The Big Boy Room

Well after weeks of talking about it and a straight week of working on it, the big boy room is just about complete! We just need a couple of pieces of wood to support the bottom of the bedrails and then it will be done. Tonight we will move his James name letters over there and will move his stuffies, books and clothes over and *hopefully* tonight he will want to sleep in there.

Last night when we were in there with my parents he was so excited and jumped right up on the bed, laid his head down and said night night. I hope tonight when it's all ready to go with his stuff in there he will feel the same way.

Here is the happy big boy last night!

Oh yeah and my sadness is still there too. When I put him in his crib last night for the last time I just about cried but did good in front of him. It's just that this new transition is bringing up so many memories of his first days in that room as a baby and I feel my heart just bursting with love for my little guy.

Here are the letters above his nursery room closet, we've been talking about these letters and hope that once they are moved over to the b b room he will feel more at home. It amazes me because it feels like just yesterday that he was this small and now he can spell his name by looking at those letters!

Tonight after he goes down I will post the before and after photos from the big room makeover!

My baby is growing up and I'm not sure what I think about that

How can I even explain how excited, happy and overwhelmingly sad I am that James's big boy room is just about complete?

I remember the excitement 2 1/2 years ago when I was pregnant and we were creating our baby's nursery and the care and joy that we took in working on it together to create a space our baby would come home to. Well I can't believe that 2 years later we have just about finished the huge project of creating his new room.

Because we decorated the nursery in a gender neutral Winnie the Pooh theme we had always planned to redo our den upstairs into our first child's big kid room so that Baby Barrows #2 could just go directly into the already done nursery. No, there is no Baby #2 yet but we knew the time was coming for the transition to happen before the craziness of summer hits.

For months now everyone has been telling me it's time to move him out of the crib. Although I don't totally agree because I like him contained, I am going for it and hoping the switch goes smoothly. Some days he seems so grown up that a big boy room seems like a great idea and then other days he seems like my baby and I cringe at the thought of him being able to climb out of his bed and come and wake me up in the middle of the night!!

For the start of the transition we started to talk to James about his new room and take him into the very disorganized and crowded den and tell him it was going to be his new big boy room. When we were in Nanaimo 2 weeks ago we spent a huge chunk of the weekend shopping for stuff for his room and he kept saying b b room and b b bed (his way of saying big boy is b b). When we got home off the ferry he went straight up to the door, knocked on it and said to me, b b room. He gets that it's his new room but not sure if he really gets that he is going to live in there.

This past weekend we worked a ton on sanding furniture, priming it and then painting the heck out of it. Not to mention a complete paint overhaul from a dusty green color to a BRIGHT blue and white. I am loving what it looks like and can't wait to post the before, during and after photos. We are off to pick up the mattress for his bed tonight and then will install the bed rails after he goes to bed tonight...in his crib....for the very last time! Our last projects tomorrow night will be having him help me make his new big boy bed and moving his name letters from above his baby room closet to his big boy room closet. Those letters are how he has learned to spell his name and I keep telling him they will move with him to his new room and hopefully he will find peace in those letters if he is scared to be in the new space.

Wish me luck everyone, this Mommy is struggling with my little boy growing up!

Memories almost lost...

I am a procrastinator...sometimes a very bad procrastinator! Case in point...

Our computer for the past month or so was starting to flash and sometimes wouldn't want to "wake up" without a little gentle coaxing (aka turning it off and on). So, probably 3 times in the past 2 weeks I've hooked up the external hard drive to back up my last 2 months of photos and just kept thinking, it's okay, I'll get to it. Surely if it's been termpermental this long it will continue to work. Fast forward to Sunday morning with the external again hooked up and my morning net surfing happening, the computer just DIED! Wouldn't turn on, off, nothing, just screen went to black. I was devastated and immediately started to cry as I thought about James's 2nd birthday party photos and our family trip to Nanaimo last weekend and all the other random photos I take of him being GONE. The only saving grace was that I had posted some photos on both FB and on this blog so I knew I had some record of those 2 events. All day I worried about it and wondered how we would afford to fix it or to buy a new one.

On Monday morning I called a great local company called Second Flux and dropped by there on my lunch break expecting to drop my baby off there and hope for the best that even if the computer was dead that they were able to retrieve my photos and a few documents I wasn't sure had been backed up before. Well thankfully the problem turned out to just be the need for a new power cord! For some reason I'm hard on power cords as this is my 3rd one in our 4 year old laptop!?!  This morning bright and early I got up and made sure all of my photos and documents were safely on the external so now I know if it does die all my memories are saved!

Anyways, the moral of this story is....don't procrastinate and always always always back up those precious memories somewhere. I am going to buy a new external and back everything up in two places now because I constantly worry about losing the probably 15,000 photos I have taken in the past 9 years since I went digital. I will also no longer be keeping any important documents on my laptop hard drive because with a computer getting on in age I never want to have this worry again, EVER! For someone like me who is obsessed with photos and keeping track of my families memories, I am glad that I have never had to learn the total hard way about losing everything.

Speaking of photos, here's some awesome new photos of little man from the past weekend! These were all safely on the camera card so luckily wouldn't have lost them!

Some favorite recent videos

Dinner Conversation with James

Giggling with Grandma Tracy

Playing with his new ramp toy

Spelling his name and the knock knock joke!

And the kid gets even funnier....

