(sort of) Flashback Friday

For this week's Flashback Friday, we'll be going all the way back to... wait for it... Christmas. Of 2009. Yeah, a whole month and a half ago. Lame, right? I know. But I didn't get the chance to blog anything about our Christmas and really don't want to put it off any longer and thought it would be a good chance to play along with Tia and Alicia.

And this isn't the only Christmas post in the works. Oh no. I'm going to subject you all to MANY Christmas posts, here in almost the month of February the month of January. Will you indulge me? If not, check back next week when I will have hopefully gotten it all out of my system and off my hard drive.

First off, I've been dying to show you this garland I made out of old flyers (fliers? which is it??). I got the idea from a 4th of July craft over at Martha Stewart (however hers were solid red, white and blue and made out of fabric if I remember correctly). These took no time at all to make and, since I couldn't find any string/twine/ribbon, I just strung them together using extra ornament hooks. I could've gone all out redneck but we were out of duct tape and, besides, I was going for a classy look.

See those little ornaments hanging from the lamp on the right? My sisters and I made those in 1986. They're metal frames that we put little plastic balls into, then put in the oven to melt. Anyone else make those? They're a little worse for wear after 23 Christmases, but still totally cute.

And notice how the tree is up on a table? Yeah. Andrew can walk. Nuff said. I sort of missed having a BIG tree to decorate, but I DIDN'T miss constantly RE-decorating the tree, finding missing hooks, and wondering when Andrew would succeed in pulling the whole thing down on top of himself.

 I also made a few smaller stars/poinsettias to hang on the tree and on some garland over our bookshelf. Cute, right? Right.

My little Ecuadorian village and two nativity sets, also from Ecuador.

Our tree (with one of my little elves hiding behind it).

Peter had tried to convince me not to bother with the decorations this year. We never decorate until after Simon's birthday party (which was held November 28th) because we want that time to be about him, and we were leaving for Regina December 14th, so it didn't leave a whole lot of time to actually enjoy the fruit of our labours. However in the end the spirit of Christmas (ie, me) won out. It still was a lot of work, but what's Christmas without the tree and decorations and lights and having to sweep up artificial Christmas tree "needles" for months afterwards??

For more Flashback fun, visit Tia's Flashback Friday and Alicia's Friday Photo Flashback. Both are lots of fun. 


(And check out Tia's sexy new butt! I mean bottom! I mean BUTTON! Button! Check out Tia's new BUTTON! Geez, Amy.)


P.S. I know this is late. I fell asleep at 9pm last night putting Andrew to bed and didn't get up to post this.  I'd been up late Thursday night seeing Avatar with some girl friends. It was super good in an Imax-3D-suspended-disbelief kinda way. Actually, I loved it and can't wait until my boys are old enough to see it. It was like Ferngully (remember Ferngully??) and GI Joe's love child. 

gatineau ottawa newborn photography {baby D}

Anybody want to see a CUUUUTE baby?? Introducing baby D, the newest addition to the Two Hands Full family. After meeting Chantal once or twice at blogger meet ups this summer, connecting through each other's blogs, and chatting on Twitter (she's @twohandsfull), I decided to put my camera and my hopefully-improving-photography skills to good use and offer her a portrait session.

Now when D's asleep, HE. IS. ASLEEP. However when awake, he was interested in nursing and only nursing. The images of Chantal breastfeeding D are some of my favourites, knowing how hard she's fought to be able to exclusively breastfeed this new babe. He's one lucky boy to have such a strong, determined mama.

 

      

What a beautiful bunch of boys, eh?

Most of these pictures were taken while all five other boys (her two and my three, ages 8, 6, 4, 3, 1) were playing together marvellously in the basement. Simon couldn't remember the name of M, the little guy on the right, so repeatedly asked about "my friend" the rest of the evening.

Newborn portraits are definitely a exercise in patience. Moving and posing them carefully, waiting for them to fall (back) asleep, nursing breaks, diaper changes... it all adds to the unpredictable nature of these types of shoots. And even though I've had my share of practice holding newborns (Hello! I've had FOUR!), I'm still a bit unsure when it comes to posing and photographing them. Although with two shoots in the last week and another hopefully this Friday, I'm getting lots of practice.

Oh, before I forget (again), one of my Ottawa-area readers sent me an email back in early December (I think) asking about a newborn session, and I cannot FOR THE LIFE OF ME find the email. A Christine or Kristin or something I think?? If that was you, my sincerest apologies! If you can forgive me and are still interested, send me another email and we'll work something out.

how would you handle this?

The following exchange happens hourly at our house. Several times hourly, in fact.

Simon: Mummy?

Me: Yes?

Simon: Mummy?

Me: What?

Simon: Mummy?

Me: What??

Simon: Mummy?

