All moved in !

We finally moved the rest of our stuff into the new house. We ended up throwing a whole bunch more stuff out. Feels good to be rid a lot of stuff.
We still have some organizing to finish, but it's going well.
Maizey has been so funny the last little while! So cute! She's talking a lot and most of the time I can understand what she is talking about. Her little expressions are so cute!
Her new favorite activity is colouring:


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She was a monkey for Halloween!



Angela and I both had to work in the afternoon on Halloween so we dressed her up during the day for our shopping.
She loved trick-or-treating!

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Spark in my step today

I have a bit of a spark in my step! At work this evening, the agency chaplain is coming to dinner. I decided to go all out. I have to admit I'm a little jealous that I won't be staying for dinner.
Steaks: (to be cooked on the BBQ)


Brussel sprouts:


Butternut squash:


Twice baked cheddar bacon potatoes:


Apple crisp:



Kinda makes my chicken fingers and fries for tonight seem unexciting ;p

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In Love!

I'm completely in love with the new house despite some "new house" frustration. I feel so at home and happy there. It needs more work than we first anticipated, but it all comes with personalizing the home. We'd like to paint and do some landscaping, and get a new garage door, and windows (most windows are newer, so only a few need replacing) and the kitchen needs a whole reno. It's not as bad as I thought it was though.
We're getting a new dishwasher this week, because the one that's there works, but the door is off the hinges.
We can't figure out how to make the hot tub hot!
Ange's family left for Portugal yesterday, so now the house feels empty.
Maizey loves the house too! I can't wait until next summer when I can sit out on the deck and watch her play in the yard.
A couple of the other things we are finding frustrating are that a front window cracked the other day, we seem to have an infestation of boxelder bugs, and the tree that they feast on is on our neighbours yard, there is no remote for the garage door opener, and no keys to any of the locks! This isn't a big deal because we wanted to change the locks anyway.
Another problem we're having is that we haven't moved everything from our other house. Mostly the stuff that is stored most of the year, but we're finding it hard to have time for this. We don't really have ant time off at the same time. It's just hard, but I know we'll get it done some time in the next 9 days.
I'm also bummed out because both Ange and I work afternoon shifts on Halloween and we won't be able to go trick-or-treating with Maizey. I was really looking forward to it too!

Moving day! Sort of..

We get possession of the house today.
Angela's dad will be moving all of his things in today, we will be moving some of our things today. We have until the 31 to be completely out of our old place. We are hoping to get the bedrooms in today and most other stuff tomorrow. We had a final walk through of the house on Sunday. It was dirty! So I wasn't that excited. The people who were living there had already moved out and a cleaning company was supposed to be going in yesterday to clean up. Let's hope they did a great job. I want to paint all of the doors, trim and baseboards white, they are currently stained dark brown and I just feel like they need to be white!
Also, I want to paint the upstairs bedrooms. It will all happen in due time.
The good news is that Angela's dad will be having the kitchen redone in the spring. Yay!!! I can't wait because the kitchen really needs it!
I guess Angela and I can spend the winter making up some plans for it.
Exciting!
Can't wait to soak in this bad boy!


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Listen and tell me what she said...

Really, this is in fact the word "sit".

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2 weeks

It's two weeks until we get the keys to the new house. The packing isn't going as well as I had hoped it would be at this time. We're making progress, but it just feels so disorganized. We've honestly purged a lot, putting a lot in the dumpster, a lot to good will and even sold some to a second hand store. We've also got a few boxes marked "garage sale" that we'll store in the garage until next spring. The fact that our landlord keeps bringing people to look at the place isn't helping either. We do have until the 31 of October to be out, so it's still a month and a week away.
My mom and I took Maizey for a hair cut yesterday. She really doesn't have much to cut, but she was getting baby mullet. The curls on this baby girl are crazy!


She didn't seem to mind the process, and when it got to the blow drying, she loved it. The women at the salon were calling her a little diva. It's true though, My girl loves her girly girl things!

My mom is doing alright. She has two chemo treatments left, and then it's gong time. At the hospital when you finish chemo, you get to hit the gong! Every time I'm there an I hear it, I tear up.
She's not looking forward to the radiation stage of things. That will start in November and continue 5 days a week for 5 weeks. The doctors assure us that it is not as physically daunting as chemo. She will have to travel an hour each way to the closest hospital that can do the radiation. The same hospital Angela's mom passed away in. It will be a good Christmas this year, as if everything goes according to plan, things will be finished by then. Mom can then start living a normal life again in January, provided radiation does its job.


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OK! AMAZINIG

So, the show last night was just a little bit AMAZING! Totally have a new respect for this woman. WOW so very inspiring and just WOW! Even with crappy $45 behind the stage "limited view" tickets it was so completely AWESOME!


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Madonna

Madonna!
She did her first show in Toronto on this tour tonight. I wasn't there.
In February, we got our friend Murray (huge Madonna fan) a ticket for tomorrows concert for his 40th birthday. He was blown away and has been counting down the days since then.
We were lucky to get tickets at all. We kept trying and kept getting the "no tickets available at this time" message. After re-submitting the request about 23 times, it popped up with 2 tickets! We bought them. The plan was that since Darla (Murray's wife) and I went to Jamaica in January, Murray and Ange would go to this concert. Nice. But then I started feeling a bit left out. Even though I'm not a huge huge Madonna fan, this is something I would really like to be at. Sort of a bucket list kind of thing. So back onto the computer I went, only this time I found cheap tickets on purpose. It was almost as hard as finding the better seats($165.00). We got rear stage view $45 tickets for Darla and I. Those same tickets are now for sale on various unofficial ticket sites for $175. I'm glad we decided to be part of this! Like I said I can knock one more thing off my bucket list. That totals 3 items now. We'll get into that another time.
TIFF is also going on in Toronto right now. I'm hoping to catch a glimpse of Rachel.Mcadams! My only celebrity crush! (it's the dimples, they do it for me)
What are some of your bucket list items?


