Looking good, feeling great

What a week! Gabe and I had a wonderful time at mums and kids camp, I was teaching the 5-7 yr olds and Gabe was in the day care. Gabriel was apparently a joy to be around he played with the other kids and loved all the different toys they had down in the conference centre. He fell in love with "Grandma Deb" and got a girlfriend called Corisa! There were several bigger kids in the nursery and one 3wk old baby so he had a whale of a time. One evening I was holding the newborn while her mother was busy and Gabriel showed a rather jealous streak, he went from playing nicely with his car to clawing his way up my leg trying to grab the baby's toes! He didn't mind when I sat and read or played with the toddlers but the baby was a definite threat haha!
Unfortunately I was unable to attend the day time sessions with the other mums because I was teaching, so I heard they were very uplifting and useful sessions. In the evenings I joined in with the mums activities while Gabe was snoozing under the watchful eye of a couple of counsellors. One night was all about pampering the mums, so I chatted with a girl called Renee (who is 8 mos pregnant) while covering my face in green stuff, putting my feet in salts and painting my toe nails! Those of you who know me well know that this was a challenge for me because I'm just not into that sort of thing and haven't painted my toe nails in years! The camp was very generous another night was called "shopping spree" and we were told to take whatever we liked from an array of womens items, baby essentials, clothes and toys. So I now have Gabe's Christmas present for next year (they only had older kid toys) and enough baby shampoo to keep me going until he's 2. As I started my packing I saw Susan (mum with newborn mentioned earlier) with bags and bags of size 2 nappies, so I asked where she'd got them and she said they were giving them away. She said there were some size 4 nappies too that needed to go home with someone - so I went to see about maybe getting a handful. Turns out there were over 300 size 4 nappies available and I was the only one with a baby that size. I gave some to Susan for when the littl'un gets bigger then I loaded 200+ nappies into the van! I wanted to cry because I was so taken back by the generosity I experienced during the week.

It's tiring entertaining those toddlers!

That bench probably means very little to most people but an awful lot to this boy's parents.

Mum the earth is bouncing!

new friends and neighbours down in the conference centre,Vanessa and Jamie.

There's more but that's all I have time for today.

Iron Stomach

Q: What do alligator, buffalo, crawfish, celeriac and stinky cheese have in common?

A: They were the secret ingredients I had to use in an "Iron Stomach" competition last week?

Here's a quote from the bulletin email sent the following day:

"After a hard fought battle, the team of Nadine and Ryan were victorious. The scores were very close though and Sylvie and Pierre really impressed the judging panel. Kudos go out to Darren who was the swing man helping out both teams as Lisa and Tony could not make it. He really pulled the whole thing together!"

For more pics, go here.

Oh, so quiet

Tasha and Gabe are up at the lake now, beginning a week of Mum's and Kid's camp. I wish I could join them, but I have plenty to keep me busy this week. Work is reasonably quiet today, but there's always something to be doing. The renovations at home are moving along and I can get more work done now that I don't have to work around Gabe's naptimes. Having said that, I'd much rather have Tasha and Gabe here to keep me sane and happy! Jenn and Josh have been painting the bathroom today, while I'm at work (pretty impressive friends, eh?) and the priming is now finished and ready for a coat of top paint when I get home (another friend, Dawn is helping with that this evening). Thank God for friends! :)
Dad, Caroline and Grace are coming to visit soon. Hopefully, they'll show up this week. They didn't give me a day or time, so I'm left guessing when they will show up, but I'm excited to see them, whenever it happens! It would be nice if they arrive before Tasha gets home, then the house wont seem so creepily quiet.

