Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Lexie

At the beginning of June Justin and I got an adorable 7 week old kitten named Lexie. She's about twice the size now that she was when we got her, but she's still really cute.



It took 5 or 6 days for Emmie to settle down with a new cat in a house. We showed them to each other on the first night. Lexie didn't care, obviously, but Emmie freaked out and started hissing. We had to keep Lexie locked in a room. But we waited just long enough so that when we let Lexie out Emmie didn't hate her anymore.

Lexie and Emmie are in love. Look at Lexie gazing at Emmie adoringly:


Here's another one of the early ones where I caught them napping together:


And another time that I found Emmie completely draped over Lexie:



Lexie had her face buried in his belly too, but when I started taking pictures she looked over at me. I interrupt a lot of naps.

Friday, June 5, 2009

All Dressed Up

We were at our friends Laura and Waseem's wedding on May 30th. Unfortunately I got very few pictures at the wedding. The lighting was horrible. But I got my father-in-law to snap a picture of Justin and I before the reception.



Since we've been married we've only gotten 1 or 2 snapshots of us taken. My camera is too hard to use to just hand it over to anyone to get a picture taken. Doing that involves about 5 minutes of instruction first. So I have great pictures of everybody else... just not of us.

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Matt and Lynsey

Matt and Lynsey got engaged this past December. They're getting married May 15, 2010. I have no idea how they have so much patience. Justin and I got engaged after 6 months and were married 7 or 8 months later.

I took some engagement pictures of them this past weekend. I was really happy with how most of them turned out. I can't seem to chose which ones to post, so I'll post the best of each shot.












Elijah at 2 Months

I saw my nephew Elijah today for the first time in a month. He's almost 2 1/2 months old now, and had changed a lot! Nick, Hilary, and Elijah came over on Saturday night, along with Lynsey and Matt. I didn't get any pictures of the adults, I only cared about the baby.

His little onsie said "Demolition Expert." So cute!


He recently started smiling and cooing.


On Sunday we celebrated my Pake's 80th birthday. I didn't get many pictures of Elijah, and all the good ones were when he was sleeping.
Here he is sleeping in the crib that his Daddy and all his aunts and uncles slept in when they were babies:


And here he is, all tuckered out right before going home, sleeping on Granny. His cheek was all smushed up, and he was almost giving the finger! I wish I had noticed it at the time. I would have switched it to his other finger.



I love this little guy.

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Pictures

About a month ago I took some pictures of my sister Giliane and her boyfriend Bronson, as well as my brother Matthew, and his fiancee Lynsey. I wanted to put a few up here, but I have a really low bandwidth at my house. I have my USB key here at work today, and the pictures are on it. Unfortunately I've taken more recent pictures this weekend, but I don't have those on my USB key. Hopefully I'll remember that for tomorrow.

Here's Giliane and Bronson:






Now here are some of Matthew and his fiancee Lynsey:




I liked my pictures of Giliane and Bronson better. But I went out with Matt and Lynsey this past weekend and got some gorgeous engagement pictures. I'll post them soon. Along with the newest pictures of my nephew, Elijah.

Friday, May 8, 2009

Funny

My grade 2/3 class (ages 7 and 8) and I were just outside playing soccer baseball for Phys. Ed. One of my students, Daniel, who is notoriously wimpy, fell down and scraped his elbow. He started yelling, "I'm bleeding! I'm bleeding!"

Steven, who was on his team, turned to him, exasperated, and yelled back, "It doesn't matter! You're a man!"

Friday, April 24, 2009

Caution: Possible Boredom Ahead (unless you're a geek like me)

Justin and I... okay who am I kidding, I decided to turn our Jeep loan that we have with Chrysler Financial into a line of credit at our credit union. We got a $25,000 line of credit to pay off the approximately $22,500 that we had left on our Jeep loan.

Basically, my plan when going in search of a new loan for the car was a lower interest rate that would either lower our payments or pay off the Jeep faster. Prime has plummetted since we bought the Jeep in November of 2007 (or rather, since Justin bought the Jeep for $5000 more than we had agreed upon without consulting with me... yeah that was a great day).

Our interest rate with Chrysler was 7.79, and now our rate is 5.25. It's not the kind of drop that we would majorly notice because the loan is so "small" (compared to our mortgage, $22,500 is nothing). Basically by the time we paid off the Jeep we would have saved around $1000 in interest. I was not overly impressed with what I was being offered.

At first.

Then I realized that this $25,000 is always available to us. Visions of IVF fairies began dancing in my head.

I also realized that with an LOC, we can have every penny that we have at our disposal applied to the LOC, and just pay our bills when we need to. This would automatically take the money for the bills out of the LOC. What that translates to is lower interest costs, because you only pay interest per dollar per day.

