Happy Birthday Hannah

Well I know it is a little late but I guess late is better then never. Hannah's birthday was on December 10th, and we hosted a small party for her. Everybody had a great time, and Hannah enjoyed opening her presents and eating chocolate cake.

This last month has been an exciting one for Hannah, she has learned how to crawl, clap her hands, wave hello and goodbye, and my favorite. She can stack her blocks four high. She is sleeping her own bed without a peep until 6:00am most nights. She would sleep straight until 8:00 if Dan getting up for work didn't wake her up. She is weaned off of the bottle other then at bedtime. I think that pretty much sums up everything she has started doing in the last month. We're still arguing over whether she actually knows the words momma and Dadda or if she just likes the sound of those words.

In other news, not a whole lot has been happening in my and Dan's world. I feel like we've been supper busy lately, mostly because we've been helping Dan's sister get settled into her new home. And of course in between everything else there is Christmas shopping. I was so proud of my myself last month I was so organized and I wasn't going to leave anything to the last minute. Well that was a joke I still haven't bought for half of the people on my list, and stocking stuffers could really use a boost. But there is still one weekend before Christmas, and I know what I will be doing.

Well to get back to my original post, Happy birthday Hannah, I can hardly believe it has been a year.

Dan's Christmas Carol: All I want for Christmas

You Are "All I Want for Christmas Is You"

I just want you for my own More than you could ever know Make my wish come true... All I want for Christmas is You You only want one thing for Christmas Love from one special person - and you've got it!

What Christmas Carol Are You?

Well I guess it is about time I post. I can't even use the excuse that nothing exciting has happened. My sister Angela came and visited me last week. We had a productive week of shopping and getting the transmission flushed on the van. (which is a story in itself) Over the weekend we went to Saskatchewan, to celebrate my Dad's birthday. (Happy Birthday Dad), And now we're back home, and it has been a pretty boring week. But perhaps I will pad this post with two amusing stories from last week.

1. After meeting Dan for lunch downtown one day last week, Angela and I decided to wonder through the mall in hopes of finding Christmas gifts. We discovered a brand new dollarama and walked excitedly through, finding great stocking stuffer ideas. Well I was parked in spot that turns into a tow away at 3:30pm. I checked my watch at 3:20 and realized we had just enough time to pay for our stuff and get back to the van. We head to the check out and discover to our amazement, this wonderful place that was the answer to all our stocking stuffer woes, only takes cash. As I am not to keen on having my car towed we had to abandon our finds, and rescue my van. A whole afternoon of shopping completely wasted.

2. Back to the transmission flush story. My husband phones me early Friday morning and says go take the van to a Mr. Lube it needs a transmission flush before we go to Saskatchewan. So that afternoon we head to Mr. Lube, and begin what should only be a one hour service. Well an hour goes by, and the mechanic explains to me some problems he is having and how he is going to fix it, (free of charge) and then he can start part two of the transmission flush. Half an hour later another guy approaches us and asks us our opinion on the engagement ring he is going to present to his girlfriend. Yes at this point we have all become the best of buds seeing how we have held captive by them for what seems like forever. Finally 2 and half hours into this adventure we are instructed to pull outside and they will begin the last stage. We pull outside wait patiently for 15 min. Only to discover that some hose has broken and all of our transmission fluid has burst all over their parking lot. Well now they need to push the van back into the garage, fix the hose and refill the transmission. As you can imagine Hannah who has been in the van for just about 3 hours is getting a little impatient. So we abandon our post and head over to another dollar store. (Which was a waste of our time, nothing can compare to a dollarama). Finally after 3 and half hours we get back into the van and drive away, only to make it home just in time to cook supper and head out to look at houses with our real estate agent. Perhaps this story only seems funny to me, as you had to be there. I did however forget to mention the fun of discovering that our cell phone was broken. At some point in the middle of this, I phoned Dan only to discover the speaker on our phone was dead, after several rounds of "hello" "HELLO" I gave up calling him and settled back into my long wait. But of course Dan was curios now and begins phoning me, but needless to say the speaker still doesn't work. He continued to phone us periodically right up until we drove into the driveway at 5:15pm.

well I think of have padded this post enough with my long winded stories.

