2 weeks of holidays!

So... we didn't go on holidays BUT Logan's daycare provider did and therefore the last 2 weeks of March were activity filled Logan, Leah and Mommy days! Logan felt very scandalous and promptly told Aleksy everyday when he got home that Mommy let him watch tv and its not the weekend. I'm a cool Mom like that.

The first outing we did was a playgroup in Strathroy and Logan loved this one so much he asked to go back to "the one with the ball pit" the next week too!

Both kiddos approved of the playgroup! This was the first day... Monday and although Leah's really happy here, she came down with another UTI about that day or so. I started to feel her fever come on...

On Tuesday I could tell Leah was not so good by how warm she felt and her lack of smiles. We popped out to Mcdonalds for a quick play in the play place and ice cream for the big one but then headed to the hospital shortly after!

And this is the very next day... 1 dosage of her antibiotic and Leah' smiles are back! We t the playgroup at the school right behind us and both kiddos loved it! Logan knows his way around way better than me from going with his daycare group!

And Friday was library day. A little storytime (for Leah... Logan was too busy) and play at the Masonville library with leah just standing around.

And on the weekend, we hit up the McLaughlin maple syrup farm for pancakes and Logan loves their park.

Leah's first try of pancakes! She's a fan... she also has been eating bread and muffins as of recently. She knows whats good.

Thanks goodness for milder weather! We've been able to be outside and go for walks and of course make use of our awesome backyard and Leah's new swing from Santa!

And Monday morning we picked the best time to go to Kidscape and had the entire place to ourselves! I was even able to get Leah inside the playground without being worried about her getting trampled on!

Clearly having the best time!

And we hit the children's museum too! There's so much to play with there that we could hardly get it all in between 10:30-1pm with lunch included. Logan's favourite room was the space room this time.

And our park visits have returned! We have a pretty awesome park here and Logan is super comfortable with it... all the way to the top. This kid truly has no fear!

And we ended the week with a playdate with Logan's friend Logan (Logan squared) and Leah's friend McKenna!

9 months 9 months 9 months!

When Logan turned 9 months, I did a post to track all the things he was doing at that time and I'm doing the same for Leah! This is what little Leah is up to:

Little lady is sturdy on her feet and can stand for a long while. If she stands for more than 3-5 minutes then her legs tend to widen and she's usually too interested in wanting to play than to stand for longer than 3-5 minutes!

Crawling is so on the brink... if I posted in another week I'm confident she will have nailed it! She gets herself up on her knees and hands and rocks. She tries to move and gets really frustrated and falls on her belly then wiggles backwards!

Leah had her first swing experience a few weeks ago and even has one in our backyard for the summer!

She loves walks outside in the bjorn (we've done a couple since the weather is just starting to change) and going in the pink push car that I got for free from a Mom group! It has a steering wheel so she's in heaven.She also loved the steering wheel on the shopping cart in Canadian tire when she went for the first time about a month ago (she has been sitting up for a while now... 6 months)

She loves playdates with friends and looking at other kids playing. She's curious when they are close and wants to grab their faces and/or ears and hair (and ours!)

She says "dadadada" and "babababa" and her new thing is to scream in excitement really loudly... everywhere!

Leah loves to do everything that Logan is doing and watch him. He makes her laugh way easier than Aleksy and I can.

Her favourite things are Logan, her brothers toys, anything that she probably shouldn't have (I dug a tag from her mouth the other day that she ate off a toy), games where we giggle her little body, clapping (she can clap) and shaking our heads "no no no" with her. She's content to play with toys sitting on the floor for a while and in her exersaucer too.

Leah is a champion napper and sleeps in the morning usually 1.5-2 hrs (when she wakes up at 1 hour thats a pretty small nap for her!), and afternoon nap is usually 1-1.5 hours! She no longer sleeps well on the go so these good naps are only crib naps and even car naps are risky because she wakes up when we stop driving! She sleeps from about 7:30/8 to 6:30-7am (I think she would sleep longer but wakes to the chaos in the house... she has slept in until 8/9am several times!). She has been getting up once a night for a while now.

