Crocs and Storyland

After a long summer of looking EVERYWHERE for a pair of Crocs small enough to fit Pete, my friend Karla showed up today with a navy blue pair for him!!! He was thrilled! When I showed them to him, he said "are those flip flops really for ME, mommy?". It was so cute. He's had them on his feet since he got them, won't take them off. Of course he was acting like a little monkey when I tried to take his picture, but I managed to snap a couple of his feet ;-)

Oh yeah, baby, I'm one cool toddler!!!

A group of moms who usually go to the same Tuesday playgroup decided to head out of town to visit a local park called Storyland. It's full of fairy tale and story characters, playgrounds, tiny villages, a paddleboat pond, a splash park, mini golf and lots more. Aside from being on the coolish side, it was a really perfect day. We were a pretty big group and couldn't even all stay together most of the time.

Here is Peter climbing up one of the slides!

Granny, who came along for the day, assisting Pete on to a little toy.

Liam, much cuter than Cinderella, in Cinderella's carriage that whisked her home at midnight.

Taylor (Liam's lil sis) and David, soaking up some rays and checking out all the festivities.

Pete, pausing for just a brief moment.

Liam going down the slide!

Some of the kids on Peter Rabbit - that's Peter WAY at the left bottom corner, just couldn't convince him to get in the picture!!

Pete peeks into a little house to see a tiny fiddler playing music!

At the end of the park is a huge bounce castle. Liam and Peter spent a long time bouncing away their remaining energy!!

Take me out to the ball game!

We took the boys out to watch a few of Paul's softball games this summer - for the most part, they had a lot of fun!! They like to travel, THREE in a wagon built for two. Or I should say, Peter decided to jump in on top of David and Liam!

Go Daddy go!!! Paul's number one fan :-) Well, one of two, that is.

I'm so cute I even *look* like a baseball player!!

David catches an inning with Karla and his bud Taylor.

Liam and Pete think they better start practicing early . . . if they want to be as good as their dads ;-)!

. . . and David just thought Taylor was a little too cute in her Dora pjs!!

David was lucky to have a nice visit from his pal Joey and wonderful Kim brought me a Starbucks coffee and a scone. That puts her pretty high up in my books!!! We talked like grown ups. It was delightful.
Thought I should capture this restful moment on camera . . . not *my* restful moment, obviously!!!

No accidents, funny story

SEVEN days with no accidents for Peter - woo hoo! We are thrilled. He is still dry every morning too, although I have not yet taken off a dipe or pull up at nighttime - that may be coming soon though. He's doing so great now and is starting to do potty on his own, or telling us and asking us to take him. Changing only one little cute bum during the day is MUCH easier on mommy!

This morning Peter asked me why I didn't have a penis!! I told him I was a girl, and that he was a boy. I said David is a boy, and so is Daddy. He thought about this for a while and then explained to me, "mommy doesn't have a penis to pee, just a bum for poops". Hmmmmmmm, I guess for now that will do as an explanation of the differences of the sexes :-)

The potty pays off . . .

Well, I guess my hard work is paying off. Yesterday Peter had no accidents (except one small one in the evening while I was at football on Daddy's watch!!) and today none again!! He's starting to tell me or go straight to the potty every time he needs to go - so my week of accidents might have been worth it. His favourite part is pouring the pee from the potty into the big toilet - yikes, it rarely all makes it in :-( I guess urine on my bathroom floor is better than him in diapers!!!!

Paul's aunt Mary and cousin Cathy came to visit for a few days. The boys had a blast hanging out with them and playing. I was too burned out on photos from our trip to take any pictures . . . I better get over that soon or my scrapbook will be empty!!!

Little David is getting tooth number five . . . and six I think. He's been fussy lately, not able to nap or sleep well at night, cranky, not eating much. Sounds like more teething to me! Poor little guy, I can't wait until the whole mouth of chiclets are in there for him. I hate to see him in pain. He's SO close to walking it's not funny - last night he stood in the middle of Pete's bedroom for almost a minute but wasn't quite ready to take some steps I guess. Should be any day now . . . and right on schedule to be at the same time his big brother took his first steps :-)

With these two not napping I headed out for a big walk this afternoon, David finally fell asleep so I took Peter to a park and we played. Rudy and Dave had a nice nap under a tree. Pete should be absolutely pooped at bedtime and ready to snooze by 8:00 pm!!

I wear underwear . . .

Only two words come to mind lately . . . POTTY TRAINING. We'd been putting forth some weak efforts for quite a while but while on vacation Peter did his first real potty poop in months. We were THRILLED, and of course had to come through on our promise to take Pete to Canadian Tire so he could pick out and buy his very own screwdriver for his tool box. He was very proud and very excited.

Once we arrived back in Ottawa Peter got a nasty rash on his behind from a yucky poop. I told him diapers and pull ups can give big boys a rash, but underwear don't. He seemed conned, so I gave it a try. He seemed keen to have the underwear on and I actually left them on all day this time. And here we are today at the one week anniversary of NO DIAPERS - only underwear all day long and naps too :-)!!! Of course, we've had a number of accidents, but things are going better than I had anticipated.

