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December

December started with a pretty big bang this past weekend! First, there was the Santa Pur-suit- a 5k race that’s done all in Santa suits. I signed up for it a while ago and it was a total blast. The weather was cooooold, but there was a little bit of snow, all stuck to the trees which made everything beautiful. The motorists who were waiting for the horde of Santas to pass didn’t even seem put out- they were just bemused at what was probably one of the more surreal events of their day. Everyone was a bit disheveled by the end but it was so much fun.

Later in the evening, Trevor took me to see The Nutcracker in Mississauga! It was a touring company that was performing it, and it was fun. The Living Arts Centre is a really nice venue, convenient to lots of restaurants and shopping, so we were able to wander around and amuse ourselves pretty easily waiting for the house to open.

Then, on Sunday, the Advent Carol service at church, which was really nice. It was super warm though, I was sweating buckets, but I really liked the music we did this year. Super pretty stuff.

Despite all the Christmas season kick-off stuff over the weekend, I haven’t gotten any decorations up yet. Hopefully I’ll get to that soon. 🙂

Swerving right into the oncoming holiday season

Plowed through most of of November already! I know lots of people like to hold off on holiday celebrating as long as possible, which is fine, but I’m already getting ready. I’ve done nearly all my Christmas shopping, we’re working on Advent music at choir, and we went to the local Santa Claus parade is this weekend!

Today is foggy and the sunlight looks thin and cold, though the temperature is going to be fairly mild. No notable snows yet, but those don’t usually come until the first bit of December.

Wesley and I both picked up a bit of a cold- He’s got snot from his nose to his ankles, and mine is more of a sore throat and desperate need for extra sleep so far. Hopefully we’re both all cleared up soon.

I’m getting used to the idea that I’m heading back to work soon. Nervous about the logistics and the transition, but excited to be working again. Lots of other things to look forward to in the new year as well- my parents are coming to visit in February, and we’re likely heading to Florida in March for a vacation with Trevor’s parents (as soon as dates and details are sorted out). I’ve never been to Florida (despite having been to most of the other states) so I’m excited about that.

Babynaut

So ever since I dubbed myself the Preggonaut when I was pregnant, we called the baby “Babynaut”, off and on. So his halloween costume was a foregone conclusion.

Ready for blastoff!

Pumpkin Patch!

Trevor and Wesley and I went to the pumpkin patch on Saturday, and it was really fun! We wanted to go someplace new- we’ve been to Snyder’s Family Farm in the past, but it was a fairly long drive and it’s a really big patch, so you have to do a good bit of walking around to find a pumpkin you like.

So we tried a place in St. Clements called Naumans. Much closer to us. And it was awesome! I took Wesley in the carrier, and we didn’t have to do too much hiking to find pumpkins we liked. It didn’t cost to get in, and the pumpkins were nice and cheap (we paid like 8 dollars altogether for ours, I believe). The weather was chilly, but pretty decent pumpkin patching weather!

They’ll sit out on the porch to keep fresh, and we’ll probably carve them the day before Halloween. I’ll post pictures of our costumes soon! 😀

Weekend awesomeness

This past weekend was pretty nice! We didn’t have any specific plans for Friday or Saturday. We wound up having takeout wings for dinner on Friday, and on Saturday, we had a couple of nice outings and a long walk around the neighbourhood.

On Sunday, we went to the zoo! I’ve been to the Toronto Zoo a couple of times, but this was Wesley’s first trip. I love zoos, and have been to a ton of different ones in North America and Europe, and the Toronto Zoo is pretty good. Jackie, a friend of ours, was organizing an outing, so we decided to go!

It was a super hot day, so we made sure to stick to the shade where we could to keep cool. We saw mostly the African Savannah section of the zoo, since we were only there for a few hours.

Wesley is just getting to the age where he is able to enjoy a zoo trip. He was able to watch the animals (the ones that moved around, anyway- he wasn’t really interested in the crocodile that just sat still) and he liked being outside (though he got pretty hot before it started to rain).