Fun Fun Fun

Well it's been a good weekend so far with festivals, games, Harleys and a couple of surprises. Friday was my birthday and I was amazed at how many Facebook messages I got (23) - seems I have more friends than I realised! It was a lovely cool day so we walked down to Victoria Park to see the home and garden festival. We didn't buy anything but I enjoyed a splurge with an elephant ear and oodles of cinnamon sugar!
That night we played some cards and rented a DVD to watch with friends, I got a few lovely heartfelt cards and felt pretty good about my day in all. While we were out Jenn and Josh had left a singing voice mail for me (you can probably guess what they sang). Then they brought round a lovely gift in the evening and I figured I've got it pretty good here I feel really blessed and my birthday is just about spending time with my friends its not about presents and parties and so on.
Little did I know that Ryan had a few tricks up his sleeve, he told me he was driving Ian home then he took forever to get back, so I went to bed without him thinking he'd got chatting (you know what hes like haha!). I got up at about 4 am to feed Gabe and I see he's left the light on in the living room so I was a little suspicious but I was also extremely tired and zombie like so I ignored it and went back to sleep. Then the little man decided 5.30am is morning so I walk through to investigate the living room with my eyes open and I find not only the Bonjovi CD I asked for but also a very cute card and the Harry Potter book I thought I'd have to wait ages to get hold of!
Apparently Ryan and Ian went to Chapters last night at midnight to get it and they lined up forever amongst some very oddly dressed people - I think he must love me cause he's not even read the books. Suffice to say I was surprised and pleased and the 5.30am wake up wasn't so bad cause it gave me a head start on the book before Ryan even got up. I'm just past chapter 5 and finding it very hard not to read the whole thing and J.K.Rowling has captured me completely and I don't really want it to end.
Anyway I was sat in Gabe's room while he was playing...I was reading when I thought I heard a tank or something extremely loud rolling by outside. The three of us went outside camera in hand expecting something cool and we watched 1500 Harley Davidsons roll by! If you think Im exaggerating look at the pics it was a never ending line of massive bikes. Everything from trikes, to oldies, to ones with wheelchairs attached! Gabe just watched in awe at the loud grumbly bikes, he was clearly impressed and even returned some waves.

Do you like my camouflage?

Unfortunately I won't be blogging again this week because I'll be at Mums & Kids Camp until Friday so I'll do a catch up blog next week - over and out!

Organizing Tools

For the last 6 weeks, my tools have been scattered around the hallway of the house, mostly just outside the bathroom door. It's been messy, but convenient. I finally took the time to clear the hallway and migrate my collection of tools to an old bookcase... ...in the kitchen. I couldn't quite motivate myself to move everything to the basement or to the shed, but that's the long-term plan.

Solution 01

Thanks to my dad, I've made an attempt to solve the problem from the previous post. It won't fix the whole problem, but will hopefully reduce the gaps to be filled with caulk. I'm using the force of the spring-loaded shower curtain rail to hold some 2x4s against the joins on the surround. Hopefully this will give the glue a chance to bond. I'll be back from work in 5 hours to do the same at the bottom half. We'll see if it works.

Sadly, in the process I created a new problem. When I took the shower curtain rail down, it took off the paint, primer and the surface paper of the drywall underneath! Now I have to repair a patch of the paintwork by sanding, priming and repainting. Eurgh!
This bathroom is going to kill me!

Bath Surround

We installed the bath surround on Friday, which is now looking good except a few challenges to overcome. Take a peek and feel free to make suggestions!

You can see the little rounded ridge at the bottom of the panel, which forces the top panel out from the bottom one.

This is another problem where the outer panels don't lie flush with the wall, due to the shape of the bathtub lip under the surround.
Any suggestions?

Dedication

My apologies, with spending so long writing the photo diaries I forgot to post pictures of Gabe's dedication. Sunday June 24th Gabe was dedicated at London Citadel by Major Venables. He was very well behaved, entertaining would probably be the best way of describing his behaviour during the ceremony. We stood at the mercy seat waiting for Major to invite us up to the platform and the boys behind us were making Gabe laugh by playing peek-a-boo. I think he realised people were entertained by his laughter and so he carried on charming everyone from the platform too. It was altogether a very positive experience because he seemed to enjoy it so much.

Peek-a-boo!

"I'm the King of the castle!"

What a smiler!

That Wall!

The bathroom is now drywalled and taped, with at least one layer of "mud" in some places, two or three layers in others.
The biggest challenge was discovering the latte and plaster / wainscoting combo and the decision to leave it or lose it. Two of the walls have been covered with drywall over the plaster, the tub area is a newly framed area with one wall of old drywall and two new walls of drywall. The hardest wall was the wall behind the toilet, which is now half drywall and half plaster. In hindsight, had I more time and space to remove the plaster, I would have liked to take the wall down to studs, but there were too many unhelpful discoveries along the way.
Heres how that wall has developed. There will hopefully be one more photo of it soon, with a couple more layers of feathered compound, primer, paint and trims included!

Before we started...

The discovery of wainscoting and latte...

After adding false studs...

The 'u-shaped' drywall addition...

After filling the huge gaps and adding tapes on the edges...

Hippo Birdie Two Ewe,
Hippo Birdie Two Ewe,
Hippo Birdie Dear Daddy,
Hippo Birdie Two Ewe!

We Love You!

Fun with Tyler

Gabriel has a little friend called Tyler who is a month older than him and we've spent many a swim lesson and play date together. I got a couple of cute pics last time that you may find funny. "Cheese!"
Ty: "Mine looks too blue to be cheese...maybe I'll give it a little try"
Gabe: Hmm I'm not so sure cheese comes in this shape...I wouldn't eat that if I were you."

