Two Little Feet (x 2!)

Little Miss Katie-Pie

2011-02-13T21:56:00.009-07:00

Dear Katelyn,

Well, this is your first official blog post! (we won't dwell on the fact that you're 3 1/2 months old already...)
My oh my, where has the time gone?
It was only a millisecond ago that this was you...

...and then I blinked and you were already wearing little dresses....

And now look, you've already become an Oilers fan! Boy oh boy...

Well, sweetie pie, Mommy is gonna try really hard to keep up the blog again because
before I know it, your two little feet will be running around the house and I'll want to be sure I've saved as many memories as I can!

So here we go ......

And this is why I don't have hardwood floors

2010-01-11T12:25:00.006-07:00

Update: Not sure why video isn't working.... working on it!

... And this is also why my walls have paint chips missing all over the place! All M wants to do lately is play "Hockey Night in Canada!!!"

Two Little Feet is taking a break for a while....

2009-11-16T05:28:00.000-07:00

Hey there...

Guess you've wondered why I haven't posted for a while...

Not sure why, but I just can't. Think it's maybe the whole baby thing. I'm still keeping this blog alive, but I'm going to put it away for a while with hopes that some day another little set of two little feet will grace its pages....

for now, please visit us at http://www.whenigetasec.blogspot.com/

Thanks for understanding,
Erin

Home Sweet Home

2009-08-24T08:21:00.005-06:00

We attempted to go to Banff this past weekend... but it wasn't meant to be!

We packed up after I got home from work on Friday and drove to meet Daddy who was golfing with Uncle Clint in Kananaskis. We got as far as the exit of Auburn Bay when Matthew proclaimed "I have to poop!".. "Really?" I said, I mean, he didn't have to go 5 minutes ago when we left. So, we turned around and headed back home.

45 minutes later.. we were ready to go again! Just then the phone rang and it was my neighbour. "are you busy?", she asked. "uh.. no..." I said, not quite sure how to answer... "ok, I'm bringing supper over!". She has a habit of doing this and she spoils us! Ok, I thought, guess this means we don't have to stop at McDonalds! It couldn't have been more perfect timing. So, we sat down and had a quick supper.

Try #2 to leave at about 5:30. We got as far as the second exit from our house on the freeway and Matthew said "Mommy, Pee is coming!"... ok, quick detour! I exited and went to the gas station parking lot only to find that he'd already peed his pants. And don't ask why I thought he could stay in his big boy undies before we left.... Pull up it was!

We got 5 more minutes down the road and hit a wall of traffic. I might have known this had I not had to already put Max and Ruby on the dvd player. The rule in our house is the DVD player is only used for long trips. Banff was classified as a long enough trip, so Matthew insisted the DVD be started the minute our wheels got rolling.

Apparently, someone spilled a bunch of diesel on the road, so we had to take a huge detour. We finally made it out of town and picked up Daddy and headed to Banff.

We had rented in what was supposed to be a very nice resort... but it wasn't. Well, at least the room they put us in wasn't. We were half in the basement, half not with only 1 little window in the bedroom (like a basement one) and one under the carport. The bathroom was so small you couldn't fit 2 people in it at once and the bath tub looked yucky. There was NO airconditioning and there were two queen beds that had mattress covers on them that didn't stay still... i.e. it seemed like a lump of blankets under the sheets.

Poor Matthew... cried and said he wanted to go home and didn't want to stay in the "crappy" hotel. We had a fan running full blast on us all night, but no one really slept at all.

We got up the next morning, tried to have a better outlook on things and went into town. We did have a very nice lunch together and Matthew was well behaved for us!

(a few pictures from the blackberry...)

Enjoying his milk....

Goofing off with Daddy....

Future Bono....

So after lunch, we went back to the hotel and tried to put Matthew down for a nap, and again he cried to go home. By now, we were all feeling like we were forcing ourselves to stay somewhere that wasn't feeling much like a vacation at all. So, we renegotiated the rate from the night before and checked out.

We got home about 4 and enjoyed the rest of our weekend in our home, sweet home...

p.s. we will try the weekend away again, but not unless I know someone who has stayed at a place before! You can't trust what those websites say!

Say it LOUDER Mommy!

2009-07-27T21:28:00.003-06:00

Every night at bedtime.. Matthew and I have a little chat about his day. Every day brings a new topic and new funny things out of his little mind!

Today's theme was "Say it LOUDER Mommy!" It went like this....

m: Mommy is going to go buy some baby clothes and a crib and some pjamas and a top for the baby!

(now, don't read anything into that....)

M: Who's baby are we buying this for?

m: (thinks...) Kate's sister... Kate's sister is a baby! Yeah... that would be fun... say it louder Mommy! That would be fun!

M: That would be fun Matthew!

m: Yeah!

... talks to himself for a while, Mommy tells him it's time to sleep...

m: Mommy's going to go buy some fruit tomorrow.. yeah.. some plums and avocadoes! Yeah... that would be fun Mommy! Say it Louder Mommy! That would be fun!

M: (starting to giggle to myself).. Yes, Matthew, that would be fun!

... more time passes...

m: Matthew's going to give some toys to Grandma and Grandpa!

M: What kind of toys are you giving them?

m: A **** (Mommy had no idea what he said, even though I asked 3 times)... Say it Louder Mommy! That would be fun!

M: Laughing outloud now... Yes, Matthew, that would be FUN!!

And on and on it went.... and we had FUN!

Too Hot!

2009-07-25T16:53:00.004-06:00

30 is just too hot for me. I'm good enough with mid twenties!
Yesterday morning we went over to our friends Ale, Juan & Eva to take a few pictures for them. Ale gave birth to their 2nd daughter, Ada, by c-section today. We had planned to do pictures later, but Ada decided to come sooner!

Matthew and Ava had a blast playing outside in the pool!

Matthew's 2 Year Pictures

2009-07-01T19:40:00.007-06:00

Slowly but surely, I get a few of Matthew's 2 year pictures edited every day.... here's a few of the finished shots:

This and That

2009-06-28T21:32:00.008-06:00

..... Matthew absolutely loves our strawberry patch. He checks it every day, telling me "this one's red Mommy!" to which I have to reply, "No, that one's not quite red enough yet... sorry buddy!" ... and then he usually goes and picks it when I'm not looking anyway!

We have a pesky Robin who also thinks that he is as much entitled to the strawberry patch as Matthew is. I feel so bad when we go out and find one that is ripe, only to pick it and find out it has little beak marks in it! I think I'll have to make a trip to the garden centre for some netting soon... I'm betting my lettuce crop is next on his list. Sheesh! It was the bunny last year, and now the robin!

Tia gave him a run for his money on Saturday. He didn't see her laying right beside the strawberry patch. I heard a big kerfuffle and some squawking and turned around and there must have been 30 feathers in the air!

And just for fun, here's a cat with an attitude, who was ticked that he just got caught escaping from the backyard, yet again.....

-------------------

In other news, Matthew has been asking the famous "What's that Mommy?" for a few months now. I swear he must ask 300 times some days! My neighbour warned me a while back that it gets better...

Today, while settling down for his nap, Matthew asked me what the noise was that he heard. "That's Daddy mowing the lawn outside", I replied. He contemplated for a moment, and then I heard....

WHY?????

And from then on, it has been...

"Matthew it's time for supper." WHY?????

"Matthew it's hair wash night." WHY???? "Because your hair is dirty!" WHY??

And you can imagine the fun we're going to have from here!! I thought making up "what's" were hard enough, but "why" is going to be a whole lot more fun!

------------

While reading a story tonight, Matthew saw a picture of a kangaroo riding on a bike! I was prepared for him to ask me what that was or why the kanagroo was on a bike, but instead he said "Kangaroo's not wearing a helmet!!"

Yes, naughty kangaroo!! He was quite concerned. Maybe I should colour one in the book! Wow, nothing gets past Mr. M.

When You're Two...

2009-06-23T13:46:00.007-06:00

I guess when you turn two, you turn into a big boy. Big boys like to play cars. Matthew has taken a particular liking to Car washes. We can drive by a gas station and he can always point out when and where there are car washes! So, of course, we had to make him his own car wash. We have also made lego carwashes with masking tape "hoses"... all Matthew's own idea!

Matthew's "Happy Birthday"!

2009-05-18T17:18:00.011-06:00

Last week, we celebrated Matthew's "Happy Birthday" with a big party full of lots of kids, laughter and fun! As Matthew's "friends" are only 2 years old... we thought it appropriate that they come with parents (don't you?) so we had a houseful!

The theme was Sesame Street, and particularly Matthew's favourite... Elmo!

We had hoped to play outside with the kids. I rented some fun backyard equipment including a jumping house, slide and tunnel system. I had watched the weather all week with crossed fingers, hoping that the 40% chance of rain wouldn't materialize, but it wasn't meant to be.

Around noon, it hailed ferouciously, and was very cold outside, which didn't make for a lot of fun. So what were we to do?

Bring the fun INSIDE of course!

I sent Daddy to Superstore to buy a new tarp... we emptied our living room of almost all furniture.. and voila! An instant playgound.

For added fun, I had been walking through the dollar store and found some really cute fishing sets with little magnetic fish and fishing poles! For the price that they were, I couldn't resist picking them up to make a little fishing game for the kids.

The cake was, of course, Elmo! (with a little help from my friend Bridget)

with some little cupcake friends to go along, made by myself.

We all had a little lunch,

and birthday cake of course!

We said good-bye to all of our friends and enjoyed the evening, playing with new presents, which Matthew got right into!

What a fun day for all.. but thank goodness it's only once a year!

Dear Matthew...

2009-05-11T21:39:00.004-06:00

May 12, 2009

My dear baby... wow, you turn two years old today. Two years old! Who could have imagined how much you changed my life in these two little years. You were a little blue bundle when I brought you home and now you wouldn't even fit in your car seat if I tried!

I went from changing itty bitty diapers to bigger diapers and now I hardly change diapers at all, I help you put on your big boy pull ups instead..... your big boy pullups.... your big boy everything.... you sure aren't a baby any more, but you'll always be my baby.

Boy, do you ever want to be a big boy right now though! You want to do everything that Mommy does and you love to help me make pancakes in the kitchen, and you always want to "flip" them in the pan. You like to sneak veggies from me when I'm making supper and you're favourite spot is smack dab in the middle of our island where you have access to all of Mommy's kitchen toys. You will be an expert baker soon... you can even measure the baking soda all by yourself already!

I can't find the middle piece of our vacuum because I've removed it so many times to make a mini floor vacuum for you, that it got lost! You have your own toy vacuum, but it's nothing like the real thing and you sure know the difference. Although, Uncle Mark bought you a toy lawn mower for your birthday and you sure think that is fun to run up and down the hallways with.. but that is because you don't remember what the real lawn mower sounds like, you just wait Daddy!

I love that you still love to be my baby. I love that you learned the word "nuggle" and although sometimes after I've had my arm stretched around you until it's falling asleep and I try to sneak away and even though I think you're asleep, and you snap it right back into place, I have a brief moment of wanting to pull it away, but I know that the "nuggle" stage isn't going to last forever and I try to savour every moment I can.

You started swimming lessons a little while ago.. you are hit and miss with the water, but you sure love to go to "Donalds" afterwards. You will sit yourself at a booth and polish off an entire hamburger (no cheese, ketchup only thank-you very much) and a milkshake... or chocolate milk... or both....

I am thrilled at how much you love to read. Sometimes I'm so tired at the end of the day that I just want to go to bed myself, but I will read as many books as you want because I never want you to lose the love of reading... (it just means we have to start the bedtime routine at 6:00 some nights!

You already knew how to walk when you turned one, but now you know how to run. I love when I open the door upon coming home from work and you bolt around the corner and straight towards daddy and I with a big hug! It makes my day! You tell us all about your day and the fun you had and it makes my heart feel less guilty about going to work each day and not being with you.

I started your second year being "Mama" but just recently became "Mommy". I wasn't thrilled about the change at the start because it's just another thing that isn't a baby and is a little boy, but you melt my heart every time I come into the room and you smile big and say "Hi Mommy!"

Your transition from a crib to a bed was an easy one. We went to California in February and you didn't want to have any part of sleeping in a play pen, so the only other choice was to give you your own bed...with all the dining room chairs firmly around it! From that point on, there was no more crib.. you wanted a big boy bed, so a big boy bed we bought you and you have loved to show it off to everyone who visits, ever since.

You love hockey and golf and I'm sure it's because your Daddy always has them on tv! But you love "Don" even more and let us know every time he comes on TV during the hockey game. You recently discovered that a "man sings O Canada" and once and a while give me a one verse rendition of the song yourself.

It wasn't long ago that I was posting about how you learned this word or that word, but before long, I couldn't keep up! You say everything and anything now and you're even talking in full sentences once and a while! I couldn't believe my ears when I asked you to tell me a story the other day and you started to say "One Day, Allison and Emily (your park friends) went to the park...." Wow! You know your numbers, although it took until this week to convince you that you were only turning 2 and not 3, and you're starting to learn your ABC's too. You can name almost everything in the Richard Scary word book and you routinely point out "Big Truck", "motorcycle" or "tractor" when you see them as we're driving!

Some more things about you....

~ Blankie is still your favourite comfort item... Boo Bear is a distant second
~ You are just over 32 lb and almost 36" tall
~ the cutest things you say are "pocables" and "hicksups"
~ Your favourite tv shows are Sesame Street, Night Garden and Franklin
~ Your favourite books are Mouse Cookie and Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb
~ Your favourite food is anything in a bun, which you call a hamburger
~ You still want warm milk at bedtime in a "baby cup"
~ You are 1/2 potty trained, all on your own doing
~ You play pretend on the phone and say "hello, how are you?.... good!" over and
over
~ You are still so darn cute!

By the time I write this post again, you aren't even going to be a toddler any more. You will be playing sports and riding your bike and an even bigger, little boy than you are today. Thank-you for being the light of my life and I look forward to all of the stories, games and fun that we will have in the years to come.

All my love,
Mommy

Direct from the (almost) 2 year old ~ April 30 edition

2009-04-30T12:51:00.002-06:00

from April 29

m: mama wear bandaid on finger.... dada wear bandaid on nose! Yeah.

I believe referring to the breath-right strips Daddy wears at night, but how he equated that to a bandaid, I'm not sure!

m: Hi MOMMY, Hi DADDY!

what? no more mama and dada??? I'm really sad! Well, I still get mama once and a while, but all of a sudden it's now maaaaaa-meeeeee!!!

April 30 at approx. 5:02 a.m.

m: Mama make fench toast for Maffew, now!!!

I think that is the current record for most words put together in a sentence!!

