Official 12 month photo

I will do a birthday weekend re-cap soon. right now I am too exhausted for words. Here is her official 1 year old picture. (well two)

Then there was you...

We have reached the official birth time of 9:43 pm...12 minutes until the placenta's birthday. It is still in my freezer, I joked about dethawing it and having a birthday for it too.

Feeling much better after my rant yesterday. I realized two things, I get cranky when I haven't exercised in awhile and the one year thing is pretty monumental for me too. It is kind of my birth day anniversary, a year ago today I gave birth after all.

I tried to think of fun things to do today for M that wasn't all about errands for the birthday party, so we went swimming with Jack and G and then out for a hamburger with Kristen and Kyle. It's funny because I was supposed to go to the movies with them on the day I gave birth, so we made up for our date today. Then we went home and I made dinner and pumpkin bread and we re-inacted birth. Ha, ok we didn't do that last part, but we did read through the minutes of our labour, a 4 hour and 22 minutes journey into the outside world.

I could really go on and on about how amazing it is to have a baby and how my life has changed and she has fulfilled me, blah-di-blah and it's all true of course, but I find words can't describe the feeling I get when I hear her giggle or squeeze her chubby legs. It was just us and then one cold day, one year ago, just as it began to snow, there was you. You perfect little being. Thanks for joining us on this adventure. I am so excited to see you grow and learn.

The night before birthday....

M turns the big one tomorrow and I have been thinking a lot about how my life has changed in the last year. I have to admit there have been many moments when I feel like this;

and not really because of the baby, but of all the things that go with it...the slogging, the shlepping. Before baby I was the type of person who was organized. My place was always clean, I had groceries in the fridge, I did yoga every week. I woke up early to go to the gym. I never really combed my hair so i can't blame that on the baby, but I used to accessorize at some point. With winter things have gotten complicated, it's all jackets in car seats and changing diapers in the back seat of said car and spilling poo on the seat and picking it up with your bare hands and unfolding strollers and banging your head on the car doorway, then closing the doors so you can scream outside in frustration and not scare the baby with said screaming.

I know there are way worse things going on in the world and in perspective I have little to complain about, but sometimes you just gotta vent your frustrations or you turn into a crazy anger ball.  Ok, now I can move forward with thinking about all the amazing things that have happened in the last year...To Be Continued....

Good Arts

I have spent the last hour and a half obsessively staring at the Coral and Tusk artwork trying to decide which one is my favorite. I kind of want to get one for M for her birthday. Ok it is also kind of for me since I LOVE them and will enjoy seeing it every day, but come on these things are so reminiscent of snow days and hot chocolate and jumping down the stairs to land in a pile of pillows. Fun kid memories!

I've narrowed it down to these two.....will keep you updated on the final decision....I really have to stop going to Kolkid, it is too dangerous!

Country time and a Happy New Year

We were so lucky to have been invited up to a friend's (thanks Mara!) parents house in the country for a couple days over the break. We always talk about doing a winter break when Mike is home for the holidays, and this year it finally happened! The funny thing about having a baby is that you really have to divide and conquer so it is rare that we have a family photo. Colin agreed to sit in for us in these;

Ivan said he will just photoshop us all together sometime. Highlights of the country include duel fireplaces, duel dogs, amazing food, and sub zero temperatures.

We went on a winter walk, Pepper made it about 15 feet before deciding her place was at home by the fire....

Everyone got so addicted to Instagram that we didn't even need to talk, we just waited to see what everyone was doing by reading the feed. The future is now people.

Communicating with humans is so a thing of the past. Many thanks Ambrose's for inviting us up to your place! The only downside is that I am still sick with the 1000 day virus and it took us 6 hours to get home in 401 traffic.

So here we are on the last day of 2011, a year that was dedicated almost in full to this new little being in our lives, we did it, we survived so far. I love new years, it is a fresh start, a way to say goodbye to the old un-needed habits and hello to all new things. Time to ruminate on what I can do better for myself, my little family, maybe the world if I get really ambitious, but for now I wish the best for the rest of 2011 has to offer for you and yours.

