Quit Judging Me!!

Alright this is for all you peeps who won't get off my back about this dang blog. I know I should keep it up, but this is just at the bottom of the list. So speaking of lists... That's exactly what you're gonna get! (I'm really not annoyed at anyone but myself for leaving things for so long that I have to do a 'blog' in point form.)
1) I started back to work in November 2011. Mitch's parents have been generous enough to watch les monster so that we don't have to pay for daycare. This has been such a help to us and a relief to my grieved soul for having to leave my baby behind somewhere. Sopha-bean (as I commonly refer to her as now) adores her Gampa/Papa and screams when I put her in the car to go home. The senior Hughes' are retired and agreed to part-time which is A-OK with me. I had to do a 5 week orientation that was full time and it nearly killed me. Now I am casual and am working 3 shifts a week of my choosing. It is working out better than I expected and I'm not as dumb as I feared I was going to be. Hurray for me!
2) the pressure was on for me to go back to work because we are expecting babes #2 May 19, 2012, or there a bouts. I was already 3 months when I started working, so we have been a little worried about getting a full maternity leave again. After some quick math today I figure that thanks to the originally cursed 5 week orientation I will be able to meet the Government's requirement of 600 hours since my last EI claim. As one of my sisters said to me, "thank goodness for tender mercies!" Tis true. We are excited for this baby to come to our family and what changes this means for us. We had an ultrasound just before Christmas and we think it's another girl. For those of you who don't know it is illegal for ultrasound techs to tell you the sex of the baby now in BC, but I think I saw a pretty clear image or lack of an image! We'll see, Nonnie (Haida for Grandma) might be doing some last minute shopping!
3) Sopha-bean is a genius! She has so many words and can pretty much tell me what she wants/needs/is doing all the time. I love her and how fast she is becoming a big girl. She amazes me almost everyday!
4) Mitch is doing great at his job. He is a sub-contractor for Telus which in simple terms means he installs phone/cable/internet. Sometimes it annoys me that he works less than I do and makes as much money as I do as an RN. Thanks for getting a degree Sarah! Geesh I should
have done something that required less schooling therefore money and make just as much money. Oh well.
5) Christmas was great this year for us. This was the first time since moving out of my parents house in 2002 that I stayed put for the holidays. That also means it was the first year I could decorate, which also means it was the first year that I could buy Christmas decor! It was nice finding my own style and getting into the holiday spirit. Soph loved the tree and opening presents. She learned the word Santa and now every man with a white beard is Santa. For those of you who are watchers of Biggest Loser (it started tonight), I just happened to have the T.V. on and there is a guy on there with a big white beard. I was changing Soph's diaper in the living room and she starts yelling "Santa, Santa", so I look around to see what she is talking about and low and behold there was Santa on T.V.! Funny girl. Also Mitch spoiled me this
year (as per usual) and surprised me with an iPad 2! Can you believe it? I certainly couldn't! Love that man.
Well that's all the important stuff I can think of right now. I'm sure there's more but alas, this will have to suffice.

For The Love...

One of the things that I hated when I was growing up was my hair color. I hated that it was red, I hated that I got teased for it, and I hated that no one else in my family had red hair either. All I ever wanted to do was dye my hair a dark brown just like my oldest sisters'. I was super jealous of her hair color. Well as I grew up I realized what I was stuck with. I could change it a bit, but the red was there to stay. Barf. When Mitch and I started dating he would always comment on how much he liked my red hair. I just thought he was being nice, or just saying it because he felt he had to. Well, after nearly 4 years of marriage I have finally learned that Mitch doesn't 'just say things'. Bless his heart, but that man is truthful almost to a fault. So Mitch hasn't just been telling me he likes the color I have but he has also been requesting that I amplify it and actually go MORE red. When he would say these incredulous things to me I would either brush him off, laugh at him, get mad at him, and mostly just ignore him and pretend he wasn't talking. So when I moved to Vic, I obviously had to find a new hairdresser. Long story short, whilst I was getting my hairs trimmed, Colin (my straight hairdresser) asked if I ever dye my hair. I told him that I used to but due to extreme laziness I just haven't in a couple of years. To my surprise guess what that man said to me. "You should dye your hair more red, like a brighter red." ARE YOU KIDDING ME!!! After picking my jaw up off the floor I laughed and told him that my husband has been asking me to do the same thing for quite some time. So after much stewing, I finally made a secret appointment and did it. Mitch had no idea. He thought I was going grocery shopping. haha I felt so deceptive and sneaky. Any who, I came home and he didn't even notice for like 2 minutes then all of a sudden he stops mid-sentence and just grinned at me. Of course he gushed over me and told me he really liked it and was happy that I finally listened to him and let him be right about something. Some days I'm still not too sure about it and others I really like it. Maybe it's just a big change and I need to get used to it. So without further ado, here are some horrific pictures of me. Once again on my phone so excuse the not great quality. It is such a bad angle of my face, but I actually did my hair so I thought I should take pictures and Mitch wasn't around so they are self portraits.