Ty: "Hey you said not to eat it!"
Gabe: "I saw you try it and thought it might be worth a bite."

Ty:"Slow down there littl'un you have to press this button first"
Gabe:"I just wanted to touch it I wouldn't slobber on it or anything, I promise!"

They're so cute together because Gabe just laughs at all the things Ty can do and Ty is so tolerant of Gabe's hair pulling and face grabbing. I see a future in this relationship!

Photo Diary continued

Sunday June 17: Also known as Father's day in England and Canada, we went to the Army in the morning and did some quick catch-ups with anyone who wasn't at the wedding. Gabriel got himself lots of attention and started learning how to do "High Fives" with Auntie Helen. he also got into mischief by sticking his hand into a cup of tea...good thing it wasn't boiling!
We spent some time hanging at the farm with Pop's then we went off to Chester Zoo with Grandpa and the gang.

You may be asking, "where are the animals?" well we found three in this funny bubble...

One of them tried to escape!

But we were safe because the big orangutan guard was keeping an eye on them for us.

Monday June 18: We traveled over to Wrexham to spend some time with Auntie Helen, Uncle Mike and Grandma. Us three and Grandma meandered around Wrexham town centre for a couple of hours until Helen was finished work then we spent some quality time hanging out and practising them "High Fives" again!

It rained while we shopped but Gabe just enjoyed splashing his hands in the water collected in his tray...just like his Mum would!

"High Five"

"It's hard work this learning thing!"

"I can't hear you!"

Tuesday June 19: We spent the day in Llangollen with Helen and Grandma, taking in the sights, the ice cream, the local coffee! The weather held out the whole time we were there and so we had a lovely time in bonnie Wales.

Llangollen Bridge...somebody would rather snooze than see the sights!

"Oh Grandma it's been such a long day can I just stay here with you?"

We stayed up late to watch a film and Gabe decided he should stay up late too...nothing to do with the fact he'd eaten chocolate and was completely wired!

Wednesday June 20: We spent the morning in Wrexham and enjoyed as much of Helen & Grandma's company as we could before heading back to Warrington to meet a couple of my aunties and Uncles. Aunty Kate and Sandy popped in to meet Gabe before flying to Turkey, then my Aunty Margaret and Uncle Michael stopped by too. Busy busy day! We stayed at the farm that night and left Gabe with Gran & Pops while we went on a much needed date to the cinema...just like we did when we were teenagers!

Yes, Gabe did fall asleep in this awkward position.

Can you tell I don't think I'm in the picture and neither does Manda, yet Gabe knows he is, cause he always is!

Anyone think we might have a poser on our hands?

"Hmm I can't get these pieces back inside the ball so I'll see if they fit in my mouth instead...that's much easier!"

"There are some definite advantages to being this tall, maybe I'll grow this big and find out."

Thursday June 21: We went to a play barn with a couple of our friends and their kids...a good time was had by all, including us parents who went down the slides and through the maze almost as many times as the kids!

Spot the difference 10 points for each.

Elliot thinks slides work better backwards...he could have something there!

Gabriel's first slide journey ....."weeeee!"

Sadly that night we said our goodbye's to my family and Gabe gave as many hugs and high fives as he could without really understanding what was happening.

Friday June 22: We said our goodbyes to Caroline & the girls after spending some torturous time trying to pack everything back into the bags (they should invent bags that expand yet stay light for return journeys). We drove to the airport with Ian and spent some time just relaxing before we had to go through to the gate. There was a definite sadness in the air but it was lightened a little by the promise of seeing Ian, Caroline & Grace in a few weeks time.

"I could sit here all day...especially if you supply me with more biscuits?? How about it Pops?"

"I didn't pay for this seat!"

"I wonder if they've noticed?"

I apologise for putting words in Gabe's mouth but I think I'd best do it before starts doing it for himself! I'm sad to say this is the end of our trip...there will be more though, I guarantee that!

Love and Growls

Tasha & Gabe

Intentional forward propulsion

Backwards hmmm... not quite!

Let me out of the cage Mummy!

I'm coming to get you!

Ready

Steady

Go!

It's not exactly crawling, or scooching or even shuffling it's like Gabe's own little bum shuffle thing. He keeps his bum firmly on the floor and uses his hands to pull himself forwards. He kind of uses his left leg as a stabiliser (Auntie Jenn calls it his dead leg) when he's pulling his bum forward...crazy stuff! It's very handy that we have slippery floors or he would just have to stay where we put him. As you can see from the above photos he's also trying to stand up and escape so we'll have our hands full pretty soon.