Words, words, words

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.....

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

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)