Christmas baking

OK, I'm going to be straight up here. I don't bake. The only thing I do are chocolate chip cookies on occasion and brownies (which I can easily say kick ass); occasion doesn't mean "special." It just means when the mood swings me and that ain't too often.

So what did I do for Christmas baking? I bought an order from Karen. And I am not even playing up the fact that I could pass them off as my own. I am full fledge admitting, I didn't do it. People who know me would know anyway.

But what about all the fun that my friends have with their kids, decorating Christmas cookies? Most of my friends (if not all) have their kids help out in the kitchen with various cooking tasks. I knew that I wanted to have fun with Max in this way too, but always thoughts he wasn't old enough yet. Until I saw Erin's pictures of her cooking with Matthew, who is only a few weeks younger than Max. I got inspired.

Again, since I am not the big baker, I decided that we would decorate some rice crispy squares. Stockings actually (I got suckered into buying the real Rice Krispies that came with a little Christmas stocking mold). Max seemed to really enjoy himself and didn't think eating them was a priority.

I enjoyed this so much that I thought I would take it another step further on Sunday. I bought one of those ginger bread house kits (can't even fathom how make this from scratch!). I figured if he liked putting sprinkles on rice crispy stockings, he would love putting candy on the ginger bread house. It didn't quite go as well as I hoped. It would seem that the devil infiltrated Max's body during his afternoon nap, and he was down right miserable. We did manage to have a few pleasant moments though.

That was before Christmas. Now it's after Christmas. We just got home from the Detto family Christmas, Max is down and I am going to cuddle with the cats. Hopefully I can get a full Christmas synopsis up before the New Year. Oh, wait, that's Thursday isn't it? Well I wouldn't hold my breath if I were you then.

'Tis the Season

Wishing you and yours the best of the holidays season from me and mine.

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Sad Santa

I don't know who looks more sad, Maxim or Santa. I think we need to do a redo.

Favorite toy

Max's favorite toy at the moment? Potatoes. No, not Mr. or Mrs. Potato Head, just plain potatoes. The video says it all.

My favorite photo of Max at the moment? Baby got butt crack.

Santa Claus Parade

Yesterday was the annual Help Santa Toy Parade. The firefighters collect new toys (or money) which are donated throughout the city to needy kids via different organizations. What a great way to start the season. I know Max is a little young, but we are going to try very hard to teach him that Christmas is not about the getting but about the giving. We plan on making this parade an annual event. Yesterday was the start of that tradition.

Even though Ottawa is the 4th largest city in Canada, the parade has a real small town feel, with local legions, dance troupes and different shops marching or driving a decorated truck. And since it's the firefighters, there is a great assortment of old time firetrucks. The kids love it.

This is Max waiting for the parade to start. Actually, he is a sleep. We had to wake him up when it started. He didn't say much. Just took it all in. We tried to get him to wave at people but I think he might have been a little over whelmed by it all.


Some highlights? Well, here is what I mean by small town feel. This is the local comic shops entry. Nothing says Christmas like Boba Fett.


And here is another favorite. I think it was one of the local catholic high schools. I like the modern touch of pushing baby Jesus in the stroller.


The local bus company had the best float.


And Santa himself was pretty good. He was fully bilingual which was great. And Max had the perfect view of him.



What I don't have a picture of is the funniest moment of the parade. It came when a a group of people were walking by (I didn't catch what organization they were from), but it was kids and adults alike all waving to the crowd. One man was pull a wagon with his kid in it. The man was ringing a bell. The kid had fallen asleep and was flopped over, nearly falling off. Marty started saying "Bring out your dead!" I nearly peed myself. And so did the guy next to us.

It was a great way to kick off the season for us. I think even Marty the Grinch might be warming up a bit.

Sleep, sleep and more sleep

What happened between 8pm last night and 6:15am this morning? Max slept. He slept without waking up, without getting his leg caught in bars, without shmooshing his head in a corner. I actually woke up at 5am and didn't really go back to sleep, expecting to hear the usual early morning wake up cry. I love the big boy bed!!

And you know what? Now that he is sleeping more comfortably, we have realized that he talks in his sleep. I just heard him murmur something. It's such a sweat sound. And he wants to sleep with books. Oh how I love my boy!

Monumetal Moment

This is Max sleeping in a sea of blue on the double bed. Yep, Max has moved on from his crib.

It's not like he has never slept in this bed before. He used to take his naps on it when he was a baby, before he could roll over. And when he wakes up in the middle of the night and can't get back to sleep, Marty or I crawl into this bed with him to sleep. What's different this time? Last night, he slept in it all by himself.

