this month, i will (or at least, i will try to)…

Hi again. It’s me. I’m back. From a big long vacation*. In total, we were gone for 11 nights over the holidays. It was a break from reality and although it was filled with much sickness and little sleep and although we were all quite ready to be in the comforts of our own home, it was nice. Really nice. More on that later, of course.

We’ve entered a new year. 2013. And, for me,  a new year always comes with a sense of hope, motivation, planning and goals. Surprisingly, I’m not much of a resolutioner. I don’t like them. I’m not sure why. Perhaps because I feel like they are too broad. Too big. Too scary. I’m not one to say “I wan to be healthier this year” or “I want to be a better wife and mom” or “I want to learn a new skill”. I mean, all of those things are fabulous and great things to aim for – but they just don’t do it for me. I am, however, a very goal oriented person. I set goals. I write lists. I cross things off lists. I evaluate my accomplishments. I guess I just do it on a much smaller scale than the whole new year’s resolution thing brings to mind.

With all of this being said, I’ve decided – instead of writing about resolutions – to resurrect something I used to do here on this blog all the time. My monthly goals. I used to sit down at the beginning of each month and write out a list of things I hoped to accomplish that month and then at the end of the month I’d sit down again and evaluate how far I got. It helped keep me motivated and on track. And it was also eye opening and helped me learn how much I could push myself. How much was too much. How much was not enough. So, I think I’ll give it a go once again.

So, this month I will:

Put away and ORGANIZE Christmas: at this point about 80% of my Christmas decor is taken down. The tree came down on Christmas day before we left. Hello, I’m not crazy enough to leave for 11 days with a real live Christmas tree in my house. I’ll be cleaning up pine needles for fifty five months as it is. Since we got home yesterday morning, I’ve gradually gathered up most of the rest of the decor. The problem is, it’s all sprawled out across the pool table downstairs. The full, unfinished basement is both my best friend and my worst enemy. It’s awesome that I don’t have to be sitting on top of all the disorganization but it’s also dangerous. Don’t want to deal with this today? BASEMENT. Don’t want to sort through this pile of toys? BASEMENT. Don’t want to put my decorations away? BASEMENT. You get the idea. So, I will get my decorations not only taken down, but organized and put back into place on the shelves downstairs. Last year when I packed them up I was pregnant and nauseous and exhausted. I knew I would be in a new home the next time I saw them and did not do a stellar job organizing it all at that point. So, this time? I am going through it all and purging stuff I no longer want.

Select photo book photos: I recently finished Gwen’s birth book and so next on the agenda is a 2012 family book. I was hoping to get a good chunk of this done while we were away and I didn’t have housework looming over my head but that didn’t happen. My laptop bit the dust for good at the end of December and so all of my photos were stuck at home on my external HD rather than on my laptop. I was totally kicking myself for not having an online storage backup! So, this month I will at least get the photos selected and organized.

Blog about our holidays, Gwen’s 6 month update and two house before/afters: I know writing about our holidays could very easily get skipped over since the festivities from the days leading up to Christmas already seem a lifetime away but this here blog is a scrapbook of our life for my kids to see someday so I do want to go back and write about it. Even if it bores you all to death. Also, my Gwennie turned six months a few days ago (!!!!). Don’t think I forgot. I’ve just got to snap some pics and then her update will be ready to go. I’ve also got so many houses pictures to share. So, two posts devoted to house before/afters is on the list for this month.

Organize and purge toys:  I’ve already picked through and started a pile (downstairs, on the pool table, are we surprised?) of things to donate. My aim is for every toy in, one goes out. So, after the Christmas we just had? I guess that means approximately 895438599804358 toys are going out.

Deliver donation pile to Goodwill: There is another pile on the pool table (I’m telling you, it’s a bad situation) of random things that I’ve tossed down here and there to be donated. So, by the time I have the toys sorted through, I will have a good chunk of stuff to send to Goodwill. The goal here is to actually deliver it. Instead of just making a bigger pile. Sidenote: Remember how I made about 456 trips to Goodwill in the months leading up to our move? And donated something like 16 garbage bags and 11 boxes? HOW IS IT POSSIBLE THAT THERE IS MORE STUFF TO GET RID OF?

I have a few more ideas of things I’d like to add to the list as goals, but let’s face it, we’re already one week in to the month and I’m not about to get too crazy here. I think that this is enough to deal with as it is and I don’t want to have to hang my head in complete shame at the end of the month when I come back to report.

What’s on your ‘to-do’ list this month?

*Does the word vacation even exist when you have small children in tow?

