February Adventuring

Although I have felt very unspectacularly unbusy this month, we still have had some good adventures this month.

We made a group date plan with 3 fam groups of our friends to try out the new play centre at Fleetway. Because children are little germ magnets, the Osbornes couldnt make it but Chels and War and kids were in and Emily and James and kids were in.

It was amazing and really big. I was a little timid to leave Logan to fend for himself in the massive playground, but he fended for himself really well and wasn't afraid at all. There were several points where I couldn't even keep up to him to go through the playground with him!

And for the grown people, the best part: pizza. Deep dish to be precise. My filled with pizza face here exactly represents how happy my pregnant self was to devour this goodness. I like this deep dish more than the one we had in Chicago (although it may be the magical deepfryer...). Logan ate about 3 bites of the $9 mac and cheese we specially bought him because we knew he wouldn't eat the pizza then he ran away to play because he firmly believes eating is a waste when you can be playing.

Making Valentines with Logan is awesome. It brings back all my childhood memories of giving and collecting Valentines! I was prepared well in advance with Peppa Valentines (obviously), some festive straws for his friends and a special gift for the best daycare provider ever.

He actually did better with customizing his Valentines last year. This year, he only coloured on the Valentine for Justine and refused to do anything for the other cards. He prefers to call the shots.

Logan all ready Valentines morning with his present for Justine and his friends and suspenders and a coloured shirt for good measure.

He really needed to see the picture I was taking here... before I took it.

The lovely face I get when I ask him to stand to pose for a picture. But that face!

The snow is now melted, but last week there was heaps of the stuff! Enough so that this friend was built in the backyard by Logan and Aleksy (I came outside to take this picture... it's too cold when it's winter). He was very excited about sticking the sticks and rocks in t he snowman.

















The next morning:

And family day weekend we had an impromptu visit by these 2 little guys. Add a Logan to the mix and they're basically triplets. They played so well together at our place while Chels and War prepared their house for pictures to go on the market and all the while 20 timbits were consumed (and I swear I only had a couple).

On Saturday of the family ya weekend, Brooklyn and I went out for lunch (tried out the Zoup place!) and then on a shopping adventure at White Oaks mall. While walking through the mall, we were given one of these cards each! Random acts of kindness day and a free drink at starbucks!

Only one day after knowing baby in the tummy is a girl and I couldn't even help myself at the mall. Can't wait to dress her in sweet little girl clothes!

Sunday, we day tripped out to Cambridge to visit the butterfly conservatory. Logan always points out the butterflies in his books and we thought he'd love to see a whole greenhouse filled with them!

As you can see, he was really excited when we first got there with the butterflies fluttering around.

But then this happened: game changer. The butterfly landed on him and it freaked him right out. From that moment on he was looking to avoid the areas where the butterflies were gathering and wanted no part of them coming near him.

They also had an insect "petting zoo" for the family day weekend, and Logan wasn't really feeling those bugs either. He wouldn't touch them. Honestly, I get it...

Butterflies landing on everyone... Aleksys head and all.

The waterfall: one aspect of the butterfly conservatory that Logan was really into!

We went through the place twice and both times were pretty quick so our morning with butterflies was actually about an hour and a half!

So with having extra time since we left around noon, we headed to a diner nearby for some brunch. Logan's current obsession: pancakes!!

Pink Pink Pink!

I had my 20 week anatomy ultrasound on Valentines Day. At the ultrasound place, they told me they'd send an email within 2 days. Then they didn't send anything (still nothing!). So thank goodness I happened to have a midwife appointment on Friday. She had already received the details from the ultrasound and wrote it down on a piece of paper that I brought in to Party City and asked them to fill the box with the coordinated coloured balloons.

On Friday evening, the box sat there filled with balloons and I was dying to open it but waited until Chels and Warren got to our place because they were taking our picture. We opened it as soon as they got to our place around 7!