Whoa...Merry Christmas

Now I understand why all the bloggers take a long winters break from blogging over the holidays. It is HECTIC with a capital heck. We did the classic 3 families in 3 cities in 3 days Christmas, but this year we added an entire sick family into the mix. We barely even managed to take our camera out of the bag, hardly capturing baby's first Christmas at all. For shame! M started walking 3 days before the 25th and also is cutting both incisors. She hasn't any other teeth up there so we had this snot nosed zombie vampire walking around...I'll try to get a vid of her walking, it is really hilarious. She kind of looks like a little ape with her chubby belly.

These are mostly instagram pictures since that is all we had time for;

 Here is M at Ivan's mom's in front of the tree....

and passed out with her favorite toy....a cold can of beer.

Apparently we only had time to take pictures of me and Kathryn in wacky glasses at my Mom's.

And just one of M with her uncle Sasha at Ivan's dad's.

Highlights of the holiday include epic amounts of glorious food, a Tripp Trap (thanks Mom!) and Pepper not being eaten by the local coyote that has been attacking dogs in the area. We arrived home safe and sound, but thoroughly exhausted on the 26th evening.  One day to rest up and then off to the country!

From one holiday to another...

I finally got some Halloween pics sent over from my friend Genevieve (mom of Jack). It was pretty dark inside that day so my small camera took really grainy pics.

Here is Maude and Jack, born 2 days apart. Jack is the boy version of Maude and you really have to give him credit for putting up with a curly red wig for as long as he did. Maude is a ghost although it is kind of hard to see her costume in this pic. I have to say it is pretty fun making Halloween costumes for kids, it really is going to make Halloween fun again!

Here's the whole gang; all the babies from the mom group I joined. Probably one of the smartest things I did as a new mom. Thanks ladies for joining me on this adventure that is year one!

Baby meets baby part 2

We went to 2 Christmas parties yesterday where M had a chance to meet even more babies. Unfortunately I spent too much time trying to keep her from crawling into the (lit) fireplace and/or walking down the stairs to take pictures. She met this freaking adorable dude at Seany's party named Toya. He was 16 months, he shared his clementine.

We then hit up the usual "Little Chair" event at Bronwyn and Clint's. There were two new babies there too and I was all excited about getting some more baby meet baby pics, however Ollie slept in the corner all night and by the time Abby arrived the party was too hectic for baby wrangling pictures. Here is a stock phot of the first time M met little O.

She is towering over him here, but I'm sure that will change one day...he was only like a week old. Sweet SLR camera BTW (not mine), super crisp shots.

I did get Kristen to send over the few pics she took of M harassing party guests....

Wish I could go to parties in my jammies....

Thanks again Clint and Bronwyn, good times, good food!

Baby meets baby...

The holiday season is raining terror upon us with the usual hectic party schedule! This is little M's first Christmas and we took her to meet some of my side of the family in Kitchener for the first time. Even more exciting is that she has a little man cousin (almost 2) and little lady cousin (6 months). We have officially entered a new phase of holiday gatherings that involves babies and lots of wrapping paper strewn everywhere!

Sorry this is the only in focus picture I have of us trying to get them all together on a couch. You know how I hate flash photography! P is not into this plan at all, let's face it there are awesome trucks and guitars to play with around here. Little M is wondering what is going on, at this point I think she was just so tired and littler M over there on the left is all smiles! I'll have to get someone to email me pics of this day. Thanks for the hosting Fremmerlids, I will have a meat hangover for a week!

All about Maude...a post for Pepper

Before little M there was another small creature that captured our hearts and our photographs and that was Pepper. I often think as Pepper runs and hides on the bed from M's grabby hands about Bette Davis. Maude is Pepper's Eve, the Nermal to her Garfield if you will.

I'm sure one day they will be the best of friends, but for now I can't help thinking that Pepper misses the good old days when she was the apple of everyone's eye....I mean I still take her on a walk every day and do my best to make sure she is taken care of, but admittedly I have come home from spending the whole day away and noticed that I totally forgot to give her food or water before I left.

Exhibit A) The glory days when you were showered with attention.

Exhibit B) You looking depressed that no one has called you cute in the last 10 minutes.

On the upside, Maude is really crap at getting food in her mouth and you generally end up the big winner in that department.