Straight from the (almost) 2 Year Old

2009-04-29T20:10:00.004-06:00

April 28, 2009
Matthew does NOT want his diaper on after his bath.... he does NOT want his pjamas on after his bath... Mommy tries everything she can think of and finally says

M: Matthew if you don't put your jammies on, Mommy will be sad.

Matthew looks at Mommy and thinks for a minute....

m: Uncle Bian Sad.......

M: Pardon Matthew? Why is Uncle Brian sad?

m: Mama happy......

m: Gama happy...... yeah...

m: Uncle Bian Sad..... fames lost....

He's probably right. Uncle Brian probably is sad that his flames lost.

April 29: Update:

m: Uncle Bian happy! Not Sad....

guess he got over the Flames quickly...

We have some catching up to do.....

2009-04-19T20:16:00.012-06:00

It's been a while, I know. So, we have some catching up to do! (and I must apologize for the quality of the pictures I've put up here lately. My good camera's battery died and we have to get it replaced... soon hopefully..)

It will hopefully be spring for good.... soon. We are supposed to get snow again this week, but the nice thing is snow at this time of year doesn't usually stay too long! Here is Matthew a while back, enjoying one of the first nice days of spring (when it wasn't quite warm enough for a hat yet, so we mofified his toque!

just doing a little sightseeing around the neighbourhood!

*******************************************************************************

Matthew has been going to "school" (as he calls it), or a toddler group, (as we call it), every Saturday morning since February. He has loved it! It has been a good mix of singing and dancing and playing with other kids and his favourite part... painting!

Each Saturday there was a different theme. On one of the Saturdays, the theme was fairytales and so all the kids got to dress-up as we sang their songs. First they dressed as knights, and then as kings, and then as.....

Fairies!! Yep, thank goodness I had my camera that day because I am betting that I may never see Matthew in a fairy costume again! Considering the class was about 75% boys, we all had quite a chuckle at the little "fairies" dancing around with their magic wands and wings!

As much as he looked forward to the "painting" portion of the class each week, he wasn't too impressed with the fairy wand that was the craft for the day. It didn't see any magical action once we got home.

But who can resist shaking sprinkles on anything!

*******************************************************************************

We enjoyed a short trip to Edmonton over Easter weekend. Edmonton has always been one of our favourite places to go and Matthew just loves staying in a hotel and playing in new playgrounds!

When we returned, we tried our hands at dying Easter Eggs for the first time! You should have seen Matthew's face when the first egg came out of the dye. He thought eggs should be colored all of the time!

There's nothing better than a bowl full of chocolate!

Happy Easter!

2009-04-12T19:59:00.005-06:00

The Easter Bunny made his very first visit to our house last night! That silly bunny, he left little Chocolate Easter eggs all over Matthew's Bedroom and down the stairs and around the living room! Matthew thought this was the best thing in the world! The Easter Bunny even left Matthew an Easter basket filled with some fun toys and things... but Matthew didn't even care, he just wanted the chocolate! It is now 8pm as I type this and I believe, for the record, that Matthew has eaten more chocolate today than he has in his entire life. For real.

just waking up. Found first chocolate egg. A little perplexed that Mom is letting him eat chocolate before Breakast.

Cuddles and Stories

2009-04-06T21:37:00.002-06:00

I have agonized over the bedtime routine for the past few months now. Should I be making him go to bed on his own? Is it okay that I lay with him until he falls asleep, or will it create a child that can't go to bed on his own later in life? So many questions and it seems everyone has an answer for you, yet what is right for you, is only something you know.

Before we put Matthew into a bed, we got him to the point, where he was able to go to bed by himself. Now that he's in a big boy bed, we reverted back to having someone lay with Matthew.

It's a catch 22 for me. On one hand, I feel like laying with Matthew is some of the best quality time that I get to spend with him. He talks so much right now! Tonight, he told me how Grandma lives in Saskatoon, How Grandpa says "goin' on", that Big Grandpa wears a hat, that Grandma and Grandpa brought a suitcase to our house, that Daddy takes Nana home, that Miss Ann (his Saturday teacher) does painting and on and on... his little mind must just be spinning!

On the other hand, some nights, it's 9:30 before I get him to fall asleep. By that time, my evening is done too. I don't feel like finishing the dishes, I don't even feel like blogging most nights. That disappoints me, because my blogs are almost like an online journal for me, and often times I have so much to say at night, but no energy to say it.

So, I've come to a compromise now. We have our normal bedtime routine, which consists of warm milk in bed while we read stories, then tooth brushing and lights out. Mommy, and sometimes Daddy lay with Matthew for a little while, while Matthew rolls around and talks to us and plays with our hair and everything else under the sun. Then Mommy pretends that she is going to sleep for a few minutes, while she listens to Matthew talk to himself (my favourite part)... and then if he doesn't fall asleep, I have to tell him it's time for Mommy to go to her own bed. (not my favourite part).

For some reason, it's no big deal for Daddy to go to his own bed, but when I say it's time for me to go, the big sobs come out. So, I go anyway, stand at the top of the stairs and feel like crap while he cries, usually for exactly 30 seconds. Then he's quite and usually falls asleep within minutes.

So slowly, he's learning to go to bed on his own, yet, I don't have to let go of the bedtime cuddle routine just yet. It works for me.

In Tummy!

2009-03-31T20:58:00.002-06:00

Tonight, while we were happily eating supper together at the table, I told Matthew to put some of his food in his tummy instead of playing with it on the plate. He looked at me with a bewildered look on his face and then proceeded to lift up his shirt and say "tummy!"

"yes Matthew! When you eat food, it goes into your tummy!"

He thought about this for a while and then got the biggest smile on his face, like he had solved the million dollar question!

In fact, it was Mommy who solved the million dollar "how do I get him to eat" question. He darn near licked his plate clean... one bite at a time, explaining what it was, saying "tummy", lifting up his shirt and pointing to his tummy and then laughing like crazy at how funny the concept of food going into his mouth and ending up in his tummy could be!

It was all going great until he said "open up!"...

"you mean open up your tummy??"

"open tummy! open tummy!"

Uh oh, now how do I explain this one.... :o)

Word of the Day

2009-03-11T19:28:00.003-06:00

I cannot get over how quickly the words are coming these days! I swear Matthew says at least 2-3 new things every day!

Today, I came home and the first thing he spit out to meet in perfect clarity was "apple juice".. Not just apple, but apple juice! It was very cute.

Yesterday, he mastered waffle.

Tonight, reading our books, he pointed out that the teacher in "spot goes to school" is "miss Bear"

And finally the word "yes" with an sssss came out, not just ya, ya, ya.

I wonder what tomorrow's word will be?!? :o)

How do they get that smart?

2009-03-09T07:08:00.001-06:00

So, I knew that the "going to be with no complaints" thing was too good to be true!
We recently went back to the 2 hour "go to sleep" routine...
It's not even about us laying with him anymore... He's just not tired until 10 pm.
In fact, because of the time change yesterday, 10 was even early!
His new trick is having to go potty.
It's not that he didn't just go... It's a darn good stalling technique because since we're learning to go potty, I don't want to discourage him from going!

m: pee pee pee pee pee pee!
M: Matthew you don't have to go potty... Time to go to bed!
m: no! Poop poop poop!
M: Matthew you don't have to poop. It's time to go to bed!
m: starts to make a fuss, so Mommy gives in.

He happily sits on the potty and let's out a few fluffs...

m: (with a big grin) POOP! (as if to say "I told you so...")

Sigh... what's a mom to do!

The Wonders of Play Doh

2009-03-08T08:08:00.002-06:00

We recently discovered play-doh. I was going to be one of those moms, and still probably will be, who makes the home made stuff, but I was wondering through the dollar store and saw "authentic" play-doh for $1.00 a can. I couldn't resist bringing home a few for Matthew to explore.

Play-doh has become a life saver! It is now much easier to clean up breakfast dishes or cook supper, as he asks to play with the play-doh and is content sitting at the table, playing and watching cartoons for about a half an hour. A HALF AN HOUR!!! YIPEE!!!

We also recently set up a craft corner in the kitchen, with the goal being all sorts of fun things we can do AT THE TABLE!!! Of course, these times are limited to those when Mommy needs to be in the kitchen, preferrably un-interrupted, as we don't want them to get over-used :O)

Day 1 Was Too Easy....

2009-02-26T21:07:00.003-07:00

If you've noticed I've been absent from my blog for a while, I can sweetly blame it on my little boy.

Somewhere along the line, he developed a habit of needing mommy to lay on the floor beside his crib and hold his hand. Then, when we went on vacation and he would have no part of sleeping in a playpen, he had to sleep in his own queen size bed. Unsure that he would fall alseep, Mommy AND Daddy started laying down with him each night AND each afternoon until he fell asleep.

See where this is going? Yes, we did it to ourselves, but it needed to be undone.

When we got back from vacation, Matthew would have no part of sleeping in his crib. So, we hauled our guest bed into his room and he has been sleeping on it ever since. We are in the process of trying to find him his own bed, but there are just sooo many choices out there! Hopefully, we'll agree on one soon.

Anyhow, the night time routine quickly developed into "Mama" and "Dada" "Bed" before he would even attempt to lay down. For the last few weeks he has not wanted to go to bed and has started to use every excuse a 1 year old can think of as to why he should not lay down. Our evenings were including lots of questions, lots of talking, lots of crying and FINALLY, after about 2 hours, he would fall asleep.

By that time, I was exhausted and would walk straight out of his bed and into mine. So, that was my evenings... eat, bath, books, and try to get him to go to sleep for 2 hours. It was draining on all of us and had to stop.

There were lots of people, including Daddy who said "you just have to let him cry"... but I just couldn't do it.. I felt like it was my fault for starting the whole lying down thing, so how could I just abandon him?

So, tonight, we read our book, drank our milk, brushed our teeth and tonight we brought his crib mobile (projects images on the ceiling) into bed for him and told him that Mommy would stay in the room but that I wasn't going to lay in bed with him.

He protested at first, and then thought it was kind of fun that Mommy was sitting on the other side of the room, so why shouldn't he come visit? I gently reminded him that if he didn't get back into bed, Mommy was not going to stay in the room. And so he did. I sat for 10 minutes and then moved myself just outside the door of his room... he asked for me several times and I kept telling him i was right here and that it was time to go to bed.

And you know what? Only 1/2 an hour later, he was fast asleep (upside down in the bed, but oh well, you take what you can get)....

So, I know this had to of been too easy and I'm expecting some of the future nights to not be as easy, but like the song I heard on the way to work this morning reminded me... "It won't be like this for long"... so as we read his books together and cuddle in bed, I'll savour those moments and hopefully still enjoy a moment or two to myself as well.

My Vacation .... Part 2

2009-02-21T07:21:00.018-07:00

(pssst... I blogged about part 1 yesterday.. just in case you missed it... see below....)

Don't you love my artwork? Pretty good for a 1 3/4 year old! I loved to play in the sand... I'll have lots of fun at our beach this summer!

Since we were eating meals at home, I got to help Mommy make breakfast most mornings... each time she asked me what I wanted, I told yer "pa pay" or pancakes for the rest of you!

One day, we went down to Laguna Beach and played in the sand and in the playground there. As we were walking to the playground, we saw a man with some colorful birds. We asked him if we could see his birds and he started to tell us all kinds of neat stories about them... I can't remember the little one's name, but I remember he was "green" and he sat on my arm!

I wasn't so sure about him at first, but when he sat on my HEAD, I thought it was pretty funny!!

Daddy even got in on the action!

This was supposed to be our valentine's picture, but the computer didn't want to cooperate the morning Mommy tried to send it out....

I became a natural tour guide along the way... Here I am showing off our resort!

One day, our hotel keys decided to stop working... we thought we would drive over to the building but Mommy thought Daddy took the car keys and Daddy thought Mommy took the car keys... oops! Good thing there was a security phone right outside our door.. we had to get the security guard to let us in! Here we are waiting for him.. notice my cool hat! Mommy bought it for 97 cents at Old Navy.. It was a substitute toque for when it got cold :O)

Hmm.... where should we go today??

On our last day in California, we took an adventure into Los Angeles... I was going to have to miss my nap in my bed, so Mommy was thankful that I fell asleep in the car on the drive in!

Guess where we went?! To my very first NHL game! We got to see the Edmonton Oilers play the LA Kings... Daddy was sure to bring my Jersey... but you should have seen the Edmonton Jersey's there! Either Mommy says half of Canada was there, or there are a lot of left over Gretzky fans in L.A. I think there were almost as many Oiler cheers as L.A. Cheers! It made for a fun game!

I was very excited to see REAL hockey in front of my eyes when the game first started! I always ask to watch hockey on TV and this was pretty exciting! But, I wanted to walk around half way through the first period, so Mommy and I took a walk and got to meet Wilshire the fire dog! He was the ceremonial puck dropper at the game... I got my picture with him outside (Mommy will have to scan it and show you later) and then he came and sat in the chair next to Mommy for a few minutes when Daddy and I were walking around!

See! Here he is next to Mommy... too bad I had decided to go for a walk at that time!

It was a pretty close game... the Oilers were leading until the last few seconds when the Kings scored and we went into...

And then even into a shootout! Oh, the suspense was killing me!!

Luckily, in the end, our Oilers won! Here I am telling the guy behind me that our team won!

It was lots of fun for Daddy and I to go to our first NHL game together and a fun way to end our trip!

My Trip to California

2009-02-20T21:46:00.013-07:00

Hi everyone, it's me, Matthew, blogging today! Sorry it's taken so long for my mommy to get pictures of our trip up. She was really busy at work when we got back and then we all got sick. But, we're better now, so I thought I'd share some of them with you...

This is me waiting for the pilots to get our plane ready to go... I was sure excited to go on the airplane! I kept telling Mommy and Daddy how the plane was going to go "up, up, up!"

On the first day of our vacation it rained... blah... but Mommy said it was such a nice rain in California and even the rain still felt warm! We did some shopping for groceries on Monday because we had our own apartment and Mommy cooked all of our breakfasts, lunches and dinners for us! We went shopping to Costco! Mommy found me some really great books (30 in total!) that we have been reading every night since we got back!

Here I am getting ready to go out on an adventure... don't I look like such a big boy!

On Tuesday, we checked out our resort.. it had a really fun playground and a putting green! Notice my wet pants? I managed to find a puddle within 5 minutes of going to the playground... oh well! It was fun to chase the golf balls around!

We spent a lot of time at the beach on our trip because it was only 5 minutes away from our place. We went out at low tide each day so that I could explore all of the tide pools! I wanted to run into the ocean sooo bad, but Mommy and Daddy wouldn't let me, boy, if I could have just run a little faster, I would have made it to the water before they caught me!

There were so many neat things to see at the ocean! But really, I loved the water the most, I could have played in it all day!

One one of our adventures, Mommy and I even found a starfish! Way Cool!!!

