Duet

Enjoy, and marvel at the attention span of a 2 1/2 year old....or lack thereof!

*** Sorry, forgot you can't rotate video on here!

A Remembrance Day to Remember

A little evening ritual has been developing around here this past week. Each night after Sarah goes to bed Matt turns on the Christmas music, I make some hot chocolate and Liam dumps fistfuls of marshmallows into the mugs. We drink our hot chocolate in the living room which is part of the thrill for Liam who hears the words "only in the kitchen" every other time he is handed a drink. And Liam is determined to prove himself worthy of this honor. He sits across from us in his (towel covered) chair wearing only his big boy undies on the bottom.*** He takes very careful sips, politely asking for a spoon when the marshmallows get stuck. He sits so still, does a little singing, talks about his day and musters all the grown-up-ness a 2-year old can handle.
Then on Remembrance Day - our second puddle-laden day of potty training - Liam piped up during hot chocolate time that he needed to pee. We moved that party into the bathroom at lightning speed and....
.....success! High fives, cheering and extra marshmallows all around. But Liam was so charged up he wasn't going to stop there. What seemed like hours (and one banana) later....


.....POOP! In the potty! I know you're wondering if I took a picture of it. You bet your Pull-Ups I did. And Matt did warn me that I may be crossing a line, so for that reason I will spare you the visual here. But it was a huge moment for Liam, one that I am happy to report has been repeated very consistently for nearly a week now! This is one of those growing-up milestones that does not make me weepy...I'm already plotting my strategy to get Sarah on board with the program. Diapers, be gone!

*** A cute side-note: the first day we put Liam in underwear he proudly strutted into Sarah's room as she was waking from her morning nap. He climbed up on her crib and announced "I got undies, Sarah!"

Decking The Halls

With a major rain and windstorm on the horizon we decided Saturday was the perfect day to string up some outdoor Christmas lights. We're festive people - that's just how we roll.
Matt hauled out all the boxes of lights and put his little elves to work in the "test environment."

Pin the Tail on the Reindeer....


Liam's latest ambitions are to be a "leaf blower man" or a "garbage truck" so he combined the tasks and busied himself with collecting leaves and stuffing them down the drain.



Sarah didn't have to do much but look cute, and I think she pulled it off....




The kids and I bailed on the project shortly after Matt's balancing-on-the-recycling-bin trick. We tried to lure him into the warm house with a cup of hot chocolate...with a staggering mini-marshmallow to cocoa ratio! 'Cause that's how Liam rolls!

Look Who's Skating!

As soon as Matt felt human in our time zone it was time to cash in on a promise: a trip to the ice rink!


Intermission....

Matt made some snow for the "Zamboni"....



Back to the game!

Sort of....


Adoring fans...


I wonder what's harder on the back: a 12 hour trans-continental flight, or a couple laps around the rink like this?:


Waving to the real Zamboni (the highlight of any trip to the rink)....


And why the Zamboni driver that offered to take our picture should keep his day job. ;)

Classic Sarah

I'm a little bit giddy as I type this.....even though she missed her morning nap Sarah was in a good mood this afternoon! Let me rephrase that. Sarah was in a good mood this afternoon even though she was not in my arms the entire time. It was brief, but I did manage to snap a few pictures of those sweet little faces she makes. Just in case the stars don't align that way again for a while I will have something to remember this by!
Liam was trying to "help" Sarah put on her hat:



Which inspired me to pull out the Santa hat (yes, our house is decorated)....

And...looks like that's a wrap.....

Always Be Daddy

When Liam woke up from his nap this afternoon he made a confession to us all: "Liam grumpy today." This was not news. He had been pretty miserable from the get-go and even music class could not coax him out from under his little black cloud. He didn't want to sing. He didn't want to dance. He didn't even want to do the Grand Old Duke of York thing, which is usually a guaranteed grump-buster. By the time we sang the goodbye song he joined in, but with his own spin on the lyrics. Here's how it is supposed to go:

May there always be Sunshine
May there always be Blue Skies
May there always be Music
May there always be Me

Then we go around the room and sing "May there always be insert each kids' name here". And each time, Liam would sing along with "Always Be Daddy." Liam has had enough of China. Good news is Matt is on the last leg of a whirlwind 3-city tour, and we on the home front have not yet scared his parents away! In fact, they still have a few tricks up their sleeves that should keep Liam distracted for the next few days. I heard some whispering about The Bundle and I think they've been keeping this one in their back pockets for the home stretch. (The Bundle refers to Liam being carried around in a blanket, kind of like a hammock. He hasn't been able to get enough of this in previous visits, but I'm quite sure there is some relief that he hasn't brought it up yet this week!)
In other news, I did promise a picture of Sarah today, and here it is. She was very entertained by a Skype conversation with Daddy. Here's what it looked like on Matt's end....