It's a girl this time! I had a feeling this time that this one was different because of the differences in the pregnancy and also once I saw the ultrasound picture on Wednesday and her head and features seemed more delicate.

Hope she likes trucks because we have A LOT of them!

Cabin Weekend Away!

This past weekend (the first weekend of February), we booked a cabin up near Collingwood for a weekend getaway. We booked the cabin through airbnb and this time we kept it closer than our 4 hour drive to Huntsville for out anniversary. This was the last weekend probably in a very long time that it was just Aleksy and I with baby coming in a few months!

We left Friday after work and after dropping Logan off at his Nana and Dziadeks, we got there before 9pm. The inside was cabiny but modern at the same time. And importantly there was a nice functional shower and the washroom was quite separate from the rest of the place.

Right beside the cabin was a really fast moving river and it was so wintery out the windows. But that fire kep the place really warm for us!

There was also a full kitchen so we were equipped with everything we needed to make food. When we got there Friday evening, we had brought some M&M appetizers long and threw those in the oven, which was super handy (as opposed to a hotel where youre lucky if you have a microwave) and then Saturday evening, we planned to cook supper.

This was the river running beside the cabin. It snowed all weekend, so it was all pretty with the fresh snow. Although it was located in a secluded area, the little "town" it was located in did have a few houses nearby and right next door there was a large mill, so it wasn't exactly remote. But we were either inside or in Collingwood or hiking so it didn't both us any!

Please note how perfectly cabinly this place looks.

Saturday morning, we headed into Collingwood and started off by getting some breakfast at Duncans. Aleksy has been on streak lately at winning with his choice of food at restaurants and his mexican breakfast burrito thing was way better than mine (although my home fries were seriously delicious). I had some tea because I still cant seem to really drink coffee with my pregnancy.

After breakfast, we went walking around town and first found a cheese shop where we got a few different kinds of cheeses & some marmalade and then followed it up with this place - an Olive oil store where they gave us a tour, samplings of different oils and balsamics and showed us how to mix them, proportions of mixing for bread dipping vs salad dressing and gave tips on picking our oil and balsamic (and told us the differences between those and the ones at the stores where they often sneak in other oils and call it 100% olive oil).

I had no idea there was so much to olive oils and balsamics and also didnt know balsamics came from grapes.

We got a bunch of different smaller sized oil and balsamics.

After our adventures getting food in Collingwood, we headed to Nottawasaga bluffs for a hike. We werent sure we were going to make it because the direct road that goes there was closed, but we found the long way around.

It was a good hour and a half to 2 hour hike and we were the only ones there that werent either cross country skiing or snowshoeing. It was such a workout (especially when pregnant) and I had to go impressively slow to keep my heart rate at a normal pace.

It was very snowy and pretty but we did have a few moments where we had no idea how long we were from the end and hoped it wasn't an additional 2 hours.

We got back to the cabin before 5pm and got out cheese, oil & balsamic and bread out for appetizers and started working on a puzzle. I dont know if I've ever in my life done a puzzle and I had no idea how much it sucks you in. I couldn't stop and with every little piece I found a home for, it got harder to remove myself from it!

For the occasion, I bought some dealcoholized wine I didnt want to miss out on the wonderfulness of having red wine by a fire. I am not fully comfortable with these dealcoholized wines and beers, so I only had a glass and a half just in case there was any alcohol left in there (I know im crazy, but it feels weird when its this close to booze!).

And it paired perfectly with the supper we made too.

We had grabbed this pasta from the oil shop too and then got the rest of the stuff from Loblaws and made a chicken pasta with mushrooms and tomatoes with the olive oil we bought and parm.

Then puzzled for the remainder evening even though we had brought a variety of board game to play!

The Sunday morning, we continued to work on our puzzle while having our coffee/tea and marmalade like true 80 year olds do before out check out at 11am.

This was all we got done with probably 3-4 hours of total puzzling time!

And got back to our Logan after his nap time around 3.