A Star(dom) is born

Three Star(dom)s at the NHL Fan Fair

2012-02-05T21:13:00.004-05:00

Ottawa hosted the NHL All-Star Weekend this year so Max, Henry and I decided to take in one of the public events, the Scotiabank NHL Fan Fair. The Fan Fair was a massive, interactive indoor hockey festival held at the newly renovated Ottawa Convention Centre downtown. There were two full floors of booths and activities.

One of the real highlights of the day were the various mascots walking around. We had stopped for a snack and were seated beside the escalators. Mascots were coming up the escalators every few minutes! They were also having a blast hot-dogging down the escalators which the kids loved. After a bit of hesitation, Max got right into it and was high-fiving everyone. I took a few photos:

Max with Wildwing (Anaheim Mighty Ducks)

With Sparky the Dragon (New York Islanders)

With N. J. Devil (New Jersey Devils)

With S.J. Sharkie (San Jose Sharks)

We also saw Thunderbug (Tampa Bay Lightning), Tommyhawk (Chicago Blackhawks), Carlton (Toronto Maple Leafs), and Nordy (Minnesota Wild). The mascots were AMAZING - interacting with kids and adults in goofy ways, posing for creative photos, engaging the shy kids, etc. Sadly, there were no Spartacat sightings.

Another fun feature of the event were various booths where you could get cool photos taken and sent to you via email. Here, we do our best Ron McLean and Don Cherry impressions on a faux Hockey Night in Canada set:

Channel-hopping over to TSN:

With some dress-up clothes in the Scotiabank Photo Booth:

We enjoyed some time in the kids' area with Max playing Timbits hockey and all of us building some hockey-themed Mr. Potato Heads. We didn't line up to get our picture with the Stanley Cup but Max loved seeing it.

Classic Max - Smelling the roses while the hockey action is very clearly going on somewhere else.

Henry reaching out for some Mr. Potato Head love.

Max with the Stanley Cup in the background.

Max at the Sirius DJ booth. Shortly after this, he danced his butt off to the Justin Bieber classic "Baby".
The Fan Fair was absolutely HUGE; I think we saw less than half of it but we were totally spent when we left. I wasn't entirely sure how much Max got out of it at first because it was a really overwhelming experience but he spent a big chunk of time that night telling John about all of the things he did and saw so I know that he enjoyed it. It was definitely a once in a lifetime event for me so it was really special to share it with Max.

Successes on the home front

2012-02-02T13:14:00.001-05:00

This is just going to be a quick one, but I want to announce that this past Monday was a big day in the Stardom household. A day after he demonstrated to us that he was capable of rolling over, Henry showed us that he could also roll back. He doesn't quite do it at will yet, but we are definitely not leaving Henry alone on any elevated surface anymore. It was nice to be able to witness the first roll this time, instead of being out of the room and getting burned as our child goes sailing off the couch (sorry Max). The other big success was Max's. Max has been signed up for a lot of activities over the years, but they've all been of the variety that when they're over, you just get a certificate and that's that - there's no real chance to fail. Well, over the past year, he's been in a preschool swimming class that you actually can't get past until you're able to do everything on the report card. Monday night, after his last class, Max graduated to the next level. It's been a lot of hard work - when Max went to his first class, he was unable to be on his back in the pool at all and he was really uncomfortable getting his face wet, let alone putting his face underwater. Now, he can back float to some extent and voluntarily puts his face in the water and is apparently ready to roll for Preschool B. I'm really proud of him and I can't wait to see how he tackles the next challenge.

A Christmas visit

2012-01-27T22:15:00.001-05:00

Christmas is funny for kids. This year, Max was on such high alert that the very first time he caught wind of the holiday season approaching (I think it was via a "Santa is coming to Carlingwood Shopping Center" poster in the mall mid-late November), he was all-in on Christmas right from the very start. "When are we getting our calendars?" "Will there be presents?" "I want to make a list for Santa." "Was I a good boy?" etc. As with Halloween, this was going to be Leo's first "absorb it all" Christmas and with Max stoking the fire whenever possible, Leo got pretty amped up. Henry? Well, he was kind of oblivious.

There were some cool firsts that made this Christmas special. First, Max had his first Christmas concert at school. For those of you who don't know about Max's body of work when it comes to performing in public, Max tend to go all shrinking violet and, sure enough, we've got some video evidence to share. Afterward, I asked him about how much singing he did and he was convinced that he was belting out the hits right along with everyone else. On a related note, this was the first year that Max was interested in Christmas carols. Leo really latched on to this and "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" became the boys' good night song for weeks.

Most importantly, though, Max, Leo and Henry's Grandma from Winnipeg came to visit! This was possibly the one thing that the two older boys were looking forward to most throughout the month of December. Grandma came late on the 23rd and stayed right through the excitement, until the day after Boxing Day. Now, on the night of the 21st, Leo came down with croup and so we were in the throes of managing his wake-ups the night that Grandma came. Thankfully, Nana covered for us on the airport run and took Grandma back to her place for the night.

The next day, there wasn't much on the slate except for hanging out with Grandma. Lots of playing, reading and snacking. Our annual KFC feast sadly got rescheduled for the week following Christmas as a result of the croup, but we still tucked into some good ol' shepherd's pie.

Grandma helping assemble things from the pirate advent calendar.

Grandma gets some up-close time with Henry.
Christmas morning, the kids were understandably excited. Gifts under the tree. Santa had come and eaten the snack that had been left on the plate. (even the reindeer had chomped the carrots Max had left out). Snow was on the ground outside (it actually only arrived on the 22nd). Everything was in place...FOR PRESENT-OPENING MAYHEM!!!!! Somehow, the kids managed to open their two biggest gifts first this year: a Playmobil pirate ship from Santa and a Playmobil rescue vehicle set from Grandma. Both toys have been playtime staples ever since. What I didn't know about giant Playmobil toys is that they take a while to assemble; the bulk of the following couple of hours were spent putting the 300 or so pieces involved in the two toys together. A big thanks to Steven for pitching in so that the kids could play with the toys before sundown.

Playmobil madness. Not sure what's up with Leo's tongue.

The assembly party.

A Playmobil dude using the rescue set ultrasound machine to check on West.

Nana with the three goofballs.

Bon appetit.
We hosted a nice family breakfast and then, after a breather to collect ourselves, we headed over to Nana's to open the rest of our stockings and tuck into a wonderful Christmas dinner. It was nice to see Leo be a little more respectful of tree ornaments this year - as opposed to last year, when Leo dumped a couple of ornaments in the toilet in Winnipeg; this year, I think I was the only one to break an ornament.

(Sigh) So when is present time again? Waiting is boring.

SHOWTIME!!!! BLLARRARGAHGAHGAHGAA!

Seriously! I can stand still for a second. IMSOEXCITEDIHAVEPRESENTSMUSTOPENMOREMOREMOREMORE!!! OK fine so I can't stand still and this picture will be blurry...where are the presents??!?!

She said that if I put this hat on, I'd get a second helping of breast milk. So where's my Mom anyway?

[imitating Cliff Huxtable imitating Julia Child] First, you slice ever so gently along the grain, following the contour of the bird...

I love this Henry guy. Such a classy...what? Lasers? IN HIS EYES? Stay calm...
Boxing Day and the 27th featured more hanging out and visiting, although we did have one fun jaunt out to T&T Supermarket for dim-sum and treat shopping. The kids always have such a blast there and it was great to poke around with Grandma.
All in all, it was a wonderful visit. Leo fell asleep in the van on the way to the airport so he didn't actually see us drop Grandma off. As a result, he spent the next couple of days wandering around the house looking for her. It was very cute/sad. We're definitely all looking forward to our next visit. Thanks Grandma!

West Robert Frank Walker

2012-01-17T20:24:00.000-05:00

He's here! Our very first nephew! Max and Leo's very first cousin on my side! West Robert Frank Walker arrived at 1:04 AM on Wednesday, January 11th, 2012, weighing 7 lbs., 3 oz. to proud parents Laramie and James (a.k.a. Auntie Laramie and Love of Leo's Life). It is entirely possible that this little one is going to be quite the handful if his first journey is any indication - he put my little sister through the ringer with 47 hours of labour! By all accounts, she was an absolute rock star though.

We are all in love. Here are a few photos from West's first day:

Leaving the hospital

The new family of three snuggling at home

My first snuggle with my nephew

Some shots from West's first night at home:

West with his mum, Nana and some of his crazy aunties.
Welcome, West! You were well worth the wait.

Daddy goes it alone

2012-01-15T11:11:00.000-05:00

Before we get to our regularly-scheduled blog post, I thought I would mention that last night we went to bed at 10:30. By 12:40 each of our children either woke up crying for attention or (if physically capable) woke up and inserted themselves into our bed. All three! That was a record. Not quite like Bill Mosienko of the Blackhawks scoring three goals in 21 seconds, but getting there.

Anyway, today, Holly signed up for a volleyball tournament that would have her out of the house from noon to 5:30, my first extended block of time with all three boys without Holly around. Everything went really well and I have some thank-yous to hand out:

1) To Henry, for drinking half of a bottle and then almost all of another bottle. Also for having a nice long nap, followed by a couple of other shorter snoozes. Henry, this could have been really dicey, but your co-operation was key. So thanks.

2) To Kerry, who came over to help keep extra bodies distracted and occupied. I was able to get lunch together because she read to the older boys. Max was able to go to his skating lesson because she could drive him there. Max had a great time at home because Kerry did a craft with him. Kerry, you're a great friend.

3) To Max and Leo, who could have misbehaved a lot today, but never really chose to. I'd like to think that at least Max understood when I asked him to be good today, but who knows? In any case, you guys helped make things go smoothly. Thanks.

Hopefully, this will be the start of many more outings for Holly. She deserves it. Although, honey, maybe next time choose an activity that doesn't have you coming home battered and bruised :)

Gingerbread House

2012-01-07T22:49:00.000-05:00

Not much to say for this one - just wanted to share some photos. Last year, we started a bit of a tradition by decorating a pre-fab gingerbread house in Winnipeg. And, keeping with the theme of a complete lack of desire to actually eat any of the Halloween candy that they collect, the kids weren't really interested in eating any of the candies aside from the gummy Santa, wreath and snowman.

This year, we got another gingerbread house (with, it must be said, fresher candies so the kids were MUCH more interested in eating everything) and brought it over to Nana's, where Auntie Karen, Auntie Laramie, Nana and Uncle James helped us put it all together. We had a great time and Nana cooked us a lovely meal afterward.

Here are a few pictures (and yes, Leo is always either eating or about to eat some candies):

First Museum Adventure of 2012

2012-01-05T06:38:00.000-05:00

It is no secret that the boys LOVE the amazing museums in this city and we are lucky enough to have family memberships to five of the six big national museums in town. John had Monday, January 2nd, off and it was our last day of holidays all together so we decided to go the Canadian Science and Technology Museum. It is one of the boys' favourites (Trains to climb on! The Crazy Kitchen! Awesome play areas! But not the big bonging clock for Max...) and no matter how busy the parking lot seems, it never seems that busy inside. Genius.

They have a great computer exhibit called Connexions where you can email a photo postcard from the Museum to family and friends. The boys wanted to send these all over the country to various folks so I sent them to our home address to be posted here for everyone. You can actually see parts of all of us in these postcards (John is wearing Henry):

There is also a snowmobile ride that mimics the motion and noise of a fast snowmobile ride pretty darn well, minus the icy wind in your face. The last crazy snowmobile ride I had was on the back of John's much-loved and missed cousin Joey's snowmobile going way too fast through the flatlands of rural Manitoba. I loved every minute! This indoor version was a bit tame by comparison but it was great to share the experience with Max and Leo.

The boys were so tired from running around that we got a rare and wonderful triple nap for part of the afternoon. Awesome!!!

100 days of Henry

2012-01-04T21:19:00.000-05:00

Yes, it's true. My littlest boy is 100 days old today. He has been such a great kid (not better than the rest of you sons if you're reading this when you're older, just different) and has really helped keep things on track despite the population explosion underfoot. Over the last two weeks or so, he has added another couple of weapons to his arsenal of cute: eye contact (a brutal heart-melter) and cooing/squealing (actually, he does this in a very chatty way and will do a bit of call and answer sometimes).

There have been some sleep blips lately, but Henry has at least taken to allowing himself to be fed back to sleep rather quickly instead of the old practice of hanging out with one of us, quite awake, for a couple of hours in the middle of the night before passing out again. This new schedule keeps us from needing emergency sleep in the mornings, so we're very VERY thankful for that.

I also feel like I'm getting a better sense of his rhythm, knowing when he's hungry-cranky and when he's tired-cranky. His stamina during the daytime is a little less impressive than before - he at least grabs 20-30 minutes every three hours - and he's even let me take care of him and his brothers on my own a couple of times to get Mom a smidgeon of time to herself out of the house, including a whole movie!

I feel like the best part right now is how smiley Henry gets just by putting him down on a surface and making silly faces at him. Yesterday, he started the Stardom tradition of going to Hush-a-Bye classes so over the next little while, he'll probably start giggling when we start sharing songs and dance with him. "Charlie Chaplin went to France" is already a big hit, as is "Zoom Zoom Zoom". Henry and his smiles definitely make every day better.

It feels like Henry's first three months have whipped by. I'm really looking forward to the things coming over the next few month: rolling over, more productive tummy time, more smiles, more dances, more song recognition, time in the Exersaucer, Tebowing and solving differential equations.

Here are a few recent snaps of our little dude:

Side by side with a photo of child actor Erik Per Sullivan, whom Henry sometimes bears a resemblance to, depending on the photo.

Happy half-birthday, Leo!

2012-01-03T21:21:00.006-05:00

Leo is officially 2.5 today! We celebrated with a pizza dinner, a mini-cake (a Jos. Louis - a classic Vachon cake for those not in the know) with two and a half candles, and lots of singing:

Leo is a really interesting boy these days. He is super cuddly and gives great squeezes around your neck when you hug him. His vocabulary is growing leaps and bounds and he is saying some pretty funny stuff ("I very like it" was one of my favourites from this past weekend). He still runs everywhere rather than walking. He's developing one heck of a stubborn streak but he is still incredibly good-natured, sensitive and sweet. If Max is crying about a toy that Leo has, Leo will most often give the toy to Max to make him feel better even though the vast majority of the time, it is Leo's turn to have the toy. It is quite fascinating to see empathy in a toddler. Hopefully, he keeps that trait later in life because it is awesome. He is still super tough - he rolls with most spills and tumbles (two big head bumps tonight, in fact. Total crying time: 3.2 seconds).

Here are a few awesome Leo photos from the past few months:

Happy half-birthday, my beautiful boy. We love you oceans.

A visit from Uncle Rick

2012-01-02T20:58:00.000-05:00

Yep, we're trying to clean out the fridge now. Alllllll those posts we wanted to put up over the past couple of months, along with a couple of new ones, should pop up over the coming weeks. Call it a New Year's resolution of sorts.

Anyway, right after Halloween, the boys' Grandpa Wayne and Uncle Rick (Holly's dad and brother) came to visit - Grampa Wayne from Kugluktuk, NU, where he is working now, and Uncle Rick from Yellowknife, NT. From what I can tell from photo albums, I think this was Uncle Rick's first visit with his sisters in something like 10 or 11 years. Max and Leo were very excited to meet him and Auntie Melody put on a big spread at her place for the occasion. Here are a couple of picture of Uncle Rick with the boys, Max and Leo at their first kids table together and Grandpa Wayne with an upset Henry.

And because that first dinner just wasn't enough food, we went out again the following night to what used to be Ottawa's very own Gourmet Burger Bistro, The Works (they've franchised out across the province). As per usual, everyone ordered way too much food, ate like pigs and had a great time. The boys also got some surprise presents at the dinner: a lunchbox and some books from GG and Linda (thanks!!!) and their first true Lego set from Auntie Laramie and Uncle James (thanks!!!). It was a really nice evening.

