Thursday, April 14, 2011

Bubbles, Spiders & Meatballs

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This week Quentin turned 19 weeks old (Tuesday, April 12th)
Sean turned 223 weeks old (Tuesday, April 12th)
and Mackenzie 147 weeks old (today, Thurs, April 14th)

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This week, we've played with bubbles.

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We've attended our final mini session music class (and tried on the famous spider hat that I have pictures of both Sean & Mackenzie wearing from when they took this class too).

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There were times with friends, and quiet time with naps.
(Mackie finally went back to daycare on Wednesday once he was fever free).

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We saw more friends, and even went for an hour & a half walk today.

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Sean helped me make 112 meatballs (double recipe) for our guests coming for Passover next week. Sean made me promise that I'd wait for him to come home from school to make them, so I did. He was an awesome helper. He's really quite good at rolling meatballs.

Happiness is....
♥ No longer having to go back to the Children's Hospital for follow-ups. We were cleared yesterday from having to go back to see Respirology and we're also weaning Quentin off the Zantac. Quentin's also 12 lbs 1.5 oz now (he gained over half a pound last week, my little piggy!)
♥ Finding a handbag you thought you no longer had.
♥ Having healthy snacks a friend.
♥ Baking with my son.
♥ The Habs winning Game 1 of the 1st round of the playoffs tonight.
♥ Spring Cleaning.
♥ Catching up on some magazine reading.
♥ Being almost done the book I'm currently reading.
♥ De-cluttering my home. (Will be updating my De-Clutter Blog in the next few days, I've been keeping a list).
♥ Seeing the numbers drop on the scale each week.
♥ Pulling out my beloved wardrobe. Bye-bye everything maternity. Hello clothes!
♥ Bedtime cuddles.
♥ Bedtime stories.
♥ A clean house!
♥ My son telling me I'm the best chef.
♥ Finally having the strength to let go of baby clothes and donate them to someone else who can use them, love them & cherish them as I did.

Today's Link Love:
- Huggies Enjoy the Ride Rewards points: BKKJSJHSWMZWPGB
- 50 free Pampers Gifts to Grow Points: happybdaypamprs (Valid today only)!
- This person's home library is so cheerful!
- This retro wristband pincushion tutorial.
- This stuffed animal tutorial is adorable.
- Booster Seat Cushion tutorial.

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Happenings.

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Mack turned 146 weeks old on Thursday, April 7th.

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On Thursday, Quentin also helped me by modeling in a new set up I got for my home studio. I wanted to check it all out before our afternoon appointment came over. Quentin was a good sport about helping me out. I can't wait to get more newborns in studio. I'm taking a workshop in May with a newborn photographer in another province, so I'll start to advertise and stuff after I finish the workshop. Until then, I'll be getting myself organized.

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Our afternoon appointment was absolutely adorable Baby K.
However... she wasn't in a good mood and didn't want to cooperate one bit.
They'll be coming back to the studio soon to finish up what we started.
Isn't she adorable?
The handmade tutu I have in my prop collection, and it's made by a friend of mine.

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SPECS:

Pattern: Fringe Throw Photography Prop by Kristi Simpson (My Ravelry Link)
For: Photography Prop
Yarn: What yarn isn't in there? Seriously, all leftover bits I could find.
Hook: I used a random hook to pull the yarn through to knot them. Size wasn't important.
Size: 3 feet wide x 2 feet long (approximately).
Timeline: April 1 - April 7, 2011.
Modifications & Notes: This was a time consuming project. Cutting 3 feet strips in hundreds of yarn pieces was a lot of work. And piecing it all together was time consuming as well. I just need to use it in my next newborn photography session, so that I can get better photos without my son’s Caillou doll! I had seen this on ETSY and decided that I could totally make one myself, instead of buying one for 55$ (especially since it's made with Acrylic & fun fur and crappy yarns - the one on Etsy). So that's when I started doing research and came across this pattern on Ravelry. I actually need a round basket for this prop, but don't have one I like yet. I used my square one to show what it is as a finished object.