Yep, last night we decided we would give it a shot. For the past week Max has wanted to go into this bed for story time before bed and it's been a bit of a fight to get him into the crib. So I figured, hey! why not?

We read some stories together in it, I gave him bidi (his blanket), said good night, closed the door and that was that. Well, he did holler at me for a few seconds, but I think it was more because he wanted milk. The picture is when I went up to bed. No, I didn't turn the light on, it's just the flash.

Now he is taking his nap. I thought it might be a little more of a challenge to get him to stay in bed for that, but he just talked to himself for a while, cranked a little bit and then went quiet. Once again, Max is my little sleeping trouper. We have been very fortunate with the sleeping thing. I know I'll end up paying my dues when he's a teenager.

But for the time being, we now have a little boy in the house. No more baby. I figure we'll leave the crib in the room for about a week before taking it out. How's Mommy doing? Pretty good actually. I was really excited for him yesterday. It was fun lying in bed together reading stories. And being a double bed, Marty could join us too. And both of us can't wait for the day that Max comes into our room on a Saturday morning and crawls into bed with us. Or maybe I can wait for a that a little while longer. I don't need him growing up too fast now.

Ick

Coming home last night after having dinner at St. Hubert's (food's OK, but they cater to kids, even though Max at NOTHING!) I was accosted at the door by a giant spider.

How giant was it you ask? Once I stopped freaking out and managed to open the front door and run and hide, Marty showed it to Max.

Marty: Look Max. A spider.

Max: Apple?

Yes, that's how big it was. Max called it an apple!

No, I didn't take any pictures. I was still cowering inside trying to get it's crawling body out of my mind.

Happy Halloween

Here are our Halloween pictures.


Yep, there is only one. We had everything ready. Max in his costume. A little trick-or-treat bag. Had Max saying "Trick-or-treat" ready for a little video. And then... the flashing red light of death. The batteries on the camera died. Ack! So no pictures of Max going crazy over all of the lit up "pumpies" (pumpkins). No pictures of him trying to climb our neighbors' stairs. No pictures of Pooh Bear melting down when he had to leave our friend Allison and Daryl's.

But I did take pictures of him in his costumes. No typo, costumes in the plural is correct. I bought this Dumbo the elephant costume a month ago at the consignment store because it was just too cute. It was a bit small though, but he did wear it to a the playground last week for a neighborhood party.


Max's care giver brings the kids to a playgroup and they had a little Halloween party on Thursday. Max dressed as Pooh Bear. These are the pictures of when we tried the costume on.




He didn't want to take the hat off.

So use your imagination for the trick-or-treating part. Now we have a bowl full of mini chocolate bars, which we don't need in this house. I think maybe Marty will use them as incentive for his kids. I just want them gone. I've already had five tonight!

At last

Let us recall where we were coming from. Remember this? This is what the basement looked like before the renos.
This is what it looks like now.


Not bad, ey? It's not entirely finished. The furnace room is still jammed with boxes, but it's usable. We spent most of this rainy Saturday in the basement. Max loved his new play area. Part of the reason we spent most of the day downstairs was because our upstairs was void of furniture. The furniture you see in the basement was in our living room. So now our living room looks like this.
Wow. That couch is huge! I am completely dwarfed by it and Marty is in the lap of luxury. So there you have it. We have adult furniture in our living room (which Max is already enjoying as you can see) and we have an awesome rec room basement.

Happy days.

My guys

Nothing makes me happier than seeing my two guys in a laughing fit.

Thanksmas 2008

Thanksmas has come and gone. The weather was spectacular and the turkey was delicious. What more could we ask for.

Max didn't nap on the way down, and wouldn't go down at Tammy's. And can you blame him? Look at the mother load!Max did very well with lots of clothes, a cool aviator winter jacket, some MegaBlocks Cars stuff and the Fisher Price easel. Now all we need is a basement for it to all go into (by this weekend my friends!). Marty and I did very well this year too. It's great now that the kids are into making stuff. We got brownies (which are delicious!), chocolate dipped spoons (which are coming with me to work for my hot chocolate), cookie mix (haven't done those yet), some flavoured oil, bread dipping spices and potato soup in a cup (which is also coming to work with me). Not bad, ey?

What did I end up doing? I made Crispix mix. Two different kids, a sweet and a savoury. Big hit. Did you know that there are a ton of Chexmix recipe options (Crispix is the Canadian version). Check out the website. There are even micriwavable options!