Happy Halloween

Yeah, it's been a long time since we posted any pictures of Hannah, so here are some of the better ones of her in her Halloween costume:

Remember to click on the image to see more pictures

How very interesting...

You fit in with: Humanism Your ideals mostly resemble that of a Humanist. Although you do not have a lot of faith, you are devoted to making this world better, in the short time that you have to live. Humanists do not generally believe in an afterlife, and therefore, are committed to making the world a better place for themselves and future generations. 20% scientific. 80% reason-oriented.

Take this quiz at QuizGalaxy.com

She's teasing me

When I went to pick Hannah up this morning, she reached out her arms and proudly proclaimed "Momma". My heart skipped a beat and I couldn't help but want to jump for joy, but then she dashed my hopes when she continued with a whole stream of "Momma"s. All morning every time I looked at her she was saying "Momma", to her toys, her food, her soother. I think perhaps she knows that I am Mom, but hasn't decided to grace me with that title yet. Oh well I guess it will happen soon enough.

Quack!

You Are A: Duck!
	Found in many lakes and ponds, ducks are a common site the world over. Known for their famous quack, ducks tend to congregate in flocks or go off on their own in pairs. As a duck, you may seem friendly at times but will not hesitate to bite if someone is bothering you. Your love for travel and your ability to swim are some reasons why you are a duck.
You were almost a: Monkey or a Bear Cub You are least like a: Bunny or a Chipmunk Cute Animals Quiz

Thanksgiving stories

Well it appears on our trip to Saskatchewan for thanksgiving we traded up on Hannah's cold. We went there with Hannah recovering from a pretty minor cold, and came home with the beginning of a horrific cold. She has been pretty miserable since Tuesday evening. She is in a little bit better mood right now, but I know it can't last. We had a great time over thanksgiving, the food was terrific, and it was great to see everyone again. The first year me and Dan buy a bigger house we will host thanksgiving and hopefully it will be as big a success. I played my very first game of poker over the weekend, and of course I used my beginners luck to my advantage and walked away with lots of money. Unfortunately I can never play again, as my beginners luck will have abandoned me. Oh well I may have to rely on my intellect next time.

Trivia Tournament

I just had to creat my own trivia tournament. The rules are pretty simple, play once a day and after 20 days the person with the highest score wins. Carmen's Quiz! Make sure you play daily! Good luck!

Time to Retire

I think it is time for me to retire from the midnight diaper changes. When I went to change Hannah this morning, I discovered that she was wearing not one but two diapers. Apparently in the middle of the night I forgot to pull the old diaper out from inside her sleeper. But it gets better on the one side I used the tab from the new diaper and did it up correctly, but on the other I grabbed the tab from the outside (the dirty diaper) and attached it to the new diaper. And just incase anybody is worried neither diaper contained any poop. Hannah didn't seem to care she slept through the night wearing two diapers, and neither one on correctly. Of course she may have just been happy because she was sleeping in our bed, and thought she shouldn't push her luck.

tagged?

Thanks Angela, and I noticed you took all the easy people. Here is the deal: 1. Go into your archive. 2. Find your 23rd post. 3. Find the fifth sentence (or closest to). 4. Post the text of the sentence in your blog along with these instructions. 5. Tag five other people to do the same. Okay, from November 22 2004 "When the previous owners laid tile in the kitchen, the thickness of the new sub-floor plus the thickness of the tile and grout reduced the height of the door from the bottom." We finally put in the door at the end of August that we discussing almost a year ago. Talk about procrastionating. and I guess we will tag .... Kelly and Kara, Mike, and Tim and Holly,

Blogging Hiatus

As many of you have probably noticed, I have been somewhat absent from the blogosphere for the last few weeks... Rest assured I am still alive. I have undertaken some web-design work one of my mother-in-law's businesses which has snowballed to the point where I am in the process of building/configuring an OpenBSD web-server. This has been largely successful which means that I should be back to web-design soon, and after that hopefully I'll be back to blogging on a regular basis, although perhaps I'll have to move to my own domain... I guess we'll just have to wait and see...

