Get Back

Putting out the flag for Canada Day, At the Canada Day celebration, Colouring
Swing!, Hugs for mommy, Playtime (yay for Grandma saving all of our old FP toys!)
Bubbles with Gramps, Picnic in the park, Swinging

We're back home now from a great trip to Bowmanville!  We all had fun visiting with family.  Lennon really enjoyed it - she always wanted to be "side" (outside) and loved to see what Alana was doing.  We enjoyed a picnic and some play in the park one day.  See the pic below of the kids all polishing off a container of watermelon after lots of playground time!  Good times!  We were definitely spoiled by Grandma's great meals - now I have to cook again;)

The cousins, Selfie with Gramps, What a doll!, Watermelon!!

I picked Fred up at the end of his two week residential session.  He was exhausted from long days (about 6:30am till midnight every day) but also excited about what he's doing.  We were very happy to have him back with us!  Lennon did a very big, happy "DAD" when Fred went in to get her in the morning!  We got back after she had gone to bed so she didn't know he was back.  So sweet!

Now we're back to normal around home.  Well, not exactly normal.  Fred has been quite busy writing papers and finishing assignments.  He has pretty much been having dinner with us, putting Lennon to bed and then heading to the basement office to do homework until about 10/10:30.  Hopefully the whole program won't be quite so busy as this start, but it is only 17 months so it'll go fast.  He's still enjoying it and excited about it so that's a good thing!  Lennon and I are just back to our usual routines of meals, napping (not me!...well, sometimes me too;), playing in the yard, going to the park, shopping, etc.  The days just go by.

Oh, Lennon is also now 18 months old!  She had her vaccinations last week and weighed in at just over 23 lbs and measured just over 31".  She continues to add more and more words to her vocabulary - it's incredible all the words she knows and uses.  She pretty much talks from the time she wakes up (starts talking in her crib before I even get there) until the time she goes to bed.  She's making some strides (haha, pun intended!?) in her walking too.  In Bowmanville she took a lot of steps on her own!  See video.  She hasn't let go much now that we're home again.  She's most content when holding on to a hand.

18 months old (July 14, 2015)

Pretty flowers at Pam and Bob's pool, Walking in the grass
Smile!, Singing face (love it!)

All You Need is Love

Today is our 7th anniversary!  Wow, do the years go fast.  Although in some ways it feels like just yesterday we were celebrating our wedding with our family and friends at the Calgary Zoo.  All you need is love!  Unfortunately, we are spending this anniversary apart.  Fred is still away for his first residency for his MBA.  He's back with us at the end of the week, so we'll have to celebrate then.  We will definitely be glad to have him back!  Lennon misses him and, of course, I do too.  Thank goodness for FaceTime!

It's been great that Lennon and I have been able to spend our time with my Mom and Dad while Fred's away.  Lennon is having a great time with Grandma B and Gramps!  We just got back from a few days at the cottage, which she loved.  All she wanted to do was go "side, side" (outside), usually to do bubbles.  Although doing bubbles usually just involves her dipping the stick and dripping soapy water all over.  She also took her first boat ride courtesy of Gramps!  She wasn't too sure at first, mostly because the life jacket was so restrictive, but she ended up liking it.  Especially when we saw loons and geese.  My Aunt and Uncle were there too and Lennon had a great time with them as well.  They have always been "aunt and unk" to Steve and I, so now Lennon (and Hendrik and Alana) calls them that too.  Lol!  We had lots of fun together.

Tomorrow we celebrate Gramps' birthday - Happy Birthday Dad!  Later in the week Steve and Heather and the kids are coming to join us in Bowmanville and Fred will be here on the weekend as well.  Looking forward to seeing everyone!

Lots of outdoors time - even some meals!

Fun in the pool - the river was way too cold to go in.  Love that look on her face:)

First boat ride!

"Finging" (swinging) with Aunt and Grandma B

From Me to You

We have a walker....just about!  Lennon is practicing her walking all the time.  She says "walking walking" and grabs our hands and is off.  She walks quite consistently and sturdily just holding on to one hand now.  She could let go but she's being cautious.  I did manage to catch some solo steps on video!

Tomorrow we are off to Bowmanville for a visit with Grandma and Gramps B.  We're looking forward to it - should be a good time!  Fred starts his MBA program too so he'll be away for a couple of weeks for that.  It's great that we can travel east with him and visit while he's at school!

Just a short post...had to get that walking video up!  Off to pack!

I Want to Hold Your Hand

17 months old! (June 14, 2015)

17 months old now!  Wow, does time every fly?! We've had some great weather in June and some cold, rainy weather too.  We had a few really hot days which got up to 30!  I got a little kiddie pool for Lennon for the back yard and she just loves it!  We've been able to use it a few times already.  The first time I could barely get her out of it.  She was so happy!