The next day, we explored Balboa Island... each time we went out, I asked Mommy and Daddy if I could "walk, walk, walk"... but I didn't always want to hold Mommy and Dadd's hand, so sometimes I had to wear my monkey on my back... You wouldn't believe the number of times people said to me... "hey, you've got a Monkey on your back!" Yeah, the joke got old fast....

I enjoyed most of my breakfasts and lunches on the deck each day... ahhh. the sun felt so warm! (even though the highest temperature we saw was 18C, it still felt so nice!)

I enjoyed a few merry-go-round rides each time we went to the shopping malls!

And as long as I found a pond or a fountain at the shopping mall, I was happy!

Come on Ma Ma... to the water, to the water!

One day, we built a sand turtle... (I think it was supposed to be a sand castle at first, but Mommy forgot how to build them and it turned into a turtle!)

Hey, how come I'm in the sand?!?!

Did I mention before, that I loved to play in the front seat of the car and pretend I was driving? In fact, Mommy resorted to bribing me with M&M's after a while because I did not want to get into my carseat!

Well... that's it for now, Mommy says I have to go to bed.. I'll try show you the rest of my pictures very soon!

Love,
Matthew

Vacation Pictures

2009-02-10T07:57:00.005-07:00

Matthew has decided that a photo opportunity is now a time to play peek-a-boo with the camer....every time... I just haven't managed to catch the peeking part with the point and shoot yet...

showing us how much he loves blankie....

eating lunch with Daddy... (I made him take off his white shirt to eat pasta and he refused to put on another, hence the shirtless pose... and again, the peek-a-boo pose)

Checkin 'in

2009-02-09T22:30:00.002-07:00

Wow, I hadn't realized it had been almost a month since I blogged... yikes! Sorry about that.. sometimes I get too wrapped up in life and just don't feel like blogging or don't have the time...

none the less, we are all fine and enjoying our selves in sunny...er... freezing California right now! The day started out ok and although it was only 15C outside, I was determined I was wearing shorts.. and it didn't seem all that cold out. But by 5pm tonight... yikes! You could have worn mitts! We actually had to go to Old Navy and buy Matthew another bunny-hug (hoodie for those of you not from SK) and a fuzzy hat because it was so freaking cold out!

Everywhere we go... they all say... Oh, you just hit some weird weather... it was 80 last week! Well, thank-you very much.. we'll enjoy 50!

But we're having a blast despite the weather. We had a long day getting here yesterday (I'm not sure I'd do airmiles again with a young kid), but Matthew was a complete angel the entire way! We are staying in an amazing resort that we didn't even really know what we were getting when we booked. Our 2 bedroom condo is 1200sf and has a full kitchen. We tried to get Matthew to sleep in the playpen last night, but he would have no part of it, so he is now sleeping in a "big boy" bed.. with 6 chairs on either side of the bed facing out, and 2 barstools at the foot to make sure that he can't fall out. But truthfully, he's stayed mostly in one spot and on his pillow the entire time. He had a good 3 hour nap this afternoon in his bed and is enjoying the fact that Mommy and Daddy lay down with him each time he goes to sleep (hmm.. are we creating a bad habit here?!!?)

We have a great ocean view and are just enjoying the fact that we can relax and not worry about cleaning or work or hockey or piano lessons or any of the other things that keep us so busy at home!

Too Smart for Mommy

2009-01-19T20:22:00.002-07:00

Tonight we were reading the "I love you" book. We had gotten through one or two of the stories and were just starting the third one when we came across a picture of a little turtle eating a strawberry.

Matthew got up right away and it seemed as though he was no longer interested in the book. He ran down the hallway and started to say "down" and pointed at the stairs. "No, we have to stay up here Matthew", Mommy said. "Let's finish our story".

"Ma" He said and pointed to himself emphatically. "Matthew wants to go down?" Mommy asked? "Down"! said Matthew.

He came back to the couch, grabbed Mommy by the finger and led me downstairs. Straight to the kitchen. Straight to the fridge. "Fridge!" he said. So Mommy opened the fridge. He proceeded to kneel down to the fruit drawer and point inside. "There!" he said, pointing right at the strawberries!

So Mommy got the strawberries out and went to wash them. Matthew pointed out that we needed a plate. Then he advised me we needed to cut them. Once done, we marched back upstairs and happily finished the rest of our story, strawberries in hand.

Zoo Sunday

2009-01-18T19:50:00.002-07:00

Today was a nice day outside.. Although don't feel too bad all you people out east. The TV might have said +10, but with the piles of snow we have, it really didn't feel like +10... in fact, the ice is still hard as a rock in front of our house.

None the less, there wasn't much wind and it was really sunny and so it made for a nice afternoon at the zoo. We saw our favourites, the giraffes, and the hippo, we even got to see the baby gorilla today! It was the first time because she never seems to be out when we're there! She is soo cute and it was funny to watch the Mom gorilla sitting in the corner of their area with her chin resting on her hands "watching" her baby play. It was just like how all of us mom's watch our little ones in amazement!

I must also report that Matthew is now an expert tooth brusher... he let's me brush all of his teeth with no complaining.. YAY!! ANNDDDD... tonight and last night he went to sleep without either Mommy or Daddy having to be in the room and not one cry! What a big boy!

Woof Woof, Sush, Car

2009-01-17T18:25:00.002-07:00

This morning Daddy, on Matthew's insistance, took him to his favourite place on earth, again... the pet store!

Yesterday was Daddy's day off so they went to his other favourite place in the world... for sushi (yes, I'm not kidding)... They only go to Safeway, but I think it's the thrill of eating at the tables in the store.. and yes, he does eat his way though enough sushi to fill up a 3 year old.

So, for the rest of today, all Matthew has repeated (and I'm not kidding) is " woof woof? Car.... sush! Woof, woof!..... car? CAR!!!!... sush? Woof Woof!" and then it starts all over when I explain that we have to wait until at least tomorrow to go see a doggy again.

p.s. if you live near me and have a dog we can borrow for the afternoon (because we ARE NOT getting one...) please let me know :O)

Cabin Fever

2009-01-14T20:48:00.002-07:00

Poor little Matthew. He has been cooped up inside the house for over a week, not including the little trip to the walk-in clinic on Sunday. He's feeling much better now and quite anxious to get out of the house!

Today, when I got home from work, we were eating supper at the table when he told me..

Matthew: "Ma" (Mommy, pointing at me)
Mathew: "Ma" (Matthew, pointing at himself)
Matthew: "Car"... "woof Woof!" !?!?
Mommy: "No Matthew, the car says Vroom, Vroom, not woof, woof silly!"
Matthew: "Car"... "WOOF WOOF!"
Mommy: "Woof, Woof? What are you trying to say.... oh, you want to go see a Doggy?"
Matthew: "Ya.... Woof Woof!!"

So I felt bad that the poor little guy wanted to go out soooo bad, that I phoned Daddy, who was on his way home from work and told him Matthew had been a good boy all day and ate his supper and so we were taking a trip in the car to the pet store to see the doggies.

It turned out to be so much fun! We hadn't been to a petstore in a few months and Matthew thought he was in heaven! Where to turn first? The doggies, the birdies, the rabbits... wow! They had everything here!

We spent a good hour in the store looking at all of the animals and playing with the puppies in the pen!

One spontaneous trip = One wonderful memory stored.

There is nothing worse in the world....

2009-01-12T19:25:00.003-07:00

....than when your baby is sick and you can't do anything to make him feel better. Poor Matthew caught himself some kind of nasty bacterial bug, so the doctor said, and it's had him wiped out since Thursday.

He's had a fever on and off but is on antibiotics now and seems a lot better tonight. Daddy commented that he didn't look like the same Matthew he saw last night, so that's a sign.

Matthew and I spent most of yesterday, yesterday night and today camped out on the couch in our bonus room. Of course, cuddling him and wiping snot 24 hours a day meant I was bound to get it too. Daddy hasn't caught it. Why don't Daddy's ever catch the bugs too? Oh but I should be thankful... I don't need to look after 2 babies at once!

Matthew actually slept quite well on the couch last night. His fever spiked at 103 last evening and that was a little scary for me seeing as how this is really the first time he's had something that has caused him that high of a fever. He was miserable but luckily some cool clothes and another dose of tylenol settled him down. We kept him on the couch on the doctor's suggestion that if his ears drained, he might avoid another ear infection, so regularly through the night I kept propping him up on his pillow.

Tonight though, I think he's ready to go back to his cribby. Mommy has to go back to work tomorrow, and I need to sleep in my bed too!

Giggles

2009-01-05T17:00:00.002-07:00

Right now it's 5pm. On Mondays I teach piano, so I'm expecting my first student in 15 minutes. All I can hear from upstairs is loads and loads of giggles! Why? Well, Matthew's best friend, Brendan, our 12 year old next-door neighbour is over babysitting.

Brendan comes over every Monday for an hour to play with Matthew. It started out because Darren couldn't get home from work before I started teaching, but since his mom has been looking after Matthew, we haven't really needed Brendan to babysit, but I still ask him to come every week because Matthew absolutely loves playing with him!

Today, I was out shovelling the front when I got home and Brendan came home from school. Matthew caught a glimpse of him in the window and for the next half hour, all he could do was ask for Brendan and point at the window!

So hey, Mom gets a few minutes to blog, and Matthew gets a while to have some fun with his buddy!

p.s. In staying to the true nature of 2 Little Feet, which is supposed to be all about Matthew, I was finding that I was longing for my own blog where I can chat about whatever is on my mind... so check out blog #2 www.whenigetasec.blogspot.com, when you get a sec!

Happy New Year!

2008-12-31T21:11:00.002-07:00

Happy New Year everyone!

Tonight we are enjoying a quiet evening in. We were going to take in Zoo lights, but when we got home today, we all just wanted to get into our sweats and watch hockey!!

Matthew enjoyed watching the Canada vs. USA game with us this evening. He lets us know about every 5 minutes or so that there is hockey on the tv!

After we got Matthew to bed, we enjoyed a nice supper of steak bbq'd outside (thankfully we had a mini chinook today and it was warm enough to barbecue!), mussels, garlic shrimp, roasted potatoes and asparagus. I think it was better than most restaurant meals we've had!

I hope you all had a safe and happy New Year's Eve as well! All the best for 2009

Happy Holidays!

2008-12-29T19:51:00.009-07:00

We had a great Christmas holiday this year! Some of it was spent with just the three of us and included a fun trip to the mall to ride on the Merry-Go-Round and make Matthew a teddy bear at Build-A-Bear and some of it was spent in Saskatoon visiting with all of our relatives, eating lots of food and having fun opening presents.

Now we're back at work for a few days and looking forward to spending a quiet New Year's Eve together as a family.

My favourite Christmas song and a few pictures to share:

When is Santa coming?

One last decoration....

Digging for presents...

This looks interesting....

Riding on Great-Grandpa's Knee....

My new favourite game of Crash the Uncle...

Ready for Christmas Dinner...

Rice Krispie Squares

2008-12-14T19:52:00.008-07:00

This morning, we, as a family, made Rice Krispie Squares together for Matthew's Christmas Party Today! As you can see from the pictures below, Matthew thought this was a great idea ;o)

"Will Mom notice if I just take a little nibble...."

"....Dad said I could!"

"....do you really have to keep taking pictures?"

"Can I get a little milk here? I have sticky fingers!"

"....boy are these good!"

Yuck

2008-12-12T19:26:00.003-07:00

Unfortunately as the old saying goes....

Whether the weather be cold
Whether the weather be hot
We weather the weather whatever the weather
Whether we like it or not.

We are supposed to be in for one heck of a blizzard tonight.
Let's hope we can dig out tomorrow!

"Sa"

2008-12-10T19:25:00.004-07:00

So the Santa visit went better than expected! There was only about a 1/2 hour line up and Darren was able to take Matthew for a walk while I waited in line. When we got closer to the front, we kept making funny faces and getting Matthew to laugh and then pointing out Santa and showing how all the kids were sitting on his knee.

Just before our turn, we met "Lucky" the elf, Matthew all of a sudden got a bit shy and we got worried as he started to bury his head into Mommy and hide his eyes... but then Lucky showed Matthew how his nose goes "beep beep" just like Matthew's and Mommy's and Daddy's and Lucky became Matthew's new best friend.

So, when it came time to meet the big guy, Mommy whispered "Santa, does your nose go beep beep?" Santa showed Matthew that his nose goes beep beep too and Matthew thought he was an ok dude.

Since you only get two cracks at a photo, we got lucky!

Matthew also had a lot of fun walking the mall and seeing all of the decorations. He was such a good boy and it was quite late when we got home (9 pm) but still he didn't even complain.

When I got home tonight, the first thing he said to me was "ca". "Car?" I asked "Ca, Da" said Matthew... "Oh!" I said, "you want to go with Daddy in the car? Where do you want to go?" "Ca Da Sa", said Matthew. "You want to go see Santa!?!" At this point I was quite amazed he even remembered who Santa was!

But remember he did indeed. All night tonight he keeps saying "sa" and when you ask "Santa"? he nods yep. When he saw his picture tonight, he pointed and said "sa" So, I guess we'll have to make him a copy of the picture with his new best friend too!

No Santa.... :o(

2008-12-07T18:20:00.003-07:00

No Santa story to report... we got to the mall to find a 1 1/2 hour wait ahead of us (and this was as soon as the mall had opened)... so we figured we come back after work one day this week. Mrs. Claus told us that the lines had been that long pretty much every weekend, so a weeknight is probably a better bet. So stay tuned, you'll see them yet!

On a side note, another photo session and another cutie pie to put in the photo album.

Dear Santa...

2008-12-06T20:06:00.003-07:00

Tomorrow we are going to attempt to visit Santa.
We tried it a week ago with no success. Matthew was more than happy to walk into Santa's workshop area, but sit on his knee? Yeah, right.
He did, however, have no problem grabbing the box of cookies Santa was offering, right out of his hand and do a 180 down the walkway!

Tomorrow we are getting our picture, so it will be what it will be... just wait and see...

Cutie Pies

2008-11-29T20:59:00.007-07:00

This morning we did a photo session for some friends of ours. We had a lot of fun. They have a little girl who is a few months younger than Matthew and she is a real cutie-pie!

She was so cooperative and we got some really nice shots (although jumping around trying to make a one year old smile is HARD WORK!!!)

Later in the day, we attempted to take our own Christmas family photo.. which is always even more work, since there's no one to make Matthew smile.. We got a few photos, but I think we'll take another stab at it. We did get some cute ones of Mr. Matthew though, which will be his 18 month photos....

The serious pose:

The goofy pose:

The cutie-pie pose:

Don't Underestimate them.....

2008-11-24T12:23:00.002-07:00

This story starts with Mommy buying a potty for Matthew on Friday because both Grandma's have been telling me how interested he is in the potty. I kept sluffing it off saying it was just that he likes to flush the big toilet!