Me: WHAT!?

Simon: Mummy?

Me: WHAT!!!

That last one is me SCREAMING at him. I just can't take it. If I don't respond with a "yes" or a "what", he just yells, "Mummymummymummy..." and starts crying that "you're not lidining (listeninging) to meeeeeeeeee!" or "but you're not andwering (answering) meeeeeeee!".

But when I DO respond, HE doesn't listen. It drives me to distraction and makes Peter seriously crazy. If it happened once or twice or even a few times a day, that would be one thing. But it's EVERY TIME HE OPENS HIS MOUTH to say/ask/demand/tell me anything. ANYTHING.

Do you think it could be his hearing?? He has his yearly check up next Thursday and I'll definitely be mentioning it, but I'm at a loss as to what to do until then. Every time I yell or scream at him, I regret it immediately afterwards, but it's often the only thing that will stop the cycle.

Any other ideas??

ETA: Thanks for all who replied here, by emails and on Twitter. Definitely some of the time it's because I have been ignoring him or am preoccupied with someone/something else. Some of the times I'm not looking at him when I respond. But in the case above that happened right before I wrote the post. I was standing not five feet away from him, starring RIGHT AT HIM. That's why it's so maddening!

Another conversation we had later today went like this:

Simon: Mummy, we are hungry.

Me (standing at the counter): Okay sweetheart, I'm making your lunch right now.

Simon: Mummy! WE. ARE. HUNGRY!

Me: Simon. I said I'm making lunch right now.

Simon: Mummy! You are not answering me!

Me (turning to him and putting my nose inches from his) : Simon! I just answered you TWO TIMES and told you I'm making your lunch RIGHT NOW. I did answer you. You're not listening to mummy.

Simon: Oh. I didn't hear you.

He says he didn't hear us quite often, which is why I wonder if he actually has a problem with his hearing. However, it might very well be that he's just making excuses. I haven't ruled either option out yet.

first snow play

 

  

For more Wordless Wednesdays, head over to 5 Minutes for Mom, 7 Clown Circus, and Wordless Wednesday.

Show me the magic!

A few years ago, there were some emails going around the net telling stories of children who had been badly burned by Mr. Clean Magic Erasers. I'm pretty sure that Snoops.com disproved the rumours (they were actually about a different type of scrubbing pad), but I've remained leery of them. These "magic" erasers seemed too good to be true... What exactly is in them that makes them work so well? 

Enter our increasing shift towards more green and eco-friendly personal care and cleaning products, these mysterious and magically effective cleaning pads became unwelcome entities under our kitchen sink. They got the pitch in early 2007 when Simon was still a newborn.

Unfortunately, that newborn grew into a toddler who likes to colour on walls.

After several valiant attempts to clean the walls, using admirable amounts of elbow grease and a small arsenal of green cleaning products, with tired elbows and pleading eyes, we turned once more to the Magical Mr Clean.

And he did not disappoint.

This morning, I discovered that Magic Erasers are also great for cleaning marker off of iBook covers.

Don't ask me how I know that...

Ask Andrew.

Apparently drawing on plain old walls is SO. LAST. DECADE. This new set of trouble makers toddlers prefers expensive electronics* as their canvas.

Where was I when this computer colouring was going on Peter you may be asking? First off, I was only gone for a second, and not far. In the time it took Liam and I to walk to the kitchen to see if his 3 dimensional salt dough map of Egypt was dry, Andrew managed to pull himself up onto the chair of Liam's desk, to where the laptop was sitting. Kid is fast! Second, I have no idea where he got the marker. It's an old, odd one from who-knows-where.

I guess that's where the real magic lies... A magically quick and nibble one year old and a magically appearing marker.

Magic is clearly the ONLY EXPLANATION.

Wondering what Liam liked to colour on as a young lad? Check out this video from October 4th, 2007, when Liam was 4 years old and Simon was 10 months:

Aw, listen to his squeaky little voice! AND CHECK OUT THAT HAIR!

*The "expensive electronic" was actually a 10 year old iBook that we brought back from Regina. It hadn't even been turned on in almost two years. We were never sure if it was the screen that died, some internal wiring, or just a faulty power cord that was preventing the thing to charge. So I found a new power cord on ebay for $11 (including shipping) and the thing works perfectly. Mac really knows how to build them! We only use it for email and internet and a couple of the boys' games, which even at 10 years old, it can handle easily. Plus it only "cost" $11! Wishing you'd kept it now, Lynette??

i heart faces (week 3) - We Are Family!

The theme this week at i heart faces is "We Are Family!". I figured that this image, taken yesterday, of this newly-added-to family would fit the bill nicely. I love how lovingly attentive the parents (friends of ours) are in this picture, because that's exactly how they are in real life.

