my pretty girl(s)

It's been so nice here this week. Two days ago it was around 60 degrees here. I posted about the nice weather already, but it gives me a chance to get Liv outside and practice my limited photography skills. It helps that my subject is so cute and I don't have to have the perfect picture to make her look perfect.

taking lily for a walk...umm notice the infinity scarf, on a 2 year old! I die...it's so cute :). (my mom made it!)

exciting

strolling

my wild girl

this is a rare moment that I'm thankful I caught

The New Year

We started off the New Year with me receiving my work permit! You know the one that I've been waiting over 11 months for....yes that one. What better way to start the new year than with a fresh start and a new beginning. I can't even explain how exciting this is for me. I have felt stuck after moving to Canada. This work permit brings with it some excitement for me.

Liv has been on a waiting list for about a month to a daycare that is literally 2 blocks away. I am calling back today to check on when she'll be able to go. She'll be in for some big changes. Speaking of big changes, we are on day 3 of no "sucky". Well she gets it at naptime and bedtime, but this is seriously huge for her and us. It was our new year's resolution. She is under the impression that daycare is school and she is very excited to go to school...she woke up this morning talking about it :). I told her that yes she is going to school and there will be other big girls there and they won't have suckies because they don't allow them at school. She seemed satisfied with that answer ha.

We had a pretty low-key NY eve. We had a few people over and everyone pretty much filed out after midnight and we went to bed. It was nice to hang out at home and also to not have to stress about where we were going and finding a babysitter. So not worth it and this was much better. I do have far too much champagne left over, so it looks like I'll be drinking that tomorrow for the return of grey's, private practice, and vampire diaries!!!

It's also be unseasonably nice here, which is perfect when trying to keep Liv busy and her mind off her non-existent sucky...so we took a trip to the park yesterday. I have a bunch of pictures I discovered on my little camera that I need to upload and sort, so hopefully that will motivate me to do some more consistent posts.

kind of love this picture.

slide!

christmas 2011

Christmas 2011 was a success! While I wish I had more pictures....I was trying to enjoy the moment and not be stuck behind the camera. Liv had a blast. She was so excited with everything she opened and all of the parties we went to. She is exhausted and her and I are having a relaxing day today. Well, she is...I am cleaning the up after the hurricane that destroyed our apartment. It is a disaster.

Some Christmas highlights:
- Skating! We did a lot of ice skating. We even did a little sledding. Liv isn't currently ready to play in the NHL, but give her a few years ;).

-Christmas Eve was spent at Great Grandma Doreen's house. It's the tradition and we had appetizers and opened gifts, all while enjoying each other's company.

-Christmas morning we had a big breakfast here: including red velvet pancakes, eggs, sausage, bacon, hashbrowns, cinnamon rolls, and of course some mimosas and coffee with bailey's. It was perfect and hopefully can be the new tradition!

-Christmas Day we had a nap, did some more skating, and then headed over to Grandma Carolyn's for food, drinks and visiting. Also, another tradition and is great to see everyone.

-Boxing day Pat took liv to the Mac's midget tournament, she was so excited. She had her new backpack from santa stuffed with stuff to do and snacks and headed out for 4 hours of hockey excitement. I did a little boxing day shopping and we had a nap together when they got home and headed over to Auntie Donna's for a "cousin's get together". This is another place that we look forward to because we get to see family we don't see very often.

Needless to say, all of us our exhausted. Liv had a few naps where I thought she would have slept all night if I let her and she did not want to wake up. Poor girl. I think she would agree though that it was worth it :).

and onto the pictures!

at GG Doreen's opening some gifts.

wondering what to do with this? (she got a leap pad for xmas :)

playing us some christmas tunes, Thanks auntie Dani for the dress!

christmas morning!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas 2011!!!

sleep

We've had a little improvement in the sleep department.

Here's a re-cap of our sleeping timeline:
-moved into our new apartment early October.
-didn't bring the crib, so straight to the toddler bed.
-went home for 3 week, where liv slept in a pack and play
-came back and liv had a month of doing well at bedtime, sleeping all night in her bed.
-then came huge tantrums at bedtime which had me sitting on her floor until she fell asleep.
-got the tantrums under control and not sitting on the floor, but have to keep her door open.
-but now we are having issues with liv getting up randomly to come into our bed in the middle of the night.


Letting Liv sleep with us would be the easy thing, but honestly...none of us sleep well. Multiple wake-ups occur and coaxing ensues to get her back to sleep. So, last night at 1:30am I  was woken up by Liv, took a deep breath and pulled myself out of bed to put her back in her room. It was unpleasant but it worked. She came back in my room around 6:10am, but slept soundly with me until 7:20. I consider it a success!

The main thing for Liv right now is having her door open. It's not necessarily a problem if it's just us in the apartment, which usually it is...but obviously if something else was going on, i.e. setting up for xmas morning, it might become one.

