Holy smokes it’s 2010 tomorrow! Where does the time go? No seriously, where did it go? Ten years ago I was 16. 16!! I was just a baby waiting tables at the local pub and had the world’s worst hair cut. It seems like a million years ago. A lot has changed since then : I went away to University, met Ewan, fell in love and got married, bought a home, started our business, had 2 baby girls and made some amazing friends along the way. We wouldn’t be where we are today without the love and support of our family, friends, colleagues, our brides and grooms and blog family. You have all supported us, encouraged us, laughed with us and grown with us. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts and thanks for sharing in this crazy journey with us. Cheers to a great decade and here’s wishing everyone another amazing 10 years. And to have a little fun, we wanted to post some of our favourite The Good, The Bad and The Blog moments from the last year. From myself, Ewan, Yaira and our office staff : Happy New Year!
1) Usually these posts poke loving fun at our kids. Today I get to start out with me. We were out shopping for new Winter coats and I picked out 6 that I wanted to try on. I had it narrowed down to 2 and couldn’t decide which I liked better and asked for Ewan’s opinion. He asked me to keep taking the first one off and put the 2nd one back on. Over and over again. Finally he burst out laughing hysterically in the middle of the store at my stupidity. I had actually picked out two coats that were IDENTICAL and had been putting them back on and off over and over again without realizing that they were the same coat. For the record, I bought the first one. (The horribly-embarrasingly bad).
2) Our very favourite that is too long to post here. So make sure to click here to remember the “Toy Blender Incident“.
3) Last weekend a good friend of mine’s husband cut his hand on a broken vase. Within seconds I had three people asking me if I had a bandaid in my purse. I was confused about why they thought I might have one, but I went and checked and did in fact have two. When they told me that I carry my entire house around with me in that purse I got defensive and later that night went home to see if I could prove them wrong. To my dismay I found a bib, a butter knife, not one but TWO pairs of scissors, baby wipes, a black marker, a paper napkin, not two but one sock, a broken hair clip, an elastic and a paper clip. I may be a pack-rat, but I’m pretty sure I could beat Mcgyver out of a burning building any day with the things I found in there. (The bad).
4) A few months ago Ewan bought a new pair of shoes, but they got soaked at an outdoor wedding right after. The toes of the shoes immediately started to curl and didn’t stop. He kept coming home from weddings saying that he could hear the guests making fun of his shoes, but when he looked down at them he couldn’t understand why. A grandma asked why they were so pointy. An aunt whispered behind his back about the curl. And recently a grandfather flat out asked him where one buys elf shoes. While we were in Toronto we walked past a building that had big reflective windows. Ewan stopped mid step and in horror walked up to the windows. He had always looking down at his shoes, so he hadn’t been able to see the curl. But when he finally saw the shoes from the side, he yelled, ‘I AM an elf! Why didn’t anybody tell me?†… we walked straight to a shoe store. (The funny funny good).
5) The week of my surgery was full of lots of ridiculously embarrassing moments. Click here to revisit that adventure.
6) Rachel likes to help me with the laundry, but she thinks it’s funny to stuff socks in odd places. Like pockets, up shirt sleeves or down pant legs. Earlier this week Ewan put on his jeans and started screaming and jumping up and down like a terrified little girl. When I rushed into the room to save him from what I thought was surely something very scary based on the scream, I found him with his pants around his ankles furiously trying to get out of them. He was certain that there was a mouse in his pants and was doing everything he could to escape from it. After the pants were off (in front of our open front window, by the way), a rolled up black sock came rolling out. Rachel had stuffed a sock in his pants, so when Ewan put them on, it tumbled down his leg. Apparently a sock falling down your leg feels the same as a mouse running down your leg according to Ewan. So, to our neighbours who got to witness that side of my husband that morning, I’m very very sorry. (The funnily-good).
7) And who could forget the beach adventure? Reader warning : Only click here if you have a strong stomach.
8) I couldn’t figure out why Sarah Elizabeth was waking up every morning for an entire week at a new time. At 7:21 every morning, like clock work, she was up and ready to party. After a week of being woken up much earlier than humanly necessary, I went down to her room at 7:20 and waited. I silently listened to see if maybe the neighbour was starting his car at this time. Maybe a dog was barking on it’s morning walk. Or maybe our other 80 year old neighbour was using his leaf blower. Again. I was determined to find out. And then I heard it. “Oh Canada†started blasting from our 7 month old’s room. Full blast. About a month ago we gave Rachel an old deactivated cell phone to take photos with and she thought it was the greatest toy ever. She thought it was so great that she tucked it under Sarah Elizabeth’s crib mattress so that her sister could play with too. But not until after she somehow managed to set the alarm for 7:21am. Again, thanks Rachel! (The fun-type good).
9) If you’re familiar with University Hopsital, when you walk out of the ER, there is a giant hele-pad to the North that is always a little wind tunnel. I was rocking my 1940’s dress that I can fit back into for the first time since having Sarah Elizabeth. Not just a little rocking. Really rocking. As I came walking out of the Emerg doors, the wind caught my very flow-y dress and brought it up. Not just a little bit up. Right up and over my head. As I was standing there in shock and horror, a little woman came bolting over to help me and pull my dress down from attacking my head. But the damage was already done and every single person within 100 feet was already pointing and laughing and my face was red. Purple. Deep purple. And it wouldn’t have been so bad if I could’ve hopped into the car right there, or crawled in a hole and died. But no, I still had to walk across the entire entrance way to the parking garage and validate my parking. And yes, I then had the privilege of having to take the elevator with a dozen of those people who just got a full view of my pink underwear. Up five floors! (The bad).
