Edmonton Times...

I just realized that I never posted a Christmas vacation farewell! Since our flight took off on Friday--the worst possible day for travel ever imaginable--things were a bit hectic around the house as we kept checking with West jet about our ever-delaying flight. Then there was the panic when we realized we couldn't get our car out of the driveway. In the end, my dad and Maura picked us up in the SUV and drove us to the middle of the north pole which encapsulated the tiny Hamilton airport. We had hours to kill, but Paige clearly thought we had brought her to a gym, or some sort of indoor playground. She was running up and down the aisles of seats, and yelling "N-night?!" at the sleeping people who had clearly been stranded there all day. She has always been fascinated by pictures of people sleeping, so she liked seeing them in person. When we finally were ready to board the plane we had to walk across the tarmac with Paige all bundled up and snow and wind whipping in our faces. It felt like a Christmas movie. The flight itself was great, and since the weather was so horrific, there were a few empty seats on the plane, one being right beside us. sweeet! Paige was able to sprawl out a bit more after a while and have a 2 hour hap while I watched some makeover shows and wedding shows. By the time we got to Edmonton it was about 1:30am. We had to wait forever to get the car seat, and by the time we got to Jen and James' house it was about 3:00am Edmonton time! Poor little Paige. She was fine through everything though, except she was a bit fussy on the plane when she decided it was bed-time ("daddy? n-night?").

Anyway, here we are, and when we get back I will have to blog about our adventures. One little snippet of fun--I had to get an emergency root canal...fun times. A lesson to be learned...make sure you are up-to-date on all dentist appointments, doctor visits, prescriptions, etc, before going ANYWHERE! It is no fun to be frantically flipping through a phone book on a sunday morning when you realize you are in so much pain you can't function. Just glad it happened here and not in the middle of the ocean in July on our cruise...

Happy Holidays!!!

Conversations with Paige IV

At the pool....

Paige: "Amy....cup...highchair"

(translation: can we go to Second Cup with Amy where we sit in highchairs?)

Her thoughts are definitely getting more complex. I can't imagine when she can speak in sentences...

A little face-painting...

This morning we went to a party at the community centre. In the end, it was best for maybe 3-4 year olds. The main activities were crafts that were beyond her age level. I think she was the youngest one there. We still had fun though. In addition to the face painting, she also has a reindeer "tatoo" on her arm. She liked sorting through the tatoos. Santa made an appearance halfway through the party and made the rounds to all of the children. Paige was clearly worried that he would come over to her. When he got close, she started to get scared and I had to pick her up as she put her arms around my neck and put her head on my shoulder. Later, Santa appeared out of no where, but he gave her a candy cane.

A couple pictures from a morning get-together...

3 things....

1. I have officially lost the 55 pounds of baby weight! yeee ha! (don't mistake this for me looking the same that I did pre-pregnancy...no my friends...these are 2 very different things.....)

2. I can officially fit into all of my pre-baby clothes...however, the shirts all seem to have shrunk. I attribute this to either the fact that my rib cage seems to have expanded, or that pre-baby I didn't mind if my stomach showed for a split second while reaching up, etc. Now...not a chance. I also like the fact that my winter boots don't cut off my circulation like they did last year. And I can fully zip them up with room to spare!

3. I just spent a fortune on my hair since my work discount has expired...apparently my maternity leave is finally over after almost 2 years. I almost died when I saw the price...luckily I had a gift card...but still! Now I see...how do people afford that place??!

Christmas Card Outtake....

Dora the Explorer....

Complete obsession. There must be subliminal messaging in the show. I turned it on the other day when I really needed to quickly get ready for Mike's office party and I needed Paige to stay in the family room. Well, as I was getting ready she did not leave the room for a good 45 minutes as the show played. Now she asks "doh-DOH? DOH DOH!!?" all the time. She follows this by "tv? TV?". I only turn it on when it is a good "babysitter"...ie. when she woke up really early the other day and i had a horrible night sleep. I got to slowly wake up as she watched the show. Or, if she has a short nap and I need to do something like banking. Or right now when she was desperately asking to watch it and I knew we had to get ready for swimming/I could write in this blog if I had enough time. But I swear she is not watching it all the time. The problem is that now I can't watch any tv at all since if I turn it on she says "No?....doh-dOH?"

I have to admit that this comes at the right time since she is not in a toy phase and only wanted me to read her books non-stop. And, it was getting really hard to get ready in the mornings as she ran around me and took stuff from my drawers. I'm looking forward to bringing out her new dollhouse we got her for Christmas.

Conversations with Paige III

This morning as I was getting ready to go out Paige was watching Dora. From what I could hear there was something going on where the rooster needed to wake up the sun. I also heard snoring noises coming from the sun.

Anyway...this is what happened in the car on our drive to our play group:

Paige (says randomly): "N-night"

me: "who went n-night?"

Paige: "sun"

Fun at home...

Paige really liked this "diaper hat".....

Mike made a fort for her to play in......

New things....

A few new things.....

1. No more nap time bottle, she seems to be able to fall asleep with just a few book readings.


2. As for playtime, likes looking at books and magazines 80% of the time. Other toys the other 20%.


3. Hardly any "baby talk" anymore....pretty much only uses words, or things that are words to her, that I just can't understand. (eg. "a-doh"....says this a lot...not sure what it means)

4. Has a favourite show (only will watch for a few minutes, but asks for it) "Wonder Pets". You can get it on Free on Demand. She calls it "Monkey" and hands me the remote. There was a monkey on one episode, so that may be why she calls it that, or maybe she thinks the guinea pig is a monkey.