Mr. Bear (Month 5)

Mr. Bear is getting smalllleeerrrrrr. hehe This was the hardest photo shoot so far. She is far more interactive with things so the first thing she did when I set Mr. Bear beside her was pull his ear into her mouth. When she was not grabbing at Mr. Bear she was pushing him away, pulling her shirt up, or sucking her fingers.

In the last month she still has not learned to roll over, but she is getting much better at sitting up unassisted. If I set her up, put her hands on her legs, she can stay sitting up for a full 30 seconds sometimes.

I'm definitely in no hurry to have her on the move, but because she has never learned to roll over, I'd love it if she started sitting up on her own.

A few of the out takes because they are funny;

The 15 Year Plan

Since we bought our home, I have across been talking a lot about home improvement ideas. When we were house hunting, Owen told me to find my 15-20 year house because were not moving again for a very long time. I said "Ok, then expect home renos and improvements."

When people come over and I give them a tour of the house, as I go through each room, I say what I'd like to change about the room. Everyone looks at me like I'm going to wake up tomorrow and do everything. There is no way I will be doing it all, but I like to plan and think about it.

The list is quite extensive:

Kitchen:

• Paint the cabinetry White
• Replace the hardware
• Replace the Counter tops
• Lay ceramic tile and have it continue into the half bath and laundry room

Basement:

• Finish it. :p

Upstairs:

• Replace the carpet, it's disgusting
  
• Tear out the en suite and replace the tub with a shower stall, replace the vanity and the flush.
  

Rest of the House:

• re-paint pretty much every room
• Build a dbl car garage in our back alley parking
• And other stuff I can't recall right now. heh

Everyone gets really excited the first few months or so of home ownership with what changes they can do right?

This is not as easy as I thought.

This morning, I was feeling rather ambitious (and N was in a good I can amuse myself mood), I decided to start on her room. The first order of business, even though I hate doing it, was washing down the walls. It was while I was washing down the walls I discovered the Builder that built the house obviously did not have contracters paint the walls. (I heard today that it costs you $100 a wall for a contracter to do it!).

As I wash down the walls there are gobs of paint, hair, debris and other stuff stuck in the wall that the previous owner simply did not care about and painted over. So a job that I thought would take me 30-45mins max, ended up taking most of the morning because I had to fill the big ass holes left by the anchors, wash down the walls, then go back and sand out all the bumps, gobs, and hair, and after running my hands over the walls later on to check for more gobs of paint, I realized I'm going to have to wash the walls again due to the dust from sanding.

By the time O got home and said "Gee honey, I figured you'd have it all painted" I wanted to straggle him. I figured it was a good idea to perhaps take a break from her room. I ended up going downstairs though and started washing down the kitchen cupboards to get those ready to be painted next week. heh

Meanwhile, the upstairs of the house is a mess. Her crib is in the center of her room, her change table is in the room beside it, her swing (which I used to amuse her while I sanded and washed) is in the hallway, and in general it's like an obstacle course up here. Tomorrow I'm hoping to do one final wash on the walls, wait for them to dry and then start painting.

The obstacle course up here? Well we'll just have to live in it a bit longer. I need to get the base coat on so that this weekend my friend and I can do the stripes.

The Sun was encouraging.

I'm not sure if it was the sun, or if I finally found some extra energy I had been saving up, but today I decided I was going to go get the paint for Natasha's room and the kitchen cabinetry. Originally, my friend and I had picked out Benjamin Moore Pale Iris for the main paint colour in her room. It matched really well with her bedding and butterfly wall accessories, I felt it was a bit too pink, even though it was in the purple shade family, I just did not like the colour. So Lily Lavender it is. It's still going to match the bedding, it's just more purple-y.

I also finally picked up a closet organizer at Crappy Tire today. It probably took me nearly 2 hrs to put it together. I should know by now to read the directions fully before installing stuff, but I figured, how hard can this be? The box said "Install in seconds! No Tools required! Yeah we won't go there. It's installed but who won the battle is unsure.

Now all that is left is to wash down her walls, fill the holes from huge ass anchors and then paint. :0)

There was a shelf that was over her crib that I took off today. The ppl that put it on, actually used anchors (who the heck uses anchors?? I don't. :0P), huge anchors that I feel were way bigger then needed for this tiny shelf. I'm not exactly sure what they were planning on putting on this tiny shelf, but with the anchors they used, they could have put a mini bar on that shelf, if it would have fit.

While out I also bought the white paint for the kitchen cabinetry, but that I'll save for another day. :0)

The Big Game

Last week O went out directly after work to meet with some friends at a pub to watch the Flames game. I was not really too concerned about it, I can manage just fine on my own with N. Well, N decided she could not survive all that well without daddy being home at his usual time and started to cry at 7pm and did not stop until 8:30pm when O got home. I tried everything. Feeding her, rocking her, her swing, her jumperoo, her favourite toys, nothing would console her.

I was pretty much at my wits end when O finally got home. All it took was for her to see him and she settled right down and was happy as a clam. O just thinks she was having a bad evening and that she was not upset that he was not home. I think he's being crazy. She might not be able to tell time, but her little body clock knows when Daddy is suppose to be home and when he does not show up, obviously she's going to get upset.

Someday my Daughter is really going to hate me..

I can't help but to play! I'm seriously considering taking a few photog courses at SAIT. I have talked about it for months, but have not signed up for any yet. It would definitely help me have a better idea of what the heck I'm doing. I'm going to try this again once she can sit on her own. There is a backdrop I've found online that I really want to buy, but I'm also thinking I could make one myself by just buying fabric and dying it to the colour I want.

Month Four - What a smile!

Dear Natasha,

What an exciting month! This month you have been giggling more and more, you can sit up against things w/o falling over. You have not started to roll over yet, but when I lay you on your back, you arch forward, and roll on your bum side to side, so I'm sure it will not be long before you are rolling.