So, I come home with the potty and Matthew sees it right away! He gets very excited and calls it "pot pot"... first we get him to sit on it in the middle of the foyer... just for fun.

Then, we take it into the bathroom and he is insistant that he sit on it! He even wants the door closed.. and lo and behold, he did poopoo and peepee! We couldn't believe it... he knew exactly what to do!

Saturday, he tried lots of times, but didn't have to go.. Sunday morning... same thing... he did his business and while Mommy was praising him, he looked at me like, "really Mom.. this is what you're supposed to do.. why are you making such a big deal?"

...but then he pooped in his pants last night and doesn't want to sit on the potty today.

I'm not pushing him. He's still too little.. for now, I'm just fine with diapers and he can sit on the potty whenever he wants....

************

update: So, we're in Sears this morning and Matthew starts saying "pott pott"... I say do you have to go potty? And of course he says yes! So, now I'm thinking, does he really have to go? Is there any chance he'll actually go in a washroom? (yeah right)... but he keeps saying "pott pott pott" over and over. So we wheel downstairs, buy one of those potty seats that fits in the toilet and head up to the washrooms. Of course, as I thought, as soon as he saw them, he freaked out. I did learn though, that Southcentre now has an awesome "family" bathroom (it's bigger than my ensuite) that is private and has a little wee one toilet for the little guys to go in... what a great idea!!! I hope more malls have these things because I can see this potty thing becoming an issue in the future.. I really don't want to be lugging a potty with me when we go out....

18 Years and 16 days.

2008-11-20T18:36:00.002-07:00

18 years and 16 days ago, I was 13.
Yesterday, I was 31.

18 years and 16 days ago, my Mom drove me.
Yesterday, I drove myself.

18 years and 16 days ago, it was all I could think about for weeks.
Yesterday, I was too busy working to think about it all day.

18 years and 16 days ago, we had to drink pop.
Yesterday, we had drink drinks ;o)

18 years and 16 days ago, we talked all night afterwards.
Yesterday, I could hardly keep my eyes open afterwards.

18 years and 16 days ago, we had to phone our parents.
Yesterday, we had to phone our babies.

18 years and 16 days ago, we screamed like little girls and loved every moment of it.
Yesterday, we screamed like little girls and loved every moment of it.

And for those few moments, it was great to forget about driving, forget about work, forget about sleep, forget about babies and be 13 again!

My Half Birthday!

2008-11-12T20:47:00.002-07:00

Hi Everyone,

It's Me, Matthew, blogging today.
I haven't blogged for a realllllyyy long time, have it? That's because Mommy never lets me.

Anyhow, today is my Half Birthday.. I am One and a Half!!!

Mommy was supposed to take a picture of me and find out how tall I am and how much I weigh, but she forgot, so she will try take them tomorrow and let you know.

In the meantime, here's a list of what I can do now:

~ I can pour really well from one cup to another, especially if it's water from the cooler. and I only make really big puddles in the kitchen once and a while.

~ I can lick whipped cream from the beaters when Mommy is finished cooking.. just like Daddy!

~ I can go up and down stairs in record time.. sometimes I even beat the kitties up stairs!

~ I know how to say lots of words, but most of them still have some resemblance to "up" "ba" "ma" "na" "pa" "ih" and so on.. but Mommy knows what I mean even if no one else does yet!

~ I can feed the kitties from the kitty food bag all by myself! Sometimes I use my hands and sometimes I use a scoop!

~ I can tell Mommy and Daddy when I did a poopy in my diaper! Mommy says that means maybe sometime soon I can start to use a potty! (Except I don't think she wants me to because that would mean I'm becoming a big boy and she wants me to stay a baby!)

Anyhow.. stay tuned... pictures will come tomorrow.

Night - Night!

Love,
Matthew

Remembrance Day

2008-11-11T20:07:00.002-07:00

When I was little, Remembrance Day to me meant remembering all of the people that fought for us in the World Wars. I really can't recall thinking about people fighting in wars for us at that time.

I was given the poem below today at work and it made me think further about something I had been thinking of earlier in the week. How are our kids going to think about Remembrance Day? Remembrance Day for kids today is about Mommys and Daddys that are currently fighting in wars for us and those who didn't come home.

We owe a lot to those people who go over to those places for us.

(sorry, it's a long one, but worth the read...and you might want to get your
tissues ahead of time)
**********************************************************************

Daddy's Poem

--------------------
Her hair was up in a pony tail, her favorite dress tied with a bow. Today was Daddy's Day at school, and she couldn't wait to go.

But her mommy tried to tell her, that she probably should stay home. Why the kids might not understand, if she went to school alone.

But she was not afraid; she knew just what to say. What to tell her classmates of why he wasn't there today.

But still her mother worried, for her to face this day alone. And that was why once again, she tried to keep her daughter home.

But the little girl went to school eager to tell them all. About a dad she never sees a dad who never calls.

There were daddies along the wall in back, for everyone to meet.
Children squirming impatiently, anxious in their seats.

One by one the teacher called a student from the class. To introduce their daddy, as seconds slowly passed.

At last the teacher called her name, every child turned to stare. Each of them was searching, a man who wasn't there.

'Where's her daddy at?' She heard a boy call out. 'She probably doesn't have one,' another student dared to shout.

And from somewhere near the back, she heard a daddy say, 'Looks like another deadbeat dad, too busy to waste his day.'

The words did not offend her, as she smiled up at her Mom. And looked back at her teacher, who told her to go on.

And with hands behind her back, slowly she began to speak. And out from the mouth of a child, came words incredibly unique.

'My Daddy couldn't be here, because he lives so far away. But I know he wishes he could be, since this is such a special day.

And though you cannot meet him, I wanted you to know. All about my daddy, and how much he loves me so.

He loved to tell me stories he taught me to ride my bike. He surprised me with pink roses, and taught me to fly a kite.

We used to share fudge sundaes, and ice cream in a cone. And though you cannot see him. I'm not standing here alone.

'Cause my daddy's al ways with me, even though we are apart I know because he told me, he'll forever be in my heart'

With that, her little hand reached up, and lay across her chest. Feeling her own heartbeat, beneath her favorite dress.

And from somewhere here in the crowd of dads, her mother stood in tears. Proudly watching her daughter, who was wise beyond her years.

For she stood up for the love of a man not in her life. Doing what was best for her, doing what was right.

And when she dropped her hand back down, staring straight into the crowd. She finished with a voice so soft, but its message clear and loud.

'I love my daddy very much, he's my shining star. And if he could, he'd be here, but heaven's just too far.

You see he is a Canadian soldier and died just this past year
When a roadside bomb hit his convoy and taught Canadians to fear.

But sometimes when I close my eyes, it's like he never went away.' And then she closed her eyes, and saw him there that day.

And to her mothers amazement, she witnessed with surprise. A room full of daddies and children, all starting to close their eyes.

Who knows what they saw before them, who knows what they felt inside. Perhaps for merely a second, they saw him at her side.

'I know you're with me Daddy,' to the silence she called out. And what happened next made believers, of those once filled with doubt.

Not one in that room could explain it, for each of their eyes had been closed. But there on the desk beside her, was a fragrant long-stemmed rose.

And a child was blessed, if only for a moment, by the love of her shining star. And given the gift of believing, that heaven is never too far.

The river rises, we rise above....

2008-11-06T19:32:00.003-07:00

Sorry for the lack of posts this week, it's been a bit of an interesting one.

The week started out great until Darren went to pick Matthew up early from daycare on Monday. He walked in and found Matthew STANDING in his high chair, with the daycare provider no where to be found!

So what would you do? Let's just say he didn't go back after that day. Strike 2 with daycare. So, Darren's mom graciously got on a bus Monday night and came out to watch Matthew Tuesday, Wednesday and today. She went back home tonight and Darren is off for the next few days.

We had been discussing her moving out here to help take care of Matthew, so this just expedited the process.

Oh well, like the Amanda Marshall song says, it's just one more mountain.. when the river rises, we rise above!

So on to happier things! Monday night we got snow!! (well, I guess that's not really happy news) but Matthew got to go outside today for the first time in real boots and real ski pants and a real winter jacket and mitts and find out what SNOW is all about!

Night Night

2008-11-03T19:43:00.003-07:00

Last weekend, we bought Matthew a pillow and a comforter for his crib. No, I'm not quite ready to move him out of his crib yet, but it's the next step to getting to a big boy bed.

Let me tell you, it was magic. Bedtimes have suddenly become A LOT easier. I hope the novelty doesn't wear off too soon, but right now, Matthew thinks it is the greatest thing in the world for him to lay down on his pillow, and for us to tuck the comforter under his arms and kiss him good night.

Then we start both of his mobiles and say good-night. He waves to us and says "ni-ni". It is sooo cute! No crying, no sniffling, and he's usually sleeping in 5-10 minutes.

Here is the last picture of my baby sleeping like a baby (sniff sniff)... now he looks like a little man all tucked up with his new pillow and quilt.

They Should Go on Tour....

2008-11-02T12:54:00.007-07:00

"Ok Token... Are you ready for our duet??"

"How 'bout a little Elton John today??"

".... we were hopping and bopping to the crocodile rock..."

"Thank-you! Thank-you Ladies and Gentlemen!!"

editors note: (the cat really does play the piano, it has been witnessed, just never yet caught on video)....

Happy Halloween!

2008-11-01T20:27:00.008-06:00

I wasn't so sure how Halloween was going to go yesterday.... since Matthew flat out refused to put on the cute little lion costume that I bought him! Well, actually, I did get it on him for 23 seconds... but he's smart enough to know it has a zipper down the front and could take it off in no time flat.

He was quite curious about this Halloween thing though as I started to get the treats out and put the pumpkin on the front step... It was such a nice day out (I can NEVER remember a Halloween that was as warm as it was yesterday!

So as the time drew nearer to join the festivities, I had to come up with a back-up plan... and the result? Meet my little Pilot (aka Maverick).. no cute little lion, but what was I gonna do?

I didn't really plan to take Matthew trick-or-treating, instead thought he could just help hand out candy... but it didn't take him long to figure out that all the other kids were walking around and he wanted to go too!

So, I left the bowl of Candy on the front porch and off we went around out cul-de-sac. By house #2, he had it down pat: Walk up the steps.. knock on the door... Mommy says "trick-or-treat".... people say... "oh, aren't you cute!"...hold out the pail... get some bright colored packages!!... Mommy says "say Thank-you"... just stand there... Mommy says "say Bye"... wave bye-bye... go to the next house!

***************

Mommy and Matthew negotiating the fact that it's time to go in for a bath...

Hope you had a great Halloween too!

My First Pumpkin

2008-10-30T19:28:00.003-06:00

Matthew and I carved his first pumpkin this year! He thought it was quite funny to see all of the guts come out of the inside, but wouldn't come near it when I offered that he could stick his hand inside!

At first he was mildly interested in the whole carving thing... but mostly wanted to play with the carving tools or the little chunks of pumpkin eyes. He has learned the word pumpkin though, and can point one out to you wherever we go!

Trying to get a 1 year old, black cat and a pumpkin to stay in the same picture was not an easy task....

If you can help.....

2008-10-29T19:46:00.006-06:00

.... me find a way to get my little man to brush his teeth, I would be oh, so grateful! You see, I've tried every single thing I can possibly think of to convince/beg/trick/force him to brush his teeth, but nothing works.

Sometimes, if I'm lucky, I get this far. He'll put a toothbrush in his mouth and lick off the toothpaste.

Here, I can just see him mocking me .... "see Mom... I
ammmmmmm brushing my teeth...."

On this particular day, he was in a good mood.. but most days lots of kicking and screaming are involved.

So, if you have any suggestions, gosh, I'd love to hear them. I fear we'll be giving a 2 year old fillings if we can't nip this brushing thing in the bud soon!

What goes through their minds!

2008-10-28T19:12:00.003-06:00

Today before supper, Matthew opened the freezer and pulled out a bag of frozen, dried, bread cubes.... "those aren't for eating" Mommy said... But Matthew insisted that I open the bag for him to see inside.

"Do you want some bread?" Mommy asks. "Yes!" Says Matthew. So, we open up the bag and take out a nice fresh piece of bread. He holds it in his hand and then says "no!"... and continues to point to the bag of frozen bread. "bread" he says. So Mommy opens the bag, he reaches in and pulls himself out a nice big piece of dried up frozen bread.... "mmmmmmmm" he says and takes a big bite.

"Yucky!" Mommy says. "Don't you want some nice new fresh bread? We can even put butter on it?" He takes a bite of the bread cube again... "mmmmmm" and takes a big swig of milk.

Whatever makes them happy I guess :O)

**********************

Matthew being silly: (Click on the picture to view it bigger)

Live, Learn and Pass it On

2008-10-26T19:53:00.000-06:00

Sing in the shower.

Treat everyone you meet like you want to be treated.

Watch a sunrise at least once a year.

Leave the toilet seat in the down position.

Never refuse homemade brownies.

Strive for excellence, not perfection.

Plant a tree on your birthday.

Learn 3 clean jokes.

Return borrowed vehicles with the gas tank full.

Compliment 3 people every day.

Never waste an opportunity to tell someone you love them.

Leave everything a little better than you found it.

Keep it simple.

Think big thoughts but relish small pleasures.

Become the most positive and enthusiastic person you know.

Floss your teeth.

Ask for a raise when you think you’ve earned it.

Overtip breakfast waitresses.

Be forgiving of yourself and others.

Say, “Thank you” a lot.

Say, “Please” a lot.

Avoid negative people.

Buy whatever kids are selling on card tables in their front yards.

Wear polished shoes.

Remember other people’s birthdays.

Commit yourself to constant improvement.

Carry jumper cables in your truck.

Have a firm handshake.

Look people in the eye.

Be the first to say hello.

Use the good silver.

Return all things you borrow.

Make new friends, but cherish the old ones.

Keep a few secrets.

Sing in a choir.

Plant flowers every spring.

Have a dog.

Always accept an outstretched hand.

Stop blaming others.

Take responsibility for every area of your life.

Wave at kids on school buses.

Be there when people need you.

Feed a stranger’s expired parking meter.

Don’t expect life to be fair.

Never underestimate the power of love.

Live your life as an exclamation, not an explanation.

Don’t be afraid to say, “I made a mistake.”

Don’t be afraid to say, “I don’t know.”

Compliment even small improvements.

Keep your promises no matter what.

Marry for love.

Rekindle old friendships.

Count your blessings.

Oh Shitty....

2008-10-26T19:48:00.001-06:00

Tonight Matthew went to bed like an angel.. Just 10 minutes after his bedtime.. no crying... played for a few minutes and fell right asleep.