(Baby was yawning, not crying. Sweet, sleepy boy.)

For more family shots, visit i heart faces.

a decades-long love affair

As I mentioned the other day, we were without a computer for almost two weeks. Not being able to blog, I spent a fair bit of time thinking about blogging, and more specifically what my goals and motives are for this blog. As amazing as it would be to actually make money blogging, I am one in millions in this big bloggy pond and I'm no Heather Armstrong. More importantly, I started this blog as a place to record our life and store some of our memories.

Trying to "market" it kind of takes away from that. Plus it takes too much time (and I already spend enough time online). I want this blog to be a place where I can write for me and where I can tell stories that I think my boys will like to read someday. Stories about themselves, stories about our family, things we went through, events that got us to where we are, and the little things that will give them insight into who they are and where they came from.

Like the story of their grandpa and his love affair with Apple computers.

* * * * * * * * * *

My dad was a huge Mac fan. HUGE. Addict even. We often heard him proudly tell how, in 1984, he bought the first Macintosh computer ever sold in the province of Saskatchewan (That would be the original Apple Macintosh. The one with the 9" screen. NINE INCHES!). He lined up for it.

While it wasn't necessarily marketed as a "portable" computer, it did come with a carrying case. A carrying case that my 6 year old sister and I (at 4 1/2) could both sit in comfortably. Convenient, I suppose. Impressive at the time, I'm sure. Portable? Not so much.

This is the same computer that I took to college in 1997. It was a dinosaur even then.

In the early 90's, he bought a Mac PowerBook (I'm not sure which one), one of Mac's first professional line of laptop computers. This ergonomic breakthrough had -wait for it- PALM RESTS. And a track ball. Be still my heart. It was a heavy little beast too.

I have fond memories of driving through West Glacier National Park in '96, not starring at the beauty around me, but intent on making it to the next level of Tetris on my dad's PowerBook. And feeling rather cool to be playing a computer while driving in the van, no doubt.

The old PowerBook was put through its paces for most of a decade -my dad taking apart the tracking ball and rebuilding it several times- until he brought home one of the clamshell iBook G3s in 2000. Although the blueberry Bondi blue colour was somewhat less professional than what he was after, his three daughters were pretty mad about it. The fun shape, the bright colours paired with clear plastic, THE CARRYING HANDLE... what more could you ask for?

That same year, he bought my just-married sister one of the newly introduced iMac desktop models. The first all-in-one computer (it was the grape colour) with its matching keyboard and hockey puck mouse, he just couldn't pass up the deal he found one day on a floor model.

Sometime in '03, after unsuccessfully attempting to replace the keyboard himself -and frying the motherboard in the process- the iBook G3 was succeed by a gleaming white iBook G4. My dad opted to have an AirPort card installed, and thus ushered in the era of wireless internet for our family.

With its happily glowing white apple logo on the back of the case, this laptop drew high praise from the then-toddlers in the family. This was also the Mac that introduced our family to two of the boys' now-favorite games: Gold Miner Joe and Tasty Planet (or "Grey Goo" as it's known around here).

In 2006, my dad purchased the last Mac computer he would buy before his death in Dec 2008. It was one of the original MacBook Pro laptops. This was Mac's first laptop designed with an aluminum body and it's sleek design seemed lightyears away from that old blueberry clamshell. It's a shame that he only got to use it for, really, a year and a half before he became seriously ill. Four years after its introduction, it still seems impressively brand new. Great design never gets old.

In the last 25 years of my dad's life, he bought and loved six Mac computers (there might even be one I missed somewhere in the '90s... I seem to remember one with a little green rubber button thing between the 'G' and 'H' keys in place of a mouse? Anyone remember that?).

Quite the love story. A boy and his toys. A man and his Macs.

* * * * * * * * * *

So now after almost 10 years of marriage and two PCs ("slumming it" as my dad would say), this iMac purchase feels like I've come full circle. Back to my roots. Back to that happy little apple with the bite taken out of it that was daily a part of my childhood.

And I'm pretty sure that, where ever my dad is, he's smiling a little bigger right now.

(no title)

I had a post all ready to go for today, with a bit more poetic waxing about our new baby iMac, but it seems completely inappropriate to post in light of the what happened in Haiti yesterday. An already insurmountably impoverished nation, hit by hurricane after hurricane in 2008, reports are saying there's barely a building standing after yesterday's earthquake. How much more can those people take? How they will rebuild is mind boggling. Heartbreakingly so.

Here's a great post with six ways you can help in Haiti. And if you read through the comments, there are many other ways listed as well.

