Picture Days

It was a gorgeous day yesterday. So we decided not to waste it. Coco, Danielle, Emily and I walked around Sepa Lake. It was certainly not the best time we’ve ever made because Em insisted she walk most of the lake. I was all nerdy and made Emily wear her halloween costume just to take good pictures. On halloween we are having a party at the church called light up the night. I’m pretty stoked about that. It’s Pirate theme though so Em cant exactly show up as snow white. The good news is that she still fits her Pirate costume from last year so we are good to go. I got some good pictures from yesterday. I’m not sure why, but my computer is corrupting Jpeg’s. Most of my pics get all choppy and messed up. I’m not cool with that. So we’ll have to figure out why. Otherwise all of Ems baby pics are now distorted an funky. grr

Today is just Picture day.

Small White

Out for a stroll. Watching out for evil old ladies.

At Sepa Lake

Trois Amis

My Epic Jacket

What a Life

Not one single thing I planned on today happened. I was going to get up and have a leisurely morning, go for a run with Morgan, eat a salad for lunch, kiss Morgan good bye and help him make his lunch for work, play Lego Star Wars while Em slept if Coco could come over, eat a quick dinner and pick up a babysitter for Emily, Go to a consecration night at the church followed by worship practice and then when Emily was in bed and the babysitter was home I’d blog. I am now apologizing for the horrendous run on sentence. Mr. Ebbison, my English teacher, would be appalled. At least it’s spell checked, ok?

Here is what I did do. This time I’m apologizing in advance for my run on sentence.
I overslept, missing a phone call from Lana telling me to come to the drop in lunch at the resource center, I decided to go because I hadn’t seen Lana in a long time, remembering that Emily could go in the play room now because she is old enough I got her ready in a rush and headed out the door. After about 4 minuted in the play room Emily Freaked out because of the noise and then that was the end of my info session. I played in the playroom with Em for another 15 minutes before she really freaked out and demanded I let her eat crayons. Since I ate crayons as a kid I decided I wanted better things for Emily and we went home. Because Em hadn’t been up very long she wasn’t impressed with an early nap, but there was no way she was staying up either so off to bed with you! I enjoyed a pizza for lunch and woke Emily up for a “Lift the Lip” appointment with a dentist that Lana so graciously shared with me.

Emily did amazing with the dentist. She cried for a second while her mouth got the checking, but otherwise she was just super excited to hold a giant tooth brush. We got super points for being awesome parents and doing all the correct dental things for Em. My Extra Mom would be so Proud. Ill have to tell her. The Lady was so impressed with Emily and her routine that she gave me a sticker. Well Em didn’t want it so I got an Ernie sticker and a glow in the dark toothbrush. Can one really brush adequately in the dark? I doubt it. We didn’t even get a fluoride treatment. Touchy subject I know, but I would have got the treatment done if the lady had recommended it. She didn’t because Em doesn’t have a bottle to go to bed or a bottle at all actually. She doesn’t drink juice ever or snack all day. She gets her teeth brushed at least once a day, but we are working on twice. She doesn’t breast feed in the middle of the night. AND she can say “Bwush ya teeth!”. She even said it to the Lady. Tooth 5 is in ad 6 is almost through. Praise the Lord!

Then I went for a walk with Kris and Lana, looked around a toy store and bought Emily her very first Robert Munsch Book. I plan on her having the whole set of Robert Munsch books because I loved them so much as a kid. I bought her my all time favorite one. The Paper Bag Princess. I love it. I think Ill make her read it over and over and over again. Then we got blizzards. I felt sick after a few bites, but ate the whole thing anyways. Whats wrong with me? Chocolate is evil. Then we visited Kim. Emily proceeded to eat rocks and dirt and scrape her knees twice. We have got to get a yard for her to play in. Then maybe she wont be such a monkey outside. Then we saw Karen and Brian’s new house. They are from our prenatal group. I expected Em to have a big melt down by this point, but she managed to play nicely with Promise and Rain. A couple of handfuls of dog food ingested later and we walked home for an early dinner.

Spending the rest of the evening freaking out was really fun. I was supposed to be at church, but things didn’t work out with a babysitter and I didn’t want to dump Em on anyone else last minute. Good thing too because she was, in her words “Gwumpy girl”.
Now it’s the end of a very long day and I’m trying to unwind.I’m going to do a Thursday Thirteen just for fun and probably read a book until Morgan gets off work. Gnight. Oh and I Edited Emily’s Page.

The Rule of getting Wet.