Then, Darren went in to turn off his light night and whispered .... "he pooped".. oh Shitty... (pardon the pun)...

So what do you do? I can't leave him for 12 hours in a poopy diaper?! Guess we have to wake him up!

So, we did just that. Changed his diaper quick, in the dark, hoping he wouldn't really wake up.

But, he woke up, and now, he currently is screaming and does not want to go back to sleep.

So much for doing the dishes.

On the mend

2008-10-23T19:15:00.004-06:00

Today is the first day I actually feel a bit better... since October 12. I had to take two more days off work because the doctor finally said I wasn't going to get better unless I stayed in bed for a few days.

Thank goodness my mom is here to help out. A few 3 hour naps in the afternoon and some 12 hour sleeps at night where I'm actually sleeping now and I think I'll get rid of this thing.

I felt well enough to look through a few of the photos we took on our weekend. Sometimes I get lucky. This one is a keeper.

Almost Recovered

2008-10-21T18:35:00.002-06:00

So, we had a nice weekend away.. although I had to spend almost all of it in bed... and no, not what you're thinking ;o( This torturous cold virus thingy that I had just would not go away and I actually found myself getting worse throughout the weekend. To the point that my Mom made me go to the doctor when I got home and I was diagnosed with strept throat and told by the doctor "well, duh, you're not going to get better because you've got yellow stuff on your tonsils.. you need antibiotics." Great.

So, 2 days later, I actually feel like I have an eensy teensy bit of energy (I have somehow managed to go to work the past 2 days though), and a little bit better.

Hope to be better for the trip to Edmonton this weekend! I am taking my mom to see her favourite singer, Celine Dion. It should be fun!

In the meantime, Matthew is having fun getting spoiled rotten by Grandpa and Grandma!

Uggh....

2008-10-17T08:47:00.001-06:00

Sorry for the lack of posts this week. It appears our house has been infected with one of those icky viruses. So far, Darren has been the only one to escape!

First Matthew... then Mommy.. then the cat!

Anyhow, My Mommy is here to take care of us for a while now (Mom close your ears)... this means I don't have to cook for a week!! he he ....

Darren and I are off to Banff today for a teeny tiny getaway.. our first without the little man in tow.

Will report back when we get home.

Have a good weekend!

Thanksgiving.....

2008-10-12T19:47:00.004-06:00

...well, today was marked by 8 or so hours in the kitchen... (totally by choice though, I can't complain!)

I took the lazy route in terms of turkey today. I highly recommend Lilydale Roast and Boast if you're not feeling like dealing with the whole turkey thing. Although it was a bit over-seasoned for my liking (the actual meat wasn't that bad though)... it reminded me of a Swiss Chalet Dinner. Not quite homemade, but a good second. Suprisingly the stuffing was also quite good inside. Again, a bit overseasoned. Would I buy it again? Maybe. If I have another "I don't feel like doing a turkey, but I want a turkey" holiday.

So being that it's Thanksgiving, I thought I should share some of the things I'm thankful for.....

~ my two guys, well that's a given. But how could I have gotten so lucky?

~ having parents who care so much. It is always comforting knowing you have someone you can count on.

~ my job. I got lucky and found a company that (so far) recognizes my needs to balance being a mom and being a career person.

~ living in Calgary. Some would say it's too big of a city, but I like that we live in a "small town feel" neighbourhood on the edge of town, yet I'm minutes away to anything I could need.

~ True Lemon... I swear, if you hate drinking water like me, this stuff is a lifesaver.

~ PVR's. Way easier than VCR's. The only way I will ever get a chance to watch TV these days.

~ Grey's Anatomy, Private Practice and Brother's and Sisters. Get my fix of wishy washy drama each week, er well once a month or so when I actually get to sit down and watch.

~ living in Canada. Sure, we have the poorest-excuse-for-an-election you could find, but I'd still rather live here than down south.

~ foodsaver bags. Wouldn't be able to cook and freeze the way I do without them.

~ great neighbours. Lucky to live in a cul-de-sac where I've made a lot of friends.

~ blogs. Since I was never good at writing in a journal, it's the next best thing.

~ girlfriends. Some live near and some live far, but it's nice to know you have someone you can talk to or laugh with or cry with, wherever they may be.

~ memories. Times goes so fast, thank God we can at least remember them.

So how about you?

Friday Flashback....Baby of Mine....

2008-10-10T15:02:00.000-06:00

Dat - Tu!

2008-10-07T20:11:00.003-06:00

The cutest thing that has come out of Matthew's mouth lately is "dat-tu", which translates to "thank-you"!, but only when you give him something that he really likes... like a cookie, or some grapes or a frozen yogurt popsicle!

We were so fortunate to have some fun last Friday with Matthew at the lake. It made me realize how easily you can get caught up in the hussle and bussle of every day and forget to take time for the little things...

Happy Fall!

2008-10-05T21:09:00.003-06:00

Finally....

2008-10-04T20:26:00.002-06:00

For a while now, Matthew has been saying "ma"... at first, I was quite sure he was asking for milk because he said it when he went to the fridge. But then, he started to say it other places and I thought, "I wonder if he's saying "Mom" instead?"... but he never really said it directly to me, so I still doubted he was saying Mommy..

Then last night he was up about 1am and couldn't sleep... I went in his room and sang and talked to him for a while... then I stayed quite for a few seconds to see if he was sleeping. I heard a little "ma? ma?" and I knew that he didn't want milk.. he was asking if I was still there! He's been saying Mommy all along and I didn't even know it!

As a side note, I also realized that he is taking after his Uncle Mark. When Uncle Mark was a baby, I recall, as a 6 year old, spending lots of evenings sitting by his crib and rubbing his back so that he would fall asleep... well, last night, I sat by Matthew's crib and put my hand just by him so that he knew I was there, and what did he do? He reached for my hand and placed it on his back... uh oh... what have I started!?!

Words, words, words

2008-09-29T20:31:00.002-06:00

Tonight was one of those nights that makes a mommy proud....
Every night, we look at Matthew's picture books. He doesn't seem to want to sit still for a story yet, so instead, we look at books and point out all of the pictures. He is great at pointing to things like "Matthew, where's the car?".. but he never wanted to say any words.. until tonight!

Although you had to probably be his Mommy to understand him, he made a great attempt today at "saying" all of the things I pointed to! He can get "cat" and "car" down pat, but some of the hard ones like "apple" and "tree" don't sound much like those words at all.. but none the less we cheered and clapped at every word he said!

And just to make sure I was actually hearing him say words, I pointed to the trusty picture of a banana and what did I hear? "nana"!! music to my ears ;o)

I'm Back.....

2008-09-28T19:44:00.004-06:00

wow,
it's been a while since I've blogged. I do apologize. The last few weeks have been, well, let's say busy to say the least.

Before I went back to work, I remember saying to myself.. "now as long as you keep on top of things, it won't be that bad..."... well, I was right. These last few weeks I have been putting in what little free time I have to finishing the wedding pictures that Darren and I did for our friends Shannon and Jerome. That meant that a lot of other things had to slip on nights when I needed the time to work on the photos.

And you know how it goes.. what doesn't get done what night just means double the next night and so on....

So, to make a long story short, I had a terrific 3-day weekend where I was able to get a lot of catching up done! We did a thorough fall cleaning of 3 rooms upstairs (which is only a start, but it feels good to see some results of a spic and span house!)... We cleaned up a good portion of the garden outside and I even managed to do a 10 or more feet of brick edging. I cooked several meals worth of beef stew in the slowcooker and made a batch of cooked ground beef to freeze for quick additions to spaghetti sauce, etc. We got some shopping in, a walk and lots of time to play with Matthew.

ahhh.... may seem like a lot, but it left me feeling like I got a lot accomplished, and I spent a lot of quality time with my boys. That's the holy grail and for once I feel like I accomplished it. Now, I enter the week feeling like I'm back in the driver's seat!

So, how is my little man by the way? Well, we measured him today... he's just shy of 33 inches tall. Boy, does he sure understand everything these days! It's so fun to ask him questions and have him respond! At first I wasn't sure if he was really answering you, but a few tries at asking him if he wants something... him saying no and then trying to give it to him, proved to me that he does know what you're saying!

It's fun to ask him what he wants to eat... if he wants it.. he says a long drawn out "yaaaaaaa"... and if he doesn't it's a firm no and a shake of the head!

These days, his favourites are cheerios and milk, grapes, yogurt, fruit bars (the sunrype ones) and frozen yogurt tubes! He's still good with eating peas, carrots and broccoli and most nights will eat whatever meat is put in front of him. The trick has been trying to get supper cooked fast enough when we get home so that he doesn't try eat everything else out of the pantry before I get it made. (hence the frozen meals.. a lifesaver indeed :O)

He is good at giving everybody hugs, including his two kitties. For a while last week, he even started giving kisses until Mommy asked for a kiss too many times and now he flat our refuses!

He loves playing with Lego blocks now and we build towers until he can barely reach the last block and then knock them all over! He has taken a great liking to his glow-baby again, sometimes even more than blankie. And the most fun is getting Mommy or Daddy to push him around the house on his 3 wheel trike!

So here are a few of my favourite pictures of our friends' Shannon and Jerome's wedding. They make a beautiful couple!

Adventure #7 - Sleepless in Seattle

2008-09-15T20:24:00.008-06:00

Wednesday morning saw us up veeerrry early and on our way to Seattle for the day! We had an appointment somewhere close to Seattle (I can't remember the city) to take our SUV in for a checkup. Since it's an American vehicle, Darren figured it'd be better having someone look at it down there while we were there.. So we got a brand new one as a loaner! Sweet! Wow, the service down there compared to what we get here was night and day, with here being the night. I couldn't believe how accommodating they were... we said we didn't plan to come back until late and not in the next day, so wondered if we could pick it up on Friday and they said.. "oh sure! Just treat it like your own, take it whereever you want!" Here, we get "do you want a shuttle ride home?"

Anyhow... here's Matthew enjoying a complimentary apple juice while Daddy gets things in order at the dealership.

So, on our trip, we quickly learned that we had to incorporate things that were fun for Matthew in our day as well as the things we wanted to do... and what does Matthew want to do, you ask? Play in a playground of course. So, we set off into Seattle to see if we could find a neighbourhood with a playground, using the greenspaces on our GPS as a guide. Think we could find one? Nope, but we did find a really cool highschool football field and track.

So.... we made Matthew run a few laps...

...then guard the soccer goal for a while....

This made us all quite hungry, so we enjoyed a nice lunch at Pike Place Market, overlooking the water... er.. well, I had a nice lunch for about 5 minutes, until Matthew decided we needed to walk around.. I believe Daddy finished my lunch for me saying "well, I didn't think you were coming back!"

The afternoon was completed with a nap in the stroller for Matthew and then a pilgramage to Daddy's favourite store on earth....

After which, we all settled in for the 1.5 hour ride home and a nice quite evening on the beach :O)

Adventure #6 ~ Eating in the Car.....

2008-09-09T20:12:00.006-06:00

Tuesday morning was a pretty lazy morning for us. We (er, I mean, Darren) slept in while Matthew and I played in the morning. We made a huge breakfast of eggs and bacon and fruit and toast and hung out in our room.

Matthew went down for his first real nap in the playpen in a few days and we just relaxed while he slept.

I packed a lunch for us and when Matthew woke up, we decided to head down to the Outlet Mall. Since moving to Calgary in 2005, there was a new outlet mall built north of Seattle, complete with a huge hotel/casino resort right beside. Can you say "GIRLS WEEKEND!!!" I can't think of anything more perfect! A nice hotel, a casino, restaurants and awesome shopping within walking distance! Girls ~ we'll have to talk! ;o)

Anyhow, Here's a picture of Matthew enjoying his lunch in the truck. Any of you who know Darren know that he never used to be that fond of eating in the car. Especially a new vehicle. But, I said the rules straight years ago, informing him that once we had kids, that was all going to go out the window. And boy, did it ever. From ice cream, to apple juice, to cheerios and pb&j sandwiches.. we ate them all in the car and we (Matthew and I) loved it!!

As you can imagine... shopping can be a bit boring for a 1 year old... but not when your Mommy lets you run around the Nike store while Daddy shops!

Oh yeah, and then when you're bored of that, you can always hang out with the manicans!

In the end, I didn't get as much shopping done as I had anticipated (I am a devoted follower of the Ann Taylor stores and was hoping to get a good start on a winter work wardrobe), but there again is a second reason why a girls weekend will have to be in the works at some point!

Adventure #5 ~ To the U.S.A. we go!

2008-09-09T19:58:00.006-06:00

On Monday we made our way across the border to the United States of America. Again, another first for Matthew! He got to use his passport for real for the first time!

We luckily made it across the border without any delay whatsoever! We were especially relieved because it was the Monday afternoon of the Labour Day long weekend and sometimes the crossings can get very backed up.

Our first stop across the border was at our favourite little dairy store where you can buy ice cream. Daddy went for the super big swirl soft ice cream cone, which when we measured was almost 7 inches of ice cream! I don't know how he ate it without any of it falling all over him!

I decided to have a "fresh strawberry" milkshake... mmmm... it was sooo good! Just like the kind my mom used to make for us when we were little. I enjoyed a sip and then gave Matthew a sip.....

... and then never got it back again!

It was a good pit stop. Matthew got a chance to run around a bit and then we were on our way. Yes, the pit stop. That word got to be our friend throughout the week. I learned one very good tip for when travelling with kids. As long as you give them breaks to run around and be silly, they'll be good for you and sit in the car for a few hours. I don't think we actually had a single meltdown the entire trip. We had a few whiny times, but no down right meltdowns. Pretty good for a 15 month old little boy!

We stayed in the Candlewood Suites in Oak Harbour, a small city on Whidbey Island. The hotel had actually only been open since March and it was gorgeous! It did not feel like staying in a hotel at all, rather like our own little apartment! New appliances, hardwood floors, a nice bathroom and a SEPARATE BEDROOM!! What more could you ask for!? Now we could finally put Matthew down at night and be able to at least watch TV without worrying that any little move would wake him up. Let me tell you, renting a suite (or at least a hotel room with a separate bedroom) is definitely the way to travel with little kids. I would gladly pay the upgrade any day!

Call me weird, but one of the things I like to do when we travel is scope out grocery stores ~ Especially in the states.. I just think they have such different things down there and it's fun to find new products. So, I had a lot of fun cooking meals for the three of us which proved to also be the best way to eat when you're travelling with a small child. We did try eat out once or twice, but each time we pretty much had to eat in shifts and neither one of us enjoyed the meal. Eating in your own kitchen was the way to go.

So, that night, I cooked up one of our favourite dishes of mushroom porkchops. We cleaned up our dishes, put Matthew to bed for the night (he actually went to sleep no problem that night!) and got to RELAX for the first time in our vacation... ahh... how nice!