Grampa Wayne having a bit more luck than the night before.

Laramie having even better luck!

Legoheads putting things together.

I have the feeling Leo is going to live life in fast-forward, as compared to Max. There were so many things we could control when Max was younger, in terms of the shows he watched, the toys he played with or the things he knew. Leo? Well, we can't really put a filter on Max and it's hard to keep toys separate so he gets exposed to everything about 2 years before Max did. We'll see if that's a good thing.

Halloween

2012-01-01T18:25:00.013-05:00

Yes, we're talking about Halloween in January. We really wanted to make sure that these pictures made in onto the web though...
This was the first year that I got the sense that Halloween is going to be a real undertaking for the next little while. We need a costume for school. We need a costume for trick-or-treating. We need a costume for friends' parties. Some costumes need to be suitable for outside, some for inside. Throw in some flip-floppiness from the kids and this all gets a little crazy. Excerpt from Max this year: "I want to be a fireman! No, I really want to be a pumpkin! Mommy, I told you, I'm NOT being a pumpkin this year! I want to be a fireman! Daddy, can I be a doctor? I was Bob the Builder before, can I be him again?"
Strip all that away, though, and the kids had a really great time. Max and Leo were both really into pumpkin-carving (well, they were into scooping the seeds out and choosing insanely hard designs for us to carve before running off to play) and Leo was really REALLY into trick-or-treating.

Our adventures this year started with a visit to the Agriculture Museum for a big Halloween party. This involved a mini-pumpkin decorating session, a presentation on making apple cider, a visit to the dairy barn and a stop by the kitchen to sample some yummy baking. One particularly funny incident happened in the barn where the dairy calves are kept: Leo went to feed hay to one of them and then the calf went bonkers and starting licking the heck out of Leo's costume. Leo thought it was pretty funny. I never really thought he'd lose a hand or anything so I took a couple of pictures instead.

On Monday, both of the kids got spiffed up in their indoor costumes (that's Leo as Diego, for those of you who might not be familiar with the character) for their parties at daycare and school. Henry also got in on the action.

Auntie Laramie and Uncle James came over to trick-or-treat with the kids and they were rocking some seriously awesome clown costumes. The weather was pretty great (unlike last year's brutal cold) so the kids could pretty much wear whatever they wanted. In the end, the marauding party was made up of Laramie, James, Holly, Leo and Max while I stayed home with Auntie Karen and Henry to give out candy. Our neighbourhood is AWESOME for trick-or-treating - almost every house on our street had pumpkins and several houses had more elaborate displays including one place a few doors down that had a whole driveway full of Halloween stuff with a smoke machine, faux animals in big cages, and sound effects!!!!

This last picture was our attempt to capture the moment when Leo lost all self-control and started running around screaming "I HAPPY! I HAPPY!". The next day, when I asked the boys about their days after I got home from work, Leo said "No good." I asked "Why not? What happened?". Leo replied, "No tricktreating." Awesome.

Brotherly Love

2011-12-22T04:55:00.003-05:00

We had a lovely pre-Christmas dinner at Auntie Melody's last night and my sister snapped this photo of Leo and Henry.

Leo's girlfriend

2011-12-06T09:34:00.000-05:00

I remember my first crushes. Crushes of varying degrees, obviously depending on my age. I don't remember any of them really predating grade 4. So I'm having a little bit of trouble relating to Leo's current crush at the age of 2. It's been going on long enough now that it's pretty serious. Leo's starting to bring her to dinner, take her with him on the way to daycare and even wanted to bring her to Nana's this past week. Admittedly, she is a bit of a looker; however, I find her a bit hollow.

May I present to you, "Mermaid":

Mermaid came into our lives many months ago, when Holly met her in a bin of Mega Bloks at a garage sale. At the time, Mermaid was pretty cliquey with her buds Flounder and Sebastian. But when they were introduced to the boys, Leo only had eyes for Mermaid. Flounder has been invited along for a couple of things this past week, but Sebastian has been left at the bottom of the bin more often than not.

It turns out that Mermaid is actually quite popular and has been featured in a couple of films. Recently, there has been a pile of merchandise available with Mermaid's face all over it. Needles to say, Leo is pretty fond of these things. The other day at the bookstore, Leo squealed three times: when he saw a toy helicopter, when he saw the Thomas train table and when he saw a Disney Princesses compendium. He's going to grow up so metro.

Anyway, I just thought I would make some introductions. No need to buy her any gifts this year for Christmas, but maybe next year...

Been a while

2011-11-14T21:33:00.000-05:00

Hello. Yes, we're still alive. Just very, very busy.

It's been a crazy month since our last update. I've returned to work and the boys and I have tried to hammer out a reasonable routine for the mornings. Holly and Henry are unknown quantities in the morning - sometimes we get to see them, sometimes we don't - so we try to a) get out without help and b) not wake any sleeping mommies or babies.

Henry still sleeps well at night, but is getting a little bit harder to coax to sleep. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to how or when he'll knock off...rested or tired, happy or wailing, Henry makes his own terms. During the daytime, though, we have had a major breakthrough after a close friend of ours lent us her swing. This is not just any swing, but a MAGIC swing. Seriously. We plopped Henry in the swing at the party and unlike our old one (instant dislike), Henry chilled in the swing for quite some time. Now, most mornings, he's most happy to hang out in the swing (and sometimes even sleep!!!) for 30-60 minutes, giving Holly a bit of a breather to get some chores done at the start of the day. Henry also likes the mobile we got when Leo was born, but it's nothing like the swing! The other big highlight for Henry is that he is starting to smile. Yay!!

Max is really getting into school. He is really engaged in writing and drawing and is starting to find some motivation to trace letters and colour - two things he was never particularly interested in doing until recently. He loves working in activity books, has really gotten back into puzzles after a short hiatus, and likes taking grown-up board games and turning them into kids' games. Max got his first mini Lego set the other week and that has been a monster hit with the boys. Also, we've been reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl. Finally, Max has been doing some extra-curricular activities as well, such as a marimba workshop this past weekend and his weekly independent swim classes. He's such a good kid at swimming: Leo and I go into the pool at 8:10 and Max sits quietly with a book on the deck until 8:30 when he goes in with his class. I have a feeling Leo won't be so trustworthy at 4.

Leo has turned into one hilarious little dude. While his letter sounds still aren't quite there, he is communicating up a storm and is really starting to use his manners. Leo is really loving his time with Vieda and the morning drop-off blues finally came to an end about 2 weeks ago. Leo is obsessed with wooden peg puzzles these days as well as magnet boards where he can stick picture magnets to make tableaux. He has also gotten into the habit of plunking himself down in front of a bookshelf and then pulling books out, one at a time, and leafing right through them until there's a pile of 20-30 around him on the floor. Sure, he doesn't pick them up, but he sure loves to look at them!

My favourite Leo story from the past month happened at a pumpkin-carving party (the same night Henry found THE SWING). Leo and another 8-year-old girl were in the basement watching Beauty and the Beast. I heard the TV getting a bit loud so I went to check on the volume. Not only was the movie loud, but it was at a fairly scary part. I went to the front of the couch to go sidetrack Leo only to find him snuggled right up to the 8-year-old who was taking great care of him. Leo rode out the scary part in the arms of his love (but not his true love, that's James) and then when it was over, he nonchalantly sagged back into his corner of the couch like she wasn't even there. What a dude!

Here are a few pictures taken over the past month:

Leo rocking his awesome hand-crafted sombrero, lovingly transported from Mexico by Auntie Laramie and Uncle James.

The boys at their very own table enjoying some Swiss Chalet at Auntie Melody's place.

Is it just me or do babies look really, really good on Auntie Laramie?

Baby foot!

Henry and the octopus. Max also enjoyed this seat with the octopus - check out the similarities here.

Some tidbits

2011-10-19T16:42:00.000-04:00

Everyone else is napping right now so I can jot some things down.

I wanted to put in writing (before I forget) my three favourite things that Leo has been saying over the past couple of months.

My absolute #1 is when Leo is looking for something and can't find it - he says "anywhere". As in: "Leo, where is the guitar?" "Guitaaaarrr. Anywhere!" (in a mega-whiny but super cute voice). This has already been upgraded to "Can't find it anywhere", but when he only said "anywhere", that was the best.

Also, when Leo eventually finds what he was looking for, you get the awesome "[squeal of delight] Right theeeere/heeeeere" (still whiny). It's a wonder we don't set Leo out looking for things all day long. Although it must be said that he is extremely good at finding things in "finding books".

Another popular Leo-ism is when he wants to let you know that he's hungry or wants a bite of what you're eating. He says "I humvee". Or maybe sometimes "I'm humvee". But in either case, he's definitely all about the Hummers.

Leo and Max have both settled into their daily routines now. The three of us (Holly is usually comatose with Henry in the mornings) are getting pretty good at waking, eating, dressing and mobilizing in the mornings in order to drop Leo off at daycare around 8:10 and Max at school for the 8:30 bell. I think we've only been late once in six weeks, which is pretty good for me. The routine will have to tighten up a bit this next week to accommodate my return to work, but I am optimistic things will work out.

Leo is having a great time interacting with the other boys his age and worshipping Max's old daycare mate (a 5 year-old! how cool!) while playing, eating well, making crafts and occasionally visiting the Children's Village playgroup. He has even (finally!) stopped crying upon drop-off, although it was more of a separation thing rather than a hating daycare thing - he would always turn off the waterworks within 5 minutes of my departure.

Max is doing all sorts of things at school. We still get the daily blurbs from his teacher so that helps us engage him on some of the things he's learning. He just went through a week of covering the five senses and now the kids have started a "letter of the week" initiative, where they learn about words starting with the letter of the week and make attempts to write the letter. Max has developed an interest in drawing and writing lately, due to some of the school initiatives and this has been helped along by his LeapFrog learn-to-write-and-draw toy he got at Christmas. It's become a great tool for him.

The wild card for Max is that we never really know what he gets up to at daycare. Every now and then, he'll rattle off a poem or song that we'd never heard before and then nonchalantly mention that he picked that up at daycare. In fact, over the past couple of days, he has come home singing The Lion Sleeps Tonight and has started to teach Leo how to sing it. It's pretty cute.

Anyway, here are some pictures from September:

This is your brain on McDonald's.

Our favourite game: which child is this?

I bet Holly misses this.

Mom and Max, cooking up a storm at the Children's Museum.

Max and a hot dog trying to escape a stalker . . .

Leo at an Ottawa Fat Cats game (Thanks Auntie Melody!)

Some face painting at the Fat Cats game.

Photo evidence of our helicopter ride (A birthday present for Max that Leo and I got to share - Thanks Uncle James!). The take-off spot was the Aviation Museum, one of the boys' favourite spots. A pretty cool way to see the city.

I can't believe I neglected to post these pictures from Max's birthday on the 9th. Here is the birthday boy with some star pancakes.

And here with some lunchtime birthday dessert at Scores.

Max and I went go-karting with Nana after lunch, while Auntie Laramie and Holly spectated. Surprisingly, go-karting is not recommended for pregnant women!

Max and I also played some video games. Nana played her first ever game of air hockey too.

Then we went mini-golfing...

And Max won two free rounds in a game of chance!

I think Max had a good time.

It's official: before Henry popped out, we had actually started working with Leo and the potty. This was his first time in underwear.

Giving thanks

2011-10-15T09:36:00.000-04:00

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend here at Casa Stardom so a quick post is in order. The weather was absolutely spectacular all weekend so we took advantage with plenty of adventures.

On Friday night, Max had his first successful sleepover at Nana's. They had smelts (one of Max's new favourite foods) and other treats for dinner and watched a movie. Max slept in until after 8:00 am! We took Leo to Cosmic Adventures for some awesome playtime which he loved. He kept asking where Max was for a while then settled in and enjoyed some time with both of us. Henry obliged as well with lots of quiet and alert time in the ball pit. We had a funny exchange with Leo on the way home from Cosmic. I told Leo that he was one of the loves of my life and then John asked Leo who the love of his life was. His response: "James". Priceless.

On Saturday morning, we had a lovely brunch then set out for Mackenzie King Estate with Auntie Laramie and Uncle James. Going to Mackenzie King on Thanksgiving weekend was a family tradition for my family growing up and Laramie and I had a blast reminiscing about our exploits. We hiked the Waterfall Trail and then had a nice picnic lunch on the grounds. Henry definitely elicited some oohs and aahs! Back in the day, we brought John's mum, brother and sister-in-law here for Thanksgiving when Max was a wee thing. The big boys were so exhausted that they both passed out before we got out of Gatineau Park.

We hosted our third annual family Thanksgiving dinner at our place on Sunday. A few people have remarked that we were crazy to do this with a 13-day old baby but it was great. Everyone pitched in, from stuffing the turkey and prepping side dishes to cooking and doing dishes and bringing pies and wine. In the afternoon, there were games of Settlers and Carcassonne while Auntie Karen and Max had a two-hour walkabout in the neighbourhood after they got slightly lost on the way to the park, and Leo had a three-hour nap. Henry also conked out on Uncle James' chest for a nap.

I probably don't say it enough so I'll say it here again - my family is amazing and super supportive and it was a real pleasure to sit around the table with them to share a delicious meal and celebrate all that we have to be thankful for - new babies, new homes, a medical miracle for a family friend, our health, being together and so much more.

Leo provided us with another priceless moment as everyone was leaving our place after dinner. Laramie and James were heading to Mexico on vacation the next day and we told the boys to say goodbye. James offhandedly mentioned that Leo could come in their suitcase. A minute later, Leo had his Crocs on and was at the door saying "I ready. I ready." It was funny and heart-breaking at the same time. Leo definitely adores his Uncle James. We've been joking that Leo will be more jealous of Laramie and James' baby when he arrives in January than he is of Henry but I don't think we are far off the mark!

On Monday, we headed out to the Agricultural Museum for the morning. The Ag Museum always has wonderful activities on holiday weekends. Max and Leo participated in an apple cider making demonstration and learned about the importance of pollination. Then we met our dear friend Chris and his awesome mum for a dim sum lunch at our favourite place. The boys actually associate Chris with this restaurant because they have gone with him so many times. The boys have been going there with family and friends since they were tiny babies and the staff all know us so it was great to introduce Henry to this tradition. I grew up around the corner from this restaurant and have been going there for almost 30 years so it is pretty amazing that the boys are now "regulars" as well.

More about Henry

2011-10-13T16:43:00.001-04:00

Hi there,

So we're two weeks in and still alive. Actually, we definitely measure things in weekends, when we have to switch to a zone defense*. In any case, everyone is still doing well and we've only had to discipline the older boys once each for hitting Henry (their contacts with Henry have been about 1/34 violent so far...not too bad).

Henry is coming along nicely. After a couple of days at the start of DEMANDING BETTER FOOD NOW, like a new hospital patient, Holly's milk came in and he became a lot happier. He is a good eater and, after a snack, routinely spends long blocks of time quiet (or at least hiccupping) with his eyes open. This is something I don't remember the last one doing much early on (what do you call that, black-coloured glasses?). Henry also likes being held by pretty much anybody, as long as he's not hungry.

Sleep-wise, Henry does really well. We've broken the rules a bit by letting him have a couple of extra-long sleeps, but his weight and bodily functions are right on track so we're not too concerned about sacrificing a feeding for more parental functionality. The trouble is coercing Henry to sleep. He doesn't seem that soothable at this point...at least not the rocking/shushing variety. Holly's had some success with this sort of soothing, but after punishing him with a typhoon of breast milk. For me, it's all about walking and wearing (thankfully, the October weather has been more than accommodating!!!). I should have a pedometer.

