Baby, I wonder...

We have been doing a lot of wondering lately...

...as my belly continues to grow, the realization that we really will have a little person of our own is becoming more real.  This leads us to a lot of questions that we can hardly wait to have answered:

1. curly hair or straight hair?

3. dark hair or light?

2. left handed or right?

3. chin dimple? (I hope so!)

4. big ears?

5. big head???!!

I know that it may be silly to focus on all of the physical features but how can one not be curious as to what two people mixed together will look like?  Then there are the personality traits.  It will be so interesting to see these develop - I would be happy if the baby was exactly like Carmon - Mr. easy going, smart, big heart.  Of course we are being open minded and are trying to be prepared for anything - soon enough, all of these questions will be answered...how exciting!

Christmas in the City

Merry Christmas!

This was our first Christmas in Toronto, surprising actually, considering we have been living in this city for 7 years.  But for 7 years we've headed home to the Alberta prairies to celebrate the season with our families.  Christmas at home is always wonderful and we try our best to cram in as many visits as possible with family and friends.  It was strange to think that we would not be able to see everyone and enjoy the traditions that our parents had established.  Today we experienced Christmas in the big City and it was pretty good!  We started the day with stockings and banana chocolate chip pancakes in our jammies.  Then headed downtown to watch a movie.  Christmas day is opening day for a number of shows - we chose to watch  'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button' it was a great way to spend the afternoon.  

We had a ham roasting in the slow cooker while we were out so were greeted with the smell of dinner when we walked in the door - nice!  Normally I cook Schwartes hash browns whenever we have ham, but decided to try potato pancakes from my new Giada De Lorentiis cookbook.  This was a good project for a relaxed afternoon - as it took a few times to get these just right and each pancake required about 12 minutes to cook on each side - so I was glad that we did not have hungry guests waiting!  Our meal was delicious but it did not really feel like a true Christmas Dinner...I suppose that it will always feel this way if we are not at home amongst the hustle and bustle and the endless spread of delicious food.

The New Year will bring us a new addition to our little house so we did our best to savour the quiet atmosphere.  We are already talking about next Christmas and how fun it will be to celebrate with a child - we will certainly be heading home to share this with our family and friends in 2009.  We missed you all today!

Lots of Love, 

Carmon and Cheryl

Snow Day!

My last day of work before a week of holidays - TGIF!  

We were warned of a winter storm coming our way on Thursday night - they were calling it "snowmageddon" on the news.  This certainly generated some chatter in the office and many people opted not to come in today, fearing they may never get home in the afternoon when the storm was set to hit.  I went in although, I have to admit, I was like a child on the last day of school.  Finding it difficult to focus, all I could think about was making my way home and snuggling up on the couch out of the snow.  Finally!  We got the go ahead to pack up and head out at 2 pm.  Perfect timing as I had managed to squeeze in my last minute shopping at the Eaton's Center and placing a new order on Etsy - all in a days work!!  

I have to admit I have become a bit of an Etsy addict, and find myself checking in on the crafters of the world numerous times a day.  Today I was thrilled to hear from Michelle at Little Paper Dog.  I fell in love with her Home Sweet Home print awhile ago, however, I was not sure if the bright pink would work and that was the only color she was offering at the time.  After a few emails back and forth she kindly reproduced the print in my requested shade of orange today!  Merry Christmas to me!  

What?? 30 weeks pregnant!

So time has just been zipping by and I was shocked the other day when I realized that I am 30 weeks along already - what??   That means I have (approx) 10 weeks to go!  I guess I have been distracted with Christmas just around the corner and keeping up with work and the great number of doctor, chiropractor visits that I have had over the last couple of weeks - it seems that we have something on the go almost every day of the week.  Doctor's appointments are a pretty regular occurrence at this point - I see Dr. Shapiro every 2 weeks, just a quick check-up to ensure that all is still going well - and then I am outta there - usually pretty quick and painless.  I had been dealing with a sore back and hips when I arrived home from China and it was recommended by my prenatal yoga instructor that I see a Chiropractor...I will be the first to admit, I was a little wary but Karen was pretty keen on this specific Dr.  ...Well let me tell you - I could just HUG Dr. Ho every time that I visit - I have been seeing him twice a week for the past few weeks and he has practiced both acupuncture and chiro and I feel SO much better!  My pregnant waddle has left me for the moment and my speedy walking pace is back.  It is nice to BE pregnant but not to FEEL pregnant.  I realize that this will soon change as the weeks progress but this is where I am at today and I am happy...

A wee update

We rejigged things a little in here to make the room more workable and added a cute little rocking chair - lucky baby - our bedroom is not nearly as fancy!

Getting Ready for Baby

Well we may be a tad early - still 108 days to go, but we are anticipating that the next few months are going to fly by so we got an early start on the nursery.  My mom and dad were here just after Thanksgiving and were eager to help out - mom could hardly wait to get a paint brush in her hand!  We have a teeny little bedroom that is perfect for a nursery - but it was an uninspiring room with cracked walls, no baseboards and no color...

Now...we LOVE this little room!

