One week in....and all is grand!!!!

Oh and let me start by saying that for some reason I am unable to post comments on my own site....so I am not ignoring you A, R, and D's...I just can't comment...maybe I blocked myself....maybe Carolyn blocked me...."HONEY I need to talk to you!!!!!!"

Yep, my first week of being a stay at home Dad is complete and a fantastic week it was!!! We both survived it with no major injuries. On good days I even got a nap in the afternoon!!!!!

Sooooo what did we do????? Hmmmm let's see...

We played with Sunny the bird....


Oh and we made cupcakes....from scratch...a first for both of us....Clarissa iced and decorated them all by herself.

I did learn something though...dancing and jumping in front of the oven to celebrate how good they look through the window, as fun as it is, is not a great idea that results in some kind of flat cupcakes. As flat and rather bizarrely iced and decorated they were though....they still tasted great. Next comes the white cupcakes!!!! (we did chocolate to make Mommy happy)

Clarissa had snacks each day...


We hung out with lots of friends...


Bring on week number 2!!!!

Let me introduce you to Mr. Mom!!!

Yep, tomorrow is my first day of being a stay at home Dad!


Now I figure there is one of two possibilities in play here. 1) Carolyn thinks that I am a great Dad and she is fully confident that all will be fine here upon her return to work tomorrow....or.....2) She is actually scared to death of the mayhem that may ensue and is just highly medicated enough to allow her to leave the house in the morning (err......assuming that she does actually leave the house in the morning). Let's take a poll.....Vote number 1, Vote number 1!!!!!!!!

Well either way, I am very much looking forward to spending my days with my beautiful little girl.


What will we do????? What will we do???? I think that we will start with making some cupcakes...ya cupcakes...white cake with light chocolate icing...or wait...how about light chocolate cake with brown sugar icing....ya light chocolate cake with brown sugar icing...that sounds really, really good. Now, I want to make them from scratch...no box cake mix. Have I ever made cupcakes from scratch??? NOOOOOOO of course not, but I am sure that I can...I mean "we can"....Clarissa will help me......oh....wait, I seem to remember something about us being booked in for playgroup tomorrow...hmmmm I guess it won't be cupcakes tomorrow. Maybe Wednesday...ya Wednesday!!! We are so making cupcakes on Wednesday!!!! Ummmm unless I find out tomorrow night that we are booked for something else on Wednesday....but I will have you know that there will be cupcakes! Yes...there will be cupcakes!



Clarissa has taken a big liking to corn on the cob!!!




Mmmmmmmm bbq'd peaches!!!!!!



I did have a couple of more serious topics to talk about, but I got sidetracked by cuteness and the whole all about me thing.....I will get to the serious stuff soon though.....

In the meantime....Clarissa had the bunnies out...

Ok now where was I???? Oh ya.....

Took a while to charge my battery huh????


We have had lots going on around here and Clarissa is becoming a bigger girl each day! The big news...........she is now diaper-free!!!!!! (well except during the night, and even then she wakes up and tells us that she has to go....most of the time) This all happened in one day.....I don't remember the name of it, but there is this book that Carolyn came across somewhere (hey...give me a break...I'm a Dad....I can't remember this stuff.....), anyhow whatever this book says it resulted in no more diapers all in one day. Magic!!!!

Oh the other thing is that our backyard deck is now compete....


and we are loving it. It has made a huge difference back there. The pitcher of sangria that I made us tasted different somehow...



Clarissa is real impressed by it also....



We had a couple of visitors in the backyard the other day...




We took Clarissa to see the Changing of the Guard on Parliament Hill

Father's Day, a couple of stinky visitors, and "Houston we have no diapers!!!"

First things first.....


Soooooo what's been goin' on???? Well, we had our 5th annual charity golf tourmanent a couple of weeks ago which is partly why I haven't posted in a while. The last couple of weeks leading up to the tournament is always pretty crazy for me. The good news is that we had another great tournament with 140 players, and we raised $19,000. Then I headed to Toronto for a conference and to do some work. This all resulted in me spending my second Father's Day sitting in on presentations about planning disaster and business continuity exercises. Then dinner alone and the evening alone watching tv in a hotel room missing my girls.

