Weekend fun

We had a great family weekend. On Saturday we went to the Experimental Farm. This is such a great place. It barely costs us anything because I can get in free with my museum card and Max is free up to the age of 3. So Marty bought an adult membership for $34.00, which includes the Science and Technology Museum and the Aviation Museum. How great a deal is that?

So Max mooed at the cows, baaed at the sheep, neighed at the horses and doot-dooted at the tractors. Actually, there is an exhibit on tractors at the Farm at the moment and I thought Max was going to go into a fit seeing all the tractors. And the fact that he could sit on one, oh my! We made his year I'm sure! Forgot the camera, so no pictures of the look of pure joy on Max's face.

Then on Sunday we headed to Lac Philippe in Gatineau Park. It's a little out of the way (about a 50 minute drive) but so worth it. It's not too crowded and is totally a family beach, with lots of little naked bums running around. Dan, Heather and Sara joined us for most of the day. We playing in water, picnicked, played in the water and ate LOTS of watermelon. I think Max could eat his weight in watermelon if we let him.










In the water, Max had a little visitor for a little while. Heather couldn't stop exclaiming that it was the biggest dragonfly she had ever seen. It was a doozy!

Baby genius

Sitting on the stairs at the front of the house, Max is playing with seeds that have fallen from our poplar tree.

He takes two seeds and lines them up.

"How many seeds do you have Max?" I ask.

He points to each seed. "One, two."

I run into the house to call Mensa.

Girl TIme

I love Marty. There are many things to love about him, and I won't go listing them here. But one thing I do love about him is how he never seems to mind when I mention something I would like to do, without him or Max. I usually feel guilty about asking. Not only because I am missing out of my time with Max, but often it means Marty has Max for a full day and night, not getting much time to himself. For the most part, these times are what I call my "Girl Time." Last week I got to have two Girl Times.

The first was Thursday night. I went out for dinner and a movie with some of my girlfriends from work. We went to see Mama Mia! What a blast. I don't know if you have been reading any of the reviews, but they are mostly right. It's so bad, it's good. As nice and Pierce Brosnan might be to look at, he can't hold a tune in a wheel barrow. Makes you question why he was cast in a musical. He was so bad that I laughed until I cried, yelling "Please stop!" at the screen. And of course there was lots of singing. Well worth the $10 entrance fee. If you like ABBA (and honestly, who doesn't) this is definitely worth a look. It doesn't need to be seen on the big screen, so you can wait until it's out on DVD. Then you can laugh and sing in the privacy of your own living room.

The second Girl Time was this past weekend. Heather was in need of a break from motherhood. After almost 15 months of never being away from Sara, the time had come. I had mentioned it to Marty and he said "Why don't you both go to Montreal for a girl's weekend?" (Did I mention how much I love the guy?) We left Saturday morning with a spring in our step and money in our pocket for a little shopping. A little shopping? Is there such a thing in Montreal?

We arrived, had lunch, shopped, had ice cream, shopped, had dinner, and then could barely move as our bodies protested against all the walking. We ended up going to my parents a little earlier then expected and could barely make it to 10:00pm. Oh how different a weekend in Montreal is for me now!

Now it's Marty's turn for some Boy Time. He definitely deserves it.

Words

As you know, Max has been babbling away in his own language for a long time now. Ever since he found his voice at 3 months old he hasn't really stopped. Now he seems to be saying a new word ever day. Being the proud Mama, I feel the need to share Max's ever expanding vocabulary.

Here are the words he has down packed:
Mama
Daddy
Hi
Bye
What's that?
That
No
Doggy
Hat
Cat
Baa Baa (for sheep obviously)
Belbow (elbow)
Up

Here are the animal sounds that he has when you ask: "What does a ** say?"
Neigh
Moo
Woof Woof
Baa Baa
Meow
Roar

Not bad, ey?

