East coast holiday

We had a fabulous trip to Boston and Cape Cod in April. James' brother Daniel, his wife Sarah, and their son Henry moved to the Boston area last spring, and we were eager to visit them there and meet Nathan, the newest addition to the family. Henry is only four months older than George, though on this visit I think Henry was quite taken with his older cousin, Charlotte, and George was very interested in little Nathan. We were joined over the Easter weekend by James' parents and his brother and sister-in-law, Sam and Anne, who made the drive from Toronto. Unfortunately it seems I was too busy visiting and took very few photos over the Easter weekend itself. When the Toronto crew headed home, James and the kids and I headed to Cape Cod for two nights. The pirate-themed wave pool at our hotel was a hit with Charlotte, though George was uncertain about it. Spring was just arriving in Massachusetts after a doozy of a winter, but we still had one nice afternoon on the beach and enjoyed the scenery. Both Charlotte and George handled all the travel well - and rose to the occasion on our return trip when a cancelled flight out of Boston added another leg and five additional hours to our journey. We loved our visit with family and look forward to returning again.

Reading with baby Nathan.

Lunch with Daniel near his lab on the MIT campus. Photo credit: Charlotte.

Photo credit: Charlotte.

Photo credit: Charlotte.

Boston Children's Museum. Henry LOVES bubbles!

Happy George.

Charlotte and Henry enjoyed play time with Granny.

"Ho lo baby." (i.e. George hold the baby)

More bubble time.

Charlotte and Granny: always laughing together.

George is a big fan of Grandpa.

Easter egg hunt and lunch at Faneuil Hall Marketplace.

Watching vehicles out the window.

Cape Cod (just outside Hyannis).

We happily passed a rainy morning at the adorable Cape Cod Children's Museum.

Surviving and Thriving in Winter

As George approaches his second birthday life with two kids seems to be getting easier. George is communicating quite effectively now. His language began developing significantly in the fall, and he's regularly stringing two or three words together. Some of his favourite expressions are "too!" or "me too!" and "my turn!" - George loves to imitate Charlotte.  He is a generally good-natured, inquisitive little guy. He loves trucks, trains, balls, books, puzzles and music. He still enjoys eating, especially fruit and yoghurt ("yo yo"). He's into practical tasks; he loves "helping" with sweeping, vacuuming, and shovelling. He's also started to enjoy colouring, and has quite a good attention span.  He's trying to figure out colours right now, and his favourite (at least his favourite one to say) is yellow. George is becoming more and more agile. In February he started walking downstairs while holding the railing, and can manage to climb a lot of the equipment at the nearby parks on his own - even in a snowsuit and boots. As of December George is potty-trained, and has taken to it really well. We're happy to be done with changing diapers after four-and-a-half years, and not wearing diapers also helps his pants fit better since he's such a big boy. He weighed around 35 pounds at 18 months, and wears size 3 clothing.

Charlotte is growing up. Physically, she's stretching up and slimming out. She's also sounding more grown up in her conversation, though she can still be really silly. She's become interested in writing, and has gotten quite good at writing her letters this fall. We can't take any credit - I think she's picked it up from preschool and a game on her Leapster. Her attention span has grown significantly, and we've started to enjoy reading chapter books with her. We began with some E.B. White (Charlotte's Web and Stuart Little), just finished Roald Dahl's The Witches, and are currently engrossed in Pierre Berton's The Secret World of Og (a book I enjoyed as a child and snapped up when we happened upon it at an antique mall recently). Charlotte's starting to read on her own, I think through a mixture of sounding out first letters and word recognition. She likes to occupy herself flipping through books, doing activity sheets, or playing on her "computer" (Leapster), as well as playing imaginatively with her animals. She continues to adore her stuffed animals, and her current favourite is a dragon that Santa brought her named "Crackle." She's also a very physically active kid. Fortunately she LOVES winter, and deliberately hikes through the snowbanks on almost every walk we take. Just this morning she listed off her three favourite seasons to me, beginning with winter, "because of all the snow and ice." I'm not exaggerating when I say that she could happily play in the snowdrifts on the sides of our driveway in -20 C weather for an hour (and has done so on occasion when we've gone out to shovel/play during George's nap). This kid was made to live in Edmonton!

Charlotte just completed her first set of skating lessons and really enjoyed it. It was interesting to see a competitive streak come out in her as she pushed herself to improve (and not let other kids pass her on the ice!). She was very focused and her skating developed a lot. Both kids are also wrapping up a set of gymnastics classes - I've been doing a parented-class with George at the same time Charlotte takes a preschool-aged class on Tuesday mornings. My goal is always to get outside for at least an hour of activity/day, but in the face of a cold snap in early January I decided to seek out an indoor alternative, and we've enjoyed the gymnastics club. The weather has been really mild for the past week, which gives us hope that spring is around the corner, but in all likelihood there's still another snow storm or two ahead before we're done with winter.