Given that this is our last go-around with babies, we are breaking our own mould by trying to dress Henry in things other than sleepers as much as possible. You know what, babies look pretty cute in all these baby clothes! I look back at how many pictures we have of Max and Leo in sleeper after sleeper and it's kind of funny.

Here are some more pictures of our cutie-pie:

*Actually, this line (which I've heard from a few people now) got me thinking that with a much larger family, we could use some other defensive alignment analogies from the sporting world. I'd love to say that we'd have to employ the neutral zone trap, the Tampa 2, taxi, 40 minutes of hell, a shallow outfield, or a nickel package. Given a bit more time or energy, I could figure out how those would translate to parenting but for right now, I just think they'd be fun to say.

Max's 4th birthday

2011-10-06T08:59:00.000-04:00

Believe it or not, this is our 300th post. Crazy.

At the start of last month, we all threw Max a party for his 4th birthday. This is probably that last awkward year where the list of invitees depends more on who Holly and I know, rather than who Max knows. It will be interesting to see who shows up next time around!

It seems to be the thing to do to theme it up with preschoolers so we decided to go for it this year and give Max a special parrrrrrty. (That's pirate speak for pirate party). We looked online for some ideas and it's MIND-BLOWING the lengths to which some parents go for a four-year-old's party. So we took it down a few notches and planned only two activities (seriously, some parties seemed to have four or five).

We started off at 10:30 in the morning with a craft for the kids - Holly unearthed a pile of her decorating supplies and everybody decorated their own treasure chests. At the end of the party, once all the paint dried, everyone got to stash their loot in the chests.

After the chests were all decorated, all of the kids and parents went outside where Max was presented with a giant treasure map (it was delivered to the mailbox - wink, wink). The map led Max and his fellow marauders to a few different locations around the block where we had stashed some pirate accessories (hats, eye patches andswords), chocolate coins, and a treasure chest filled with jewels at the end.

Once they were all kitted out, the pirates returned to the house for some grub (pizza, and lots of it). A really cool moment kind of happened organically: all of the kids were quietly eating at the table with minimal supervision while the parents got a chance to chat in the next room. It was neat to allow our friends to meet one another while their children took themselves off their parents' hands. Considering the age of the crowd and the energy levels at a birthday party, I was really surprised that this happened.

Finally, before everyone started tucking into their pirate cupcakes, I treated the crowd to the telling of a pirate story, read from a book that Max's Winnipeg Grandma bought for him this past summer. It was a big hit! Max's Auntie Laramie did an awesome job fusing some cupcakes and decorations together to create a pirate ship for Max (including a Twix plank - awesome!).

All in all, it was a great party. Everyone had a lot of fun and it wasn't even that stressful for me (for those of you who don't know me, this really isn't my kind of thing). The only bummer was that the party couldn't line up on International Talk Like a Pirate Day (the 19th of September). A big thank you to Kerry, Laramie, James and Jessa who helped out a lot with the set-up, execution, and clean-up of the party. Laramie and James even came in costume. It definitely wouldn't have gone as smoothly without you guys! Big thanks to Auntie Jan who sent the amazing pirate chest all the way from Victoria, BC. Also, thanks to Henry for deciding to stay inside a little longer to let Max have his special celebration.

Max does kindergarten

2011-10-02T08:01:00.009-04:00

I thought I would write a quick post about Max's first few weeks at school. That's right - our first baby is in junior kindergarten.

Max's awesome teacher, Mrs. N, sends us a little email every day to let us know what the kids have been doing in class. Considering that Max lets us know things in dribs and drabs and sometimes weeks after something has happened, this is a GREAT way to get a sense of what he is doing every day. He seems to really like school and is definitely enjoying daycare more as well as he settles into his morning at school-bus-lunch-daycare routine. It is a big relief for us not to have a crying Max on our hands every morning anymore.

Max is in the French immersion program. This entails 20 minutes of French per day. Max does his gym time in French every day and we can already see the results with many French words, phrases and songs being repeated at home. In Senior Kindergarten, the ratio will flip and he will have all day French with 20 minutes of English.

Here is a quick sampling of what Max has been up to in school (thanks, Mrs. N!):

- We started out by playing Alphabet Bingo. This week the focus was Books by Kevin Henkes; We read Chrysanthemum, Birds, Wemberley Worried, and Chester's Way. They especially enjoyed his book Chrysanthemum. Hence, we watched the movie Chrysanthemum.

- We had a fire drill today. We discussed what to do in case of a fire. We went to our school library. Later the children made a self portrait.

- Today the children made a tactile activity using glue and sparkles. Some were also spelling their name using either magnets or sand paper letters.

- Today we made a graph of number of letters in each child's name.

- This week the focus will be the children's names. Today the children were either spelling their names using magnetic letters (using one to one correspondence), Alphabet sand paper rubbing, or printing letters, painting, or working on puzzles.

- We started our morning counting the straws for number of days we've been in school. We played number games. After French we read some nursery rhymes.

- Today the focus was on numbers. We played a game with numbers 1-5 and later we played Bingo numbers 1-20. After going to our school library we read a story about numbers.

- Today we played a Numbers Bingo (1-20). Later we made a class graph to find out how many children take the bus, car, walk or bicycle to school. We learned that most of the children take the bus.

- Today we discussed what is a calendar and what it is used for. We are learning the days of the week. We counted the number of days we've been in school. We're tracking the days using straws.

- Today we made a graph of the number of boys and girls in the class. In the morning class there are 10 girls and 7 boys. In the afternoon class we have 11 girls and 9 boys. We read Chicka Chicka Boom Boom Alphabet book and listened to the song. We had a great day!

- The theme for this week is the five senses. The Big Idea for this theme is to understand that through our five senses we learn about our world.
Today we focused on 'sight'. We played seeing games such as I Spy and guess what's missing! We walked around the classroom with our eyes open and tried to walk with our eyes closed. We compared the two walks, stressing the important role the eyes play in our everyday lives. We talked about things we see outside and discussed what we see with our eyes: colours, shapes, buildings, trees, birds and sky. At the art centre, the children experimented with colours to observe what happens when mixing yellow and red, blue and red, and blue and yellow. At another centre, the children were using magnifying glasses to look at small objects and at the math centre, some of the children were sorting objects by colour or shape. We read Panda Bear, Panda Bear, What Do You See? I Can See by Peter Curry. We had a very busy day!

- Today we talked about our sense of smell and how it helps us decide whether we want something or not. We also discussed how some smells give us important warnings i.e. smoke warning us if something is on fire. We also discussed how our appetite changes when we have a stuffy nose. We made a graph of things we would miss or not miss if we had a cold. We also played a game the children had to guess what they were smelling (lemon, orange, cinnamon). The children painted today and sprinkled cinnamon on their art work. We read Smell it! by Sally Hewitt.

- We talked about our sense of Touch. We felt things that were smooth, bumpy, rough and soft. We made a craft and read a book Touch and Feel by Katie Dicker.

- For the Sense of Taste, during snack time the children described what they were eating and how it tasted. They were using words like sweet, sour, and bland. We read The Big Brag by Dr. Seuss. Everyone finished making their Turkey Craft. We also went to the school library.

Here are a few photos:

Max leaves the nest.

Max and his classmates (the ones in the yellow crowns) line up in the yard to go into his classroom for the first time.

And baby makes three. I mean five.

2011-09-30T14:29:00.000-04:00

Yes I know, I know - we still haven't posted about Max's awesome 4th birthday party. We're in the middle of upgrading the computer and transferring cameras so things are in limbo a bit. Anyway, the very least we could do is write a post to let all our readers know that...

We have a new baby!!!

On Monday, September 26th, Holly gave birth to another bouncing baby boy. Henry Eli Stardom was delivered at home at 12:25 p.m. to much fanfare and high-fiving between his parents. He weighed 8 lbs., 14 oz. and measured 20.5 inches in length. Holly will be posting a little something recapping the birth story shortly, but we did want to get some pictures out there and figured this would be the best way.

Everyone is doing really well four days in. It's crazy to be reminded of how quickly things change in the first few days. Already, the meconium is gone, Henry's belly button stump is about to fall off, and he's starting to clumsily use his arms/hands to guide my fingers into his mouth. Henry's already been out for a ride in the van, gone shopping and picked his brothers up at daycare. Soon, he will be riding in helicopters over Ottawa, right? Oh yeah, we haven't blogged about that yet either :(

Welcome to the family, Henry. We have lots of love to give you and will try our darnedest to shield you physically from your crazy brothers. Now get some sleep :)

Fish heads, fish heads, roly poly fish heads

2011-09-22T21:36:00.000-04:00

My birthday this year was relatively low-key as we were expecting Henry to arrive at any moment. But I was treated to a lovely birthday lunch at the Pelican Fishery and Grill with Laramie, John and our dear friend Jenn Backler from Toronto, as well as an at-home pizza dinner in the evening.

Lunch was delicious and the company was divine but the highlight was definitely this birthday surprise that arrived at the table accompanied by our senior citizen server singing "Happy Birthday" with his server colleague accompanying him on a guitar that he took down from the wall:

Yes, this is an actual fish head. The restaurant is attached to a fish market so our server went next door and put this gem together. Apparently, this is a daytime treat because the evening staff doesn't share this sense of humour. For the record, we all loved it. They said we could take it home and I briefly debated it to show Max but I just couldn't fathom what this would have looked like after a week in our green bin.

Random July tidbits

2011-09-15T10:00:00.002-04:00

A few more July photos to share.

The boys with a Mountie at the Museum of Civilization. The Mounties were there on a public outreach visit and the boys were thrilled:

We enjoyed a lovely evening out at our friend Mel's wedding in July. Amazing food, great friends, and even some dancing. Thanks to Nana for babysitting!

Max attended his first concert at Bluesfest this year. Bluesfest in Ottawa is definitely an event and we thought it would be cool to take Max down for a few hours during the day to see the spectacle. Auntie Laramie and Uncle James met us down there. It was stinking hot with no shade so the two pregnant ladies and the preschooler didn't last too long in the blazing sun but it was still a great introduction for Max to the festival. We can definitely envision taking the boys down there in future years.

Winnipeg - Summer 2011 Extravaganza

2011-09-06T21:20:00.021-04:00

At the end of July, we travelled as a family for an extended visit to Winnipeg. With two rarin'-to-go boys and lots of good weather, we attacked the city and came away with a lot of great adventures. Many thanks to Grandma for putting us up and sharing in the fun, to Murray, Kathy and baby Hannah for the hospitality, and to Grandpa for trekking all the way from B.C. to the prairies to join us for part of the visit! Check it out:

The Zoo
The first week in Winnipeg was a hot one. It was hot all over Canada, I think, but 38 and humid is pretty rough for Winnipeggers. The kids were total troopers and were up for outdoor activities despite the heat. Our first adventure was out to the Assiniboine Park Zoo, where the following six pictures were taken. The train is a coal-fire steam train that runs through Assiniboine Park, where the zoo is located.

The Pool
We discovered an awesome splash pad/swimming pool combo in Kildonan Park, on the north end of town. It was the perfect thing to do on a hot day. The splash pad was probably the nicest we've ever seen and the massive outdoor pool was full of families. A great setting for a dip.

The Museum
On our last visit, we discovered that the Manitoba Museum was a big hit with the kids, so we had to go back this time. Plus, we got to have an awesome outing with the boys' new cousin Hannah and their visiting Grandpa! We followed up our Museum visit with a lunch excursion to the Forks.

Family pics
It was great to have so many opportunities to hang out with Grandpa and Hannah! The boys couldn't keep their hands (or cheeks, or lips) off of their new baby cousin. Definitely a good development! The big family shot below, taken after a dinner out, was awesome to try to wrangle together.

The Fringe Festival
Well, I don't have any pictures of a play at the festival because I didn't take any in. Max went with Mom and Grandma to see a puppet show by some guy from South Africa who allegedly managed to engage Max a couple of times (Holly adds: It was actually incredible. Max was yelling out answers and totally engaged in the show. I was gobsmacked). In the meantime, Leo and I wandered around, listening to music and checking out the merch. In the second and third pictures below, Holly and the boys come into contact with Parka, the new mascot for Parks Canada's 100th birthday this year. Parka, and more specifically awkward pictures of politicians with Parka, are quite legendary around her office. In the last picture in this set, Max and Leo try their hand at devil sticks with a local juggler.

The Cottage
My awesome cousins Les and Leah just happened to be back in town over the summer, taking a break from all that teaching in Kuwait. So of course, we were going to stop at nothing to make sure we met up with them. They were spending most of their time out at their cottage north of Lac du Bonnet, MB, so we did the 75 minute drive to go visit. We were treated to wonderful meals, quality conversation, amazing travel stories, a boat trip down the river, and lots of outdoor play for the boys. They had just put this hot tub/gazebo thing up and were trying to mount a TV in order to watch some tube from the tub. Everything worked and Max was rewarded with his first ever bikini competition (seriously, it just happened to be on). A great visit. Even with my wasp sting.

My Birthday
Yep, the old man turned 35 in the Peg. We spent the morning at the amazing Saturday farmer's market in St. Norbert sampling summer's bounty and many, many treats (Filipino spring rolls, fresh kettle corn, raspberry lemonade, snap peas, etc.). Uncle Murray and Auntie Kathy hosted the evening festivities at their place and Grandma treated us all to a schnitzel feast from Gasthaus Gutenberger. There was mucho crazy hat wearing (man, did my hair look that ridiculous? Thank goodness that experiment is over) and party favour blowing. A great time was had by all.

Lower Fort Garry
North of Winnipeg, there is an old mid-1800s settlement that has been converted into a National Historic site. People dress in period clothing and pretend to not know about things like flash photography, iPods and the like. Everyone but Mom (who was already on her way back to Ottawa at this point) hopped in the car to pay The Olde Forte a visite. Here are photos of Leo and Grandma, some square dancers also visiting the fort and Max churning cream into butter. We eventually ate the butter, once it was spread on some bannock, and Max and Leo both learned how to do a military marching drill (they still sometimes break out into spontaneous marching). We had a great day in wonderful weather.

Tinkertown
On the outskirts of town stands a fifty-year-old theme park geared toward entertaining kids. I think that the sweet spot is for kids aged 3-7 so Max was almost delirious with excitement when we went. Leo also had a really good time, although he probably did better when Max accompanied him on rides. The most stunning moment of all for me was when the kids were with me on the Ferris wheel. That was a huge wheel (see picture 4 below) and they were completely unfazed. Unbelievable. The kids went all-out, running from ride to ride for 3 straight hours. Awesome.

Fort Whyte Nature Centre
This is a go-to place now for the kids. For some reason, Max loves the sod hut that they have there. I love the naps that the kids have after a stretch of running around outside :) In the summer, it seems that the Centre staff set out nets and margarine containers for kids to go dipnetting in their swamps. The swamps are crisscrossed by boardwalks, so the whole experience was pretty fun for the kids. Here are a couple of shots of the kids trolling for critters (Max actually found a snail that crawled on him for a bit before we threw it back in) and an attempt to get the kids to sit still for a family shot. Oh, Leo...

Pioneer Days in Steinbach
Steinbach is a dry, primarily German/Mennonite town maybe a half hour east of Winnipeg. Every summer, they throw a festival in their Mennonite Heritage Village to raise a glass (of water) to the old days and the old ways. This is something I used to do with my family back when I was a kid so this took me way back (25-30 years?). The food was great, the windmill impressed and the kids loved the barrel and horse rides. Another stellar day. Just a note - pic #5 is me taking a shot of some of the heritage buildings just as Leo hit the deck - look closely - and the last one is evidence that even Mennonite Heritage Villages need bouncy castles.

