...the Wise, the Witty, and the Waste of your time...

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

RB- Arbie- R'bee

Evanie has developed a few intense loves lately and while some of them make sense, others are a little....unique. Like RB. She loves/delights in/is obsessed with the little character on all the Royal Bank ads and promotions.


This little guy right here makes her all shriek-y and jittery! Every time she sees him on a poster, brochure, website, or bill her whole body lights up and she shrieks "RB!!" as if she was greeting a long lost friend! So the other morning I pulled up a picture of him online and used our web-cam to snap a few pictures of her expression every time I flipped to the picture of him.


What better way to start your day off on the right foot than with some quality time with RB!


What? Where did he go?


THERE he is!!!


And again!


And again!!

Please don't be afraid of the scary eyeball peeking out from behind Evanie's bed head! It's just me. I was using Evanie to screen my own bed head and forgot to duck behind on one picture!

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

On Pooping...

Yes that's right- a post about pooping. Don't worry...this has nothing to do with adult excreta.

We are nearing the one year anniversary of successful cloth diapering. I know, yay!- right? And guess how many loads of reeking diapers I have washed in the past 12 months - A MILLION! Not a word of a lie. One freaking million diapers. (To my sisters, shush, I am NOT a drama queen!)

To hear hard core cloth diapering advocates describe it- cloth diapering consists of snuggling your darling baby's precious skin in the incredible softness of organic, unbleached, triple spun, hand woven, elf stitched, thirsty layers of hemp fibers which wick away unwanted wetness, smell like lavender, and never leak on mom, the bed, clothes, the special blankie, on floor model playpens in a department store.... (What? Who said that?) And if there are any deposits of solids, simply flip the flushable liner into your shiny porcelain toilet, and flush away. And if there are ever times that mom forgets to put in the flushable liner, cheerily lift the solids out of the layers of unbleached hemp, and flush as usual.

Well perhaps I missed some sort of baby poop memo but as it turns out, my darling daughter (and she is darling- I'm not being sarcastic about this!) does not so much "deposit solids" as she does "sh** with reckless abandon!" The said "lifting of the solids" looks a lot more like holding your breath for 15 minutes while scraping poop and violated green peppers from a desperately-needs-to-be-bleached hemp diaper!

Sigh. For those of you who are cloth diapering and loving it, I apologize for being a downer. And for those who are thinking about it, don't let me discourage you. It's totally do-able. But when someone says, "Oh it's every bit as easy as disposables once you're used to it,"-kick them in the shins for lying! How can it be just as easy as wrapping it up and throwing it in the garbage!? The only diapering option as easy as disposable is- DISPOSABLES!

That being said, it's not nearly as disgusting or difficult as our mother's generation. I know this because I clearly remember the old style of cloth diapering. Having 8 younger siblings (for those of you who did not know this, quick, sit down. ....oh and I also have 2 older siblings...) has given me plenty of diaper changing opportunities. The last few babies were in disposables but my mom, bless her wonderful heart, went the cloth option for most of us. Here's a fun fact for you: did you know that the old style cloth diapers (5x2 feet of fabric) are actually not bulky enough to be wrung out in an old fashioned wringer washer. True story. There's a bunching technique that has to be applied in order to wring water out of the fabric. See, my generation doesn't know essentials like this!

Where was I?.....Oh yes, it's not as hard as it used to be. 80% of the time it's just a basic flip it into the washer procedure. 20% of the time, it inspires all manner of profanities. The smell alone is almost enough to make me throw up my hands. It makes my eyes water even if I'm plugging my nose! But it is true that they can be quite simple, very cute, and of course- wait for it- good for the environment! It's just that, on any given day the diapers either need to be washed, need to be hung up to dry, or need to be folded and put away. (Or need to be thrown, kit and caboodle, into the nearest I QUIT garbage can!) A solid year of thinking about dirty diapers every day is a lot of thinking about dirty diapers. Think of all the brain space and to do list slots that will open up when she's potty trained!! I'll be able to solve crimes, unlock medical mysteries, and spell words without spell check!

I'm sure I could rant on for many more paragraphs but as it turns out, I have a load of clean diapers waiting to be hung up. This is not a lie. It is in fact, this load that inspired me to quickly sit and spew this into cyber space!

How about something happier...like this sweet picture:


This is one of the many beautiful pictures the wonderful Heidi took of my sweet little girl/pooper. If you want to see all of them you can go to Evanie's site for the rest. (Her name is the password.)

