Logans 2nd Birthday!

We officially have a 2 year old. At 2, Logan's favourite toys are his vacuum and lawn mower, his favourite foods are yogurt and noodles (with butter and parm), his favourite things to say are "oh no!", "lots..", "more", and "adult" (for things he can't have). He also has regular things he says based on the time of day like "coffee down", "wash my hands", "close the door", and "cut the grass". He can count to 10 (for a couple months now) and sing most of the ABCs song (by sound). His speech, cognitive development, and understanding of cause and effect are above his milestone level and he is clearly a really bright boy. He is curious about everything around him and loves routine and structure. He will correct us if things are out of place. He's obsessed with wheels on the bus and 10 in the bed. To make us laugh he makes funny sounds and rolls his eyes to look at us from the corner of his eyes. He will also call me "Dadas", and Aleksy "Mamuf" (that's Logan's version of Mama) to be funny. He recently decided when he is not getting his way he would mumble "thunder!" to us.

I stated planning for this birthday party super in advance. I ordered these construction themed in June or July and got the invites out early. I also started gathering truck themes/black and yellow themed items around the same time.

On Friday the 15th, I took the day off work to bake, shop and prepare for the party. I found these little trucks at the dollar store and the idea for the cake on Pinterest and whipped up a construction themed cake! I settled for the boxed cake as a time saver, and got the candy as the gravel and dirt for the toppings.

When I ordered the invitations from Vistaprint, as I was checking out they were up-selling me as they do, and one of the options were these adorable stickers. For once I took them up on the up-sell and they worked perfectly for multiple purposes like cupcake toppers.

And our party favours were plastic "hard hats" and a tool belt for all! These were some good ebay finds that went right along with our theme.

And Aleksy made up the thank you tags "it was LOADS of fun" Love, Logan.

Logan's birthday morning was a crazy rush of a morning. We were up at 6:30am (Logan told us "All done sleep, Mamuf", "All done sleep, Dadas") and we were actually sipping coffee and blowing up balloons, attaching tags to favours and sweeping all around 7am!

After we made some progress, we got out Logan's birthday present: the classic ikea eisel! He began his art immediately.

After rushing to put decorations together, grab some things from the store and get ready in precisely 25 minutes, it was all put together for exactly 11am. And so it was picture time with our big boy!

I made this pinterest inspired 2 from cardboard and caution tape!

Logan and cousin Emma playing their own version of ring toss - Logan asking Emma to talk into the pylons!

Sandwiches and salads for lunch. Along with some spinach pastry puffs made by Lorraine - a real crowd pleaser.

All black and yellow, black and yellow (insert wiz khalifa tune here)

Big kids having some lunch at the little kid table.

Cake time - the candle was a little sensitive so I had to try to protect the flame on my way over to Logan - with one little break when we first started the song because of the candle blowing out.

He blew the candle out with the help of the wind.

Steph always taking high quality, finger free pictures (Another classic Steph!).

One of the 2 bites tops that Logan had of his birthday cake. With his friends having cake at Logans table too!

Present time. Logan was one spoiled little boy. So many new toys and clothes and a wide variety to! He had so many presents to open that he wandered around intermittently... with his lawn mower, hiding in the corner...

But its been all excitement around here with all his new goodies.

Lots of sandbox love at Logan's birthday party. This seemed to be the kid favourite (there was also ring toss, corn hole and some other toys like his lawn mower and car with gas tank but sandbox for the win!)

Logan's construction crew! All ready to build or dig!

Logan had such a good day that he didn't nap until 2:30pm!

And after he woke up we went for ice cream at Scoops and a bike ride and even let him stay up 45 minutes past bedtime!



















And since we couldn't make it to breakfast before his party, we did breakfast out at the restaurant close to us at Wonderland and Fanshawe. Logan is a breakfast guy so he loved him some pancakes and sausages!

Labour Day in St Marys

We wanted to do something as a family when we got back from our weekend in Hunstville, so we made a plan for a day date in St Marys for labour day to spend some good quality fam time. Only a 25 minute drive so doable for Logan!

Our morning started at the park - we parked near a good picnic spot so we could come back to our car and grab our cooler at lunchtime.

Logan likes a good new park.

The best part about St Marys is that it is so pretty with the river running through the town. This was right across from the park we parked at with lots of geese and ducks for Logan to call "goose" at and "honk honk" - even if we corrected him and said it was a duck.

After playing at the park, we went for a little walk along the river, and over the bridge. We haven't done this walk before and were so impressed by how pretty it was! We got some good pictures along this beautiful bridge. Plus, it was pretty good for the ol' fitbit steps.

After walking through downtown St Marys and grabbing a latte, we brought Logan to the train station - the cutest one around!

And after hitting park #2 located right by the train station (which we remembered from last time in St Marys when I was pregnant and Colton played there), Logan discovered the walnuts on the ground! He collected a bunch of them then threw them all in the water by the waterfall. That's was one heck of a good time to a (almost) 2 year old!

After visiting the waterfall which was pretty dried up we headed back to our car to grab our lunch and have a picnic by the water. So Logan had his PB & J, and I made salads for Aleksy and I. But there were no forks. So basically, I had the option of just a carrot for lunch.... and Logan didn't share.

But the best place to picnic!

We got Logan this little black bear from a bakery in Huntsville. He thought it was super cool to play with... but not eat. The same kid who doesn't drink juice or chocolate milk!

3/12 Year Anniversary

I wonder if there will be a time so far in the future where those first 9 years we were together but not married will no longer count, and I will only count our married years as "anniversary". But for now, we will continue to count both our dating and wedding anniversaries, which are convenient only 2 days apart (the 28th would have been better... but that was a Thursday).

