The movies that didn't work...

Two things I don't ever want to forget about Leo

On the lighter side: I saw a bunch of Lego minifigures today with their arms in the air and I remembered how, for the longest time as a toddler, Leo would not tolerate any Playmobil figure that did not have their arms in the air. He said that that was just the way they had to be. Did he picture everybody in the world around him walking around like they were in an eternal stick-up? On the more serious side: Leo is tough. He falls, he gets back up. His feelings get hurt, he screams, he offers someone something they have no business having, he is happy, running around and playing again. The one time I ever see Leo have serious emotional trouble where he struggles to bottle it away but just can't is when we leave him somewhere when he doesn't want to be without us. He quietly hugs our legs, doesn't beg us to stay, but unmistakably starts silently tearing up and just stands there, not letting go. That kills me every time. Occasionally, he'll do it in the morning at daycare (that he allegedly hates yet repeatedly sends him home after "the best day ever") and this morning as I dropped him off for day camp at Starr Gymnastics he did it again. He tries so hard to not show that he's sad...it's really touching and it makes me love him even more.

Yet another phone dump

It's time. Both time to get back on the blogging horse and also time to get a new computer. This baby is a healthy 6 years old and doesn't owe us much (especially given that I dumped a cup of juice on her over three years ago). I've backed up its contents in anticipation of the new model so while we wait to get our Compy 3000 I'm not loading anything new onto the drive. While this means no new pictures from our camera, I did dump a huge pile of pictures from our phone on the computer about a month ago. I'm going to sift through them and share a bunch of the best here with you. Stay tuned for a massive camera photo post coming around the end of the month.

Let's start with this one. Max was invited to a super hero party at the start of the year and Batman was a special guest. Well, an older, sweatier version of Batman, but there he was nonetheless. I have no idea what Max is doing in this picture.

The big boys and I went on a trip to the Museum of Civilization right after they shut the Canadian Postal Museum down and this artwork appeared on one of the ceilings of the building. I really like this picture of the boys checking it out.

in Canada Hall at the Museum of Civilization, there's a part where you can go into a mock-up of an old walled city in pre-Quebec. This fake guard can be found sleeping behind a semi-open door and it totally freaks the boys out every time we go!

On that same museum trip, I took this picture of Max. There's something about it that makes him look older than he is. Plus he seems to be really happy.

In the Children's Museum, Leo took out some frustrations on the boat, going all Pete Townshend with the mop..

At the end of January, Auntie Melody bought Max and I tickets (from our birthdays) to go see Sidney Crosby and the Penguins at Scotiabank Place...

Unfortunately, the Sens lost in a shoot-out and it all got a bit too emotional for Max. After cheering for Sidney Crosby AND the Sens for the whole game, he decided that he really wanted the Sens to win. He took the blowout playoff series loss a lot better.

Mommy has started sending pictures of the boys with Happy Birthday signs to text to family and friends. Sometimes the expressions on the kids' faces don't exactly scream "Happy Birthday".

On an evening visit to Auntie Melody's, we kind of lost track of Leo for a moment. When we found him, he was munching on something. It turns out that a) he was eating spicy chocolate when he doesn't really like spicy things and b) he had found a package and simply bitten through it, ingesting the foil while he was at it. Awesome.

They boys enjoying the outdoors at the Fisher Park winter carnival. We sure seem to have a lot of carnivals, fairs and festivals in our neck of the woods!

A slightly blurry picture of Max showing Henry the ropes on his first flight as a toddler cognizant of his surroundings. This is while we were on our way to Winnipeg in February.

Here, Leo and Henry share some TV time with their cousin Hannah.

Hopefully this turns into a movie when I load the page - now it previews so that it looks like a stuttering version of one of those animated .gifs. We were watching a MuchMoreMusic countdown of the biggest one-hit-wonders of all time. The list had a heavy CanCon slant towards videos that played heavily on Much back in the day including this gem: Organized Rhyme's "Check the OR". Henry loved it.

In another surprising display of "see what I can do that my brothers couldn't at this age?", Henry walks forward on a balance beam without assistance. Crazy.

One of many pictures we have with Leo pushing or pulling both of his brothers at the same time.

At the Winnipeg Children's Museum, Max was obsessed with this cut-away house that showed all the ways in which fires can be dangerous in one's home. Here he is with Grandma, learning some fire safety tips. In particular, he was curious about how people can fall asleep with lit cigarettes and destroy their homes.

Max, always one to show respect for his forefathers, digging for gold in Sir John A.

Uncle James relaxing with West and Henry.

In February, Leo had a trip to the hospital to get a lump in his leg checked out. It ended up being some sort of irregular blood vein formation so while it is uncomfortable for him, it is not life-threatening. Leo was a real champ in the ultrasound room, even informing the doctor that his assessment of the lump not being a bug bite was incorrect.

On Henry's first visit to the Space and Aviation Museum, the kids had the chance to dress up in astronaut gear. Max wasn't interested, but Leo morphed into the cutest little dude I know.