And did it ever rain! We decided to stop for lunch because we were getting really hot, and the storm blew in while we were eating.

We waited until the rain died down a bit and then headed to do some of the indoor stuff, where we saw a pygmy hippo (so cute!) and some other cool animals. We hit up the kids’ zoo area before leaving (Wesley is gonna love that when he gets a little older!) and then came home.

All in all, a pretty awesome weekend.

Visiting the US Consulate!

Since Wesley is the child of a US citizen (me!) he is a US citizen himself. In order to claim that though, we had to file some paperwork, since he doesn’t have a US birth certificate. The paperwork is fairly simple, especially in comparison to some of the government paperwork I’ve filed in the past (Canadian Permanent Residence, I’m looking at you). One question, however, requires that both parents of the child list every period of physical presence in the US. Living close to the border, that was a fairly long list for us (and I never even crossed said border until 2004!). Still, we got it all sorted out the night before- the application for the Consular Report of Birth Abroad, the application for the Social Security Number (which I’ll need to file my taxes) and the application for his US passport (which will be his proof of US citizenship).

In order to file this stuff, we had to make an appointment at the US Consulate in Toronto. We made an appointment for the latest time they had available (10:30 AM) since we’d have to drive there and the morning drive into TO is a bit rough.

We got out of the house at 7:30, and after the drive and then the subway ride downtown, we barely made it in time. It was Wesley’s first subway ride! We took him in the Boba carrier because we didn’t want to deal with taking the whole big stroller and everything on the subway, and we didn’t know if we’d have space for the stroller at the consulate either. It worked really well for the trip.

Once we got downtown, we quickly hit up a Canada Post outlet to get a prepaid Express Post envelope (which you have to submit with your paperwork so they can mail you the passport and report of birth abroad). After that, we headed up to the consulate, which is on a shady sidestreet that is closed to car traffic.

MAN, was that place crazy. The line for visas was way out the door and down the street, and then there was another line inside, then another line after that. The people getting visas there had a long wait in front of them. We had an appointment so we were able to head in and up to a different area, but we had to throw away the ice packs we were using to keep the baby’s milk fresh, at security. Oh well. At least we didn’t have to waste any of his food (it was still good when it came time to feed him, shortly after).

After getting through security, we headed upstairs to the designated office. There were a bunch of windows, and we had to sign in at one, and they checked our paperwork. We had to fix a few things, and then wait to be called. After that, a second person checked our paperwork again, and we were told to wait again, and then we were called again, for our final paperwork check and interview. All told it was about an hour, which was a bit faster than we were expecting. We were the last ones out. The waiting area had a lot of children (naturally), and the washroom had a nice changing table and we were able to feed the baby there, which was nice.

All in all it was an interesting outing! We hope to get Wesley’s paperwork and passport in a few weeks, and his SSN sometime after that (it takes much longer). I’m glad we got it done now and not later when he would be harder to handle in a government office sort of situation. 🙂

Wesley

Wesley is 6 months old (as of last Thursday)! He’s pretty much enormous. At his doctor appointment, he weighed 18 lbs 13 oz, and was over 27 inches long! The joke is that he’ll be taller than me any minute now (since I’m only 5’1″, he doesn’t get his height from me!)

He’s started on solid foods. So far, we’ve tried sweet potatoes and green beans, and rice cereal, and the biggest winner so far has been sweet potatoes mixed with rice cereal. Introducing new foods is a bunch more fun than I thought it would be- I thought feeding him would be really time-consuming and messy enough to bother me. But really, Wesley has been a relatively tidy eater (in that he hasn’t sneezed it all on me yet) and he gets through his little bowl of food pretty quickly, in about 15 or 20 minutes.

He rolls all over the floor, and is working on crawling, but hasn’t quite figured out how to push with his feet yet. He loves standing up though, if you hold him up he is super pleased to be on his feet (no standing on his own yet, of course!)