When we had the loan at Chrysler Financial I wasn't comfortable paying extra or putting our savings on the loan because I knew that money wouldn't be available to us if we found that we really needed it (ie. if I found myself unemployed... which I will in 3 months). Therefore there was no way the loan was going to be paid off before the 5 year ammortization period was up. I was just too afraid of getting rid of all our savings. I was too afraid we would find ourselves in a situation where we needed that money, and it would be gone.

However, because it's a line of credit, if we find either the next day or 25 years from now that we need the money we had previously applied on the loan, it is always available to us.

Here's the clincher though: all we have to pay on the LOC each month is the interest. Since I immediately transferred our $8500 savings onto it, we're only using $14,000 (keep in mind, our savings were quite small because we have paid off about $50,000 of loans in the past 18 months - not including our mortgage or down payment). That translates to about $56 a month in interest. Once we get our $5000 in taxes back and put that on the LOC, it will be $36 a month.

I am a complete freak about debt, so I will put every penny possible on the LOC and not just take advantage of it. But I do love the fact that our necessary payment each month is so low.


I'm not going to pretend that that entertained anybody but me. If you've actually made it to this point, I apologize if I've bored you. I'm a total financial nerd. Budgetting and paying off debt really excites me.

Friday, April 10, 2009

Elijah's Baptism

I should have posted this awhile ago, but I've been busy.

My nephew Elijah's baptism was Sunday, April 5. My whole family got together for this. Of course, my mom needed to get a picture of all of us. We do this every fall, since our family is changing so quickly (marriages, babies, etc). But Elijah wasn't around for our last picture, so we had to get a new one.

I think I look horrid in it.

Here it is, along with an explanation of who everyone is:


Top Row: Dad, Mom, Nick (brother) Elijah (nephew), Hilary (sister-in-law), Justin (my husband) and Me (looking horrible).

Bottom Row: Matthew (brother), Lynsey (his fiance), Bronson (Giliane's boyfriend for almost 4 years) and Giliane (sister).

I got to take a bunch of nice pictures of my family. I'll eventually post some more, but for now I'll just add this one. It's of my Pake (grandpa on Dad's side), Dad, Nick, and Elijah. 4 generations of men on one side of the family.


Sunday, March 29, 2009

The Guardians

Justin was out of town from Friday to Saturday for a track meet, so my mom and I went to go visit Nick, Hilary, and little Elijah. Elijah is changing so quickly - and he's so cute.

Justin wasn't there, but Nick and Hilary told me that Justin and I are Elijah's guardians (as well as the guardians of any other children they will have). Of course, my next question was when they were taking their next plane trip (lol).


I think these are the cutest lips:





I can't help it, I love the yawning pictures!

Monday, March 23, 2009

Babacne

I was at a cousin's baby shower on Sunday. Justin and I drove with my mom so that he could hang out with my brothers while Mom, Giliane, Hilary, and I were at the shower.

Of course, Elijah came along with Nick and Hilary. He has changed so much in the past 2 weeks. He's already in 3 month sleepers, and he's only 2 weeks old.

Two days before the shower Elijah broke out with a bad case of baby acne. I don't know how I'm going to deal with my baby having acne... I can't imagine having the self control to refrain from picking at it!

I took some pictures of him anyway. Because he's my nephew... baby acne doesn't change that. but I'm looking forward to getting some cute pictures of him once the babacne is gone!


He also has started sleeping all day and wanting to feed all night. Look at his adorable yawn:

Saturday, March 21, 2009

Lucy

This past week, while Justin and I were dealing with a roller-coaster ride, we had the pleasure of taking care of my 3 year old cousin, Lucy, for a few days.


During this time, I realized some important things about myself. I have always loved kids more than anything. My greatest goal my entire life was to be a mom. I've never felt the "selfish" feelings of wanting to carefully guard my newlywed years from the trials of having children. (This is not meant to say that that is a bad feeling; it's just not one that my husband and I experienced.)

However, I love my quiet time. I love sitting around while reading a book. Furthermore, since being married I have thoroughly enjoyed my time alone with Justin. I love waking up with him on a Saturday morning and lounging in bed. I love sitting around with him playing games or watching TV. I also like finishing dinner and not feeling rushed to clean up the kitchen, because we're on our own schedule.

I have to admit, there have been a couple of moments where I worry about how I'll feel having a baby (possibly two), and then a toddler(s), and then multiple children running around my house stealing my personal time and my time away from Justin.