Huh???? You are not at all interesting in hearing about me??? You want to hear about Clarissa??? You want pictures of Clarissa??? Oh....ok...well she had her first hamburger. Errrr....ok, technically it was a hamburger bun toasted on the bbq with a slice of tomato on it, but that is just details isn't it???


Clarissa has been taking some pictures of her toys with Daddy's camera



She has new favourite Princess pjs.


We had a couple of visitors in the backyard.....darn....my camera battery went dead...can't download anymore...I'll be back.

Big girl's bed......

We talked about it and decided that it was time for the crib to go. Well technically Carolyn decided, and then I approved it when she told me "Clarissa's new bed is waiting at the Sears outlet, go and pick it up!" and I did. Ok it wasn't actually like that at all, but it sounds more entertaining than "We talked about it and decided that it was time for the crib to go." don't you think??? Did I just get myself in trouble with my incredibly beautiful wife???? Did I just save myself???? Huh???? "No it's too late to save yourself Rob. Not even your silver tongued nuggets of sweetness are going save you."

Hmmmm did I have a point before I went off on my nonsensical rambling???? Oh yes, the big bed switch....well we weren't sure how Clarissa would do with the whole thing. She doesn't do well with disruption to her world as she likes and is used to it, and she is somewhat...ok very possesive of her things these days. So my strategy was to enlist her services (and her tool kit) to help Daddy construct the bed. It worked like a charm!!! She was quite proud that she helped to build it,



and she immediately took a huge liking to her "big girl bed".





The thing that we hadn't quite factored into our plan of brilliance was the fact that she can now get up at anytime (read 3:30am) and come into our bed and take over...pretty much putting an end to Daddy's sleeptime, while her and Mommy snooze away joyfully.....

Nanna and Poppa brought her a great bubble blowing lawnmower that Clarissa is loving playing with!!!!



The new deck is built....

now let's have some weather that will allow us to use it....somewhere between the constant downpours and 35000 celcius would be good....

Oh well I guess that is enough of my gold for now......

More than a month?!?!?!?!?!?!?

Yep I know......it has been more than a month since I have posted. So many things have happened that I don't even remember anymore. I will have to work on that. Oh well how about this to smooth things over.....


or this......


or this.......


or this......



I know you don't want pictures.....you want me to share more of my deep thoughts and tidbits of wisdom..........ya well good luck with that these days. I do have lots to say, I just don't have the energy to say it. I will get there though....and you will be blown away by it all. I promise.

One thing that I can think of that went on around here is that Clarissa helped Daddy to make a big pot of meat sauce when we hosted the golf guys (and gals) season opener dinner.







She also got her first bike for Easter and she loves it.



Ok...we should be good for now. I will be back soon.....yes...I will.....

"So when did you get her?"...and more Florida pictures....

Not long ago I was talking to someone and during the discussion they said "So I heard that you adopted a little girl from China." to which I replied "Yes, her name is Clarissa and she is a wonderful little girl." to which the person replied "So when did you get her?".

At the time the wording of the question felt a bit weird, but I didn't really say anything...I just answered it and moved on.

Thinking about it, it actually wasn't the first time I have heard the question asked that way, but for some reason it stuck in my mind this time. I have to admit it bugs me. I am sure that it was not at all meant that way, but it leaves me with the feeling of it being similar to getting a new car. "Hey, what a beauty!!! Those rims are awesome!!! Look at all the lights on the dash!!! That colour of paint is amazing! When did you get her????"

Now, I will be the first to admit that I don't know what the best..or proper..wording is to use, but I usually go with something like "We first met her...." or "She first came home with us....".

Anyhow, I guess that my point is please don't ask me when I "got" her.

In the end though, all that really matters is we are blessed with the most wonderful, smart, beautiful, special little girl.

We went to the sugar bush and Clarissa loved it!





She loooooved her first taste of maple taffy!!!!





Hey, I never got to posting more Florida pictures....and now I am going to bed....oh well take this for now and more later.....