We had a half-birthday party for him last weekend, and it was nice! Just a barbecue for our friends, and their kids, too. Our friends have some really charming kids, as well. There were 6 children here aside from Wesley, and they were all girls, so that might have something to do with it, but talk about well-behaved and quiet! I hope they had fun. It was fun to have so many littles around, but I don’t know if I could handle it every day!

He’s still a pretty good sleeper, but he almost always has to sleep in his crib in his room now- where he used to be able to just nap wherever he was, now he’s too distracted if anything cool is going on around him. So he naps in his crib most of the time.

Basement Finishing

So when we moved into our house, it was with the assumption that at some point we would finish the basement- it was studded in around the edges and insulated and basically unspoiled, so it looked like it would be easy enough. Now, over 5 years later, we’ve started that project, and are even getting close to finishing it. It’s taking about 5 weeks to get it all done, but I’m excited for the extra living space that we’ll gain- we’ll have a rec room and a full bathroom down there.

We’ve been using a contracting company called Catalyst General Contracting. They’ve been pretty great- always in touch, keeping us up to date (and via email, thank god. I love companies that deal with me via email, it’s 100 times easier for me than dealing with phone calls and voicemails). We’ve had a couple of little problems, but everything has been resolved as soon as it is brought up. It’s the biggest contracting project I’ve ever been on the client side of, so it’s a new experience for me.

The project is wrapping up in the next couple of days. It’ll be awesome to have it all done, it has been a big part of my life for several weeks now! We’ve been taking photos along the way:

You can view more progress photos in the photo gallery.

Spring is coming!

And is seemingly already here, with the lovely weather this week. Yesterday and the day before, I took Wesley out in his carrier for a long walk (about a mile and a half, but that’s pretty long carrying the dude in my non-ergonomic carrier, but I have an ergonomic one coming shortly!) It was fun and the weather was gorgeous. I hadn’t gotten much sleep at all though, so I kinda regretted it later when I was exhausted and cranky. Yesterday Wesley was pretty cranky, so I guess it’s contagious. 🙂

I’ve been watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer lately, and it has been pretty entertaining. I never watched it at all when it was originally on, and since there are so many episodes, it has been a good one to watch during feedings and naps during the day in order to relax. I’m in the middle of season 3 now. It reminds me pretty strongly of a magical girl anime, only live-action and in English.

This morning, a band of thunderstorms has come through and it has been all thunder and lightning! A little early, maybe, but real thunderstorms! The temperature is supposed to top 20 degrees today and for the next several days as well (20° C is sort of a big spring milestone- it’s the beginning of “seriously, no jacket” weather, haha). It’s starting to clear up now, but it was pretty crazy to hear the thunder and see the lightning flashes out our window this morning.

Things that are awesome

Christkindl Markt – I’ve been to the Christkindl Markt in downtown Kitchener for the past 4 years or so, and it’s awesome every year. This year, I didn’t have to sing there, which was nice. I got a funnel cake for lunch on Thursday when it opened, and it was delicious.

New desk at work – Our office is expanding, and everyone is moving around to best make use of new spaces. So my team moved down a floor, and I wound up in a pretty nice desk! I am pleased. I’m by the window, but not facing it, which is nice as I prefer to face the room anyway. Though I’m only at work for a few more weeks before my leave starts, it’s nice to spend them in a workstation I like. My keyboard tray is coming tomorrow too, so that will be good!

Trello – Over the past little while, I’ve been using a service called Trello to organize tasks for myself, and I’m finding it pretty nice. I was using Google tasks before, but this is nicer and has a lot more options, and it works nicely on my Blackberry. Check it out if you regularly make to-do lists!

Blackberry 9810 – I got a new Blackbery recently, with the new OS (OS 7) and I am a big fan! It has a better camera than my previous device, the navigation is nice, I still have the sweet keyboard, bigger screen… I dig it.