Closure @ Assiniboine Park
On our last full day in town, we joined all of the Winnipeg Stardoms on a trip out to the Park to see the new kids play area that just opened in May. The play area was massive and the design allowed it to fit right in to the surrounding area without being too garish (see video). The kids enjoyed their last bit of Baby Hannah time and even got to take one last run at the steam train in the park.

So I'm going to wrap with a selection of videos from Winnipeg. I hope you enjoy.

Leo's birthday

2011-09-02T22:02:00.008-04:00

Yeah, here's another overdue post. Back at the start of July, Leo turned 2 (unbelievable!!) and we took a second-annual trip up to Auntie Karen's cottage so that we could kick back on the beach all weekend long. We had an awesome time. Here are some pictures.

So our kids love the water. In particular, they love their floaties, which allow them to share some water time with family members.

BUBBLES! Auntie Laramie had picked up this cool bubble machine that mesmerized both of the boys. Max popped bubbles while Leo did more staring at them.

Uncle James, Leo and I shared a brief pedalboat ride. Shortly after this, Leo wanted back to the shore while Max hopped back on (he had already done a 20 minute tour with the ladies).

The festivities at the cottage featured a water balloon fight as well as an Elmo pinata. The next couple of pictures may not be for the weak of heart.

See? I told you.

Mom and Leo, opening one of his many gifts.

Max, a deer in the s'morelights.

We set off some fireworks, much to Leo's delight and Max's chagrin (someone still doesn't care for loud noises).

On our last day at the cottage, Leo fell asleep in the van on the way to the beach and then Holly just decided to try to keep him asleep. So Holly sat down and eventually (almost an hour later), Leo slumped into this position. Classic!

S-P-H-M-W Family Photo Shoot

2011-08-31T21:55:00.013-04:00

I've been meaning to post these shots from the Stardom-Petrie-Harnden-Morrison-Walker family photo shoot for a while. In early July, we decided to take advantage of my Auntie Jan's visit from Victoria and my cousin Krysta's visit from Guelph to take some family photos. We are close-knit but very rarely all in the same place together and we haven't ever had photos taken of this group. We spent a lovely morning at Britannia Beach and came away with some real winners.

The photos were taken by Justin Van Leeuwen, an Ottawa-based photographer and friend. If you are in the market for a great photographer with a creative and modern eye in Ottawa, I highly recommend Justin. You can check out his portfolio at http://jvlphoto.com/pixelpost/index.php.

What's bigger than hip-hop?

2011-08-19T20:13:00.003-04:00

Man, I totally forgot I had these videos. I've been meaning to post them for so long. Last year, Max was enrolled in hip-hop for preschoolers. Allegedly, he learned a few things in class, but every time I showed up at the end of class to check out what he'd learned, Max would play shy and not show me. So Leo and I went to his "show for the parents" class to see if Max would deliver. He did, but not really anything in the "dancing" category.

Exhibit A: Max warms up. At this point, we're about 2 minutes in and Max still has energy to perform (and mug for me).

Exhibit B: Max serves up an attitude walk. Not bad, actually.

Exhibit C: Uh-oh. Max starts off OK, but then fades.

Exhibit D: Houston, we have a problem.

Exhibit E: The coup-de-grace. Max waves the white flag and another student follows suit. We like to call this move the "turtle".

Exhibit F: Max gets his certificate!

June in review

2011-08-14T14:50:00.011-04:00

Before getting started with June's pictures, I have a quote from last night to pass along. Max was running around, throwing himself on the couch at high speed, and we had told him a number of times to stop because it was dangerous and somebody was going to get hurt. Sure enough, about three launches later, he tripped on the rug and bonked something. I said I had no sympathy for him and that we'd told him to stop. He said, in a highly questioning tone, "Daddy, you're happy that I got hurt?". Yikes.

Anyway, here are the things that happened in June that we haven't already covered.

Early on in June, the boys and I did an "Ottawa tourism" day. We started at the Royal Canadian Mint's headquarters, where they had this Mountie Moose. The kids loved this guy! I loved the $600K gold brick I got to hold.

Here's this month's horrible picture. Wow. It's possible Max took this one.

Leo's gymnastics classes wrapped up in June. He had a blast and even finally warmed up to his instructor by the end of the session. This is Leo singing on the balance beam and snaking his way down a plank to get his hands stamped. Odd how the only adult visible in each picture is the same person. Seriously, there were other parents.

Here are the boys with their friend Grace, right after she turned 2. We had an awesome park party involving great food and a little splash pad time.

Yes, that's me. On Father's Day. Soaking wet from being pelted with water balloons. I repeat: on Father's Day. Thanks, kids.

Another photo from Father's Day when we took the kids to the super old-school wooden splash pad at Andrew Haydon Park. It's Leo, but man! it really looks like Max, back in the day. Such a weird picture.

The above six pictures are from our adventure on the Hull-Chelsea-Wakefield steam train. We drove across to Quebec and hopped aboard in the morning. After a slow, scenic ride, we grabbed a box lunch for our stopover at Wakefield, picked up some ice cream and chased some bubbles. We also got to see the locomotive get turned around on the manual roundtable AND check out the sweltering engine from the inside (it was 30-35ish outside and even hotter inside). Finally, a quartet of French-Canadian musicians performed some acoustic travellin' music. The musicians also serenaded the train cars throughout the round trip. I should also mention that at the end of June, the track was flooded out and service is still suspended, so our timing was pretty awesome.

Max has spent the summer learning some soccer skills with the Westboro Popsicles. It's a little bit of soccer and a lot of herding cats. The kids do a bunch of drills like soccer ball "red light - green light" (and - purple light, where they do a silly dance), dribble around the cones, punt the ball at the coach (if you hit them enough times, you can demand that they act like an animal of your choice) and even chase-the-coach (pictured above). Max is pretty engaged with the whole thing but, as with all of the other kids, thinks that the popsicle at the end is the best part.

Ahh, Ribfest. The Stardoms and Reids hooked up for a whole truckload of chicken, ribs, pulled pork, beans and corn. YO!!!! Oh yeah, I think Max liked the apres-ice cream too.

Auntie Jan came to town for a visit and went with Mommy and the kids to the Agriculture Museum. Summertime is definitely a great time to take in the barns full of animals and some of the special goings-on at the farm.

Auntie Laramie took the family strawberry picking in June. Lots of berries. Lots of jam. So delicious. Thanks Lambsy!

At the end of the month, Iona Park (right near where we used to live on Kirkwood) was supposed to be hosting a big party to celebrate the opening of the park's wading pool for the summer. I literally didn't get the message that the party was postponed due to inclement weather and so the boys and I trotted off into the rain to hang out at the park. As you can see, it wasn't all bad.

I think this is a cute picture of Max. It was taken at the national Canadian Guide Dogs for the Blind training facility, which we visited with Auntie Jan. The boys got to see a whole bunch of dogs, meet a few blind people (a really neat experience for Max) and devour some cheeseburgers. The facility was located in a beautiful rural setting south of the city so the kids got to roar around outside for a while after the demonstration. Super fun and informative!

Max has this Leapfrog (R) toy that is supposed to teach you how to write letters and draw pictures. He has used it a lot, but produces mostly shaky pictures. Until the last day of June, when he busted out this impressive sailboat while doing a connect-the-dots type game where you follow a blinking light and only see the picture once the light stops moving. It really blew me away.

Sometimes I'm just amazed

2011-08-10T21:54:00.003-04:00

As mentioned in the previous post, at the start of the month, we moved Leo from his crib into a bed and moved him from his own room into a shared-room situation with Max. It's amazing to think how much the boys' sleep routine has changed since that day.

The first night was a disaster: both kids were overtired and decided that jumping on their beds and generally ignoring us would be the best thing to do at 11:30 p.m. To be fair, they had just arrived home from Winnipeg to see their new room and new beds for the first time but it was still mayhem. The second night, Leo was kind of upset so one of us stuck around for a bit before remembering that we wanted to cut short this routine of hanging around in his room for an hour or more, waiting for him to fall asleep.

Then, the most peculiar thing happened. Over the following four nights, I don't believe the kids were ever awake past 9:00, nor did they ever require more than 30 minutes to put to sleep. Best four consecutive nights in a couple of years? From some points of view, heck yeah. From what I can figure, the emotional stress of the re-entry into daycare took a lot out of the kids and so when it came to putting them to sleep, nothing was difficult.

On the weekend, things were not quite as good, but still not a disaster. The most interesting shift was that the kids suddenly decided to change their wake-up time to 6, not 7. Not surprising, given that everyone was getting to bed an hour earlier.

The highlight of the past two weeks definitely happened last night. When I left the bedroom, Leo was upset, but I was determined to give him at least a bit of an opportunity to settle himself. I hung around the door and then heard Max trying to settle Leo. Max went over to Leo's bed, hugged him a few times and offered some words of support and repeated the process for a couple of minutes until Leo was quiet. Three things occurred to me: 1) Max will never cease to amaze me; 2) my kids will do a great number of amazing things that I will not be party to...that's a little sad to me; and 3) it's possible that Leo still "needs" someone in the room with him to get to sleep, it's just that the person in question now is Max, not a parent (why didn't we try this months ago????).

This afternoon, Max stunned me again. I had slipped a treat in his lunch and told him it was for being so sweet and helpful at bedtime last night. When we picked Max up at daycare, I asked if he liked his treat. His response? "I didn't eat my sugary junk because I never ate all of my peppers and cheese." Wow. I never indicated that those were the rules so that was all him. Now I'm really starting to feel like I'm going to miss out on a lot with the kids and I spending so much less time together in the future. Sigh.

Videos from the vault

2011-08-08T14:53:00.001-04:00

I noticed that we haven't really been posting videos much lately. Mostly because it's a real pain. Oh well. Let's see if we can get some together here:

This is a rare video from early March, in that one week where Leo said "Lilo" before he graduated to "Leo".

A video from early April that shows Leo on the move and Holly with long hair. Leo is saying "net", for the record.

Some members of our families are smokers. It seems that Max has taken it upon himself to be a walking public service announcement. And surprisingly, not due to a lot of encouragement from his parents.

So Leo doesn't really speak in the first person. This video clearly shows his love of the third person. This morning (July 8) at breakfast, I'm pretty sure he said "Leo don't want".

Now Leo too...

2011-08-03T09:03:00.003-04:00

It's official. I'm home alone. This is the weirdest feeling.

It's the Wednesday after an extended holiday and there has been a crazy amount of transition happening around here so the kids are a little manic these days: we're adjusting to a) our normal Ottawa routine, b) having Leo in a bed, not a crib, c) having Leo and Max sleeping in the same room, d) getting Max back into daycare and e) introducing Leo to daycare. So it's really no surprise that the kids are really tired and that Max has been crying all morning each morning until I leave his daycare's premises. I hate seeing him like that, but I'm still convinced that this sort of routine for August is a good idea. I'll have to wait until later to see how Leo's day went, but he was too distracted by all the new toys and boys at his caregiver's (the same one Max used to have) to give me the time of day as I was yelling "Goodbye" to him.

Anyway, I'm going to go exercise and clean for the morning. How domestic!

May round-up

2011-07-18T10:25:00.003-04:00

Eventually, I'll get caught up with these pictures. Likely not this month though. Here's May.

May marked the first time that Max was left alone at another child's birthday party. Technically, Holly wasn't going to leave him there, but when all the other parents ditched, she felt weird sticking around. So out she went. The party was held at 4Cats, a children's art studio in the neighbourhood we lived in when we first moved to Ottawa. The studio has lots of cool programs for kids and for birthdays, they let kids go bananas in the splatter room à la Jackson Pollock. A canvas on the wall is sent home with the birthday kid. After the party, Max came to the prize ceremony at my Scrabble tournament...thankfully, he hadn't washed up yet! Max is registered for a few workshops at the studio in August and September

The kids on their 26th (estimated) trip to the Aviation Museum. Possibly the first day that I might be fooled if I didn't know my kids and someone told me Leo was the older brother.

One of our best recent investments - the Strider bike. Max was having some difficulty pedaling a tricycle, which made going long distances on foot with both boys a little tricky. In the late winter, Max started doing a drop-in class at the local Rec Center where kids could learn to get around on these "push bikes" - two-wheel bikes that kids move by walking. Eventually they pick up enough steam to just lift their feet and coast...if they can balance. It took Max 3 or 4 tries to be able to get all the way to the library and back in reasonable time, something that he would never have been able to do on foot. It took him about 5 more outings to figure out how to balance. Now, he's a regular pro at coasting and he has actually been on one 3 km trek with me to one of his playgroups at the end of June.

Here's Leo, trying his hand at balancing things while waiting for service at a diner in town. Note to self, if Leo can stack and destroy 43 times over, the service is too slow and we should not go back to that restaurant.

It seems like half the big cities and small towns in Canada have these sorts of painted things all over town from cows to fire hydrants to mailboxes. These wooden tulips come out every year around Tulip Festival time. Here's Max, posing with one depicting Parliament Hill.

Here's Max, making his first batch of peanut butter cookies. Jenn from Toronto was running the show, although she ducked out of the frame of this shot. Verdict: the cookies were delicious.

So Max and I went to the first birthday party I'd been to that had been organized by the parents and just put every idea I've ever had to shame. The bar has been set high by this space party. Handmade helmets for all of the kids. A star scavenger hunt in the backyard. A bike ride "trip to the moon". A 5-foot-tall nosecone in the backyard for kids to sign as a card. A lunar landscape cake made by the grandmother. And the centerpiece, a handmade space shuttle pinata. I think this is what all birthday parties are supposed to be like, from a kid's perspective. From a parent's perspective, it seemed pretty intense. I have no idea how long they were ironing out the details, but the birthday boy was loving it.

It's funny - back when I took this picture, it was one of our first sunny days and I had thrown Max in this outfit for Beach Day at preschool. Now that it's summer a) he wears this type of thing all the time, so it looks like a normal picture and b) Leo is the one who wears this swim top. Crazy.

Back in May, our great friend Kerry ran a try-a-tri and murdered it. We all went out to cheer and had a blast high-fiving at the finish line. While waiting for Kerry to finish, we also scored a lot of fun, sunny cuddle moments like this one.

One fine day in May, we took in some sheep-shearing at the Ag Museum with the Screids. We showed up just in time for the final shearing, which was perfect as they saved the big ram for last. I don't know how strong the shearer was, but it was surely STRong, if not STROng. Start to finish, it took about 5 minutes and the giant hunk of wool that came of was worth about $6, if memory serves. In any case, it was just another one of those things that the kids and I all experienced for the first time together.

We were cheering on a friend who was running the marathon for National Capital Race Weekend, so of course, we busted out our orange regalia for the event. For whatever reason, Dovercat was at the spot we had chosen for cheering. I guess he/she/it was celebrating the race route coming close to our neighbourhood for the first time too.

Finally, we also Touched-a-Truck for the second consecutive year. This year's event was really wet and the kids got pretty soaked. I managed to keep their feet dry except when Leo snuck out of the Bookmobile through the side door and beelined right for a massive puddle. Oh well. Here, the boys are "driving" a dump truck and a crane. Afterwards, we went inside the mall next door to watch a strongman demonstration and ride mini-ATVs around a road safety course (I'm hoping to get that video up pronto - it's a riot).

The Stardoms do Canada Day on Parliament Hill

2011-07-13T22:43:00.005-04:00

Despite the promise of very large crowds and scorching weather, we decided to head downtown for Canada Day. Max wanted to see Will and Kate and John and I were curious as well. We weren't planning on going onto Parliament Hill but the gates opened just as we were walking by so we went for it. We got a nice piece of lawn and the boys were super, super patient while we waited an hour or so for the big show to begin at noon. It was quite the show, with the pomp for Will and Kate, a very low and loud fly-by of CF-18s, the Snowbirds, Cirque du Soleil-style acrobatics, and very good music on stage. We stayed for almost an hour of the show and had a very good view of the Duke and Duchess. Then it got way too hot and crowded so we bid a hasty retreat. All in all, it was an experience that I will never forget and that is saying something for someone who mostly avoids Canada Day in Ottawa altogether.