Leah took a while to get used to food and at first would only eat pouches but now, even though her favourite still remains pouch, she also likes butternut squash mixed with applesauce, avocado and banana and I can sometimes mix carrots or sweet potatoes with pouch to get her to eat it. I can hide chicken and turkey in most of her foods. She has recently started eating more solid textured foods and we have found she loves scrambled eggs and shredded cheese!

She is also obsessed with puffs and mum mums and yogurt. She likes cheerios but sometimes swallows them too quickly before they disintegrate.

Leah decided to call it quits for breastfeeding around 9 months. She started with not feeding in public (around December), then would only feed before naps, then only after naps and the last feed to go was the overnight feed! She remains crazy about her formula bottles and gets so excited she shakes when she sees us shaking a bottle up!


She is a chunker baby and I weighed her at 21 lbs the other day!

My(Extended) Birthday Weekend!

I had such a great weekend of birthday celebrations! I went to brunch Saturday morning with my Dad and without the kiddos. It was so nice to eat at a restaurant without cutting, cleaning hands 100 times and eating my food as fast as I can... although not being with the kids feels like leaving your phone at home. I even did a bit of sneaky shopping afterward and then went to my sisters for a bday dinner they put on for us with my Mom and Paul too!

And Sunday I felt super selfish because I ran for 20 min in the morning and then went to Anderson's for yoga and beer! Yoga was at 11 and we talked for so long afterward too and bam it was 1:30!

We sipped beer during yoga... because it's part of the experience!

And Monday we left for Niagara before lunchtime and got to the hotel around 2:30pm. The drive wasn't too bad.. Leah only slept for an hour max so we had to make a stop but Logan is at a great age for road trips (pretty much only thanks to tablets). Our room was ready luckily so we had a quick drink, got our stuff from the car and put our bathing suits on!We stayed at a smaller scale waterpark hotel.. the americana and it was perfect for their ages!

Leah's ready for some waterparking!

Logan had the best time this day! He wanted to go on everything (he actually doesn't have a scared bone in his body when it comes to rides). His favourite was this: the double tube slide that goes super fast and the majority of it is pitch dark. What a crazy kid!

He went down all the slides that were open and in the wave pool but the tubes were by far the best. We each went on a bunch of times with him (both days!)

And then after some good waterpark play, we headed down to the lobby where there was a boston pizza right on site (convenient!). We got pizza and Logan ordered some spaghetti which he refused to eat when I put butter on it. Apparently he's never seen that I put butter on his noodles every time I make them... toddler problems!

It went a bit late by the time we ate our ice cream (Logan's came with it and I got it for my bday) and like party animals, we didnt get back to out room until well after 7!

And when we did get back it was cupcake time!! And the kids had some crazies in them.. especially the big one!

Red velvet cupcakes and sparkling vino... my favourite birthday staples!

2 kiddos in a bed for storytime is just the cutest ever. These two were down for about 9... Logan was super tired and fell asleep quick but the little one tossed and turned and made hilarious bababa, dadada noises for like 20 min!

We still caught a bit of tie without the kids to look at pictures and finish the bottle of bubbly!

And the for next morning, I packed breakfast foods (bananas, yogurt and muffins) so we could quickly eat before heading back to the waterpark for a bit that morning.

After Aleksy tried walking with Leah to get her to nap, which failed, Leah joined us in the water! And this day she actually liked it! She was so scared the first day... shaking because of the noise and splashing water everywhere but this day we found the kiddie pool and she was so much happier!

These were like jolly jumping swings in the pool and she loved bouncing in them!

We left the water park after noon to head down to the falls.

It was super windy outside and a bit chilly so Logan decided to have his blanket completely over his head like this for a lot of our walk (even down the coolest part of Clifton hill!).

This was just a little Leah bottle break at a hotel en route to the Hersheys store!

And we made it to the Hersheys store and the 3 of us all made little mix matched bags of overpriced hersheys goodies!

Last stop before heading home was the falls. Logan was really interested and thought the giant waterfalls were pretty cool!