A Day at a Cottage

I love cottages. I love friends with cottages. I love swimming in lakes and sitting around in muskoka chairs. I love fire pits and barbeques. Can you tell we had a great day?

Our friends Julie and Pete invited a bunch of us up to their cottage for the day. It's the perfect distance away, 1 hour. Invited were basically everyone you hear me talking about. Karen, John, Emily and Hope, and Meredith, Ron, Ella and Duncan. Julie and Pete have two of their own as well, Nathanial and Maggie. Eight adults and seven kids all under the age of 5. At least we still out number them!











It was a beautiful day with sun and cloud. Not too hot, with a little breeze to keep the bugs away. The lake was warm and the wine and beer were plentiful. Ahhh... I didn't really want to leave.

Everyone had a great time, especially the kids. What more could you ask for!

Detto Family Vacation (in Pictures)

We got back from the yearly Detto family cottage vacation on Saturday. It was a really nice week with lots of time down by the lake, lots of eating good food, and lots of laughing and antics (both kids' and adults'!) Here are some pictures from the week.

We weren't there fore more than a few minutes and Max swindled Rick into reading him a book.









Day two and Max in in the water.






Max hung on Connor's every word and action. Come Christmas time, he'll be running after Connor!










Max discovered Bacci. Lining up for the perfect shot.











Max also discovered and new toy. You can see how excited he was when he figured out all the knobs and dials.










Little cousing Emmy. Check out those gorgeous blue eyes!











Max and Mike did some bonding.








And Max and Opa too.








Dinner time!









Chili was in doggy heaven.

Another milestone

No, no, he isn't walking. But it won't be long yet!

Today at the library Max pulled himself up to standing for the first time. No, he hasn't done that yet. As he doesn't crawl, he is never on his knees so pulling himself to stand is a little trickier. Try pulling yourself up from a sitting position. It's damn near impossible! But our little guy did it today. Marty tried desperately to recreate the scenario for me when I got home from work, but it wasn't to be.

Today was the first of the many things that I will miss the "first time" of. I was too excited to hear about his accomplishment to care that I missed it. That bodes well for future events I imagine.

How cute is he?

For Max's first birthday, Nana and Opa bought him this cool truck toy. It's sort of a walker that transforms into a ride on toy that transforms into a wagon. And on the steering wheel there is a horn button. When Max first tried it, he repeated "Doot! Doot!" Every time that he plays with it, he will repeat "Doot! Doot!"


A few days ago he saw a picture of a truck and he said "Doot! Doot!" How cute, right? Wait, it gets better. Today Marty calls me at work with this little gem that made my heart melt.

Max was taking his afternoon nap. The recycling truck comes down our street, making a stop at each house. A few minutes later Marty hears quietly through the monitor "Doot. Doot." Every time the truck moved to the next house, Marty would hear it again. This is how Max woke up this afternoon. How cute is that? Too cute. Man I love that kid!

Marty and Max left for Toronto

...

(insert sound of crickets here)

Happy Canada Day!

Hope you had a wonderful day and that the weather was as spectacular for you as it was for us. We went to Grass Creek Park just outside of Gananoque for the afternoon. Actually, the afternoon turned into the whole day. It was wonderful. We were with the Stewarts, the Guerins and the Druirys (Beth who is 8 months pregnant with twins and looks fabulous!). The day couldn't have been any better.

Here are some moments (funny that we only have pictures of Max and no one else! Honestly, there were other people there!)

Max eating... what else is new

Max had his first apple the other day. Do you think he liked the experience?

I am starting to avoid going into the museum lease days, even though it's one way to pass the time (work has got ridiculously slow again). Why am I avoiding it? There are so many babies.

I can't believe how many babies there are in there every day. And every time I see one, my heart aches for Max, especially if the baby is close in age to him.

My little baby is turning into a little boy and it's just going by too fast. I mean look! He's eating apples on his own now! Soon he'll be leaving for university. Ugh. I can't handle this. I need to go watch an episode of early Friends when they were all single, childless and carefree.

