Melanie ~ look at me with starry eyes...

Ahh, love my husband. He's putting the first coat of light purple on Reagan's walls right now. I'm so stupidly excited. Doesn't take much for me, does it. We taped last night, he just had to tape the ceiling tonight. I'm not a fan of taping, but it really does make a cleaner paint job.

Paxton and I are downstairs because Paxton was distraught about not being allowed in the room with Tim. I'm doing my part for the world and folding laundry. I've got Reagan's curtains and sheets in the wash.

I kind of want to go mow the lawn, but it means wearing Paxton on my back and I'm not sure I'm that motivated today. Maybe when he goes for a nap I'll run out and do it. If the bedroom and furniture get done early enough, the lawn won't be an issue, but I don't want a mess of a yard for Reagan's party.

I'm going to walk down the road today or tomorrow and invite the girls at the end of the road to Reagan's party. I haven't actually met them yet, but their mom has waved to me a few times and Reagan plays in their front yard a lot. I need to invite the girl across the street as well. She has a baby brother who is a month younger than Paxton and the boys met the other day. It'll be so nice to have a buddy right across the street from us. I'm going to have to learn Spanish. (The mom actually has pretty good english, but I should still learn some!)

We have the bounce castle coming for the party, I hope it's good weather. I am going to pick up a bunch of sidewalk chalk so the kids can play with that as well, and I think we'll do the balloon pop game, where you tie a balloon to your ankle and try to pop other people's balloons. I have a feeling Isabel won't be a fan of it but Ella will pop everyone's balloons. I love all the personalities. I'm not sure if I need another game. I'm not really into big organized parties, I'd rather just let the kids run around and have some fun. Maybe I'll pull all the balls outside so they can kick those around too.

I'm so excited about Reagan's cake, even though it's just a bigger version of what I did last year.

Think I'll go make us some lunch! I'm going to give Paxton a piece of toast that has milk in the ingredients. He's had chick-fil-a that has a bit of milk in it, so I'm curious to see how he'll do with it. Would be nice to be able to buy one kind of bread for the house.

I feel all productive and crap. I made Tim an awesome lunch. I swept and washed the floors upstairs. Made a peach pie with a lattice top. Made three batches of kale chips. Got the baby down for two naps. Even showered!

I ordered some blocks for Paxton, for his birthday (late, but he doesn't know) and some textured balls. He was playing with them at work and had so much fun throwing the ball and running after it. I went down to the playroom and found four balls, in the chaos that is our playroom. Two of them have little suction cups so when you throw them, they stick to the floor. HE LOVES THEM. It's so fun watching him. I hope I remember these moments forever.


I feel so much love.

I woke this morning to a cute little baby prying my eyelids open.

He's been busy growling at a shoebox this morning. I love his "I WANT THIS" growl.

I love that he learned to say "momma" for Mother's Day. Not sure if he understands that I'm momma, but he says it. Now he says "Dada", "Nuhnuh" (for nursing) or "Nuing" (also for nursing), and "momma". All the most important things in his life.

Made breakfast burritos for Tim and I, packed his lunch. The one thing that's good about a baby (and yes, it's the ONLY good thing :P) is that he actually gets me up at a decent time. I do sometimes miss the mommy baby sleep in mornings where we'd sleep till 10.. or 1... just nursing and sleeping all morning. Now I'm in bed by 10:30 most nights.

We put batteries in his Little Einstein table. I always swore I wouldn't give him battery toys, if I could help it, but he was so interested in Reagan's Leap Frog handheld game thing, he followed her around, and stood holding her leg the entire time she sat playing it. It's cute to see him walking around the room pushing his table, getting it to play music.

I have some goals for the day. They aren't lofty:

- go for a walk
- prep dinner (Chicken Bryan)
- clean one bathroom

Looks like an incredible day outside!

I feel productive. Took the baby for a walk, seeded my front lawn, watered the lawn and put the baby down for a nap!

Now I just want to sleep or watch the Royal wedding, but the tv is downstairs and the baby is on the main floor and I don't have a reliable baby monitor.

It's been a great day!

I showered pretty early and am wearing regular clothes, vs pj type clothes.
Put makeup on.
Put the baby in cloth diapers all day (some days I do, some I don't)
Made coffee.

Anna came over with her baby, Ridley, and we played for a couple hours. I babysat Ridley while she ran home, I got some cute photos of Paxton all excited about the baby.

Paxton and I went for a walk in the very cold weather, despite the snow all over the sidewalks.

Paid all the bills that are due tomorrow (for the first half of the month).
Balanced the chequebook. Didn't feel like stabbing things.

Wrote my menu for February and the first week of March.
Wrote grocery lists for various stores. (Wegmans, Walmart, Shoppers, Trader Joes, depending on who has what for the best prices)

Played with my baby. Made him giggle. Watched as he rolled himself across the room, downstairs.

Pulled food out for dinner, and now about to go cook. It's supposed to be bad weather around here again, and I need to do my grocery shop, so it's probably going to be madness. I'm only going to Wegmans, I can send Tim to Walmart for that stuff, and we can hit Shoppers and Trader Joe's another day. I don't really want to go out tonight, but I know I'd rather have it done than not done.

