Favourite bloggy giveaway so far

Is for an apron from the apronista.

I want to win!!

Or, anyone can feel free to buy me this for xmas ;) (in a 1x please)

hehe. Somehow I'm not so sure that'll actually work, but it was worth a shot :)

Love a good bloggy giveaway!!

** Congratulations to the winner Ulibarri family! Keep up to date on Apples'n'Oranges news, and be entered into our November newsletter draw for a $10 gift certificate, by signing up to our newsletter by emailing info(at)apples-n-oranges(dot)com.***

Time to enter another zillion contests during the Fall Y'all Bloggy giveaway!!

In self-promotion of my new business ;) I'm giving away a Rock & Rattle tie shirt. The winner can choose the boy or the girl version (the size may have to depend on what's in stock), and the contest is open to anyone, anywhere :) Just comment here, and if you want, I'd love to hear what stuff you like the most from Apples'n'Oranges.

Check out the Apples'n'Oranges blog for the chance to win a $50 gift certificate to Apples'n'Oranges.
You also don't want to miss my business partner Some kind of Wondermom's giveaway of a super fun Brat couture shirt!

Good luck!

Kiernan's first REAL haircut

First, mommy had to prove to grammy/gramma that Kiernan needed a hair cut.

Some cute hair accessories might have been in order if this had been a little Kiernana, but Kiernan was ready for a little boy cut :)

We headed out to first choice - did you know you get baby's first haircut free there? I didn't!

Kiernan was a super trooper - the other hairdressers couldn't get over how good he was. He didn't cry once and he barely squirmed at all sitting on my lap.

He did remain super serious throughout though.

So cute! Makes him look way older too in my opinion.

This is not the hairdresser who cut his hair. She just wanted her picture taken ;) K's hairdresser is in the background :)

They even gave us a baby's first haircut certificate with a lock of hair attached. I was super impressed and would recommend First Choice to anyone for a first hair cut!

Home sweet home

Interview question #2:
You picked a card from the pile of life that says, “Do not pass go. Move directly to another country.” Where would you move?

This is a tough question. If someone asked me where I'd like to go and visit, I'd have no problems answering. I'd love to go to Thailand, Italy, Greece, India, Vietnam, Morocco, France... possibly in that order. But where would I move? I don't want to move. I feel really lucky to live in as fabulous a country as Canada. REALLY lucky. I don't even want to leave Ottawa - I love it here.

But if I HAD to move, to a different country, I think I would go to Ireland. Apart from not having to learn a new language to get along, the idea of going to a place my family originally came from really appeals. And why Ireland has always appealed more than England or France, I don't know. But it has. Second choice Italy, which I can now claim because of Eric's Italian family :) I like the idea of history and finding roots. And now I'm hungry for potatoes and pasta. Gotta go cook.

Cuz you always wanted to know

I've written about Nutmeg before - her blog is one of my most favourites :) She recently got interviewed by Amanda of The Wink, in a meme that is fun and different. Since I haven't been finding the time to blog as I've wanted to recently, I decided this was a good way to give myself "homework" and hopefully something interesting for people to read. Nutmeg has sent me 5 interview questions. I'm going to break each question into a different post and hopefully I'll write interesting and compelling responses :) If anyone wants me to come up with interview questions for them, let me know in the comments of any of the interview posts :)

Question 1 : Why do you blog? What have you learned from the blogging experience?

I started blogging when I was pregnant and haven't stopped. I started blogging as a way to log what was going on with my pregnancy and also as a way to keep my friends and family in the loop as to what was going on. It was much more of a private blog, and only people I knew read it.

Once Kiernan was born I started this blog, but I continued to keep it fairly private. Comments were closed; I didn't tell many people it existed, and I was fine with that. Then I started discovering other mom blogs - and boy were there a lot of them, and they were fabulous! They really helped me through the first and harder months of being a mom, the months where I was home and stranded on the couch nursing or holding a baby who didn't want/couldn't be put down. I loved the sense of community that I felt in these blogs and wanted to be a part of it. So I started sharing the url a bit more, I opened up comments, and I tried to get more readers.

I still don't have a huge number of readers, and I'm sure I've been losing some as I haven't had time to blog as much since I came back to work, but I still crave being a part of that community - of finding more people who are interested in sharing my experience as I am in interested in sharing theirs.

Blogging, and the world of blogging, has changed me. Apart from the obsessive amount of time I spend trying to keep up with all the people's lives I follow through their blogs, I've found a place to express myself and to share all the things I wanted to say, but could never be bothered putting into a personal journal. If I'm frustrated, I have a place to get it out, if I'm elated, I can share my joy with the world - to people who care! And I think that's what I've learned - I've learned that this community that really suits me exists and that I'm going to find a way to stay a part of it, even if I don't really have time for it, because that's how much it means to me.

Wordless Wednesday: them are some cutie PJZZZZ

(Shameless self promotion here.)

Sleep training day 2

After another 2 hours of pick up put down tonight the score is:

Kiernan 1 - Parents 1


And we very very tired.

Sleep training day 1

After 2 hours of sleep training the score is
Kiernan 1 - Parents 0

:P

Woo!

Gonna have to dust off and re-string the old uke for the Kman :)


nice sock/shoe combo lara! :P
Thanks Jess for scanning the photo for me.