Our anniversary fell on a Wednesday - usually the night I go to my 8:30pm gym class then have some fruit and yogurt and watch Big Brother. But I had a great excuse on our anniversary to eat cupcakes and stay home instead!

We went to Sunripe for cupcakes after supper and got the 4 pack so Logan could have an anniversary treat too. Best bedtime snack for Logan! He had a couple bites (mostly of the cake part) but was most excited about the look of it!

Cupcakes and champagne with Big Brother - exactly my style. So much better than gym, yogurt & fruit and Big Brother!

On labour day weekend, we celebrated our anniversary with a night in Huntsville. Logan went to his Nanas and Dziadek's for a sleepover and we headed our for our 4 hour drive early Saturday morning, arriving around 12:30 to Arrowhead Provincial Park for some hiking, lunch, and canoeing. Our first stop was this lookout: so cool! Park your canoe and swim!

After the lookout, we headed on the hiking trail to Stubbs falls.

Having a cold one along the way like true athletic hikers.

The falls were the perfect place for our lunch! We sat on this rock, and had our sandwiches (prepacked to save our waistlines and wallets!) while watching the falls.

Aleksy was prepared and posing for this picture.

After taking some pictures by the falls, we hiked back to the car and the next plan was to rent canoes. It was about 3:30pm at that time, and the next available canoe wasn't until 5pm :(

We were bound and determiend to canoe that weekend because Logan is not at the stage that he can sit in the middle of the canoe, and we haven't canoed since 2014 (not 2015 because I was way too pregnant)
So Arrowhead ended up being very shortlived and we headed into downtown Huntsville to rent a canoe downtown, which we have done before so we knew there was a backup canoesing plan!

But we got our canoes in downtown Hunstville easily... but at double the price.

We've done this canoeing trip together before and its really nice - looking at the cottages along the lake and their parked boats along the water.

But there are motor boats in the lake, which made it really hard to keep the canoe in one spot ... they just weren't considerate that some people may be stopping and drinking wine on the lake. We had to paddle in between sips to make sure we didn't wash up to shore!

We were out for about 1 1/2 hours then headed to check in to our hotel.

But first, a selfie!

After we checked into our hotel, we decided to keep it a reasonably affordable supper by grabbing some veg, cheese, bread, and ham at the grocery store. We had all this plus some drinks in our hotel before getting ready to go out for beers and appetizers downtown.

Keeping the wine glassware classy.

We found the best spot for beers - rooftop patio with a fire built right into the table! It was the Mill on Main and they served craft beer and pineapple, bacon and coconut pizza. Plus we had basically the whole rooftop to ourselves.

The servers at this restaurant and the other restaurant we tried first all had the same shirts as Aleksy as uniforms. That's when you know you packed the right shirt.

There was a movie in the park right behind us while we were there but the white screen behind us blocked it (we didnt want to watch it anyways...) but it was fun to only hear the movie!

Before we went to the restaurant, I needed to make sure we got to the chocolate store before it closed! And we had success.

This box got demolished within hours.


The next day we drove home after breakfast (included in the hotel as we prefer) and we wanted to walk the downtown but it was raining. Not only that but all the stores were closed at 10:30am so we grabbed some pastries and cinnamon raisin buns for Logan from the bakery and headed back to London to our small person. Just a small 4 1/2 hours drive home...

Eastpark Day!

On August 27th, we had group plans for an Eastpark date. We made plans with 3 other couples and all 8 of their children. But, with those kind of numbers you know at least one family will have to cancel because of kids sickness... this is the story of our lives with kids! Chels and War couldn't make it to his one.

Somehow, summer decided to leave us a few weeks earlier than usual. I remember on our wedding 3 years ago, end of August was super hot! Although the sky looks warm, its actually kind of cold!

Logan got his swim suit on and ran very excitedly for the water! He loves the low impact water mostly - like this one coming from the ground.

This Kid loves the water guns at splash pads! At Storybook it was his favourite and same with Eastpark! He loves to aim it at people and get them wet.

And this picture was taken about 30 minutes later: After exploring everything, Logan began to shiver and both he and Chase wanted their towels and said it was too cold to go back in!

Logan did go back in for maybe 5 minutes but the shivers came back immediately...

It was a short lived trip to Eastpark but the splash pad was pretty great! It wasn't too expensive - maybe $15 so that was ok (we only paid for one adult because they had a landlovers rate).

And after Eastpark, we walked back to Emily and James' place (so close to Eastpark!) and had a bbq in the backyard - some burgers, hot dogs, corn, salad, mac and cheese, and cookie ice cream sandwiches for dessert. Seriously my diet has to start soon. It's easier after summer right?

Logan is still in the play alone stage so even though there were so many kids around to play with, he spent maybe minutes with a few friends and mostly played independently - but had a good time especially with someone else's toys!

He also doesn't seem to like juice... I wonder how long that'll last.

Alyssa's Bridal Shower

Sunday August 20th was Alyssa's bridal shower. It was a tea party and was at the lawn bowling club, which is a perfect shower venue!

All the treats were consistent with the tea party theme: some finger sandwiches, little cakes, cake rolls, and a delicious blueberry torte cake that Lorraine made.

Alyssa and her pretty presents getting ready for game time. I was in charge of 3 games and did a classic the purse game, a personalized game: guess who said it he/she, and a fun game!

This is getting the shower started with the purse game.

Tea and a modest amount of sandwiches and treats (it's just the plate's small I swear...)

This is pretty much my entire kitchen drawer on an apron! I was pretty excited for this game... Alyssa puts on the apron with all the items I safety pinned onto it, takes a walk around the room then disappears and everyone has to write the items they remember.

The best part was how full, heavy and awkward this apron was! And someone remembered all 20 items!

One more month until wedding time! We are excited for the wedding, having Logan in the wedding, and an Ottawa/Montreal visit!