Crossword mania

Well, I certainly can't complain about not being busy enough. Last weekend was a quick trip down to Edson, to go to a bowling reunion, and then this weekend a wedding. (Congratulations to Kerri and Jay). And the fun doesn't end, next weekend is Thanksgiving so we're off to Saskatoon. I have had a cold for about a week now, and now it seems that Hannah may have finally caught it. So I am hoping everybody is healthy by Friday.

It is funny how things can seem to change so quickly, when I was pregnant with Hannah, it seems I knew very few people who were, either pregnant, trying, or had recently had a baby. Now everybody I talk to is in one of those stages. It is like the world has gone baby crazy. Even our neighbor is pregnant.

I wish I had more exciting things to write about, but I don't. I have become a crossword fanatic lately, so that is all I do all day. I do about half a puzzle get mad look at the answers, and then start the next one. I am finding that having a vocabulary that has lots of big words in it, doesn't help when all of the answers are three or four letters. Except of course for a few, in which I think they make up most of the words.

Hmm well that is all I can think of for now, I am off to have a bath in hopes of encouraging my cold to go away.

Please take a moment...

From the Share A Little Magic site (With thanks from EZ Rock 104.9):

To celebrate Big Brother Big Sister month, MasterCard has put forth a challenge to get 25,000 hits to this site on September 23rd. If successful, MasterCard will donate $75,000 to Big Brothers Big Sisters of Canada. On Sept 23rd, tell your friends that Magic is just a click away...at http://www.ShareaLittleMagic.ca!

yeaaaah!

Hannah has started experimenting with different constanent sounds. It is quite fun listening to her experiment with y, w and g sounds. She has become quite the chatterbox often laughing at herself after a particularity intriguing combination. Her second tooth has come in, and she is a much happier girl now. She was having a particularity rough time with the second tooth. For the last few days anyways she has been back to her usual happy self, and has discovered a new way to move around. She rocks forward putting her weight on her legs and then scooches her bum forward. I find it rather difficult to watch as I keep on expecting her to fall flat on her face.

Our renovations are finally done, and it was defiantly a learning experience. I am just glad we got everything done on time, and our tenant was able to move in without any problems. It is different sharing our house with a complete stranger, but the money is nice, and I am sure I will adjust.

Dan and I just got home from Peace River a few hours ago, and once again it is nice to be home. We met our friends Colleen, and Kara and Kelly there. It was nice to visit with them, as with everybody being so busy, we haven't seen them for anything longer then a meal in at least a year. It was a great weekend, we stayed in a hotel called the Third Mission, which was a renovated mission. Our suite had two bedrooms, a kitchen sitting area, and of course a full bath. And all that for only 125$/night.

We got home just in time to have a quick visit with Dan's parents before they headed off on their trip to Vegas. Lynne and Cliff - We hope you have a great time, and congratulations on renewing your vows. The next 25 years will surely be even more exciting then the last. I think that is everything, I will bug Dan to post some pictures of Hannah and our renovations.

We Passed!

Whew! What a relief. The city inspector came by today to check on our all-new plumbing and gave us a little green sticker indicating that the upgraded plumbing was inspected and meets city plumbing codes. We have been taking some pictures as work on the house has progressed, so hopefully we'll have some time to put them up closer to the end of the week.

For those who weren't aware, we made a snap decision to replace all of the plumbing in our house. For those of you who have had the misfortune of staying at our place, you understand why, for the rest of our readers, a brief explanation:

Prior to the 1960s, most homes were build with galvanized steel pipes - Our house was built in 1953). Over time, these pipes began to corrode, restricting the flow of water. On top of that, there were generally only a few lines that ran throughout the house and any fixtures simply tapped into this central line. As a result, the further down the line a fixture was located, the worse the pressure. As a final problem, most of the cold water fixtures were tied in BEFORE the hot-water heater, meaning the cold water fixtures had significantly more pressure than the hot (No so hot).

Okay, maybe that wasn't so brief...

