Amelia’s First Day of School

Amelia started JK this year! She is getting so big. So far she seems to be enjoying it. Her teacher descibes her as a firecracker (she said this with a smile on her face so I assume that seems it is good

Since starting she has already gone on her first field trip, which Denise and I tag along on. We went to Andrew’s Scenic Acers for a day of hayrides, pumpkin picking and the all important bus ride.

10 Months Old for Filo

This is way over due but what can I say parenting, managing the reno and getting two kids and myself ready for Italy, somethings slip through the cracks.

Felix Hit 10 months August 17, time seems to be speeding up on me, I can’t believe how time flies. He continued on figuring out the crawling thing and is now very skilled and quick at crawling, at times I hate this new found skill. He now zooms all over John and Denise’ house including up the stairs (another of his new skills).

Felix has eased up on the mom’s boy lately, he is still abit mommy-centric but not as bad as it used to be.

This month we started to switch him over to finger food with some success. His current love is corn on the cob which he mauls and manages to do a pretty good job of cleaning off. His other love is pizza crusts.

We have all taken great advantage of John and Denise’s pool while we are her, Felix included, he loves the water. He is perfectly content sticking his face in the water and splashing himself, he is such a funny guy.

This month we had many visitors, Denise’s brother Claude and wife Cindy were down. We all headed up to St. Jacobs one days to paroose the menninite finery and handycrafts. Also my dad, Sarah and Adam were in town for a few days. It was so nice to see them I wish they lived closer. While they were here Amelia and I took them to see the University of Waterloo, as Adam was out on a university recon mission. We also all went to the ROM one day, I haven’t been since it reopened and I think we were all impressed. Bill and Betty were also in town the same weekend as my parents. So nice to see everyone!

Okay that is all I can think of, hmmm… not so good at remembering what happened over a month ago.

9 months for Felix and some BIG achievement for Amelia

Oh Mr. Felix, that are so many changes in him and so little time to write them down. We are all happily moved in our at the Reitsma resort now, it took felix alittle adjust ing but he seems to be back to normal now.

His nineth month was a busy one for everyone in our family, Jeff and I spent much time packing and getting organised for the move and felix spent much time unpacking and eating paper.

He perfected his commando crawl and even started crawling normally though he found it slower and after a couple shuffles went back to the commando. When he first move in at John and Denise he went on strike and refused any sort of movement, I think it was partially the hardwood floors and partially just being out of sorts from the move.

He also has turned into a massive mommies boy in the last couple weeks. It started around the time we moved and has continued, if I am in the room or he can hear me then he wants me to hold him. I will say in the last few days it has been getting better as he gets more comfortable here.

He also managed to spring two teeth just before he hit nine months, the two bottoms of coarse. He looks so much more grown up with them now.

His hair in now white blond and he still in managing to retain his very chunky little legs.

He is big on making noises these days, he has the mamama and dadada down pat, every once and awhile I think he actually know what those sounds are associated with with then I wake. He is big on yelling too which is very annoying and he thinks is very funny, his favourite time is when we are on the highway driving, I think something is horribly wrong but Amelia reports that there is usually smile on his face while he does it. BAH!!!

He has now figured out how to pull up on things and does it with easy, I usaully find him standing up in his crib now and he loves getting up and walking around the coffee table or pushing Amelia’s chair around the kitchen. Here comes trouble.

IN other big news Amelia has learned how to swim in the last few weeks. She was very timid at the beginning of the summer and only wanted to play on the steps with her swimming vest on but then we got her in a two week long swimming camp and we had some warm weather. After that first week and a half she had it and will now jump in to the deep end all by herself and swim back to the shallow end, we are all so proud of her.

Amelia has also really started to catch on to reading, I guess it pay to live with a primary teacher Amelia knows all her letters and can write out words if you spell them for her but in the last few weeks she and denise have started making little books with simple sentences that she can read, she loves the chance to show off her new skills to unsuspecting visitors.

I’ll throw this in now too because I don’t know when else I will get a chance. Our house is coming along, I have posted some pics on flickr. we had a big demo party a few weeks ago and we got most of the required demo done, we have such wonderful friends who came and helped us out. Since then Johnny, the contractor has taken over and has been putting the main floor back together while Jeff works on the basement. Things are looking great and we are so excited to go visit and see the latest progress.

Team Demo -

Bye Bye 46 Gooch

After 5 and a half years, this past weekend we moved out. Oh my goodness what an undertaking!!! it was exhausting but as usual our fantastic family helped us out. We moved all our stuff into storage for a month or two while we renovate our new place. Our storage unit is filled to the brims and it has been nicked named the Tomb, it is just short some jarred organs and a mummy Well we loved our old house and lord know we all put alot of blood sweat and tears into it but we are pretty excited about our new place and all the possiblities it has! I must say moving to etobicoke has its perks, we still get garbage collection!!!