Today we took our friends Nathan and Danielle to our quaint little restaurant Nanna’s and Poppa’s. I thoroughly enjoyed my lunch and Em wasn’t overly bad. This has become a crappy phase. The whole “NO NO NO NO NO” thing is getting old. Even if she wants something she says no. It like having to use reverse psychology constantly. Today she grabbed Morgans arm while he was turning on the ipod dock. She knows she isn’t supposed to touch it, so she grabbed his arm firmly and said “NO HANDS!”. Soo cute. We had her infant development lady come and watch her play this week. Its neat because you get to see where she is at for her age. Because she is a preemie they keep checking on her. This weeks conclusion:?? Emily is ahead in everything!! Yay! We were pretty sure she is ahead in her speech, but figured she’d be behind in her motor skills or something, but nope. The only thing is that with her being ahead we hit the 2 year old stage much faster I guess. The Lady warned me about that. Im sooo excited.

We decided to go for a walk around Sepa lake today and dragged our Nathan and Danielle with us. It was a gorgeous day. We walked around to the bridge and found it closed for repairs. They have redone all the 108 lake trail bridges. Soo nice. Anyways. We decided to keep on walking maybe to the beach or something. Halfway to the beach Emily decided she was walking and that was final. She walked a long ways. She even stopped to pick up some dried up bear poop much to her mommy’s “EW. Gross!!!” factor. At the beach we stopped for a swing. It was so nice so we kept talking and walking. Half way between the beach and my parents house Em did her business and so we took a detour to steal diapers from my parents house. By that point it was too far to go back the other way so we kept right on walking. I used to ride my bike around the lake all the time, but I haven’t for years so it was really nice to be out there again.

We have this funny thing that says “Pretty much any time Courtenay is near water she will get wet. It doesn’t even matter what time of year it is”. If you know me for very long you will find out that is true. I figured I was doing good by avoiding the lake and not even walking on the beach. WRONG. We got back to Sepa lake and as we were walking around it to where we parked we noticed it was getting really cloudy. Then it started to mist us. It felt nice because we had just done a 6 or 7K walk. But then is went rapidly from spitting at us to raining to pouring, to dumping and by the time we made it into the parking lot hailing! how crazy is that. It was a gorgeous day. I guess its my fault for not just tripping and falling in the lake. Sorry guys for getting you all wet. Haha.

Time Passes.

2 hours later she is fast asleep and here I am. Yay! After breaky Em and I went for a walk. We walked our Horse Lake Road to where my Mom works to drop something off. It was mostly an uphill walk, but every step counts right? When we got there my Mom was just heading out for lunch. Yay! I love to get treated to lunch. When I don’t make it I’m happy. So then I proceeded to do the most illegal thing with Emily we’ve done since Jaywalking almost every day. Emily got her first ride in the Safari. Beautiful car that is is. Its old so it doesn’t have seat belts in it. Technically its legal to drive without them because it didn’t come with them. I still think we would have gotten busted though cause I’m pretty sure they have bigger issues with babies riding without seat belts. For the record we were going to drive a distance of 3 blocks. I figure the speed limit is slow so I decided not to waste my moms whole lunch hour walking back. Wow I’m starting to sound worse and worse as a parent. Ok heres where the story gets interesting. What are the chances of meeting a cop in1 minutes drive time? Apparently better than I thought. There he is just sitting there waiting for us. It doesn’t help that we are driving the awesomest car driving by. Lucky for me I had chucked a book on the floor and Emily really wanted it. I let her crouch on the floor and read her book as we drove by. Great now I’m smuggling too. 10 seconds later we pull into the mall and head in for a bite to eat. Thus ending Emily’s first and probably last ride in the Safari (a car 50 years older than her). At least until we figure the whole seatbelt thing out.

I asked my Mom and she says I had a car seat in the safari when I was little(glorified ice cream bucket). I guess it was hooked up to a racing harness that was bolted into the frame. Yeah baby racing girl! Woohoo! There. Now Im done telling my “Im a regular bad parent story”. The funny thing is that my parents generation would have thought me silly to say things like that about driving in cars with kids. That used to be the norm. I’m lucky I was born late enough that they even had car seats(glorified ice cream buckets). Either way its cool that Emily got to ride in the Safari. My parents got married in it and so did Morgan and I. Who knows? 3 for 3? Maybe Em will too. That’d be sweet.

Gorgeous Guy. Right Here.

Auntie Go Go

Today Emily went to Georgia’s house to hang out with Flynn while mommy and daddy went to staff meeting. The whole way there I was trying to get her to say Georgia or Flynn. She wouldn’t say either of them. But a couple minutes after I left she said “ah tee go go”(gotta sound it out). so auntie George has been dubbed Auntie Go Go.

