I bike....I'm a biker.

Ahhh, my constant and ever present journey towards a healthier lifestyle and (mainly) weight loss....always trying to come up with new and enticing ways to get me off my butt...and to get some of my butt off me! HAHA!  My parents and Luke and I just bought bikes, as well as a trailer for Charlotte to ride in.  We've been at it for a week...it's been such a blast!!  

Charlotte is snug as a bug in her trailer, accompanied by her baby, a couple books, her bottle, and a cozy blanket!

This is definitely my tired face!

I hadn't spent any real amount of time on a bike since I was in my teens, and I'm still a wee bit wobbly (never go in a straight line, that's my motto!)  But we've been doing really well!  This past week we rode almost 30 km in 3 days!  From 0 to 30 in a week - I'm pretty pumped about that!!!  

Plus, to top it all off, I lost over a pound this week!! Woohoo!! 

The best part though is to see how excited Charlotte gets about going for a ride - she is so thrilled!  I tell her, "let's get our shoes on, we're going to see Grandma and Grandpa and go for a bike ride!" and she smiles so big and claps her hands and just gets so excited.  It's adorable!  She fell asleep in the trailer for the past 2 nights - must be all that fresh air and the delightful vibrations of the trail.  

We ride on the Galloping Goose Trail in Sooke (you can read about it HERE), and you couldn't ask for more breath-taking scenery to accompany your exercise!  Here's just a couple shots from our past few rides...

Ahhh, the luxury of it all!

That is a picture of a sleeping child.   Some may wonder why this is something that's necessary to document...parents will likely understand....parents of unwilling-to-ever-sleep-ever-ever babies will *definitely* understand!

Charlotte has never been a great sleeper....okay, well actually, there was that one month, January 2013...the most glorious month ever to be known in this household.  She would sleep for sometimes up to 12 hours!!!  Ridiculously unheard of around these parts!  Just when we were getting used to it and beginning to take the sleep for granted, she decided to remind us...and here we are, end of May, and we are still remembering.

Anyway, long story short, she's never been good with sleep at night, so of course she's not going to be good with naps either.  If I put her down in her crib, it's *maybe* 30 minutes, if I'm lucky.  However, if I sleep with her in the recliner, she can be out for 3 hours!  Mommy loves naps, as I'm sure all mommies do, however my to-do list is usually as long as my elbow, so as much as Mommy loves (needs?) naps, I needed to change this habit we'd gotten ourselves into of 2 hour naps in the afternoon!  Then I had the brilliant idea of trying her out in my bed instead....and honestly, I came to that conclusion one day when she'd had MAYBE 3 hours of super interrupted sleep all night, as had Mommy and Daddy, and I could not even fathom not laying down in my own bed for a nap...Mommy was a walking zombie that day.  

She loves Mommy's bed!  And the glorious thing....I can get her to sleep with snuggles and cuddles and kisses and love, and then once she's out, I can slip out of bed and have an hour to myself!!!!  WEEEEE!!!  So it's worked for 3 days in a row this week...I need to learn to have low or no expectations, but I am just a wee bit excited by this!  Here's hoping my expectations don't get dashed too quickly ;)

Now off to clean the kitchen...by myself...in the peace and quiet....who knew this would be a luxury?!  

The best surprise...Mother's Day 2013

If you know me well you will know that one of the hardest things for me to do is keep a secret about an awesome surprise or gift....I want to give a gift the minute I buy it, I want to share the amazing news about a great surprise the minute I find out about it...I am terrible at this.

So you can imagine how hard it was for me not to tell Mom when all of us kids (and Dad) bought Alina a plane ticket to surprise Mom for Mother's Day way back in MARCH!  Good grief.  It was the best surprise ever...seriously.  I emailed Mom's bosses in March and arranged for her to get the days off while Ali was here, and they were amazing about it - so excited and happy about it - they thought it was a great plan!

That meant that we had about 2 months to keep this thing a secret...that was very hard!

Finally, the day came!!!  We hadn't seen Ali and William for almost 8 months, and with their work schedules and Ali's school schedules, we really had no definite idea of when we would see them next (Mom especially was pretty bummed about it all).  But then came the day when I drove out to the airport and picked them up!!!  And we were off to Mom's office, cursing the traffic along the way, planning out every aspect of how we were going to surprise her.   The plan was to have Charlotte and I go up and visit, bringing some photos we got done at Sears recently (it wasn't unusual for us to drop in to say hello), and Ali and Will would sneak in the back door and race around to the front to surprise her.  In the car I was lamenting that I so badly wanted to be able to film it, but I hadn't figured out a way to do that....well duh, I could have easily given one of them my video camera, but Ali had the brilliant plan to have William film it on his phone....

