happy to have her back! The whole thing is bitterly ironic because just last week I was bragging that Georgie was so well-behaved that she wouldn’t come outside when the door was propped open unless I told her it was okay. I GUESS THIS IS NO LONGER THE CASE.

In shop news, if you’ve been thinking about buying a banner then NOW IS THE TIME. Use the code SPRING20 to get 20% off your purchase from the Unicorn Parade Shop, including custom items.
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I’m not sure how long I’ll be running this promotion; I’m trying to quickly earn enough money to pay for my half of Sym’s new phone (she dropped her old one in the toilet, a classic iPhone owner move) and get a HTC One for myself because I seriously CAN’T DEAL with that hand-me-down Galaxy Nexus. Once I’ve gotten enough money for those two things the sale will be over. Don’t miss out on this great deal!

Lazy Afternoon Links

Sisters
Sym & Gwen, 11 years apart (funny story: I showed the top picture to Sym this morning and she said it was of Gwen!).

I’m in love with the alphabet poster I had printed at Staples, but did you know you can go bigger for cheaper if you get engineer prints? This post on Within Color tells you all about it.

Black Oak Handmade has some great reclaimed wood products.

My friend Eva has a new blog and I hope she keeps it up because she’s a delight.


Love Lana

Gwen’s outfits (including some of the stuff I thrifted the other week) and a round-up of minty nursery goodies on Tiny Buttons.

Baby DIY: Suede Knee-Patch Leggings

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I made leather knee-patch leggings for Gwen for Valentines, but I didn’t take pictures so I thought I’d quickly do another pair so I could share it with you all! I apologize for the bad pics; I started this project weeks ago and then got distracted by rearranging/painting my apartment so it’s all kind of last-minute, plus it’s really hard to take a picture of yourself ironing things!

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Supplies:
• cotton leggings
• a scrap of suede (or leather) big enough for two knee patches
• iron-on adhesive that is suitable for use on suede
• a template for the patches (I used a cookie cutter)
• pen
• scissors
• masking tape
• iron & ironing board (not pictured, obviously)

suede patch leggings DIY
Directions:
1. Wash and dry the leggings AND the suede scrap (yes, right in the machine, trust me it’ll be fine).

2. Following the directions on the iron-on adhesive, attach the adhesive to the back of the suede. For mine I placed the adhesive on the suede, paper-backing side up, and using an iron on medium heat, held it on the paper backing for about 3 seconds. Your adhesive may have different directions than mine so please follow them to ensure your project is a success.

3. Once the suede and adhesive have cooled, trace your template onto the paper backing of the adhesive and cut out you patches.

4. Peel the paper backing off the patches and place them on the leggings. Try to get them as even on the legs as possible at approximately baby knee-height. When you are happy with the placement, tape the patches in place with masking tape.

5. Flip the leggings over and iron the back of the legs where the patches are for about ten seconds (again, refer to the directions on your adhesive for guidance). Once the leggings have cooled, carefully (very carefully!) peel off the masking tape. Check to make sure the patches are securely ironed on; if there are any places where they aren’t attached properly, flip the leggings over and iron the back of those places.

6. Dress your baby up super cool in her (or his) fancy new leggings!

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Tips:

The leather or suede will probably bleed dye when washed. For this reason I recommend washing it with old towels and NOT for example your brand new white t-shirt, and using a leather similar in colour to the leggings since it may continue to bleed dye on subsequent washes: the leather on Gwen’s heart-patch legging bled a tan colour onto the light grey of the leggings, which is why I used BLACK leggings for this second pair.

The iron-on adhesive I used is a no-sew adhesive, and it doesn’t seem to be 100% SUPER permanent. After I washed Gwen’s heart leggings I noticed the patches were peeling a tiny bit, so I re-ironed them and they were fine. But I mean, even if these don’t last forever, who cares? It’s not like your baby is going to fit into them for more than a few months anyway. They just grow up so fast (SOB)

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Good Weather Guilt

Now that spring is here, I’m in an almost constant state of good weather guilt. If it’s not raining I feel like I should be outside appreciating it, not holed up in my basement apartment. Nevermind that I have housework to do, etsy orders to fill, a baby on a nap schedule and a half-painted dining room. I GOTTA GET OUTSIDE.

It was especially bad this morning since I had to take Gwen with me when I was walking the dog. Like, I’m ALREADY outside with the baby and all her things, I should go for a little walk, maybe just around the park across the street. Or no, maybe down to Sunset Beach and just as far as English Bay. Oh, the baby fell asleep? Maybe just as far as Second Beach then, all the way to the pool, and then halfway around Lost Lagoon. Eventually my “little walk” turned into two and a half hours.
Seawall morning
Idyllic and whatnot
Perfect
Lost Lagoon
You know what though? NO REGRETS.

Weekended

Baaaaaaaaaby faces #tinybuttonsblog

I started the weekend on Friday with a very rainy trip to my old neighborhood in East Van to pick up a high chair. Gwen is creeping up on six months old and will be starting solid foods soon, so I want to get her used to sitting in a high chair while we’re eating. Unfortunately even though we already had a trip to Ikea planned for Sunday, the high chair I wanted to get her is out of stock until the end of May, but I was lucky to find one on craigslist. To save extra money I took the bus both ways, which led to me getting some seriously weird looks on the way home, like no one ever rode the bus on a rainy day with a high chair and the tray stuck in their purse.

