Summer Weekends

It's basically summer although not technically. After May 2-4 is pretty much where it starts to feel summer-like and with every day being 30 degrees, it definitely feels like summer.

We have been slowly making outdoors time our regular routine.

Cutting the lawn is pretty unavoidable, especially with those dandelions. We (Aleksy) have now re-sodded our backyard grass so there's less weeds but before that, it was sometimes a twice weekly job. Logan likes it though. Following right behind with his little lawn mower. He loves helping the most and doing "work".

And Logan's little purple pool has made it's reappearance! As you can see, Logan was very happy to have his ol' trusty pool back in use.

But he likes it even more when he's splashing us! As a result of this excited splashing, I got a heel injury when backing up away from the pool from the splashing and forgetting that stone fire pit was there.

Logan started soccer this past weekend. Well kind of. Logan got his shirt, grabbed a ball and kicked it in the net a couple times and then was done (that was a total of about 3 minutes). He definitely didn't want on the field when they had the little game at the end and even declined the orange snack. We'll see hat he does day 2.

That's what my kid looks like playing soccer!

After soccer, we headed downtown to Victoria Park to get some lunch poutine from poutinefest! I was so excited to try this holiday poutine complete with stuffing, turkey and cranberry sauce. It was as awesome as it sounds.

Sweet potato fries for goober (so he can eat all 3 of the ones he did), cheeseburger pickle poutine for Aleksy and holiday for me!

 And while Aleksy was building Logan's new playground, I distracted Logan with a little visit to the park in Arva. Lots of park visits always!

Only a full day and then some to assemble (he still has the kitchen part of the playhouse to do). Good thing Logan is always available for help (or just to take out all the wrenches from there spots and try to put them back in their slots).

May 2-4 Cottaging

We booked the best cottage we possibly could have for sharing with 7 kids total and 3 couples. The most kid-friendly friendly cottage and close to the beach and the ice cream stand in Ipperwash!

 We all got there on Friday night at different times and the first thing you see when you get there is the big trampoline, a playground, and a jungle gym. Logan got out of the car and immediately started playing with his friends.

We had lasagna for supper complete with garlic bread and caesar salad and then had a mini birthday celebration for Steph whose birthday was the Saturday before!

And glow sticks! The glow stick game quickly became throw your glow stick and then go get it, which meant they were flying everywhere. But the kids were happy!

After a long first night of fun, the kids got to bed at 10pm. I think that's the latest Logan has ever stayed up...  Too much excitement.

Logan wasn't the first one up in this cottage! His friends are also early risers, so 6-7am wake ups are totally normal.

They all played in the big toy room in the living room in the mornings until everyone joined.

For meals, we all split bringing a lunch, supper and breakfast. While Steph and I were aiming for easy, we were very happy that Chelsea and Warren were up for cooking bacon, sausages and eggs for all 13 of us. They cooked it for us on Saturday morning Even Logan ate a couple sausages. That was probably his biggest meal of the weekend because he did not want to eat at all there... too much playing to do.

Our room. We were the only room in the basement and the others were all on the upper level. It was nice because Logan was away from the other kids crying or waking up in the night (the other kids are used to that because of their siblings but Logan definitely isnt) but it was really cold down there and right outside the little window was the playground (which only mattered for nap time).

Logan is so big for his playpen now, we have to find an alternative for him for travel sleeping! 

Saturday firstly was cloudy and we weren't sure it would be warm, but it ended up being a great day to walk to the beach! We all headed down just before lunch and with 5 kids and 5 adults (Chels stayed back with the twins and they all napped) and my fitbit said it took us 20 minutes to get there. Not bad for 5 distracted kids!

Me 32 weeks and Steph 35 weeks! Hopefully she goes first and my baby girl stays in there until July.

The cottage even came with sand/outside toys so we brought them along! It was a perfect day because the wind was slow and the water was still. The kids played for about 2 hours getting water and bringing it back to play in the sand.

No bathing suits... just one wet and sandy boy.

