Category: Uncategorized

These collages are my favourite.

Ceramic leaf made by Sym in grade three, kukui nut necklace from the Fairmont Kea Lani.

Continuing my theme of starting fresh in 2013, I spent the whole of last night cleaning and rearranging my bedroom. I don’t have any before pics but it was cramped and messy and dark. Now it’s open and tidy and dark (basement apartment room, one window, which is the reason these pictures aren’t great), and 1,000% better.

I moved the bed over a little and there was room for the dressers on the south wall- before they were on the (shorter) west wall and stacked up and it was dark and oppressive and I was over it. I actually want to replace these with taller dressers (Taylor has too many clothes to fit them all in ONLY six drawers) in white, and I still need to paint and get curtains but for now this is good.

To stop Taylor (and myself… ) from piling dirty laundry and garbage all over I arranged some knick knacks and things on top of them.

I’ve had this vintage typewriter since 1998. THAT’S RIGHT, I INVENTED WHIMSY.

These are the unread/currently being read books in my room: Sailor Moon 8, The Vampire Diaries & The Secret Circle, Sym’s copy of Under Wildwood, and the copy of Reamde I gave Taylor for Christmas in 2011 which he hasn’t read yet (RUDE). Fun fact: that little skull is full of vodka.

My unikeet & unicorn.

Also yesterday I finally solved the side table problem I was having in Gwen’s room. I couldn’t find anything the right size/height/price/colour, but yesterday I was at Michael’s and they had all their storage items 50% off. I picked up this open cube for $25 and added some castors I had lying around the house and voila!

When Sym was a baby she hated having baths. HATED IT. She would scream and cry inconsolably throughout the entire thing, and after trying different baby bath supports and sinks and what-have-yous her dad and I found the only way to have a breakdown-free bathtime with her was for one of us to get in the tub and hold her the entire time. She actually didn’t get over her hatred/fear of baths until just a couple of years ago, and I was worried it would be the same with Gwen. I needn’t have, because this baby? This baby LOVES the bath! Right from her very first bath in the hospital she’s been totally calm, cool and collected about getting clean. If she upset or fussy or gassy all I have to do is set her down in a tub of warm water and she settles right down and becomes my sweet smiley baby again; in fact, the only problem I have is getting her OUT of the bath: she wants to stay in there all night!

The dog is a different story. She was sick last week and needed about fifty baths and she was NOT THRILLED. She doesn’t even like it when I give Gwen a bath: she runs in and scrabbles at me and stands up on her hind paws to look into the tub and make sure I’m not tormenting the baby, so you can imagine how displeased she was about this.

Our baby bath support is by Angelcare and I highly recommend it. It supports Gwen nicely while still being soft and comfortable, it’s easy to clean and it’s easy to clean her while she’s in (on?) it. It does take up a bit of room while not in use but to me it’s worth it.

Gwen celebrated being eight weeks old by sleeping for seven hours (she would have slept for longer, I went in and woke her up) and waking up with a dry diaper. WHO IS THIS MAGICAL BABY???

After a lot of clean up from the night before (NYE feast = every dish in the house is dirty) I convinced Taylor and Sym to join me, Gwen and the doggies for a walk on the Seawall from English Bay to Sunset Beach. Unfortunately I forgot about the Polar Bear Swim and English Bay was a mob; walking through a huge crowd of icy, wet hyped up people with the stroller and two tiny dogs was very anxiety making! If I’d realized it was gonna be like that I would have done Yaletown to Sunset Beach instead.

Right on time for the new year, a new layout for the blog! I wanted something simpler, for now at least. My goal for this new year is to get back into blogging regularly again and I think having a nice fresh layout will help to inspire me!

Let me know what you think!

I hope you all had a lovely New Year’s Eve. We had a blast- we stuffed our faces with all kinds of food, I made my triumphant return to Dance Central after almost a year (it was too hard to do hop hits while pregnant), we had our traditional viewing of Anchorman and toasted at midnight with pink champagne (Taylor & I), orange juice (Sym, we actually got her sparkling pink lemonade but she drank the entire bottle before midnight!) and sleeping (Gwen).

lol this post is wayyyyy later than I was planning it but OH WELL.

hmmm I should have fixed my hair & put on makeup before pictures but OH WELL
Our Christmas this year was very extended. The years that Sym spends actual Christmas with her dad we do a pre-Christmas Christmas. Usually it’s just one evening of present-opening and Christmas-movie-watching but this year we did a whole thing, an Eve and a Day, a full Mini Christmas.

On Mini Christmas Even we opened our Christmas pajamas, had pizza and watched Elf.

Of course, Santa doesn’t come on Mini Christmas Eve, but luckily the Christmas Elf was available to fill our shoes with candy, or in the case of family members who are to small for candy, leave some new shoes.

I was up very early with Gwen that morning, and found Sym already awake. She fell back asleep though, under the Christmas tree, which was just about the most adorable thing I’ve ever seen.

When she finally woke up it was time for presents!

I made breakfast…

And then Sym played with the new Wii U pretty much all day. Taylor had thought to unbox & pre-update it a couple days before so there was no (well, very little) waiting.

This was the second year I made an actual Christmas dinner, and it was just as good this year. Since I started eating meat again while I was pregnant with Gwen I decided to do make roast beef with yorkshire pudding, neither of which I’d made before (well, I’d tried to make roast beef before but it didn’t turn out). I started cooking a little late in the afternoon so dinner wasn’t until almost 7 but everything turned out delicious!

Between Mini Christmas and actual Christmas we went to a party at our friend Jenn’s house. I was particularly happy with how my hair turned out.

Gwen came with us and had her first public transportation ride on the Skytrain, which she loved!

She also did well at the party, eventually she got fussy and we came home, but I think we were there later than we’d planned on staying. It was also our first extending visit somewhere with her and all her baby accoutrements and I think we did pretty well also.

With Sym away, actual Christmas was a much quieter time, although still special. On Christmas Eve we watched Die Hard (BEST CHRISTMAS MOVIE EVER) and made holiday nachos, and set up a fantastic treat buffet of candy, cookies and pies.

On Christmas Day we opened our stockings and some small extra gifts. I think my best gift this year though was when Taylor said he missed having Sym here for Christmas, since it’s a lot more fun when she’s home. We’d planned on having perogies for dinner, but we ended up just snacking all day and night and then finished up the day by dragging ourselves through the first two Lord of the Rings movies (we watched the third on Boxing Day). I hadn’t seen them in years and WOW I do not like them! LESSON LEARNED, I guess.

All in all it was a nice holiday, and I’m very ready for our traditional New Year’s Eve feast/Dance Central-a-thon/viewing of Anchorman tonight!

That’s all.

Gwen’s adorable “Critter” Hat from Old Navy

Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays to all of you from all of us! I’ll be back tomorrow with a big update of all our Christmas & Mini-Christmas festivities.