Also, Steph, if you read this blog and you're still planning on cloth diapering, all of what I just wrote is a funny joke. It's actually easy and fun and smells like lavender. :)

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

There Was Screaming...






* Braids were made possible by my baby girl's amazing amounts of GLORIOUS hair!!

Thursday, August 5, 2010

Happy Birthday Evanie Josephine!

EVANIE IS ONE!!

I'm not even going to say how I can't believe how fast the year has gone and how it was just yesterday that she was tiny and floppy and newborn. I'm not going to say it.

Actually I can't even write that without completely choking up so it's more like: I CAN'T BELIEEEEVE mmmbbmmfmfbb GOOOOONNEEE phmmmmgg *hiccup* my BAABBBEEEE eeeevvmmmm WAAAAAAA!

Oh dear.

What I'm trying to say is that my little Evanie is 1 year old and this is awesome even though it makes my life flash before my eyes and I'm already weeping in part over her wedding day. I'm afraid the future will come zooming in and steal my little munchkin (or troll, depends on the hour) from her crib. I guess this should be my continual reminder to make each moment count.

I would love to be all "tech-savvy-mother-who-finds-the-time-to-make-a-meaningful-photo-montage-or-sweet-video-for-the-baby-I-love-most-in-the-world" (while also decorating M. Stewert-esque cupcakes and handcrafting eco friendly gifts and goodie bags!) to post here for you all to see but as it turns out, I'm not that mother. She's actually quite lucky to have gotten a cake -because she's one, she doesn't care.

However, as much as she neither knows or cares that she just reached a whole year old (...or to put it in another 4 yr olds words, "she's not zero anymore!"), Justin and I care so we celebrated the day by taking her to a petting zoo and ended it with cake and icecream and good friends. And balloons. Which I think were the highlight. Or maybe it was her Nana flying all the way out from Saskatchistan to be here. That was definitely OUR highlight.


Allow me to give you another of my riveting Evanie updates and end it with a lot (I already know I'm going to overdue it so you may as well prepare for it) pictures of the big day. I do have about 200 of the event.

Evanie seems to have 'grown up' a lot in the last month. She's looking and acting more like a little girl than a baby every day. At one year Evanie is enthusiastic, cheerful, energetic, determined, loud, social, funny, hungry, and busy. She also hits, screams, manipulates, and pinches...but that part is a secret.

She loves fruit, the water, her daddy, her blanket, visitors, strangers, babies, and balls. But I do think her greatest loves are holding our hands and walking, dogs of all shapes and sizes, and her mom. In that order. Multiple times a day she scoots her little bum over to me, grabs my thumbs, says "gak gak gak (walk)," and bolts for the stairs. She loves nothing more than for me to walk her down the road to the neighbors dogs. I don't think she'd ever need food or sleep if we stood out there all day and let the dogs lick us! However, as much as she loves to "gak" with our help, she's gone from taking 3-5 steps on her own to absolutely refusing a single step. I have no idea what that's about.

She just got her seventh tooth... and it's crooked. She's 28.5 inches tall and weighs 17.2 lbs. She signs, blows kisses, counts (it's the cutest thing ever...she has no idea what she's doing...), and says I love nana, daddy, mama, puppies, and garlic. Yes, she says I love garlic. Her dad taught her that. She's also trying to mimic other words and has made up an entirely new language of her own.

She has her dad's 'insta-tan' abilities, a few hours in the sun and she has a bathing suit tan. She also has his internal thermostat which means that at night, I'm the only one in the house who uses a blanket. She is almost constantly happy, smiles so big it brings tears to my eyes....and still rarely laughs. Last night she actually belly laughed and it may have been the first time. She hates her carseat and loves her stroller. She hates formula and loves cows milk. She still nurses twice a day but honestly, I don't know if she'd even notice if I quit cold turkey-she doesn't ask for it or care anymore. She's way more excited about cups with straws and solid food. She loves iced chai....shhhh....don't tell anyone I give sips of caffeine to a one year old. Don't worry, it's not a habit. Now when I have my chai I put milk over ice for her and she sips it with a straw; as long as I don't let her first taste what I'm drinking she never knows the difference.

