This Woman is AMAZING!

                                      Happy 58th Birthday Grandma Joan!                              
This coming Tuesday, it will be my Mother in Law's birthday.  Anomantia is busy at work creating a masterpiece (to be sent along at Christmas and with Pabby's birthday stuff too) for her Grandma.  I just thought it would be appropriate to say THANK YOU for everything you have done for us.  We love you and are grateful that you can enjoy your grandchildren.  Keep on fighting Mom, we are all routing for you!  
Love you tons,
Carlee, Laurence and Anomantia
sorry this picture is the best one that showed pure love that I could find.  I have lots of others but this is the best.  xo C.

Stalking and Baby.

Lately I have found myself stalking any and all how-to web pages and blogs that I find links to.  My latest project has been slippers.  The pattern was for 0-3, 3-6 and 6-12 month sizes.  While I was working on my second pair this morning, Anomantia was playing under my sewing table (the usual getting into everything and anything... today it was toothbrushes and bobbypins).  She managed to reach up on the table and grab one of the finished slippers and tried to put it on her fat little foot.  So I had the epiphany to try to modify the pattern (I don't like deviation from directions usually this throws me through the loop) to make a pair her size.  After getting one finished, I realised that it was definitely time for a diaper change and a nap for her.  She got up way too early for the late night she had last night.  So I have successfully completed one slipper that she refused to remove for her nap and now I have finished the second but I have to wait until she wakes up to try it on her other foot.  I am still waiting for my machine to be repaired (ETA is next Friday) and in the meantime, I intended to do more knitting but that has been delayed.  In the meantime, I finally got my backup machine out and running to get things on the go.
I managed to knit a pair of socks for Nora and another pair for Anomantia but now I have to finish the longies I am making Anomantia for Christmas along with the flannel pyjamas.  I have a million loose threads to tie in before sending anything off and that is what I am procrastinating about the most out of anything. 
Yesterday, I went to the grocery store.  It took me close to 4 hours and 2 stores later I got home to realise that I am not going out again before this baby is born other than to finish off the Christmas stuff (minor little things that I will probably send Laurence to do for me) and to the post office to ship it all away.
Everyone I talk to these days (strangers included) seem to think that this baby will come any day now.... STAY IN THERE BABY!  I'm not ready for the pregnancy to be over.  Most other women that I have met who have recently or who are around the same gestational age as me, are all eager to get the baby out.  I am loving being as big as a "space ship" as Laurence refers to me.  Alright, I'll admit I don't really like the indigestion, leg cramps, and insomnia right now, but all in all I feel good and fat!  I am not ashamed by my weight gain of close to 40lbs, it is all controlled and monitored and mostly going to my belly and boobs (again... sigh)  and maybe my ass but that is allowed because I live with tons of stairs and that melts off pretty quick with all the laundry that having TWO kids will bring (shudder).  My Chiropractor has been awesome and a saving grace for my ribs and hips this pregnancy.  The adjustments are awesome and I can feel the baby moving in the right direction.  He has also told me to call him when I am in labour and he will do an adjustment if I need it to help with any pain I might have.  I am so excited about this baby being head down and not breach like Anomantia was.  Laurence is so supportive of all the decisions I have made so far, I couldn't ask for a better support person.  I am glad to have him acting as my advocate when/if I get to the point that I am unable to communicate for myself.  He is a huge help around the house now and with Anomantia because I just can't lift her anymore and I can't spend a whole lot of time on my feet without the BH kicking in more than I am comfortable with.  We are both hoping that this baby holds off until after Christmas, so I am keeping my fingers and my legs crossed until then (not that that will help any except for a funny visual).  Until then, I am going to be hanging out and stalking web pages.  If you have any good suggestions, email me the link. And to the family, if you have any special requests of crafting of any kind let me know via email.  My phone is temporarily out of service as the touch screen has decided to stop working, I have to take it in.  Until I get enough courage to leave the house, that isn't going to be happening.  So in the meantime, I am on skype or email only contact.  Sorry.  Until I can get more pictures off my phone, I'll leave you with these: Anomantia thinks the tongues out is the funniest thing ever especially when I do it to her.  And the other is just my blue haired beauty it is not everyday you see a blue haired, blue eyed, crazy monster.  The hair colour has faded out to closer to a minty green now (dyed it in mid September) and will look awesome with her Christmas outfit that I am making her.  I am excited this year for all the festivities as she is a little more understanding but she still has a hate on for the fat man in the red suit.  I don't blame her, he kinda creeps me out too.

It's been just one of those days.