Lennon continues to add more and more words to her vocabulary.  She has upwards of 80 words that she uses now, it's quite incredible.  It's really nice that she is able to communicate - saves some frustration on both our parts.  My favourite recent additions are please and thank you.  She actually uses them appropriately too - especially please.  There's a lot of "up up pease pease!"  It's hard to deny her when she says please.  Next lesson will have to be that saying please doesn't mean you can always get what you want!

Lennon's getting closer to walking too.  She loves to walk all over the house holding on to our hands. She now also wants to "oof" up the stairs - walk up on her feet.  She calls it "oof" because the first time she tried it I made an "oof" sound as she was struggling to pull herself up to the next step!  Haha!  A few times in the last week she's taken a few steps between us on her own!  Finally!  Yesterday, she was standing looking out the front window, I was sitting behind her, and she let go with one hand, made some big "should I do it?" eyes, let go with the other hand and then stepped towards me.  Very cute!  Of course, I cheered and asked her to do it again.  She did it a few more times and then it was off to something else.

Blackbird

16 months old (May 14, 2015), Looking out on the world, Cutie!, with Mom,
Snack time outside, "Mengie" love

Time just keeps getting away on me.  Another month gone by without a post...sigh.

Lennon has become quite the little chatterbox!  She pretty much talks constantly from the time she gets up (she chats to herself in her crib) to the time she goes to bed.  It seems like she learns at least a handful of new words everyday, and remembers them.  She attempts to repeat every word we say.  Time to watch what we say I guess ;)  She now calls me "mommy" which is just so adorable.  I'd love to be able to list all the words she's saying but I just don't think I could, she has that many!  One helpful word she has is "boop."  (Still working on the "p" sound at the beginning of words) When she has a dirty diaper (or she just farts) she points to her bum and says "boop."  If she could tell us before she actually "boops" we could maybe start potty training?!  She loves to talk to people in the grocery store, mostly telling them about her shoes and giving a string of "ba-byes."  A very social baby!

Penguins... Lennon's absolute favourite thing.  Her word for penguin is "mengie," and I hear it about a thousand times a day!  She has a book with pictures of all different animals and for some reason zeroed in on the penguin.  Besides "bear" it was the first animal name she tried to say.  She is now obsessed with penguins.  It's usually the first or second word she says in the morning.  We recently got her a stuffed penguin and she is in love.  She hugs it (says "aww" when she gives hugs) and passes it to us to hug it as well.  She says good night to it every night before bed - it has a rattle in it so we can't let her take it to bed because we'd hear the rattling all night! - and looks for it first thing in the morning when we come downstairs.  Adorable!  There is a great penguin exhibit at the zoo with a ton of penguins.  We were there the other day and Lennon was in awe (see video).  She stared for the longest time and then started saying "mengie mengie" and then started squealing along with them.  We actually went in to the exhibit twice because she loved it so much!

May saw a visit from Uncle Steve.  It was a short one since he always (this is the second time) has something going on in Calgary when we are going away.  It was nice though.  Lennon was excited to see "deese" (Steve) and asked where "lana" (Alana) was.  Steve brought a whole bunch of hand me downs from Alana!  One shirt has a puppy on it and I showed it to Lennon and said this shirt is from Alana.  The next day I pulled it out and asked if she wanted to wear it and she said "lana lana."  She remembered me saying the shirt was from Alana - talk about a good memory!  Anyway, Lennon had fun visiting with Uncle Steve.


After our short, but sweet, visit with Steve we were off to Penticton for our annual May long weekend trip with friends.  This year Lennon stayed with Grandma L and Pugga, who were also in Penticton, so Fred and I could enjoy our annual wine touring weekend.  The last two years were a little subdued with me being pregnant and then with breastfeeding a 4 month old.  So this year was back to our full on tour!  We had a great time and lots of laughs with some great friends.  Lennon had fun staying with Grandma and Pugga, and Ashton was there too so she loved that!

Lennon is much more interested in practicing walking now.  Although she has not yet tried to walk solo, she often comes up to us and says "alk alk" and reaches for our hands to talk her for a walk.  She's getting pretty quick.  She'll take a step or two holding on with just one hand but then drops to her knees again.  Once she feels confident to let go, she'll be off!

In other news, we've made two pretty big decisions.  The first is that I'm going to be a stay-at-home mom!  We've decided that I will not be going back to work in the fall but will stay home with Lennon.  I have had to resign from the school board, which was a bit weird feeling, but I am very happy about the decision and feel very lucky that we are in a position that allows me to stay home.  I know that it's a dream for a lot of people.  I'll stay home at least until Lennon is in school and then we'll re-evaluate.  The other decision is that Fred is going to go back to school.  He is going to get his MBA!  He was accepted into a program that is run jointly by Queens and Cornell (a big deal!).  The program is pretty intensive and starts of with two weeks of immersion followed by every other weekend of classes.  The classes are held here through tele-conferencing.  So, he will still work while completing the program.  The whole thing is done in 17 months - crazy!  It'll be busy and intense but he's really excited about it and I know he'll do great.  I'm very proud of him!