When I'm working in the kitchen she's constantly there, pulling herself up on my legs, hugging my feet, and singing her "mama" song. I love it. It's incredibly inconvenient because every step I take she just repositions and pulls herself up again but I love it anyway.

Actually that's kind of what all parenting is like, incredibly inconvenient but I love it!

And now....700 pictures:

All ready to go....clearly bursting with excitement.


What better way to begin than with a little sheep riding...or mutton busting as I believe it's called. That's right, I'm from Montana. We do this (on real sheep) with our kids for fun there.


Daddy is teaching her how to pet the animals. There were signs on every pen saying "Caution, animals may bite" but we ignored them. I mean what kind of animal would bite a tiny baby girl anyway?!


Seriously, if I liked animals, I would have to have a long eared rabbit! SO cute! And floppy!


I love her baby softness!


Loooooook......how can baby animals be so CUTE!


Evanie was very unsure about this bully!


So we fed the smaller ones.


Our non walking "gak-er."


I took a moment to just bless all of Farmer John's animals. It felt like the thing to do.



As you can see, the wart hog was not exactly her favorite...



...but who can blame her. It's ridiculously ugly!


Justin noted our postures and expressions in these pictures. You'd think we were related or something....


She actually fed a few animals!! Without losing fingers!



A little unsure of the squeaking guinea pig...


Trying it out...


Annnnd going in for a giant open mouthed kiss!


The classic, "OOOOO-oooooooo!"


Awwww....seriously kids and baby animals are just precious together! Look at her little hands holding the guinea pig!



Checking out some of her new toys. She did not like Auntie Sally but when she got her the purple car she warmed up a bit. You can see her checking out aunt Sally, wondering if she deserves a second chance!



Why wait for a piece of cake when you can dive into the whole thing!?



I think she liked it!

You are not allowed to hate me for my 'many pictures all in a row' technique. It's my blog and I can do what I want. Also I don't know what I'm doing so this dictates the "rules" of lame picture posting.

Thursday, July 22, 2010

Hair Ball


So one of my most embarrassing mom moments yet happened the other day in the grocery store. And it was all because of a misunderstanding that I never got the chance to rectify. Somewhere out there is a sweet grandmother who thinks I'm Momzilla.

Evanie and I were strolling along, minding our own business....actually, I was minding my own business. Evanie was shrieking at everyone she saw. Because of said shrieking, a lovely grandmotherly little woman came over and started talking to Evanie and me. Naturally, within about 30 seconds she was animatedly talking about her own grand-daughter who was the same age and she was so excited to see her again, etc, etc. In response I asked, "So, does she live here?" -and suddenly everything got awkward. The grandma gave me a rather confused look and responded with an almost apologetic, "I uh...well, I guess not as much as her...but a little...."

What? How does that make sense?

Because of her awkwardness and the odd answer to my question I suddenly felt awkward and didn't know how to respond to the misunderstanding so we just basically stammered out some, "er...I have to buy some butter, er, goodbye" and both scuttled opposite directions.

As I trolley-ed my way from one aisle to the next I tried to figure out what went wrong and what she thought I said when I noticed that I was absentmindedly running my fingers through Evanie's hair. I saw her cute little ponytails and was horrified to realize this lady thought I was trying to figure out if her grandbaby had hair! "So, does she have HAIR? Does YOUR grandbaby have as much hair as MY baby? Because MY baby has LOTS of hair. Have you noticed her PONYTAILS? This is really the only reason I HAD a child. I'd be ashamed if I had a baby with any LESS HAIR!"

Ugh! I feel like a jerk but really, I'm a nice person! I wish I could tell her that. I can just envision the conversation she had with her daughter about the snooty jerk she met in the grocery store.

Oh well...at least God knows I'm nice.


Wednesday, June 23, 2010

When all else fails....pictures....

The giant houseboat we lived on for a few days.


Our fearless captain. (Evanie, not Papa)


In order to be fair she let others help her from time to time...


...but she was the main one in charge.


New toy from her Nana and Papa.


It provides endless delight!


Bath-time on the boat.


Nap-time on the boat. It was basically like a large cupboard! :)


We took the opportunity to get off and stretch our legs....once....


It was raining which intrigued Evanie.


The catch of the day. Actually the only catch of the whole trip!


Elijah and Evanie were big help when it came to transporting gear on and off the boat.


And here's a shot of the guitar Justin made...being played by his dad here.


And by his brother here....


Pretty fine piece of work!