Category: Uncategorized

Happy birthday, Symphony ♥

This is like a milestone, right?

Gwen has a very frustrating habit of constantly crawling under my desk, getting tangled up in the legs? spokes? of my chair and bonking her head on everything. She does this multiple times a day and the last time as I was trying to extract her she somehow got her foot caught in one of the chair’s castors, which I’ve done before (on a different chair) and it SUCKS. Under that band-aid is a gross (but not deep) cut and probably the beginnings of a spectacular bruise. Poor baby, first teething, and now this?

Nicole by OPI in Virtuous Violet + Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Set the Stage

These were my Halloween nails to go with my Lumpy Space Queen costume. I also painted my toenails but posting pics of pedicures is like a bat signal for perverts. I used Sally Hansen Gem Crush in Big Money, which is a gold glitter with a little lilac glitter mixed in.

this pic is from Taylor’s instagram a few weeks ago

I turned my outdoor Christmas lights on because WHY NOT (yes, I’m one of those people who leaves them up year-round). I’ve started seeing Christmas stuff in stores, but more than that I’ve seen/heard people COMPLAINING about Christmas stuff being out in stores (pls note the people I’ve seen complaining are people who celebrate Christmas themselves, I’m in no way judging people who don’t celebrate it and are tired of having it crammed down their throats).

On Saturday I spent three hours walking around in the rain picking up supplies for various birthday party decorations for Sym & Gwen’s family parties this week. Yes, parties, we are doing cake & presents on each of their birthdays even though they are only 3 days apart. It’s Gwen’s first birthday/Sym’s first birthday as a no-longer-only child so I felt it was important to keep them separate this year, but going forward I think we’ll do one family party.

Taylor and I watched The Way Way Back and the new Aziz Ansari special, Buried Alive. The movie was pretty good but Buried Alive was HILARIOUS. It’s on Netflix so you should all watch it.

Gwen started going into the cardboard playhouse I made her. She actually played in it for a while, but as soon as she saw me approaching with my camera she darted out so I have no evidence.

Taylor traded in 90% of his video game collection for store credit, and we’re all very proud of him.

I took Gwen to a restaurant that doesn’t have highchairs and she sat nicely in the booth eating cereal and fruit for 45 minutes before she became too unruly and I had to trap her back in her stroller.

Because we were out all afternoon Gwen’s nap was pretty late, but it was good because it got her properly on track with the time change. She started getting pretty punchy towards the end but we were able to put her to bed at her regular bedtime of 8pm, even though to her tiny baby body it FELT like 9. Also I’m sorry to all you parents of babies and toddlers who woke you up at 4 or 5am today, for Gwen falling back meant waking up at 8:15.

I remember reading about these Ikea refugee shelters a few months ago, and now they are being tested.

10 things we can do to make life easier for each other.

Some tips for if you want your house to look like a witch’s house.

A cute little felt plant diy.

What Gwen wore.

One of my favourites…

Apologies to everyone who got candy at my house, it had a baby in it.

Taylor had a meeting at work before he could come home and go to bed and his coworkers guessed he was dressed as a skid, banger, metal head, grunge band, roady, lumberjack, Deaner from FUBAR, Homeless Harry Potter and Sexy Duck Dynasty.

He was not wearing a costume.

Sym was… a person at a masquerade ball? There wasn’t really a name for her costume, she was inspired by the Pretty Little Liars Halloween Train episode. Her grandma made the dress (really skirt & top) out of purple satin and black lace, and she had a store-bought mask and cape.

No one at all got our costumes, everyone was like “Ooh, the purple family!” but like… that’s not a thing. I kind of feel like people here are terrible at guessing costumes.


Taylor was a very good sport for dressing up with us.

Sym went trick-or-treating with her friend from school and Taylor and I handed out candy. We ran out by 7pm, which pretty much happens every year! I always feel stingy giving out just one piece to each kid so I usually give out two, but next year I really have to be more pragmatic!

Happy Halloween from me, Lumpy Space Queen and my daughter who just woke up, GRUMPY Space Princess.

BEHOLD MY NEW HAIR! I’m super happy with it, I don’t think I’ve had purple hair since high school and I love it! This is just for Halloween and then I’m going to let it fade, hopefully to lilac, but for right now I’m really enjoying having dark hair again. Honestly if it wasn’t for my ever-lightening natural colour I’d keep it dark forever, but I just can’t with the upkeep.

I’m also enjoying the fact that since I’m just going to let this colour fade I CAN WASH MY HAIR AS MUCH AS I WANT. With the blonde it would start looking brassy after two or three washes so I’d only wash it once a week IF THAT. But last night (the same night I dyed it, normally a huge no-no for me) I washed it THREE TIMES. It was glorious.

Anyway. I’ll hopefully have better pics later today or maybe tomorrow, including Gwen’s costume on Tiny Buttons.

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Gwen likes dogs the most.

She’s figured out how to pull the bins of daycare toys open. Her favourite thing to do is to get out the cars and drive them across the keyboard of that old computer.

She’s definitely becoming more particular in her likes and dislikes, especially when it comes to things that make noise.
Likes: the vacuum cleaner, her VTech Learning Farm Walker when it’s turned off and doesn’t make any sounds, when people come over to our house and talk to her
Dislikes: when I pull packing tape off a roll, when I staple things, her VTech Learning Farm Walker when it’s turned on and makes animal sounds and plays music, when people try to talk to her when she’s in her stroller

If I give her a mix of foods she’ll pick out her favourites and leaves the rest. Yesterday I gave her a bowl of cheerios and cheddar penguin crackers and she daintily plucked out all the penguins while rejecting the cheerios (which were eventually thrown on the floor for the dogs).

She’s outgrown her bath support- we were actually supposed to stop using it when she could sit on her own, but until recently she was content to lay back in it and get washed. We’ve now entered the unfamiliar territory of a loose baby flailing around in the tub (I never had this with Sym as she HATED baths unless her dad or I went in the tub with her), and her last few baths have been a struggle for all of us. We ordered a bunch of bathtime accessories and last night things went much more smoothly!

Counterclockwise from top: Skip Hop bath spout cover and stacking bird bath toy, Munchkin bathtub grippy dots

Babies! They have difficult personalities just like everyone else!

clockwise from top left: blood oranges; orange-ginger salmon, quinoa & peas; chicken, cucumber & tomatoes, honeycrisp apple slices

Gwen had a baby friend over last week and they both wanted the other’s snack instead of their own. This was the aftermath:

On Monday afternoon I took Gwen out with me to go pick up the very last birthday present I needed to buy.

I think she might need bangs. Her scarf is actually my favourite hat, which she somehow managed to tear open at the top? idk but it’s a baby scarf now.



We stopped by the beach and it was CRAZY HOT in the sun.