What are you grateful for?

Mylo, I am so grateful to have you in my life.

Picture by Reina Procee Photography

Right now, I'm sitting back watching you sleep. I swear, there is nothing more peaceful and innocent than watching a child sleep. You know nothing of this world and at times, I wish I didn't either. It's a scary and dangerous place but for now, you are far too young and precious to understand that.

I try to focus on the good things to come.
Playing at the park.
Bike riding.
Arts & crafts.
Traveling.
Camping.
Going to the beach.
And my favorite... family movie nights snuggling on the couch.

I know there will be a lot of hard times to come but I feel grateful that I have so much to look forward to. I hope you remember, even in the toughest times, that Mommy and Daddy will always love you.

If you live in Montreal and are looking for a photographer, you should visit my friend Reina's page. She is extremely talented and will be available after the summer.

Reina Procee Photography

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Happy 8 weeks!

8 weeks old today!

 

Blog makeover.. sort of

When you're sitting on the couch all huge and pregnant or have a screaming newborn wanting to eat your boob every 20 minutes, you tend to have some time to think. It probably won't be clearly but you have time. For instance, I thought a lot about sleep. And other stuff of course.

~ I thought about family and how we need to visit them more often. It's important that Mylo has a close relationship with his 3 grandparents, aunt and uncle who live 8 hours away.

Moments with his Grampy are important.

~ I thought about career options. Daycare is SO expensive ($1050/month/baby - ridiculous!). I need to make some decisions once my maternity leave is done come January. I could always win the lotto too.

~ I thought a lot about this blog and its direction. I'm just going to write about the things I know and love. The thing I love most right now is my son so he will be a big part of it.

So there you have it. I just realized it's 3pm and all I've eaten today is oatmeal. Time to make some food.

Introducing the newest addition to our family...

How things change in the matter of minutes. I've always wanted a family and that day finally arrived on March 12th when our baby boy was born. It's still hard to believe that I'm a mommy now.

I was a hot mess

Mylo was born weighing 9lbs 1oz. That's right, 9 pounds. Not exactly what we were expecting. I never thought I could would deliver a baby that big.

Bigger than expected

 

Looking back on my 39 week picture, it's not surprising. I was huge!

Mylo is now 6 weeks old and continues to amaze me every single day. I'm lucky to be on a "schedule" now with feedings and sleeping. It could be changing soon because I think he's starting another growth spurt. Either way, I'm just happy to be getting a few hours of sleep here and there.

The first 4 weeks were by far the toughest and most brutal 4 weeks of my life. It was hell. I know that's sounds really bad but I'm being honest. There was a whole lot to learn since we have little/no prior experience with babies. It's a scary feeling being responsible for this tiny person and not knowing what to do but we're learning and we have one happy boy!

We are so happy he's finally here.

 

I'm so in love.

I love watching him sleep. 

I love giving him kisses.

I love snuggling with him.

He is so perfect in my eyes. I have such an unconditional love for this tiny little being and my heart continues to grow every day. I'm looking forward to the journey that falls before us. Luckily I have this blog to track all the milestones so we can look back on it in the future.

- xoxo M

Weekend Update: Argo, Baby Stuff & Belly

FRIDAY

Date night! We finally watched Argo. It was well done and deserves all the hype.

A must see. History class in high school would have been way more interesting if they made movies like this.

 



 

SATURDAY

Shopping! We went to Babies "R" Us and picked up this Baby Einstein Activity Saucer. It was on sale for only $65 from $130 so we had to buy it! We also picked up this cute monkey cool mist humidifier. So cute.

 

 

 SUNDAY

#1

A week ago, someone shared this "Pregnant and Fabulous Family Fair" page on Facebook. Having never heard of it, I decided to do some research and found some information on it.

 

 

"The Pregnant & Fabulous Family Fair is produced by Okanagan4Kids, a mom-run business based in Kelowna, BC. Okanagan4Kids is the Okanagan Valley’s #1 resource for families! We provide Okanagan parents with information and resources to make parenthood fun and little less stressful."

Source

 

Well look at that! I didn't even know such a business existed in our city! Perfect timing too since I'm ready to pop any minute. The one thing that I find slightly annoying or disappointing with our city is the lack of marketing/advertising for events. Maybe I just live under a rock but I've heard it from others too. Either way, I was super happy to have stumbled upon this.