The baby was completely out for the entire 2 hour drive home (because of her nap hiatus that morning and the day before) and Logan passed right out after eating his chicken nuggets! A quiet, peaceful drive home!

And my birthday supper... sushi. I wasn't feeling my usual swiss chalet and this was exactly what I wanted in replacement!

St Pats Day Weekend!

On the Friday before St Pats day, I pulled Logan out of daycare a bit early to take him to the Paw Patrol movie that was playing as a march break special at the theatre! It was Logans first time at the movies AND paw patrol so he couldn't be any happier.

Popcorn (and candy) for the full movie experience. The movie was only 2.99 admission (but I had to book a week in advance!) but we made up for that with $25 popcorn, water and m&ms.

He loved the big recliner seats and pushing the button to make his seat recline. He also ate a ton of popcorn and m&ms and I watched an hour and a half straight of paw patrol (ready for my Mom award).

And Saturday the 16th was the first time sine October that Leah had a sleepover at Nana and Dziadeks! For Logan is had been longer... and that was because we had an adult only st pats party. Such a big deal because we never see our friends without our little interrupting people. We started the prep on Fridya night by makign the jello shots... a real st pat's day tradition. And on Saturday I made some stew!

We all wore our green and played 5 second rule where we laughed pretty much to almost peeing our pants until super late. We even had overnight guests which I dont think has happened since Logan! It was so nice to have everyone over and I only regretted staying up until 4 the next day (when for some reason I couldn't even sleep past 7.. I get so excited to pick up my kids after a night away!).

Ski date night!

I went skiing for the 1st time since Jan 1st 2014 on the Friday of family day weekend. I know this because Ive kept the pass on my snow pants forever. So first time on skis since well before the kiddos were around. It was very exciting!

The in laws came over to spend the evening with the kids and put them down while we went to boler. We started the evening off with old traditions. Having a drink while getting out gear on in the parking lot!

Unlucky for us, this was the icy time where the snow had melted with a few warm days but then had frozen again. The main hills were pretty good but heading over to the newer area, it was too icy for my comfort level! It took a few runs to feel comfortable and just the blues were where I wanted to stay although I did one black run but I just didnt feel as much control as usual!

I had developed some pretty good ski skills around 2012-2013 when we were going often, but for this date night, I reverted to my trusty pizzas! I was working in more parallel skiing toward the end of the night though... like a bike.

It was nice that it was a really dead night and the lifts and hills werent busy at all.

And of course a little mid ski break for a drink in the new chalet! We hadn't been since the renos.

It was so nice to get back on skis but such a crazy expensive date night at $80 (plus beer) for the 2 of us... and that's with us owning our own equipment! An expensive sport but we want to invest some lessons and hill time for the kids so that we can go on family ski vacations in our future!

Everyday Things

Just a bunch of little happy every day things:

Our backyard rink was a success and we got some skating in on it before the crazy ice storm that layered it with ice, slush, and snow! Logan is still working on his coordination with the hockey stick but his skating skills have improved so much... he can get his little feet going quick and is learning to glide. Hockey starting in October is a possibility!

Logan has been in swimming lessons since January and has passed to the level 2 for preschoolers! He loves being in the water. After a scary day 1 where he fell under the water, he has been doing amazing with his listening and practicing the sills they teach... except the one day he refused to get in!

Our happy little Leah is almost 8 months. I literally blinked and this happened. She continues to be the chillest baby and recently has started laughing at everything! I pull out a book and she laughs at it, I show her a stuffy and she laughs....
And I don't want to jinx it but she has only got up once during the night for the past 4 nights!! She's pretty good at her naps too... twice a day for anywhere from 30 min-2.5 hours. She still hates solids and is all about the pouches and baby puffs and mum mums.

Oh and she's getting giant... closing in on the 2-0 lbs.

Logan is going to teach me how to skate now. I could probably pay attention to his lessons and learn a thing or two. I got out on the backyard rink a couple times!

We had a fun board game night with our new friends in the neighbourhood in February. We had my Mom come over once the kids were in bed, poured our red cups with roadies and walked over! We had such a great night with a little cards against humanity and game of things and were out until almost midnight (wild).