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Sean has gotten very good at writing his alphabet. He's pretty darn good at the entire set.
My boys enjoy spending time together, whether it be coloring (we pulled out the erase board) or whether it be cuddling on the couch. (Sean loves to hold Quentin in his lap).

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Mack's been sick all weekend. He's had fever since he woke up Saturday (low grade, 100.3 - 101.3/101.5) and he's not really hearing what we say and kept asking for the tv louder, when it was perfectly normal at the level they usually watch at, so I took him to the doctor yesterday and he has an ear infection in his left ear. He's on antibiotics. His doctor said that once he's fever free (daycare requires 24 hours fever free) he can go back to daycare. He hasn't had fever since Monday lunch, so he'll be going to daycare tomorrow.

Quentin decided to take a nap in his Bébé Pod chair (above) while I was doing the bottle washing today. One minute he was awake, the next, out cold. Such a cutie. He will sleep anywhere.

Today's Link Love:
- These pieces of jewelry (especially the pink bracelet).
- These embroidery floss holders.
- This Dooce post made me laugh out loud.
- This image.
- This image. Especially the one with the lollypop (bottom left hand image).
- This Dr. Brown's Formula Mixing Dispenser. And thank you to my friend Robyn in Arizona for sending it for Quentin. Best invention ever. I make enough formula for the entire day in it, and just warm up each bottle in the bottle warmer that we have when Quentin's hungry. Saves so much time!
- I love this photo of someone's something blue. What a cute idea.

In 3's

Why is it that things in life always happens in 3's?

1. Friday on his way home, Jamie's muffler fell off his car. He had to get his car towed to the dealership and when he called Visa Roadside Assistance he found out our visa was changed and we don't have that service anymore. (I'm already looking into getting it back). This all, was the better part of what happened next.

2. We had some excitement over the weekend at casa Knit & Purl Mama. We had a little fire in the house. I can now say I know what it looks like when my husband's on fire. In the literal sense. He's okay, thankfully. We need a new dining room set though, as the table got burned a little, and 2 chairs as well. It'll be a while before we have fondue in our house again. And we've had it MILLIONS of times with another couple. It was our "thing" we did with them. And if there was a Habs game on... even better. All 4 of us are huge Habs fans. We were all done dinner, and Sean had asked for some more fondue. Since Jamie thought that the fuel was out, he went to pour more in, and it blew up in flames. The bottle in his hand caught on fire, and when he jumped up, the bottle of fuel rolled out of his hand, and rolled down the hallway of our house. We had fire all in our hallway on the stone floor (luckily with only a small damage on some wood at the base where the wall meets the floor). I ran to call 911, though by the time I got to the phone, Jamie was yelling to not call 911, as they had the fire out of control and practically out. I swear, for a split second, I thought for sure Jamie would have to be checked into a burn unit. At the time of the fire, Mack was upstairs in my room sleeping (with 101.3 fever) and Sean jumped in our friends arms and once Jamie put the fire on himself out, he grabbed Quentin who was sleeping on the floor in the room we were in as he fell asleep on his playmat.

The plus side to this story, is that I get to go shopping for a new dinning room set! The only good thing that came out of this. Luckily no one was hurt.

