He's got Spark!

Me cleaning out the pantry.  Jasper too quiet.  This all adds up to the following:

A 2 year old boy with a 7 year old sister means that there are a few sparkles somewhere on his body at almost any given time.

When he sneaks into her room and dumps the sparkle containers out on the floor..well...then there are more than just a few.

This also gives a sneak peek at something we did to the second story of our home....white painted wood floors!  Surprisingly it took almost no convincing to win Geoff over to the bright side.

Jasper at 18 months

So all day yesterday I thought it was today that Jasper turned 18 months.  Nope.  Turns out today is the 28th...not the 27th like i thought!  This is the only picture I got of him yesterday.  Not very flattering but pretty typical of the stage he's been going through lately.

Gives hugs.  Throws his arms around our necks.  But he's done about 2 seconds later.
Has a big cheesy grin that scrunches up his nose when we say smile.
Shakes his head for "no" when he's about to touch something he knows he's not supposed to.
Pushes his highchair all around the dining room and playroom.
Is over the moon happy on the days that Sage is home from school.
Goes to bed at 6pm.  Wakes up at 7am.
Naps from 9:30am to 11:30am.  Goes back to crib for playtime from 2:30pm to 3:30pm.  Occasionally will fall asleep again.
Has had one cold after another.  Feels like he's had a runny nose for months.
Still screams like crazy when he's mad.  I think he picks up on all the stress that we've been under these last 8 months.
12 teeth.  4 of them being gigantic molars.
Runs to the patio door as soon as he sees Geoff pull into the driveway.  Stands there laughing until Geoff opens the door.  Then runs in the opposite direction!

17 Months

You have temper tantrums.  Unbelievable throw yourself down on the floor kicking and screaming temper tantrums.  I have no idea where you picked this up.

You LOVE to be chased.

You sleep from 6pm til 7am with at least one nap during the day.

You would eat 24 hours a day if I let you.  The only things you don't like are green beans and avocado.

You love to throw things.  You pick up a toy, raise your arm above your head and we all go running out of your way.

You couldn't care less about being told No.  I say it, you stare me down and then do what you were about to do anyways.

You love quiet time in your crib.

You never sit still.

You love being read to.

You pretend to talk on the phone now.

You play extremely well by yourself...as long as I'm in sight!

You scream bloody murder when we put you in the bath.  But once in will play happily with Sage for up to an hour.

You love it when I hold you and we dance.

Monkey Baby Shower

Geoff’s brother and his wife are having their first baby in February.  They’ve been married almost 13 years so I cannot wait til the baby gets here and they go into complete and utter shock.  hee hee.

The shower for baby boy Rex was on Saturday and I found out the week before that I would be doing the decorations.  So I tried to throw something together rather quickly and on a pretty limited budget.  I have to say, I’m pretty impressed with myself!!  The room was a small party room at the local community centre so didn’t have much ambiance but we made it work!

The baby’s room is done in a monkey theme so we went with the same theme for the shower as well.  I found the cutest ever monkey decorations from Parties by Hardie.  I purchased a pdf file through her etsy shop and it had 70 pages of the most adorable decorations to print off and put together.  I also watched a bunch of Youtube videos on how to make pom pom’s.  I didn’t find any one video that seemed to work so used bits and pieces from a few.  Once I got the hang of it they took about 15 minutes each to make.  And for each package of Dollarama tissue paper I got 4 pom’s.  Then Sage and I spent ages putting together paper chains.  That was a huge flashback to my childhood.

I had a friend (thanks Kendra!) pick this monkey (which is actually a garbage can) up for me at Target and then  I begged, borrowed and stole all the other monkeys I could find for the table centerpieces.

And when I ran out of monkeys I used bananas.  Ha!  The greenery in the vases (which were left over Ikea ones from our wedding) are branches that I sent Geoff out into the backyard to cut.

Wrapped the water bottles and made napkin rings!  The frames at each centerpiece are from Dollarama and the printouts inside are from here.  The coordinating pieces from that line are super cute too but just didn’t have the cartoon monkey look that I wanted to go for.

The Mommy-to-Be’s table.

My pom pom’s!  I am seriously so in love with these things that it’s ridiculous.  Brought them home to hang in Jasper’s room.

Made party hats for the 2 little girl’s that were invited.

The Mommy-to-Be modelling the super embarrassing hat Sage wanted to make her.

Sage helping open presents.

Now that’s a hat!

And that was that.  Now I’m exhausted.  And all crafted out.

Oh Boy

I just can’t get over how much of a boy this little guy is.  I used to think that all babies must play the same.  Nope. 

I am certain that one day I am going to end up with a concussion from one of the toys that he is constantly flinging as hard as he can out of the play area.  He thinks that doing this and climbing over whatever object is in his way are the greatest games ever.  As is evidenced by the constant bruises on his little forehead.

That was one of the offending blocks just before it was whipped at my head!

Home Day

The buses were cancelled here this morning because of fog.  Since Geoff has to leave for work at 7:20 and Sage can’t get to school before 8:40 that means she got to stay home today!  Which she was not happy about.