Today has been one of those days that you just have to look back at it and laugh. 

It started out early as Laurence and I had some work to finish off from the night before, so we were up way too early after an incredibly late night.  I had a million emails to reply to and orders to confirm were on their way.  I made us breakfast, Laurence took his plate to the office to eat as he was still trying to meet deadlines and I ate and replied to emails, answered phone calls, changed diapers and got the kiddo dressed for the day.  By 11am I remembered that I had appointments with the Chiropractor and Midwives at noon and 12:40pm, so I scrambled to get the invoicing done for the pending pick ups from the previous day, just to find out that the printer wasn't working properly at 11:40am.... AHHHHH, I had to leave the invoices open for Laurence to figure out the printer and deal with Anomantia who was messing around with her buttons (a new obsession) and emptying his tool box all over the office floor.  I ran out the door to my appointments expecting that Anomantia would go down for a nap while I was out and I arrived home to find her still awake (2 hours later).
At the midwives clinic, I found out that everything is on schedule, the placental placement is posterior and poses no threat to my scar line which makes me a perfect candidate for the much wanted VBAC that I have been vying for since the conception of this baby.  We still don't know what gender this one is (GO team GREEN!) and are excited that we will have that surprise at birth.  At my adjustment, my Chiropractor told me that my hips and pelvis are starting to prepare for the baby's arrival and he told me that this one will probably arrive the week of Christmas (He has a 92% accuracy in predicting when labour will start).  Not what I wanted to hear as I am really hoping for a 40 weeker this time.  Stay in there baby, take as long as you want... as I discussed with my midwife today, there will be no eviction notices given as it will put me at a higher risk for intervention (not what I want).  This baby can stay in up to the middle of January if it likes (I hope not but it is always a possibility).
After all my appointments, I came home made some lunch (leftover spaghetti sauce just needed to boil up some noodles), ate bites of lunch between answering more phone calls and emails for the business and booking appointments for this evening all of which seemed to overlap for the customers' convenience.  So I ended up having to do a hard drive swap and install on an operating system on a laptop with a client while Laurence was building a system that has to go out tomorrow morning at 8am.  So many issues with everything from software compatibility to hardware issues in the machine that Laurence was building.  Needless to say our daughter was napless and getting hungry and needed another bum change.  So I managed to make her a snack of veggies and dip to tide her over until I had enough time to actually make dinner.  I also somehow managed to sweep the kitchen and entrance way floors and vacuum the living room in between customers showing up.  Finally at 7:30pm I found the time to make dinner just to run out of propane for the BBQ (ugh! what else?!?) so I had to cook the sockeye in the oven.  I made a pot of rice and heated up some corn to go with the sliced carrots and cucumbers, from earlier.  We scarfed back dinner, I answered more phone calls and booked more appointments for tomorrow and Friday and replied to a couple more emails.  Finally around 8:30pm Anomantia had enough of being awake and headed up to bed after a huge meltdown (probably because she was so tired).  I got her changed into a nighttime diaper and put her clothes back on her because I didn't feel like digging through the clean laundry to find a pair of pj's at that time and tucked her in when she voluntarily climbed into her bed.  Then it was back to work.  Tomorrow is our garbage day so I gathered up all the empty boxes and recycling to go out as well as emptying the garbage cans from around the house.  I don't usually empty the one in the office but for some reason today I did, not knowing that Laurence had tossed his phone into the corner where the garbage can sits, he missed the desk and the phone landed in the garbage can.  It wasn't until he was looking for it about 10 minutes ago that he realised that I had emptied the garbage and that his phone could possibly be on the curb awaiting pick up first thing tomorrow morning.  It is lucky that I was still awake and able to retrace my steps and we put 2 and 2 together enough to go looking for his phone. Sure enough, I had thrown his phone in the garbage and we managed to retrieve it from the garbage at the curb before it was gone forever.  While doing this, we were laughing our asses off at the whole scenario while going over the chaos of the day. 

All in all this crazy day makes us appreciate the fact that we are able to laugh at our lives and that we obviously don't take everything too seriously.   We enjoy the little things even though it is sometimes those things that drive us absolutely crazy.  The highlight of my day today is the fact that I managed to finish off the baby's blanket with the embellished top stitching and everything.  I love the way it turned out and I hope the baby likes it as much as Anomantia loves hers.  I also somehow managed to squeeze in three (3) loads of laundry and one load of diapers today... I still don't know how I did it all, but I think it merits the Wonder Woman shirt tomorrow (even though it doesn't cover all of the belly anymore).  Finally I have headed up to bed to be a bit lazy and Laurence is back in the office still working (hopefully not for too long).  But if anything else had of gone haywire today, I think I would have totally lost my mind.  Here is to hoping that tomorrow is a better day than today.