Unfortunately, as they still have to work and make money and go to school....we were only able to keep them here for 6 days.  Much better than nothing, though!

I was so glad that they were able to spend so much time with Charlotte - I so badly wanted her to bond with Ali, now that she was starting to get old enough to begin remembering her maybe.  It took her a little bit to warm up to her completely, but after a couple hours Ali was experiencing the true, crazy, goofy Charlotte!  They became BFFs.

We enjoyed many relaxing days and evenings on the deck, laughing and playing silly games, we went to the playground (because Charlotte is the centre of everything, obviously), went to the beach, and stayed up late most nights.

We did our "couch" photo - we had a plan of doing a photo with Charlotte, Alina and William whenever we saw them...this is our fifth.

Working with a slightly cranky baby...she clearly didn't want them to leave!

But alas, we had to say farewell for now *sniffles*  Charlotte, Mom and I hope to be able to make it down to San Diego maybe in November or so...before Charlotte turns 2, so I don't have to pay for her plane ticket :)  We also plan to skype a whole lot more...we need Charlotte to remember her crazy Aunty Alina and Uncle William!

We love you guys!!! <3

Finally.

Wow, raise if your hand if blogging is clearly not for you.... *Raises hand*!!  So it's been over a year...raise your hand if you suck..... you know the drill!  I have good intentions, I promise.  This will obviously be a year in review so I can maybe possibly start anew ;)  Charlotte turned 17 months old on the 9th...so hard to believe!  So much has happened - more than I could possibly write about, but I intend for this post to cover some of the highlights of Charlotte's first year, with pictures included, obviously...and then we'll go from there another day!

Newborn:

You guys know all the stats by now...no need to repeat them :)  The little love of my life...I never could have imagined how my world would change with her in it.  She is all encompassing...in the best way, of course :)

Month 1:  

- We spent a lot of nights sleeping together in the recliner...one of the only ways she would sleep consistently!

- Weighed in at 10 lbs 11 oz, and then 12 lbs 15 oz before her 2 month birthday!

- Smiled for the first time when she was about 7 weeks :)

- HATED her car seat around this time...screamed pretty much every time she was in it...rough dude.

- She loved her swing (see above)!

- When she's with Luke, she reaches up and rubs his beard....cutest :)

Month 2:

- She went on her first ferry ride, and first trip out of country when she was 2 months old.  Down to Portland to pick up Aunty Alina!

- Rolled over for the first time at 11 weeks!

- She got her first bad cold - NOT a fun week and a half!

- Thought it was hilarious when Uncle Jordy squishes her cheeks and buzzes her nose :)

- Loved blowing spit bubbles and mimicing our noises.

- White noise helped her sleep a great deal (and still does at 16 months!)

- Kicking lots and loved to be stood up like a big girl :)

Month 3:

- Went to the beach for the first time...Whiffen Spit with Aunty Alina, Ashley and Ava!

- Started reaching for lots of toys and most of them are making it into her mouth.

- Enjoying spending lots of time with Aunty Alina since she was home for a few months!

- Still a terrible sleeper!!

- Obsessed with Grandma's couch :)

- Weighing in at 17 lbs, 3 oz, 25" long!  Big girl!

Month 4:

- We moved into our own apartment this month!  Charlotte has her own room with tons of space...lots of room for activities ;)

- She got her own exersaucer and loves it!  Lots of hours spent playing with toys and bouncing around in there. 

- Experienced her first church Holy days, and was a trooper through them!

- Weighed in at 19lbs, 7 oz, 27" long!

- Introduced solid foods for the first time...mmm!  Her first food was an organic brown rice cereal...she enjoyed it!

- Sat up for a couple minutes without having to be held for the first time!

- Went up island to Campbell River and met Great-Grandma Humphreys for the first time!

Month 5:

- We got a new big girl car seat...which she loved!  She was so much better in the car once we got that for her!

- We spent our first Mother's Day together - what a very special day that was!

- Weighing in at 20lbs, 13 oz and wearing mostly 9 month clothes these days!

- Her hair lightened up so much...she's a lot blonder than she came out as :)

- She has a favourite lift the flap book - she knows where all the flaps are, and even has her favourite flaps on each page :)

- She smiles tons these days and makes the very best old lady face you've ever seen...bottom lip sticks out so far...looks like an old lady with no teeth ;)

- Her favourite food at this point was apple sauce :)

Month 6:

- We transitioned her from her cradle to her crib - such a big girl now!

- Daddy got to experience his first Father's Day - lots of love and hugs and kisses that day! :)

- She experienced her first Canada Day and 4th of July! :)

- She saw fire for the first time and almost lost her mind over how amazing it was!  She leaned forward as far as she possibly could (while being restrained by Uncle Dave!) to see how very cool this magic was ;)

- Got her first high chair....which she was pretty unsure of at first because silly Mommy pinched her teeny fingers with the tray :( oh man, fail!!