Our first stop as we headed up Sparks Street to the festivities was a great display by the Currency Museum. They told us to come back later for more games and treats as they were just getting set up.

A wee picnic before the Hill got much more crowded.

The boys finally hitting their heat and patience limits. We left VERY shortly after this photo was taken.

Free ice cream in the blissfully cool garden atrium to cap off our time downtown - many, many thanks to the Currency Museum.

We spent the early evening at Kerry's for a delicious BBQ and then early to bed to get ready to head to the cottage in the morning for Leo's birthday and family extravaganza. More photos and stories to follow!

My boys are moving out :(

2011-07-08T14:07:00.006-04:00

Gradually, at least. Two days ago, Max started daycare. Yes, I'm still home. Yes, Max is not yet in school. However, over the next two months, there will be a lot of changes in Max's life (including introduction to daycare, introduction to school and having Leo crash his space when the two boys start sharing a room). We felt like spacing these events out as much as possible would probably help ease any trauma that the changes in Max's routine might cause.

The daycare is a facility that cares for JK-Grade 6 kids from 7:30 in the morning until 5:30 in the afternoon. While it is located in a school, it's not the school Max will be attending. The daycare and Max's future school, though, have an arrangement whereby kids are bussed to the daycare at the end of the school day ("day" should be in quotes, given that Max is done his "day" sometime around 11:00 in the morning).

The caregivers/educators (still not sure what exactly they're called) in the daycare center work with the kids using an emergent curriculum approach, so they encourage kids to learn through play, in particular using playthings that fit into what the kids are currently interested in (bugs and pirates are on the list at the moment). I'm not sure if Max cares too much about all that, but he does care that they have lots of Mega Blocks, a big play house and a bunch of books.

Max's daily schedule (for now) is: arrive at 9, play, eat lunch, have rest time, play outside (weather permitting), eat snack, play, get picked up at 4. Some days of the week are designated special days, such as Wednesday pizza lunch days, Thursday special event days and Friday water play days. For example, yesterday morning Max and the rest of the kids were visited by Dr. Kaboom the magician and his traveling petting zoo and pony rides. Eclectic.

I was a little surprised that the careducators pretty much said nothing about his day after day 1 - Max's previous caregiver and preschool teachers were always full of information about Max's day. However, it is a big bonus that Max is now old enough to remember a lot of what happened during the day so I can at least get some details. Even if they're filtered through the brain of a 3-year-old. Max apparently cried a bit for me in the afternoon of day 2, but still speaks highly of the place so we'll probably visit 3 times next week.

It's a little sad to be reminded at this point that the end of my stay-at-home adventure is not that far off. I'll try my best to get some quality time with both boys before they're squired away in care for the next year. It probably won't be that hard, given that the weather has been super awesome lately. Well, except on day 1 of daycare (see below).

Road Trip – June 2011 Edition

2011-07-06T07:38:00.012-04:00

John was once again invited to play in the Canadian National Scrabble Championships, a biennial (or so) tournament that takes place in Toronto. It had been a while since our last excursion to Toronto (in fact, it was the weekend before Leo was born) so we decided to all go down together as a family to take the opportunity to visit family and friends in Toronto and Guelph.

We left Ottawa at about 11:30 am on Friday. Leo started to nod off about 20 minutes into the trip so we made a quick decision and pulled off the 416 to have a picnic at a Rideau Valley Conservation Area site. We had hoped to make it a bit further before stopping but it worked out fine. The sun was shining, we had some good food packed in our mini-cooler and the boys were fascinated by the caterpillars on our picnic table. Leo kept trying to feed the closest caterpillar to him. Perhaps an homage to The Very Hungry Caterpillar? Leo was asleep shortly after we got back on the road and Max and Holly quickly followed suit. John got bogged down in construction around Kingston, but the kids cooperated and managed to hang in there until we got to a rest stop near Trenton. We enjoyed some treats and truck watching there and then made it the rest of the way to Toronto. The traffic was fine until we hit the Don Valley Parkway but even then, it was reasonable. We arrived at our friend Jenn’s place at about 5:45 pm. John had time to unload the van and get us settled in before heading off for his first games. Jenn and I took the boys out for a walk and a sushi meal at a neighbourhood place. I eventually got the boys down for sleep around 10:30. Yikes.

All ready for a few hours in the van.

Leo and his caterpillar friend.
On Saturday morning, the boys got up at their usual time (before 7 am) and we had breakfast with John before he left for the day. We soon set off for a packed day of adventures – riding on the “buses with sticks” (streetcars), touring Little Italy, finding ground cherries for Max, browsing Kensington Market, eating outside at a restaurant called The Grilled Cheese, and seeing the Toronto edition of World Naked Bike Ride Day go by. Max thought that The Grilled Cheese was really, really funny – “Daddy, we ate a place that only served ONE thing! Can you believe it?” The grilled cheeses were absolutely divine – the boys devoured one with tomatoes, spinach, and black olive tapenade and Jenn and I shared one called the Beast with all sorts of toppings and another one with assorted mushrooms. Grandma, you would have LOVED that one! The sandwiches were served with chips and giant dill pickles so the boys were in heaven.

After a park visit, we headed back to Jenn’s and packed up for our next visit – our friends Greg and Isabella in another part of downtown Toronto. I got a little bit lost on the way (I blame the summer construction!) with the added bonus that both boys fell asleep on the way over. I got a choice parking spot directly in front of their place so we left the windows rolled down and let the boys sleep in there while we sat outside and caught up. And sleep they did! They both napped for over two hours. After they woke up and had a quick tour of the inside of the house (including, of course, a survey of the toys), we headed off to the park just down the street from their place while Greg slaved away on a gourmet dinner. By the time we got back, John had arrived. We had a wonderful dinner and the boys were in great spirits despite the hour. I eventually headed to bed with Leo around 10 pm.

Sadly, no pictures of Greg or Is but we got this one of Leo making himself at home on their couch.
On Sunday morning, we packed up again to head to Guelph to visit Krysta and Steven. We put the car seats in Steven’s truck and headed out for lunch at A&W and THEMUSEUM in Kitchener. The museum has an awesome special exhibit on – Animal Grossology – about all kinds of bodily fluids. Leo especially loved the giant cow that burped and farted and Max loved the toilets with poop in them. You could climb through an octopus’ intestinal tract, match the animal with its poop, and take a quiz on different colours of animal blood. There was also a demonstration of different animal scents that Krysta and I participated in – yuck! The rest of the museum is amazing too with a planetarium, a giant room filled with foam Lego blocks, a toddler area for the little ones, and tons of hands-on activities. If you are ever in Kitchener with kids, don’t miss this place!

After a quick dinner and birthday cake for Steven in Guelph, we headed back to Toronto to pick up John. After two late nights and long days of adventure, the boys were a little cranky but finally settled down to sleep in the van for the ride home. We got back to Ottawa at about 12:30 pm. It was a looooooooooooooong weekend but a really great trip. Thanks to everyone who hosted us!!!!

April in review

2011-06-27T14:02:00.001-04:00

With a couple of days left in June, it seems like a fitting time to check out everything that happened in April. Ahem. Here goes:

My first impression of this picture is: what are those clothes? About a month ago, we rotated Leo and Max into 2T and 4T clothes, respectively. The old ones weren't fitting as well (particularly for Leo) and summer called for some more shorts and outdoor wear so now I don't even recognize these outfits. The second impression is: man, those kids are quiet when you throw cookies at them.

Early on in April, we drove up to Almonte to visit with our friends Jenny ("Jenny with the shovels", to Max) and Toby. The two of them had tapped a maple tree on their property and were in the process of making their own syrup. So we got to go out there and check out the operation and see the syrup at about three different stages of processing. Oddly enough, I took precisely 0 pictures with any sort of syrup in them...but feel free to enjoy the above two pictures from the trip.

Yes, this is the 827th picture posted from Sushi Kan, but it underscores that the restaurant is still a big hit with the kids. In fact, I'm already starting to dread Max turning 4 because then we'll have to pay for him. I'll have to sneak Leo in on the sly, I suppose. This is a picture of Max and Maddie getting squirrelly after a face full of yummy Japanese cuisine.

This is the aftermath following round 1 of Max vs. Nutella. I would say he liked it as much as he did peanut butter the first time around:)

This picture makes me think about how the kids have really started playing with each other cooperatively over the past couple of months. Yes, Max teases Leo a lot. Yes, Max still asks me every day how long it is until Leo's nap time and he enjoys playing alone in his room. However, he is often a really good big brother too and teaches Leo lots of things (obviously, we'd like him to skip some of his lessons...HEY LEO, TRY TO STAND ON THIS, e.g.).

Lastly, this is a reference to a picture Grandma took last year (see here). It's crazy to see how kids grow at this time in their lives. Max was like this too, but I have a different perspective on Leo's growth over the past year, given that it covers the time I've been off with him. Did he really look like that a year ago? Were we really writing blog posts about Leo being able to crawl a year ago? NUTS!

Whirlwind weekend

2011-06-06T21:39:00.009-04:00

It was a whirlwind weekend of activities at Casa Stardom so I thought we should update our small but loyal group of readers with some photos.

On Friday, Max’s class at preschool had their end of the year field trip at Valleyview Farm. The Farm is a favourite spot for the boys so we knew it would be a big hit.

On Friday evening, we went to a “Spring Fling” fundraising event at Max’s new school, Woodroffe Public School. It was a great opportunity for Max to check out the new digs and get excited about starting kindergarten in the fall. We took part in a fire safety demonstration with firefighters (including fake smoke and evacuation out a window), took in a magic show, ate some BBQ meat, and got a few books at the indoor book sale. Max got a big kick out of watching the dunk tank and a run through a bouncy castle/obstacle course midway ride. Sadly, the line-ups for the ponies and the spinning strawberries were a little too long. Next year! We took no photos for some reason.

On Saturday, Max and I joined Nana, Auntie Melody and Grampa Wayne for some garage saleing in the neighbourhood. There were many treasures looking for new homes and the boys scored a few new-to-them toys, as well as some books to keep them occupied for our road trip to Toronto and Guelph this weekend.

Later on Saturday morning, we joined Max’s preschool gang again for a picnic at Champlain Park, a great park just down the street from Nana and Auntie Karen’s old house. The group included the 2s class as well as the morning and afternoon 3s classes (Max is in the morning 3s) and some children and parents who will be attending next year so it was a big group. The food and the activities were great: face painting, Little Ray’s Reptiles shows, marshmallow bobbing and an obstacle course with handmade felt medals for all of the kids. There is a great play structure there and an empty pool so plenty of places for kids to play.

On Sunday morning, Kerry and I took the boys out to the Robert O. Pickard Environmental Centre, the 3rd largest wastewater treatment facility in Canada and the largest industrial site in Ottawa. We didn’t go underground to experience the 1.7 km network of tunnels (it was 80 steps down with no elevator so that would have been a little tough with the kids) but we saw lots of other cool stuff. There was a great Kid’s Zone area with science experiments, magnetic fishing for invasive species (for prizes – Goldfish crackers!), face painting and crafts inside. Kerry picked up an energy conservation kit for her place. The site is 150 acres so we hopped on an OC Transpo bus for a tour of the site. We saw giant sewage tanks, aeration pools, the pumphouse and other stuff. Max was mainly interested in finding out what happens when we flush the toilet and I think he had that question answered. They also had a display of all of the strange items they have sifted out of the sewer system, including 2 x 4s, Social Insurance Cards, and balls of all sizes. The site was open as part of Doors Open Ottawa, an annual free event that allows visitors to explore various buildings in Ottawa, many of them not open to the general public. We capped off our east end adventure with lunch at Eastside Mario’s. Needless to say, the boys both had long afternoon naps after all of the excitement. A BIG thanks to Kerry for taking the boys out with me and giving John some solo time.

Sunday night, we headed over to Nana and Auntie Karen’s for our regular Sunday night dinner but with a twist. Monday, June 6th is my mum’s birthday so we brought and made a BBQ dinner and enjoyed some cake.

I think we need another weekend to recover from this weekend but it was great.

Not quite the wedding of the century, but...

2011-05-31T15:24:00.006-04:00

Once upon a time, long before Max and Leo came into this world, two teens fell in love. Sigh. They studied together (well, not quite together...feminist math would be a heck of a reading course though). They lived apart, then further apart, then together, then all over the place. They watched junky TV together. They played sports together. They cooked together (HA! Just checking if you were still reading). And then they got married.

Things remarkably got even better after that. More degrees, bigger trips, an actual house, a wicked part/full-time job at HMV...the world was the twosome's oyster. Then, they had a baby boy. And then another. Remarkably, things got even better. More laughing, more tears, less sleep...oh wait, I said "better"...a vehicle, new friends, getting familiar with the Treehouse TV lineup.

So this might apply to some other couples out there too, but I'm actually talking about Holly and I. Mid-May, we celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary and it provided me with a great opportunity to think about all of the things we've done together. It's one of the first big events that I've celebrated where instead of saying "I have no idea where the time went!", I really do appreciate how much time has gone by since our Vancouver Island wedding and how much we've gone through in that time.

To mark the occasion, Holly threw a party at the local Legion Hall and invited many friends and family members to share in the fun. I have no idea how she pulled it all off. Seriously. If absolutely forced, I could have had everybody there with worse food options, no decor at all and the worst thing to happen at the party would not have been "the trivia started 10 minutes late". I guarantee it. So a SUPER BIG thank you to my wife for making this night such a special event. I was also really glad that Max and Leo could share in the merriment. They are (obviously) a huge part of our lives and to have them and their friends over (seriously, 21 kids under the age of 5!!) to join in the fun was pretty cool indeed.

Here are a couple of pictures from the evening. Thanks again to everyone who was able to attend or contribute in some way. It really was a great night!

The spread!!!

Holly and Jenny share a moment in front of the photo wall.

Max's 3rd visit to the dessert table. He eats the iced parts of cakes and then leaves the rest for somebody else.

Leo, showing off Kids' Corner.

The family distracts the little guy with a book.

After 174 laps around the room, Leo needed a little love from Dad.

After donning his PJs, Leo posed for some pictures.

The winning trivia team: the Colpitts Family & Friends

The happy couple. And yes, we paid for our own cherubim.

The wedding of the century

2011-05-30T21:46:00.003-04:00

Where were you for the wedding of the century? In bed like any other sane person? Glued to your TV with 2 billion others around the globe?

I had the great pleasure of attending a Royal Wedding viewing party hosted by Auntie Melody. Despite the 5:30 am start, we were a chipper crew of guests and we thoroughly enjoyed CTV’s extensive coverage (CTV was the broadcaster of choice for the colour commentary of comedian Tracy Ullman).

Auntie Melody and Dad put together an English breakfast to rival the fanciest hotels – bacon, eggs to order, bangers, fried mushrooms, potatoes, fried tomatoes, kippers, fruit salad, crumpets, scones, clotted cream, and jam. We washed everything down with mimosas (a virgin one for me). I was so full that I barely ate any lunch. Auntie Med sent us off with fruitcake muffins, to echo the fruitcake at the actual wedding.

There were also contests – one to guess what colour the Queen would wear (yellow – won by Dad) and one for the best hat/fascinator. I was delighted to take this prize home for my handmade fascinator which included feathers and a very bright parrot Beanie Baby. The prize was a commemorative wedding plate which is currently on display in my office. It is sure to become a family heirloom.