Christmas stuff... SIGH!

Here it is the middle of November and yes, I am guilty of pulling out my Christmas stuff.  Our lawn has about six inches of snow in some parts (thank you wind drifts) and our Christmas lights and lawn ornaments have been up for over a week.  This is totally out of the ordinary for me as I usually put it all up in the first week of December and take it all down as soon as January 1st .  But this year with the new baby coming sometime around the holidays, I thought I would get a jump start so I am not trying to decorate a tree or hang lights at term (37+ weeks pregnant).  Anomantia is not overly impressed with the changes to the house or the fact that there is a hideously fake tree in the living room where some of her toys used to be.  She was quite upset with me for moving her table and toys and one chair to make room for the green monstrosity.  I finally got the lights up so the tree doesn't look too bad, but it still needs the silver pine cones and the candy canes to finish it off.  I decided last year that my fragile ornaments were not going to go up on the tree until she is older and no longer feels the need to move, eat or remove things off the tree.  Last year, Anomantia ate all the candy canes in her reach (plastic wrap and all) so the bottom half of the tree is still debatable if we are going to put candy canes on it or not. 
These past couple of weeks, we have had a ton of progression with Anomantia talking.  Update for those who didn't know, she had a terrible ear infection in the spring that delayed her due to it going undetected for a few months by her GP and it took her vomiting and me getting frustrated and taking her to the walk in clinic to get it diagnosed and treated properly.  She had some major set backs with her speech and balance but now we are almost back on track.  Yesterday, we had a bit of a road trip around Gurneyland and ventured out to visit some friends at their farm for dinner and to watch the UFC fights.  Anomantia had a blast playing with their kids and animals.  By the end of the night, the cats were "kitty" and the dogs were "puppies" which is neat as before that, every animal was either a monkey, frog, puppy-woof-woof or meow.  She now knows the difference between cats and dogs.  She has a fond love for all animals especially farm ones.
We are still at war with her over clothes but everything else seems to be going smoothly.

It's been awhile....

Well it has been awhile since I did an update... September came and went with a visit to the island to see the extended family and to celebrate my 30th birthday (yes, I have come to grips that I am no longer in my 20's but I have hit the big 3-0.  Maybe some kind of revelation should occur but life seems to be continuing on all the same).  October was great fun with the weather being relatively crisp and great for fall walks with Anomantia who is obsessed with her push trike.  October 25th, we had a 3D ultrasound done in town and I would have to say that I am totally disappointed and left feeling ripped off.  Peek-A-Boo Baby 3D Ultrasounds Ltd. really didn't make the cut.  I paid for the "One Peek Package" and the quality was TERRIBLE!   The DVD was so blurry from the technician's shakiness, you could barely make out the baby.  The baby also wasn't very cooperative for positioning but when Laurence asked to find out the gender (I don't want to know until birth) the tech kept on trying to find it and told him what she thought it was and we left feeling more confused than what we had in our minds going in.  We got a couple of pictures that are of mediocre quality but the rest is really crappy.  I am just relieved that this ultrasound wasn't the important one for the midwives.
For Halloween, we tried to decorate as much as possible but with the ongoing renovations in our house it was all last minute again.  I sewed Anomantia's costume all fleece lined so she wouldn't have to wear a coat and it was a good thing too because we got snow that afternoon.  Halloween morning began on a down note with the beginning of the flu running through our home.  Anomantia was feeling well enough to trick-or-treat at a few neighbours' houses before calling it a night.  She was dressed up as Batman (orange and black) with her pimped out trike as the batmobile all custom with headlights and a jet engine made out of plastic containers.  Everything was made by scratch by Laurence and I this year as we couldn't justify spending outrageous amounts of money on a costume that may not ever be worn again.  So I made her costume so she would have something warm to wear under her snowsuit when we go ice fishing later on in the winter. 
Following that, I fell ill with the flu and ended up at the hospital getting rehydrated for almost an entire day.  Now being in my third trimester, I am finding it harder to be pregnant again.  I do have more energy to keep up with Anomantia but I am slowing down and at a rapid pace.  My home is a disaster zone and trying to clean up is futile as I have a hurricane that follows behind me ripping things apart again.
Yesterday and the day before we had Chinook winds through the area and melted all the snow that was on the ground allowing me to put all the Halloween decorations away and clean up the last of the yard tools for the winter.  We pulled out our Christmas lights and are hoping to get them all put up while Anomantia naps this afternoon as even though there is snow falling, it is still rather mild out.  Tomorrow, I am hoping to bake some more cookies and start on my Christmas baking (finish it off too if I am lucky).  My sewing machine is in the repair shop again and I am hoping to get all my knitting done by the beginning of December so that I can get the sewing portion of my Christmas gifts done as soon as my machine is back on the bench downstairs.  This however will delay a couple of baby gifts for friends and family but I guess it is a small price to pay for the love.
Anomantia is having a dad day and wants nothing to do with me right now, so I am going to put my feet up and enjoy the quiet moments that I do have to myself.  I need to relax and try not to focus on the craziness of the upcoming week.
With all that I leave you and hope you all had a great Labour Day Weekend, Thanksgiving, Halloween, Remembrance Day and are all ready for the upcoming winter.
Much Love
Carlee

