Trick or Treat

Tonight was Halloween so we took Juliet trick or treating for the first time.  Well, not really.  We drove over to Chrissy and Trevor's and just trick or treated there.  And to be honest with you, even though Juliet was the one in costume, Leo and I ate the candy.  Such bad parents!

That's Chrissy's hand beside Juliet.  Chrissy was surprised to see us at her door but happy to see Juliet in her pink cat costume.

Juliet promptly fell asleep in the car on the way back from Chrissy's.  Which was nice because she hasn't been sleeping well lately.

Now that the countdown is on for our move to the new house, our weekends have become busier.  On Friday, grandpa came over to fix up some things in our condo to get ready for the move.  But he wasn't too busy to spend some quality time with Juliet.

I love this picture.

 On Saturday night, Leo and I went out for our anniversary dinner (3 years) and grandma came over to watch Juliet.  This is probably the longest I've been away from her - a little over 3 hours.  It ended up working out quite well and we had a lovely dinner at the same place where we had our pre-wedding dinner (the restaurant is called Wine Bar).  Grandma reported that Juliet was well behaved and ate some oatmeal cereal and had a little bit of expressed breastmilk from a sippy cup, so she wasn't starving or anything when we got home.  Grandma snapped some pics of her while she was babysitting:

Juliet has been sticking her tongue out and making a "THPPTPHTPHPHHPH" sound (classy, I know), so this picture is very à propos.

And on Sunday, we visited our house!  We went there with the guy who is doing our carpets so that he could take some measurements.  The lady that currently owns the house was there and she of course was so excited to see Juliet again - the last time she saw Juliet was the day we bought the house.  And we all know that Juliet was the one who sealed the deal.  Thanks, Juliet!  I hope you like our house when you grow up.

Juliet with Winkie, the lady who sold us our house.

Our Little Pumpkin

Ok, it's a bit early for Halloween, but in today's photo, Juliet is wearing an adorable Halloween sleeper that was given to her by her Great Aunt Pat.  It's really cute - it has little pumpkins on the feet, a big pumpkin on the bum, and a matching pumpkin hat.

The picture was taken this past weekend when we were visiting Anjana at her house in Waterloo.

Today was another busy day.  Juliet and I went to Yorkdale initially just to kill some time but we ended up going to the Bell kiosk and setting up all of our services (phone, internet, TV) for our new house.  Now that Bell bought the company I work for, I get a decent discount so it's Bell all the way for all of our services.  After that we went to Home Outfitters and bought some new sheets for our new king bed.  I wanted a second set of sheets, but they were all out of the ones I wanted so we ended up driving to another Home Outfitters in Scarborough so I could get the sheets.  Somehow between the Bell stuff and the Home Outfitters stuff, that took up the whole day AND I'm exhausted.  Oh, mat leave.  Somehow so simple yet so exhausting!

Toes

At my mommy group a couple of weeks ago, we had a professional photographer come in and give us some tips for taking pictures of our babies.  She also took a few shots of each mother and baby.  Well, today she sent out the pictures and they turned out quite well - I think I may print and frame a couple of these. 

You'll have to take my word for it that the third picture is of Juliet's toes, not some other baby's toes!  My friend Sylwia is also in the mommy group so I've posted a picture of her and her son Gabriel as well.  Gabriel looks so serious and thoughtful in the picture.

Meow!

Today was a busy day for me and Juliet.  I had a dentist appointment in the morning, and frankly I wasn't quite sure what to do with Juliet.  The receptionist told me to bring Juliet with me and she would look after her, but I knew that if I heard Juliet fussing while I was getting my teeth cleaned that it just wouldn't work.  So I had an idea to ask my friend Jim if he would watch her.  He lives right across the street from my dentist and could just take her for a walk in the stroller while I was at my appointment.  Jim agreed to the idea and everything went well.  He was a little nervous that she would start crying while under his care, but she ended up just sleeping in the stroller the entire time.  The weather turned cold this morning and I have found that the cool air tends to put her to sleep.

After my dentist appointment, we all went out to lunch at a local diner.

Jim and Juliet had a great time together (even though she slept the whole time he was taking care of her).

Afterwards, Juliet and I went to our mommy group and we had a little Halloween party and the babies dressed up in costumes.  Juliet was a pink cat.  She was very cute!

"Butters, can we be friends now that I'm a cat too?"