If Liv wakes up and her door is closed, she gets up and cries to tell me she wants it open...once I get the waking up thing under control I might attempt to close it once she's sleeping again. Baby steps. I originally tried to fight her freak-outs and do a little nanny 911, which is basically telling her its bedtime once and after that, just putting her back in her bed with no words. Well, that escalated the situation to a point where she was SO upset I thought she'd throw up. It also lasted 2 + hours. I'm not willing to do that every night, so we are taking the baby step approach. So far it's working and I can only hope that if I'm consistent with putting her back in her bed that she'll eventually stop coming in our room.

My friend, Krysta, asked me to post about our sleep situation. It's definitely not perfect, but for now it's working and will ::fingers crossed:: keep evolving.

a month

With the anticipation of Pat finallyyy coming home today, today being a day short of him being gone for a month, I kept Liv and I busy. We did errands all morning, she got to visit with her gaga carolyn and auntie leslie and uncle ryan and baby jax, then we went home for a nap. She napped and weirdly enough I was excited enough to clean the house and do some laundry.

Then came the dreaded "I can't come home until tomorrow" call. So, now I can say "pat has been gone for a month", because tomorrow marks a month. I know how odd it sounds that my husband has been gone for a month, but thats the life we live. Its not often, but it can happen. We deal. I deal with extra glasses of wine at the end of the night/early evening, but deal I do.

While on our errand run today I got Liv some princess body wash an a cinderella loofa, Liv refers to it as a "foofa". Even though it wasn't bath night, we indulged ourselves. She polished herself clean with her "foofa" and extra squirts of princess body wash (which obviously makes you more princess-like) and practiced our back floats and front floats from swim class. I have to say that if swim class does anything for Liv, it will probably allow me to wash her hair like a normal human being in the bath tub! She is over her bath hating phase now...the fight continues to drag her out of the tub.

bath time baby.

back float!

Thank you swim class!

cinderella foofa!

baby bum

"takin' a break mama"

the girls of the hour.

happy after her bath.

princess pose.

can't forget about my other princess :)

ohhh lily ha!

poop strike

Potty training is going fairly well. Liv can wear panties all day and doesn't pee her pants. However, pooping is a whole other story. She continues to poop her pants, even with constant reminders.

So anyways, the other day she pooped her pants twice. I was livid after the second time. I try to talk to her and say "liv you can't poop in your panties, you need to tell mommy when you have to poop so you can poop in the potty". The second time though...I lost it. She went in time out, she got in big trouble. She knew mama was mad.

What does a two year old who won't poop in the potty do when she gets in trouble for pooping in her pants?? Goes on a poop strike thats what!

Liv is quite...regular. So 2 days with no poop was a bit of a concern for me. I knew what she was doing. So tonight she kept going into the bathroom and shutting the door. I would go in and she would come out. Then finally I heard her mumbling something about pooping. I followed her and said "liv do you have to go poop?". She said yes and she wanted to sit on the big potty (she only does this when she poops). And she did! She got down and said "whoa mom, thats a big poop!". Seriously, so proud.

I'll disregard the fact that she didn't exactly finish in the potty and I ended up cleaning undies anyways, but its the fact that she tried. Go Liv!

life lately

Life has been interesting lately. Poor Pat has been out of town for about 3 weeks. He came home on Tuesday for about 10 hours, but then was called back out of town. So, by interesting I mean stressful.

Liv decided that when Pat left she would be waking up and coming into my room. Of course the night Pat was home she slept all night in her room...so I'm hoping that her little habit is due to little disruption in her life. Obviously to her, its not such a little disruption.

I did do some Christmas Shopping this week, which is a relief. I hadn't done any. I don't want to go overboard, so I'd say I'm almost finished. Just a few more things here and there. Speaking of Christmas, I'm thinking Liv is going to have a repeat of her performance last year when it comes to sitting on Santa's lap. Which will include an all out tantrum...I fear for Santa's safety.

I've been a little off lately. Life has just been weird around here without Pat around. That is what I'm blaming this on...a little story. So, I bought a winter jacket from value village. I had tried it on and when I brought it home I washed it immediately. When I took it out of the dryer I tried it on again...and I realized the zipper was broken! I looked for the bottom piece and couldn't find it anywhere. I was mad at myself, but figured since I only paid $13 for the jacket, I could afford to get it fixed. The next day I brought it to the seamstress down the hill. Fast forward to today when I went to pick it up. Let's just say it was free. Free because the zipper was intact, it was a double zipper and the top part was up by the top and I guess I just....well, I overlooked it? It was a wee bit embarrassing.

With that little life update, I'll leave you with some pictures...

a re-decorated with some re-painted vintage platters.

a little holiday doily banner via Mandy's blog

new wall decal in liv's room

re-painted vintage frame with adhesive chalkboard (easiest thing ever!)

liv's updated picture wall...it's coming along

and liv and her new obsession, which includes filling bags up with toys and toting them around. This always results in a mess, of course.

antagonizing lily

the only good pic I have of my other re-decorated wall.

spinning.

whoa.

a little wind in the hair.

some turkey noodle soup from leftover turkey...we had thanksgiving dinner at our place, but of course I failed to get any pictures. Pat has been asking for this, so I obliged. Here is the recipe. I omitted the celery, because cooked celery is moogy and grosses me out. I also thought the addition of soy sauce was odd, but it tastes good!