The weather was so beautiful this weekend that George and I went back to the nature park that we went to for Earth Day. We packed a little picnic lunch, a new kite (also from the dollar store), and spent a few hours enjoying fresh air and a bit of nature in the middle of city life. Breanna’s just happy as long as she can spot birds. And when she does, the whole general area knows because she screams, “BIR! BIR!” over and over again.
Further proof that I am the hugest dork ever: I would totally wear this Harry Potter baby carrier.
Okay, here’s the truth – I don’t need anything big for Mother’s Day. I’m happy to maybe be able to sleep in a bit if possible, visit my own mom, and have a nice day in general. All these commercials that you see on television with Dad and the kids running out to Zales or deBeers to buy Mom a ginormous diamond? Please. First of all, I’m not a fan of diamonds anyway (and watching “Blood Diamond” only re-affirmed that for me), second, I’m a big believer in the thought behind it so if Hayley went and picked out a little ring or necklace for a buck at the dollar store I would be as ecstatic as those women in the diamond commercials. Honestly. And to me the best gift for Mother’s Day would be hearing, “no sweetheart, I’ll do all the dishes today.”
BUT! That said, if I happen to win the hot pink 4-gig iPod nano that they’re giving away over at Five Minutes For Mom, trust me, I will not turn it down! In fact, you can win it too, or any of the other great prizes. If you click the button up there, there is a list of Mother’s Day contests that you can enter. What’s exciting from my standpoint is that many of the contests are also open to Canadians, and if you live up here in Canuckistan, you know how frequently things are only open to US residents online (I am still weeping over the fact that I couldn’t enter to win that Dyson vacuum that everyone was talking about, wah!). The iPod is indeed one of the contests we can enter.
So what are you hanging around here for? Go enter some contests! Someone has to win, it may just be you. But no offense, I hope I beat you for the iPod. Good luck!
Usually my Thursday night is predictable. I give the kids a bath if they need one, I do snack time, and I get them into bed by 8 pm. I watch the evening line up which, for me, is Grey’s Anatomy and CSI. In between, I poke around on the Internet, I eat way too many potato chips, and I eventually tell myself I should go to bed.
This week I did something a little different. We pawned the kids off on George’s parents and we went out. Without the kids. Wait. That should read WITHOUT THE KIDS. Yee-haw!
There was a good reason for this momentous event. Montreal used to have a building called The Forum which was where our hockey team played and where most large concerts were held. Eventually they opened a bigger building, the Bell Center and the old place became The Pepsi Forum. It was turned into an entertainment center but no one really knew what to do with it and now they’re trying to make it somewhere to feature local talent since Montreal has gotten really bad about promoting local music. So George and our friend Perry, under the name of Gideon Vaudca, played there last night.
What with the release of Order of the Phoenix being released in July, followed by the last Harry Potter book later in July, there may be a lot of fans who are as hard core as I am about the Potterverse. If you’re planning a Potter Party of some sort, you should check out some of these amazingly detailed themed recipes. I really want to make Butterbeer.
This is possibly the most moronic news story ever – a woman is forced to rename her baked good such as Robin Tarts because they don’t contain robin, and her Paradise Slice cake because they don’t come from Paradise.
WTF?
I haven’t been subjecting anyone here to my obsession with American Idol (and Canadian Idol in the summer), though I have been all over it over on LJ. This can not be kept quiet though. Last night Blake Lewis completely blew my mind. I’ve always liked Blake and he was always my favorite of the guys (with Jordin being my favorite of the girls although she didn’t do very well last night on rock night).
I’ve missed Blake’s trademark beat boxing but last night he totally made it worth the wait. I think he should win a prize for the most original version of a well-known song on Idol ever. Jon Bon Jovi was worried that fans who love the song would not be receptive to the changes but as a huge fan of “You Give Love a Bad Name”, I can tell you it was AWESOME. Thanks to YouTube, I can share the video with you.
Amazing, seriously.
I love when George sometimes has a bit of work to do for someone who is in the same area as my parents because that means I automatically get to go and visit my Mom and Dad. Not that I need a special occasion, I could visit any time I wanted but sometimes the scheduling just doesn’t work out. Hayley was very happy to hear we were going. She was excited to see them and she was also excited because my mom had mentioned that she had some of my sister’s My Little Pony playsets if we wanted them. Since there’s nothing I enjoy more than seeing my kids playing with stuff I remember from my own childhood, we brought home the My Little Pony castle and the My Little Pony ice cream parlor. My mom was so annoyed to discover that there were no actual ponies in any of the packed up boxes, but that was okay. I went to the dollar store and got some knock off ponies there; if she ends up truly enjoying them and playing with them a lot, I’ll get her some real ones.
We ended up going there for about four hours and it was so nice. Breanna fell asleep in the car (like mother like daughter) and was groggy and out of it when we arrived. She usually doesn’t wake up well from naps so I was expecting her to freak out when she found herself in a home other than her own; she surprised me by reaching out her arms to my mother and then sitting on her lap with her head on my mom’s shoulder for a good ten or fifteen minutes. Once she was fully awake, she was all over the place, playing and having fun.
You just never know what to expect from Hayley when it comes to clothing. I’ve seen her come out of her room in a light lilac dress with flaming red tights. I’ve seen her in a striped shirt with checkered shorts. I’ve seen her take a poncho and wear it as a skirt. She’s also known to wear an old sundress of mine over a t-shirt with three beaded necklaces and legwarmers. She wears it all and sometimes she wears it all at the same time.
Sometimes I want to pin a sign to her back that says “I dress myself” just so people know it’s not me.
No, I’m mostly kidding, I’m pretty relaxed about letting her wear what she wants, even when we go out. The only time I draw the line is when it’s inappropriate like a huge sweater in July or a pair of shorts in the dead of Winter and we’re going outside. Or the other week when she wanted to wear her bathing suit and jeans to storytime at the library.
However, despite being used to her flair for the unexpected in fashion, I was not prepared for the night before last.
You know what’s fun? A baby shower. You know what’s as much fun? A virtual baby shower! An online baby shower was organized for Liz, Christina, and Tammie and in lieu of gifts, we were all asked to share some of the best advice we ever received and some of the most horrendous “assvice” we ever received.
I think the best advice I ever got was one of the hardest to follow – sleep when the baby sleeps. It was a bit easier with Hayley, because when Breanna was born I couldn’t just go and nap with her since I had to take care of Hayley too. However, even back then it wasn’t always as easy as “oh, she’s asleep, I’ll nap too!” Sometimes it was hard to just shut off and sleep and other times it just wasn’t a convenient time such as when it was time for me to eat lunch. A lot of times I made do with using her nap time to just sit quietly. Since she only really napped ON me for the first several months, that was easy to do. I’d sit at my desk and when she fell asleep I could poke around online or watch TV and not do anything tiring. A lot of times that was good enough for me.
Still, it IS good advice in general and if you can do it, I highly recommend it.