Photo Dumpage

Lately, the majority of photos of Evalyn are taken when she is strapped in the high chair. Why? Well, because that’s the only time she is still for more than 3.2382 seconds. Because of this, and because it’s winter and the majority of our days are spent sitting inside instead of doing fun exciting things outside, I just don’t have many photos from the past month or so. Regardless, I found a couple that seem to capture the essence of life around here as of late.

So, without further adieu, the grand ol’ photo dump.

Taking the baby for a ride in the car, snoozing on her made up bed, being silly, wearing glasses, and eating ice cream.

This is what happens on clothing organization day. You know, where I go through her closet and put away too small clothes, organize the bins of too-big-next-season clothes. This is the day Evalyn finds all sorts of fun things to wear. Here she’s sporting the camo princess look.

Next up, we’ve got the big girl ponytail. AS IF she is big enough for a real deal pony tail. As if. Baking a cake will Mama works in the kitchen. Heading to work. In the car, with her “compu”. Colouring with Daddy. Wearing her cowboy boots, of course. And last up, playing in the “snow” with Mommy. I say “snow” because what we’ve had this year? Hardly counts as snow. My daughter can’t even call herself a true Canadian yet because she hasn’t experienced playing in the snow for real.

There ya have it, January in photos.

Family Photos

A few weeks ago, we ventured off to spend the day with my brother and his wife. We had a yummy lunch, my dude put together a quote for their kitchen renovation, and then we headed off to the park for some photos before going out for dinner.

I have said it so many times, but I’ll say it again – I’m so lucky to have a bro who enjoys photography. He’s done us so many favours, doing family photos, newborn photos, maternity photos and the list goes on…

So, I’ll let the photos do the talking. Here are some shots from our day.

Despite what these photos suggest, Evalyn is not a fan of sitting in the leaves. As soon as I put her down in them she looked up at me and starting saying/signing “Help. Help. Help”.

Her face. Kills me.

Duckies in the park.

My heart.

Top ten. Scratch that. Top twelve.

It’s no secret that I have a lot of pictures of my child. Like, a ton. I don’t have a great camera and I’m not a very good photographer at all (okay – I’m horrible) but that doesn’t stop me from attempting to document every.single.moment of this kid’s life.

Now that we’ve entered the digital age, taking millions lots of pictures is easy. You don’t have to worry about using up your film, the cost of developing and the space that it will take to store your seventy billion photo albums. But because of that, we often end up with oodles and oodles of photos that can easily get jumbled and lost in digital storage. In an attempt to avoid having these photos just sit on my hard drive for years and years and years, I’ve put my favourite photos in a separate folder at the end of each month – a folder that will eventually be turned into a photobook at the end of her first year.

I look through these photos a lot. I was looking through them today and realized that some of them are incredibly special to me. Of course, I love them all – but there are definitely those few that I hold closest to my heart.

Somehow, I managed to narrow it down to my top 10 12 (I tried but I couldn’t weed out those last two) favourite photos of Eva to date (but, um, to be honest, my verrrrry favourite one isn’t included because its, you know, not suitable for public viewing. Let’s just say, it was taken when she was quite fresh. As in, not even fully into the world). Most of them weren’t even taken by me but by my brother. These are the photos that put a smile on my face no matter how many times I look at them.

So, here they are, in no particular order. My top twelve.

1. My first moments as a mother. I simultaneously love and hate this photo. I’m sure I don’ have to explain why.

2. Eva and I at 2 weeks old in the garden – taken by my brother.

3. Our Christmas card photo – totally sums up her personality – again, taken by my brozo.

4. Chillin’ with the Big Dude. Her face cracks me up every.single.time I see this photo. She’s all, “Um, yeah I am”.

5. Eva and her Daddy at Christmas. Melt. Me. (Taken by brother)

6. Eva and Nana. Cannot tell you how much I cherish this photo. The joy? Unstoppable. (Please note that the shirt Eva is wearing says, “Grandma Makes Me Happy”. Yeah, she does). (Taken by brother).

7. Baby wearing love.

8. Elvis’ love child.

9. Kissin’ Cousins.

10. (okay, and 11 and 12). Those eyes? Kill me. (Left and bottom right: taken by brother).

She is a beauty to me. I easily could have dubbed this post, “Top 100”. Consider yourselves lucky.

So What Wednesday? … 35 Tries

Today I’m linking up with Shannon for So What Wednesday for the first time.

So what if this is not the first time that I’ve posted about Eva’s outtakes during a photo shoot? This is my blog and I can do what I want.