Oh, and after we arrived, I soon realized that we wouldn't be needing/using the tub of toys that we hauled along because the hotel had a set of

and even a few

:O)

Adventure #4 - A Ferry and a Wedding

2008-09-04T22:02:00.007-06:00

Adventure #4 began on Sunday afternoon. After our fun morning at Ambleside, we found ourselves needing a breakfast #2 (after all, our wheaties had been eaten at 6am that morning!). So, what better place than our old favourite, Ikea! If you've ever had breakfast at Ikea anywhere else in the country than Vancouver, than you've never had breakfast at Ikea. In Vancouver, you'd swear the entire lower mainland was there at the same time. I've seriously never seen so many people lined up for $1 breakfasts. It always used to be like that, and it still is (except that now they charge .30 for the buns that used to be free.. go figure!).

We arrived back close to noon, which sent us into a bit of a panic because we have learned that with a 1 year old, you do not do things as quickly as you think you're going to. And we were right. Although we thought we'd leave the hotel at 1pm, it was more like 1:20. No biggy, except that we needed to be at the ferry terminal by 1:45 to keep our reservation.

As we headed onto the #1, we soon realized that wasn't going to happen! We had forgotten that the PNE (Pacific National Exhibition) was in town last week and of course, when you have 1.5 million people trying to use a 2 lane highway, things back up quickly. But, of course, with Daddy's expert driving skills, we made it there with time to spare.

The wedding we were attending was in Gibsons (where they used to film Beachcombers for those of you who remember!). It was another first for Matthew! His first time seeing big boats and his first time going across on a ferry! It actually was much less eventful than I though it might be. We didn't get to go outside because we were wearing our fancy clothes and I was too worried we'd all get dirty!

We attended the wedding of our friends Shelley and Jonathan. It was a beautiful wedding in a little place on the coast. The ceremony was held in a garden behind the facility. The bride and groom made their grand entrances in an old fire truck. The bride's husband is a volunteer fire fighter. What a neat idea!! Definitely something everyone will remember.

This was also Matthew's first wedding! He behaved quite well considering again, the only nap he would take was in the truck. Mommy brought along an old wallet filled with a bunch of construction paper squares with letters and numbers on them. Matthew sat for most of the ceremony pulling one out at a time and handing them to Mommy. What a lifesaver those were!

This is my favourite photo of the groom. Everyone always watches the bride when they come down the aisle. I like to see the expression on the groom's face when he sees his bride!

Our friends Darryn and Amanda brought their little girl, Sienna to the wedding. Although Sienna is a bit older than Matthew, the two of them had fun swinging on a wooden swing on the property!

As far as Matthew was concerned... weddings weren't for standing around and visiting, they were for running around!

Like I said, it was a beautiful wedding and in a great location that left lots of room for us parents with little kids to let them run around outside without disturbing the party inside. Although we had to eat our suppers in shifts, Darren and I also enjoyed ourselves a lot and had a great time catching up with old friends!

Adventure #3 - My First Dip in the Ocean

2008-09-03T06:12:00.011-06:00

Hi everybody, it's Me, Matthew blogging today! Guess what? I'm on vacation! It's been lots of fun because I have seen all kinds of new things and done all kinds of things that Mommy keeps saying "this is Matthew's first time....". It has also not been fun because sometimes I don't want to travel in our truck again and again and again... but then Mommy brings out some kind of a new toy that I have never seen and it makes the trip fun again! When I need a break, Mommy and Daddy let me come up into the front of the truck and turn all of the knobs and buttons for a while. Then we go for walks outside where I run around and Mommy chases me. She says it is to wear off some of my energy. It usually works because then I have a nap the next time we go in the truck again!

Last weekend, we were in a place called Vancouver. That's where Mommy and Daddy used to live. On Sunday morning, they took me to a place that they said was their most favourite place in all of Vancouver. It is called Ambleside park.

We got to see the ocean! I got to dip my toes into it... it was very cold, but that didn't stop me! I also found all kinds of neat rocks and sticks and shells!

We also met all kinds of nice doggies who were going for swims in the ocean as well!

Adventure #2: Remember Vancouver?

2008-09-02T11:26:00.004-06:00

As I said before, I was itching to go back to Vancouver. It had been three years since we'd been there and I couldn't wait to get back!

It was so surreal to go back. It was like being blasted into the past. Seems like nothing has changed in 3 years. And the strange thing is, you almost feel like a different person as soon as you get there... like the self you left behind comes back!

The first thing we found out that we had forgotten was how crazy the traffic is there! That is one thing that has surely made me thank-ful that we moved to Calgary. I don't ever want to hear anyone complain about the Deerfoot traffic again. I don't know about any of you on the east coast, but unless you've driven through Vancouver on a regular basis, you are not allowed to complain about the traffic in Calgary! Let me just paint the picture. It was bumper to bumper on every single road we took from Richmond through to Coquitlam. . And it was only a SATURDAY afternoon. Yikes! Most of it, I think, is due to the skytrain expansion that they are putting in in time for the Olympics.

I also forgot how closterphobic I immediately get when I go back! I must have gotten used to it over the time we lived there, but all I could think about when we first got there was how many trees there are and how all the bushes seems to be growing over everything! Ah... but is is soooo green. I love green. Vancouver has the kind of green I love, Calgary sure doesn't!

Our first stop was at Bentei Sushi. Darren has been talking about this place for the last 3 months. We used to frequent there, at least 2-3 times per week, and as Darren puts it "the sushi in Calgary just doesn't compare". So, we picked up some sushi and some groceries and checked into our hotel.

About 7 or so we decided to put Matthew to bad considering it was such an eventful day and although he had about a 45 min nap in the car, it probably wasn't enough. He wouldn't have anything to do with the playpen. Stood up and gave his loudest wail of a cry that he could! This went on for a few minutes and I was worried that being a Saturday night, the hotel was actually full and we might get a complaint about his crying. I even told Darren that we need to pretend we're sleeping in the bed beside him, but that didn't work either.

So we brought him into the bed with us and both pretended to fall asleep.... er... we both FELL ASLEEP....... actually all 3 of us fell asleep..... until 6 am the next morning. Gosh, we must have been tired!

Adventure #1: Thank God for Bits and Bites......

2008-09-02T11:06:00.004-06:00

The few days leading up to our vacation were crazy as usual... somehow, no matter what, I always end up running around at the last minute getting or packing this or that. This time I told myself it was going to be different! I made lists weeks before we went... I got out our luggage weeks before we went... I even started to put things in the luggage weeks before we went... and yet, I still ended up packing a lot on the Friday before we went.

Matthew and I cheated coming out to the coast. We made Daddy drive our truck out and we flew. Actually, it was Daddy's idea in the first place, so we didn't feel too bad. We couldn't afford two days to get out here and I didn't want to drive overnight through the mountains, so we compromised on letting Daddy leave early in the morning, which he loves to do... drive straight through with a few 2 minute pit stops (which is the way he likes to drive and there was nooooo way that was going to happen with Matthew) and we would meet him in Vancouver.

It went pretty close to as planned.. except that I couldn't sleep the night before, so I probably got about 2 hours.

On Saturday morning, our neighbour Erin drove us to the airport and Matthew was in a great mood! We cleared security with no problems... (that one is always fun when you're juggling a few jackets, a few bags, a blankie, a stroller and a child all while still holding your boarding ticket for the nice man to check over)... I had an entire bag of snacks and drinks, so I thought they'd might want to take a peek in that one, but they let us through with no questions asked. Heck, I even went through with my housekey in my pocket and it never beeped... hmmm.. gotta love our security systems.

Waiting for the plane was lots of fun because Matthew thought that the little "trains" (aka baggage carts) whirring around in circles outside were quite funny. I also thought it was remarkable that he pointed at the planes and said his version of airplane since he'd never seen one in the ground in person before. He's good at pointing to them in the sky, but I guess he does really remember things that we look at in books!

This was the first trip where Matthew got to walk onto the plane all by himself! He proudly walked across the bridge to the plane and all the way down the aisle... right to the back of the plane! "Matthew!! Stop! Our seat is over here!!!" Thank goodness the flight attendants are so nice on Westjet flights :O)

So, we took our seats and enjoyed watching out of the plane window as other planes came and went. Unfortunately, the flight was full and of course, we were seated beside some 20 year old guy who didn't look all too thrilled to have a 15 month old seated beside him who figured that the man's blackberry should belong to him as well!

We had no problems with take-off or landing, which was a relief. I kind of thought at one point Matthew might nap because he hadn't up to this point (it was already 1 pm) and he's usually done his nap by this point.

Then the fun started.

Matthew discovered that the tray goes up and down and that if you bang it against the seat in front of you it makes lots of noise! There was a little boy seated in front of us, so he didn't much mind what Matthew was doing, but again, not sure if the guy next to us was appreciative of Matthew's new game.

We get into the flight probably 10 minutes and ... ew.... what is that.... Oh, Matthew, did you have to POOP YOUR PANTS ON THE PLANE!!!! We've taken probably 8 or 10 flights with Matthew already and he's never once pooped on the plane. Great. Well, first time for everything!

So, we nicely ask the man beside us and the lady if they could move and I say, "believe me, you'll be happy that we don't linger here for long".... we get to the back of the plane and into the teeny tiny bathroom (which does actually have a change table) and change the diaper. No big deal. Phew. Ok. we put the stinky blue bag in the back where the flight attendants tell us and make our way back to the seat. We ask the people to excuse us again and we get back into our seats.

At this time, the flight attendants are bringing around the snacks. She asks me what I want and I say "apple juice please". Long gone are the days of having cran and soda or gingerale or whatever I want. Nope, now it's just apple juice. "do you want a little glass of juice for him?", she says? "uh, no thank-you. We'll share. That's the last thing I need is for him to have his own glass in our 2 foot space.

So then we enjoy our apple juice and our little bag of bits and bites, one at a time, for the next 20 minutes. Ahhh... peace and quite.

We continue on our flight for probably another half hour and then.... hm... I think.. no... "oh Matthew.. you POOPED AGAIN??????" By this time, the package of wipes had been thrown under the seat by Matthew (oh, did I forget that part) and so I had to go into this one with only a diaper and the kleenex in the bathroom. Again, we made it through, although I probably emptied most of the kleenex in the bathroom!

Finally, we made it to the ground... we made it through the airport and we made it to Daddy! As we were 10 seconds into our drive away from the airport, I said to Darren.. "well, he didn't nap today so I bet he ..." and as I turned around, he was already sleeping :O)

Hello....

2008-09-02T11:02:00.002-06:00

It's been a few days since I've had a chance to post! We're all well and having a great vacation.

Now it's time to get some posts logged. This is warning... these next posts could be lengthy! I apologize to those of you who don't want to read through them... just skip through the pictures!

I know there are those of you out there who like to read my blog, but truthfully, blog more for myself than you guys ;o) I don't do well at journalling and I didn't do that well at a baby book, but I love to take pictures and blog, so I consider this my personal journal!

A Beautiful Place

2008-08-25T21:17:00.003-06:00

... did I mention we're going on vacation in a few days??!!! :O) As stressful as getting ready for such a big trip can be... I am SOOOO excited for this vacation. Do you realize we have not taken a summer vacation yet? Do you realize that I have had to listen to all of our friends and all of our co-workers talk about the wonderful trips they've taken all over the place.. and we've gone NOWHERE!! But that was on purpose.. this trip is not going to be cheap on the wallet, so we knew we were saving up.

This is actually our first official family vacation! I'm so excited to go back to my other home... You see, Saskatoon will always be my first home... Vancouver feels like my second home and Calgary will be my permanant home.

We haven't been back to Vancouver for 3 years. I really miss Vancouver sometimes. Actually, sometimes I wonder if it's more the lifestyle and friends that I miss more. Don't get me wrong, I love my life here and all of the friends we've made here, but Vancouver was a great place to start our life together!

Speaking of which, we are very excited to spend a few days back at the place where Darren and I took our very first vacation together.. can you believe it, 9 years ago!?! It is a beautiful place in Washington called Whidbey Island. When we originally stayed there, we stayed in a beautiful bed and breakfast, right on the island. We are staying at a hotel this time, but on the same island... where there are whales going right by in the sound at any given time. It is so gorgeous!

I hope to take lots of pictures and share our trip with all of you! Even though we're there for a week, with 2 weddings to go to and a schwack of visiting to do in between, there sadly won't be that much family time for just us. But, we're going to have a blast with the time we do have and a blast getting to see all of our old friends and family along the way!

Thought I'd leave you with this picture of Matthew... getting into something (as usual!).

Will write soon,
Erin

Garden Helper

2008-08-24T20:46:00.009-06:00

...it's been kind of crazy in my world lately, so I apologize for not bloggins so much. If only I could blog at work (read - they didn't block it), then I'd get a lot more blogging in. I have a lot more energy at 6am than I seem to at 9pm.

Anyhow, we're heading off on a week and a bit trip to the coast this weekend and I hope to find time to blog while we're gone (that is if the hotel internet connections actually work!)....

It figures... I've toiled over my poor garden all summer long and just as everything is about to come ready.... we're going on holidays! I must have 50 tomatoes in the garden, but not one of them has turned ripe yet! Luckily, I have a next door neighbour who likes to garden as well and who has agreed to water and possible cover if required.

For the past several weekends now, Matthew and I have made it a Sunday habit of going into the garden to see what we can find. It's a big game for him. Mommy finds the vegetables and he carries them back to the basket. Then we both get to spray them down with the garden hose, which to him is the best part... well, besides trying to take a bit of our everything we pick!

Splish, Splash, Here I come!

2008-08-17T20:36:00.008-06:00

This post is a bit behind, as it was actually 2 weeks ago that we took Matthew to a swimming pool for the first time, but somehow, I kept forgetting to post!

I know most people take their babies to the pools when they're quite young, and I don't know why we kept putting it off, but we did... and so we finally thought it was time to see if Matthew liked the water!

I tried to put him in lessons for this fall, but of course, I was 1 person too late and the class was full. I guess we'll wait until next session.

Matthew had no fear of the water and just wanted to go in further... and further... and further... until we were carrying him because his toes weren't reaching! His favourite part was when they turned on the wave machine.

(sorry for the crappy photos, but Darren wouldn't let me take the SLR camera into the water.. hmmm.... why not???)
Here's Matthew and Daddy getting ready for a wave:

That was fun!!

Splash!!

Anticipating a big one....

Then we tried to convince Matthew to go over to the kiddie pool.... with all of the other kiddies... but he wanted no part of it. Until... Mommy found a lifejacket and showed him how he could float on his back!

Here he is giving the thumbs up to this fun new game!

I guess it's safe to say we'll have to go back :O)

p.s. don't tell Daddy I put pictures of his... ahemmm.. lack of hair... on a public website... he'd freak!

