Diaper Party

The weekend just before Logan was born, Aleksy hosted a diaper party at our place. It was on Saturday September 12th. You know... just in the nick of time for Logan's arrival. It was a man only party, so I went over to my sisters and hung out for the afternoon/evening with my Mom and sister. Aleksy and I prepared for the day with preparing pork skewers, chicken burgers, and I made a massive potato salad. Aleksy's Mom helped with a caesar salad. Aleksy also got about 4 cases of beer for the occasion. We had about 12-14 guys come over: family and friends, so I was a little anxious about the cost vs. profit since it costs a lot to provide beer and food! But our family and friends were so generous that we definitely benefited from the party... everyone bought the large boxes of diapers, some brought more than one, we got wipes plus my brother got us a $100 gift card! So much preparedness for Logan.

This was the massive mountain of diapers that I arrived to when I got home Saturday night around 10:30pm. Since the party had started at 3pm, I figured maybe about half the men would have left by the time that I got home. Nope... everyone was still over and everyone was feeling pretty good. All the beer had depleted and Aleksy's Dad also brought over a Texas mickey of vodka which had a few inches off it. I broke up the party and over the next hour and a half everyone went home (so my pregnant self could get some sleep!)


The great part about the diapers was that we got a variety of sizes from 1-6! Everyone seemed to be on the pampers bandwagon, and Al & Steph were the Huggies box (just the one!). We are super prepared for many diaper changes!

Our Little Guy Has Arrived!

We are now parents!! To this adorable boy:

Our Logan was born on September 16, 2015 at exactly 37 weeks! He was born at 11:24pm at 7 lbs. He must have known that we were ready because I had just gone in to work on Monday the 14th and packed up my desk to be finished and my water broke the very next day; Tuesday the 15th! Good thing I am uber prepared and everything for him was ready! I had planned on having a few weeks off work to nest... 

 This is me the evening before my water broke (Monday the 14th). I was feeling pretty good after doing a 45 minute body sculpt class plus 15 minutes on the elliptical. I suppose I didn't exactly "take it easy", which I wonder may have contributed to my water breaking?

But this is the last picture I took while pregnant! I didn't get maternity pictures taken in time since I still had 3 weeks to my due date and I thought I would have my friend chelsea take some pictures when I was off work... but then Logan had his own plan! But I did take biweekly bump pictures throughout the pregnancy and some good shower pictures so those will be my moments of my Logan pregnancy.

And we finished his room completely about a week before Logan was born! The last couple pieces that needed to come together were the curtains (that came in the mail just in time), and the shelves that Aleksy made that are under the window!

We left the hospital on Friday the 18th and Logan had some visitors both at the hospital and at home. Logan has already met his Nana and Dziadek, Grandpa, Lisa, Grandma, Uncle Al, Aunt Steph, Aunt Sam, Uncle Travis, Aunt Steph, Uncle Kenny, cousin Rachel and cousin Brandon, Uncle Andrew, Aunt Andzelika, Uncle Paul, friends Serena and Natalia, Uncle Warren and Aunt Chelsea and friend Cadence! Yup... he's only 6 days old but has a lot of people who love him and needed to met him immediately!

We've had a lot of home time since Logan has arrived! Hes already had a couple baths, gone out for a couple walks and the rest of the time we're chilling inside cuddling, eating, peeing and pooping (and visiting with visitors). Tomorrow will be his first outing to see the Doctor for his 1 week check up! 

Happy Anniversary: 10 year & 1 year

The weekend of August 29/30, we celebrated our anniversary: August 28th was 10 years together and August 30th was our 1 year wedding anniversary. Aleksy planned the weekend as a surprise weekend away: I knew nothing. Didn't know where we were going or what we were doing. I wasn't sure exactly when the moment was when we were driving that he should tell me, but it ended up when we got to Toronto, he told me we were staying downtown and that weekend was buskerfest and we also had tickets to a comedy show on the Saturday. Everything was planed and paid for by Aleksy... and I got him some nice bourbon as a gift... even trade off right?