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Could she be ready?

I don't know if it is time or not. But I think Maizey is ready for Potty Training. She has been communicating pee and poo to use for a while now, usually after she goes. When she is at the babysitter she will state POO POO and bring the diaper bag to the caregiver. While we were camping with my friend and her son, he was in potty training mode. She had brought with them a portable potty for traveling. This potty had you hook a plastic bag with absorbent pads in it around a seat instead of an actual "pot" to pee in. Aiden, was very good about pee and poo in the potty, and never once had an accident. Not even over night. I think this also contributed to Maizey's interest in the potty. Once we returned from camping she did the funniest thing. She brought me a plastic grocery bag, put it between her legs and squatted over it and said.. "potty". So, I think she is ready. I however am not ready. :( I am not ready to have a big girl goes pee pee on the potty no need for diapers daughter yet. When she asks, we put her on. She has yet to actually go on the potty, but We're getting there. I have a book to read about a 3 day potty training method. It says not to use the pull up style diapers and that they need to learn what an accident feels like so that they try to avoid them. It also says the ideal time to potty train is at 22 months old. Well Maizey will be 22 months in another couple weeks. I haven't read the whole book yet, but will. Maybe tonight I will read it. We will need to pick up a potty too, because we have no bathroom on the main floor of the house we're at now, and think it's too far to take her all the way upstairs for potty because she has usually gone while we are on the way up. She couldn't wait a month? Until we have a bathroom on each level of the house. Anyone have any potty training tips? I'd love to hear them.

Sketchy Neighbour Update...

So, the sketchy neighbour asked for another $20.00 today. There was no allergy medication or spider bite excuse, just flat out wanted to "borrow" $20. She seemed a little desperate and I am wondering if she was having some kind of drug withdraw. She and her husband (who we never knew existed until a week or two ago, after living beside them for a year) were out on their front porch digging in her purse. There were things strewn about the porch and walkway. I don't know? Did they misplace their money? Or did they think it would magically appear if they looked hard enough. I didn't give her any. Can't wait to move.

Well... We're outta here!!

We have limited time left on our ghetto clock! We are moving! In a month from now, we will be in a house. Angela's dad's home sold about a week ago, and he's purchased one that will accommodate all of us.
Not a moment to soon. The other day as I was on my way to the truck from the house, the sketchy next door neighbour asked to borrow allergy medication as she had "eaten her medicine and broke out into a reaction on her lips" (she did have some nasty thing going on with her mouth). I did not have anything to lend her because we don't have allergies, so she asked to borrow $6.00 so she could go get some. Ok, this lady doesn't even know our names. I gave her $10.00 (I'm a sucker like that) and told her to take care of herself. Ok good deed for the day.
Alright, today she actually knocked on the door and asked to borrow $3.00 so she could give her friend gas money to take her to the hospital because she had a huge spider bite on her ass! She then showed Angela her ass! There was a spider bite! We gave her $5.00 for the gas. That's it though! Next time, we're telling her we have no cash. She says she'll pay us back but we aren't expecting she will.
When we went to give our property manager our notice, he said to us "had enough eh?". We just smirked at him.

So the new house is a bungalow with a finished basement and a massive yard! We're quite excited. There is a hot tub, which I am excited about now, but realize it'll probably be a money pit and that the novelty will wear off.
We'll have to paint the bedrooms and probably touch up some other areas, but we find the decor is alright for us and won't have to do too much right away. There are long term items we want to do eventually but aren't in a hurry. It would be wonderful to renovate the whole kitchen, but that will be in time. Here are some pictures of the new house!


It's been a dry summer!



Backyard:














I'll post pictures of the inside once we move in.

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So busy!

It's been forever since I last posted. I've just been so busy! First we went camping to Killbear provincial park from July 22 to 28. We had a fantastic time and were really impressed with the park facilities, and the beach. It's on Georgian Bay, and the water seemed to have flecks of gold in the sand. It was really beautiful. We saw numerous deer and other wildlife. We are convinced we heard a bear roaming near our campsite one night.












Next we went to Sandbanks provincial park from August 12 - 18. This time we had a campsite right on the beach! It had its pro's and con's. The day we arrived it was very windy. We had to tie the poles of our dining tent to a tree to keep the tent from blowing away. I found this trip quite exhausting. Maizey is in a mommy phase and all she wants all the time is MY undivided attention. Attention from anyone else just won't do. That makes it hard because camping takes a lot of work, work that I enjoy, such as cooking and barbecuing, dishes, clean-up, keeping the trailer tidy etc... It may sound like a normal amount of work but, when you're camping it takes more effort because you have to unpack everything you need, then put it back. You can't leave anything out because it attracts wildlife. You can actually be fined if you leave animal attractants out. My very best friend Jo and her son met us for the last two nights. It was nice catching up, and the kids are finally old enough to play together.
























I just got back from taking some of the individual's I support at work on their camping vacation. We stayed 3 nights in an RV at Darien Lake. It was a nice time.
It was nice to have some toddler free time, but I missed Angela and Maizey more than anything.
A picture from the laser light show.




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