In order to replace most of this old plumbing, we had to tear off the drywall from the basement bathroom and punch several holes in the upstairs bathroom - Photos of the chaos will be forthcoming.

As with any project I take on, here's where things start going haywire...

We knew that the main-line shut-off was a little finicky (i.e. leaked in some positions), but was still workable (Keyword being was). After one of our pressure tests, the shut-off insisted on dripping continually. So now I have the (mis)fortune of manufacturing a long weekend so that I can phone the city and have my water shut off from the street so I can replace the tap. With the water off, I remove the old cartridge and go to Rona (Home Depot is the Devil) to see about getting a replacement:

Rona plumbing guy: WOW! That's really old! I haven't even seen one of these in YEARS!.

Me: So you don't carry replacements?

Plumbing guy: (laughs)

Okay, so I cant replace the cartridge for the valve, so we decide to finish the job right and replace the whole works - If only I could have actually REMOVED the old valve. Darned steel pipes, who told you that you were allowed to rust up? - Guess we patch the old cartridge up and hope for the best...

When we removed the toilet from the basement, we discovered that it had been leaking into the sub-floor for quite some time. As a result, the sub-floor in the basement bathroom now needs to be replaced. (That's our current project - Also to be completed by Thursday evening)

First Tooth!

You guessed it! At a little over 8 months old, Hannah's first tooth has erupted. Despite the nearly 6 months of her chewing on absolutely everything, there is only a single tooth that has erupted, the bottom right side (so no, she's not even cross-cutting...). Perhaps this explains some of the rough nights that we've been having lately...

Hellooooo???? We're down here!

Wow, 3 weeks since our last post. Guess this little rut is more like a canyon, or perhaps even a crater... The good news is that there's nothing exciting happening in our lives right now. The bad news, there's nothing exciting happening in our lives right now. Perhaps it's the refusal to acknowledge that another (miserable) summer has come and gone, and we only finished a small fraction of the goals that we had set out to achieve. Perhaps it's just that we've grown too content in our cozy little existence. Either way, we have quite a bit coming up in the next little while, so hopefully that will help get us out of this rut...

Guilt post

I am feeling guilty for not posting in two weeks. So here I am with very little to say. Hannah had an allergist appointment last week. We found out she is allergic to eggs and milk. She however does have extremely sensitive skin, and might be getting rashes from eating things like soy, but she isn't actually allergic to it. The Dr. Is pretty confident that she will outgrow both allergies, and we will be doing a challenge in December. But for now I still can't eat milk and now eggs, and we will be weaning her onto a soy formula. She also had an appointment with an optometrist, and it turns out she does have problems with her eyes, but it isn't bad enough to warrant wearing glasses. We have an appointment to go back when she is 18 months. Hopefully her eyes have gotten better, or he may suggest glasses then. Well that is most of the news with Hannah, she has started rolling over every once and a while. She is having great fun experimenting with new sounds, her latest one kind of reminded me of a lizard, so we've been calling her lizard girl this last week. hmm I think that is it, and I don't have anything exciting that has happened to me.

It's to hot!

Edmonton is in the midst of its first heat wave this week, and I'm dreaming of air conditioners and ice baths. Since getting back from our imprompto trip to Saskatchewan on the long weekend it has been unbearably hot, and Hannah has been unbearable grumpy. I don't know what to think of her new found sleeping habits. When in her own bed she wakes up continually and wont fall back asleep without alot of work on my part. But the moment I move her to my bed she lets out a nice contented sigh and promptly falls into a deep undisturbed sleep until morning. I would like to blame this behavior on the heat, but seeing how my room is actually hotter then hers this theory doesn't really hold water. I am lost for ideas on how to get her back to sleeping in her bed, so if anybody has any suggestions please feel free to comment. I had a very enjoyable weekend visiting my family, it felt great to just get away from Edmonton and do nothing but lay around on the beach. We took Hannah swimming in the lake and while I can't say she had a great time, she didn't seem to mind the experience, despite the coldness of the water. But it's back to everyday life, cleaning, shopping (I like to shop) and taking naps with Hannah.