Last night Leo was holding Juliet and throwing her up in the air (carefully!).  We've found that she seems to like danger - she likes to be bounced on the bed, thrown up in the air, and she now jumps really hard on the Jolly Jumper.  Maybe she'll grow up to be a stuntwoman.

This is right after Leo was throwing her up in the air.

Juliet, it's not polite to stick your tongue out at your blog readers!

Second Tooth

So Juliet is now getting her second tooth!  I didn't know it would come so soon after the first, but we now see two little teeth peeking through her bottom middle gums.  She doesn't seem overly bothered by it, which is good.  She still hasn't been sleeping very many hours (in a row or in total) but she hasn't been any fussier than usual.  We've also started having her sleep in her crib in her own room rather than in the bassinet in our room, so that's been a transition for her as well.

Juliet and I been pretty busy lately with all the things relating to the new house.  Last week we went to Home Depot one day and to Ikea another day.  On the weekend, the carpet guy came over to give us a quote.  And anytime Juliet naps is my time to tackle the "to-do" list related to the house - i.e. get home insurance quotes, set up accounts with the utilities companies, etc.

Juliet looked so little in the big IKEA warehouse.

We continue to try Juliet on solid foods.  This past week we gave her oatmeal cereal for the first time and she seemed to like it a little better than the rice cereal.  There still wasn't a huge reaction (like, "GIVE ME MORE!") but she seemed to eat it without any issues.

Leo feeds Juliet oatmeal cereal for the first time.



First Tooth

Last week Juliet and I spent almost the entire week at Oma's.  I drove there with her on Wednesday and Leo took the train there after work on Friday.  All 3 of us were there for the weekend when we had our Thanksgiving dinner with Leo's side of the family.  Juliet was pretty good in the car both on the way there and the way back - she fussed for maybe 20 minutes out of the 3 hour drive, but that's pretty good.

While we were at Oma's, I noticed that Juliet has sprouted her first tooth!  It's on the bottom middle.  I had my finger in her mouth and felt something sharp, and then I took a closer look and saw that it's just starting to peek through.  She hasn't been especially fussy, so I didn't even know she was teething except for the fact that she was especially drooly (thus her nickname - Goober) about 6 weeks ago.  I've read that the typical time for babies to get their first tooth is at 6 months, so our Guber is a little ahead of the game (5 months and a week).

Another first was that we tried her on rice cereal for the first time while we were at Oma's.  We mixed it - maybe only a teaspoon sized amount - with a little breast milk and then Oma fed it to Juliet with the same spoon as she used to feed Leo nearly 33 years ago.  Neat, eh?  Juliet's reaction was her typical one - she was kind of indifferent.  She didn't hate it or turn her head away, but she wasn't like, "wow, this stuff is fantastic!  Give me more!".  She didn't seem to have any reaction so we'll be able to continue giving it to her and also try her on other types of cereal like oatmeal.  According to our doctor, the feeding of solids at this point is more to teach her about eating as opposed to getting calories into her or replacing breast milk.

"Look, I'm holding daddy's old spoon!"

"Mmmmm...rice cereal is so bland"

Here are some other pictures from our week at Oma's:

Oma shows Juliet bubbles.

Juliet sleeps on Oma.

Maybe it's a function of teething, but lately Juliet has been gumming our faces whenever we hold her close to our face.  In this instance she was gumming Leo's nose.

This is Juliet with her Great Nana and her Great Great aunt Edna Anne.  This picture was taken with my camera while Leo and I were out.  I guess they thought it would be funny to pretend to give Juliet some beer!



That gummy smile is going to become a toothy grin pretty soon.  I kind of miss it already :(



Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving!  This past weekend was Thanksgiving and Juliet's grandma (my mom) held a Thanksgiving dinner at her house.  Aunt Cathy and Uncle Marcelo were there, as were grandpa and Aunt Shona.  We joked that it was sort of like our version of 'Modern Family' since my parents are divorced but are obviously still able to maintain a friendship and get together on special occasions like Thanksgiving.  It was a great time!

Leo tends to Juliet in the swing as we prepared to start our feast.

Aunt Shona spent quite a bit of time holding Juliet.

Now I'm going to go all Memento and tell you about what Juliet was up to in the week leading up to Thanksgiving.  Leo was away on business most of the week.  As I've mentioned, Juliet doesn't really nap very much during the day, so it makes for a long day and I always look forward to when Leo comes home from work.  So with him gone, I decided to stay with Juliet's grandma so that I could have some help.  Grandma lives in the suburbs, so I had to find some suburban things to do.