I think Em and I are going to go walking at the 108 today. It’s such a nice day so I think an outing with some different scenery is in order. Man today I wish I had one of those biking cart things. It would be such a nice day to roll around the lake. I want to ride my bike so much, but since Emily goes where I go…no go.

I finally got around to editing some pictures to put up here. so here you go. These are from our day at the park last Saturday with Janaya and Elijah. Oh and the Shih szu of my hair.

Emily Love the Swing

She put her hat on sideways and wouldn’t let me straighten it.

Meet Elijah!

And hi Janaya!!

Rocks are Fascinating to toddlers. Weird.

Like my Shizzoo?

Flying Trapeze Baby.

I had one of the scariest moments in my young parenting life today. Emily has gotten really good at climbing stairs. The isn’t quite as good at going down, but she only ever wants to go up anyways. Tonight while we were going upstairs to get her ready for bed she climbed up the stairs really fast and I stopped for a second to throw something into the entrance way. She got ahead of me and looked down and giggled. Then she fell backwards. She sat down on the next step and went into a roll and did a back flip and was flying through the air when I caught her. She didn’t even cry. It scared her pretty bad, but she didn’t hurt her self. I guess even at a young age she has super falling skills just like her mom. I never thought that all those years of being a Goalie in soccer, catching things that fly at my head, and my insanely weird reflexes would come in handy. I caught her with her upside down and flying through the air . It was crazy. I burst out laughing. Then I started to cry. Crazy adrenalin rush.

Only 3 days left until Relay for Life. I’m getting excited about it. I got some stuff for banners and Ill put those together hopefully tomorrow. I’ll try and take some good pictures on relay day. I’ve got a few ideas for the luminary walk. I think I might be able to take some really good pictures. I got a couple of good ones before. I think I’ll post one that I photmanip’d two years ago. It’s still my favorite. I have yet to find a babysitter for a big portion of the day. Hope I find one tomorrow.

I have to go chill for a bit. I’m still running off the adrenalin so I need to go relax and drink some Iced rooibos( always a staple in our fridge now).

*Ok and to top it all Emily fell down in her crib and smacked her head and so we had to start our night time routine all over again. I hate going back into her room after we put her to bed. *

Kick my own butt.

I’m feeling like a bit of a defeatist today. I’m trying to figure out whose will power I was borrowing for the first two months of the kick my butt weight loss thing. Cause obviously I had to take it back. I’m doing ok, but Id really like to keep kicking my butt. Now is when I cross the line from doing ok, to doing awesome. Something Morgan said that I’m trying to keep in mind “This part of your race will only be won by self talk”. I’m finding this part of the journey the hardest. I keep wishing someone else would do this for me. Like when you are at the theatre in the best part of the movie and suddenly you have to pee really really bad. Thats when you wish someone else would go for you. Ok so back to motto one.”I have to do what I should do before I do what I want to do.” Motto two. “My body is not a trash can.” I need to stop treating my body like my tastes buds are the rulers and only they matter.  There. I think I just needed a little pep talk. Maybe I ll print some awful pictures of me and stick them on the fridge so I can see how far I’ve come.

I don’t like to record what I eat. I find it tiresome, but I think I need to start doing that again. I had a free version of FitDay online and I used to use that, but then I bought the more advanced version, and it was way more work to keep it updated. Maybe Ill start the freebie again. Recording what I eat keeps me oh-so-accountable to eating great. I don’t like to write down bad stuff so I don’t eat it. Alright enough “maybes”. I’m just gonna get my act together.

Starting now! Emily is waking up so I’m going to go make her a superb dinner and then I’m going to remember that I deserve a superb dinner too and make it! AND I’m going to drink a butt load of water! AND we are gonna go for a walk! so there.

No pics today. First day without em. Cant be too predictable.

"Croc-xperiment"

I feel like Ive taken a blog sabbatical. Ok so now I’m back. I have hardly even been at home in the last two weeks. Between Avalanche and the Streams conference Ive been gone way to much. It was good, but I am really happy to be home. hopefully I don’t verbally puke all the latest stuff on you.

Ok…Game plan. I’m going to leave my goal update until later today or tomorrow. That way I can talk about fun stuff and Emily. Ok blue forty two…hut hut hike!

Firstly my gorgeous little daughter has a new gorgeous little boy to bully. His name is Issac Gordon and he was born last week to one of my bestest buddies. Go see his picture cause he is adorable. And click this pic too. Way to go Leah!

I was only gone a couple of days this weekend, but Emily learned like three new words while I was gone AND decided it was ok to wear hats. Yay my mom! So now she can also say hat, hot and out(because she is always being told “get out of there turkey”). I wonder what new ones she’ll learn this week. I think Ill have to update the Emily Page and put in an Emictionary.

