Country time and a Happy New Year

We were so lucky to have been invited up to a friend's (thanks Mara!) parents house in the country for a couple days over the break. We always talk about doing a winter break when Mike is home for the holidays, and this year it finally happened! The funny thing about having a baby is that you really have to divide and conquer so it is rare that we have a family photo. Colin agreed to sit in for us in these;

Ivan said he will just photoshop us all together sometime. Highlights of the country include duel fireplaces, duel dogs, amazing food, and sub zero temperatures.

We went on a winter walk, Pepper made it about 15 feet before deciding her place was at home by the fire....

Everyone got so addicted to Instagram that we didn't even need to talk, we just waited to see what everyone was doing by reading the feed. The future is now people.

Communicating with humans is so a thing of the past. Many thanks Ambrose's for inviting us up to your place! The only downside is that I am still sick with the 1000 day virus and it took us 6 hours to get home in 401 traffic.

So here we are on the last day of 2011, a year that was dedicated almost in full to this new little being in our lives, we did it, we survived so far. I love new years, it is a fresh start, a way to say goodbye to the old un-needed habits and hello to all new things. Time to ruminate on what I can do better for myself, my little family, maybe the world if I get really ambitious, but for now I wish the best for the rest of 2011 has to offer for you and yours.

Whoa...Merry Christmas

Now I understand why all the bloggers take a long winters break from blogging over the holidays. It is HECTIC with a capital heck. We did the classic 3 families in 3 cities in 3 days Christmas, but this year we added an entire sick family into the mix. We barely even managed to take our camera out of the bag, hardly capturing baby's first Christmas at all. For shame! M started walking 3 days before the 25th and also is cutting both incisors. She hasn't any other teeth up there so we had this snot nosed zombie vampire walking around...I'll try to get a vid of her walking, it is really hilarious. She kind of looks like a little ape with her chubby belly.

These are mostly instagram pictures since that is all we had time for;

 Here is M at Ivan's mom's in front of the tree....

and passed out with her favorite toy....a cold can of beer.

Apparently we only had time to take pictures of me and Kathryn in wacky glasses at my Mom's.

And just one of M with her uncle Sasha at Ivan's dad's.

Highlights of the holiday include epic amounts of glorious food, a Tripp Trap (thanks Mom!) and Pepper not being eaten by the local coyote that has been attacking dogs in the area. We arrived home safe and sound, but thoroughly exhausted on the 26th evening.  One day to rest up and then off to the country!

From one holiday to another...

I finally got some Halloween pics sent over from my friend Genevieve (mom of Jack). It was pretty dark inside that day so my small camera took really grainy pics.

Here is Maude and Jack, born 2 days apart. Jack is the boy version of Maude and you really have to give him credit for putting up with a curly red wig for as long as he did. Maude is a ghost although it is kind of hard to see her costume in this pic. I have to say it is pretty fun making Halloween costumes for kids, it really is going to make Halloween fun again!

Here's the whole gang; all the babies from the mom group I joined. Probably one of the smartest things I did as a new mom. Thanks ladies for joining me on this adventure that is year one!

Baby meets baby part 2

We went to 2 Christmas parties yesterday where M had a chance to meet even more babies. Unfortunately I spent too much time trying to keep her from crawling into the (lit) fireplace and/or walking down the stairs to take pictures. She met this freaking adorable dude at Seany's party named Toya. He was 16 months, he shared his clementine.

We then hit up the usual "Little Chair" event at Bronwyn and Clint's. There were two new babies there too and I was all excited about getting some more baby meet baby pics, however Ollie slept in the corner all night and by the time Abby arrived the party was too hectic for baby wrangling pictures. Here is a stock phot of the first time M met little O.

She is towering over him here, but I'm sure that will change one day...he was only like a week old. Sweet SLR camera BTW (not mine), super crisp shots.

I did get Kristen to send over the few pics she took of M harassing party guests....

Wish I could go to parties in my jammies....

Thanks again Clint and Bronwyn, good times, good food!

Baby meets baby...

The holiday season is raining terror upon us with the usual hectic party schedule! This is little M's first Christmas and we took her to meet some of my side of the family in Kitchener for the first time. Even more exciting is that she has a little man cousin (almost 2) and little lady cousin (6 months). We have officially entered a new phase of holiday gatherings that involves babies and lots of wrapping paper strewn everywhere!

Sorry this is the only in focus picture I have of us trying to get them all together on a couch. You know how I hate flash photography! P is not into this plan at all, let's face it there are awesome trucks and guitars to play with around here. Little M is wondering what is going on, at this point I think she was just so tired and littler M over there on the left is all smiles! I'll have to get someone to email me pics of this day. Thanks for the hosting Fremmerlids, I will have a meat hangover for a week!