Here are some photos of the event:

The feast!

My prize-winning fascinator - Beatrice and her toilet seat have got nothing on me!

The chef takes a brief break to catch some of the action.

The ladies show off their hats and early morning style.

The first sentence...kind of

2011-05-29T21:29:00.004-04:00

So tonight, the family was over at Nana's to send Grandpa Wayne off in style (he has accepted a job in Coppermine, NWT but will be back in Ottawa for visits every 8 weeks or so) and shortly after dinner, Leo may have dropped his first sentence. Well, it was only three words and there were no conjunctions or prepositions, but it was certainly subject-verb-object. "Mama open baby". Leo was carrying a set of Russian nested dolls with him and sure enough, he wanted Holly to break them up and play with them. Wow. It's been pretty wild this past month, seeing Leo pick up all of his new words. I have no idea how many he has now, but he's willing to try chaining 3-4 syllables together at this point. Which means he's willing to take stabs at longer words or more short words in a row. I'm not sure what holds a child back from doing this right from the get-go...is it being able to remember the sounds in order to repeat them back? Is it gaining the ability to wrap your tongue around that many different consecutive sounds? Both? In any case, we're clearly at a point where Leo understands most of the nouns and verbs we use and we're starting to get a lot of information from him. We're much more capable of figuring out what he wants throughout the day, which obviously helps everybody out.

In other news, Max is now entering his last two weeks of preschool!! I have no doubt that of all of the decisions we made over the past year, getting him that year in preschool was one of the best. It's been a great way to expand Max's socialization skills (and, frankly, provide me with some social opportunities :), give him more of a chance to trust authority figures other than Holly and me and structure his days and weeks nicely. We've just managed to secure a spot for Max in a daycare program for the coming year and its philosophy and class areas look like they will dovetail nicely with what Max has done this past year. Max was really excited when we went for our visit and didn't want to leave. It's nice that this time, unlike with the pre-preschool visit, Max didn't completely lose his nut and understood that we had to go. Max technically starts in July so we'll have plenty of time to ease him in and get him settled before school starts in September. I'll just have to keep an eye on when wading pools in the neighbourhood are open so that we can schedule lots of pool days!

Here are a couple of pictures:

Leo loves to run around and kick things. Sometimes, those things are even supposed to be kicked. Like soccer balls.

Holly fashioned this awesome helmet for Max out of foil. He had a great time with it until it started slicing his neck.

Our baby can talk!

2011-05-17T23:13:00.006-04:00

For a while now, I've been blown away by how Leo seems to be communicating well, using primarily words that I can understand. Well, he hit a new high last night.

Saturday, Leo was running a good fever and was generally not happy. He had picked up a cold earlier in the week so we had a feeling that things might go the ear infection route again. We drugged Leo, thinking that we might have to hit a walk-in clinic on Sunday, but then he was generally fine the next day. Monday night, though, Leo had a hard time getting to sleep - a lot of crying - and then at 11:00, he woke up shrieking and again had trouble getting back to sleep. I asked him if it hurt and he said "YEAH". I said "Does your mouth hurt?" (silence), "Does your nose hurt?" (silence) "Does your ear hurt?" ("YEAH"). Good enough for me.

We got him into the doctor's today and the diagnosis was confirmed. When I asked him which ear hurt, he indicated the correct one. We are so at that point where we can get really useful information out of Leo. Too bad the new meds tasted so bad that Leo threw up at lunch:( The second dose went down a little smoother. Yay jellybeans!

Here's Leo at T&T Supermarket, after he ordered us up a dim sum breakfast. OK, just kidding. He can't order dim sum just yet.

May already

2011-05-13T21:59:00.001-04:00

Yikes. How did that happen? It seems like we have one or two big things happening per month and that the blinders are on, focussing on those things and then the rest of the days melt away pretty quickly.

It's not like we have nothing to write about the kids either. The funny thing is that the kids are at totally different types of developmental stages right now. Max has kind of plateaued, in the sense that really cool developments are much rarer events these days (e.g., he has learned to spit and therefore can use grown-up toothpaste occasionally; he has recently acquired a Strider balance bike and has really taken to it). Meanwhile, Leo is exploding so that it's hard to keep track of the things that are "new". Best new example - Leo totally ratted out his brother for the first time a couple of days ago. I heard a smacking sound and then Leo crying from the next room over. I went in to find Leo crying and Max with a police helmet in his hand. Conjecture: Max had clobbered Leo in the head, knocking him over. I asked and Max said no. I asked Leo (!!!) and he said "HURT". I asked "where?" and he said "HEAD". I asked "did Max hurt you?" and he said "YEAH". AWESOME! Max quickly backpedaled and claimed that he only dropped Leo to the turf because Leo had pushed him first. This is officially where things get interesting for Max.

Clearly, Leo is talking up a storm. Shortly after returning from Coachella, I realized that Leo had started attempting two-syllable utterances. Which also meant that he was tackling things like "Thank you" (translation "aa ooo"). He has his vowel sounds down and is really good with b, d, h, m, n, p, r (surprising to me), t, and v consonant sounds so some words sound really good. I think my current favourite is hammer, which sounds perfect. About a week ago, I noticed that Leo had shifted to speaking almost entirely in words he knew. Only one at a time, though, so it's not like he's stringing sentences together. However, if you spend enough time with Leo that you can kind of understand his lexicon, then almost everything he says is interpretable and makes sense. This helps a lot. Duh.

We are very happy that some good weather has finally hit Ottawa on a weekday. Since coming home, I had to endure 8 rainy weekdays before this past Thursday happened. Since then, we've been out on bikes, in parks, playing in the yard and just generally being outside as much as possible. I feel like I probably didn't get the kids outside enough during the winter so now I'm making up for lost time. The kids are really good about playing with each other so I'm actually able to squeeze in 20 minutes or so of gardening before somebody stops sharing with somebody else and I have to go deal with the situation. I look forward to walking or biking Max in to school in the morning over the next little while...if I can get my act together in time in the mornings. Punctuality has never been my forte.

So it occurs to me that I still haven't shared many of our March pictures. This would seem like a good time to do so. Enjoy.

So Max really likes blueberries. Frozen ones are best. However, they leave him looking like this. Just a week or so ago, he finally stopped saying blueblerries. I'm going to miss blueblerries.

So this one day, Leo falls asleep in the van and he needs a nap. Dilemma: he also needs a diaper change. Enter the skills of a master changer. It took five minutes or so, but I managed to get him changed and dressed again so that he looked like this. Still asleep. I was awesome right then.

It's really weird to look at these picture of Auntie K's birthday up at the cottage and believe that there was this much snow. Leo was loving snowballs. Max had a great time cavorting around with family. Everyone got together and put up a sweet snowman. Altogether, we had a great weekend.

Here's Max doing a St. Patrick's Day craft at the Children's Village. There was a brief time earlier in March where Max seemed to be more interested in crafts than normal. Since then, things have gone back to normal. Pro: we don't have a closet full of art in our house. Con: it would be nice for Max to unleash his creative side a bit more.

Mmm. Me Sandwich Monster. Me love sammies. Myam myom myom myom!

The above four pictures are all from this past year's visit to a local sugarbush. On the way over, Leo got his hands on a smartphone and checked out an episode of Dora the Explorer. The picture of Max and the maple cotton candy and the picture of Leo are to show that they had a good time - 'cause you can't tell from the last picture.

Officially the worst kept photo of the month. How did this even get on the computer? I have no idea where or what this is.

Phrase uttered immediately before this picture was taken: "But I LOVE lemons, Daddy!"

Sometimes, captions can't possibly do a picture justice. I like the wrench tucked into the bottom of the undies.

So this is what reading time looks like these days. Leo and Max both love books, but not the same books. This is a little tricky to manage (aside from taking turns) when it's just me...but when there are multiple grown-ups on hand, the kids know exactly what to do: divide and conquer.

Leo in the spring sun

2011-05-11T23:05:00.000-04:00

John had one of his last duty days at Max's preschool this Monday so Leo got to spend the morning at Auntie Melody's place. Auntie Melody, Dad, Nana and I were hitting the garage sales in Merrickville this past weekend so there were some awesome new toys to play with and no big brother to share them with. I think Leo was in heaven! Auntie Melody snapped this photo and sent it to me at work and I melted so I thought I should share.

Easter 2011

2011-05-10T21:09:00.005-04:00

Here is a quick post with lots of photos from Easter weekend. The boys and I were happy to have John home from his California adventure so that we could all enjoy an extra long weekend together.

The weather was beautiful on Good Friday so we strolled through the Byward Market and picked up some fixings for an al fresco picnic. Then, we headed home to play and do some gardening work outside.

On Saturday, we hosted our friend Jen’s family from New York City and Halifax for a bagel brunch. Serving Montreal bagels to New Yorkers was great and all agreed that the Montreal version is much, much better. Here is a photo of the gang:

On Sunday morning, we took the boys to the Agricultural Museum at the Experimental Farm for the Easter festivities there. Max had a blast collecting plastic eggs around the barns and trading them in for chocolate treats. We didn’t see the baby bunnies or the lambs but the fluffy chicks and new calves were super cute.

In the afternoon, we headed over to Nana and Auntie Karen’s for the big egg hunt and family dinner. Both the boys enjoyed the egg hunt. Leo caught on pretty fast! He was running over to me with foil-wrapped chocolate treats and saying “Leo! Leo!” His little face is pretty hard to resist these days so he had a belly full of chocolate in short order.

We also posed for some family photos. Thanks to Auntie Laramie for the boys’ new holiday shirts:

I had to include this particular picture because I think it captures the exact moment before Max wiped his booger in Leo's hair in a nonchalant way. Laramie and I both caught it and burst out laughing. Not the most appropriate response but we couldn't help it.

Max likes to gesticulate with his hands when he talks and John caught this great series of photos as Max was recounting a story to Auntie Karen on the back deck:

On Easter Monday morning, Leo and John went to gymnastics and Max and I headed off to IKEA. The ball room was a mob scene so we had a blast playing house in the various furniture set-ups and eating meatballs in the restaurant while watching an animated movie. We had a bit of a lengthy adventure getting home because all of the buses were on holiday schedule but they are building a gigantic new IKEA so Max saw at least a dozen cement mixers up close and all but one waved or honked their horns at us. It was nice to have some time just the two of us.

All in all, a stellar weekend full of good food and time with family and friends

A daddy break...

2011-04-22T22:11:00.015-04:00

So occasionally, we do pop a little something on here that is a bit unrelated to the kids. I'm taking this opportunity to talk about a trip I was able to take to Indio, California last week to attend the Coachella Music and Art Festival with our mutual best friend Kerry. Holly thought that this would be a great chance for me to recharge and do something special midway through my leave. I love my wife.

I had a really good time. I got to see about 20 or so bands play, some of which were absolute favourites that were not coming to Canada any time soon. I was able to soak up the sun - all 38+ degrees of it. I got to see a part of North America that I'd never visited before. And of course I got to sleep long, uninterrupted hours every night for a week. OK, so maybe not that last part. But I suppose I could have . . . :)

The trip lasted from the 13th (travel day: Ottawa - Montreal - Chicago - Palm Springs) to the 19th (travel day: Palm Springs - L.A. - Chicago - ...oops, flight cancelled due to lightning and hail - night in Chicago airport - Washington D.C. - Ottawa) so I was actually on the ground from the 14th to the 18th. Literally, as the first four of those nights were spent tenting at the Coachella site. Mornings were spent relaxing/recuperating/preparing to beat the heat. Acts starting hitting the stage around noon and each day's headliner typically played until 1 am or so. Here are a bunch of pictures from the adventure.

Our jazzy and high-tech Coachella wristbands...the keys to the kingdom!

A self-portrait of the intrepid adventurers, front row for Broken Social Scene.

A view of the crazy throng of people as they milled into the concert venue at the start of each day.

Here's an aerial view of half of the car-camping area: about a 2-football-field-sized space filled with spots where a vehicle could back in and pitch a tent behind the vehicle. Obviously, lots of people camping this way. At the far back of the lot, there are a couple of white tents - this was the general store for the campers while the concert venue was closed. About a football field further behind those white tents are where we camped. So, lots of walking.

An aerial view of the Mojave Tent. This was one of the smaller places to catch a concert, believe it or not.

The al fresco food court by the general store - where we ate before the concert venue opened for the day...well, until we discovered the grocery shuttles that took us to stores where we could get comparable food for 65% cheaper :)

Lineups for the showers. Actually, they were a lot longer at peak times in the morning.

One of the dumbest things I've ever seen. These folks decided that the best thing to do in the narrow walkway between rows of cars in the car camping area would be to set up a horseshoe pitch. Seriously. You can just see the horseshoe above the tallest white SUV-like vehicle.

These water trucks did laps through the grounds all day, every day. The water sprayed was meant to keep the dust down. It was very dry and the heat got up to 35-38 degrees over the weekend so a lot of staff were wandering around with bandanas over their mouths to keep from breathing it in.

A sunset picture on Sunday. The only day we saw clouds of any kind.

A lemon tree. We also saw grapefruit and orange trees on the side of the road. And a palm tree that seemed to have a bunch of dates clinging to it.

So Kerry and I looked pretty normal. Lots of others, not so much. Here are a couple of people who may look pretty out there, but were not the minority (that would be Kerry and me).

Wow.

Man or muppet?

Yes, kids. There were quite a few kicking around the ground. Not enough wearing appropriate ear protection, if you ask me. But then again there's no way I would have brought kids to Coachella. This was part of a sustainable energy info site where a DJ stage was partly powered by people see-sawing, swinging and running in hamster wheels. This couple decided to entertain their kids while helping power a little Erol Alkan reworking of MGMT's Congratulations. Sweet.

The grounds also featured a number of giant art installations, which all lit up and/or did crazy things at night. Here are photos of what were supposed to be like giant dandelions (in front of Interpol's performance on the Main Stage) and some weird flagella-like things which were solid yet wiggled and shimmied as if the wind were blowing them. Weird AND cool.

In the foreground is a large pagoda-like structure which offered great shade during the day. Behind it is a Giant Wheel that made for a great backdrop to the concert grounds as well as a great way to get an overhead view of everything.

This is not an art installation. A camper left their site in this state after pulling out on the last day. Impressive.

Oh yeah, I suppose I should post some pictures of the artists I actually saw...just to prove I did partake in the music part of things.

Excision at the DJ tent. Didn't really know much about this guy (Albertan industrial dubstepper, as it turned out), but this just shows the electronic tent off a bit. Lots of bass, great light show and packed noon to midnight.

Gogol Bordello on the Main Stage. This shows how big the stage is as well as how easy it is to keep track of the action on the gigantic screens. It was a hyper-energetic show that had the crowd going crazy.

Crystal Castles at the Outdoor Stage (well, the Main Stage was outdoors too, but I suppose they had to call it something). The lead singer had broken her ankle and was performing in a stabilizing boot and with a crutch. Didn't stop her from stage diving though. I believe someone got clocked on this manoeuvre and needed attending to afterward. One of the shows I enjoyed the most.

Leftfield in the Mojave Tent. I was reasonably excited to see these house/dub legends but nobody else was (the tent was really empty). I had plans to bounce around and see some other shows, but then these guys blew me away and I pretty much stayed for the whole thing. Awesome.

Kanye West on the Main Stage. This picture was taken from quite a distance away and it was solid people between me and the stage. Scads of hits, bombastic performance, elaborate choreography and a great way to close the festival.

