Wednesday, 11 September 2013

Evelyn does normal baby things

Evelyn's feeling better from her cold. We haven't done anything special these last few days but here are some pictures of Evelyn doing her normal stuff.

Evelyn takes a bath.






Evelyn wears a princess dress and visits grandparents. Liana took these pictures.








Evelyn plays on a quilt and complains about tummy time.








Drool baby!
"Help me!"
 



Evelyn's bedtime thing.

We tuck her in this way
But in the morning we find her this way
With her feet between the bars
Evelyn plays on her change table.





Evelyn cuddles her blanky.





And that's mostly what Evelyn's been up to!


Friday, 6 September 2013

Long walks + mini road trip

Since I usually have Evelyn fed, dressed and in her stroller when taking Caleb to the bus stop in the mornings I've taken up the habit of going for a long walk once he's off to school. The cooler weather this week is my favourite weather to walk in.

Monday morning we walked to Metro and back to pick up a few things. Tuesday morning we walked around Convent Glen circle with a Strollercize group that meets weekly outside of Boomerang Kids. It was our first time attending and the one girl I ended up chatting with had a baby girl born two weeks after Evelyn named Emelyn. Tuesday afternoon I ventured doing all of the weekly groceries with Evelyn in the sling. Wednesday morning we walked to Place d'Orleans and back to pick up a book for Liana. This was quite far so we stopped in at Place Bebe (located by the food court) halfway through. Place Bebe is the most amazing baby diaper change room I have ever seen. The mall website boasts the room is outfitted with four changing stalls, a full service washroom and four private feeding areas including personal light switches and volume control as well as bottle warmers but it's also nicely designed and has drawers filled with diapers in case you run out! Thursday morning we walked to the river and in the evening we used the sling to walk with Caleb to Bob Macquarrie to register him for swimming lessons. It was a lovely walk during which time he talked almost solely about girls and Pokemon cards. Also, at one point he said: "Evelyn is so cute. You did a good job choosing her." I probably should have inquired what he meant but at the time I just thought it sweet.

At Boomerang Kids waiting for strollercize to start
Entering the Greenbelt
Evening walk in the sling - she doesn't look impressed
Today is my mother-in-law's birthday so we drove to Sharbot Lake, surprised her at work, and crashed her birthday lunch with family and friends. Evelyn slept in the car both ways and was mostly awake and alright while there so I really couldn't have asked for better.

Grandpa was there, too
Checking out grandma's office
Evelyn's first restaurant experience
Sharbot Lake is so pretty
Sadly, Evelyn hit an unfortunate first today: she has her first cold. She woke up this morning with a runny nose, her eyes are leaky and she's coughed a few times. Luckily she's still acting like herself, though. 

Here are few pictures of Evelyn just hanging out at home this past week. With Liana and Caleb in school the pace is slower and it's nice to have so much baby and mommy time.




(her feet are not giant! it's just that the shoes are too big)
This is the chair she sits in when mommy takes a bath or does laundry
She's starting to notice the toys more
Chilling with aunt Casey

 

Monday, 2 September 2013

Labour Day Weekend: Sexy chic, true love's wedding, daddy/daughter cuteness


What an amazing weekend.

Friday evening I attended an event called Fever: An Evening of All Things Sexy. The event was put on by Bri Anderson, a local photographer that runs Voulez-Vous Boudoir Photography. She ran an event last March that several of my friends attended and spoke so highly of that I decided to pitch $50 for a ticket to this follow up event. It didn't disappoint. The overall feel of the night was fun, class and, of course, sexy.

Fever took place at an art gallery (St-Laurent + Hill in the market) and ticket sales were capped (and sold out) at 100. Included with your ticket were unlimited drinks (red wine, white wine, non-alcoholic wine and water), individual professional photographs taken by Bri, fancy hors d'oeuvres and cupcakes, DJs and a dance floor, photobooth fun, and a few performances by a cute burlesque dancer. So worth the cost. Oh, and all of the events hosted by Voulez-Vous are for women only which adds a certain comfort for those of us in committed relationships.

The pro picture
Fun in photobooth 1
Fun in photobooth 2
Fun in photobooth 3
Fun in photobooth 4
Critiquing the art
Saturday was another all decked out event as we attended a wedding of friends of ours. The wedding was a BLAST and here are my top 10 reasons why I think so:

1. They are the cutest couple Seriously: how sad would it have been if these two had never met? They are one of those adorable lovey-dovey couples that cause lots of awww's
2. There was a good amount of opening up There's this precarious balance at a wedding of conveying emotion between gushing tears all night long or lacking emotion completely. While we actually have little to no control over this, these guys nailed a balance. They're speeches were perfect and we personally came out knowing a lot more about how much family means to both of them (the kids they've probably already begun trying to make will really have lucked out!)
3. Crafts and details were carefully planned out For a bride that claims to dislike crafts she sure is good at it. Both the bride and groom have strong writing skills which made the programs and drink lists entertaining to read. There was a tree theme carried out in details such as the fondant on the cake emulating bark and a wishing tree for guest to write and hang wishes for the couple on paper leaves.
4. Games were unique In order to get the bride and groom to kiss, an individual or couple must challenge them to a dice off. The losing couple must kiss for the amount of seconds that is the difference in the numbers rolled (there was a hula hoop option for singles but it must have scared them off as none of them took up the challenge). Darcy and I went up and "won" by rolling double 6s. There were also boardgames and a centrepiece game.
5. Photobooths are cool Photobooths are very in right now (as demonstrated by me going to events with booths two nights in a row) but justly so because they are so much fun. The saboteur group picture we took that night makes me smile when I look at it. It was also neat that immediately after have our picture taken we received a printed copy and another copy went into a guest book for the newlyweds along with our messages.
6. Food was ah-mazing I love me some fancy food. Cocktail hour had surprisingly yummy salami and croissant sammiches as well as expectantly yummy cheeses and paté. Bread was from Art-Is-In, my favourite bakery. The soup was creamy heaven. I had the beef for dinner which was succulent and accompanied but the yummiest mini squashes. And to balance out all the fancy stuff I gourged myself is sour gummy candies from the candy bar.
7. DJ played mostly 80s music Since I just decided to start dancing the previous night (had something to do with my previous post about indirect effects of teen pregnancy) I was thrilled to hear mostly familiar tunes. Much easier to try to move to a beat when you can anticipate it and plus it was a good decade for music!
8. There was an open bar Funny that this is such a plus to me since I only drank Coke and water but it's a rare treat nowadays and added to the classy feel of the night (especially since everyone was well-behaved rather than rowdy).
9. We came home with a bonsai tree The bride and groom orchestrated a card game for each table with the centrepiece as a prize. Darcy won ours for us, with the highest possible car no less.
10. Our friends were there We were seated at a table with all of our friends, making an already good time even better due to the company.

This was the second wedding so far at which I've implemented my no camera at weddings rule, a decision I made after reading this article. And did I mention that the venue (Glebe community centre) was beautiful? Okay, okay, enough about the wedding...

Grandma and grandpa babysat Evelyn during the wedding
Epic Saboteur themed picture with our table 8 dwarf friends (and foes)









Today was a nice rainy day in. I finally took some candid shots of Darcy and Evelyn and even captured - wait for it - an Evelyn smile!

She looked so peaceful napping with her arms folded this way
Precious baby sleeps
Sometimes the baby gets private concerts from daddy
Riveting!
Evelyn watching and listening to daddy
Funny facial expressions while she babbles
She's been liking her high chair lately
Talking with daddy
Thinking about smiling
Smiling!!!