Year in Review

Well it's that time of year again. 
   As you may have already discovered, Christmas season always brings the annual Christmas newsletters.  They show up in the mail (on time no less) showcasing a picture of a photo perfect, smiling family and each paragraph boasts more successful ventures then the last.  For some reason their toddler doesn't decide to stick her finger up her nose in EVERY photo!  Usually when reading about how little Timmy has mastered quadratic equations is the same time I notice that my daughter has used her hair as a napkin (you try not to freak out when her head is covered in red ketchup and you mistake it for blood)..
    I've always wanted to start a newsletter tradition of my own, however, I've been waiting for some boast worthy news.  This year I decided to try to work with what I got.  So far it hasn't gone as planned.  For starters my newsletter is already late: I aim for Christmas and I'll be lucky to get one out by February.  Second of all, I don't plan on mailing it, just putting it out there in blog form.  While trying to come up content, my first gut reaction was to grab a newsletter from a more successful family and pass it off as mine.  After all, one cannot brag about ones ability to double fist frozen cookiedough and chocolate chips while breastfeeding.....

So here is a summary of 2012 for the McRidout family:

Arrival of Jo Jo: 

We welcomed our third child this April.  He hasn't done anything amazing such as create cold fusion or win a peace prize but he is sitting up on his own and boasts a total of 3 teeth.  He's got such a sweet smile that I'm sure he'll charm the creator of cold fusion into giving him credit hence earning me a spot in a nice retirement home.  He is my precious son, hence I have spoiled him rotten (I regret nothing!).  He's sure cute now but I'm sure it won't be when he's a toddler.  His real name is Joseph however, we decided that we should give him a girly nickname that should follow him well into university (Jo Jo isn't that bad, I use to call Lily gummi bear because she had no teeth).   

Oh yes he's cute now....

however at 2am in the morning when he's screaming because he hates his crib, its not so cute!

Arrival of the BAT (Big ass truck)

Oh yes, the truck.  As mentioned in previous blogs, much to my delight, my husband traded in our zippy Jetta for a Big Ass Truck.  Now I know how Jack's mother felt when Jack came home with magic beans.  Apparently a reasonable size truck meant big enough to house a family of four in the back to my husband.  This monster of a vehicle has pretty much condemned me to being a pedestrian since I can barley manoeuvre my stroller without crashing it into a wall (just the other day I ran over someone's foot in the mall, I'm pretty sure I'd get more then an eyeful of stinkeye if I did that with the truck).  The other issue is it is wedged between a fancy sportscar and a pole in our parcade which pretty much wife-proofs it.  It took me so long to figure out how to get it out of our underground parkade, that I forgot where I was going in the first place. Glug glug glug..what's that? I can't hear you over the sound of my truck.  Just watch your feet, I don't want to crush it with my carbon footprint! 
For more BAT chaos click here.

Sorry kids, I spent your college tuition on driving to the supermarket!

Lily turned 1:

It was a year of firsts for Lily. We threw a huge party to celebrate the occasion in February.  However once she hit that landmark she found out that getting old sucks (enter the arrival of her younger brother).  2012 brought the discovery of walking, which lead to running which lead to jumping which has lead to many time outs.  She also started to talk and, well hasn't ceased since.  She now speaks in full sentences and seems to be full of sass just like her mother.  It has created our nightly Mario games that much harder (have you ever tried to play Mario without using colourful language?-ask Dave what S word she learnt tonight).  We started going to Strong Start this September which has provided her plenty of opportunity to terrorise others in a new setting.

Here is Lily at her first birthday party

It's amazing how much they change in that year! here is her in Dec

Lily and Jo Jo

 Lily loves her new brother very much as long as he's not playing with any of her toys, interacting with any of her people or breathing in her general direction.  We constantly have to remind her that she has to respect Joe's right to exist.  Jo Jo adores Lily and finds everything she does hysterical.  In fact I overheard them laughing while I was putting my contacts in only to discover that she had coloured his face using a ball point pen.  While we were playing Mario tonight, we looked over and there was Lily, feeding JoJo water from the dog's dish while he was jumping in his jolly jumper (sure glad I spent all that time and effort sterilising his bottles..).  Lily also enjoys the opportunity to use JoJo as a scapegoat.  Quite often whenever Lily is being bad, her first cry of protest is: "Jo Jo did it!".

The Dynamic Duo

I SO will be employing this technique.  My only concern is that it makes it easier for Lily to distribute JoJo beats

Elijah turned 2

It's been two years since Elijah passed away.  We spent his birthday with my family and had a nice day at Squamish.  We decorated his grave site for Christmas.  As always he remains a big part of our family.  Miss you baby boy!

 

Sister got engaged

After finding this picture on google, it makes my romantic plane ride proposal suck

 Yes, I know it's not really my news but I'm running out of material.  Bottom line is that I got a new brother-in-law to torment.  I've been taking lessons from Lily and anticipating mastering the art of swirlies any day now.  They seem very much in love, which makes sense since she hasn't realised that husbands come with plenty of laundry.  Anyways there's a rumour of maybe a fly by night Vegas wedding so I've been searching the web trying to find her a mullet dress for the occasion.    


It's not class unless its in the form of a mullet

Dave got a new job

Dave started a new job that involves him working out of town for long periods of time.  We miss him while he is away but I don't miss the laundry and dishes that follow him.  Plus we fight way less with a province to buffer us.

Job Search

I've been trying to help out financially, especially since Dave was laid off for a few weeks in December.  I am still trying to find freelance writing jobs but so far no one has found me that funny.  I did however try to venture back in the land of the working and was able to land a job but wasn't able to make it worth my while (turns out people charge money for childcare, my kid's company isn't payment enough).  I have been adding extra income and exploring my hobby of getting rid of stuff by selling it on bidding wars.  I was able to fund most of our Christmas costs this way.  Yay me!!  My husband isn't that impressed that random things go missing in our house and he secretly fears he'll return home one day and there will be nothing but two pillows and a lamp left.

Running

I decided to get back in shape and since I have a complicated relationship with both time and money, running seemed to be the cheapest and easiest method to do so..  Up to December, I was running 10-15km twice a week.  I've done two races: the 10km Terry Fox run and the 10Km 5 peaks run.  Since December however I haven't been out running because Dave is working out of town but as I guiltily opened a bunch of running related gifts over Christmas, it's time to get back into it.  I'm hoping 2013 will bring some new races. 

and finally the biggest change of 2012:

I'm NOT pregnant.

How many just read the I'm and p-word (too scared to put the two together incase that's what causes it) and almost peed themselves.  I'm happy to announce the completion of the McRidout family.  In case anyone is interested, this is the longest period of time in our marriage where I haven't been pregnant.  I'm excited to try out normal people activities such as snowboarding, seeing my feet and eating lunch meat.

2009-2012, long journey but done!

Hope you enjoyed reading my year in review!