Oh No!

2008-08-14T20:41:00.003-06:00

In the last day or so, Matthew has figured out how to shake his head .... "no"!
Now everything that he doesn't want to do, including come inside, eat soup, wash his hair, put his sleep sack on... etc, etc. Is a firm shake of the head! Before he figured out that he could voice his opposition he'd just do what he was told. We haven't even hit terrible two's yet and already "no, no, no!"

oh boy, I can't wait until the actual word "no" comes out!

Tiny Moment

2008-08-13T20:30:00.002-06:00

Gosh, today was a really busy day... really, really busy (at work I mean). One of those days that you just want to bang your head against the steering wheel on the way home. Anyhow. It was busy enough that I had to go pick Matthew up from daycare and bring him to work with me because I had some stuff that had to get done.

I was suprised at how well behaved he was and how he stayed in my office and didn't attempt to venture out for almost an hour!

On the way home, we were driving in traffic, he was kind of yawning a bit and rubbing his eyes. We were playing one of his cd's as I typically do. I've been playing his CD's since he was a few weeks old (with children's songs on them), but have never really gotten a reaction out of him.

All of a sudden, "if you're happy and you know it... clap your hands" came on.. I happened to glance in the rear view mirror and there was Matthew smiling and clapping away! Again, he amazed me at how much he actually understands! I was even more impressed when we got to the second verse "if you're happy and you know it cover your eyes... peek-a-boo!" and he put his hands up to his eyes.

Awww...

p.s. Our new word of the week is "car". Whenever we come out of the dayhome, I ask him where his truck is and he always points to the same one and says "car"... right now car and truck are one in the same, but who cares! Today, when we walked out of my office into the parking lot, all he could keep saying was "car, car, car" and point in all different directions! Same thing as we drove very slowly home in bumper to bumper traffic. "car, car, car" all over the place! More cars than we'd ever seen before! Definitely the highlight of his day :O)

What's Cooking Wednesday? Zucchini, Zucchini, Zucchini!!

2008-08-13T19:52:00.005-06:00

My garden and kitchen are runneth over with zucchini right now, so what better time than to try out new zucchini recipes.. and of course, if they can include chocolate, then even better!

I took a take on Heidi of 101 Cookbook's recipe for Chocolate Zucchini Cupcakes

In the picture, it's hard to tell which is which, but the non-healthy and very delicious are on the left and the more healthy and still delicious are on the right.

I decided to try them two ways: healthy and non-healthy... here's how they worked:

You'll Never Guess Chocolate Cupcakes
(the unhealthy ones - Recipe by Erin)

These cupcakes are seriously to die for! They have a dark-chocolate like taste and are not too sweet. They are incredably moist (likely due to the secret ingredient) and your kids or husband will never know there's... (gasp).... zucchini in them!

2/3 c milk
1 1/2 tsp vinegar
1 1/2 c brown sugar
1/4 c melted butter
2/3 vegetable oil
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
2 c grated zucchini
1/2 c chocolate chips
2 c flour
1 c cocoa, sifted
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp baking soda.

Preheat Oven to 425F. Measure milk and add vinegar to it to sour it. Let stand for 5 minutes. Meanwhile, cream sugar and melted butter until mixed well. Add oil & milk. Mix well. Add eggs, one at a time, making sure the batter is well-encorporated after each egg. Add zucchini, chocolate chips and vanilla and stir by hand to encorporate. Sift dry ingredients together. Return batter to mixer and add dry ingredients to wet while mixing at low speed.

Fill approx. 12 muffin cups or 24 mini-muffin cups with batter. (make sure to spray the pan, even if non-stick, as the tops of the cupcakes seemed to want to stick).

Put in the oven at 425F for 6 minutes. After 6 minutes, turn heat to 350F. It takes approx. 12 minutes for mini-cupcakes or 18 min for regular cupcakes. Cupcakes are done when a toothpick comes out clean. Don't overbake or these will lose their moistness.

Let cool 10 min before removing from pan. Once baked, you will never know there is zucchini in these... it completely disappears!! A definite kid pleaser. In fact, the first time, I heard Matthew say "mum-mum-mum-mum-mum" as he was attempting to ask me for seconds!

You Might Guess Chocolate Muffins
(the healthy ones)

These muffins were based on my recipe above, with an attempt to make it a bit healthier. Of course, any "healthy" muffin's texture will vary greatly from a cupcake, enough so to make your husband say "what did you do to the second batch of cupcakes???" (answer, "they're healthy dear, that's what".... and the zucchini doesn't quite disappear as much as it does for the cupcakes, so if I make this again, I will finely grate the zucchini instead of coarsely grate it. None the less, Matthew still eats these by the handfull.

3/4 c brown sugar
1/2 c applesauce
3/4 c vegetable oil
2 eggs plus 2 egg whites
1/2 c milk
1 1/2 tsp vinegar
2 c grated zucchini (finely grated)
1/2 c chopped walnuts (finely chopped)
2 c flour
1 c cocoa, sifted
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda

Preheat oven to 425F. Combine milk and vinegar and set aside for 5 minutes. Combine Applesauce and brown sugar in mixer. Add vegetable oil and milk. Mix. Add eggs and whites, 1 at a time, beating well after each egg. Add zucchini and walnuts and mix by hand just until encorporated. Sift dry ingredients together. Add to wet either with mixer or by hand. Mix until just encorporated. Do not overmix.

Bake in oven at 425 for 6 minutes. After 6 minutes, lower heat to 350. Bake for approx. 10-12 minutes for mini-muffins or 15-18 minutes for regular size muffins.

p.s. These aren't very sweet. I intended them to be that way. If you want a much sweeter muffin, I would add in an extra 1/2 c sugar.

...by the way, don't forget to check out more great What's Cooking Wednesday Recipes on Shan's blog.

Matthew loves his kitties

2008-08-08T19:56:00.004-06:00

Matthew loves his kitties. I think he really loves all kinds of animals right now, but especially his kitties. And, I think his kitties are starting to warm up to him too. Tia actually comes to him once and a while for a rub on the leg and Token will actually sit beside Matthew for a fewminutes.

It appears here as though he is about to run away, but Token actually stayed with Matthew and I on the couch for quite a while the other night while we watched Treehouse for a bit.

For whatever reason, Matthwe finds it quite fascinating to pull hair out of the cats and examine it... luckily, the cats don't notice, so all is well!

The Park, The Park is SOOOO much Fun!

2008-08-06T20:44:00.006-06:00

Matthew made a lot of trips to the park with Grandma and Grandpa while they were here. Now he thinks that it should be a daily part of our routine! As soon as we get out of the vehicle, he turns and heads straight for the park if I don't catch him quick!

Grandma taught him a naughty game ;o) Putting rocks on the slide....

He thinks this is hilarious, especially when someone comes along and cleans them off for him! Mommy thinks it's fine as long as he doesn't eat them! (Hopefully we're past that stage).

Sliding comes in a very close second. Going up the slide instead of down is even more fun.. although I know that one is going to turn into a boo-boo one day, so Mommy thinks we'd better not encourage that game!

Then there's putting rocks on all of the steps... game #3 played each time we go!

What's Cooking Wednesday? Grilled Chicken and Stir-Fried Veggies!

2008-08-06T20:27:00.004-06:00

Those of you who don't read Shan's blog aren't familiar with What's Cooking Wednesday. You should check it out! There are lots of great ideas there!

This is my first attempt at posting for What's Cooking Wednesday... The recipe comes from "Dieticians of Canada cook great food"... one of my favourite cookbooks. Recipe is tweaked by me of course, because I don't think I have ever followed a recipe to the tee in my life!

Grilled Chicken and Stir-Fried Veggies (tweaked)

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
2 tbsp lime juice
2 tbsp soy sauce
4 stalks celery*
1 large onion*
1 each medium green and red bell pepper*
1 medium carrot*
1 1/2 tsp each ground cumin and chili powder
1 tsp lemon pepper
1/2 c chicken broth
1.5 c brown or white rice.

** you can really use whatever veggies you want. I used zucchini, orange pepper, onion and snow peas because that's what I happened to have!

Cook rice as per your usual method. Set aside.

Using meat mallet, pound chicken between wax paper to 3/8" or so thickness. Place chicken in glass dish, pour lime juice and soy sauce over. Toss to coat. Marinate for 1/2 hour or so.

Meanwhile, cut up all of your veggies to similar sizes. You should have about 6-8 cups worth. Combine vegetables with cumin, chili powder and lemon pepper. Set aside.

Broil or BBQ chicken until cooked through.

Meanwhile, in large skillet, sprayed with non-stick cooking spray, cook veggies, stirring until hot. Stir in Chicken broth, cook until veggies are tender, about 8 minutes.

Serve veggies and chicken (sliced) over rice.

~ Darren and I both liked this recipe. Matthew as so, so. The original recipe called for twice as much lime juice as I show above and so the chicken was very lime tasting. This recipe is really great for leftovers the next day though! Definitely something I'll try again.

notes....

2008-08-05T20:10:00.003-06:00

Gosh, I have so much to blog... but so many pictures to share with them too! My other half was messing with the computer last night and now photoshop is not working... he promises to fix it tonight.

So, new posts to come soon!

p.s. for those of you who were asking if I got my comments working.... I cannot figure out how to get them on the main page, but if you click on the title of a particular blog, you can comment to your hearts content!

Talk soon,
Erin

Tiny Moments

2008-08-04T19:58:00.004-06:00

My web friend Shan often posts about a "tiny moment" on her website. It wasn't until this weekend that I full on got what she means and had my first "tiny moment". I have a feeling they're going to be coming fast and furious now!

So Shan, thanks for the idea, I'm going to steal it regularly from now on!

Tiny Moment #1:

Matthew, Grandma and I are in the kitchen. Matthew is sitting on our island, helping us put fruit into the fruit bowl. Matthew recently gained an appreciation for eating fruit whole, so now every time he picks up a fruit, he has to try a bite. We stopped him though, only 1 peach this time buddy... then we got to the bananans. "nana" he said and pointed. "He said banana!" My mom said. "He did?", I thought. Are you sure... I've been hearing all these things lately that sound like words, but I've never heard him actually say anything yet at a time that told me he was really understanding what he was saying. And then he said it again "nana!" And tried to bite off the end of the banana. Wow! What a feeling to know he can actually understand us :O) I felt like I'd earned my Mommy badge for talking.. and we're just getting started!

Tiny Moment #2:

Tonight, Matthew and I were sitting on the couch, half watching "Little Bear" on TV, and half reading a book. We were also goofing around and a few tickles were involved. I have been asking Matthew since he was about 6 months old to show me where the eyes, ears, mouth, etc. were on pictures in books. In the past few months, we started asking him to show us where our noses, eyes, etc. were and where his were. Until today, he has never pointed himself.

Well! Today I asked "Matthew, where is Mommy's nose?" and he turned his head to me and stuck his finger right up my nose with a big grin. Yes, Matthew, that's Mommy's nose :O)

Family Fun

2008-08-03T21:38:00.003-06:00

We've been super busy lately, so sorry for the lack of blogs. Grandma and Grandpa Taylor were here to visit for a few days. I'll blog more about the fun we had soon, but here are some family pics to tide you over :O)

Zoo Sunday

2008-07-27T20:59:00.008-06:00

Today we took advantage of a nice day and made another trip to the zoo. I'm so thankful that we have such a wonderful zoo in our city! I am sure that we will continue to support the zoo by beind members for years to come because it is such a great place to be able to spend a few hours together. And, when you don't have to pay the entrance fee, you don't mind that you're only there for an hour or two or that you only see a few animals.

Matthew hasnt' been wanting to nap in the morning any more. It was all of a sudden. His dayhome lady doesn't think he's ready to quit the morning nap yet, but I think he might show her otherwise. He's been downright determined not to sleep in the morning both yesterday and today, so today we said what the heck and went to the zoo without a morning nap.

First we headed to our our favourite part.. the giraffes! Today, all of the giraffes were outside having fun. We even got to see little baby and his Mommy today!

It's not every day that you get to see these guys THIS close! Aww.. he's adorable!

By this point in the game, it was getting close to lunch, so we headed over to our favourite picnic spot for a little family picnic. Matthew was thrilled that we brought sushi.. his favourite!! (**the cooked stuff of course)... he ate three whole pieces! I can't wait for the day when I tell him he's eating seaweed! he he

Look who came to visit!

My baby....

We had to take his shirt off because he insisted on feeding himself applesauce and Mommy forgot to bring a bib!

One last baby....

Mish Mash

2008-07-24T21:35:00.005-06:00

.... He did it! He did it! My boy can finally clap!!! You don't know how happy this Mama was that her little boy started clapping :O)

.... He can also run on the spot. This is his new favourite thing to do.. he gets quite the kick out of it too when you run on the spot as fast as you can! (I equate this to dancing... Mom's of girls always ask me if Matthew dances to the music.. yeah.. no... he's a boy... this is a close as I'll get.

.... we bought Matthew a new ride on toy. Boy is it lots of fun! Matthew learned pretty quickly how to drive forwards AND backwards....

....but it sure wasn't as fun as the cardboard box it came in! Matthew and Daddy drove around the house in the pretend car for hours!

... did I mention Matthew can feed himself with a spoon now? He's pretty darn good too.. but most of the time his entire face is pretty well covered!

.... and then there's the game of putting pasta from one ice cream pail to another... another one that has been giving us hours of fun (and lots to clean up)!

My Little Picasso

2008-07-21T19:36:00.004-06:00

Yesterday, Matthew tried his hand at fingerpainting! Sure, I know some of you are saying, isn't he a little young? Ah! Never to young to start being creative! Besides, Mommy needs to find a way to keep him busy when I'm trying to cook supper, so sitting in his chair doing something I think will be the only way.

Here is the little Picasso himself... pondering what to paint....

A work in progres.....

And the finished product! A masterpiece for sure :O)

Finally Some Rewards......

2008-07-20T21:11:00.003-06:00

After months of pulling those darn weeds, and agonizing over why my stinkin' cucumbers refuse to grow... and then killing half of my zucchini plants by accident, when apppparrenetttlly you're not supposed to transplant them when they're already thiiiiissss big....

I got some small rewards!!!

Quite an accomplishment for the first time gardener if I do say so myself:O)

A Weenie Roast

2008-07-19T21:25:00.002-06:00

Tonight we had a weenie roast in our backyard. Sorry, no pictures because both Daddy and I were busy alternating between entertaining our guests and running after Matthew.

A few days ago, Matthew also got some new backyard play equipment. Tonight he tested it out with his friend Aiden (who actually is almost 3, but the two are nearly the same size!)

The two of them went up and down on the teeter totter and round and round on the merry-go-round for what seemed like hours! They just never got sick of it!