Oh, what do you think of Max's pumpkin hat? I love it and so does everyone who sees it. Karen knitted it for him. She also does the most adorable strawberry and watermelon hats.

Back to Thanksmas. This is where you could find Max, most of the time. With his big cousin Mitchell. I don't know who was enjoying who's company more. But Max couldn't get enough of him.

There is a new park near Tam's that is very cool. It has all these musical instruments. They were a little high for Max, but he still really enjoyed himself, especially on the slide.

That night we went to see Mitchell's hockey game. Max loved the clappers and running along the boards yelling "Hockey!" Marty was in heaven.So there you have it. Another Thanksmas come and gone. We came home on Monday and had another turkey at Meredith and Ron's. Another beautiful day and lots of adults and kids to entertain Max. A wonderful way to end a great long weekend.

Apple picking

This morning we set out to Canamore Orchards to do some apple picking. The website said they had u-pick until mid-October. I thought about calling ahead of time, but each time I thought of it, it was after hours. Do you see where this is going?

The orchard is out near Embrum, which is about a 40 minute drive. Max napped all of the way (seriously, he was asleep before we hit the end of our street). Great start if the day. We get inside to pay, NO MORE U-PICK. Well, we had decided to go to a place that had a bunch of extra stuff, since Max wouldn't have had much to do with the picking. Things like mazes, train rides, wagon rides, you know, fun stuff. So we decided, hey! We're here. Let's do it. $15.00 dollars later (yep, 1-5) we went through the door expecting some fall fun. What did we get? Some owners how were pretty rude, some pathetic mazes, a pig that did not look very healthy and a goat that ate my hair. Seriously! The goat took a chunk of my hair, and left some sort of goo. Did the kids have fun? I think so. Will we go back next year when the u-pick is on? Not a chance.

To see the bright side, we were outside for a couple of hours, the kids walked around and had fun, and we got a couple of cute pictures.

Eating, or rather, Not eating

Do you remember when I used to brag about how great an eater Max was? How proud I was that what ever I put in front of him, he would eat with gusto. It could be spicy, lumpy, smooth, cold or hot. He would eat it up and barely leave a scrap or crumb. Meal time at our house has now turned into this:


He took his masked potatoes off his plate and onto the his tray to better smear them around and pick out all the peas. This child has now become a very difficult eater. He is currently living on peas and porogies. Supposedly he is eating well at Delia's.

Am I worried? No. Have you seem him? It's not like he is starving! But it is getting a little annoying all the food I am wasting. I imagine this too will come to pass. I just have to ride the wave and be happy that he seems to be able to eat his weight in fruit and yogurt. Somehow I've got to figure out how to get some protein into the child.

Making Daddy Proud

I think this is the only reason Marty wanted to have kids.

Basement Renos - Day 5

No picture today, they just didn't turn out. I know, I know, you must all be so disappointed!

We got the walls primed. We are both still coming down from the high. We had to use some pretty nasty stuff to cover up the dark wood paneling. The house still smells bad and I can't imagine it will get much better since it's so damp. Ugh. But it's done. Now we wait for the guy to call us for the drywall mudding quote. We have NO IDEA how much that will be. How do you find out the going rate of a contractor?

The other part of our day was spent at IKEA. I used to really like IKEA. It's polish has definitely worn off. I do believe however, that it is because of the one store in Ottawa. They only carry about 75% of the items found in the catalogue or online (something I was always suspicious of and which was confirmed for me today by an employee) and the staff leave much to be desired. We went looking for the middle of the line flooring that we saw online. It turns out that the Ottawa store only carried the high end and the low end. It was over a $300 difference! Yep, we went cheep. Ah to be able to renovate with a real budget instead of pennies found behind the bookshelf! Maybe one day...

But back to reality. Marty and his friend (Marty, or as I call him, Dolan) are making a go at putting in the floor on Sunday. So, anyone out there up for a visit? I can't imagine I want to be here with Max when the swearing starts and little bits of fake wood start flying across the room.

Basement Renos - Day 4

Carpet up. Body aching. Tomorrow: priming the walls and buying the floor. So tired. Going to bed.

Basement Renos - Day 3

No photos of the basement today. You can't really see the progress. We finished the drywall and got ready for carpet ripping. This included taking up metal strips that were randomly located through the carpet covering up frayed seems, lifting up the trim and sort of cleaning up after the drywalling.