Our problems here in Canada and the US are so trivial in comparison to what so many others face. We complain about the weather, politics, healthcare, our weight, our kids' behaviour, our spouses' jobs. What First World problems! We are not facing drought or famine, our governments are not corrupt, there are actually doctors we can see, we have enough food, we haven't had to bury several babies who have died from curable diseases, our husbands haven't been killed in civil war or other armed conflicts. I've said it before and I'll say it again... We are so lucky.

It's hard not to feel all of our "problems" are completely insignificant in light of reports like this and this and this.

it seems we have the attention spans of OH LOOK, SOMETHING SHINY!

And that something shiny just happens to be a shiny, lovely, amazingly designed and artfully crafted brand spanking new, iMac.

The general busyness and hubbub of the holiday season notwithstanding, it's been pretty quiet on the ol' blog front as of late. This was certainly due in large part to said general busyness and hubbub of the holiday season, however it was also very much to do with a certain laptop computer that suddenly gave up the ghost. What we hoped was a mere (mere!) corrupt Windows file turned out to be more of the your-hard-drive-is-completely-toast kind of a problem.

Even before the Mighty Crash of 2009, we'd been scanning the fliers weekly and reading various online review sites in an effort to prepare ourselves for what we felt was quickly coming (ie. our computer dying). This premonition of pending doom did not, however, lead us to backup our files. No, that would've been too proactive. at all since early October (related: BACKUP YOUR STUFF, folks!). Opening your computer to a screen void of anything except a simply yet ominous error message is enough to strike terror into the heart of even the most seasoned computer user. ESPECIALLY ONE WHO HASN'T BACKED UP THEIR FILES FOR MONTHS.

For those who don't know, I take lots of pictures. I know I'm lazy about posting them, but trust me, I take them. A lot of them. I'd even done a few photo sessions in that time -for friends (of the non-paying sort *wink*), but still. I should have backed them up. I should have known better.

Lesson learned.

All that to say that we found ourselves faced with buying a new computer a bit sooner than expected (ie, before getting our tax return). We did a bit more reading, visited a few stores, talked to friends and sales people, then sat down to crunch some numbers.

At one end, the more basic PC model that was suggested to us that would have easily met our needs, in (what we thought was) the middle a PC with upgraded memory and video card, and at the far end of the spectrum -tantalizingly out of our reach- the iMac.

The something shiny.

We knew it would be easy to talk ourselves into a Mac and all the delicious features it has to offer, but felt the price difference was just not justifiable. Although we did manage to pay off all of our non-house/ non-van related debt last year, we are always conscious of how important it is to be good stewards of our money (we are a one income family after all). But because a PC purchase would also require the purchase of the MS Office suite AND yearly anti-virus protection, the difference between the budget model and the iMac ended up being less than $100.

In a lame attempt to make this already long story less long, it is suffice to say that we are now the proud and loving owners of a new iMac. The honeymoon period is still in full swing and we are head over heels in love with this beauty. No sooner did we plug this baby in than our old faithful Dell was completely forgotten amid a chorus of oohs and aahs and is-it-my-turn-yets.

Clearly we are a fickle bunch.

And to prove it, here's a love letter drawing I found in Liam's notebook yesterday:

We're all smitten.

Now back to blogging.

one year old

From this,

taken Jan 3rd, 2009 (only a few hours old)

to this,

taken April 2nd, 2009 (three months old)

to this,

taken July 4th, 2009 (six months old)

to this,

taken October 8th, 2009 (nine months old)

to this,

PICTURE TO COME

taken January 3rd, 2010 (one year old!)

Andrew, you are a wonderful little boy. Your birth was definitely the most intense moment of your life (and mine!!), because since that time, your laid back personality has become more apparent every day. That's not to say that you aren't capable of strong or intense emotion, but for the most part, you are a calm, happy little person.

You wake up smiling, ready for a day of play and looking forward to the moment your brothers will come bounding into the room to greet you. That's if you don't slide out of bed to stand at the door, banging until someone comes to open for you.

The rest of the day, you are generally happy to toddle around the living room while Liam does school, watching out the window and eating any bits of food you might find on the floor (good thing we held off on that dog or you'd have some competition). You love when your brothers decide to make a game out of crawling around the furniture and under the curtains with you. You squeal when we pretend to chase you. You give the biggest, BEST hugs.

We kinda think you're trying to trick us into thinking we could handle another baby...

Andrew, this year of firsts -first smiles, first giggles, first teeth, first steps- HAS. BEEN. WONDERFUL. Watching you grow and change and learn has been nothing short of amazing. We are blessed daily by your sweet presence, your easy smile, your twinkling eyes, and your tight little hugs.

You are a gift.

We love you.

Happy 1st Birthday, Monkey.

P.S. While I'd appreciate it if you'd stop growing and changing so quickly, you are more than welcome to start sleeping like a normal one year old. You've been nursing like a newborn the past three nights AND I AM WIPED OUT.