Fall is in the air...

This morning I woke up and the air felt different today than it did yesterday and everyother day this past week.  I got out of our tent (in the backyard) and came in the house deciding that today was a great day to make carrot muffins.  Before Anomantia got up, I had cleaned the kitchen and started mixing the batter to my carrot muffins.  After breakfast, we sampled some of the muffins and then went for our daily walk around the block and down the back alley to admire everyone's gardens.  This year our garden is a write off.  It has been attacked from every angle and I am ready to give up.  This spring was a very dry spring and our soil proved to be fairly dead, followed by a rainy month of June and terrible wind-rain-tornado storms for most of July.  We have been hammered with hail the size of golf balls which took the leaves off of any plants that did grown in our barren wasteland of a garden.  August so far has proved to be pretty much of the same what little we have had so far.  All I can say is I am grateful for my greenhouse.  So far it has yielded a single tomato and a green pepper, several carrots (our soil is too dense to do these outdoors).  But this morning, I feel harvest time is quickly approaching as the threat of frost looms. My guess is that before labour day weekend, we will have seen the beginning of the end of gardening for this year. 

The dentist and wonder

This past week, I was tickling Anomantia and noticed a dark spot on one of her bottom teeth.  Within seconds of finding it, I was on the phone with our dentist's office.  Luckily enough, I managed to get an appointment for Laurence to have his teeth cleaned and a check-up on Friday morning and they had an opening for Anomantia on Monday morning.  So come Monday, Laurence will be taking the drive with the squirt to the dentist's office.  From what I have heard from other patients is that the dentist is very good with children.  Anomantia is still a little young for her first dentist appointment but because of the spot, there is an exception.  Thursday evening after finding the spot, I brushed her teeth and the spot came off... Now I think it was just a piece of blueberry skin stuck to the tooth, but it was also under the gums, so we decided to take her for the check up just in case it is something more than that. So Friday morning, I took her to the dentist's office while Laurence was in for his appointment to familiarize her with the office so she won't freak out come Monday morning.
Today, Anomantia and I went out for all you can eat sushi lunch with my good friend Elise.  I found out that Anomantia doesn't really like the seaweed in the maki rolls and she LOVES rice of any kind.
This afternoon, I realised that I have done and experienced so much more than I have ever dreamed of doing in the last three months alone.  I have gone ice fishing (on my bucket list), gone back to work, seen the northern lights (also on my bucket list), experienced a real winter storm (with wind drifts higher than the bumper on our Jeep),  taught my daughter to love and respect animals and other critters, and seen Anomantia change from being a baby into a toddler and more like a little girl everyday.  I love seeing the changes in her daily.  Her curiosity for everything is facinating and allows me to look at the world from her perspective and innocence. I love seeing that spark and spunk that she has when approaching the unknown. I took a bunch of new pictures this week and I am still trying to figure out my new computer, so I will upload them once she goes down for another nap later on today and hopefully post them tonight or tomorrow.  Anyhow, I am off to change another soiled diaper, still no luck on the potty training front, she is still terrified of the potty and hates the bathroom because she thinks that she has to take a shower everytime we go in there.  I have tried playing with her in the bathroom but all she does is pick up her toys and run out of the room.  I guess it doesn't really help that it is the coldest room in the house.  I guess that we will have to try something new because I would really like to have her using the potty or the toilet within the next six months to a year.  If anyone has any suggestions please comment here and not on Facebook.  I am closing my facebook account for posting comments and upping the security as I have been hacked on that account and need to revise my security options.  And with the lack of comments and imput, I am seriously thinking of retiring this blog as I don't know where to take it.