3. Quentin and I were in a car accident yesterday. We're ok. Came out of it without a scratch. I was turning around to park in front of a house to go to playgroup. I used a driveway to turn around and checked and was clear to go. The lady driving must have been speeding. She told me she thought I was parked. I'm not entire sure how she could have thought this. I pulled out of the driveway to go the opposite direction and didn't see her and she slammed into my car. She hit right into the back (sliding van door) on the driver's side. Quentin is okay and I am okay. His car seat didn't even budge. He was well protected. My car is still drivable, but I will take it in tomorrow to the body shop (already filed a claim with my insurance company). The car is just a piece of material. It can be fixed. No big deal. Money can fix a car, money can't fix us, so I'm just glad we're okay. I don't even know if it was any bit my fault in any way. I feel like blaming myself, at least partly. I didn't even know she hit me until after I was already hit. If you see a car coming out of a driveway, and you are coming from the stop sign before, so you had to stop, don't you go slow or wait? Nope, she went right into me. I dont even know what happened, it all happened so fast. Maybe she was on her cell phone. She seemed when she got out of her car that she was in a hurry. She seemed also like a high strung person. She called someone right away and started to yell at them in a language I didn't understand or recognize. I asked her if she was okay, but other than that, and her asking me if the baby was okay, once she realized there was a baby in the car, we didn't communicate much at all. I went with the ambulance tech once they arrived to check Quentin out, and after her car was towed and everything, the police handed me a paper that had an event number on it, that reads "You're a Victim of a Crime" and here's how to deal with any questions you might have and I went on my way. I was shocked that the police didn't even ask me any questions. The whole thing seemed so surreal. I wasn't distracted at all, not eating food, not on my bluetooth using my cell phone, not even listening to the radio. Though, I can't tell you what was going on in the other lady's car. That I don't know. In any case, even if you're careful accidents do happen. I was quite in shock for a good while after, but after going to bed early last night, I'm feeling better today, and will hopefully put this all behind me. There is no point dwelling over the past, what could have been had I been a few minutes earlier or later, or if I had not gone at all. (The thought did cross my mind, playing out every scenario that could have been in my head). Must stop it.

In any case, G-d has good plans for Quentin and I, and we walked away without a scratch. The lady as well, was 100% okay. I called my dad who was at home a few streets away and he came over to the accident. I called 911 for an ambulance for Quentin, I wanted to make sure he was okay. His vitals were perfect and the ambulance technician thought he was super cute. I've been keeping an eye on him, the accident occurred just over 24 hours ago, and he's totally himself. I had a headache yesterday, but I think it was honestly from not having eaten before the accident happened, (around 1:30 ish pm) and I only got a chance to eat at dinner time.

I have another post I'm working on with happier things. Stay tuned for that a little later. (It includes cute pictures of my kids).

Thursday, April 07, 2011

Reasons why I don’t read your blog

Now that I have a little bit of time, since cutting out blogging daily, I figured I'd go through my feeds and see what I could cut down on. Spring clean some of the mental clutter in my life. There are a lot of blogs out there that I start reading, add to my blog reader (I now use Google Reader), and stick with for a while. But every so often, I go through my list, weeding out various blogs that aren't making the grade for one reason or another. So here are some of the reasons why I'd delete you from my feeds or you wouldn't make the cut to begin with:

1. You don't blog regularly. If you haven't updated in a long while or so, I'll likely drop you. I want current! I just deleted some blogs that hadn't been updated since a year ago, etc.

2. You don't answer comments. I've been making every effort to answer every comment left on my blog -- I can't answer each and every one, but I would say I respond to a good 80% of them. It's a point of etiquette with me, as well as a way for me to thank my readers for taking the time to comment. I appreciate you, and I want to let you know. Plus, I think blogging is about engaging others in conversation. If you don't want to interact with those who read your blog, why are you writing at all? Just pull out a little diary with a lock on it and share your thoughts there. Also, as long as you have contact information, then I will respond. I still get comments that have no contact information, and those unfortunately I read & then delete them from my inbox. Often, profiles will lead no where with no info.

3. You don't use images or photos. It's really hard to read big blocks of text. If you never use images or pictures, my eyes glaze over. I just can't do it. Though, if you post here & there with images but sometimes without, that's fine. But there are some bloggers out there that only use text. BORING!

4. You use too many photos of the same thing. I can’t stand blogs that have the exact same photo of their cat, dog or goldfish sitting in the exact same position, but then moved an inch and you photographed it again, and then posted all the angles. This makes me not want to read your blog. You don't need 28 pictures of the same pet/kid/craft. Post a few, and post a link to all the rest. Who cares if you think they're all fabulous. If I want to see 85 pictures of your cat Fred, I'll click on the link.

5. You don't use the shift key. I'm sorry, but it is impossible for me to read blog posts with no capital letters. I know people who blog like this, but it just doesn't work for me.