Mystery Solved!

There has been some debate over who Felix looks like, I think I solved the mystery when I was packing up some old pictues. That’s me chillin’ in a drawer with a case of beer.

The Paper Boy and His Sister Dr Ruth

Felix is obsessed with paper, eating it to be more specific. His love of paper has really helped with his mobility because if he sees as piece of paper, a tiny scarp, a magazine or a full on book he will head off to get it in a flash. It is abit exhausting, I pulled him away from my huge stack of home decorating magazines about 10 times the other day!!!

His palate has also been experiencing some more diversity, he is been rockin’ the samlon the last couple days. I had some leftover salmon and rice so I just forked it up with some bby mush and he was digging it. Yippee I love the transition to non-purées. He has also done, lots more bread and crackers which he loves and peas, berries and of course Pake has introduced him to ice cream….

Felix’s is becoming more interactive, it was like a switch was flipped a week or so ago, he is all about playing and making people laugh. Air raspberries are his favourite, I made the mistake of laughing a couple times when he started while I was feeding him. He thinks he is very funny! He is still loven’ peek-a-boo, the other day he had himself in fits of giggles when Amelia and I gave him his shirt to play with and he started pulling it over his eyes then down again.

Felix’s is sleeping well again and has been upping his sleep-ins in the morning which I can’t complain about! His teeth still haven’t poked through yet but man are they ever bulging!!! Felix is mostly commando crawling but he does get a few crawls in now and then. He is also getting very good at walking along things.

Amelia has been really good lately, there have been far fewer flights about clothes in the mornings. We have changed two things, one we pick out her clothes the night before and two we feed her breakfast before we get her dressed. She has also been very helpful with packing, she is very keen to be involved with everything, not bad for us as we have some child labour  Jeff has taught her the fine art of wrapping plates (we will judge how well she learned once we unpack the plates…)

Amelia’s seem to have taken all our much loved phases and quirks and run with them, it is abit disconcerting. She cracks out some impressive vocab these days.

She has also taken an interest in her body… The other week we were driving home and Amelia and Felix were in the backseat. Amelia decided to educate Felix… She explain the following in a totally serious voice “Felix, I this is my cracker, you don’t eat crackers, you drink milk it is from mommy’s boodie. This is my boobie, that is your boodie. My boodie is little, your boodie is really little, Mommy’s boobie is big….” And it went on, Jeff and I were both shaking with stifled laughter. The other classic Amelia moment was when we were all down in the kitchen and Amelia went up to go to the bathroom. She was gone awhile when I called up to ask her if she needed help, she informed us that she got her arm stuck in the middle of her vagina while she was wiping and now she was washing her arm…. Oh boy!

As a whole we are all very good, we have been madly packing and getting ready for the reno’s we have sourced most of the tiles, appliances, and fixtures. Now we just need to start knocking down walls so we can confirm measurements. This weekend we are doing the final move and we move in with John and Denise for a couple months. I thought I would be really sad about leaving our current house after all the blood sweat and tears that we have put into it but I am not, at least not yet. I am sure that last day will be bitter sweet but really I think Jeff and I have both moved on to the new place.

This weekend we went antiquing, this is the first time I have done this since I was a kid and got dragged from antique store to store. This tame we dragged Amelia and Felix. Amelia was abit crazy at first but after she had Jeff tried out the pancake breakfast she was good to go and she was all about looking at all the vintage jewels. We ended up getting a new dinning room table which I am totally excited about. It is long and narrow, 3ft by 7ft which fits our new dinning room to a tee!

Sat night we headed to our friends Mark and Chelsea’s with Heather, Adam and Cam for some play time on their new deck and an Indian feast for us! The kids were getting abit bored at one point so Mark pulled out the mixing bowls, a few cups of flour, some spices and whisks and Amelia and Sammie created wonderful cakes with the help of Miss Mags and Cam (Felix was having a snooze).

Captain Crankypants Turns 8 Months

Captain Crankypants Turns 8 Months

Filo is actually not as cranky as he was, he has kinda tuned a corner and he is back to his pretty much cheerful self.

This month Felix continues to be quite a busy boy, he has perfected the commando crawl and can now do some impressive yoga poses namely the downward dog and the plank poses (both very funny to watch). He is still working on crawling, he gets up on his knees and he moves his feet but he hasn’t worked out his hands so they stay put and he ends up doing yoga. He is also getting better on his feet, he loves to be walked around, something which his Pake totally indulges him in. He is getting much more sturdy on his feet, he has got the one foot in front of the other concept down. He loves Amelia’s old music table, only issue is one of us has to stand with him. He is also sitting quite comfortable sitting these days.