Thanks again Holly. I can't wait to see what you end up doing for your next big solo adventure! Thanks also to everyone who helped make Holly's time easier while I was away :)

P.S. I should also mention that I'm very proud of my t-shirt collection and that I carefully selected which shirts to wear in order to elicit a response from my fellow concert-goers. My picks from days 1-3 scored two comments and one extended discussion, one per shirt. On day 4, though, my "Keepin' it Riel" Louis Riel number scored a discussion, three high-fives and scores of "Louis!!!" chants. Well, at least from the Canadians. Americans gave me an endless string of puzzled "That ain't Che. I don't get it" looks. Thanks for the shirt, mom:)

Addendum: I've been asked a few times what my favourite shows were and I completely forgot to address that in this post. Here are my top 10, in grade order:

A+ : Crystal Castles, Mumford & Sons (just found out they're NOT playing Bluesfest...BOOO!

A : Leftfield, Arcade Fire, Robyn, Kanye West

A- : Brandon Flowers, Erykah Badu, NAS & Damian Marley

B+ : Lauryn Hill

A visit from GG

2011-04-12T20:51:00.006-04:00

We had a very important visitor in late March and we’ve been remiss in not posting any photos. My grandfather, Grampa Frank to me and GG (great-grampa) to the boys, visited for a few days from Peterborough, ON. GG isn’t able to travel very much anymore due to some health issues and the need for dialysis and oxygen but Auntie Melody and my dad made special arrangements and were able to host him at Auntie's house for an extended visit. It was a real treat for us as we haven’t been able to get to Peterborough in a while. BIG thanks to Auntie and Dad for all of their work to make the visit happen!

GG was in spectacular form – telling stories, laughing with the boys, even lifting 30 pounds of Leo onto his lap for a photo! We all had such a nice time visiting with him and catching up. We had one afternoon/dinner visit and also a brunch visit: yummy food + family = awesome. It is a rare gift to have four generations of the Morrison clan in the same place so we enjoyed every minute. Here are some photos:

Auntie Melody and Max playing with some awesome dollhouse furniture.

GG and Nana

Sunday brunch - L-R Leo, John, GG, James, Laramie, Grampa Wayne, Auntie Melody & Max.

Leo getting into the sauce (he loves all cans and bottles!).

Four generations of Morrisons. Leo's covering his ears...Dad must be singing.

Leo feeds GG a pickle. Typically, Leo doesn't share delicacies.

GG, Max and Laramie about to read a truck book.

The Stardom Boys' Must List

2011-04-03T07:17:00.007-04:00

Holly has a subscription to Entertainment Weekly, a magazine that publishes a weekly "Must" list, a set of films, TV shows, books, etc. that MUST be experienced. So I figured I'd publish a version of the Must List for the boys. Given that Holly and I are big pop culture-heads, it's no surprise that our kids will likely be exposed to a lot of pop culture as they grow up (although hopefully, we can shield them from the tiger-blooded Charlie Sheen for a while). Here goes:

Film

Well, the boys still haven't watched many movies. I think Max and I sat down to watch Cars in two sittings in January and Cinderella in two February sittings. If memory serves, Leo joined us for Cinderella, part 1. Movies with Max are interesting. First of all, I was warned that after watching Cars, Max would be obsessed and need all sorts of merchandise. That was definitely off-base. Max certainly had a hard time with some of the faster and more anxiety-inducing moments, like when a police car was chasing Lightning McQueen (our hero). Max kept nervously asking "What's happening?" and "Is he going to get him?". I only had to distract Max through one scary point involving a psychotic combine harvester. Regarding Cinderella, the anxiety came back as Max worried whether the cat would catch the mice ("Why is the cat chasing them?!" "What is he going to do?!?!?"). Worse yet, though, was trying to explain to Max why Cinderella's family wanted to be mean to her. Yikes. Anyway, we're easing him into it. Max really wants to see Snow White but I'm not quite ready to go down that road just yet.

Music

I'm a little embarrassed that my sons seem to be completely foregoing kids' music for grown-up music (or, as a friend of mine calls it, kids' music in 2020). Max got into the habit of requesting a small number of songs from our collection so much that we created a playlist just for him on the iPod. It currently consists of:

Boom Boom Pow (Black Eyed Peas). Yes, the classic persists. Leo even sings "Boom Boom Boom" and "Get get get" now. Full disclosure: I was too slow on the uptake to get a clean version of the song. One day, I heard Max say "Jackin' my style I'm on election now" and I immediately ripped the clean version off of iTunes to replace what I had. Oops.

I Gotta Feeling (Black Eyed Peas). I think Max started listening to this one because the easiest way to find Boom Boom Pow was to go to the Black Eyed Peas playlist and this just came up. One week, at our Saturday playgroup, Max was wandering around shouting "Tonight's gonna be a good night" at the top of his lungs for quite some time. This was met with a few laughs (friends) and stares (strangers). He also pretends he's the drummer, slapping his lap with his hands, but not really to the beat. Leo mimics him and it's awesome.

Forever (Chris Brown). Max doesn't know about the whole Rihanna thing and I'm not telling him. He demanded this song once he realized that in the intro, someone counts "1, 2, 3, 4!". In fact, for a while, he called it "1, 2, 3, 4". Since then, he's actually picked up on some lyrics. Kind of. "It's you. And me. Moving at the speed of two-a-time-a-T." Now even Leo tries to make the sound before the drumbeats, that Max once called "someone's cellphone".

Nothing Better (Postal Service). This is probably my favourite on the list, although it's bordering on getting overplayed :( Max keyed into this one when he realized that the word "surgeon" is in the song. Was that last summer already? Maybe. Definitely when Max was in a "doctors rule!!" phase. I believe he was also once playing surgeon with Auntie Laramie and, inspired by this song, wanted to repair her broken heart. It was cute.

Wishery (Pogo). Weirdest song on the list? Maybe. This guy slices and dices movies/TV shows and splices the shred of audio and video together to make music. Max's recent interest in Snow White made me think showing him this video was a good idea and I guess this is what happens when your dad exposes you to electronic music in your youth. We'll see how that turns out.

Leo's been piggybacking on this list a bit, but he's also really into many of the songs we're learning through his Hush-a-Bye class. "Sleeping Bunnies" is one of his favourites (kids lie on the ground and then spring up and hop around), as are some Row, Row, Row Your Boat variations (when I ask him to row now, he sits down facing me and grabs my hands so that we can row together...super cute:). The class has also given me a couple of lullabies that have been worth their weight in gold. Leo's really keen on joining in at circle time whenever we go to playgroup - he really loves to hop, clap and dance along. Plus, he and Max love playing band together at home.

TV

Yes, the kids watch TV. Let's get that out of the way. Leo is almost solely infatuated with Elmo's World, a 20-minute segment in the Sesame Street of today, which doesn't quite look like Sesame Street of old. I think Gordon, Bob, Luis and Maria are still alive and kicking. Not sure what happened to Olivia and Linda though. Leo's also really keen on 4 Square, a Canadian 20-minute show broken into four parts to expose kids to rhythm, rhymes, movement and song. They always have a couple of episodes on planes, which is nice.

Max is into quite a few shows and his tastes seem to vary from week to week. Please check the end of this post for the hierarchy of his likes:) I should mention that when Max last had a well-baby checkup, his doctor insisted on not exposing Max to more than 2 hours of TV daily. That really made me think - we tend to average 45 minutes or so a day. Has Max ever seen, say, 3 hours of TV in a day? Maybe at daycare? Maybe when he's sick? I'm thankful that most of our playtime happens away from the TV so that it's kind of out of sight, out of mind. With good weather around the corner, it's going to be even easier to dodge TV:)

Books

Both kids are crazy about books. At least once a day, I realize that I haven't heard from one of them in a while and it turns out that they've parked themselves by a stack of books, just leafing through them. I have a feeling that once Max learns to read, we'll lose him for hours at a time. Over the past month or so, we've hit the library more and more often (again, weather-related). I think right now, I have a dozen books checked out. The only bummer is that Max and Leo aren't entirely into the same books so it's hard to read a book to the two of them and keep both of their attention right to the end. Unless they're tied down at the table or something.

Leo's big love is lift-the-flap books. About anything. Seriously. Gardening? Are the flaps in it? Oh look at this book - I lift a flap to see...plankton! There was one book about a Rabbit trying to take a nap that Leo was asking for at bedtime every night for a while. We also have some large ones that are all in the same vein: opposites, colours, shapes, the alphabet etc., just with a different set of characters attached (e.g., Winnie-the-Pooh, Peter Rabbit, Arthur).

Max is definitely into longer stories now, especially those that are part of a collection, where he can get used to the characters from book to book. Arthur and the Berenstain Bears have been the easiest to find at garage sales and such so we've got a few of those on our shelves. However, as for my favourite authors that I like to inflict on him, the top of the list includes Amy Krouse Rosenthal (especially Yes Day and Little Pea) and Mo Willems (especially the Knuffle Bunny series). Max also loves Judith Viorst's Alexander books, that I grew up on, so that's kind of cool. To round things out, he's a big fan of most big Richard Scarry books (Busy, Busy World, The Best Word Book Ever, Cars, Trucks and Things that Go and What do People do all Day?), especially for reading in the car.

Online

Leo doesn't really get access to the computer, for obvious reasons. However, he certainly loved the iTunes 9 visualizer growing up (minbending planet/black hole making) and now, he likes checking out videos on the Sesame Street website. Max also likes Sesame Street, but he's not limited to wanting Elmo. He also likes Oscar and Cookie Monster (or, as Leo calls him, NUMNUMNUM) videos. He also used to check out stuff on the Treehouse TV website but most of his computer time has been spent at Starfall, which really helped him out with his alphabet sounds. I think his favourite letter was Z because of the whacked-out song at the end. Plus, he learned to use the laptop's track pad on this website, so that was pretty cool.

Stage

Well, nobody in this house has seen a play in a while, except for some of the creative play that happens in the living room every now and then. However, Max and I have been discussing acting a lot lately; what it is, who does it and where. He seems really interested in acting (not fireman-interested, or pilot-interested, but curious enough) so we'll have to see how that develops.

The Top 20

So I decided that I would try to rank Max's interest in a variety of TV and literary characters at this point in time, given that it seems to be changing all the time. Plus, I just like ranking stuff. Below is my Top 20 chart of characters/shows/book series that Max likes, in the sense of "if I presented Max with two books to read/shows to watch/toys to play with centered around these characters, the one that would attract his attention more would rank higher on the list". I tried to bounce this list by him and he confirmed most of it (THAT process was interesting...after all the hypothetical questions, I got "So when are we reading all of these books?" Oops.). He claimed Backyardigans were much higher on the list than I had them, but then I showed him a program this morning and he cried because it wasn't what he thought it would be. Oops again.

1 - Berenstain Bears
2 - Max & Ruby
3 - Dora the Explorer
4 - Arthur
5 - Sesame Street
6 - Franklin
7 - Chirp
8 - Dinosaur Train
9 - Harry and his Bucketful of Dinosaurs
10 - Handy Manny
11 - Madeline
12 - The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That
13 - Caillou
14 - Bob the Builder
15 - Backyardigans
16 - Winnie-the-Pooh
17 - Diego
18 - Rob the Robot
19 - Lightning McQueen (from Cars)
20 - Thomas the Tank Engine

I'll have to update this list from time to time now. And I suppose Leo will have his own down the line...

Catching up on February pictures

2011-03-28T15:06:00.006-04:00

Here's the last batch of February stuff we wanted to share.

So we've started getting Leo to work on drinking from a cup... Generally, it's not quite this bad. However, whenever he decides that his food would be more interesting in his cup, things can get out of hand pretty quickly.

Max had a PJ day at his school and so he brought his friend Monkey-Monkey with him. I was the duty parent that day, so I also got to rock pyjamas AND had the honour of whipping up a monster batch of pancakes for the kids. At pick-up time, it was like I was the crazy uncle for a bunch of children going home with their parents: "yeah, so your kid is completely hopped up on syrup right now. Have a great afternoon!!!"

One day, we were babysitting our friends' daughter Grace. The boys needed a bath and the last time we had a little lady in the house, she hopped right in. This time, well, let's just say Grace was NOT interested.

Our first big outing after Max got over his gastro-thing was to get out to the Aviation museum. You've seen the kids in the Museum's dress-up gear before, but this picture of Leo (saying "cheese", of course) couldn't go without sharing.

Later in the month, we visited the Museum of Civilization, which is a lot trickier now that Leo isn't content just sitting in a stroller. The last two times the kids have been, Holly and I have each lost Leo at least once. Here, the kids are visiting an exhibit in Canada Hall which is a reproduction of a lounge in the Vancouver airport in the 60s. The actual lounge is here, below.

Our last big surprise of February came a few days after we'd wrapped up administering Leo's ear infection antibiotics. Leo developed a crazy body rash (tough to see here in the picture, but it's pretty much all over). So now he's listed as being allergic to penicillin too (great, just great. Can't wait to try to get that first dose of Biaxin into him). Oh, maybe that's not clear - the "too" here refers to Max being listed as allergic to penicillin, not other allergies of Leo's:)

Max and Leo recently discovered the kitchen appliances we keep in our bottom drawer in the kitchen. For some reason, rather than using them to help us cook or bake, they decided to turn them into band instruments.

A new family member!

2011-03-28T07:05:00.007-04:00

Dear new cousin Hannah,

Welcome to this thing called life. Things are going to be confusing for a while, but eventually you'll get used to things like food, light, sleep and noise. But those are just the basics! Crawling's pretty cool. Books are awesome. Solid food...yum yum yum. There's also this thing called Elmo's World, but you're a first-born, so you probably won't find out about that until you get a sibling, and then it will be like non-stop. Oh yeah, and in a month or so, you'll be able to do this thing called smiling. If you could throw a couple of those smiles your parents' way, I'm sure it would be much appreciated.

We're really looking forward to visiting you sometime soon. We don't know much about girls. Mommy says she is one, but she just looks like a grown-up to us. Someday, we'll show you all sorts of fun toys like skid steers, robots, fire trucks and the top shelf of all sorts of furniture.

Your cousins,

Max and Leo

Here's Hannah Olivia - born March 15 just before 6 a.m., weighing 7 lbs, 1 oz.

A weekend well spent

2011-03-07T20:44:00.000-05:00

We had a low-key but fabulous weekend at Casa Stardom so I thought I would share a few photos.

Friday night, Nana came over for dinner and then babysat the boys so John and I could get out to a movie. We saw “The Adjustment Bureau” with Matt Damon and Emily Blunt. It was frothy fun. We did get to see it in an Ultra AVX theatre so the seats were huge and comfy and the sound was great.

On Saturday, I took the boys to our regular Saturday playgroup at Hilson Public School near our old house. It is a great group of parents and kids. It was pouring rain on Saturday so it was great to have somewhere to take the boys to run around for a few hours. All of the mums and babies (now toddlers) with whom I hung around while I was off with Leo come to this playgroup so it is a great way to see friends and stay connected. After playgroup, I had a great squash match in the early afternoon.

After Leo woke up from his nap, we headed off to Carlingwood Mall to pick up a few things for dinner and get the boys a treat: a Booster Juice and a ride on the mall's mini carousel. It has three seats so we treated two other kids to rides too. Actually, a complete stranger treated the boys and a little girl to the second ride. I told the boys that I didn’t have any more loonies (the truth!) and this woman just gave me a loonie “to keep the kids happy”. It was a lovely random act of kindness.

Max has really been getting into cooking and helping us cook lately. When he gets into cooking mode, he dons a Cars apron and pulls out a little blue Rubbermaid stool so that he can get up to the counter. Max helped me make dinner on Saturday night and then, after dinner, the boys went to bed and Kerry came over for an impromptu games night. Super fun!

