Fun with the green garbage bin...

And the green bin saga continues...I thought we didn't need to use the bin liner bags in our big green garbage bin. Result = green garbage frozen to the bin, and the garbage truck didn't take it away a few weeks ago. Therefore, after my MIL worked to get all the frozen garbage out of the bin while we were away (I know, I do have the best MIL in the world), the green bin is now lined with a large garden wate bag. Today's result = most green garbage left with the truck. Almost empty garden bag = frozen to the frozen garbage in bottom of bin. Could have been worse, but man, I almost had a freakout when I saw the bag still hanging out of the bin. I mean, there are only so many times you can go without having the green garbage taken away :) Next challenge: getting the City of Ottawa to respond to my request for a new bin for free because the truck broke ours ages ago. Good luck to me!

11 months old and Christmas

(If the formatting is not good for those of you reading this post on FB, please check out the original post)

As you can see, I have a bunch of blogging catch-up to do.  As usual, really.  Anyway, Christmas was a
pretty eventful day...there's the obvious, of presents, little kid excitement, LOTS of yummy food, and family. Along with all of that, a certain little miss turned 11 months old.  Crazy hard to believe, it is!

11 months old at Christmas dinner

Micaela at 11 months old is definitely coming into her own. She is crawling, climbing stairs (constantly, much to our chagrin), pulling up to standing and letting go for a few seconds at a time, saying a few words and phrases - "uh oh!" is a favourite. Middle-of-the-night sleep training has begun...it is a little rough right now, but I am still hopeful that she will be sleeping in her crib for the whole night by the time I go back to work...in less than 2 weeks! She has also started going to daycare pretty much full-time. She cries like crazy when I leave, with tears and snot everywhere, but she is reportedly doing pretty well settling in, eating big-kid food on her own and napping in the playpen. She loves it when they go outside to play and even cried yesterday when she got the 5-minute warning that it was time to go in. What a monkey! :)

So Christmas this year was a ton of fun. Avery had a much better idea of what was going on and knew that Santa was coming and would bring her presents. And boy did she get a lot of presents! Too much really, and I think one of my tasks in the next couple of weeks will be to do a toy sort and put away some of them to pull out later in the year. And also find some to give away. At any rate, she was pretty excited about most of the things she got, but the favourites had to have been the princess dress-up treasure chest, the princess shoes and the cash register. Here's a video of when she was opening the shoes:

In case you didn't hear it, she said "oh my..." when she figured out what they were :)

 

Opening stockings

Opening stockings

With regard to the "too many presents" issue, I was asking my mom what it was like when Dan and I were kids. I have distinct memories of not getting as many presents as a lot of my other friends - not that we lacked for anything, but it just seemed like most of them got a pile, while we got something big, and then a few other little things and clothes. And I finally figured out why...we didn't get presents from our extended family. My mom's whole side lives in Switzerland, so we typically didn't exchange presents with them. And my dad's side wasn't really into present-giving for various reasons, so basically we received presents only from our little family of 4. And please don't think I am complaining, but it just all became really clear when I saw the ridiculous amount of stuff under the tree on Christmas morning.  I guess it doesn't help that there aren't very many grandchildren/nieces/nephews on either side of our families, and people really like to buy presents for little kids.  I enjoyed shopping for our little nephew Jacob! :) Anyway, next year we will have to come up with some sort of strategy, because this year was really too much. That being said, thank you to everyone for all of the presents, from the girls and from Greg and I too. Christmas 2010 was definitely one to remember!

Another Avery funny

Happy 2011 to everyone! There are many posts planned, mostly to catch up and close out 2010, but here is a cute little story from today:

During "naptime" when Avery was (supposed to be) "resting", I peaked into her room to see what she was up to.  She had one of her books open on her bed and she was running circles around it and saying "Jump!" (you know, because we totally approve of her jumping on her bed.) Anyway, I stood there watching her for a while and when she finally noticed I was there, she got quite a guilty look on her face.  I asked her what she was doing and she said matter-of-factly, "I'm jumping into the storybook."  I had to think for a moment, and then said, "...Oh. Like Dora, right?" Then we had to have a little talk about how some of the things Dora does are just pretend, and that she should just pretend too. I'm sure she grasped everything I said...now I'm just waiting for the day when she tries to handle a baby alligator the way Diego and Alicia taught her to. :)

10 months old...

Micaela is now 10 months old (actually 10 months and a week old already).  She is officially crawling, trying to pull herself up to standing, getting into things she shouldn't be (i.e. eating rocks out of the planters - maybe she saw Connor eating rocks one too many times!), and eating more and more real food.  She does still enjoy her pureed goodness though. She has her two front bottom teeth, and I think one of the top front ones is on the way.

Mikes seems to be starting to say some words...we could have sworn she has said "Avery" in one form or another a few times, as well as Dada, Mama, and maybe dog.

She is a pretty happy kid, though it seems that teething takes a lot out of her. She is a good napper, and a good night sleeper until about 1am when she wakes up pretty determined not to sleep in her crib. This habit is not helped by mommy and daddy's lack of will to make her sleep in her crib, so she sleeps the rest of the night with us...But I have a plan! The first two weeks in January are going to be "cut the cord" time - when we will work on a little sleep-training with her. She doesn't really know this yet, so I figure we'll let her have a nice Christmas before breaking it to her on Jan 3rd-ish.  Which will coincide quite conveniently with her more-or-less full-time start at daycare.  Should be fun times! :)

One thing that occurred to me the other day...this was basically the age at which I went back to work after being on maternity leave with Avery. This time around I can't imagine not having this last 1.5 months.  And boy do I plan on enjoying it! With the kids, of course... :)