Miscellaneously Max

Here's a bunch of miscellaneous things that Max has been up to lately.

• Sitting watching some football on Sunday, Max was yelling at me "Cookie!" I chose to ignore him. Then he wanted to sit on my lap, facing me. I was watching the game, and basically ignore his yelling at me. Max then took my face in his hands, turned it towards his face, looked right in my eyes and said: "Mama, yook (look), cookie." It was the funniest thing. Every time I turned my face he did the same thing. Marty and I were in absolute hysterics. It deserved at least a cracker.
• Marty covers his mouth, burps and says "Pardon me." Max covers his mouth, blows out and says "I bewrp." Sometimes he says the same when he farts.
  
• Max likes to empty one of his baskets in his room, sit in it then say "Mommy, row row boat." Which decoded means, Mommy, lets sing Row row row your boat.
• Max is starting to pretend things. Tonight in the bath he pretended to eat ice cream.
• If the phone rings, Max points to it and says "Hewwow?"
  

Christmas pictures

Here are a couple of pictures from the holidays. They went too fast and I wish I had a few days off work to get the house cleaned, sleep and get organized. Oh well.

At Olga and Jonathan's on Christmas Eve.

Max and Duncan at Meredith and Ron's for Christmas Eve dinner.

Max's first look at his new tool bench on Christmas morning.

Max "fixing" Makka Pakka.

All strapped in and ready to go to Nana and Opa's.

New trucks!

Mr. Potato Head is awesome!

Max sitting at the kids table at Dave and Andra's.

Max playing with his new doctor set with Mary-Francis.

Max playing Play-Doh with his best buddy Mitchell.

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.