Phriday Photo

Last week, Clay came over to play one afternoon with Kate. Yesterday, he became a big brother.

Lots to be thankful for

Happy American Thanksgiving! I love celebrating two thanksgivings. And we have a lot to be thankful for this year.

Kate is amazing and healthy and is learning at a crazy rate these days. It's like suddenly she is absorbing things at a whole new pace. She mimics actions and sounds and closely watches everything we do.

Despite the economic downturn, we have our lovely house, Graeme has a secure job and we have everything we need.

This morning, my friend Meredith gave birth to a perfect baby girl. Everyone is doing great.

This afternoon we will enjoy turkey with some great friends.

Erika has been here for a few days and we're having a great visit.


I hope everyone who is celebrating today is having a good day.

Pie-apalooza complete

I have deliveries to make, but they are all baked. Half were delivered yesterday and once Kate naps (if she does) I'll deliver the rest.

I promise, no talk of pie for awhile.

Tomorrow, the butter hits the fan

Tomorrow is the start of pie-apalooza 2008. I have to make 7 pies tomorrow, 6 on Wednesday and 3 on Thursday morning. Plus a batch of rolls tomorrow morning. Woohoo. If no one hears from me on Thursday, someone come looking for me.

A big day

Kate took her first unassisted steps today. The first was just one to get to the chair and she didn't even notice what she did. I tried not to react much, although I did run to the phone and call Graeme. Then tonight, Graeme had her walk across the kitchen. It didn't surprise me that her first day walking she went that far - she has been ready for a long time but hasn't wanted to give up the fingers. We'll see how it goes tomorrow, I think within a few days she'll be refusing help altogether. That's our girl - stubborn about one thing and then the exact opposite thing the next day.

Phriday Photo

That's a whole lot of pastry

I just made three batches of pastry, enough for 18 pies. They are all in individual ziplocs in the freezer awaiting the pie-apalooza. I used more than 5 lbs of flour. This is kind of crazy.

Who are you, and what did you do with Kate?

Since waking from her (nearly 3 hour) nap this afternoon, our daughter has been replaced with a better version of herself. Kate is generally happy, but does fuss and gets needy as the day goes on. Not today. We went out for dinner where she was fantastic (ate the unhealthy meal of mac&cheese and some french fries). Then when we got home she played happily for 2.5+ hours with not a single fuss. She did ask to nurse a couple of times, but each time she asked nicely (even signed 'please'). It's like a better version of her. Finally, at 10 pm after no eye rubs, yawns or any sign of tiredness we decided she had to go to bed. And she got ready for bed with no fussing (even to the tooth brushing!) and fell straight to sleep.

I feel like a different person than I do most evenings. And to think she started off the day so poorly. She woke up 1.5 hours early and was fussier than normal.

Please tell me this is a new phase and not just a fluke.

Pies, cookies and squares, OH MY!

Riding the wave of motivation and inspiration from my sister, I'm starting a new business, the Austin branch of Sugarplum Fairy Homebaking. (Karen is the founding Ottawa branch)

If you don't like to bake or simply don't have the time, let us do it for you! We love to bake and we're darn good at it. We will deliver your Thanksgiving or Christmas baking (shh, we won't tell that you didn't make it yourself) to your door.

We bake all of the pies, cookies, squares and tarts (or whatever you fancy) ourselves in our own kitchen. We have a huge variety of recipes; something that will suit everyone's tastes.

Specialties include:

- pumpkin, pecan and French Canadian apple pie
- our family's traditional Scottish shortbread (it melts in your mouth)
- a variety of Christmas cookies that could include: sugar cookies, gingersnaps, toffee snowballs, thumbprint cookies, chocolate orange biscotti just to name a few
- a few different types of squares

We can customize to your tastes and needs. Our baking contains no margarine, shortening or corn syrup. Just ingredients that your great-grandmother would have used. Organic goodies are also available.

Please leave a comment on the blog with your email and I'll be happy to get back to you as soon as possible. You can also contact me by phone at 512-769-3391.

I can do it myself

That is Kate's theme these days. She wants to do everything herself, especially feed herself. Here she is very proud of herself and her mac & cheese eating skills.

Sorry for radio silence

My computer is awaiting a new hard drive after a fall a few days ago. I have some great video to post once it's back up and running.

What the hell is going on?

Kate was up four times last night. Two of them were very brief - she calmed down as soon as I entered her room. The other two took a lot longer, and finally required the boob. I have no idea what was going on. The temperature in her room was good, She went to bed at her normal time, she ate dinner (as much as usual, anyway). She doesn't seem to be sick at all. The only thing I can think of is that some teeth are on their way, although there isn't much evidence of that either.

I hope tonight is better.

Phriday Photo

Around and around

She still isn't doing it on her own, but she goes around and around and around:

Woohoo!

We are soooo excited over here. Obama will be the next president. So excited. So happy to have an intelligent, thoughtful man as president. We can feel proud again. It's been many years of embarrassment.

WOOHOO!

Go Vote!

It's finally here. I am cautiously optimistic and anxiously awaiting results tonight. I'm going to stay busy today to keep from obsessively watching the news online.

The conclusion

As Karen indicated in comments below, the rat met it's demise last night. I was feeling really stressed about the whole thing, so it's a huge relief to have it gone.

A visitor in the house

Last weekend we went out for a few hours and left the back door open so that Westley could go in and out while we were away. Shortly after we got home, we heard a strange noise from under the stove. It was clear that something had snuck in through the door while we were out. There was no activity for a few nights, but finally there was the evidence of a partially eaten apple. It would be nice to think it's a mouse, but if you have rats, you don't have mice.

The following night I set some traps but had no luck. But there was evidence that the visitor had been in Kate's room. I wasn't ok with having a rat around before that, but when I knew it was going in Kate's room, it was really, really not ok.

Last night we blocked the space under Kate's door so that it couldn't get in there, and instead I was woken up many times by the awful creature making noises in our room or the kitchen. Kate slept really well, but the rat kept me up instead. Tonight, there is no food out at all (last night it destroyed a cantaloupe I forgot to put away) but reset traps with some new bait. Ad we'll be blocking our door as well. If this doesn't work, we're going to have to think of something else. I don't want to resort to poison, but I also don't want a rat in our house.

Gross.

The house is sealed against pests. This one only got in because we left the door open. Which means it also can't get out. This isn't going to end well for the rat.