- She said DADA for the first time!!!

- Still no crawling....

Month 7:

- We went on an adventure to Washington State to go and apply for Charlotte's US passport...took a little more time than we anticipated, but we made it into a fun little holiday....plus, how exciting is it that she's a dual citizen?! :)

- First two teeth started popping through!!  It's the front two on the bottom.

- She hadn't started crawling yet, at least not in the traditional sense, but she sure didn't let that stop her from getting around!  She would scoot backwards, roll around and scoot around on her belly until she got where she wanted to be! :)

- We encountered a lot of pre-wedding fun this month - Aunty Alina was getting married soon!  We went to a bridal shower, she got to meet Aunt Jackie (all the way from SC) and a lot of other new and exciting people, we went to Butchart Gardens for the first time, and also the Petting Zoo!

- She ate ice cream for the first time, courtesy of Grandma...and of course loved it!  

Month 8: 

- Aunty Alina got married!!!  That was a super great, fun and long day...and of course we had to say goodbye to Aunty Alina the next day which was terribly sad :(

- She pulled up into a standing position for the first time.

- She loves to play with my hair while she's eating...I love it :)

- She discovered herself in the mirror and now thinks mirror baby is the very coolest baby ever.

- She was going through a real "mommy" phase at this point...if she couldn't have mommy then she refused to be put down or go to anyone else....sounds wonderfully sweet and loving, but man that gets old really fast!

- Weighed in at 23 lbs, 6 oz and 28" long!

- Started talking lots - obviously no real words yet, but tons of noise!  Also shrieking...super.

Month 9:

- Started standing so well, and can now sit from a laying position.

- She waves and can give kisses...all of which make her even sweeter :)

- We went for a ride on Daddy's bus - he was very proud to have us as passengers for a little while! :)

- We went to MEXICO!  Which of course included many firsts....airplane ride, stamp in passport, the zoo, the pool, being scared by the sand and waves at the beach, etc :)  Some were cool, some she hated!

- She weighed in at 25 lbs, 4.5 oz and 29" long

- We started experimenting with woven wrap carriers...lifesaver!

Month 10:

- Pulls up and walks around all the furniture now...trouble in the making!

- Holds her own bottle so well...makes life so much easier for Mommy now!

- She's a big girl and sits in the bath all by herself now with no seat.

- A little tiny mole appeared on her leg overnight...it's cute though :)

- Absolutely loves dancing to music, especially the theme songs to The Office and Big Bang!

- Says "Dada" and what sounds like "hi Dad"...so cute!

Month 11:

- Let the crawling begin!  She's so fast now!  She crawled for the first time to Grandma and Grandpa, and then it just took off almost overnight :)

- She stood by herself twice, for just a brief second each time...it's progress!

- Weighs 27 lbs

- She says "uh oh" now :)  LOL trouble!

- She now gets into cupboards and pulls things out, and can now point at what she's pulled out :)  She sometimes gives high 5's and is obsessed with pulling up her shirt and showing her tummy :)

- She's learned how to pet Tigger nicely, and Tigger is so patient with her...he barely runs away anymore.

- She wiggles on command when someone says "wiggle, wiggle, wiggle!" - adorable!

- We surprised Grandma and Grandpa Nelson and Uncle Chris on the ferry when they came to visit!  it was great :)

Month 12:

- We had a wonderful first birthday party for Charlotte while Luke's parents and brother were visiting!  She enjoyed her first piece of ice cream cake...wasn't sure what to think about it at first, but eventually figured out how delicious it was ;)  It was hard to believe my baby was turning 1!!!

- She'd gotten so much better at standing at this point, and was even venturing out on her walker!  Exciting times! :)

- She laughs like beevis and butthead...it's SO funny!

- She has more teeth now - almost 8!

- Weighs in at 27 lbs 10.5 oz and 30+" tall.

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

As I write this my beautiful 17 month old is loving on her favourite Mr. Bear in the living room, clad only in her diaper...hair wild, tummy out, spinning and dancing around and then flinging herself at Mr. Bear (who is gigantic).  She's such a character, with such a huge personality...pushing her boundaries daily, huge drama queen in the making, prissy about some things (like hating dirt/sand/ink/anything on her hands), but doesn't care about getting food all over her at other times.  She tries my patience, makes my heart swell to the point I don't think I can imagine loving her any more, at the same time making me sad that my teeny tiny baby is no longer around....somehow replaced in the blink of an eye by this spirited, beautiful, energetic, hilarious little lady :)  I am so blessed to be her Mommy...I can't wait to see what the next year brings! <3