6. You blog useless/meaningless information. Your blog posts are filled with "I had a chicken pot pie for dinner with a side dish of this and a salad topped with that". "I went to the bathroom, and washed my hands." "I went to Walmart to buy toilet paper and cream cheese". NO ONE CARES! And No One Cares What You Had For Lunch. I want interesting stories please.

7. Crazy punctuation, use of "hooked on phonics" for words, over-use of quotes, lots of exclamation and question marks. Why do people have to put exclamation marks all the time!!!!!! It drives me nuts!!!! And people who write words like "no" for "know", etc. Poor conjugation as well drives me nuts. Words that are supposed to be 's but are marked as pluralized with an "s". And the lack of spell check... I guess it's the enriched English student in me, but I can't stand blogs where the author cannot take the time to spell check their blog post before publishing. Blogger, Windows Live Writer, etc all have a Spell Check feature. It's a simple click of a button. DO IT. Your friends will thank you. I know I've had spelling errors in my blog posts before, no one is perfect, and when I catch them, I go back and edit, but some people don't even proof read what they are typing.

What about you? What makes you unsubscribe, not even subscribe in the first place or stop reading a blog?

Wednesday, April 06, 2011

Angel Tushies

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Quentin is 18 weeks old (Tuesday April 5th)
& Sean is 222 weeks old (Tuesday, April 5th)

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Quentin's been trying to twist lately. I think he'll be turning over soon.
He's also very fond of sleeping on his stomach in his rocking chair.
(Though, I had to turn him, he didn't do it by himself).
Whatever works, as long as he naps.

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I've been playing around with some new props, and Quentin's been a super duper model. Angel wings arrived in the mail the other day. They are absolutely precious (and tiny!) They'll make a fabulous newborn prop. This shot of Quentin's tush is one of my absolute faves right now.

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I love how white makes his blue eyes crystal blue. I really hope his eyes don't change, they are absolutely stunning. I'm trying to enjoy EVERY moment of the first year of his life... it's going way too fast for my liking. He's 18 weeks old already. That's half as long as he was in my belly for (since he was born at 36 weeks).

Today's Link Love:
- Bottle Cap Candle Tutorial.
- These awesome (but expensive) jeans.
- This picture is adorable.
- Cock-a-doodle-doo!
- Loving this recipe site.
- Yoga 4 You.
- Huggies Enjoy the Ride Reward Points: BKLCDQSHXRLTPGB (5 points)
-Pampers Gifts to Grow: WELCOMEGTGPTS10
- My conversation with my boys.

Avrit

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I’ve got a new pattern designed.
Her name is Avrit (which means Spring).
Ravelry link here.
Project details here.
Enjoy!

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Tuesday, April 05, 2011

Smiles for Great-Grandma

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Over the last couple of days we've seen some family, and Quentin probably made my grandmother's day with that smile. He really is just a delight. All he does is smile (when he's not hungry, of course - cuz when he's hungry, it's as if you've never fed him before in his life type of scream).

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We had playgroup yesterday and it was hosted by a Daddy. The mom recently had to go back to work until the end of the school year and we were asked if we minded if a daddy joined us. Absolutely not! Yesterday was a small playgroup due to the weather (rain) and probably the location of the playgroup (just off the island). It was definitely different being hosted by a daddy, but it was a nice different change. Quentin had his 4 month vaccines just before we left to playgroup today, and so by the time playgroup was over (and we decided to take a group photo of the boys) Quentin was out cold so I had put him in his baby bucket. I had the CLSC nurse take a look at his tongue tie and she said it's healing quiet nicely. Glad.

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There has been some crafting around here lately, and I will show you what this is once it's done. Right now it's just a lot of different kinds of yarn (thank you again to Sandra for your yarn donations). This project is actually taking a lot longer than I thought it would to do. It's not as quick as it would seem it might be. I already though, have plans for a second one, with a different spin to it. You'll see.. soon enough, I promise.

