A million and one...

That's about the number of things I have to post about. Or that I have wanted to post about. Where does my time go? This post is going to be totally random so bear with me...

So the daughter formerly known as the devil is doing A LOT better. It only took 4 and a half months. No biggie (insert sarcasm here). I cut out dairy from my diet mid April & cut out wheat at the beginning of May. Neither one made much of a difference with regards to Sofie's fussiness but it did help to knock off 10 more lbs of pregnancy weight. Woo Hoo! Still got another 15 to go... Boo. I'm slowly starting to re-introduce both back into my diet in small quantities. Mmmmmmm.. Cheese.

I then started questioning my breast milk supply and decided to run with the idea that I had a foremilk/hindmilk imbalance because Sofie had all the symptoms associated with that. I started block feeding (feeding from one boob for 6-12 hours before switching to the other) about a month ago and it really seemed to work!! She was (is) crying less. At the same time I decided to introduce an organic dairy based formula and she loved it! So now between the 2 we've got a pretty happy baby!! She still isn't sleeping her nights at all but at least she doesn't cry all day anymore... which is a MAJOR relief. I also started giving her cereal... which she loves, but hasn't quite got the hang of it yet. Still a lot of pushing out with her tongue rather than taking in. But we try.

Yay for Sofie!! Now we just have to stop waking up every hour.

When I cut dairy out of my diet I also had to cut out soy... which is difficult for a vegetarian. And then I cut out the wheat... which left me with not much other than fruits & veg to eat. One of the new veggies I started eating a lot of was (is) spaghetti squash and I fell in LOVE. Soooo much healthier than eating actual pasta and I can prepare it the exact same way. MMMMMM. After baking it at 350 for 1 hour, add some diced tomato, avocado, onion, cilantro & salsa verde et voila!

All it's missing is a little feta cheese to make it extra perfect.... but at the time of the pic I wasn't eating dairy at all. Next time I'll add the feta. So good.

So schools out for the summer. Now the challenge will be to find things for the kids to do that don't drive them to kill each other... & me to kill myself. We didn't put them in any camps because both my husband & I will be home all summer and we didn't want to spend the money. That may have been a bad idea... lol. We are 5 days into summer vacation and I've already put a call out to see if there are open spaces at camp next week. Thankfully there are. In the mean time, being the only people on the block that don't have a pool we have to be a tad more creative when it comes to cooling off in the summer heat. So the other day we had a water balloon fight!! Which turned into great family fun. Until the balloons ran out and my husband got a hold of the bucket AND the hose. I lost. And it probably wasn't a great idea to be wearing a (mostly) white dress. When I got dressed that morning how was I supposed to know that the kids would ask to play with water balloons, which would give me the idea to fight them with the hose... and my husband the idea to fight with the kids against me??

It was a lot of fun, especially for the kids because they got to throw water balloons at us without getting in trouble. Good times.

In all the kerfuffle that is my life I totally forgot that they were building a splash pad in town. Who needs a pool? When Juliet went to a birthday party in the vicinity of the project we discovered that it is WELL underway!! Check it out.... should be up & running by mid-July. WOO HOO! I could very well be more excited than the kids.

 

So we've been living in this house for 3 years now. It's our 4th summer. Get that? One two three four. For some reason... even tho NOTHING has changed... the (mess of) garden on the side of our house has decided to bloom... What's up with that? Not only have we NEVER had a flower bloom on the clematis I thought I dug it all up last fall...

Apparently not. I don't even know if the photo actually does the mess of vine justice. After my husband rescued the air conditioner from the death grip of the massive vine I had to tie it up in 3 places. And there are actually flowers on it. Also... we've never had more than maybe 2 or 3 of our lillies bloom.

 Crazy eh.  And the mother's day grape vine is doing well too. Look... GRAPES!

I also attempted to grow a little herb garden in my kitchen window remember? (picture of the day April 7th, 2012 & May 22nd 2012). So my chives didn't grow AT ALL... (ya I know what you're thinking.... Who can't grow chives?) But after 2... yes TWO tries, my basil started growing! There's barely enough for one salad but at least it's pretty to look at. And yes, I am a total gardening failure.

So I think I'm up to date with everything I've wanted to share. I will try to keep on top of things but there are no guarantees. And I think I'm going to stop posting a picture of the day and just post pics right here when I feel inspired... I'm like 20 days overdue anyway. Here's one to start... We took a day to venture into the US and headed to Watertown to do a 'lil shoppin'. Basically a waste of time. But not before my husband had some fun. Poor child.

A la prochaine!

fun stuff

So Grama's back in town... and what does that mean? Fun stuff!! It helped that the weekend weather was fabulous and it was Harbour Days in Prescott. You can't go wrong with sunny weather, free hot dogs, bouncy inflatable rides, face painting & hanging out on my grandparents boat. It's chaos... but fun chaos.

If you thought that was Sam you were wrong. It's the super hero "Lightening". See... that's his running pose.

The kids topped it off with a sleepover on the boat with Grama. Sofie got to sleep on the boat too... but just for her afternoon nap. This is what happens when your eldest children aren't allowed on the boat while mom & baby nap...

Ya. Pine cones. Every damn one in the harbour. And now they are in my living room. Awesome.

The next day their faces were still (partially) painted, even AFTER a trip to the beach. Nice. We had to tell Sam he couldn't go out for father's day supper unless he washed off his face paint. Well, what was left of it. Yes... we had to threaten him. At what age does the novelty of face paining wear off??

Goalie for a Day

Sam has always been eager to get his chance in the net. We've never really encouraged it because goalie isn't really a position we wanted Sam to play. Hockey is expensive enough as it is... a goalie even more so. Last week the goalie in their summer league decided he'd like to play forward for a game so naturally Sam stepped up to trade spots & officially got his chance to play goalie. Equipment & all. Leave it to Sam to hit the ice & blow us all away, coaches included. He rocked that net... like a natural. So much so that we would love to see him become a goalie. However, at the end of 2 straight hours in the net Sam decided that his place on the ice was not in the net, but up in the front. I managed to get some great shots though...

"Enjoy The Journey"

Another year of dance wrapped up over the weekend with an entertaining performance celebration of ballet, jazz, tap, lyrical, hip hop, acro & modern dance. This year Juliet took ballet/jazz and ended the year with 2 fabulous numbers in the show...

 RAINBOW CONNECTION

MOVING RIGHT ALONG  

Pretty friggin' cute. Here she is after the show getting her medal...

BRAVO Juliet!!