We left on Saturday morning around 10am and for to the hotel around 12:30pm. It was packed in the lobby when we got there... the Chelsea Hotel. There were people all dressed up for weddings that were at the hotel and then lots of people that just seemed like tourists... like us.

This picture is from our hotel balcony... I think the only hotel we've stayed at with a balcony!

On Saturday, one we checked into our hotel, we headed out to the buskerfest which was on Young St. right behind our hotel. There were a bunch of guys like this guy performing for everyone. And also other buskers that were doing things like sidewalk art. It was hard to see a lot of the buskering because there were sooooo many people that would gather around, but when we got a good spot, it was pretty sweet. Our first stop when we got to buskerfest: lunch! Surprise! The pregnant lady really needed some lunch. But it seemed like when you are looking for awesome lunch food, its hard to find but when you're not looking, it's EVERYWHERE. We ended up settling for a gyro and Aleksy has Montreal smoked sandwich (we saw all the awesome fish taco and other kiosks later).

This was on Young at the buskerfest. As you can see in the picture, there were approximately a million people on the streets. And lots of booths along the sides selling things (food, clothes, and other random things) and the occasional buskerer...

And the Toronto sign from the Pan Am games! As well as walking down Young St. to the busketfest, we went by the Eaton Centre and to Queen St. for a little shopping... It all made good sense because we were heading closer to our final destination of the day: Second City where the comedy show was... but... I was dying of walking. Aleksy's phone said we walked 16km that day and carrying around a baby (I was 34 and a half weeks!) all day forced me to need sitting breaks! When we were on Queen St. and realizing it was only 5pm, we called to switch our 10pm time to a 7pm show, which worked better because we were still full from lunch but had a lot of time to kill. Lucky us they still had space for the 7pm!

To get good seats, we checked in early at Second City. The show was actually at 7:30 but we got there for 6:45pm and good thing we did because we got a nice private table for 2 that was not right beside the stage.

One of the best parts of the Second City was that they had pregnant friendly drinks... I even had options: a whole list of them! This one was a "smartini" with pineapple, cranberry and lime juice... made me feel like it was an adult drink unlike pop. We also had some sweet potato fries to tie us over until after the show.

And the show was hilarious. It was improv so a lot of it was made up right on the spot, and the scenes were pre-established. There were about 4 comedians that did the whole show and it was definitely a show worth seeing... different from the stand up comedy that we've gone to at Yuk Yuks.
After the show was over, we decided to grab some late night (yes... late night is 9:30pm for us now) pizza... and churros... and head in to the hotel for the night. We cabbed it back to the hotel because walking for the day was over.

Us at out hotel the next morning :)

The night that we stayed there, the fire alarm went off at 1:30am. It was sooo loud and disruptive. The PA announced that everyone on the first 2 levels was evacuating and everyone else was to stay in their rooms... a little anxiety provoking. It sucked... but I was thinking how much ore it would have sucked with a baby or children with us (there were lots of families at the hotel!).

Although we saw some buskering on the Saturday, we returned Sunday because we thought we could get more out of buskerfest! After grabbing a bagel ad eta at the Panera bread, we saw a few more performances (like a man who was a pro yo-yo er). We also saw these amazing dinosaurs just walkig down the street. We saw them preparing to go out earlier int he day and got this picture from inside the urban outfitters when we stopped for a little AC break.

We also took a little tour of Kensington market on Sunday. I wish we could eat more because the food looked so good at Kensington market. Lots of street vendors with tons of different ethnic foods. We were holding out because the next stop was chinatown and we really wanted dim sum.

Oh and a band playing on top of the store...
<----------------------

We drove and parked in chinatown to avoid more walking than necessary. Plus, parking in chinatown is the cheapest. We tried to explore the stores to get some good knock off stuff for baby Darnell, but really couldn't find anything.

But we did find a pastry shop... my favourite! We left Toronto with about 4 buns of goodness.... Conveniently, the pastry shop was right beside the dim sum restaurant we went to.