On Sunday morning, we woke up to a winter wonderland with a blanket of fresh snow. After Max helped me make French toast, we headed out for a walk in Hampton Park, where the boys enjoyed an awesome ride through the snow and visited with a bunch of dogs out for a walk. We warmed up with some hot chocolate and then (miracle of miracles) we all napped for part of the afternoon. Max hadn’t napped in more than two weeks and he was waaaayyyy overdue. After our nap, we headed over to Nana and Auntie Karen’s for a lovely Sunday dinner. After dinner, Auntie Karen offered to take the boys so we could play a game with Nana. Four games of Settlers in one weekend – heaven!! The boys enjoyed chocolate cake and videos and we capped the evening with our regular Sunday night dance party:)

Here are some photos:

Max with his heart-shaped French toast (his request).

The boys have so many awesome aunts that it warrants cool aunt t-shirts.

Leo and Auntie Karen enjoying the dance party.

The boys rocking out - Max with his axe and Leo on the mic.

The big 2-0

2011-03-05T13:18:00.006-05:00

That's right - Leo turned 20 months this past Thursday. And that day, he treated us with a special gift: saying his name for the first time. He can't really say "Leo", so instead, what he says is "LIE-LOW". As in the Disney movie Lilo and Stitch. It's so cute.

Here are a couple more videos:

This is Leo at Ottawa's Asian superstore, waving at the fish in the tank. Tilapia, I think. Good thing he and Max didn't look up - a woman had just ordered a fish and the fishmonger was busy smashing it over the head with a mallet. At least it's fresh!

This one's a bit longer, but definitely worth it. This is the first time I'd ever seen Max read an entire book to Leo. OK, he's doing it by rote memory and not reading per se, but considering that I didn't even know that Max knew this book, it was a little shocking to see it happen the first time!

Leo's brain explosion

2011-02-27T20:56:00.008-05:00

No, I'm not talking about his head splitting in two via staircase crash or excessive vomiting. I'm actually referring to Leo's vocabulary taking a major step forward this past week. I've already referred to the fact that Leo has surprised us with how many words he had by 18 months, but now he's already taking the quantum leap forward to lots and lots of words (and of course, as a parent, what constitutes a word to me is actually just the ability to communicate something using some sounds that sound kind of right...although there's no denying that his "Hi" and "Bye" are solid). This past week alone, Leo has picked up HI, BYE, ME, LIGHT, SNOW, HAT, HAIR and MEOW. Plus, he's switched what a dog says from "WAWAWA" to something kind of like "YIP YIP YIP". It's cool to see his excitement at being able to get his ideas across to everyone.

Also, Leo has applied his brain explosion to his Hush-a-Bye class. He has really started mimicking the sounds and rhythms that we sing to him and has really taken to performing along to actions in class (walking in a circle holding hands, hopping, clapping, etc.) It's really cool to watch!

There are a couple of cute things that Leo does now that should also be mentioned. Within the last week, Leo has started delivering killer raspberries to everybody's exposed parts: arms, bellies, legs, whatever! Also, Leo has started giving the cutest little kisses - he puckers up, closes in for the kill (he prefers the lips) and then closes with a little smacking sound. They really are awesome. We now present a raspberry attack video, as well as a video of Leo making Lego people kiss.

Oh yeah, here's another cutie of Leo killing an ice cream cone.

The last couple of weeks

2011-02-19T13:42:00.007-05:00

Ugh. Bring on the spring. So the past two weeks here have really been something else. Let's start with the good stuff. We had a great visit with our friend Jen from Toronto - it was her first time seeing the kids since I took my leave so Leo was a very different boy. As per usual, we had a great time together hanging out, catching up, eating great food and having a couple of adventures, including Winterlude.

Leo loves snowballs!

Max and Daddy tag team a Beavertail.

Mommy and Max check out an ice sculpture.

The Monday morning after Jen left, Leo and I were going up the stairs from the basement and I let my guard down at just the wrong time. Leo logrolled down all 13 wooden stairs onto our tiled basement floor. It was pretty horrifying to watch. Leo grew an instant goose egg on his forehead and was really upset. It took him about half an hour to settle down and that's when the monitoring phase began. I kept a close eye on Leo all day, pretty nervous that he'd done some real damage. However, Leo's mood, behaviour and balance were all normal throughout the day. His nap was a little longer than usual, but his appetite was also normal. All in all, Leo has bounced back nicely. I'm posting a couple of visuals of the goose egg and ensuing bruise. Enjoy.

Had to put this video in here. For the longest time, Leo has been saying "Dumpaday" to himself over and over again. Not sure what it means. Sometimes, he just says it. Sometimes it's a song. Anyway, I had to film it for posterity...and it definitely shows the bumps and bruises pretty well.

OK, so by the end of last week, Leo seemed to be A-OK and I was psyched to get out and do something with the kids this week. However, in the middle of the night on Sunday, Leo started vomiting for a few hours. This was followed by a couple of days of nasty diapers and a horrendous rash. Wednesday morning, things weren't improving and so I took Leo in to the clinic. Diagnosis: double ear infection. That's four in four months. I mentioned this to the doctor to see if it would raise an eyebrow. However, it seemed like this was still within the realm of normalcy. Doc suggested that the infection accounted for the tummy issues, but then there was more, er, upheaval Wednesday night and....drumroll....Max joined the party Thursday night. I have a hard time believing that the two sicknesses were not coincidental and now Holly has a bout as well. So I guess I'm the last domino to fall. Thankfully, Leo's back in the game and after a couple more days, Max should be up and about again. In the meantime, this has been a crazy first exposure to family-of-four sickness. Obviously it won't be the last, so we're taking notes :)

P.S. Holly and I took this awesome "time lapse" series of photos. The first is at the doctor's office Friday morning, the middle ones are on the couch on Saturday and the last is at the mall Saturday night (when Holly was at her lowest point, I took the kids out to the mall to get some air). Yes, that is a baby seat that he is in.

Random January content

2011-02-18T21:43:00.009-05:00

Before getting into the excitement that has been the past week, I have another batch of pictures and videos for all of you. Here goes.

New Year's Day - Max and Mommy hanging out in the Market eating Beavertails. Word on the street is that the Market is a pretty sketchy place to be the morning after New Years...lots of people looking like zombies.

This is Leo in his element. How high can I get off the ground, be reasonably sure that I'm not going to hurt myself, yet look like I'm in a really precarious position? My favourite is when he drags a step-stool into the middle of the floor and gets on top, saying "Jump! Jump!".

No caption needed.

So they had these Disney Princesses tattoos at Maddie's 3rd birthday party. We thought we'd have some fun with one. The best part is that, because his tummy is such a low-use surface, the tattoo stuck around for about two weeks.

McDonald's dinner+empty bag=dress-up time.

Welcome to Max-hearts-Maddie corner. Can't remember why the pumpkin outfit came out that night...

We went to see a friend play hockey at a community rink one night and Max was fascinated with the penalty box. I lifted him into it and he freaked out. Put it on the list of things Max is irrationally afraid of, which is still topped by opening the drain while Max is still in the tub.

After the brutally cold January weather cleared out, Max and Leo were pretty willing to play outside. Especially in our backyard, where we've cleared out some space on our patio. The kids don't really like deep snow, but they do love shoveling and trying to make snowballs.

Yes, this is Holly supervising 4 kids in one restaurant booth, none of whom were older than 3 years, 4 months. We all went to the Newport for the 3rd birthdays of Max & Leo's friends, Rosie and Lily. Lots of kids. Great food. A super fun time.

A caregiver of one of Max's classmates taught him this one. He thinks it's hilarious.

This was the first day Leo showed me he could kind of carry a tune.

Five December Pictures

2011-01-27T11:51:00.006-05:00

Who says that every blog post has to be about a big event? Well, it would seem I do. Holly always wants to produce more photo-heavy posts about nothing in particular, so I'm going to do my best. Here goes:

Did I ever tell you about the time that I fed Leo some cheese that I only discovered was moldy after starting to cut some up for Max? All of the mold was hiding behind the opaque part of the packaging. Leo had maybe one or two bites and then his face exploded into welts, hives and swelliness. Good one, Dad.

We went to our friends J&T's place for a sushi night in December and at some point, all of the kids present decided that it was dress-up time. This western jacket paired with a turtle on his head made Max all serious for some reason. He pranced around the house clasping his hands like a choir soloist about to deliver. Apparently, his great-grammy did that a lot too. The hand-clasping, that is, not the turtle-hat-wearing.

They won't clean up the house, but boy do they love the Children's Museum's mops. Actually, I mentioned to Max yesterday that he never cleans up, which somehow struck a nerve and made him exclaim "I do! Watch me!". And he did. Weird. Almost as weird as his yelling "I DO KNOW BETTER THAN YOU! I KNOW BETTER THAN EVERYBODY!" Oh boy, someone's going to be disappointed.

These two pictures were taken on a mild day when we decided to take the kids for a snowy walk through one of the local parks. Max and Leo each got a sled to ride on and we pulled them through the snow for about an hour. The park is a popular park for dog-owners, hence the dog sniffing the tree behind Max in the second picture. The kids were a little nervous about the pooches, but nobody got mauled.

Here are a couple of videos of some downhill action from our sledding day. I believe this was Leo's first slide.

Max's first skate

2011-01-26T17:06:00.004-05:00

What a month. We've been a bit slammed at Casa Stardom. First, Leo had what was possibly the flu. It turned out to not be the flu, but Max and I got our shots anyway. Max was (as always) cucumber-cool, saying "Ow" with a deadpan tone as he got his shot. Awesome. Then, Leo had something that looked more flu-like (with a good vomit all over his car seat in the van!) that compelled Holly to get her shot. It turns out that Leo had (another) double ear infection so antibiotics for him. Then, Holly somehow developed a rashy reaction combined with an infection at her flu shot injection site, leading to a round of antibiotics for her and many sleepless nights. Then, I got sick for the first time since being off with the kids (it was a great run). It was a good sinus cold that lasted about a week, so not serious, but not great either. Then, yesterday, I wrenched my back at the Science and Tech museum with the kids. It was a LOOOONG walk back to the van and super fun trying to get the kids in their seats. Max has been OK, aside from a strange fever that popped up mid-day this past Monday and Tuesday and then disappeared. Leo is teething furiously (he's up to 11 now) so he tends to only nap 45 minutes each day and is waking up at 2ish each night. That whole "Leo will put himself to sleep" thing lasted about a week and now he'll let us leave the room but can't seem to seal the deal without some rocking or maybe back-rubbing. Oh well, the extra hour of grown-up time each night is still awesome.

So in the midst of all that, we've been able to do some cool things this past month. One of the coolest was getting Max skating for the first time. We had planned to go a bit earlier in the month with Max's friend Maddie and her entourage, but had to spend some time running around town getting Max skates and a helmet. Canadian Tire had the bobskates (two blades instead of one for stability and they attach to his boots) - cheap and adjustable so we'll be able to reuse them easily for Leo. We splurged on a new helmet for Max at Sport Mart - we had heard that it's really hard to find helmets that are small enough for 3-year-old heads so I figured it would be even harder to find them used. So when we tried this youth helmet on and it fit with a little bit of room to spare, I took it. Maybe it will fit again next year. If not, Leo will surely be in the zone.

Max has had some issues recently with saying that he's really excited about something new, but then when he gets to whatever we're going to do, he balks and decides that he doesn't want to do it anymore. I was a little concerned that was going to happen with the skating too, but then again he's so into the idea of playing hockey that maybe his fears would take a back seat. When we got to the rink, he was still keen. He was really excited to be wearing the equipment so we gave it a go. While I would be dealing with Max, Holly skated Leo around the ice in his stroller.

I started by holding one of his hands while his other hand was on the boards. However, the slipperiness of the ice and all of the other emotions overwhelmed Max and he cried, wanting to leave after a few steps. I was determined to make it work, so I took Max's mitts off and held both of his hands, skating backward while he slid/walked along. By the time we got to the end boards, he was beaming. If he slipped, I was stable enough to keep him upright so I figure he felt pretty safe. After that, we toured the rink, checking out where goalies stand and the faceoffs happen. Then, Max and Maddie decided to have some fun falling down and sprawling all over the ice. I'm glad this happened because I think Max was a bit nervous about falling. Before leaving, Mommy and Max checked out the players' benches and the penalty boxes. Max absolutely loved it. In fact, he said "Now that I know how to skate, I'd like to play hockey next time". How's that for confidence?

Here are some pictures of our skate night. Many thanks to our friends who snapped the pictures while we were with the kids!

Mini update

2011-01-09T22:16:00.006-05:00

First up, Happy New Year to everyone. Max and Leo (and I) are slowly readjusting to not having Mommy at home after a nice break over the Christmas/New Year's week. Max is settling back into his school routine and is also working in some swimming and more hip-hop classes (we didn't think he took to them, but one day he asked us why he wasn't taking them any more and begged back in...dying to see how it goes this time around). Leo will be taking the toddler sequel to the Hush-a-bye music and song classes both he and Max took as babies. With Max in full-time care after he turned one, it wasn't really an option for us before. I'm curious to see how Leo likes it - apparently, it is much more active than the class for newborns/babies. Given that Leo loves to dance and listen to singing, I think it will be a big hit.

The other big updates on our end are some major changes with respect to sleep, all of which came about in the last couple of weeks. First up, Max has pretty much completely abandoned his naps. The nice part about this is that he seems to have settled into an earlier bedtime routine, which gives us an extra hour of grown-up time every night. Leo has combined his two morning/afternoon snoozes into a single afternoon nap. Most of the time, he gets up after an hour, still needing more sleep, but he's generally willing to be soothed back into nap 2.0, giving me some good one-on-one time with Max in the afternoons. Leo has also started to allow us to leave his room at night before he falls completely asleep. Sometimes, this means he's squirming for 5 minutes or so after we go and sometimes it means he's babbling and singing to himself for half an hour. Either way, this has also opened up some more grown-up time in the evenings and has made us feel a lot more comfortable about leaving babysitters in charge of night time routines.

So we finally seem to be settling into one of those nice (yet typically too-brief) periods of feeling good about how things are going: we have the ability to get some rest/jobs done at night and the kids are generally happy and healthy. Happy new year indeed :)

Intense Face

2010-12-28T13:26:00.004-05:00

I'm not sure if you remember, but back in the day, Max played the Serious game. We'd say "Serious!" and then get our serious faces on and Max would attempt to mimic before completely cracking up. Full disclosure: in the end, this game wasn't so smart/funny because when we tried to get serious with Max, he would just end up laughing. Oops.

Anyway, I had always been wondering what wacky thing Leo would end up doing to make us laugh like this. Enter INTENSE FACE.

It all started in late October, possibly while Leo was squeezing something in his hands. I can't even remember at this point. Leo would squeeze his hands into fists. So hard in fact that his eyes would get wide, his mouth would stretch open and his face would quiver. The big breakthrough came on Halloween night, when Nana and Auntie Karen were over. Everyone was laughing at Leo's shenanigans so much that he started doing it on command. The phrase "intense face" was definitely coined that night and now, Leo can't hear "intense" without busting it out. Even the other day when Max said "In ten seconds...".

It's hilarious. It's a little creepy. I kind of wonder if he'll be doing it into his teens.

I present Intense Face for your viewing pleasure:

We also managed to take one still photo that captures Leo at his intense best:

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-25T21:32:00.007-05:00

A photo essay of Christmas Day . . .

Max opens pure Santa paydirt: a fire truck!

Leo got the hang of opening presents pretty quickly.

Somehow, Max has yet to teach Leo that sharing is pure evil.

While Max was off doing something else, Leo snuck some time with the fire truck.

As Daddy assembled Max and Leo's new art easel, Max gave the paint supplies a whirl.

A couple of pictures of the boys enjoying some quiet TV time in Nana and Auntie Karen's basement.

Family portrait; yes, Leo is saying "cheese".

Leo tackles his first ever drumstick.

Max gets some help assembling some construction Mega-Bloks.