....and here she is trying to grab his nose, just like she does in real life!

Time to Lay Off the Hallowe'en Candy?

This is Liam first thing in the morning. I walked in his room and he was stripped down to nothing and greeting me with this face. That definitely sets a tone for the day!





Yes, he's a little intense.
I know there has been an absence of Sarah photos recently....there is a good reason for that. The girl's mood meter is set to Perma-Crank! I'll get a picture of her tomorrow, tears or smiles....

Cox Clown

Liam's pre-bedtime granola ritual is usually a time for winding down, talking about the day or reading a book. But with an adoring audience (aka "Nan") to encourage him there was no shortage of giggles and goofy tricks up his sleeves. Wait a minute....where are his sleeves?


Technically, he is wearing a shirt. Think they'd really let him on this bus ride?

Amusement Park

There wasn't any cotton candy, but we managed to find a lot to amuse us on a sunny November Sunday. Gone are the days when a "fall back" daylight savings adjustment meant an extra hour of sleep. Today was all about burning off a little extra steam to compensate for a 25 hour day! Will it help the kids slide right into the new clock? Time will tell. Literally. But if nothing else, we had fun!


This is exactly how Liam runs, legs flailing in every direction....

You've got to click on this next one to check out his new hambone face. At home he likes to stand up on platforms to make this face with a more theatrical effect....



Taking a minute to soak up the fall colours before moving onto duck watching and inspecting the rainbow trout at the dock.


This was Liam's favorite game...running along the platform, climbing the pillars and then jumping off while shouting "BAZOOMBAAAAAA!"

Oddly enough, we watched the world's most athletic pug doing exactly the same thing. Minus the Bazoomba bit.

And finding some really huge leaves, which he correctly idenitified as "maple".


I can't wait for Sarah to find her walking legs. As much as she enjoys her perch from the backpack, it's so hard to get a picture of her in there! Here's the best I could do - our reflection in the car window as we were getting ready to head home. I couldn't tell until I saw this picture, but it looks like she's ready for a nap. Mission accomplished!

Time Out

Interesting how when I doll out a Time Out it is met with all sorts of tears, objections and commotion. If someone told me to go sit somewhere quiet and chill out for a bit I would be thrilled! Needless to say, it doesn't happen as often as I'd like. But last week Matt and I got a few days to ourselves in Las Vegas. A Time Out for grown-ups! As the saying goes, "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas." Here is a sampling of the wild and crazy things we left behind in the city of lights:

* uninterrupted conversations / conversations that do not revolve around poop and giggles
* sleeping
* sleeping in
* eating bread at the table with zero regard for errant wheat crumbs
* showers, guaranteed every day
* going out...in the evening
* hiking without hauling another person in a backpack
* dangly earrings (sometimes worn on home turf, but never without risk of a lobe detachment)

It was wonderful.
Almost as soon as we arrived home Matt had to turn around and fly to China the very next day. I miss him. We all do. ButI try to remind myself that good things do come out of all this travel:

* Liam has superior exposure to Geography. Whereas I couldn't find my way out of a paper bag without google directions, Liam is studying a world map and I think he kind of gets it. Either that, or he likes it when I sing that "I'm the map" Dora song. Either way, I guess.
* Grandparent time! There are not enough adjectives to describe how wonderful grandparents are. My Mom and Dad took on the challenge of babysitting the kids last week (and survived to tell about it!). And in a phone call last week with Matt's parents (in which I was particularly overwraught about 3 back-to-back trips and recovering from the flu) they quickly put a plan in motion to come stay with me and the kids this week.
They say it takes a village to raise a child. I say it takes a village to keep the parents of that child sane every now and then. So Thank You, Mom and Dad, and Mom and Dad. We are so very grateful.