10) Rachel has the vocabulary of a dictionary – something that we love, but that sometimes means she talks non-stop. For hours. And hours. She still sometimes mispronounces “Lâ€s and adds or leaves “Hâ€s out of her words. For my birthday last week we had chocolate cake and she thought getting to eat a piece was the world’s greatest present she’d ever received. She told everyone all weekend that she loved chocolate. True to Rachel’s funny pronunciation, she left the “h†out again. Try to say out loud what she was telling the old women in the grocery store – “I like c-oc-alotâ€. I WAS MORTIFIED! (The very bad).
11) Ewan took me out for lunch on my birthday and we went to a cute little Italian place downtown. As I was coming back from the bathroom, I noticed two servers mopping up the floor around our table. Ewan had accidentally knocked his drink on the floor and the servers were trying to clean it up before I got back. They thought we were on a first date (because really, only Ewan wears a suit to lunch). As I came around the corner, I heard one of the girls say “You’re sweet. Does she make you nervous?†And Ewan saying back, “Even after 5 yearsâ€. (The sweetly good).
12) At 3am on Friday I sat up straight in bed and screamed at Ewan – “The alarm is going offâ€. Like a possessed monkey gone mad, Ewan shot out of bed and ran off in search of the intruder. We could hear noise up in the office and went off to attack the bandit together. Okay, Ewan went ahead and I cowered by the front door with the phone in hand ready to call 911, so ‘together’ really isn’t the proper word. When he got up the stairs, he realized that it was just the cat who somehow got up there and set off the alarm and so we headed back to bed. After getting back into our room we both looked at the weapon in Ewan’s hand that he had grabbed in the heat of the moment to defend us against our robber. He didn’t go to the kitchen to get a knife. He didn’t grab a baseball bat from the closet. No, clutched tightly in Ewan’s hand was one of my pink stilettos which he thought would save us. Not an actual weapon that would have scared someone away…instead he chose a pink high heel shoe to save our family against intrusion. I’m not sure what he would have done if someone really was in the house – jab them to death with the heel of the shoe?? In the words of our friend Joey, only a ninja could hurt someone with a pink stilhetto….but if you ever need a body guard, Ewan is your man! (The bad).
13) My mother raised me to keep my hands to myself. Don’t touch the pretty vase in the expensive store. Don’t hit your cousin for stealing your doll. Ask for the ketchup to be passed to you, don’t just reach across the table and grab it. My mom was a stickler for the last one. I don’t know if I’m the only one who is going to find this odd, but I still get the willies just thinking about it. And yes, I just used the phrase the willies. I was at the grocery store with Sarah Elizabeth on Wednesday and she is teething like a vicious little monster. I could change her clothes 19 times in a day and she’d still be soaking wet with drool. A woman came right up to us and said, “Oh, poor thing, she must be teethingâ€. I politely said yes, and smiled and thanked the woman for stopping to say hi. I thought I was about to continue on my way, but was mortified with what happened next. The complete stranger stuck her entire finger in Sarah Elizabeth’s mouth and said, “I always found that chewing on a good finger helped my babiesâ€. Not only was it a stranger, not only did she have yellow fingers, but she also had dirty finger nails! I couldn’t even find words and just stood there looking back and forth between the dirty finger in my baby’s mouth and the strange woman that it was attached to. (The bad. Disturbingly so).
14) Have you ever had a mysterious smell in your house that you couldn’t find? For three weeks I have been tearing cushions off the couch, opening toy boxes and hunting in every nook and cranny for ‘the smell’. On Friday morning Rachel told me that she found the present that she’d hidden for me three magical weeks ago. Wrapped in a doll’s dress, sitting in a box, hidden in the bottom drawer of her play kitchen was that special present. I learned a good science lesson that morning – milk left in a sippy cup, in a toy kitchen sitting next to the heating vent will not only curdle, separate and turn grey….it will also create the foulest smell that you’ll ever sniff in your life. And just in case you’re tempted to take the lid off the cup, think of curious ‘ol me dry heaving for five minutes while trying to get close enough to the cup again just to throw it out! (The bad).
15) Last week Rachel had an obsession with pointing out all of the clocks in the house, but had a problem with leaving out the ‘L’. This week she entertained us with adding ‘H’’s to many of her words, and had a fascination with everyone ’sitting’ (add the H). All week, I heard: “Toti sit on the couch with meâ€, “Mommy, I’m sitting on the catâ€, “Rachel can sit on the floor†(again, add the H). An old lady in A&P nearly had a heart attack when Rachel informed her that she sits on the slide at the park all by herself! (The good).
16) I called Swiss Chalet for delivery this week because alas, I’m sick AGAIN and didn’t feel like even venturing into the kitchen. Ewan nearly coughed up a lung laughing so hard remembering the last time I ordered from them:
Brianna: “Hi, I’d like to place an order for delivery, pleaseâ€.
Swiss Chalet: “Of course, what can I get for you this evening?â€
Brianna: “I’m not really sure what the meal is called, but it’s the one that comes with the chickenâ€.
If you’re not from the area, much to my stupid comment there, ALL of the meals come with chicken. It’s a restaurant that serves ONLY chicken. The person on the end of the line started laughing so hard that they had to put the phone down and I was so embarrassed that I nearly hung up and ran away to hide in the closet. Now whenever we have chicken for dinner, Ewan has to remind me of it!
- photos by Justin Demers of StillMotion
by Brianna
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