Don’t Let it End

I have had the most wonderful weekend!

I feel so accomplished having cleaned my rec room up to the best of my ability at this moment.

Much of Saturday morning was spent cleaning. I did finish cleaning early enough to go to a few yard sales. I found some really cute, and nearly new outifts for Zaphyn to grow into over the next few years. I got four outfits for $5 after a little haggling!

Zaphyn and I went to the mall for some mommy and baby time. We drove my niece Mandie there so she could visit with a friend and get her nails done. Zaphyn and I explored the sales, the food court and Chapters.

 We shared a poutine. It was delicious!

Saturday evening was delightful! I got Mandie to babysit, Justin was entertaining friends, and I went to a spa party at my friend Rebecca’s. Oh. my. word. We had foot soaks, and facial masks done by our local Arbonne representative, Jasmine Cheng.  It was such a wonderful way to spend a Saturday evening. I even won a prize valued at over $60!

Sunday was a very busy day, but I had so much fun! It was another Mommy & Baby day. We went to church where I had nursery duty, so I got to watch her play and explore with other children her age.
After church we took a drive down the road, to Hamilton.

We changed out of church clothes and had some lunch along the way.

Zaphyn is such a good little traveller. I was sure to keep a ready supply of toys by my side that I could pass back to her from time to time. Her favourites for the trip seemed to be her giraffe from Justin, and one of her Amazing Animals monkeys. I felt pretty prepared for the trip considering it was fairly last-minute.

The whole reason for our journey was to meet some of my online friends for the first time in real life. I was so excited when the opportunity came up that there wasn’t very much that could have held me back.

 We arrived in Hamilton at 3:30, making the journey there just over 2.5 hours (not bad with a baby!), and met Kim and Kara at a Tim Horton’s. Below are some pictures of Zaphyn and her new friend playing in the park.

“One on One”

Wednesday mornings are one of my favourite times of my week. Zaphyn and I get up, have breakfast together and then head down to Mother Goose time at the Quinte West (Trenton) library.
The programme is a half hour of singing, clapping, rhyming, reading and dancing, followed by snack time.
This past Wednesday Zaphyn and I were a little late, as she napped up until 9:50am. We jogged downtown, and were only a few minutes late.

She was in such a happy mood that we decided to stay for snacktime. Luckily I had thought to grab her container of snacks as we ran out the door. She loves watching the older babies run around, and she is beginning to mimmick them.

On our way home we went to A&P and I got us some watermelon to share on the way home. We had some amazing one on one time together as we sat by the shore of the Bay of Quinte and snacked on our healthy treat. I also sang the song “down by the bay” to her and she attempted to sing along.

I love how soft Zaphyn’s voice is, for the most part anyway. She occasionally lets out some very deep growls and grunts that cause her face to turn red, but that is typically only in the presence of her dad or her uncles. As we have been spending more time playing together she has been vocally communicating with me and I love it. She has such a sweet little voice that is beginning to form words. She has been matching the words and sounds with some of her signs also. It makes me so excited!

We have been learning a lot about each other. I know her most ticklish spot is her underarm, she knows that mine is the bottom of my feet. I know that she loves to sit between my legs, facing outward, but she knows that I like to see her smiles and reactions, so she often turns to look at me. I know that she appears to have a wonderful, early concept of sharing as she shares her toys, food and hairbrush. I know that she loves taping sticks and blocks together to make music, she knows that I will have a larger reaction the closer she gets to my face with whatever she is tapping. I know that she shakes her bum and sways her hips to any beat. She knows I do the same. I know that she loves making her kissy sound. She knows that when she makes the sound I will drop whatever I am doing and run to her in hopes of collecting as many kisses as possible.

“…What a feelin’!”

I have been feeling amazing!
Over the past couple of weeks I have been focused on my health and not my weight loss. In stead of focusing on scales, weights and measurement I have been paying a lot of attention to what goes into my body and what I am doing to make myself better. I have been doing the Couch to 5K Challenge, quite successfully.

I have never had as much energy as I have these days. Even with Zaphyn pulling a few all-nighters I am still feeling energised enough to go running and walking daily.

I got my hair dyed and trimmed today also. I think it looks great!

My favourite part of today thus far occurred this morning on a quick stop in at the Salvation Army Thrift Store. I got an entire Weekenders set: two skirts, a pair of pants, a camisole, a cardigan, and a scarf for $12, and a brand new pair of Lululemon pants for $3!!!

This evening I am off to watch Justin play his first baseball game on the church’s team. I can’t wait!

I have a few pet peeves…

and while I realize that I am no where near perfect, I do find a few of these problems quite irritating.

The first that comes to mind is sign grammar and spelling. If someone is going to put time, effort and money into making and posting a sign they should be sure that it makes sense. I find signs that contain errors to be entertaining, and yet highly annoying. Some claim that I have invested too much time and thought in this- I fully agree.

For example:

My problem with this sign: the incorrect use of a simile.
In the statement says that “God is like Hallmark because he cared enough to send the very best.” It’s a wonderful thought, but it doesn’t make sense. Hallmark doesn’t care, and they don’t care enough to send the very best. Hallmark’s claim is that they ARE the very best, making a Hallmark customer the caring one.
In the context of this sign’s message it should read:
God is like a Hallmark customer…

Neglect…

I have been really bad at keeping this blog, and entire site, up to date.

I have a few things ready to blog about too. It’s the sitting down and actually writing it out that has been hard for me.

Now that I am no where near as busy as I have been for the past few weeks I should be able to get back on track.

To recap, I’ll work backwords:
Yesterday was “Star Wars Day”. It was May the Fourth-be with you.
We celebrated with Boba Fett-uccine and Obi-Wan Kabobies. Mmmm. Star Wars day is delicious!

Sunday, the 3rd, was a very busy day for the Monks. We were at the church by 8:30am in order to have the little kiddies dressed for their play, The Tale of Three Trees. I worked with a lovely lady from the church to create some pretty wonderful tree costumes. It was such a great performance!
After church we went out for lunch at Applebees. So grood!
Justin had baseball practice with the church team. I slept in the car. I had a sinus headache- not fun!

Then, Sunday evening, we went to see John Pinette. He was absolutely hilarious! He did “Get out of the line”, and “Fawee wiwwy”, with many others also.

The rest of the time was spent sewing, and spending time with Zaphyn. I love my daughter!