This isn't a great picture, but it gets at how the three little Ottawa Stardoms are starting to play and get into situations together. For now, Max is still at an age where he enjoys (most of the time) teaching things to Henry (not always good) and getting him involved in things. Here, they are piloting the skeleton of a helicopter together.

Max and Leo spent some time in the control tower where they were very effective employees. Truth be told, Leo was a little overwhelmed by his programming duties.

I really hope this video works. There is a memorial to members of the Air Force that has a metal floor with some glass sections over what looks like mountains. Henry was NOT INTERESTED in stepping on the glass and in this video, he goes on a rambling walk right onto a glass pane without looking where he was going. When he sees where he's standing, he literally falls over in horror.

Henry sits in the cockpit of an airplane for the first time.

I have a feeling that I've already posted this picture, but it's so awesome I just have to do it again.

And now for two pictures of our boys in jerseys. First, Leo dressed up as Tom Brady. Not sure about the bandana - given his recent contractual arrangements, Tom is kind of an anti-pirate.

And now Max in his LeBron jersey pointing at a BOLD MIAMI tagline. It's possible Holly taught him to say that he was taking his talents to South Beach.

At the start of spring, Leo started getting invited to his own birthday parties. Max didn't take this all too well and figured he should be in on everything Leo gets to do. Max always has this skewed sense of fairness...things are only acceptable if they're fair for him. Some of this "fairness first" business is starting to surface with Leo now, which should make things really interesting over the coming while. At Leo's "girlfriend" Emma's party, he got his face painted...

...and then shared a hug with the girl he's allegedly going to marry...

...but then went on to prove at another birthday party two weeks later that he's still willing to play the field in the meantime.

Holly loves taking pictures of Henry in the tub. It really is one of his happy places.

This is Amy, a woman who does most of our family's professional photography. Auntie Laramie and Uncle James were having a photo shoot done with West and allowed the Ottawa Stardoms in on the action. During some downtime, Amy showed Max some of the ins and outs of how to take a picture. Max was totally serious about it and seemed to enjoy the responsibility of having one of her cameras in his hands.

I think this was one of the first times that we were able to tell Henry to touch his toes and he could understand and execute. Either that or he was saying "toe" and grabbing for it. This is why I should have posted this picture months ago. Drat.

This is Max with one of his typical creations at Menchie's frozen yogurt bar here in town. Yeah, way to take something pseudo-healthy like froyo and defile it with...what is that? A gummy egg?

Yet another picture to remind me of the scene in the movie Parenthood where the kid rams his head repeatedly into the door jamb. "He likes to butt things with his head" "How proud you must be". Indeed.

Leo in a dress again!?! How does this keep happening?

Another shot of the Stardoms marauding as a trio. I believe this was one of Henry's first trips to Cosmic Adventures. Man has that business made some coin off us.

A selfie proving that Henry enjoyed Cosmic!

Max during one of his Duplo building binges.

This year, Max had library days at school where he could choose something and bring it home for a week...English one week, French the next. One week, he must have thought to himself "A new Berenstain Bears book! I'm totally bringing this home". The Big Question? Oh Boy. I have no idea how the book was hiding on the organic waste pile for six days. Time to take it back so soon? Crazy.

The Henry-less version of this picture doesn't exist. Why? Because if it's just Max and Leo blowing their brains out on educational PBS weekend-morning fare, then we're still asleep:)

One of the neatest things about bedtimes with Henry is that he actually welcomes crib time with his friends and books. Here is one of his happiest post-tuck-in times.

So Holly had a bit of an episode this past April that landed her in the hospital for some emergency surgery. Just a lot of internal bleeding, no big deal. For some reason we wanted to commemorate the event with a few photos. Including this one where she might be playing dead.

I'll have to talk to Holly to get the backstory here (one of the shortcomings of me mining Holly's phone for pictures) but it seems there's a suite of pictures in which Henry's quite upset with Holly and unwilling to let her take his jacket off. I do remember there was a period after Holly got out of the hospital where he wanted very little to do with her. This look seems to cover it.

Someone has been watching his brothers building! It's funny how Max got his first Lego set just before turning 5, Leo has been building with it at least a little for half a year or so and now Henry seems to be getting into it before 2. We have this gigantic bin of huge blocks for starting builders (bigger than Duplo) in the basement and it's clearly never going to be used again.

On one trip to the Agricultural museum, we stopped by the dairy barn and some cows were quite pregnant. The museum was asking visitors to name the new calves...but the first letters of the calves' names had to match the first letters of their mothers' names. You can see on the bottom of this list what Max and Leo came up with.

Holly has been doing an awesome job with getting dinners together lately and has even been trying to involve Max a bit with the prep and execution. So when Holly went on a trip to Chicago in the spring, I tried to step things up a notch and asked Henry to whip up some pistachio pudding. What's not shown in the picture is how, after giving up on the whisk, Henry picked up the hand blender and...never mind. Holly might read this.

This is maybe the second day after Holly left for Chicago. For some reason, the kids all decided to run laps around the living room. Yes, my plea for Mom to come back was a little half-hearted. Maybe if the boys had been breaking stuff as opposed to just falling over and/or getting naked.