After we got back to the cottage, had some lunch and naps, the water balloon fight started. The kids had the best time ever with this. Good thing there were hundreds. Hundreds of water balloons can easily go in a few minutes with this crew.

Some were really excited, and others (the twins) thought it was horrible!

Logan is happy as can be as long as he is getting someone (usually me). Just like Florida when he wanted to get us with his water sprayer.

That night was the best night where the kiddos all went to bed at a reasonable 830pm time and we stayed up playing scattergories where the ladies kicked the guys butts. Plus, even with staying up for a few hours after the kids, we still got to bed at a reasonable 1am!

Sunday was a colder, rainier day so we spent some time inside. There was tons to do so we got more out of the cottage this way anyways. There was a foosball table, air hockey table and football game downstairs, a full projector theatre and another playroom/games room for the kids.

This was the little room beside our tat had puzzles, books, and lots of board games for the adults too. Crowd pleaser: Hungry Hungry hippos.

This is the play area on the main floor where the kids entertained themselves in the mornings and on the Sunday since it wasn't the best outside. There were so many toys and our  kids did a pretty good job getting them all out and scattering them across the floor!

We still found some time to play outside since it was mostly clear for the rain. This was the day that Logan refused to nap and we ended up going for a little car ride to get him to get some sleep (with a little Tims run to Forest).

We did get in a trip to the ice cream store this day though! We also bought more milk because the 9L that we brought to the cottage was clearly not enough.

We thought it'd be a good idea to get a fire going on the Sunday since we had stuff for smores and spidey dogs. Logan refused to stay outside and didn't partake in the fire because he was a cranky crankster after his nap and only wanted to play trains. I snuck outside to get a smore, but the general consensus was that it was a lot of work to keep all the kids safe and away from the fire (you can see the chalk line which was the barrier... and you can also see 3 kids totally in that chalk line!)

After the kids had baths and put their jammies on, Steph remembered that they and brought sparklers for the kids, so they went out in their jammies!

And only 1 injury. Colton pinched his fingers around the hot stick just to check if it was hot (it was).

Then the kiddos had movie night in the theatre downstairs. The biggest Paw Patrol screen they could dream of. And cheesies to make for a complete experience. Logan was in his happy place.

That was our last night and it was a rough one for some of the kiddos. Colton had a hard time falling asleep because of his burn and Mason basically didn't sleep the whole night. Plus the Wii wouldn't work for the men after they spent a good dollar on batteries for it.

Our cottage. We are going back here for sure. This time we'll just bring our 9 kids.

Mother's Day Weekend

We finally had our first backyard fire in our new pit!

I've been looking forward to these smores for a long time! It's a little tricky for Logan's little 2 year old arms to reach the fire with the marshmallows so we may need some longer pokers.

Logan took all of 1/2 a bite of his then was done. Typical. Me I could have eaten 10 but limited myself to 2 plus a ton of marshmallows that don't count if you just eat a few out of the bag.

And spidey dogs. Logan refuses to eat hot dogs when we've offered but these he liked. Trying to make sense of what he likes and doesn't is entirely impossible.

When Logan said the smoke was getting into his eyes, the solution was simple. Safety goggles. So versatile.... toy, costume, protective wear.

Mothers day morning, opening my awesome presents at 7am! I asked Logan on Friday when he got home from daycare if he made me something (because I'm like that) and he said "a BIG, BEAUTIFUL flower!". And it was exactly what he made me. I love this stage and I dont ever want him to get older. BIG BEAUTIFUL flowers every Mothers day please.

With the help of Aleksy, Logan also picked me out a pretty pearl necklace (to match my pearl bracelet).

Mothers day morning, we headed for a day trip to Bayfield. It was a little chilly in the morning but walking around made it better. Cupcakes help too. Logan just licked his icing off....

This flamingo bakery in Bayfield is our go-to!

Showing Logan the sunken ship, which Logan insisted needed to be "rescued!".

Boats don't go into the water until later I guess in Bayfield. There were 1 maybe 2 sailboats in the water. And the other boats were all rescue boats because Logan told us so.