Getting a lot of weird looks with this highchair on the bus.Tiny meal companion (she'll have the giraffe)  #tinybuttonsblog

I actually went out an hour early so I could stop by the Value Village on Hastings St. I used to be super into thrifting and went more than once a week, but at some point I just got too busy and too over it and stopped going. I think the last time I went was a few years ago with my friend Bonnie, and all I got was a coat for Taylor. This time I had a little more luck and found some cute clothes for Gwen (which you’ll be seeing soon on Tiny Buttons, except for a cotton anorak that was SO ADORABLE I couldn’t resist it, even though it is meant for a three-year old so that one you’ll see in 2015), as well as a bright fuchsia suede skirt I’m going to cut up to make into shoes. There was also a dark brown suede skirt and a black leather one but I couldn’t justify buying them all, and the fuchsia was the cheapest. I also got some other coloured leather scraps earlier last week and I’m planning on trying my hand at making Gwen some of those two-tone sandals that are all the rage this spring, plus another leather-trimmed headband (this time with flowers and leaves).

Saturday was a continuation of last weekend’s cleaning, organizing and throwing-stuff-away. Taylor moved all his comic books to boxes and moved the boxes to the bookcase in the hallway, and I sold a few more things on Craigslist. Slowly but surely I’m getting this place sorted out!

A #pomeranian approaches #pomsofinstagram @georgiethepeorgie
Daddy & daughter at the dog park #manbun #cooldad @blame_simian

In the afternoon we took Gwen and the dogs to the park to enjoy some sun. Taylor wore Gwen in the Moby and had a cool-dad contest with some other guy wearing a baby (Taylor had the man bun & beard so ADVANTAGE LARAMIE).

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Even though I’m on this new diet where I can only have french fries once a week I decided that we had to have poutine for dinner (I was a wee bit hungover, I forgot to mention the part where I drank a bunch of gin AND a bunch of vodka on Friday night, oops). It totally did the trick, and I was revived enough for an evening of beer and Ascension (which I tragically did NOT win, although it was a close game with a final score of 199 to 197).

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The big plan this weekend was our trip to Ikea on Sunday. The shopping part only takes a couple of hours, but the planning and logistics stages can take weeks, especially if you are planning on going on a weekend and don’t want to suffer a nervous collapse (the trick is to get there as soon as they open). I had everything carefully budgeted out, but not having to spend $140 on high chairs (I need two, one for Gwen and then one for the daycare which I still have to get sometime before September) meant we could buy A BUNCH MORE STUFF. Amazingly, even though we did go off-list with a few items, we still came in well under budget, which basically NEVER happens. We mostly got small things on this trip- a desktop so I can turn Taylor’s regular desk in ta SUPERDESK, little kid table & chairs for when I go back to work, cupboard inserts for the fauxdenzas I’m going to create in the dining room, a million picture frames, cups with flamingos on them (this is where I started to go off list, haha), and lots of other things. I spent most of the afternoon and evening building, arranging, and hanging things on the walls, but I still have a lot to do. Most of it is waiting on my actually painting the dining room though.

GOODNIGHT SWEET PRINCE

Tragedy struck as we were leaving, and while waiting for Taylor in the loading area of the parking garage, I had a weird butterfingers moment and dropped my phone on the pavement. I’ve dropped many phones on many types of pavement over the years and never had a problem but this time I wasn’t so lucky. Thankfully Taylor is a weird phone hoarder so once we got home I just switched to another random phone he had lying around.

Since I smashed my old phone I have to try using this other one again, but I hate the camera on it. I don't have a choice tho so MAKE ME LOVE YOU, GALAXY NEXUS. Make me love you.

Since we don’t have a car seat, Sunday was the first time we left Gwen with a babysitter since she was 3 weeks old. Now that she’s more aware of her surroundings I was a little worried to how she’d react to us not being there, especially since we left while she was napping. I’m pleased to report that she was perfectly cheerful and happy and the sitter (actually Sym’s dad, haha) had no problems. Phew!

Lazy Afternoon Links

This is my 1000th post! I didn’t even realize it until I was deleting some old drafts and at the top of the post list I saw “All (1,000) | Published (999) | Scheduled (1)”

She did this herself #tinybuttonsblog

I love everything from this shop.

We don’t have Girl Scout Cookies in Canada (we have Girl Guide cookies, which are different) so I might need to try these recipes for homemade Trefoils, Samoas and Tagalongs.

This post is so simple yet so beautiful.

My friend Jenn is an interior designer and her blog, Callooh Callay is so good (plus her weekly links posts are much better than mine!).

I pestered Nikkie from Little Paper Forest until she started a Society6 just so I could buy a print of this adorable map of Canada, go buy one too and make it worth her while (and get free shipping until the 14th)!

I heard Chvrches for the first time on Tuesday night and I’m O B S E S S E D.

This week Gwen mostly wore pajamas because I am a lazy parent, but check out the few outfits I did put her in on Tiny Buttons.