While we were in Kelowna we got Emily a baby doll. At the beach last week she loved playing with Jada’s baby doll. She loves it. Its so cute cause she walks around holding it and hugging it and giving it huge kisses (something she is now very good at). We also got her a couple of hats and books and a bunch of new bigger non-plastic melt-in-the-dryer bibs.

I’m doing a “Croc-xperiment”. I got a pair of rip-off brad crocs. Those sandals everyone and their cat are wearing.( I looked, but I couldn’t find a picture of a cat in crocs sandals). So my experiment is to see if they are as comfy as everyone says they are. Or to find out if there is any reason to be wearing them in public. We say this lady walking down a hill in Kelowna wearing Crocs and walking with 2 hiking poles. Like was she hiking to Alaska or what? It was weird. So far I’m finding them fairly comfortable. I also got a pair of .33cent flip flops or thongs (as we always called them). so Ill trade back and forth and let you know the conclusion. My hypothesis is that both pairs of sandals will be equally comfortable and that I will end up wearing my crocs out in public by accident.

Well I have oodles more to blog, but I’ll get to that. Slow and steady wins the race.

No Stroll in the Park

I’m pretty pleased with myself. I’s say proud, but pride is bad. So I’m just pleased. Pastor Rick Preaches without note so I tried it last night at youth. It went really well. I’ve been learning some new ways to remember what I’m preaching about without notes. I am now in love with one certain white board. *mmm my coffee is good this morning*. Last night I spoke about the dichotomy(note: using a word like dichotomy at youth would be like saying “I’m an English teacher on a power trip”. I just used it in my blog as I found it fitting) of being a Christian. There are many admirers of Jesus, but few disciples. It’s not an easy thing to be a disciple. To be a disciple is to live as Jesus lived. You cant be a doctor by simply admiring a doctor. That would only make you friends. To be like a doctor takes work, schooling or study and dedication. I’m afraid the conclusion I’ve come to is that this whole being a Christian thing is no stroll in the park. I’ve been listening to Matt Chandler’s Podcast. I’ve been finding it really encouraging. In his series on Rhythm he talks about alot of whats really been on my heart lately.

I’m looking forward to today. We don’t have a really busy day planned. I’m meeting with one of my youth after school and then a worship practice and thats it. I’m hoping the weather stays good because we haven’t really been able to walk with Emily much in the last week. We really wanted to go walk around Sepa Lake, but that was a no go due to rain. Silly rain.

We have this new problem in our house. His name is Morgan and the problem is the discovery of non-electronic items on eBay. Previously it was just really expensive thing Morgan would look at on eBay and that would keep him from buying all of it. I’ve really let go of bidding on kids stuff for a while. My dad bought some cowboy boots on eBay and Morgan realized there might be other cool stuff he could buy. The problem being that Morgan has expensive taste even in used clothes. Oh well I guess it could be worse…He could collect ashtrays.

Resurrection Sunday.

Probably the best day ever. My life would be absolutely meaningless without Resurrection Sunday. Well not the one in 2007, but the one a long time ago when Jesus rose from the dead. It really makes my life worth living. The thought of living this life without the knowledge that Jesus died for me and then rose again is…well sad. But today I am full of joy instead. Todays Easter service was great. I really enjoyed it. I had a blast playing the drums today. I even heard a few new rhythms come out of these hands.

Emily and I went for a really really long walk. It didn’t start out as a long walk, but it ended up that way. We were going to do the big loop around town. It takes about 45 minutes normally. We made it all the way around the loop and were headed past Save On when I realized that Emily had turfed her hat out of the stroller. AHH. That hat cost me 1 penny on Ebay + S&H. How could she be so careless and throw her hat out of the buggy. Ok well I wasn’t actually mad at all. I laughed and we turned around and backtracked. I probably wouldn’t have cared, but I really like the darn little hat. Its so stinkin cute. We finally found the hat most of the way back to where we started. Haha. silly Emily.

Well tomorrow is hop back on the health wagon. no more pop and pizza. Needless to say it was a rough couple of weeks. Ill find out the damage tomorrow at the gym. I’m even going earlier than normal tomorrow because Morgan has a dentist appt. and Thats the only time I can go. I’m not really looking forward to stepping on the scale tomorrow. I’m supposed to do a weigh in too. This is the first time Ive been nervous about a weigh in. the last few were so fun because Id practically melted the weight off. I’m pretty sure I’m still at a loss for this month, but it cant be that much. I’m still in the process of writing some new realistic goals for myself. Well see how it goes, but theres no way I’m going back up. Down down down!