Here we are at the Zellers Restaurant.  Now that we're buying a house we have to pinch those pennies!

When Leo got home from his business trip we went for dinner at a local pub.  I think Juliet had one too many, she looks pretty drunk here.  This was taken right after she made a bit of a scene.  (I'm joking - please don't call CAS on us) :)

On Saturday we went to a couple of carpet stores since that is one of the few things we plan on changing before we move into our new house.

Pictured here: the easiest people to sell to - a couple with a young baby. 

Randomly, Juliet is getting pretty good at tummy time.  I keep trying to get her to flip back to her back, but she hasn't done it yet.  I got this cute pic of her doing tummy time a couple of days ago.  Check out the cute shoes.

Also on the weekend, we had brunch at our friends Dave and Eva's house.  They have a 16-month old son, so we've learned a lot from them about things to come.  They live near our new house, so Juliet might even go to the same daycare as their son.

Juliet naps on the donut while we finished brunch.

And finally, I've saved the best for last.  We went to the driving range so that Leo could practise his new golf skills (his mom and I got him private lessons for his birthday).  He did really well and Juliet was impressed!

Juliet loves hanging with her dad.

Homecoming

We're all still so excited and thrilled about the house.  I honestly can't stop thinking about it.  Today we heard from our agent that the seller was willing to move up the close date, so we now take possession on November 21 as opposed to December 1, so that is good news.  It will mean that we won't be so rushed on move day and we may even get new carpets put into the house before we move in.  So exciting!

Anyhow, this weekend was a bit of a whirlwind.  It was homecoming weekend at the university that Leo and I both attended (Laurier) so we went to Waterloo to go to the football game and to a dinner.  It was cold out (sort of) so we bundled Juliet up in a snowsuit-type thing for the first time.  She slept for most of the game.  It was funny because it was our 10 year reunion so the school set up a tent at the football game for all the 10-year reunion people.  I have never seen so many babies in one place apart from some type of mom group activity.  I guess 10 years after you graduate is a popular time for having babies.

Asleep in Leo's arms at the game.

Leo and Juliet in the 10-year reunion tent with Rachel, Josh, and Ryan.  Rachel had a baby - Julian - in February and he slept most of the game, too.  Poor Rachel had mastitis (for the 3rd time - boo) and wasn't feeling well.  Luckily, I've been fortunate and haven't had any complications with breastfeeding Juliet so far.

During the evening, there was a dinner-dance and Leo and I had been fretting for weeks about what to do with Juliet while we were at the dinner.  Bottle feeding has so far been unsuccessful, so I was getting resigned to the fact that I wouldn't be able to go.  But grandma ended up offering to stay at a nearby B&B and take care of Juliet while we were at dinner and she would just call me whenever Juliet was hungry.  It ended up working out perfectly!  At least that part worked out perfectly - the dinner itself was super lame - it was like a bad wedding with speeches and mass produced food.  Oh well - at least it was a night out and we got to get dressed up.

Juliet sleeping while hanging at the B&B with grandma.

Leo and I got all dressed up for the lame dinner.

We slept over at our friends' Anjana and Bryce's and on Sunday morning, they made a lovely brunch.  Seriously, the pancakes were out of this world - they used a recipe that included oatmeal.  Anjana is going to send the recipe to me, so I'll post it here when she does.

The brunch spread at Anjana & Bryces - pancakes, cookies, fruit, bacon & sausages.  They completely spoil us whenever we visit.

Juliet seems to like standing up.

Smilin' with dad.

After coming home from Waterloo, we pretty much had to pack up again, since Leo is in London (England) for the week and so I'm staying at my mom's while he's gone.  Today while I was at my mom's I took Juliet out for a long walk and snapped a cute picture with her wearing that rainbow hat again.  So cute.

Sold!

It's 6:40am on Saturday morning and I haven't been able to sleep since 5am.  So I thought I'd update the blog to let everyone know we finally bought a house!  YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's in our preferred area - Davisville Village - and it's exactly what we've been waiting for.  It needs a little updating, but it has lots of space and room for us to grow, and we're all very happy.

More details later, but for now, here's a picture taken right after the deal was done:

That's our house in the background!!!!!!!!!!!