Janu-air

Ah, I started out so well this month... and then there was such a long pause. I was trying to remember why I wasn't blogging for the past few weeks and realized there are any number of little things. We had company -- Rob's sister Natalie came to visit us, and we took her around town to show off our fair non-wintery city. Last weekend, was my Grandma's 95th birthday, which we celebrated with a family dinner down at her house. We also spent much of January cheering for the Saints (Who Dat??) You figure that with a collection of personal favorite teams that includes the Bills, the Sabres, the Cubs and the Saints, one of the four should eventually come to some good, right? At any rate we're very fortunate people, so unlucky in sports is not exactly the end of the world.

[Still I wonder if the Cubs might win a series during Maddie's lifetime... because I've given up on my own. Only 37 more days until Spring Training!]

I've also been pretty busy with work stuff. I have a really fun, but ambitious project at work... a new website. There's something about website design that fascinates me and makes me think I may have been better served in my life by becoming a professional techie. Still, I've managed to immerse myself in tech quite sufficiently.

But there's just something about January that tricks me every year and makes me think that time is going by more slowly than it really is. I was quite convinced all through January that I can handle this thing called winter, with it's bitter air and blustery snow. While Natalie was here, we had our traditional January thaw and I caught a whiff of hopeful Spring (not the delusional sort, but rather of the oh-it's-only-3-months-away variety). Today there's a nice little snow going on outside my window and because today is my day at home, I find myself looking out the window and loving snow. I'm taken with the idea of winter -- someday making paper snowflakes with Maddie, singing wintery songs like "I've got my love to keep me warm" and thinking about reading wintery sounding books like "Snow Falling on Cedars" (Is that really wintery? Does any one know? Didn't the movie star Ethan Hawke?)

My traditional January trend is to spend my daydreaming thinking about spending money. I don't know why, but every year when January rolls around, I dream about spending lots and lots of money. This year, my wish list included 2 shirts I saw at the Loft during my Christmas shopping, lots and lots of family photos and items for completing the decoration of my living room and dining room. I've settled quite nicely into this apartment (and am shocked we've lived here for almost a year!) but now my mind is turning towards baby proof-ing... and that means organizing again a symptom of my January-ness.

I'm envisioning 2 storage cubes for the living room, to house toys and serve as extra seating when needed. Plus 2 more low bookcases to remove the last of my books from the floor, and also house a few photo-storage boxes for my massive photo collection which I would like to organize this week. Plus, I'm picturing a huge vase of Chinese lanterns on my dining room table (in a nice, solid, non-tippy container -- that's child proof right?) And truthfully, I've been dreaming about this for about 4 years now:


OK, now for those of you who read my blog only for my beautiful Maddie and her gorgeous pictures, I shall give you an update and a treat.

This girl is getting close to crawling! I think it'll be any day now.

In the meantime, she's perfectly happy being jumpy, jumpy, jumpy!

We took Maddie and Natalie to the conservatory in Niagara Falls. Please note the new lip pout. She's actually just learning how much fun it is to make faces, but perhaps a sign of things to come!

Maddie was spoiled rotten on Christmas! Look at all these toys! How on earth can a girl choose from all this bounty?

That last game was a nail-bitter! Let's hope the Super Bowl is a little more relaxing!!

I haven't been taking as many pictures lately -- mainly because of Rob's iPhone. Now that Maddie is a little more playful, it just seems easier to get better shots with the iPhone, less lag time between snapping and actual picture. Plus Maddie always flinches when the flash goes off, so the iPhone works out better. Sadly that means, weeks and weeks between uploads. But there are always great pictures!