People love their dim sum on weekends in Toronto. There was actually a line to get in. But we decided that we didn't want to wait in the line, and agreed to eat at a "shared table". So, you can see here that there were another 8 or so seats that other people could have been seated next to us, but we had it to ourselves most of the time. You know... keeping it romantic on our anniversary.


We headed back to London just shortly after dim sum and buying our pastries. Wanted to make it back to get some groceries for the work week. It was a pretty sweet anniversary weekend!

Baby C's Shower #2!

On August 23rd, baby C was showered again with gifts from family! This time around, Aleksys Mom and Aunt threw the shower for baby at the Lambeth lawn bowling centre with Aleksy's side of the family (along with my sister and Mom!). It was the same spot as my bridal shower and is really a great shower spot with lots of space, a kitchen with fridge and oven for food prep and the big windows show the bowling green! After this shower, we are so set for baby. We just spent our babies r us gift cards on the last few items and we now have everything we need for baby! Except diapers... but the (man) diaper party is coming up Sept 12!

I got a couple uses out of this dress during my pregnancy! It's not a maternity dress but still fits me appropriately in the front with the big ol' belly! I wore it to Aleksy's aunts wedding in Rhode Island back in June and it was still good for my August 23rd shower... I'm not gonna lie, I'm really looking forward to fitting into normal clothes again.

This was taken in the backyard just before leaving for the 1pm shower!

My Mom and Aleksy's Gran at the shower. You can see in this picture the rubber ducky centre pieces and truffles which were on all the tables. You can also see my special rubber ducky necklace that Aleksy's Mom and Aunt brought for me to wear! This way, when I gave hugs, we squeaked.

Baby bingo! In this little bag was a lot of Hersheys kisses, which were used as bingo markers and also for everyone to take home! And the little rubber ducky pictures were on each bag and they were all different pictures a draw was done later at the shower for a prize for the person who had the rubber ducky drawn.


















And the food!!! The food was delish with sandwiches and roll ups, quinoa salad, BLT potato salad, mini quiche, veggies, fruit, mousse (chocolate banana which was amazing!), my most favourite peanut butter brownie squares, and cheesecake! We took home some cheesecake, PB squares and they are long gone now. Although I haven't had any cravings this pregnancy, I have been treating myself and baby to extra treats!

Me and my sister! My sister and Mom came to both showers. Steph ran the Bingo game and helped me to write what gifts were given to me on the cards... such a huge help!

After both showers, we have all the things we need for baby: car seat, stroller, playpen, clothes, blankets, our baby bjorn, playmat & exersaucer, baby bath tub, the vibrating chair, and so much more. Feeling so good about baby coming!

We are so lucky to have had so much help from our family and friends!

Yoga Time!

For the past couple months I have been squeezing in a yoga session once a week into my routine. I am usually not a huge yogi but I have been informed that the stretching is really good for pregnancy and is good prep for labour so I am trying to keep up with it so my joints don't get rusty.

The reason I am not a huge yogi is because I am more of a gym girl and I feel like I missed a work out when I do yoga instead of something that makes me sweat and challenges my body. But because I don't go to the gym every day (I go usually about 3 times a week), it gives me something active to do on a no-gym day. Even at 33 weeks, I can still d lots of of my gym classes... this week I did boot camp and my step class. Just some modifications for abs and the laying down exercises. The big change at the gym is I can definitely no longer run on the treadmill... it feels like I have bricks in the lower region of my tummy when I try. But it feels good to keep working out even if there's lots of differences from what I used to be able to do!

I did an 8 week session through re birth centre last time around, which I liked because there was 15 minutes before each class where someone came to talk to the class about a topic (like birth photography, tree of life, placenta pills, and also some things that apply to me like keeping things positive instead of stressing over crazy labour stories). But re birth was a bit pricey at $120 for 8 sessions. I was going to sign up for it again, but Chels suggested I go to yoga shack, which I went to today for the first time. And I'm glad I did because I got 40 days for $40... way more reasonable than re birth! And now I have unlimited yoga to take me until baby comes (only 46 days until my due date)!

Baby C's Shower #1!