Then we went carpet shopping. OMG carpet is expensive! After picking my jaw up off the floor, we decided IKEA laminate floor is the way to go. It's a quarter of the price of the cheapest carpet. So we can buy a nice throw rug to go on top. I know it's not the best quality flooring out there, but we don't plan to be in this house for ever and it will look good when we sell.

Here is Max helping out. We hope to start priming the walls tomorrow after the carpet ripping. Oh, does anyone know a good drywall mudder? There is no way we are going to get that done ourselves in this century. Man, there are a lot of screws!

Basement Renos - Day 2

We have a ceiling!! Well almost. Ron and Meredith came over tonight and dry walled. We are almost done, but we all hit a wall and figured it would be best to leave it instead of waiting until someone sliced a finger open or drilled their hand to the ceiling. But you can see a remarkable difference with just a white ceiling!


That was all done tonight. During the day, Marty cleaned out the basement, I went to IKEA for some curtains and came out with instant art, bibs, dishes for Max, ... no curtains. It always happens. You go in for a $20 purchase, and you leave without that thing you intended and your bank account $100 lighter. We also went back and forth to Home Depot several times, and which will happen several more times for the next few days.

Tomorrow, ripping up carpet and maybe even some painting!

Day 1 - Basement Reno

Today is the first official day of our basement renos. We have been toiling with the idea for a while now, and I decided that I would take the week off (from a very crazy time at work at the moment) and plug away at the basement with Marty. Supply teaching calls won't come for another couple of weeks, so we needed to act now.

This is where we are now.



As you can see by the wood paneling and orange carpet, the last time the basement was renovated was probably around 1972. Prior to us ripping out the ceiling tiles, the basement housed and enormous amount of crap (which is now stuffed into the furnace room) and Marty's computer. Basically it was a hovel for Marty to disappear into.

With Max, we have accumulated more stuff, and the 12' x 12' living room is starting to feel a little crowded. Considering it's basically the only place that Max has lived in the past 16 months, I'm surprised he's a well adjusted as he is. Our big hope is to have a play room type of space in the basement, along with some storage and Marty's computer desk. I had huge dreams of getting it all done this week (installing pot lights, dry walling the ceiling, painting, putting down new carpet, putting up shelving and buying a new couch), but I have had the harsh slap of reality hit me pretty hard. Now I will be happy if we get the ceiling done.

So, what did we accomplish on Day 1 - Basement Reno? We came across some potential electrical problems, so didn't get anything done over the weekend. But with the wonderful help of Meredith's dad, Jim, we were given the green light and could proceed with the lighting installation. So that's what Marty accomplished today. What did I do you ask? I did a little bit of work in the yard, and then went to the spa. Yep, Marty slogged at home and I sat in the sauna and whirl pools of the Nordic Spa in Chelsey. If you live within an hours drive of Ottawa and haven't done this, Go. Do. This. It's the best stress reliever that I have ever come across.

So what's in store for Day 2 - Basement Reno? I think some carpet riping and dry wall buying. Stay tuned.

Happy Birthday Me!

It was my birthday yesterday, and we were in Montreal with my family, and extended family, The Belangers. There are so many things I'd like to talk about: what the past year has been and on turning 37, but I am just too tired (Max has a cold and I have been up with him since 4am). So, instead, another photo adventure. I know, not terribly inspiring, but my brain just can't handle anything more than that.

Marty and I decided to head to Montreal once more before the start of school and the best time just happened to land on my birthday. It turned into a little party with all of the family. It was a beautiful day to be outside and enjoying Tammy and Matt's new backyard, and in-ground pool. Yeah.

A little family time in the pool (oh, did I mention it's a salt water pool and heated to 80 degrees?)


Marie-Francis and Claudia enjoying some time together before Claudia and family move to Chelsey (yeah for us!).


Charlotte was having a great time heating Adrian with the water blasters.


Dominique and Tom (boyfriend: we like him) helping out with Max while Marty and I enjoy either the pool or some cool yummy adult drinks. I can't remember.


Max on his way over to push Alex off the chair. I hope they learn to play nice together.


After dinner (Montreal smoke meat brisquet on the barbeque, barbequed potatoes, coleslaw, rye bread and DQ ice cream cake) everyone got back into the pool. They have some very cool lights in the pool, even a strobe light!


Danielle got Mom to take Alex in the pool. Supposedly he wouldn't go in at Margaret's, but maybe the heated pool was more up his alley.


So there you have it. I couldn't have asked for a more beautiful day weather wise, and I got to spend it with some of the most important people in my life. Pretty good birthday.