We had lots of fun even though a lot of people who had RSVP'd cancelled on us at the last minute. Gotta love when people do that.. just makes me remember that I'd better never do it to someone else!

Hope you're having a good weekend too :O)

Little Cowboy

2008-07-16T19:58:00.002-06:00

I haven't had a chance to post this picture.... it was taken last week at my company's Stampede breakfast. Matthew had a blast running around the parking lot and eating a tummy full of pancakes and eggs!

Why?

2008-07-15T21:39:00.004-06:00

.... sorry I've been kind of non-existant lately.. don't know, just been too busy and too tired at the end of the day to post!

But today, the karma gods were not being nice to me... what exactly did I do to deserve my day today?

1. I woke up to the sound of thunder at 3:40 a.m. It was quite thunder and I don't mind thunder when it's far away, but I woke up and that meant I was likely not going to fall asleep again before the alarm went off at 4:30.

2. The rain sounded so nice at 4:30 that I thought to myself... well, if you stay in bed until 5, then you just need to be speedier getting ready and don't doddle. Normally I leave myself 1 hour to get ready, but I have done it in 12 minutes before, so no biggy.

3. Just before I am about to plug in the blowdryer to dry my hair.... the power goes out..... if you've ever seen my hair in a day without being blowdried, you'll know why I was concerned about this.

4. We have a million flashlights and in fact keep one right beside our bed, but do you think it was there when I needed it?

5. I can barely see and so decide to skip on making breakfast and/or my lunch figuring I'll eat out of my cabinet supply (yeah, I keep a supply of soup and stuff at work for days like today at work), so I leave, on time, ready to go to work.

6. I figure I need a little pick me up, so me and my wet hair stop at Tim's. I get a coffee, a donut (I thought what the hell, the day can't get worse) and a sandwich. Was going to save the sandwich for lunch, but decided to eat it in the car on the way to work. Apparently, the lady at the counter decided to cut only part way through the sandwich, leaving the appearance that it was in once piece, when it was actually almost in 2 pieces... so it completely falls apart and all over my pants. Great.

7. Get to work (on time I'll add.) I'm the first one there, so I don't worry about coming in sans hair and makeup. I brought my blowdryer and went into the lady's washroom to blowdry. Guess what? No plug-ins in our washroom. Who'd have thunk it? Blowdry hair in office without mirror. Great.

8. Day goes pretty well from here... nothing nuts at work, no crazy customers, thinking the crappy part is over.

9. Leave for work, pick up child, go home, get ready for physio appointment. (I have been having knee problems which have been determined to be a combination of my bad feet and my 30 lb child... anyhow, they're getting fixed).

10. Start off on the road...... and THIS happens.

Welcome to the daily drive down the Deerfoot. If you live in Calgary and are reading this, I need to say no more. If you're not, and ever visit, just say I warned you. And yes, it is as big as a baseball. And yes, I was 100 feet back from the truck, go figure.

11. Ok, so I'm a little rattled, but this MUST be it, right? I get to our appointment and guess what? Daddy took the stroller out of the truck last night because he didn't realize my appointment was today and I didn't know he'd taken it out. Usually, Matthew just sits in the stroller and snacks while I have my appointment... oh God, what was today going to be like?

For the record, he has won over both the doctor and the receptionist and was playing with the plastic spine and the cordless phone the entire time while the doctor kept saying... "it's ok, he's not hurting anything..."... They are now #1 in Matthew's books.

12. Ok, now we're going home... this has got to be it.. until the rear view mirror falls off of the windshield, likely knocked loose by the force of the baseball that hit us before.. Whatever, at this point I just laugh.

13. And lastly, I discover during Matthew's bath that our ongoing battle with a diaper rash has returned with a vengence.. this time accompanying a yeast infection. Yipee. Off to the walk in clinic we go.

So, it's not 10 pm. Matthew is sleeping and all better. The dayhome lady is going to have fun tomorrow as he's supposed to run around without a diaper as much as possible :O) and I get to start this all over again in 6 1/2 hours.

But as bad as it may have seemed, I wouldn't change my life for the world :O) Good night.

Calgary Marathon

2008-07-07T21:57:00.003-06:00

Yesterday we went down to the Calgary Marathonto watch my brother Mark run across the finish line. He ran the full Marathon. We are pretty proud of him. It's quite a feat to make your feet run 42 km. In fact, I can't even fathom it!

And to consider this was his first (and probably only according to him) marathon, coming in 346 / 694 people is pretty darn good I would say. I was expecting him to be just barely getting to the finish line, but he ran through like he was still able to run another 10k!

346 248/434 M 19/26 Male 4:10:12 Mark Taylor

I saw lots and lots of people cross the finish line. I tell you, it made me feel like I should be able to get my butt in gear more often. I mean, those people had determination. I couldn't believe how some of them barely dragged themselves across, but they did it. Kudos to all of them. That's mental power I'm not sure I have.

Then I saw these four ladies. Middle aged, overweight, I think they were sisters. I'm betting one of them was at least 200 pounds. They walked the 1/2 marathon in a time of little over 4 hours. 4 hours. wow. That's 21 km in 4 hours. Ok, that gave me motivation. I'll probably never run a marathon but maybe someday I'll walk.....

Matthew's Buddy

2008-07-06T20:39:00.004-06:00

It seems Tia has taken a liking to Matthew. Well, enough so that she lets him sit beside her for a few minutes and lets him pet her once and a while. I've even seen her rub up against his legs a few times.

Tia is the second Mommy in the family. If someone is upset or not feeling well, she's usually the one to come by to snuggle with you or lick you to feel better.

Token on the other hand is just a brat... I know, I know, I'm the one who picked Token, and Darren picked Tia. Oh well, it would be too easy around the house if we had two perfect cats.

Matthew's First Stampede

2008-07-05T21:38:00.005-06:00

As promised, we did the Stampede thing today.. boy am I tired. Stampede is just like chinese food.. when you haven't had it for a while, you really want to go, but as soon as you're done with it, you don't want it again for a very long time.

That said, we had a lot of fun. We didn't go down to the grounds until after Matthew's afternoon nap, which was later than usual today because he slept for 2 1/2 hours this morning! So, we got there about 5:30 p.m. We walked around a little bit, but there were sooo many people there that it was making us crazy! First stop was supper. As you can see, Matthew just helps himself to whatever he wants :O)

Then we had to make a beeline to make sure that we got a seat for the SuperDogs show. That was the main attraction for us! Oh Boy, I wish I had a videocamera. I have never seen Matthew so excited about something in my life! I thought he was going to pee his pants. We got seats right in the first row and Matthew thought that the fact it was all dark with all kinds of colorful lights all over was exciting.. and then he got to sit in a seat all by himself (except Mommy had to keep one leg on it otherwise it folded in half with Matthew in it!)... and then he made friends with this nice little girl sitting beside us!

The only trouble was he did not want to sit in his seat. No, he wanted to go and try all of the dog gym thingys. A little bit of a problem. Anyhow, the show started soon enough. Of course, everyone started clapping. I think Matthew thought the whole audience was clapping for him since we always clap when he does something amazing for us! He thought this was soo funny, he had the biggest smile I've ever seen on his face and he was flapping his arms up and down and just so darn excited!

But, all good things come to an end. We never made it to the end of the show because Matthew was just too excited about everything and we couldn't keep him sitting still. So we bailed.

Matthew did come home with 2 new friends though :O)

Friday Flashback

2008-07-04T21:48:00.004-06:00

..ok, here's a new thing for my blog, but I by no means thought it up. I saw a different version of it on Shan's blog and I thought I'd give it a try. Thanks Shan for giving me the idea!

So, I randomly uploaded a picture to the blog that I have no idea what it is and I'm about to step back to last year for a moment...

aww.... there's so many things that come back when I look at this picture... first of all, I already can't believe that Matthew was actually that small. Gosh, makes you wish that they stayed that small for so much longer than they do!

That activity mat which I bought for $5 at a garage sale must have been one of the best finds I had... he was on that thing all the time and it was so great that you could hang all kinds of different things from it!

Matthew's favourite toy when he was little was those spinning bugs that you see in the picture. He used to watch them go round and round and round over and over again and then eventually got to the point where he could bat at them and make them fall of... then he could actually grab them and hold them, but it was still tons of fun to knock them off.... then he figured out how to turn the thing on and off with the push of a button and that was great fun... and now, sigh, he doesn't even want to play with it. I still haven't put that toy away probably because it was one of my favourites! But, I guess it's time for it to go in "the box".

Today starts the week when everyone in Calgary pretends to be cowboys. As such, we're going to make an attempt to go Stampeding (uh.. to the grounds, not what you were thinking...) with our one year old tomorrow... I'm sure I'll have lots to blog about after that!

p.s.

2008-07-03T21:04:00.001-06:00

.... if anyone out there knows why comments never show up on my blog and how to fix that... please let me know!

The Culprit

2008-07-03T20:53:00.006-06:00

I have always wanted to have a garden. For as long as I can remember. I've grown vegetables in the past in containers on our deck, but it just wasn't the same as a real garden. I finally got my garden this year. And I couldn't be happier! I don't know what it is, but I look forward to the one or two evenings or early mornings (it's beautiful at 5 am) that I can get out there and work in the garden... it's something calming for me.

.... but, I have an intruder. I have caught him many times visiting my petunias and my marigolds. For pete's sake... can't he just eat the lettuce like he's supposed to? He hasn't touched that... no, he wants to eat all the flower tops off! All I can say is thank god we'll hopefully get fences on both sides this summer.

Please excuse the messy blocks in this picture... that's this weekend's project :O)

Old MacDonald Had a Farm.....

2008-07-02T19:55:00.013-06:00

We celebrated Canada Day by taking Matthew to Butterfield Acres. It's a cute little place. I'm not sure we'd make the 45 min drive across town and the $40 admission fee to get in more than once per year, but Matthew had a great time none the less.

Butterfield Acres is this little "farm" / petting zoo that has an assortment of barn animals that the kids can get in the pens with and run around with. It probably would have been better to come earlier in the year because there were already summer camps going on and lots of kids, but we had fun.

Our first encounter was with a lamb. It was so exciting to see Matthew's face as it seemed he was putting two and two together: Hey, these are the same animals we see in my books all the time!

"Excuse Me Sheep... what are you doing?"

"you feel just like the sheep in my book!"

Here is Matthew with his brand new "Walmart Special" Jacket. You see, Mommy remembered to bring diapers, wipes, water sippy cup, juice sippy cup, banana, cheese, yogurt, spoon for yogurt, cloth to clean up yogurt, extra shirt, shorts in case it's hot, sunscreen, bug spray, hat, etc. BUT I FORGOT A JACKET!!!!!! Bad Mommy, Bad Mommy... luckily there was a Walmart just down the street!

In the pen with the baby goats....

Learning about the baby chicks...

Being Goofy....

Baa, Baa, Black Sheep....

A snack at the end of the trip!

Mommy and Matthew

Oh yeah, and what got the biggest laugh out of Matthew the whole time you ask??.......seeing the chicken sitting on the fence just about poop on Mommy's shoe. Go figure. Raising a boy I am.

Uh Oh....

2008-07-01T19:47:00.000-06:00

.... hmm, as a Mom, there are certain things in the "baby book" that kids should be able to do by a certain age.

Like clapping - should be able to do it by 10 months.... I know Matthew knows how to, but he refuses, I have yet to see him clap.

Or, "how big are you?" ... I've done it a zillion times, yet, he won't do it when asked.

Or, "Pat-a-cake"... no siree, doesn't want any part of it.

But, he did learn to crawl by 7 1/2 months. He did walk before his first birthday, and he can climb up and down the stairs with ease and onto our furniture. He knows how to pick the picture of the phone or the cat or dog out of all the flashcards, so I haven't done too bad.

....now here's something I never meant to teach him and he's caught on with ease. Go figure. The other day, Matthew said "uh oh".... I did a double take wondering if he just made some noises that came out sounding like that.... A little later on he made the same sounds as "uh oh", but as "mmm mmmm".... Darren and I looked at each other and laughed. Now whenever he hears us say "uh oh" when something falls, or he drops something... it's followed by Matthew's "uh oh" as well!

no blog, sorry.

2008-06-30T19:41:00.000-06:00

... just feeling blah today, don't feel like blogging.
Happy Canada Day! Hope you have a good one.

Beaches and BBQ's

2008-06-28T22:12:00.002-06:00

We decided to stay home this long weekend. We had thoughts about going to Banff, but when you only think of it a few days before the weekend, you pretty much won't find anywhere decent to stay.

So, we're just going to hang out here and enjoy the nice weather. Today was beach day. Matthew loves going to the beach. I'm not so much of a hot weather person. About an hour in the hot sun (well, actually in the shade under a huge beach umbrella) and I've usually had enough.

Today, the water was actually quite warm in the lake. Matthew loved walking up and down the shore with Daddy. He isn't afraid of the water one bit, which makes me think we need to start taking his life jacket with us. He wanted to keep walking in further and further, and thought it was really funny when we dragged him around like a dolphin in the water.

Summer is for bbqing, so tonight's supper was all on the bbq, thanks to my fancy new bbq gadgets... a fish turner thingy, so we cooked rainbow trout on the bbq. And a basket for cooking veggies in. We also did corn on the cob on the bbq. Who knew that you could put the cobs on just like that (not in their husks) and they still turned out quite juicy!

We gave Matthew some corn off the cob for his supper, but once he saw Mommy and Daddy eating it off the cob, he figured that was how he should do it too!

... I ordered at a restaurant!!

2008-06-24T19:35:00.006-06:00

Hi everyone, it's me, Matthew, blogging today.
Sorry, it's been a while, but Mommy has been very very busy at work and, well, you know she has to do the typing for me :O)

So, this past weekend, Mommy and Daddy took me to a restaurant!! It was our first "official" Family breakfast in a restaurant!

We went to this cool place called Cora's... you should see if they have one near where you live.. their food was really yummy and Mommy and Daddy said it didn't cost us too much either!

I wasn't that impressed to start with because the restaurant lady gave me a basket full of broken crayons. I'm only one year old you know, I need better crayons than that! (and, well, I also wanted the camera Daddy had)...

But, it got much better once Mommy gave me her phone to play with instead!

I got to order my very own meal! Mommy and Daddy ordered it as soon as we got there so I didn't have to wait very long. French Toast and Lots of Fruit!! Boy was it Yummy!!!

(Mommy note: Can someone explain to me why my kid seems to eat 10 times as much when I take him out then what I can get him to eat at home?!?! Is he trying to tell me something???)

There was just so much darn excitement in this place.. I had to check out what everyone else was eating too!

... So, I told Mommy and Daddy we definitely have to do this again! It was sooo much fun!

Talk to you later!
Love,
Matthew