Sunday August 9th was baby C's shower with my side of the family and close friends! My sister, Steph organized the whole thing from the sailboat/nautical theme to the decorations to the food (with a little help from my awesome friends for the food!). It's a weird feeling having a shower thrown for you. It feels a little something like "come hang out for a couple hours and don't forget your present": makes me feel a bit uncomfortable. But I have really amazing family and friends and almost everyone was able to make it despite summer busyness (with the exception of some of my social work friends who live in the GTA and some work friends) and everyone was way too kind with their gifts for baby C. He got seriously spoiled and I am feeling so prepared for baby! Plus, Aleksy's Mom and Aunt are throwing another shower later this month with Aleksy's side of the family, which will make me feel even more prepared... Baby doesn't even know how lucky he is yet to get to meet all the awesome people we know!

I bought this pink dress end of May/early June as a potential dress for Aleksy's Aunt's wedding. I bought 2 dresses because these days, I am never sure what is going to fit me and what isn't. Lucky for me this dress still fit for my August shower! But seriously, just barely. I think if I tried it on this weekend, I would find that it no longer fits because everything gets so short in the front (because its non-maternity... maternity clothes can be pretty frumpy).

Aleksy took this picture before the shower!

The shower was to start at 1pm so I showed up a bit early around 1230 in case of early guests. Actually, most people come to showers a bit late... everyone seemed to arrive at once between 1:10-1:20pm.

Before everyone arrived, I took a picture with the cute nautical decorations and my sister (who also decorated herself nautically with navy and white and striped shoes!). The banner behind us says "It's a Boy" with some sailboats and anchors and you can see the sailboat on the dining room table behind us. This sailboat was for us to keep and will go in baby's room!

There was so much awesome food and desserts prepped for the shower. My sister bought enough appetizers and finger foods to feed an army, my friends helped with fruit & veggie trays and Chels made pinwheels (which are my speciality and Steph thought Chels had made them for my parties!). And of course, Tabi being as awesome as she is made these watercolour nautical shortbread cookies that say "Baby Chwiecko"

But Tabi doesn't mess around when she bakes... she goes big! So I also had chocolate and vanilla cake pops (with the sailboats on top), red velvet cupcakes (my fave), and chocolate and regular shortbread shaped into nautical shapes.

I took what was left of these home and they are long gone... baby wanted them!

Aleksy, me and baby C got so many thoughtful gifts from everyone. And everyone got us such practical gifts! We now have lots of clothes for baby (before the shower we only had a few onesies) in lots of sizes, our car seat & stroller and highchair! Plus we got lots from our registry so what we have to buy for baby before his born is next to nothing now... thank goodness because baby stuff adds up so quickly!

This is my aunt and my cousin displaying the little ice cube baby that was for one of the games. The first person to free the baby from the ice cube was the winner! I now have a lot of little babies because I thought they were fun and took them home! I really enjoyed hearing Kenny talk about going to the store to buy these babies and that 4 other people had bought little plastic babies that same day!

We also played the game where everyone had to write as many boy names with every letter of the alphabet within a minute, and a game where everyone had to guess how big my tummy was with a piece of string (Annette got it almost exactly!).

The delicious DQ ice cream cake! The top says " Ahoy, it's a boy!" with a blue sailboat! There was no shortage of dessert...

Tabi also made these amazing favours for everyone: shortbread cookies with a paint your own sailboat.. you just dip the paintbrush in water and use the colours on the chocolate shortbread piece to paint! And its all edible. I don't know how she comes up with these things...

Aleksy and I are super excited about baby's new wheels! My Dad and his girlfriend were way too generous to get us our stroller, the Citi Mini GT! Baby's gonna be rolling in style and it's super lightweight, folds the easiest and turns into a jogger (you just lock the front wheel!). Feeling so prepped for baby! 

Civic Holiday Weekend

We had a packed weekend for the civic holiday long weekend with lots of summery plans.