Yesterday morning I got little man up from his crib and laid him on his change table and in my just woken up haze he so lovingly kept saying hug and kiss and cheeta's so I kept leaning over to give him what he wanted because I love when he asks for these things. Fast forward a few minutes and I'm more awake and walking down the stairs holding him and I lean over to give him a kiss and he looks me right in the face, giggles and says "yucky!" Yes that's right, my 2 year old said my kiss was yucky!

Then last night James and Jim were playing with the new car set on the floor in the living room and Jim thought he smelled strangely like he had pooped so he asked him if he had and James said no. Well Jim actually leaned over and pulled the diaper back to check and at that exact second the kid let out a super loud fart right in Daddy's face! It was awesome and we just burst out laughing while James looked at Jim all sweetly and said "toot"  Too cute that kid is!

Family Weekend Fun in Nanaimo

Twice a year we make a trip to Nanaimo to visit with Jim's family and some of our friends from back when we lived there. Luckily my boss was nice enough to give me the day off on Friday which allowed us that one extra day to get stuff bought and friends/family visited while we are there.

On Friday afternoon when we arrived in town we went straight to my good friend Annie's house where we were staying and had a great visit with her while James had a nap. Then off to the mall to get some new summer clothes for little man and start the BIG BOY ROOM shopping! :o)

Friday night we had supper with Jim's Grandma Doris and her partner Roger. Doris was married to Jim's wonderful Grandpa Doug who died 4 years ago and that we both just loved and adored. Since his passing we have made it a point to keep Doris in our lives and absolutely love Roger to bits too. They both adore James and to him they are Grandma Doris and Grandpa Roger.

Here's some cute pictures of our visit with them.

That night we made it back to Annie's for a short visit with her, Jay (her bf) and Acasia (their daughter) before the munchkins headed to bed and we had our adult only visit.

Here is James and Acasia brushing their teeth and
snuggling while we read stories before bed.

On Saturday morning we went and picked up Jim's Mom and took her to Tania's for breakfast and had a fantastic visit with her. She was chatting and playing with James and it was so cute to see. He loved saying Tracy and was excited to color with her and laughed when she said Scooby from the coloring book. Warmed my heart so much to see these two together.

Feeding treats to Grandma Tracy's dog Ben

On Saturday afternoon we spent a few hours at Woodgrove shopping for James's new big boy room. We bought a comforter set, new sheets, lamp, floor mats, curtains...all in blue and white! Will take pictures as the room comes together.

Getting ready to head out again to the mall for more 

BIG BOY ROOM SHOPPING!!

Saturday evening we headed out to Jim's cousins house for a fun few hours together where the kids could play outside on their property and we could all enjoy a wonderful supper, birthday cake and visit. We were able to spend time with Jim's dad Colin, brother Tom, his cousin Shelley and her hubby Scott and their little girl Brooklyn, and his cousin Shawn and his girlfriend Kyla and their son Eli. Would have loved to see Shawn & Shelley's parents Auntie Marcia and Uncle Paul but they had dinner plans and weren't able to join us. We did get to see Auntie briefly when she came out to Shawn's to drop off James's wonderful Easter and birthday presents. Next time I hope we get to have a better visit with them!

Pictures from our evening out at the "Ranch"

Trampoline Fun

Bubbles with Uncle Tom

Playing catch with Grandpa Colin 

Eli doesn't look like he's as much of a hugger as James is! 

Attempting to get a picture of the 3 of them is almost impossible nowadays. 

Attempting one more photo! 

For some reason our kid doesn't like people singing Happy Birthday to him! 

Great big THANK YOU to Auntie Shelley for how wonderful she was about celebrating James's birthday. Thanks for the gift and the cake, even though he wouldn't touch it! 

Barrows men photos with a tired little man and a happy Grandpa Colin!

On Sunday morning we hung out with our amazing hosts Annie, Jay and Acasia. James absolutely adores Acasia and kept running up to her wanting to play. Although we were from the same small town we grew up in different circles. We met and became friends when we both lived in Nanaimo and had so many great times together, then we moved in together as roommates and our friendship fell apart because of my immaturity and lack of common sense. Years later with an engagement and a move to PR under my belt and lots of growing up having been done, I found her through Facebook and we've never looked back. That first night we spent talking for hours and felt like no time had passed. Anyways, fast forward many years and we are best buddies again and make time to see each other whenever we are there in Nanaimo or she comes here to visit her parents in Powell River. She so graciously offers her home for us to stay when we are in Nanaimo and Jim and I both appreciate having a warm, comfortable and private place to stay when we are away from home.

Sunday afternoon we met for lunch at our favorite out of town restaurant BOSTON PIZZA for lunch with our friends Aaron & Kayla. We hadn't had a good visit with them since we were in Nanaimo last year for James's 1st Birthday. When we saw them in November we were with a bunch of people and I didn't feel like we got to really visit with them. It was good to see them and we had such a great time with them and James was having a ton of fun playing with them, but was irritated with how many pictures Mommy had taken over the weekend, hence the unimpressed cheeeessseeee face he is making in the photos!

We had such an amazing weekend away and love all of our family and friends so much. Thanks to all those that were able to make it out to see us and hope to catch everyone again when we are able to make it there in the fall. If anyone ever wants to visit us in Powell River, just let us know when and we'll be ready for you! No need to bring a car over, just drive to Comox and hop on the ferry and we'll pick you up!