Today's Link Love:
- Love this video preview for the crochet book. I want the book too.
- I think I've posted this video in the past, but I just keep going back to it. Love it.
- High by Lighthouse Family. Great song. It's been a fave since I heard it when I was in Israel in 2004. It reminds me of Jerusalem.
- Huggies Enjoy the Ride Rewards free point: BKTWJZQHZDCRPGB
- Another Pampers Gifts to Grow Code: GTGREWARDS4MOMS
- Love this image. It's so sweet.

Saturday, April 02, 2011

Minor Surgery, Friends & Marshmallow Tushies

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Mack turned 145 weeks old on Thursday, March 31, 2011.

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Quentin had his follow up with ENT (Ears Nose & Throat) at the Montreal Children's Hospital on Thursday. He is doing exceptionally well, and only has to go back for a follow up around his 1st birthday. We see Respirology in 2 weeks or so, and I'm hoping they say the same thing then too, to come back around his 1st birthday, but we'll see what they have to say.

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While we were there, Quentin had minor surgery. The doctor took care of his Tongue Tie and it was a quick procedure. It would have been even quicker if she had froze him properly the first time, I didn't like that she started the job, and then said "Oh, I think he can feel it, I think I should freeze a bit more" Uh.. What?! And halfway through, he was screaming so much (hysterics) that he vomited on the doctor (serves her right for not freezing him properly to begin with). I'm glad it's over & done with. I'm hoping that it heels nicely. It looks like a huge blister under his tongue right now, it's quite upsetting to me to see. I'm hoping he doesn't feel it. He slept for a good 3 and a half hours afterward, he had exhausted himself screaming.

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Friday we had our last Friday Music class at our friend's house. It was a fun class, I really enjoyed it, and the people that were in that class. Glad that I joined it. We'll be doing another session in the later part of the spring, that I'm actually organizing with friends, I can't wait.

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After music, we headed over to Tara's house, and we were joined also by Kate-the-Enabler.
We had some lunch, some tea, and Kate got her baby fix.

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Tara gave Quentin a gift. She knit him Duck feet. (Non-Ravelry link). It's soo flippin' cute.
Thank you so much Tara! Quentin loves them.

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Tara & her daughter made dessert for us.
It's the most appropriate snack for any knitter.
I just enjoyed looking & photographing them.
(I didn't actually eat one... darn diet!)
They even have little marshmallow tushies!

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Quentin was all smiles last night when he was supposed to be in bed, asleep.
It was my own fault for letting him sleep while we were out for dinner with my in-laws.

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Today we had Jenn come over with the boys, as they've all been asking us to see their cousins. The boys played very nicely together, and had lunch together. The photo above kind of is funny, because none of them are actually "playing" together.

Other stuff going on:
- On Thursday, Sean asked us to remove the guard rail off his bed. It's been 2 nights now, and he hasn't fallen out of bed yet (knock on wood).
- Took Quentin to the CLSC on Thursday to get him weighed, he's been a little piggy this week, and has gained 34 g per day since last Thursday. He's now 10 lbs 15.5 oz. I plugged that in his growth chart, and he's still under the 3rd percentile for weight, at 4 months old. While we want him to eat, I don't want him to gain too much too fast. He's supposed to be gaining between 20 & 25 grams a day, so we're going to put him slowly onto regular formula. I'm going to be weaning him off the high calorie formula slowly, and see how he does. Maybe he was just having a growth spurt, who knows.
- Conversation between Jamie & Sean the day before April Fool's Day:
Sean: "I'm going to hide your slippers tomorrow, it's April Fool's day".
Jamie: "You're not supposed to tell me, it's supposed to be a trick/surprise."
Sean: "Well, I won't tell you tomorrow then."

Today's Link Love:
- Free Pampers Gifts to Grow Reward Points: 10000LATINASFBK, SPRINGHASSPRUNG & CesarChavez2011.
- Love this Etsy Shop. Especially these signs and these custom baby ones too.
- Love this bathing suit.
- I'd love to make something like this for my home office. It's so cute.