...still some finishing touches to go but we are really happy with the way it's shaping up - we were wanting to get a little rocking chair in here but it may be too tight.  Lot's of ideas for art and accessories...more to come!

Catching up

Back from my last big trip last night - 2 weeks in Asia, and I was so happy to get home.  Traveling is great but I really am a home body.  As I am not inspired to do a whole heck of a lot else today - thought I would update with a few pics of our continued progress on the house.  The exterior of our house was one of our biggest projects this summer and we had Eric come to visit in the spring and put him to work for 3 solid weeks...what a treat to have a Carpenter brother and a very handy hubby!  

Before...a blank canvas, not a lot of privacy and a view of a really ugly rusted shed!

 Progress!  The boys taking a beer break.

Finished product - so pleased with our new yard!  This is furniture that I purchased for Home Outfitters for our spring summer season - it was one of my best sellers.  Fortunately we were able to score a set before they all sold out.  

Yup! Having a Baby!

More excitement here at the Blacklock household!  We are expecting a little boy in February!  Carmon and I are thrilled and are really looking forward to the day that he arrives.  Hmm...let me be more careful with my words, perhaps I am looking forward to a few days after he arrives...if you know what I mean - yikes!  I have been getting requests to post photos of my growing belly - here I am today at 21 weeks.

Will We See The Light?

Bless Carmon, he really is a handy man.  I did my part in picking out a chandelier and Carmon agreed to install it - no problem!  At the time the project really did not seem too difficult, we talked it through...Carmon was confident that it would be easy to create a new outlet for the chandelier, as it now needed to be centered with our dining room table.  He would cut out the ceiling dry wall, run a new outlet from one of the existing, and then patch up the two outlets that were already there, simple enough...

OK, It works!  Now we just have to get it to stay up there...oh and fill in the hole that was carved out of the ceiling...Carmon plastered and sanded over 3 days - each day adding a layer of thick dust throughout the house and on himself!

Hanging the chandelier did involve a fair bit of drama but I will not bore you with the details...let's just say that we are now experts at this and hope to god that we will not have to hang another of these babies in a long time!  

Progress!

...so we've been busy!  Is that a good enough excuse?  As you can see, last blog was March 9th, our move in day.  I have been receiving many jabs from fellow bloggers (you know who you are) - why have we not updated our blog?  Well we have made some progress...allow me up to update you on our early days as homeowners...

White

The thing about white is that not all whites are the same.  Ready to forge ahead with the daunting task of painting every room in the house, we started with the dining room.  Not the best of starts as we painted the entire room in Benjamin Moore Oxford White, which basically is the same color as our crisp (very white) base boards - it was a very blank canvas, a little too blank.  We lived with the color for a few weeks before we both admitted that we really weren't feeling the love...so, we re-taped and re-painted all over again.  We 

settled on a color called Intense White which sounds scary but is a perfect shade of white...not that anybody else would be able to tell!  

Goodbye Tiffany Turquoise!

Let me be the first to admit that I love the color turquoise especially when it comes in the form of a little box with a white satin ribbon!  But, not so sure that this would be the color to stay put on our kitchen walls.  

We removed a funny cabinet that looked out of place between our two kitchen windows as well as the corner shelf above the sink.  With the removal came some patching and then repainting - all worth the effort.  New paint color - Benjamin Moore Snowball.

...Moving Day...

Isn't winter over yet?  That question has been on my mind for awhile now but it really resonated yesterday when we had to move in the middle of a March blizzard!  This was the scene at 78 Twelfth St. - it was worse than it looks.  Did I mention that we moved by ourselves?  It's funny now that it's over but there were a few tense moments yesterday!

Now we are in our new pad and it already feels like home.  It is weird going from a 400 sq. ft. bachelor apartment to a whole house just for the two of us.  We are enjoying all of the things that we have gone without for many years such as a dishwasher, being able to do laundry whenever we want, not having to save up loonies for the washing machine, having a driveway to shovel! ...OK, perhaps I am pushing it there, Carmon has been out there two days in a row...not sure if that would top his list!  We have a big to do list and are waiting for more furniture to arrive - we have been standing over the kitchen sink eating meals - it will be wonderful to have a real dining room table...Carmon wants to start on the bathroom right away - I promise, I will update our progression on a more regular basis - I am sure things will get very interesting as we begin our DIY projects.

We bought a house!

...exciting news!  After a painful 5 month search - we have officially bought a house!  We are super excited about our little fixer upper and have been scheming about all of the things we can do to make it our own.  The house is located in Toronto's west beaches - a little area called Mimico - an interesting area with lots of potential.  Lake Ontario is at the bottom of our street so we have landed a great location - now we just need a boat!  ...that will have to wait - we have been making lists of all of the changes we need/would like to make and I think we have just spent our wad!  We get possession of the house on March 3rd - we can hardly wait to get in there.  Our little 400 sq ft. apartment has been a lovely little pad for the last year and a half but we are getting tired of bumping into each other!  

 

August 4, 2007

O lovely day...I can't believe it's been 5 months since our big day and we are just getting photos organized for everyone to see now.  We had almost 2,000 digital pictures to get through, can you see why it took so long?  This was a daunting task and frankly we were getting tired of looking at ourselves!