This one is just of the monkey and her side piggy. She lets me do her hair on occasion and I couldn't resist taking a picture of her!

Catch Up

Ok so this is going to be long, full of pictures, and potentially boring. But you'll all read it anyways because you're nosey just like me! Quick side-note here about Mother's Day. It was a good day, as I'm sure it was for most of you. Mitch let me sleep in that morning and then took care of Sophie most of the day so that I didn't have to. He also made dinner that evening too. For me the best part, other than sleeping in of course, was the present. He just knows me so well and got me some new louloulemon pants. Capris actually. I pretty much wear them everyday, because they make my butt look fantastic. Oh and they are comfy. Also a little note about Victoria Day/May Long Weekend. I thought it would be a super fantastic celebration here, but alas t'was not. Mildly disappointed with the Victorian's here and their lack of celebrations for 'Victoria Day'. Come on peeps, step it up! Here is what we did do. Mitch's Dad, Fred, was super excited about taking Sophie to the parade. Little explanation about the parade here. It's like a 3 hour parade consisting mostly of high school marching bands from the U.S. West Coast. Apparently they come every year and it's like a big competition thing, yada yada yada. Basically the all the geeks from the pacific northwest congregate here. Well I knew Soph would enjoy all the music so I agreed to go for a bit. It turned out not so bad. Sophie did enjoy her time there and Grandpa Fred enjoyed holding her! After the parade and a quick nap we had planned a bbq picnic at one of the parks downtown with a bunch of our friends. Everyone was responsible for their own food and it turned out great. I forgot to upload pictures of that but you can refer to facebook for those. It was a beautiful day here, which have been few and far between so far this year, and we just enjoyed the afternoon eating and just chatting in the sunshine. Ok now for the onslought of photos...

Sophia likes to pull everything out of her diaper basket and then suck on it all. Most days I stop her before she gets the basket out, but this particular day I just didn't really care. In fact this basket entertained her for like a solid 30 minutes. Mehhh
Snack time, she loves to eat. Obviously, look at those cheeks!

This is one of my personal favorites! We got a baby carrier for Mitch's bike but we needed helmets and so we made a quick stop at Wally's World. Sophie really LOVES having a helmet on, and Mitch is thoroughly enjoying himself.

I couldn't take it seriously.

My biker husband! BAHAHAHAHAA

Our ward puts on a carnival every year in the spring and they have this big mural/picture wall thingy that you can put your face through and take pitures. (Do these have a special name?) Anywho, it was a Noah's ark type picture and so I put Soph up to a couple of the holes. I didn't even realize that she had put in her soother but I think it turned out pretty funny!

Clearly fitting and appropriate.

One morning I was cleaning the house, like my usual OCD compells me to do, and I suddenly noticed it was quiet. Sophie likes to sing, and babble to herself when she is playing so I knew something was wrong when it was all of a sudden quiet. So I go looking for her and surprise! She had crawled underneath her exersaucer to eat all the left-over cheerio's that fall down there as she plays and eats. Of course by the time I pulled out my camera she had finished eating and was on her way out, so this was the best shot I could get. What a character!

This is a new friend at church. They are just a few months apart and they actally play really well together. I just thought it was cute that they matched this day and are looking at each other. P.S. I realize it is irreverent/inapprope to take a picture in the chapel, however we were in sunday school and people's heads are down because they are reading, not praying! Don't judge me.

This is my fave. I love when I come in the room and see this. But why doesn't she cuddle with me like this and drink her bottle? She won't even hold her bottle when I feed her. Lazy bones. Well this is the end of this huge catch up blog. I do blog-stalk all of you, I just don't ever update my own! I am going to try to do more blogging this summer though. Sophie is getting more fun and doing more things so we'll see what comes of it!

Home Sweet Rental

So I finally got Mitch to put some pictures on our computer so that I could sort of catch up. So this blog may be boring, but it is a picture tour of our place in Victoria. I tend to be long winded and over descriptive, so deal with it. Let's begin! So this is the view from my front door step. I just love that the houses around here are built into the rocks and so everything is twisty-turny. If you notice houses aren't really built on a city block format per se. It can really make finding someone's house difficult, but it also adds to the character and view of neighborhoods I think.

This is looking down the street (zoomed in a bit). I just adore that you can see the ocean from my house. In a round about sort of way at least. This part is called the Gorge Waterway, it's just an inlet.

So here is our little house from across the street. We are renting the main floor of the house and the homeowner lives on the second level. Funny side note, most people here don't have basements, so they call the main floor the 'basement suite'. So weird. There was a few confusing conversations when I first moved here over that little tidbit.