When you see this happening at the table LOOK OUT! You're being plotted against.

When Max finally understood that the best way to help Henry learn to speak is to address him in English as opposed to gibberish, he has occasionally gotten very interested in teaching Henry how to say things. Here, Max is going over "Kika", one of the boys' favourite picture books. It kind of reminds me of Dick Bruna's Miffy series (can you believe the first Miffy book was written in the 50s??).

No, Leo is not wearing a real bee beard. He's at the Ag Museum posing in one of those cut-out boards...

...but when he's not wearing a bee beard, he's slipping into ill-fitting bee costumes. Oh that Leo!

Henry has a look here. Something like "I've just eaten the icing off a cupcake and hidden the rest under my bum. If I look cute enough, I bet I can score some more icing."

This spring, Nana joined us on a trip to Parc Omega in Quebec - this preserve of sorts where you drive your vehicle around the grounds and various animals come up to the vehicles looking for snacks. Why is Henry looking so suspicious here?

Deer!!! The deer ate slightly more carrots than Henry did that day...but it was close.

Leo had a good time at Parc Omega. I don't know what motivated him to strike this pose with the bear statue, but I don't know what motivates him to do most things.

Auntie Laramie and Uncle James have a bubble machine. Everyone loves the bubble machine!

This outfit Leo wore to the neighbourhood park one day was incredible. Mom's Superman pyjama shirt? Check. Felt fake crown? Check. Pantsless? Check.

I suppose that was dress up to hit the park day. Yarr, Henry!

After having forgiven him for taking out the Senators, Max reconnected with Sidney Crosby on the day he bought his first bike with training wheels. With all of the rain and parental plans this summer, there hasn't been a lot of time for biking, but once Max gets started, he's pretty good on his bike. Downhills are a little sketchy still.

Here are a few pictures from an epic play date Max had with his friend Gavin a couple of months ago. It started with a Duplo buildfest...

...the Leo dressed up as the nefarious supervillain MeatMouth...

...then we enjoyed some mess-up art time at the table featuring pudding and Jell-o...

...and even Henry got in on the act. Pudding in the eyebrows? Yes sir!

I love pictures like this where the kids aren't totally paying attention to the camera or hamming it up. Something is going through both of their minds, but I have no idea what. Plus it makes me think of that Death Cab for Cutie song "Brothers on a Hotel Bed".

Oh boy. What in the world is Max doing at the rifle game in the arcade? Who was in charge when this picture was taken? I WANT ANSWERS!!!

On our anniversary, we went out for a very indulgent meal at a new restaurant in the hood called Supply and Demand. This is Holly (duh) with their signature kale salad (kind of like a super hearty Caesar salad)

The day after our anniversary was Mother's Day. After a trip to the gym, Holly, Laramie and Heather came over and hopped back into bed so that the boys and I could serve them some grub. Max dressed up as Bruce Wayne to be the server and Leo rocked a chef's outfit for the occasion.

After brekkie, we of course headed out to see the tulips. Apparently, Leo wasn't cooperating enough during picture time so Max tried to make him. Nice.

It was really windy and cold so we only stuck around long enough to get one family shot...

...and one shot of Holly and her little men.

It was so windy that passers-by were getting free wisps of cotton candy as they escaped the sugar spinner.

Leo played soccer for the first time this summer. He was on a team called the Aliens and his favourite part (surprise) was not playing, but the treats afterward.

Once the weather starting coming around toward the end of May, we were able to really get out a bunch with the kids. One weekend, we took to Parliament Hill with Auntie Laramie and all the boys for some soccer. It was a beautiful day with only a couple of protesters:)

Leo is clearly bragging here about vanquishing me (see the lawn) and stealing my hat.

Gee, Leo is moving his brothers around again.

We were very fortunate to experience a nearly flawless fireworks evening. For Victoria Day weekend, we took a late drive to see the fireworks at Dow's Lake. We turned onto the Parkway by the canal and immediately got stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic...right in front of a clearing by the Lake where we could watch the fireworks without obstructions! We shut the car off and the boys got out to watch from the wagon. Leo eventually went back into the van, but Max stuck it out. He likes fireworks a bit more, but is still not a big fan of loud noises.

We all headed back to the Ag Museum for the sheep shearing festival...although we didn't actually see any sheep get sheared this year. We did, however, introduce Henry to rabbits.

And after watching some dogs run an agility course and a shepherd demonstrating how to control his dog to herd sheep, Max and Holly did some human agility work with potato sacks...

...and racing through tunnels. Not very quickly.

This is the first book Henry was able to "read" (attempt to sound out all of the words) - Longjohns by Kit Allen. Again, I hope this movie loads properly.

Here are Henry and Mom at an annual art festival at Parkdale Park, behind the Parkdale Market.

Leo got the chance to have a special outing with his Mom, Aunt, Uncle and cousin West at a fair in June. Here he his rapping with a carny after dominating the darts-pop-balloons game.