Brotherly love.

"Do do!" (meaning: George do it!)

"Cheese!"

Charlotte and her friend Ian.

A beautiful weekend in Jasper.

Enjoying a visit from Granny and Grandpa over the Family Day weekend.

Warming up.

Keeping busy

I've been sitting on this post for a few weeks now, and before 2015 gets any older and 2014 becomes a distant memory I wanted to record some of the highlights of the last few months, and also upload some of the photos we've taken since I last blogged.

I'll back us all the way up to July, when Charlotte had her fourth birthday. She attended a half-day "Monsters"-themed preschool day camp in our neighbourhood the week of her birthday and it coincided with the last day of the camp. So I decided to take advantage of this and avoid throwing a birthday party by bringing Cookie Monster cupcakes for the kids at the end of the morning. Charlotte's a shy kid anyway, so I figured she wouldn't care. It's the last year I'm going to be able to get away with that: she's now attended enough friends' birthday parties to know what they're all about... In the afternoon we made popcorn and watched "How to Train Your Dragon" while George napped - a good activity for what turned out to be a rainy afternoon. The four of us headed to K-Days - Edmonton's annual fair - in the late afternoon and spent the rest of the day there. Charlotte had a blast on the rides, although next year will be even better since at 41.5 inches she just missed the height requirement for a number of rides. She also enjoyed the junky food, seeing Dora the Explorer live, and getting a balloon creation from the balloon man.

The summer was generally filled with a lot of time at the nearby parks - we're spoiled to have three within two blocks of us (including a splash park) - and daily walks and bike rides. We bought Charlotte a bike in the spring as an early birthday present and she got a lot of use out of it. She had training wheels on it this summer - it was too large a bike for her to attempt it without them, but we'll give it a go this coming spring. Charlotte also took her first set of swimming lessons in the summer at a nearby outdoor pool. I loved taking outdoor lessons as a kid, but worried about whether the weather would cooperate. Fortunately the two weeks of lessons turned out to coincide with a beautiful stretch of hot weather, and Charlotte enjoyed herself. I wouldn't say that she made any significant strides in her swimming abilities, but for a first set of lessons it was a positive experience. 

Charlotte being the big sister.

Canada Day at the Leg.

George was mesmerized by a floating leaf for a good ten minutes.

"Hold my hand, George!"

Daddy's girl.

George in heaven.

Laughs with Papa.

George took his first steps at the end of June - I was relieved because I had been afraid I would miss them when I was away at a conference in Portugal in early July. He remained quite tentative for another month or so, but by August was starting to walk more confidently. James' Mom came out to help with the kids while I was in Portugal, and both Charlotte and George did great with her. We had all been a bit apprehensive about how it would go with George, because he was/is very attached to me and since Granny isn't local he doesn't see her that regularly. Fortunately we had been with James' parents in Toronto only six weeks earlier, and as soon as she arrived in July George was comfortable with her. He coped really well, although was apparently more excited than usual to see James arrive home from work at the end of each day! No one doubted that Charlotte would be anything but thrilled to have special time with Granny - in fact, I wondered if she'd be more sad that Granny was leaving than pleased with my return. Charlotte and Granny made many memories, including daily walks to a nearby coffee shop for coffee and ice-cream. But Charlotte was also very excited at my return, and for about a week I got lots of hugs and kisses and "I missed you when you were in Portugal, Mommy!" It was lovely - though it didn't take too long to get back to being taken-for-granted. 

September saw Charlotte return to preschool. This year she attends three days/week instead of two, and switched from a morning to an afternoon class to coincide with George's nap. It also allows the three of us to head out in the mornings together on a variety of adventures. Our regular destinations include the library, the parks, a play group at our neighbourhood community hall, and a biking/cross-country skiing group that I attend weekly (with childcare for the kids). Although I had intended to return to work this past fall, I was only offered one course to teach in each of the fall and winter semesters, and I decided it wasn't worth it for the juggling act it would have required. I had to psych myself up for another full-time year at home, but with everything we've got lined up, as well as visits with friends, I'm finding the year is flying by. 

First day of preschool, year 2.

Excited to have Grandma be the adult helper for the day.

Family visit at Thanksgiving.

Preschool Christmas concert.

In Calgary for Christmas.

Reading and snuggles with Grandma.

Hanging out with Aunt Jenny.

Enjoying some Christmas presents.