Learning to accept it

I hate the bus, I always have, I always will.
I get motion sickness really easily and if the bus is overcrowded, or I have to sit sideways, I'm ready to hurl halfway home - so it's a crappy deal.
I used to get Eric to come and get me, but I can't do that anymore because Kiernan falls asleep in the car coming to get me and then won't go down at night - I'd rather take the bus than deal with sir screams a lot until all hours of the night.
So, I'm learning to deal. I found my i-shuffle and I have strategies. The bus ride in the morning is generally ok. Since I don't arrive at work until 9ish, I think I miss the big rush of people. I won't get on a bus that already has people standing on it. And, it's working ok for me.
But here's the other thing. I'm not really a music person. I wish I was. But I'm not. So I keep loading up my ishuffle with new music and spending the entire bus ride home hitting next trying to find a song I actually want to hear. Kind of annoying!
But I finally did what I've been meaning to do for a month and I'm really happy with it! I downloaded a bunch of podcasts to my ishuffle and I listen to those on the bus. I'm distracted the whole ride listening to it and it's interesting! So far, they're just mommy podcasts (motherhood uncensored and another random one I found on itunes). If anyone has any podcasts to suggest, let me know, because I have a lot more loading to do!!

Brain dump Thursday

I have been horrible at blogging, and I feel really badly about it. There has been tons of stuff going on, and I just can't find the time between all the commitments I've made this year, and spending a little bit of time with my family. blah.

But here are a few tidbits:

- Kiernan is talking like crazy, with tons of new words all the time. They're all just the first syllable of the word though so it's hard to always distinguish. No and Nose sound the same. So do Ball, Book and Bottle. Suce( aka soother) and shoe are pretty close in sound, More and Moo also sometimes confusing. It's so much fun to see all the new words he's figuring out how to use on a daily basis. Ball is no longer the most exciting word and thing in the world, seemingly replaced by doors and birds :)

- We're all sick, so Kiernan is back to being up several times a night. But before getting sick, he was actually doing MUCH better. He's even slept through the entire night 3 times! Incredible!

- He still won't nap at daycare so we have a really tired baby on days he's there. I'm hoping eventually he'll just give in, and I wonder if it would be easier if he was there full time, but at least he gets decent naps when he's home with daddy twice a week.

- He is getting more and more of a temper and I'm trying to be somewhat strict/firm with him when he does things that are unacceptable (like hitting). I'm having a hard time being sure how much he understands at this stage - I think it's more than I realize.

- He chipped his front tooth at some point this summer, and it bothers me more than it should. I am constantly paranoid that the chip is getting bigger.

- He won't sleep in bed with us anymore, and I miss that.

- Being at work every day is starting to get a bit easier. Only took 1.5 months :P

I know how to do it, now I just need to actually start doing it

I appreciate that I decided to take part in Tales from the Scale because every Wednesday I haven't been good, I feel a little bit guilty and decide I need to get back on track. Well maybe not EVERY Wednesday (not last Wednesday) but most Wednesdays.

I weighed myself this morning and I haven't gained or lost, but I'm happy with that. I've been completely off track for the last two weeks between planning the launch for my new business, being sick, and being grouchy about other stuff. And I'm ready to get back on track. Last night E, K and I went on a 45 minute walk, I didn't have dessert, and I cooked dinner. So that's a start.

The weird thing about taking part in Tales from the Scale are the random comments I get, weeks after a post, telling me things that aren't particularly helpful. "To lose weight, eat less calories than you burn". Thanks! I know! It's not that I don't know HOW to lose weight, I just don't always have the motivation. I don't know why it irritates me so much, other than it feels like advice from someone who doesn't get the struggle to not eat, which for me, is easier said than done.

Ok, so, hopefully next week I can report a loss. I'm off to fill my water bottle.

Wordless Wednesday: feels like fall alright

Thanksgiving weekend in photos: at the cottage and then the farm

It was time for the wings to go

It was a big more traumatic for me than I expected - but it really changed him!

Do you think he understand what that means?

Kiernan has a couple of new favourite pastimes. The first is to walk over to the lamp on the coffee table and shake it and/or the wires coming from the lamp around. The second is to walk over to the 5 foot stand alone picture frame in the corner and bang it against the wall. The entire time he does both these things he chants "no no no no no no no".

So he hears us, he either doesn't understand us, or he just doesn't care ;)

Tales from the scales

The saga continues with regards to my scale. I have discovered that it seems to be about 6 lbs off.... in a generous way :P But that's ok, the 6 lbs that I seemingly lost last week has consistently stayed off which is still 6 lbs, even if in theory I weigh the same as I thought I did the first week. (confusing much?)

But this week I saw no loss. I think I let my water drinking and meal planning drop a notch, so I need to get that back up. I did do a lot of things right though so I'm not losing hope that some of my effort will show up next week. I didn't snack as much, I chose healthier options several times - even if they weren't the healthiest options, they were better than what I would have done before, and what I actually wanted.

I could be more motivated, but I find it really challenging to stay motivated when I'm not happy with a lot of the other areas and my life, because the reason I'm fat in the first place, is because I eat to make me feel better. ;) I'll try to be strong and persevere!

Things I miss while at work...

Kiernan being so tired he falls asleep in his high chair. I swore my sleepless wonder would never do it, but he does... I just keep missing it. Good thing daddy grabbed the camera!

Gah, why you flashing that thing at me daddy? Can't you see I'm tired?

zzzz back to sleep



I'm also missing out on blogging time - I miss it, and have so much I haven't been sharing because I can't seem to find the time. *big sigh*