Merry Christmas!

Mr. Happy Shaker Guy

Mr. J. Jumper

HA! When creating the title for this post I typed "Mr. J. Humper". Which would be a very different video, I think. But here you go, if you need to watch some jumping:




Enjoy!

Monsieur le Pew

Not the first skunklet to walk down our front path, but the only one to do so bipedally.

Time, Flying

Well. It is almost a month since we took this photo of Ruby Cat. Three sick kids, one kid getting tooth after tooth, very little sleeping for the blogging mama for several weeks results in not so many posts here. But I needed to show you this cute kitty. Tune in again soon for a small and very cute skunk.

ps - Henry has been working on saying "more" for a couple of weeks now, but today it came out loud and clear when I wasn't fast enough with the yogurt/frozen blueberry concoction he loves. MORE.

pps- While I was upstairs nursing Henry before his nap this afternoon, I could hear the girls playing. They had a CD of Christmas songs on (their favourite) - Let it Snow was playing - and Fiona was saying, "If we can just get a few more balloons cut to hold our fingers together we can be VAMPIRES and then it will NOT BE GOOD for this house!" It was a complicated moment.

First Word!

Henry spoke his first clear word today (he will be 10 months old in 3 days). He has been saying "ka" and "dree" for a while now (cat/Audrey), but not clearly. But today, today, he said,

"Highchair!" while we were working to soak/scrape/scrub the gucky gick off of his highchair.

Interesting choice of first words as he has little to no interest in being in his highchair at any time. But there it is. Highchair!

The best part of this is that he KEPT saying it, even allowing me to run and get the digital sound recorder thingie so that I have evidence of this early speech proficiency. Should anyone need to hear this, just give me a call and I will proudly play it for you. Highchair!

Happy Days

Look at these smiles! We love fall! We love school! We love pumpkins! We love you!

Talent, We Got IT!

Look at these three! So great! Henry is very good at smiling, and at sitting in apples. But not both at the same time (yet).

The girls have recently discovered a love of swinging like primates through playgrounds near and far. They LOVE that they can do this now. They also spent the better part of last Sunday afternoon jumping off the BIG diving board into the DEEP end of the BIG pool. Amazing!

Happy Fall!

Two men in brown, at the apple picking place on Sunday.

One girl in pink, using a huge leaf as a parasol at the park last week, baby in background scoots around in a circle, making mysterious sand circles with his bum at the centre.

Another girl in pink (and brown, and white), screaming at the top of her lungs with lovely, just turning leaves in background. Happy Fall!

The Carp Fair

Greg took the ladies to the Carp Fair today. Look at them on the Tilt-a-Whirl! All by themselves! Look at their grimy, cotton candy-candy apple faces! So CUTE!

Finally

He was twisting and turning in the Bumbo. When he grabbed the flower and started to coo at it, I finally figured out why. This boy loves him a flower.

Sitting in a Beam

Hatman

The Real First Day of School

Two girls who love school. Just love it. As Ruby says, "It's super great! Our teacher is super nice! We super love it!"

Here they are on the bus - first pick up on the first day.

To School

Two green beans, not too sure about going inside...

Fiona making a "stop" hand - but why?

Pretending a construction sign is their bus stop.

They had a great meeting with their teacher - school starts for real next Thursday.

Department of Inappropriate Baby Toys: Eyeball Division

You say tomato...

Shattered Dreams

So. A while ago now, maybe 5 or 6 months, we noticed something as we were driving north from the 417 exit along Bronson on the way home from somewhere or other. What we noticed was that the decrepit and boarded-up Variety Food Mart was slowly being converted into something else. Very slowly. But we kept watch, and were rewarded for our watching by a sign saying,

"Pizza Cones! Comming Soon!" Despite the spelling error, I was excited. Pizza! In a cone! I like both pizza and cones. This was going to be great!

We watched and watched the space. It became a game to see if they were open yet. And then! Yesterday, on our way home from Peterborough, it happened. The OPEN sign was up! We parked the van at home, popped H in the stroller and zoomed over to taste the glory.

I am left almost speechless at this point of the story. Because, dear reader, pizza cones are not just not good. No. They are expensive (7 dollars for one with one topping), hard to eat, hot on top and bottom but cold in the middle, the ingredients (mushrooms in my case) are not cooked at all (because they're inside the cone, right?) and, well, yuck. Yuck yuck. Add to that that drinks (bottle of apple juice for the ladies and an iced tea for G) are THREE DOLLARS each...God.

The girls sat there, though, pleased as punch with their hot dog pizza umbrellas, not eating them at all (how do you eat this?) and kept saying how good they were. Without actually taking a bite. Hm. AND THEN, PizzaConeMan comes out from the back of the resto and gives the girls each a 25 cm long pink hair extension. It was all very bizarre and most disappointing. I will have to make pizza here one of these days soon to make up for that. Sheesh.

Father's Day Hike

Here are the three happy hikers at The Mill of Kintail - our favourite spot for picnics, hiking, and throwing small things into water.

These Days

The above is the only photo that really requires explanation here. It is Fiona, who had somehow managed to get herself into ten dresses at the same time. She couldn't get the eleventh over herself and had called out in distress (disdress?) because she couldn't get it off, either. Stuck in dresses. That pretty much sums up our girl these days, and the twirlier the better.

Well, this one might take some explaining, too. It is two prairie dogs at the Toronto Zoo looking for someone to adopt them and make them pets.

Lost Cats

Hello? Chicago? Did you find some lost cats? With polka dot eyes? No? Great! Perfect!

Hello? Ottawa? Austria? Have you found a cat? We have found it. We found the blackie. It is the kitten of Greg and Grace's AUDREY!