cruisin, earthquakes, and summer

Today was a horrible day. It was rainy and hot and Jesse was a miserable miserable child most of the day. On top his rage against the world, I was suffering with morning sickness and total exhaustion. The combination of 5 hours sleep last night, first trimester baby growing going on, and an angry baby who wanted to nurse a lot today.... well...it was very wearing...to say the least. But, the sun is now shining and Jesse is fast asleep. Sitting here looking outside at all the beautiful green trees rustling in the wind that is snaking it's way through the window and cooling off the house, is I'm certain God's whisper and gentle hand telling me to breathe - relax- enjoy.

There have been a few exciting moments during the past week that I refuse to let nausea rob me of. First, Jesse is finally on the move. He is crawling- pulling up on everything- and cruising from furniture to furniture. I love it. It's like a new form of communication. If he wants me to hold him- he comes on over and climbs on me. If he wants to go and pull everything out of his toy bin and litter the room with toys- he can. On a side note- today he figured out how to take his pants off. And he has been :) Jesse turned one last weekend, and we had a low key BBQ with his closest baby friends and their parents to celebrate. I'm not a super sentimental person, but I felt a wee bit overcome at cake singing time.....knowing that his baby days are gone, and he's just gonna keep getting older and older, and we will keep singing that song every year until who knows when.

In other news, Ottawa was the epicenter of a 5.5 magnitude earthquake yesterday. I was nursing Jesse upstairs and immediately thought a big tractor was crashing into our house. I ran downstairs only to see the cupboard doors opening and closing shut and sort of feeling dizzy and off balance as the walls seemed to move towards and away from me. When I realized what was happening, I ran to the closest doorway- then changed my mind- then ran to another. About a minute later the shaking and rumbling stopped, and all the neighbors congregated on the front lawn to share in the disbelief and jitters. It was pretty crazy.

Another exciting thing happening in the Vance's lives- is the SUMMER! Dave has finished all his marking- and is just at the school doing some housekeeping for a few more days. He is already a happier, lighter man, and I can't even imagine how intensely he'll be glowing a few weeks into vacation after some much needed rest- and of course Chrissy and Jesse time.

Well, a friend is coming by to watch a chick flick with me tonight. Dave is at graduation, and I should be off. Thanks for reading all of you wonderful people :)

these are a few of my favourite things

I apologize for my lack of entries over the past few weeks. We had a fantastic time at Grace's wedding, and despite Jesse being a miserable crying psycho during the rehearsal dinner. He was in a great mood for the day of the wedding, and made it all the way until 11pm dancin' on the dance floor in good spirits. Grace was just stunning, everything about her day was beautiful, and I really enjoyed the freedom from baby responsibility for the day!

We've since moved out from Carling Park area, and into the Craig Henry area. The move was super slick, and we had amazing help. Everything was moved within 3 hours, and the guys stayed for a while to do stuff like put together the crib and beds and arrange our furniture how we wanted it in each room.

I've had the past week to get things in order, and am left with half a dozen boxes in the basement to go through, the storage room to organize, and things like pictures, decorations, and curtains to get up. During this move, we basically lived out of a few boxes for a few weeks. It's amazing all the STUFF we can go without! However, there were four things that really stuck out to ma that I missed during this time.

The first would have to be color. Our apartment was done in a warm sundial shade, with a super drum beat red accent wall, and Jesse's room was a gorgeous green shade called rejuvenate. We had to paint it all back to white, and the new house is currently all white as well. Man...the white really bums me out. It feels kind of depressing day in and out, and I can't wait to get these walls done up. I've been playing with a paint visualizer program on the sherwin williams website, and haven't decided 100% on our colors. But we're thinking an intense blue for the kitchen, a subtle warm green for the living, and then maybe a dark taupe for the dining room with a lighter complementary taupe for the hallways. I like lots of color and variety! We can't afford new furniture or decor at this point, but paint is a great (and cheaper) way to liven things up and make it feel a little more your own.

The other thing I really missed was my white board. My white board hangs in the kitchen, and has a little bulletin board section on it which I tack important addresses, phone numbers, pictures all stick to it. I use the white board to jot down things I need to get done each day, or things we run out of. And while I also love my pen and notebook, I REALLY missed having my white board out and about. I finally found it a few days ago, and putting that thing up in the kitchen just warmed my heart.

I missed my cook books!!! I love trying new recipes, and have been working my way through an entire GF cook book the past few months. I really missed having them out to flip through, and got sort of bored of cooking things off the top of my head. I'm starting back at it tonight with a pecan-espresso shortbread cookie. Yummmmmy. Can't wait.

The last thing that I really missed, was my teddy. I've never been much of a stuffed animal person. I usually hugged a second pillow growing up. But, Jesse was given this stuffed bear by his Aunt Katie the Christmas before he was even born. It looked a lot like this little bear that my brother Jacob grew up attached to, named Vavaldi. Jacob called him Babaldi. Anyways, this bear sat in my room for a while as a reminder that little Jesse was on his way, then made his way to the bed, and now I have a hard time sleeping without him. I sort of strangle him curled up on my side. Dave is a little jealous of Vavaldi, and I think was secretly happy when I couldn't find him. But, he showed up a few nights ago, and now I am sleeping much more comfortably. I don't know if I can give the teddy bear back to his rightful owner. Sorry Katie.

Well, that's all the ranting for now. The house is feeling pretty good- varnish smell and white walls aside, it's crazy how much room we have now! Even if it's a little messy, the mess doesn't feel as intense because it's spread over so much more space. Anyways, As mentioned, I have some cookies to bake, some swatches to look through, and maybe I'll tackle one box tonight?? Thank you all for reading. I'm off.