I actually love the days when she’s home during the week now.  Jasper is thrilled to have someone to play with besides me!
He is down for his morning nap now and she is watching The Secret Garden for the first time.  Was one of my favourite books as a kid.  So now it’s coffee and blog time for Mommy!

Today

Jasper is 14 months.  Here’s a review of what month 13 was like for us!

Playing peek-a-boo.  He hides behind a chair and pops his head out and I have to say peekaboo…over and over and over.  Or he hides behind me when I’m sitting on the floor and I have to pretend I can’t find him.
The Fisher Price Peek-a-Blocks and Incrediblock that were Sage’s.
The radio on the FP Laugh and Learn home.  Pushes the button for the music to play again as soon as it stops.
Sage’s tiny lego’s.  He stands at the barricade keeping him away and tries desperately to get out.

Head bumps! Leans in for a forehead bonk all the time.
Taking better naps now.  Up to almost 2 hours in the morning.  Still sleeping from 6pm to 7am at night.
Puffs out his chest when we tell him to stretch.
Had his first cold.  The runny nose may never stop!

Puts one foot on the carpet and the other foot on the laminate and tries to do the splits.
Walks!  Almost manages to run when he sees me coming with a kleenex to wipe his nose.
Favourite game is to put a small toy in his toy cup and shake it til the toy flies out.  Bursts out laughing everytime.

2 Months Late

Well I'm 2 months late on this but here is my update on Jasper at age 1!

Loves:

Potato Heads
Duplo Lego
Anything Sage has
Being cuddled
Mommy
Vanilla soy milk
Food - any and all.  Bring it on
Paul Frank pillow in his crib
Car rides
Being outside...but not touching the grass!
Putting things in his mouth
Peek-a-boo
Off to London, off to Lynn, off to Salem and we all fall in
Escaping from the playroom
Looking out the window
Sage!
Dancing

Hates:

Being left alone.  Unless it's in bed...put him in there and he's happy as can be

I love the way that he pulls himself up to my chair and leans his soft little cheek on my leg.  Which he always follows up my licking my knee and laughing cause he thinks he's hilarious.

I love how he licks his finger and then rubs in on Daddy.  It's like he's marking his territory.

Back to School

I never did share Sage's back to school photos here.  It's a big change in our routine this year.  Adding a baby brother to the morning mix, going everyday instead of every other day and living a lot further out of town in this rental house of ours.  Poor girl is on the bus for almost an hour each way :(

Doesn't make her any less excited about going back though!  I have no idea how Geoff and I ended up with a kid that loves school as much as she does....she's upset when vacation time rolls around!

Here she is in her head to toe H&M outfit..she insisted on the hat!

Why I Love Him

When most men run into town to pick a few things up from the grocery store and drug store what do they come home with that wasn't on the list?

A GQ magazine perhaps?  Maybe some junk food?  Probably.  This is what my husband brought home last night.

A zebra print pie lifter in the shape of a shoe.  I married exactly the right man.

A Comedy of Errors

That really is the only way that I can describe what this whole process has been like.  Without getting all worked up and put in danger of losing my mind that is.  We FINALLY get the list of our damaged contents from the restoration company and I start to notice something odd as I'm reviewing it.  I look it over again.  Nope, not just me.  All of our appliances, all of the furniture from upstairs and all of the kid's toys weren't on the list.  How on earth did they manage to forget those??  Yet one more hassle to get straightened out.  Nevermind the fact that the house was supposed to be torn down last week and when I called the insurance adjuster to find out what was going on his voicemail said he was off on vacation all week!  Needless to say we will be switching companies the second this mess is done with.  A shame really because my husband has used them for all of his needs for almost 20 years now.

And totally unrelated but too cute not to share.  She was so excited to wear skinny jeans for the first time.  She kept asking me what they were called cause they're more like a legging than a jean so I told her all the big girl's were calling them jeggings now.  Didn't believe me.

One day last week as we were getting ready for school Sage was blabbering away as usual while she ate her breakfast. She starts telling me how a little boy in her class calls her his girlfriend.."everytime when he sees me he says Hey Girlfriend". I smiled to myself thinking how cute it was that this kind of stuff had started already. 2 minutes later I'm getting out the clothes she was to wear that day and she says to me "Pick me out something sexy, I want to look like a girlfriend." Suddenly this wasn't so cute anymore!!

Fortunately for the sake of her father's heart health and my overactive imagination, this was her idea of sexy girlfriend clothes.

8:00 AM

So far this morning I have:

• made the bed
• cooked soft-boiled eggs with toast dippers
• put a load of laundry in
• built a tent over our living room furniture for Sage to play in

• knocked over a very large, very full cup of coffee all over my desk which then spilt down onto my computer, over onto the scanner and on top of a pile of pages I had pulled from scrapbooking magazines which hadn't yet made it into my inspiration book. This resulted in the use of 2 bath towels to clean up.

I'm already exhausted.