I love days where I feel productive. I hate feeling like I'm sore and tired and barely functioning, which is how I feel quite a bit, between a really sore body left over from my pregnancy, and lack of sleep.

Oh, and our friend who had the brutal heart attack on the plane the other day? First off it sounded like he was going to die, his family all flew home, but then a sudden turn around and now he's home! He's home with a giant list of medications, but thank goodness he's alive!

I can't even explain how sexy it is to walk into the kitchen and see my Motivated Mom's sheet on the counter with two days almost fully checked off. Thank you Tim. It motivated me to quickly clean the upstairs toilets, another thing checked off!

What a full day! Amelia came over to play today, her and Reagan ended up outside for a lot of the day, playing soccer and football with the neighbour kids. I love that Reagan has so many friends in the neighbourhood. That's what I wanted for her, and for my kids.

I continued my turkey soup stock all day today, and then strained it and froze it in one cup servings, nice for when I need stock for a recipe. I made a second pecan pie and a tray of butter tarts. Ate giant turkey/stuffing/gravy/cranberry sauce sandwiches, actually, half for lunch and half for dinner and then more after dinner since I was so hungry after we did our tree.

Painted Reagan and Amelia's hands and feet to make reindeer with them. Painted and printed Paxton's feet, but was too hard to do his hands, I'll trace his hands and cut them out for antlers. Also made glue ornaments, where you make designs with white glue on wax paper, sprinkle with sparkles and let them dry. The girls loved them.

Amelia and Reagan decorated Reagan's little tree in her bedroom, and then I took pictures of them. Paxton lay on Reagan's bed watching, he was in awe of all the excitement today I think. We decorated our tree after dinner, it's so pretty. I also decorated the railing up our stairs and the banister behind the couch with garland and bright coloured balls. We set up some speakers so we could listen to christmas music as we decorated.

Tomorrow I need to hang up our giant balls in the windows, make some ornaments for Tim's mom, and finish my last scarflette. pyxiwulf and her family are stopping by, that's part of the reason I made another pecan pie! My neighbour wants some, and Shelli's husband is excited for some and Tim loves it, figured I'd make one more, this time with a regular pie crust, vs the yummy graham crust.

The weekend was a really good one! Well, despite the high fever, sore throat and illness I had, the rest was good. The baby slept well in his crib last night, curled up beside me. I like the setup. Even if he ends up in my bed, I don't worry about him rolling off the edge in the night.

I'm not sure if anyone else has this same insanity as me, but when I'm sick I suddenly feel overwhelming urges to clean. Like the instant I feel slightly better I have to go do jobs. The other day it was to clean out our closet of stuff, organize Reagan's closet, etc, plus cook and make the kids food and things like that. Then I hit a wall and was worse than before. Well, today I decided I needed to sweep.. desperately. Then all the chairs had to be moved, oh and then I noticed the chair rails were dusty, and wait, it's been a while since I moved all the couches, and the end tables. On and on, I stopped myself though, before I washed the floor. Not THAT desperate. Apparently we had a balloon hiding place behind one of the couches, there were three balloons that Reagan got weeks ago, back there, still full of air. I killed them all.

Tim is out doing some errands, I got him to buy me some brewer's yeast so I can make some lactation cookies.

Just talked to my mom, they are doing their Thanksgiving dinner tonight, except she's making ham instead of turkey. Silliness. Who would skip a chance to eat turkey???

We did ours last night with Reagan, I made cornish game hens with stuffing, dairy free mashed potatoes with chicken broth, asparagus and carrots:


Reagan was VERY excited about a whole bird to herself:


Reagan set up the table with candles and things and made a Canadian thanksgiving flag :P


Paxton chilled in his Canadian duds:


Till he heard he wasn't getting his own bird


So he got milk drunk and passed out


Rest of the album HERE

Pax is chilling with his toys, making music

Pouring rain, so no pool today! Maternity bathing suit will have to be broken out a different day.

I realized today that I've been hogging the ironing board with my newborn baby things, so I cleaned off a desk we have and (carefully) moved it into the baby room, and now all the newborn things are there. Will be easier to organize when we have the dresser in there, and the closet put back together, which will happen in time.

I have a headache today, had one last night too. My feet swelled up yesterday, I think a mix of the salty pizza, not enough water, the heat and oh yeah, pregnancy. Back to normal today, but I'm trying to make sure I really hydrate today.

Hoping to get some housework done today.

Taking a break from attacking Reagan's play room. Not because I'm tired, just overwhelmed. Pre-pregnancy, I'd be in there making sure it was tidy, getting Reagan to tidy it. During pregnancy? Not so much and her and Amelia have managed to dump pretty much every single toy, and there are lots. Hundreds of little Barbie parts, littlest pet shop bits, polly pocket, animals, and then just tons of other little toys. Everything comes with 20 tiny pieces.

I'm putting all the younger bins of toys up in the closet, we'll work on a trade system now. If she wants toys from up in the closet, the rest of the playroom gets tidied and we trade for a toy down in the room. I also put the huge bin of stuffed animals into the closet. They don't get played with, take up tons of room and are fun to dump. I kept out her favorites and they are in a mesh hanging thing for stuffies.


I really need to put together a baby shower list for Brandi, of people to invite. Everything is coming up so quickly.