Last October we looked after Lucy's older sisters, Claire and Mia, who are 9 and 6. I really noticed how our life changed when they stayed with us. Because of their ages we couldn't have our normal conversations in front of them. We also couldn't watch the TV shows we wanted, because we only have one TV (I gave our second TV to my brother, because he had none). The girls adore both me and Justin, so they demanded a lot of our attention. I truly enjoyed having them, but it was very apparent that having school-aged children would drastically affect our lives. This didn't affect our desire to have kids right away, but it did continue to cross my mind every once in awhile.

I should also point out here that I'm kind of lazy. I don't like going on bike rides or going to the park. I was like this even as a kid. I just like to stay home most of the time. So the thought of all of the things you're supposed to do when you have kids - take them to playgrounds, take them swimming, take them to sports, take them to museums, etc - gave me a teensy bit of worry. What if I didn't enjoy myself doing those things? I'd do them for my kids, but what if I didn't like it?

Having Lucy totally allayed my fears. I loved doing things with her, and she's not even my own kid! I loved taking her grocery shopping, colouring with her, playing in the yard with her, and taking her to two different playgrounds. I didn't even mind as she hopped from one piece of playground equipment to the next - like a little ADHD child - and I followed along. I had the best time doing these activities!

While Justin and I did have less time alone, we could still have many of our normal conversations in front of her. Most of the time she didn't even care what we were talking about. Furthermore, she can't spell (Justin, I need to get Lucy in her p-a-j-a-m-a-s and then I'll bring her down to cuddle before she goes to b-e-d).

I'm so glad we had Lucy for those few days. Not only did she distract us from our incredibly stressful situation, but she gave us a great taste of parenthood. And we are now even more sure that we will love and embrace it with everything that we have.

Friday, March 13, 2009

March Break!

Today is my first day of March Break!! Justin is still teaching today, but since I work at a private school we get to make decisions on our own, like adding two extra days to March Break.

In honour of this, I tried to stay up to watch Private Practice last night. I never stay up to watch it, because I always have to get up for work at 6:20 in the morning, and 11 is just too late to go to bed. But I didn't have to get up this morning, so I thought "I'm an adult. I can stay up until 11 if I want!"

Apparently not.

I was fine through Grey's Anatomy. Then Private Practice started, and the last thing I remember is Addison scrubbing out next to that man-doctor who was scrubbing in. Next thing I know I'm waking up for the last 3 minutes of the show.

That's what happens when your normal bedtime is 9:00!

Anyway, yesterday I brought my camera to work to take some pictures of the kids. I knew that flourescent lighting turned pictures yellow, so I wanted to use the white balance function on my camera to tone down the yellows (this was my whole purpose in bringing my camera to work). It worked!!

Just so you can see, this is what the pictures would have looked like if I didn't adjust the white balance:



And this is what they looked like after I adjusted the white balance to compensate for the flourescent lighting (the kid on the left is the class clown, by the way):

Such a cute face, it hardly even matters that it was ruined by that other kid's head!

Doing her work... what a good girl.

*
These two are cousins:
*
*
The more I use my new camera, the happier I am with it!

Monday, March 9, 2009

Elijah James

My new nephew, Elijah, was born on Thursday, March 5, 2009 at 7:08pm. He weighed in at a hefty 9lbs 9oz.


Isn't he adorable?

We made the trip to see him on Saturday. I just got my new camera the night before, so I hadn't completely figured it out yet (I still haven't). But I got some nice shots. (Well, this one was gotten of me.)

This is my brother, Nick, and his wife, Hilary.

Friday, March 6, 2009

New Camera

I've been shopping around for a new camera for awhile. I didn't want just a point and shoot camera. The main thing that I wanted was to be able to change aperture settings. This is a rare find in a regular digital camera, so I went with a digital SLR. I got the Canon Rebel XS. It came with an 18-55mm lens, and I bought a 50mm lens as well. The aperture on the 50mm lens goes as low as 1.8, which gives me less depth of field. That sounds bad, but it isn't. It allows me to blur out foregrounds and backgrounds to give more focus on the subject.

Here's adorable Emmie. She was my subject tonight. Tomorrow I'll take some pictures of my new nephew, Elijah James.
*
*
This face is adorable.

Sunday, March 1, 2009

Silly Emmie

When we first got Emmie, she felt that she had to be with us all the time. She was almost more high maintenance than a baby. She always had to be on our laps, no matter where we were or what we were doing. Eating was a huge challenge, because she would sit on our lap and try to get at our food the entire time.

Then we got the magic spray bottle. Emmie cringes when we walk towards her while holding it (it actually makes me feel really bad!). She doesn't try to get at our food while we're eating anymore. But occasionally she will do something amusing. Like this:


Hmm, that's interesting.


Don't even think about it, Emmie.