The first 4-5 days were tough with LOTS of pee accidents and one big poop mess. There has only been one more poop accident since then, and now none since Monday!! He actually poop behind a tree at a playground yesterday - I noticed that grimace on his face on the slide and yelled "let's go poop somewhere Peter". He said "this hill looks like a nice place to poop mommy" and there he went, squatted right down like a dog and pooped at the park!!! I almost died laughing . . . then I scooped it up with my dog poop bag and off it went :-)

The past two days have been huge improvements - almost every time he says he needs to pee and runs to the bathroom and goes right on the potty. Even today he walked in by himself, I came around the corner and there he was pooping on his own! I guess at a week now there's no way I can go back to dipes so I should commit to buying a few new pairs of underwear!! I know there will be lots more accidents but I think we have turned a major corner here.

I'm soooooooooooooooo proud of him :-).

Nova Scotia and the beaches

The best part about our week long stay in Nova Scotia had to be the BEACH!! Since I've been living in Ottawa for a long time now (almost 15 years - yikes!) I really miss the beach and especially the sand and the ocean. I think I really took it for granted when I grew up. I was so excited to share the smells, the beauty and the excitement of the beach with my own children.

Pete, being a little older than David, was obviously a little more excited about spending time at the beach. Making sandcastles topped his list of favourite things to do, with chasing waves a close second. He was a brave little guy and not afraid of the frigid Atlantic ocean temperatures one little bit!

David also had fun in the water and loved to be able to crawl around when we found a shallow area where warmer water had pooled. He was very interested in following his big brother and doing whatever he did!


Even I got a moment to enjoy the sun, sand and waves . . .

This is the view down one side of Summerville Beach, which was about 5 minutes away from the cottage we stayed at . . . it's one of the best beaches in Nova Scotia (or the world!??).

This is taken on the wharf near Hunt's Point Beach, and our cottage is in the background of this picture. It was great to be so close to the beach so the boys could go down and play in the sand or water whenever they got a chance.

Rudy decided he, too, liked the cold water and went for swim himself . . .

We spent one afternoon at Carter's Beach, another nearby beach, with my dad. Peter was very excited to build sandcastles with his grand-dad.





This is the view one evening from our cottage as we watched a beautiful sunset.

David relaxing with some cheerios . . .

Grand-dad getting ready to read Pete a story . . .

. . . while Nana reads David "Hand Hand Finger Thumb".

And had to share this last interesting photo . . . while driving the kids to a local playground one morning, we drove by Bowater Mersey, the local pulp and paper plant. We stood in awe as we watched this big arm lift up this huge truck as it unloaded it's cargo (probably wood or chips) into the massive dumpster below. The truck was basically perpendicular to the ground at one point!!! We couldn't not take a picture!

We have zillions of other pictures but I'll have to save them for my upcoming scrapbooking endeavours. We had a fabulous vacation and couldn't have asked for things to go any smoother. We took the ferry back from Digby to Saint John, then drove to Edmonston where we stayed the night in a motel. The next morning we drove to Quebec City where we stopped for a few hours and let Pete run around on the Plains of Abraham.

Everyone was excited to arrive back in Ottawa and get back to regular life again . . . but we miss the sound of the crashing waves as we fall asleep at night ;-)

Our New Brunswick Visit!

Once we were settled at Lauren and Mark's beautiful cottage just outside of Saint John, New Brunswick (near Quispamsis) we could enjoy spending a little time with our new baby neice, Reese!! She's quite a cutie. And has considerably more hair than David, who is nine months older! Here is the view of the river from their front deck.
Here is the new Anderson family!!! Lauren, Mark, baby Reese and Cash.

Here is a pic of proud uncle Paul with Reese!

And me looking proud as a new aunt!

Lauren is getting a lot of use out of my sling, baby Reese loves being warm and cuddled up in there!
Mommy's lookin' good and Reese is less than two weeks old here!!!

David and Pete catch a video during some down time - Rudy catches some zzzzzzzs on the couch!

The boys took a few minutes to lounge around early one morning . . . real "male bonding" happening here :-)

On a hot day we filled up the blow-up pool - Rudy decided he wanted to be the first in to take a dip :-)

. . . but then David and I jumped in!

And later the whole family took a dip down in the river. The water was so warm and inviting. We didn't get tons of pictures, although Peter and David both did lots of swimming. Peter even came out to the raft with me and Mark at one point.

Although there isn't enough room or time for all our photos, we had lots of fun in New Brunswick. We visited the Cherry Brook Zoo for a morning and saw tons of great animals. Peter loved walking around and learning about all the different animals. I think David liked it too! We took a couple visits into the city and did some shopping in Saint John's Market and had some delicious lunches down there too - clams and chips . . . YUMMY!! I even bought a couple beautiful pieces of jewelery for myself hand crafted by local NB artists.

We spent a good part of a day touring around the Irving Nature Park - beautiful landscape along the Bay of Fundy (where the highest tides in the world are). We did some hiking and saw a couple pretty cool beaches. It was a great park b/c you could drive around an eight km trail and stop and get out wherever you pleased to take pictures or do some hiking.

All in all an extremely fun part of our trip!!!