 

Some of the highlights about this family fair:

1. The admission was only $5 and we received a swag bag! Amazing.
2. Prizes. Need I say more? From spa treatments to gift cards, the vendors did not disappoint.
3. For a $5 minimum donation to the Have a Heart Radiothon, a photographer was on site to take a couple of pictures of pregnant ladies, yummy mummies, and their adorable kids. Each person will receive a free digital copy and is entered to win a photoshoot from their prospective category.
4. There were so many great vendors! It was nice to interact with various companies and get more information on products and services.
5. The entertainment was fantastic. We don't even have kids yet so that must be saying something! They had music, an eco-friendly elf, a magician, (we left before this but I've heard great things about him), face painting, balloon animals, and a play area! Any kid would be in heaven. 

Unfortuantely for me, I didn't take any pictures! It was pretty packed in there anyways. All in all, we spent about 2 hours there and it was absolutely amazing. A big thank you to Okanagan4Kids for hosting this event!

 

******************

 

#2

We attempted to make sushi. This is Mike's plate. It was more photogenic than mine.

The rice turned out way too mushy because of the rice vinegar... That or maybe it's because I forgot about the rice and overcooked it... but I'm sticking with the rice vinegar story.

 

 

 

 

#3

Almost time! 39 weeks!

 

 

 

How was your weekend?

 





DITY Challenge 1

A few days ago, I mentioned a new challenge I created for myself; The DITY Challenge.

Why the sudden challenge? Maybe I'm "nesting" or people are starting to rub off on me but I just feel like DOING stuff. Last night, I decided to start off the challenge by making my hubby a spaghetti dinner with homemade spaghetti sauce and meatballs. This is a big deal to me. I'm a soup and grilled cheese sandwhich, kraft dinner, cereal loving, non-cooking wife.

I dislike the kitchen for 2 reasons:

1. My tastebuds hate me.
2. I have no idea how to cook.
   Do you know how hard it is to cook when you can't try what you're cooking? Things end up mushy, not seasoned right, or well done. I remember the first time I cooked asparagus. You could tie them in knots. Apparently that's bad.

My husband would add "...And you make a huge mess" to that list. Thanks.

My "spaghetti dinner" was more like rotini noodles with pasta sauce and meatballs.
Close enough.

I followed this recipe from All Recipes. My changes are in pink.

Italian Spaghetti Sauce with Meatballs

Rated: Submitted By: Jeremy Photo By: F18NavyWife Prep Time: 20 Minutes Cook Time: 2 Hours Ready In: 2 Hours 20 Minutes Servings: 6

"Easy but tasty tomato sauce with big meatballs cooks in just about two hours."

Ingredients:

MEATBALLS 1 pound lean ground beef 1 cup fresh bread crumbs 1 tablespoon dried parsley 1 tablespoon grated Parmesan cheese 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper 1/8 teaspoon garlic powder 1 egg, beaten

SAUCE 3/4 cup chopped onion - added a bit more 5 cloves garlic, minced 1/4 cup olive oil 2 (28 ounce) cans whole peeled tomatoes - 1 can diced no salt/1 can crushed 2 teaspoons salt - maybe 0.5 - 1 tsp 1 teaspoon white sugar - a whole lot more 1 bay leaf 1 (6 ounce) can tomato paste 3/4 teaspoon dried basil 1/2 teaspoon pepper - none, we're out.

Directions:

1.

In a large bowl, combine ground beef, bread crumbs, parsley, Parmesan, 1/4 teaspoon black pepper, garlic powder and beaten egg. Mix well and form into 12 balls. Store, covered, in refrigerator until needed. I rolled them in flour and gave them a quick fry to seal in the juices. I read it in the review. There was something weird about putting raw meatballs in a sauce for 30 minutes.

2.

In a large saucepan over medium heat, saute onion and garlic in olive oil until onion is translucent. Stir in tomatoes, salt, sugar and bay leaf. Cover, reduce heat to low, and simmer 90 minutes. Stir in tomato paste, basil, 1/2 teaspoon pepper and meatballs and simmer 30 minutes more. Serve. ________________________________________________________________________________ Now. I can see where I went wrong here. 1. Not enough salt. Apparently, minimizing sodium content doesn't work for all recipes. 2. No pepper. Enough said. 3. I should have used either 2 cans whole tomatoes, 2 cans diced, or 2 cans crushed. In the end, the sauce was way too acidic so I threw in a bunch of sugar to cut it down. It felt like something was missing but it turned out OK. We've definitely had better but it wasn't bad. In the end, I'm just happy I made something I hadn't made before and that my husband didn't get sick. If anyone knows of a good spaghetti sauce recipe, let me know!