My child... declines his timbits, doesn't want his cupcake (icing only), but somehow devours half a meat stick.

Also, they apparently sell meat sticks at the little boutique coffee shop in Bayfield.. random.

One more stop at the park before we head back to London for afternoon treats with Mom. And a pit stop at the Foodland for some lunch foods because Logan was for sure going to fall asleep on the way home!

And we spent our afternoon with some (surprisingly really yummy) gluten free treats and coffee and Mom, Steph, Jon and Rachel. A perfect opportunity to take advantage of our new patio set and patio!

And of course because we pile everything into a day, we finished the day at Lorraine and Richards with a BBQ and Logan having an overnight because his daycare is closed this week and we've all split up Logan days!

The first week of May!

Since we've been back, it's been awesome summer-like weather. There's so much more to do when it's nice outside and all of a sudden the evenings are so short!

Such nice weather, that it was necessary to visit our favoruite ice cream stand! Logan had broadened his horizons from vanilla last year and got vanilla with strawberry sauce and sprinkles! And the ice cream place got more seating and another gazebo too.

As Logan would say... the park's open! Most of our evenings include a walk to the park (Logan's park) before or after supper. This is how the evenings fly by!

And Logan's newest skill is his new balance bike. He's learning so quickly how to balance and stride with it and I think it'll really help him catch on to a 2-wheeler quickly!

This was the first thing we went out and got the day after we got back from Florida.

I had the week after we got back from Florida off too and though Logan still attended daycare most of the days, the daycare was closed on Friday because Justine was at a wedding. So Logan and I went togtether to the new family centre in the school across from our house. He had been there before with the daycare so the staff recognized him and he remembered this activity (tongs and blocks) and when it wasn't set up, he asked where the tongs were and the staff set it up at Logan's request! It's a pretty great centre there and I see lots of visits there when I'm on mat leave.

Right across from our house, they've put in pathways between the trees so we can have nature walks right in our (new!) subdivision! It's supposed to be a 5km loop around the subdivision, which is pretty awesome. Logan agrees so he can find all the sticks and pine cones.

This was also the day of the crazy windstorm that came out of no where. We left for playgroup at 9:20am and there was no wind, when we left at 11:30am it was really windy and then when Logan was napping in the afternoon, the wind got so crazy it blew over the bbq (out bbq is big!) and our shingles.

And Saturday was a big day that Aleksy had Al come over to help us finish our back patio with our steps and fire pit. So Steph and I had a play date while they worked. We took up the whole swing set.

These 4 cuties coming home from the park. We packed some snacks to keep them going for a while to stay at the park while Aleksy and Al worked and apparently all kids are crazy about blackberries and not just my weirdo kid (despite the seeds that I can't do).

Garage picnics for lunch time!

After our morning play date with Colton, Chase and Raeleigh at our place, we had more play date plans with the L boys in the afternoon. We left home around 1:30 and just as I pulled up to Jenny's place, Logan fell asleep. I was going to try to skip the nap but then decided to grab a coffee and take a 30 minute drive to let him sleep a bit.

These 3 are all L's and all within 3 months of each others birthdays. They've been hanging out since infanthood.

And after our play date at Jenny's, we magically came home to our awesome new stairs!

And fire pit. We've yet to try it out and this weekend we have big plans for fire, smores and spidey dogs. We just need this warm weather to stay.

And Sunday, we went to a breakfast at the fire hall in Dorchester where Chels and Warren just moved to and Logan and his friends got to ride in fire trucks.

After waiting in the craziest at least 30 minute line for breakfast, we got our food! All the best breakfast foods served by the volunteer firefighters. It was a huge turnout so the fire station did well with their fundraising.

Then after breakfast we got to see Chelsea and Warrens amazing new huge dorchester house. It has the best yard and is all renovated inside but.... has a huge location problem. We can't get there in under 30 minutes if we tried! No more 5 minute down the road friends... Logan didn't seem to mind though because their backyard is pretty much a park!