All about Maude...a post for Pepper

Before little M there was another small creature that captured our hearts and our photographs and that was Pepper. I often think as Pepper runs and hides on the bed from M's grabby hands about Bette Davis. Maude is Pepper's Eve, the Nermal to her Garfield if you will.

I'm sure one day they will be the best of friends, but for now I can't help thinking that Pepper misses the good old days when she was the apple of everyone's eye....I mean I still take her on a walk every day and do my best to make sure she is taken care of, but admittedly I have come home from spending the whole day away and noticed that I totally forgot to give her food or water before I left.

Exhibit A) The glory days when you were showered with attention.

Exhibit B) You looking depressed that no one has called you cute in the last 10 minutes.

On the upside, Maude is really crap at getting food in her mouth and you generally end up the big winner in that department.

Christmas cheer + a disaster

Went to the Distillery District's Christmas market today with two of our oldest pals Terry and Cheryl. It was cute and old timey, however some snow really would've hit the spot. We ate delicious maple taffy and some bavarian hot nuts. M was unimpressed with waking up from her nap early and the Merry Go round.

I have to admit, I am seriously in love with Instagram. Who doesn't love making their photos look like they are from the 70's?

After this we came home and Maude promptly murdalized our amazing Aloe plant. To be fair she almost murdalized herself when she pulled the whole thing down from a shelf, I thought it was safe and far enough away, but alas it was not. As happy as I am that she was completely unscathed, I'm so sad about the plant itself. It was actually three aloes in one pot and I nursed it back to health from near death and I was just sitting here the other day thinking about how much I loved it.

There is a picture of it's broken body, so long old friend, thanks for cleaning our air for awhile.

Hulk Smash

Went to the Children's storefront today to meet up with my mom group. This place is an amazing resource for people with children, it is a completely free space you can go and just let your kid roam free and play with all the toys. I am finding out about more and more places you can go with little ones now that the Farmer's markets are mostly closed. M likes to pull all the books off the shelves, randomly bite toys, take apart the mini kitchen and smash the giant train set, leaving a wake of disaster behind her.

Here is some photo evidence; exhibit A) Gnawing on an innocent bystander's head....

Here she contemplates how to make dinner from only a wedge of watermelon and a lemon.

And finally she pulls apart someone's carefully put together railroad track with one fell swoop.

As I was leaving, they were unpacking a brand new Dyson City, never have I drooled over a vacuum so  much as this one. It is small enough to fit on a piece of paper, yet with all the power of the regular Dyson you guys! Sweet Dyson City, may I one day be lucky enough to have you suck up my dirt...

The Duff, Really...

Finally made it out to get our picture with Santa Claus. I debated about whether or not to do it, on the one hand it's traditional and I love looking back at all our vintage pictures with Santa. On the other hand it is kind of commercial and possibly not fun for babies. I wanted to go to the Eaton Centre figuring it was the classic choice (wasn't a Christmas Story filmed there?), but apparently they no longer do photos there, Santa has gone futuristic and now only does Skype visits so we ended up, as usual at the Dufferin Mall (my Santa research had proven that he is a legendary Santa among local malls since he has a real beard).

Little M did not as I expected cry, but kind of sat there staring at everyone with a look of shocked wonder, the middle aged camera elf tried to make her smile by shaking a Mickey Mouse stuffed animal with bells on it at her, not knowing about her extreme aversion (borderline phobia) of Christmas stuffed animals. She did manage to crack a mini smile and we were good to go. Considering the joys of photoshop you think we could've gotten a sharper image with a little less redness everywhere, am I being too critical? I promise to stop being a Christmas picture Scrooge...

Awesome overload

I just realized I said Awesome 3 times in that last post....gotta work on that.

11 months

Yesterday was too grey to do the official 11 month photo. Today wasn't much better, but looks like a grey week so we pushed through. Where are those striking high pressure, super bright winter days of yore? Baby is 11 months old today (yesterday), she is wearing the dress that my grandma R made for Kathryn when she was 2. The first thing I thought when M was born and I saw her was that she looked like my Gramdma. She was an awesome lady and I hope some of that awesomeness has trickled down through the generations.

We also have these awesome booties that Mike brought is back from Mongolia! How lucky we are to have such wonderful talented and generous friends who have gifted us!

Here are some out takes from today's shoot...wondering which one will be the official shot. I like how she is actual rocking in the chair here.

Then we have a look see under the dress, an escape from the chair scene. This last one kills me...she is not in the chair, but her face looks so hilarious here....One more month till you are a toddler baby! Eeeks...is that true? When does toddler hood start? She is toddling around already...

Here comes santa claus...

So I noticed that even the lame-os in Liberty Village have more christmas spirit than we do. Now I love christmas as much as the next guy, but his year it really came on fast, not to mention that our silver tree is way at the back of the storage locker and I can't bear to go in it for at least another month. Maude made her own x-mas spirit tonight in the bath.....thanks baby!