On Friday night, we headed to the ribfest in Victoria Park. We didn't go to ribfest last year (or any festival in Vic park), so we wanted to make it to at least one this year and ribfest is usually a good one to hit! We were meeting Chels and Warren there and because they were running a bit behind us and we were hungry, we got some meat skewer starters before our rib suppers from the philippine bbq! So delish... we know our filipino friends make the best bbq, so...

Choosing a rib place is the hardest. There was a man who randomly came up to us to explain that all the ribs came from the same place and the difference was in the sauces. We picked our place based on the combos and the fact that the Silver Bullet had corn bread (we really like our corn bread). I had ribs and pulled pork and Aleksy wanted a bit of all the meats and had ribs, pulled pork, and chicken. We shared the corn bread, beans and coleslaw. I learned my lesson this year that I really cant eat a full dinner to myself and we'd be better off to share and save $20! It cost us about $45 for everything and we had meat to bring home!

One of the best kiosks at the ribfest was the sweet baby rays one. Free stuff is always the best and they had a wheel where you could spin to win either full bottles of sweet baby rays or little sample cups. I initially won a bottle by spinning the wheel, then at the end of the night when they were shutting down, they were getting rid of all the full bottles so we both scored 2 bottles each!!

On Saturday, Aleksy and I were bound and determined to have a beach day. We didn't go to the beach at all last year with the exception of our separate bachelor/bachelorette parties so we couldn't miss this year! We packed up our picnic lunch and headed to Ipperwash on Saturday... we got there around 1pm and had a couple hours of good, sunny beach time.

We noticed that Ipperwash beach sand space was a lot less than the last time we were there (I think that was 2 years ago!). The tide left minimal space for sand and you can see that that left us really close to the people beside us.

Beach sandwiches always are tastier than home sandwiches! This is Aleksy having his mea sandwich while I stuck with good ol PB and J because I am supposed to avoid cold cuts and I already had cold cuts twice in the week!

<--- pregnant beaching... my tummy's so big! Only 2 months to go!


After a couple hours of sitting on the beach and awkwardly tying to lay on the beach (which I gave up on and decided pregnant ladies are only meant to sit at the beach), we got a couple pregnant beach pictures in, then it became super windy and rainy. The sunny weather only lasted about 2 hours. We tried to hold off but when I got the goosebumps, it was no longer enjoyable and it was time to leave... and go for ice cream! We went right over to our regular ice cream spot at Ipperwash then headed home and had BBQ for supper and watched a movie (it was the True Story movie with Jonah Hill and James Franco).

On Sunday, we headed to Stoney Creek for an overnight date with our friends at their new place! Their backyard set up is amazing for a summer night. We spent Sunday evening in the backyard having BBQ for supper and a campfire (with smores... needless to say). This is the hammock in the backyard, which the girls were swinging on.

Cadence loves hanging out with the big girls, Serena and Natalia!

Our plan for Monday was to go out on a day adventure to either the reptile zoo in Hamilton or the African Lion Safari. We chose the Reptile zoo because it was a bit cloudy that morning and because of the savings! Andzelika had 2 for 1 admission coupons for everyone, which meant we only paid $14 with taxes to get in.

It was definitely worth while. First, we went around and looked at all the snakes, geckos, and other reptiles around the zoo. They also have an alligator and a crocodile. Then we went to a show where this lady took out a few of the reptiles, told us about them and let us touch them!

Here's Serena, Natalia, Cadence, and Chels touching one of the reptiles (I don't remember what he was... but I remember his name was Freud).

Everyone sitting round during the show... except Warren and Cadence who were taking a break because a 1 years old's attention span is not too long.... plus it was super sweaty hot inside the reptile zoo!

Contrary to me, Aleksy was more apprehensive to touch the snakes and reptiles. In real life, I scream and run really fast from gardener snakes that are on our lawn (this indeed happened last week), but when they are contained like this, I am totally game to touch anything.

You can see Aleksy really enjoyed touching the massive snake (which the lady pulled out of a big plastic tote with clasps... weird)... I also had to convince him to touch it.

After the reptile zoo, we headed back to London... it was a pretty jam packed, fun long weekend!