This is looking into our living room from the front door. The rock wall is for a wood burning stove. You can just see the top of it over the love seat. Just to the left of the fireplace is the doorway to the kitchen, and just to the left of the jolly jumper is the doorway to the hallway/kitchen. It's all open, just that wall that the TV is on is like a divider wall. Make sense? P.S. I just love that Soph was watching me take all these pictures and her expression here is like, "What are you doing?" Love her!

So this is the view of the kitchen from that doorway by the fireplace. Just to the left (right by the highchair that you kind of see) are some really big windows. It's a little wooded area, and a woodpecker used to reside there until it killed itself by flying into my window. I cried. So it's nice and big, lots of cupboard space which is nice. To the left of the fridge is the hallway and the door way back into the living room. We currently don't have a table to eat at. We had to leave ours behind in Alberta. It wouldn't fit in the u-haul and we threw out the chairs. It was a set my dad had built when my parents first got married (like a century ago) so it was time to say goodbye to them. For anyone who had sat on them you know it was like taking your life in you hands when you sat down. Mitch currently has aspirations of building us a dinning table and then just buying chairs to match. We'll see how that turns out.

Ok so this is the hallway. The doors from right to left are: the shared laundry room (we can lock the door, which I do); the bathroom; front coat closet (retarded place for it); Sophia's room; master bedroom; under the stairs storage; then the doorway into the living room. Following me?

Once again, obvious. I will say though that it has a ton of cupboards as well and the closet in here is huge. It does double duty as a storage area.

Sophster's room. Nothing to explain here.

And VOILA!!!! The crowning jewel of the house is that wonderful wall mural. Seriously who thinks it is a good idea to put that in their house? Either way the room is huge, the closet is big enough to hold all of our clothes (which if you know us is A LOT!)

All in all we like it. There are definitely things that we would change if it was ours, but that's the key isn't it? It isn't ours, so why worry about the hideous things? Someday we will have our own home that I can decorate and paint the colors I want and etc. In the interim this will do. Come visit us anytime! We'll make room for visitors.

So Long To The Days of The Swaddle

This is a bitter sweet post. My baby girl, now seven and a half months, has out-grown the swaddle. It makes me sad to think that I no longer have my little bundle. She was so sweet all wrapped up. Not that she isn't sweet not wrapped up, but I just loved holding my little hot dog. But I did say this was bitter sweet so lets now discuss the sweet part. So Soph has always gone to bed like a dream baby. I don't have to rock her, sing to her, coddle her, feed her, or anything to get her to sleep (yet). I just lay her down, kiss her cheek and tell her I love her then walk away. It really is the best. So now I don't even have to wrap her. I do have this like bunting bag thingy with sleeves that I put her in to keep her warm at night because she loves to kick her legs even while fast asleep. She's just adorable in it. When I find the cord to transfer pictures from my camera I'll upload a few. Speaking of which, I do have a few blogs in mind that will be soon coming, once I find that dang cord. Crappy part about moving... you have to find everything. Although I could look at it like a treasure hunt. I do love a good treasure hunt!

What I Love About Her

I just cant help but to think of all the things that I love about my little monkey, so I decided to write a few of them down. I just want to remember this stage and also be able to remind myself on less loving days about how wonderful she is! This is in no particular order.
- I love her little hands. They are so delicate and I just adore when she reaches out to hold my hand with them.
- I love what a chatter-box she is. She usually doesn't cry when she wakes up from a nap or in the night, I wake up because she is talking!
- I love that she is starting to copy some of the things we do.
- I love that her and Mitch are twinners, but in a good way. She looks like the adorable girl version of my husband.
- I love that she watches with fascination as I give her a baby pedicure. At least for now she humors my girlie needs.
- I love her pierced ears.
- I love that she is entertained by t.v., movies, and sports. I never thought I would add that last one, but it makes for some good cuddle time with Daddy!
- I love that her eyes still haven't chosen a color. It depends on the day, how much sunlight there is, what she is wearing, etc. Maybe that just be what her eyes will always be.
- I love her long eyelashes.
- I love that she is a good shopper. She does so good at the mall and that makes me very happy.
- I LOVE that she thinks I am hilarious. Even if nobody else thinks I am entertaining, I know she thinks so and that's enough!
These are just a few of my many loves of this little person in my life. It's hard to imagine what I did without her.

Shout Out

So I just wanted to send a shout out to all those Mom's out there that are single moms. Whether it's a more permanent thing, or just a short stint like mine was, I take my hat off to you. So for the last 2 weeks Mitch has been in Victoria helping his brother with his Christmas light business. It was a great opportunity for Mitch to help out his brother who is really ill with something his doctors cannot diagnose, and to earn some extra money for our family. He left on the 25th of November and I fly out to Victoria on the 11th of December. So in total it will be 2 1/2 weeks without that constant help and support. Note to self (and the group) DON'T DO THIS AGAIN!! I am so freakin' tired I can hardly think straight. Most days I don't even get dressed. Today I finally brushed my teeth at 3 pm. So I wanted to write this post to tell all those amazing women out there that do this frequently or full-time... you are my hero.