Gardening

I enjoy gardening. I didn't know if I would, so I started small when we first bought the house. Then I discovered that I really liked it. I only have perennial gardens, no veggies. We live on an old garbage dump from the early 1900s and our soil is contaminated, hence no veggies.

I am still learning. I wouldn't say that I am a novice, but I don't know if I am yet into the intermediate classification (if there is such classifications). I tend to talk about gardening as if I know a lot more than I do. For some reason, people seem to think I am an old hat at it. Hopefully the advice I have been giving is good and not just blowing smoke!

Here are the fruits of my labor so far this year. I haven't spent nearly enough time in the gardens and they are looking a little jungle-ish, but some of the blooms are gorgeous.

Weekend at home

Went to Montreal for the weekend. It was hot. I'm talking melting the tar on the pavement hot. And it was Grand Prix weekend. We managed to avoid the traffic, but there was no avoiding the heat.

Max beat it by staying cool in his new pool.
Then Max spent a whole lot of time playing with Mitchell...
And eating...
And more time in the pool.
It was hot but time well spent with the family.

Weekend with the Stewarts

You’ve heard me rave about our friends Dave and Andra, and their two beautiful daughters Zoe and Andy. Well here I go again.

We headed down to Oshawa on Friday, June30. It was sunny, the road was clear and the baby was sleeping. It looked good, until about an hour in when Max woke up and decided he didn’t want to be strapped into his car seat and every time I turned around to look at him, he screamed louder and put his arms out to be picked up. Heart breaking and funny all at the same time.

We arrived at the Stewarts’ to open arms and screams of joy from the girls. They are so in love with Max, Andy especially. She was all over him. Andra constantly tried to get Andy to give Max some space but she wouldn’t go for it. Max didn’t seem to mind, or at least he never protested. There was lots of playing and goofing around. Max went down really well and once the girls went down the adults sat around with drinks in hand, chatted and watched Battlestar Galactica. It was a wonderful evening.

Saturday morning we woke to beautiful blue sky and hot sun. The weather network was still forecasting rain, but we decided to chance it and packed up and headed for the park. We went to a park in Whitby (I think!) down by the water. Dave had packed his little portable barbeque and we had hotdogs and veggies and chips. It was a great picnic. We blew bubbles, and played ball and played in the park. The weather was a little cool, but better than being a hundred degrees!

When the sky turned black at about 3:00, we packed everyone back up and headed home. The rain never came and we ended up barbequing and playing in the back yard. Max had had about 30 minutes sleep the entire day and was a little squirrelly, but the girls were good with entertaining him. Adam and Beth (pregnant with twins and looking fabulous) came for the feast. It was another great evening. The boys played Guitar Heroes for an absurd amount of time, once again. I think they are actually going to get carpal tunnel syndrome.

We ended the evening with Marty and I convincingly beating Dave and Andra at a game called Like Minded or Think A Like or something like that. We beat them twice actually! It’s a really fun game to play with couples. Easy, no need for huge amounts of concentration and you can get into some fun discussions.

Sunday morning, after a great breakfast we went to the park where Max left his little bum skooching trail behind him in the sand. Marty ran the dog and then we packed up and headed home. It was a wonderful weekend, with good friends and I am already looking forward to our next visit. If Marty and I get off our asses and get the basement done, maybe they will be visiting us!

Walking

This weekend Max took his first tentative steps unaided. Actually it was just one step: from the couch to the ottoman. I beamed with pride and so did he. He was just so pleased with himself.

Today he stood by himself for at least 15 seconds. He still puts his hands up to grab onto my fingers to do any serious walking, be he lets go every once in a while to test the waters. If only he would pull himself up. He still insists on using my fingers for that. He also wants to walk up the stairs all the time but he hasn't figured out bending his knees and it makes it a little difficult. I imagine by the end of the summer we will have a true toddler on our hands.