Zoo Sunday

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

.... 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

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......

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

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

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?

.... 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

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

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

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

..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.

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

The Culprit

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.....

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....

.... 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!