Music in my life

Ben has a little song to share with everyone:

poopy baby girl
you're so poopy
poop poop poop
poop poop poop
icky little baby
you're so icker
ickick ICK ick
such a stinky baby
I love my baby girl
ick ick ick
poop poop poop
(repeat (and repeat) and fade out as he is sent to his room until he's had enough)

In related news, Laurel started solids last week, thereby closing the chapter of our lives that involved (relatively) sweet, breastfed-baby poop.

We are coming down soon

For those of you on the coast, we will be in town from Oct 8-15. We will be in touch with many of you soon to arrange for visits and playdates.

Ben is especially excited about getting to visit with his cousin Emma and friends Andrew and Tova. He's also looking forward to the Aquarium and Pumpkin Patch.

Ben at the pumpkin patch - October 2005

Laurel is still waking up a couple of times in the night, so at least I don't have too many concerns about screwing up her sleep schedule.

Unfortunately, Darren won't be able to make it down this trip due to work committments - he's looking forward to a really good sleep schedule for a week!

And me? I'm really, really looking forward to spending 2 hours on a small plane with 2 small children. At least no one will be sitting directly beside us (Dash-8 airplane seats are 2 by 2). Thank goodness for breastfeeding, portable DVD players, and mini packs of smarties.

Ben and Laurel - September 2007

Happy first day of school!

Oops, its been a while, but things have been busy.

Today, Ben started preschool for 2 mornings a week today, so things are a bit less busy now. That's right, 6 hours per week of just me and one child. Who can't move yet, and likes to nap. Wheee!

I mean, how easy is this? If she's awake, I can sit her on the carpet and she stays there and doesn't even really whine. I can go make myself a cup of tea and when I come back she's still there and hasn't even really been able to make much of a mess. She's currently been napping for almost an hour and a half, and I've gotten more done this today already than I usually accomplish in an entire week. And this is with about 7 hours of broken sleep!

(For those of you with only one child, I mock with love. One child blew me away too. And really, two is nice too. Just waaay more work and less (I mean zero) downtime. For those of you with no children, I'm sure you're very busy too. And as for those of you who have more than 2 kids, wow. )

More posts soon, with pictures and everything!

Oh, and happy back-to-school for those of you who are schooly/teachery types (hee hee hee)

Our House - The Front Yard

So, finally, here is a picture of the house:



It's about 2000 square feet (not including the garage), which seemed huge until we started trying to fit all of our worldly goods into it. Conclusion: lots of living space, but not so much storage space!

We have one big tree in the middle of the front yard, which looks like it will probably produce crabapples. It has already earned its keep by producing beautiful pink flowers in May:


The front yard also consists of a paltry little flowerbed which we have planted with irises and daylillies so far (Thanks J&C - more about how your contributions are doing when we hit the back yard!). The concrete walk is crumbling badly - it can't take a hosing without falling apart - so it's due to be replaced sooner rather than later.

Now if we could just figure out how to keep the neighbourhood cats from using our garden as a litterbox...

Small Town Living

So, we had to fill up the tank with gas AGAIN this week

(last time was June 8)

Aaahhhh......