How to Live on a Boat with a Baby

Hi everyone, still here!  We are still living on the boat in case you were wondering.  Life is busy. You can always find me on my daily posts on the scrapbooking blog.

Thought I'd also link you up to an article I just did the other day as a guest poster on how to live on a boat with a baby on the living on a boat blog.  

I forgot to mention in the article what we have done and currently do for a baby changing station...  On the sailboat, we simply used the v-berth.  We had diapers, wipes and a change pad on a shelf at the v-berth and simply pulled it down each time we needed to change a baby diaper.  The good thing about it was that it was out of the way plus it was at the right height for standing up to.  On this house cruiser, we change the baby on our bed.  We have shelves at the end of our bed, floor to ceiling.  One of the shelves contains diapers, wipes and a change pad.  Again, we just pull it out when needed.  The bed is raised up a little higher than most beds from the floor.  This means we don't have to lean over too much and brake our backs in the process of changing a diaper!

Thank you to all the emailers for your comments on the baby post!  I am enjoying getting to know you all and sharing ideas.

Long time!

Yes, it's been awhile! We are still here, just busy. Got the plastic up so we are a shrunk boat now. Nice and warm and cozy inside. Been working on a new project e-book for ScrapScene. One photo is shown at right. (A mini craft/scrap studio scene with handmade polymer clay miniatures.)

I will try to post a pic from Flickr once in awhile. For more updates on us, you can visit T's blog with his Living on a Boat series. Also, we post daily at ScrapScene.

The Laughing Wee Lass

Here is a new video of the wee lass. She is laughing her head off at me pretending to cough.

I have been a little slack in posting on this blog, but if you'd like to see more of what we've been up to, visit T's blog here. Or, you are welcome to visit my Flickr gallery to see some recent photos. And, as mentioned before, you can find us every day posting on ScrapScene! I'll try to update more when time allows! :)

Plastic is Off

We took the plastic cover off the boat yesterday, so now we're feeling rather 'naked!' The frame is still up, but that will be next. We are still in our winter slip. We are still waiting to hear from the marina office on where our summer slip will be - it appears they have forgotten about us - a 40' houseboat, how could you not notice it? Anyway...

Last weekend we went "Bolering" (camping in our '72 vintage Boler). I just love this little egg-shaped camper. It is such a cosy and sweet looking little thing. It seems to even have a personality. I brought my art stuff along but barely touched it - the weather was too perfect for exploring. This was our first camping trip of the season. Awenda Provincial Park is beautiful. We love that one for the huge campsites that are so far apart from one another. Better yet, it was opening weekend so there were hardly any other campers there at all. Picture at right is of L on the top bunk. T made a wooden railing and ladder (you can barely see it in the photo) to prevent him from falling out. He loves it up there! Plus, we found it's a great 'playpen' of sorts for E.

Been working on some art journals lately. Here's one below. You can see more in my Flickr pages. Will be working on another e-book at Mom's next week. This one is all about mini books. Can't wait to get in deeper with this one!

What else is new? Well my brother, Koaladan, is probably too shy to say so but he got engaged a few days back, to K! We are all thrilled and excited! I'm getting another SIL!

{My Sentiments Exactly}

Yes, Still Here! (An Update)

Sorry for the lack of posting. I guess this should be a big update, but I'll try to be brief. :)

Wintering Update - Today, well in fact... just now, the water was turned on! We just heard it as it made it's way in the pipes along the dock. How exciting is this? Well, very exciting. The reason is because T no longer has to lug huge water jugs back from the marina laundry room and manually fill our tanks. We don't need to conserve our water as much as we have all winter. We can even shower aboard again. Loving that! Next thing you know, the plastic will be coming off. Last week, we still had a couple of nights that got below 0, but overall the days are really warming up.

Kiddoes - The kiddoes are growing like weeds and constantly entertaining us. Lochlan will be 3 1/2 next month. He is continually saying things to us that are so funny. We have a Google doc going which we are updating often with his little sayings, or as we call them, "Lochlanisms." The latest was this: T came back from the marina showers with Lochlan the other day. Lochlan tells me, "I saw Pat in showers." I said, "I don't think I know Pat." T says, "Pat is a nice man." Lochlan says to me, "You go to Daddy's showers next time and you will see Pat." Well, I guess he hasn't realized that there are men's and women's showers yet. Anyway, he keeps us laughing. Eireann is 4 1/2 mths (almost 5 mths!). She is always giving us a smile or a laugh. She is loving playing with toys now and sits in her 'boppy' seat on the floor, reaching into her basket of toys. I'm attaching a recent picture of my two sweeties.

Facebook - Have you joined? If not, you will be amazed at how easily you can keep in touch with friends and family. It is a great resource and besides lack of time, it is probably one of the reasons why I haven't been updating this blog as much!

ScrapScene - Ok, ScrapScene (my other blog) is the biggest time taker upper and thus my biggest excuse! But what fun I am having over there. If you haven't checked out this blog, we update twice daily. We are currently running a new contest called, "Truly Trendy." If you'd like to enter, click here. There is a huge prize for the winner from some great sponsors. As well, the gallery of entries is really loading up fast and there are so many beautiful projects. Take a look here.

E-Book - I recently published my first project e-book, "Scrapping Spring!" This downloadable book contains 10 papercrafting / scrapbooking projects with photos, instructions and patterns. You can see a sneak peek of a few of the projects above. It has been so popular that we may do another! Read more about it and get your copy here.

Sailboat - We are now working on our Alberg 30 sailboat to get it ready for sale. New cushion covers are being made by MOM. We will miss this boat as it was our first liveaboard boat plus it is run by sail power, not gasoline!

Doll House - Me and the kiddoes were at Mom's for a couple of weeks while I worked on the e-book. (She was invaluable with her help in looking after the kids.) We also worked on a joint project. A doll house made out of an old shelf and decorated using scrapbooking supplies. It's not finished yet, but here's a photo montage of what it looks like so far (click to enlarge). And no, it's not on the boat, it's staying at Mom's - no room here!

Check out the Snowy Owl

Snowy Owl sitting on the white thing in the left of this photo. This is out on Lake Ontario in the harbour behind where our boat is moored. To see a great close-up shot, check out T's blog post here. This is an arctic owl so it seems unusual to see it this far south, non?

Lights Out!

So... not only did the lights in the marina's showers go out on me, but it went out on two other people that I know of on another day, PLUS it went out on T on Saturday while he had the wee lad with him! Poor little guy. They fared well though and managed to find the door and open it. The whole time, L was hanging on to T's leg! Needless to say, none of us go there without a flashlight now.

Above is a sneekie little peek of a project I'm working on for ScrapScene. Will divulge the details later :)