Picture yourself...

Finally I have been able to get some pictures loaded!  Ever since downloading the new OS my computer has not been behaving well.  I think my computer may be too old to handle the newest OS:(  Time for a new one?!

Oh, a cute story I forgot to tell.  We were in a Mexican restaurant in Palm Springs and Lennon tried some salsa on her quesadilla.  She dipped it in and liked it!  It was fairly spicy but she didn't mind.  Later in the week we were at another (ya, I know) Mexican restaurant and of course they give you chips and salsa when you sit down.  We gave Lennon a tortilla chip to munch on.  I wasn't really paying attention to her and then all of a sudden she is tapping my arm and reaching across the table with her chip saying "dip! dip"!  LOL  I didn't even know she knew the word "dip."  So funny and cute!  She then continued to dip her chip (the same chip) about a hundred times, licking the salsa off in between dips.

The talking is just the neatest thing!

Anyway, here are some pics of the last month or so...

Loves bathtime!, At the zoo with pal Aria, First time seeing a real giraffe!
Mmm strawberry, Cool kid, Drinking from a straw
Practicing with a spoon, Some made it in!, Pickle on the head?!

Palm Springs

15 months old! (April 14, 2015) That first look is a classic Lennon face!

Things We Said Today

Well, it turns out I'm a very delinquent blogger!  Time is just going way too fast.  All of March went by without a blog...I must schedule in a regular time to blog or something!

14 months old! (March 14, 2015)

March...let's see...I don't think anything really exciting happened in March.  Just the usual routine stuff.  Lennon turned 14 months old on the 14th.  More of an update on her in a bit.  What else, oh, I had a great night out with 8 out of 10 of the girls from our baby group.  We did a "mom's night out" with dinner and drinks.  It was the first time we've gotten together without the babies and the first time many of us have seen each other in a while since many have been back to work for a couple of months.  I do miss our weekly get-togethers with the babies.  But, I do have some other moms/babies who are around to meet up with!

Family Selfie - Grandma L's Birthday

At the end of March we left for Palm Springs!  We just got back a few days ago.  It was hot, hot, hot! Just what I like!  We rented a house with Fred's family and basically chilled out by the pool for the majority of the time.  Lennon loves it in the pool!  She was in it probably twice a day, every day!  She even got a suntan, despite loads of sunscreen.  Our days started early, with Lennon waking up around 6 am everyday, and ended early with everyone in bed around 10, thanks to Lennon waking us all up!  It was nice to have Grandma L around to watch Lennon and give Fred and I a chance to do some things.  We got a massage in, which was amazing, and did some shopping.  But, mostly we just hung by the pool.  It was a fun, and relaxing time.

Lennon is doing great.  She is talking so much and saying so many words now.  It's very cute.  Not all of her words are completely intelligible but we know what she's saying!  Like "frowf" for flower and "la-de-la" for water.  She does have quite the vocabulary now.  "Dada" is still her most used, and favourite, word.  Many times I am still called "dada" but there is the occasional "mama" in there too.  Another favourite word is "Ash" for cousin Ashton.  (Boy, did those two have fun together in Palm Springs!)  She also loves pointing at other babies, even older kids, and saying "baby baby."  Lennon will say her own name too, although it comes out more like "na-non."  I have got to get some of her words on video soon before she's speaking in full sentences!  

Lennon is still not walking but is cruising around the furniture with much more confidence and speed now.  A new fun activity for her is to stand beside us on the couch and let go (usually she's still leaning a bit) and fall into us.  She thinks it's just hilarious and is so proud when she lifts up her hands in the air before tipping over.  One of her favourite things to do is to dance to music.  Her favourite song is the Beach Boys' "Barbara Ann."  Whenever there is music on she bops her head, sometimes gets her finger going, wiggles her shoulders, and will pretend to sing too.  It's quite funny sometimes.  I got a short video of some dancing but will have to get a better one.  What else is new with Lennon...I don't know how tall she is now but I did put her on the baggage scale at the airport and she was 21.8 lbs!  She still eats well and sleeps very well.  All is good!

.....okay, this post has been sitting here for a couple of days now.  I've been trying to get some photos on here but my computer is being very slow and is not working well.  Grr!  Pictures will have to come later.  I can maybe get a couple on here.  Meanwhile, Lennon is now 15 months old!