And our little people got their football jerseys on for the superbowl... although Logan insists that weekends are not for "Ellen and football" but rather for Paw Patrol.

Football snacks... m&m meats has great chicken wings! With some chips and salsa and the picture may not do it justice but that sandwich I made was sooo good. It was italian meat, provolone and banana peppers wrapped with croissant dough.

We immediately followed this with 10 days of only clean eating (I lasted 9 because it got too close to Valentines and... chocolate)

This time we actually skated at Storybook!! And had so much fun! We took turns pushing the stroller around and Logan loved that he could go into the little play village houses because they put mats throughout!

It was a perfect crowd when we went and despite my lack of skating sills, I felt comfortable pushing the stroller around. Much better than the huge crowd on new years when Logan refused to skate!

He earned his hot chocolate with marshmallows. He has recently decided that he doesn't like chocolate milk and the last couple times we gave it to him he said he "only likes hot chocolate".

Log Cabin Weekend

For Christmas this year, I wanted to do something a bit different for our friends' kids. I wanted to do an activity with them and make some (more) good memories together. I originally had this idea to go to a waterpark in Windsor called "adventure bay" which I learned about from our roommates when Leah was in the hospital because they live near Windsor. The admission tickets were really reasonable at around $25 per child. But then it was far away, I couldn't find an affordable airbnb for our friends and their hundreds of children so I went to plan B and im glad I did! This log cabin did not disappoint!

I booked this log cabin the weekend of Jan 25th and invited all our friends up to join us on Saturday night. It was near Grand Bend, which was conveniently less than an hour drive for us! We got there Friday around 4pm.

The first thing we did when we got there was find the toys (as per the request of Logan) and he was in heaven because they had a whole tote of train tracks and trains!!! And we were excited because this meant a weekend of happy Logan. Grumpy Logan is especially a treat when we are away so we are all about making him happy.

This was a tv area in the basement and there were 3 rooms also on this level: ours, sam and zacs and their kiddos slept int he room with the bunk beds.

We moved the track upstairs so we could enjoy the amazing log cabin vibe complete with fire. The little one (surprisingly) was a cranky crankster on this night. She was mildly entertained by her toys but refused to breastfeed. It was basically a standoff... she refused to feed and I refused to give her a bottle because I was exploding from not feeding since 11am and had no pump! I won... after Aleksy rocked her to fall asleep in his arms she was super dosey and fed then (before going to bed early around 7). 

The big one was super tired from no nap but still stayed up until almost 8:30 because he was excited.

And when the kids want to bed it was puzzle, wine and snacks time. Veggies for balance.

It baffles me how we can spend a couple hours puzzling and only have like 20 pieces each that are connected. Logan's puzzles are so much more immediately satisfying.

And Logan's first friends to arrive in the morning were Bill and Scarlet! They immediately set to building a fort in the corner under the stairs.

Leah was back to her happy self and slept pretty well overnight and for naps that weekend.

The rest of our friends joined at lunchtime and we all had some sandwiches and the kids played until it was time to play outside.

Not such a small log cabin! Even the property was amazing with a fire pit (that we didn't use because kids galore!) and small hills on either side so I told everyone to bring a sled!

Leah even went down her first hill with her big bro and Daddy (I swear they were small hills and we are responsible!)

So many cool wooden carved things at this cabin!
 

The slowest toboggan ride: 4 Moms and a Cadie! But impressive that we fit...

Did Logan have any fun? I can't quite tell from this picture...

After all the kiddos were in from outside, ran about a hundred circles around the island in the kitchen and we all had some pizza for supper (because easy food is the way we rolled on this weekend away!), we got the kiddos in their jammies for a wind down tv time.

My child is the one by himself on the table. This is because he was disappointed about the tv pick. He is very serious about his tv (seriously crazy) and PJ masks was not what he was feeling apparently.

The Osbornes couldn't stay because their kiddos were having troubles sleeping with their colds but all the kiddos were in bed before 8 (yes you read that right... the best feeling!). We got some good adult conversation and even a card game in and stayed up until a whopping 12:30am like true party animal parents. Such a good weekend with friends!