Back to School

Carlos is back to work today. No students, but still... it's weird to not have him in the house. We'll find out his schedule for the year today... hope it's good!

We had fun during the last few weeks of August. Here are some recent photos.

Little Ducky sleeping 

Sisters!

Someone fell asleep during one
of our walks

Tummy time! Head down...

...and lifting it up!

Super writing technique!

Lixie does "that weird thumb
thing" too!

Helping me push the baby in the
stroller

Out for a Walk

Can't believe it's the 23rd of August already! Time sure does fly by. We had an appointment with the lactation consultant at the hospital where Alixe was born and I figured I'd get her weighed just to see how things were going... little miss has gained 2.1kg in 7 weeks. Not bad at all! She's grown out of all of her onesies though... time to get out the 3-6 month ones I have stashed in the attic. She is also starting to sleep for longer stretches at night, will go back to sleep after a feeding at night, and - something that still amazes me - can be put down to bed in the evening and will fall asleep on her own. Sure makes life a lot easier. Aimy is doing well too, though often trying to test us to see what we will do when she does something she's not allowed to do. Time-outs work wonders! Otherwise, she amazes us every day with the new things she has learned to do and the little sentences she says (Hi, baby! and Bye bye, Daddy always make me smile). Her new favourite word is Yucky, which is also sometimes applied to things she likes.

We've been going out for walks regularly and discovering interesting places in our area. Here are a few photos of one of our favourite routes.

Aimy loves the backpack!

We made some new friends on our walk...

Very friendly guys. They came to see if we had any food.

Aimy was enthralled.

Path through the woods.

Alixe all snuggled in. She loves her carrier too. Guaranteed
to soothe her to sleep.

Dip in the Lake

We've been going to the lake fairly often lately - the weather has been perfect for that over the last few weeks. Aimy loves the water and it's sometimes hard to get her to come out even if she's shivering from the cold!

Pretty swimsuit!

Sleeping in the shade

In the water!

Happy kid

Leaning in for the kiss

Love you, Daddy!

And a kiss for Mommy too

Holidays

It's been a while since I've posted... not only have we been enjoying our holidays, but there also never seems to be enough time for me to get online! There's always something to do or someone who needs attention. At the moment, I am the only one awake, and that's a pretty rare situation.

We've been going on lots of walks lately, now that the weather has cooled down. It should get warmer (and sunnier) by the end of the week but hopefully not as hot as it was in July - going outside was nearly unbearable most of the time. But the photos of our walks and of a trip to the lake will come once I've gotten a chance to upload them. In the meantime, here are a few random shots of the girls over the last few weeks.

Enjoying a taste of chocolate pudding

Got to get every last bit!

Admiring the baby

Nap time!

Playing with the very gentle
neighbourhood cat

She loves that cat!

Too cute!

Kitchen Renos

This will be my 100th post... amazing. Can't believe I have blogged so much. Hope you all have been enjoying keeping up with us!


Since it has been too hot to do much outdoors, Carlos has been working indoors on some of the projects we have had on our To Do list. The first one, and for me one of the most pressing, was the kitchen. When we moved in, we hadn't decided on what we wanted to put for our backsplash, and if you remember from THIS blog entry, we had only put up a glass section behind the stovetop. I had been looking for ideas and hadn't found anything that I really liked until two months or so before Alixe was born.

I was inspired by a woman who had bought cream-coloured tiles in the style of the Paris metro. I started looking not long after and found something I thought I liked at a home hardware store... but the closest location is 45 minutes north of here, and I was feeling tired as the pregnancy progressed, so we kept the idea in mind but didn't go check out the tiles right away. After Alixe and I came home, however, the idea resurfaced, and we decided to finally go take a look (we had visited a few other stores in the meantime but none of them had what we wanted).

Right away, we saw that the tiles were what we wanted. I also spotted 60cm-long sections of black glass that I thought would make a nice break from the plain white tiles we picked. And last week, Carlos spent 3 afternoons (plus a small trip back to the store to get extra black pieces, as we decided to tile above the end of the island too) finishing our backsplash. Doesn't it look great?

First few tiles!

Staggering them like in the métro meant more work for
Carlos, but he did it anyway :)

Work in progress

Looks great!

All done!

Here are a few more photos of the girls. We haven't gotten out much (to give you an idea, it is 25°C in the house with air conditioning, and last night it dropped below 30°C after 11pm) but we've still been having fun!

My new favourite photo: Aimy giving Alixe a kiss (which
she does often!)

Family photo! (complete with wiggly baby)

Summertime...

...and the living is hot!! What a contrast compared to the awful spring we had. The first half of July has been nearly 2 degrees hotter than normal, and it feels like it went from being cold and rainy to being unbearably hot overnight... which it nearly did. July 3rd was the last day we had rain and 20°C or so - ever since then it hasn't been cooler than 28°C. We haven't been out much since Alixe and I got home from the hospital, since it has been so hot during the day. Still, we're finding ways to keep occupied. Stay tuned for further blog entries on the subject.

In other news, Aimy has adjusted very well to the presence of her sister. In fact, nearly every time I have Alixe in my arms, Aimy gets excited and says "Baby, baby!" over and over until she can get close enough to give her a kiss. She gets a bit impatient when I am feeding the baby and can't do what she wants right that second, but she seems to be getting used to the idea that I can't be 100% at her beck and call. Right now we are going through a "body parts" phase; Aimy loves to point at her (or my) nose/mouth/toes etc. and say what she is pointing at. Even Alixe hasn't been spared the naming of facial features. Aimy has been very gentle with her and very sweet, which makes life a lot easier.

A few recent photos:

Drinking from a cup like a big girl

Another new favourite word: Shoes!

Snuggling with Mama

Fast asleep

A new favourite photo

Alixe

Just a quick entry to ease the suspense a bit!

Alixe Marion was born on July 2nd, weighing 3.31kg and measuring 50cm. It was a quick birth; my water broke at 1am and by the time we got Aimy off to the neighbors and arrived at the hospital, I was just about ready to go! Our precious little girl was born at 2:46am. We have been home since yesterday afternoon and are doing well. More to come soon!!

A few hours old

Fascinated!

Proud big sister

2 days old and wide awake