So what if she was more interested in her toes than in smiling for the camera?

So what if she decided that shrieking at the top of her lungs would be a better idea?

So what if her interest in her monkey far outweighed her interest in me?

So what if I am not a good photographer and some of the photos that she may have looked half decent in are crappy because of my sub sub sub par skills?

So what if after hours (okay, minutes) of torture this is the best shot we got?

So what if after the 34th shot I decided that enough was enough and I wanted to make this work and I wanted to get a good shot?

So what if in order to do that, I simply removed one of the monkeys from the equation?

Eva’s Weekend in (instagram) Photos

By far, one of my favourite apps on my iPhone is instagram. It can take crappy phone pics (which all of mine are) and turn them into something nice by adding some cool effects.

This weekend Eva was feeling much better and we had some nice weather so we had a chance to be outside, visit with friends, and enjoy ourselves.

Here’s Eva’s weekend in instagram photos.

First, she started her weekend by having a nice long nap in her car seat after Mama wore her out by going to one store. Seriously, this girl’s going to have to learn to keep up with me.

Then she helped us with some paperwork.

Over the weekend, she spent quite a bit of time outside playing with her Dad.

To say she is a Daddy’s girl is an understatement.

She’s starting to become friends with her puppy. When I was taking these pictures of her with the dog, she “asked” to give her a kiss. As in, she leaned forward and made a raspberry sound with her mouth. That’s the “I want to give you a kiss” sound. Can you say super cute?

She got decked out in some supah cool shades to go for a walk with Mama and C-Biscuit.

And, finally, when we went to B & C’s place for a BBQ, she somehow managed to get herself stuck under a chair.

“Um, hello, can somebody help me out here?”

Hope you all had a wonderful weekend. Happy Monday!

It’s Not Always Easy

You’ve all seen a variety of Eva’s “Monkey Pictures”. You know? The ones that document her growth next to a giant monkey on a week to week basis? Well, now that she’s to the age where we start counting in months and not weeks, I have stopped posting the pictures weekly because I’m pretty sure no one will care to see Eva’s 32nd week photo.

But that doesn’t mean I’ve stopped taking them.

Not only do I like to take them to document her growth but I also want to showcase all of her cutest outfits, of course.

But I’m here to tell you that the process of getting all of these supah cute photos (as seen below) is not always easy.

Take yesterday for example.

We were all dressed up and ready to go out. Perfect time for a photo shoot.

But I was wrong. Evalyn had other plans.

Plans to play with her hands.

Plans to stick out her tongue.

Plans to hide from the camera.

And plans to be goofy.

No plans to smile.

No plans to cooperate.

So after what you can see was a ridiculous number of attempts, I finally gave up.

We’ll try again next time!

Photos

On the weekend, my brother and SIL came by for a little visit. You've all seen before that my bro is an excellent photographer. So, of course, he shot a few impromptu photos of our sweet girl.

The View From Here - wearing my baby at the garden

This may be my very favorite picture of her so far....

And because the boys like to be silly...

Saturday Snapshot

Whose kid is this, anyway?

29 Weeks with Maternity Photos

Today marks 29 weeks! According to the bump, the baby is now the size of a squash and weighs between 2.5 and 3.8 pounds. I am now in the seventh month!

(source)

I don't have a lot to report this week except that I have now gone 8 days without taking any diclectin! Can I get a whoo hoo! In those 8 days, I have thrown up twice but it is so manageable compared to how sick I was getting before. I don't feel nauseous during the day and I actually feel like a normal human (minus the basketball sticking out of the front of me).

The baby's kicks are getting stronger and stronger and his movements are more and more visible from the outside of my tummy all the time. The little Monkey always quiets down whenever someone is trying to catch a glimpse of the movement or feel a kick though!

My belly is still growing, growing, growing. A whopping 13 inches since the beginning of this journey. I wonder just how big she's gonna get!

I haven't been sleeping so great over the past week or so and I'm not sure what the deal is with that. Some nights I find myself waking up and feeling like I am wide awake in the middle of the night.... perhaps just practice for what's to come.

This weekend when I was up north for my family reunion, I had a chance to get some maternity photos taken by my cousin's wife, Shannon. Let me tell you - this girl is talented! Although she is primarily located in Northern Ontario, she does travel to Southern Ontario quite often and would be a wise choice for family photos, maternity photos, wedding photos, newborn photos ... or any other type of photos you are interested in. Be sure to check out her website and blog and become a fan on facebook to see her work and contact her if you are interested in photos. Here are my photos:

What do y'all think? I am totally loving them!