I hate getting behind

It's like when you haven't spoken to someone in a while. You don't want to call them because it's going to be such a long call, given that there's so much to go over. So you put it off, and the vicious cycle begins. Well, now we're sitting here with three weeks of material and no idea where to begin. At the start, whenever anyone would say "Two under two? You must be busy!", it was kind of like "Stardom? That can't be your real name!" or "You'll be grateful for that baby face when you're 50!". As in thanks, but heard it before. Now it's really starting to come true - we are crazy busy on a day to day basis. We apologize for the intermittent nature of the blog but at the same time, we can't make any promises that it will get better in the very immediate future. We'll get the updates out there whenever we have a few free minutes. Thanks to all of our faithful readers for sticking with us!

So let's go back to the middle of September. The weekend after Max's birthday, we had a bit of an omnibus catch-all party here at the house, our second-ever Sundae Sunday to celebrate the move, Leo's arrival, our September birthdays (Max and Holly) and possibly even my birthday (July). I can't remember. Regardless, here's a quick look at how our toppings table looked before anyone showed up. And this is not taking into account the cans of whipped cream that somehow never made it out of the fridge.


All told, about 40 people stopped by. We've had big shindigs like this in the past, but I think this is the first one where we were really struck by how many babies and kids arrived. We were remarking that a few years ago, we would have had one or two babies in the mix and now we had kids from newborn (one week old Lucas!)to five year olds. We've had kids over before, for play groups or Max's parties, but not to a general party like this. The ice cream was definitely a big draw, especially in the mini cones that our friends M, M and J brought over. Thanks to everyone who made this event special; it was great to see you all! Here are some pictures:





Shortly thereafter, Leo really started to get smiley on us. As I mentioned in the last long post, this was a big moment for the family. Since then, Leo has started smiling at most people that he comes face-to-face with, although (just like his brother before him) he certainly reserves the right to withhold smiles if he should so choose. It should be mentioned that if Max's signature move was "the deadpan", Leo's is "the look of concern". He often looks genuinely concerned about something. If only I knew what it was, I might be able to do something about it. Here's a video of Leo smiling:



On the 19th, our good friends Is and Greg invited us over for their roughly annual multi-course gourmet dinner. This year's installment was amazing and our presence was made possible by Max's caregiver's son who babysat for Max (and allegedly was worn out by Max's thirst for books). The theme of the meal was junk food and each of the five courses was paired with a wine, courtesy of a sommelier friend. Seriously, there's nothing like going over to a friend's place for homemade pork rinds, duck tacos on homemade tortillas with "housemade sour cream", scallop McNuggets, Foie Gras-vy and homemade peanut butter cups with fleur de sel. Even crazier - he created this entire meal in an apartment-size kitchen with a four-burner glass top stove. Sick. Here are a couple of pictures of the chef and the dishes (feast your eyes . . .)




Over the past month, Leo has become more and more able to sit and chill out, giving us more freedom to share our time with Max. As an added bonus, Max still doesn't seem to resent Leo in any way. In fact, he still seems to like hugging him and giving him kisses. Here is a sweet picture of Mom and her two boys sharing some sun and a good read:


And to all of you who don't think that Leo looks like Max, just try to guess which kid this is:


What else did we get up to? On Holly's birthday, the four of us trekked off to cheer on our friend J (the angel who drove Max and I to the hospital shortly after Leo's birth to have that rash looked at), who was participating in the Army Run's half-marathon. J ran a good race and, although she didn't quite reach her secret time goal, she ran the half faster than I ever could have. Kudos. Also on this trip: I Hulk-smashed the stroller Holly had just bought and busted a piece off of it. Right on.


Later that evening, we thought it would be nice to take the kids out to the park to enjoy the nice weather. Echoing an adventure we had at the Mackenzie King Estate a month after his birth, Max put us in the following awkward position:


A bath ensued.

The last thing I want to cover in here was our last big adventure of September. On the last weekend of the month, we got together with our close friends Jessa, Rob and baby Grace to go pick apples at Kilmarnock Orchard, about 40 minutes (depending on your speed, apparently) south of town. Jessa is always full of great ideas; hitting the sugar bush this spring was also her brainchild. It was a gorgeous day and we picked a pile of apples together. $12 for a 20 lb bag. The babies enjoyed the fresh air and al fresco dining while Max couldn't get the tractor-driven train of carts we rode to the orchard out of his mind and kept looking and listening for its return. Eventually, the two of us did a couple of victory laps. To wrap up the visit to the orchard, we all got to see how apples were chopped and pressed into cider, the menfolk participated in a sack race (see below) and we all played the beanbag toss. After all those shenanigans, we nipped into Merrickville for lunch at a restaurant with decent food and less decent service. But they had a toy chest for the kids, so at least Max scored a tanker truck!