Felix is a happy little dude, who is full of smiles. He is also full of noises. Mamama… Dadada…Bababa…

This month Felix had some issues with sleeping. He was sick and had a very stuffy nose so I think breathing was abit tough and it kept waking him up. We had one rather sleepless night, ugh, we are out of practice and we were both DEAD the next morning.

Felix is a very good eater, he will eat pretty much anything. He is still primarily on mush but he also gets cheerios, mum mums, pizza crusts and the occasional pieces of fruit.

He still loves being sung to, “Round and round the garden” is one of his favs, pretty much anything that ends in him being tickled or rolled around he loves.

Still no sign of teeth!

FINALLY We will not be homeless!!

We bought a house last weekend yipeeee!!!! It is a bungalow on a very quiet little cul-de-sac, right by mimico creek and five minutes from my mom’s. The house is in great shape but needs some updating (it was a granny special). I have already been busy planning the kitchen, I am pumped. We saw the house on Thursday and of course they were not accepting offers until Sunday, ugh and sure enough by Sunday there were 2 other offers. Oh well.

Sunday we all helped Julie move into her new loft and we invited everyone back to our place for Sunday dinner. Initally John, Denise and Julie had declined cause it had been such a crazy week for them with all the painting and moving etc. but in the end they all decided to come along with my parents who were always going to come. SO anyways Sunday at 4pm we put in our best offer fully expecting to be rejected yet again but we were floored when Sharon called us at at 5:30 to tell us that we got the place, we were jumping up and down int he kitchen just as John, Denise and Julie pulled into the driveway. Jeff and I had to go over and sign one the papers so we ran out the door leaving the kids with J,D and J, Poor Felix was sitting in his chair bib on ready to be fed with one parents to feed him Luckliy the family guess right and decided he was just about to be fed and hadn’t already eaten so they picked up where we left off.

The house is a three bedroom with potential for a fourth in the basement, a huge backyard (pie shaped), two wood burning fireplaces and most importantly TWO bathrooms We are all so excited and so happy to be finished our seach. Only hiccup as it stands right now we are out of our place on July 15th and don’t get this place until the 30th… EEEP The person living there is doing their best to try to find something sooner so we can get it before our closing (fingers and toes crossed).

Amelia isn’t sure aobut the whole move thing but she has decided that her new room with be painted while and pink with pink flowers, (I am going to have to figure out how to actaully implement this request).

Felix is teething like mad these days and is being an A**, his new nickname is Captian Crankypants. One of his weeks major achievements is that he can now get his toes in his mouth, he is pretty pleased with himself.

I am pretty busy these days with kids, moving and reno stuff and my photography course is now two days a week until mid June. This coming weekend I am off to Montreal with a couple friends, should be fun!!

The Little Beast is 7 Months

Filo is such a boy everything is done with brute force and as loud as possible. He is currently rolling around the floor attacking and chewing a board book and yelling, you would think he was in a battle to the death from the noise. From the yells I keep thinking he is upset but if I turn to look at him I get the big open mouth muppet grin so I guess the battle is going his way and he thinks he will be successful in his assault on the Hungry Caterpillar. Last week Jeff gave Felix a bowl to play with while he was heating up his dinner. We did this with Amelia to, she would pick it up try to chew on it and kinda spin it around with her hand, not Felix he immediately picked it up and started slamming it down on his tray.

Filo is quite mobile now, he rolls with purpose and is quite skilled at the commando crawl. His fav is standing, he gets the Muppet grin whenever you pull him up. Last week we pulled out the music table which he is lovin. He can stand at it without problem but he gets distracted he goes over. Similar situation with the sitting, he can sit but hasn’t quite got the stabilization thing yet.

Felix’s other new discovery is his feet, he is so pleased with himself. He can’t quite get them in his mouth yet he just likes to grab them. He is big on sucking his finger, he doesn’t suck his thumb but he does suck his pointer finger when he sleeps or when he is tired.

He continues to love his food though he is getting abit more selective about it. Thing he likes such a meat, squash, lentils but he isn’t so keen on super texture-y food or peas and beans but he will eat them mixed with stuff. I think plain cereal is still his fav though. He also LOVES his mum mums and cheerios. I think watching him eat cheerios is one of my favorite past times, he is so intense in his attack.

The other new thing for Felix is various noises, his favs are clicking his tongue and making motor boat noises.

Right now he is abit sick, runny nose and a cough. Maybe signs of his first tooth? But as of today still no sign of any teeth.

Felix is 7 Months and I am a lazy Mother

Okay still haven’t written a post, blame it on my obessive compulsion for MLS. I did take his 7 months pics so here they are.

Felix’s latest favourite toys.

Ramdon Pic of Miss Meals.

Still no house for us. Very fusterating bah!