Month: November 2019

It’s been a rough month with Sierra as she has caught a couple of viruses from the daycare.  This year was the worst the daycare has seen in a decade.  It even wiped out some of the staff for close to a week!

I remember hearing Sierra over the monitor saying her bellybutton hurt.  I went in and asked if she rolled onto her doll’s head and she said yes.  Then I went back to bed and she kept complaining that her bellybutton hurt.  It dawned on me….she wasn’t talking about her bellybutton, she was talking about her belly!  I rushed back in but the damage was done as she had vomited in her bed.  Poor thing.  The rest of the night was spent over a bucket and watching Dora the Explorer.  Pro tip for parents: if you notice that there is a really bad stomach bug going around the daycare, don’t decide one night to pound back a couple of beer, and head to bed around 11pm when there is a high probability that you will wake at 2am and have to stay awake helping out a poor girl being sick!

Sierra really enjoyed Halloween and is gearing up for Christmas now.  It’s great to see that she fully grasps these things and now it’s up to us to figure out what sort of traditions we want to have.  Sierra’s already forced us into the “let me have a Halloween candy after supper!” tradition!  We are starting to let her know about Santa Claus visiting the house at the end of December which has always been a welcome visit in my house!

Sierra is 95% self-sufficient at 3.5 years old.  Saturday and Sunday mornings consist of me getting some hummus and crackers for her, going downstairs and turning on Dora the Explorer for her.  I can go to the office and do things like updating this blog for you all!

I’m not sure why I took this photo one morning but I must have been proud of the work I put into her hair that morning.  These days it’s rare that she wants a lulu or clips so when I manage to convince her it’s a treat.  I’m trying to think of what a lulu is in English…hair elastic?

It was an exciting day at the daycare as everyone got their nails and faces painted!

Halloween!  Sierra’s Dora outfit came out pretty good! 

Our team decided to have a clown theme this year.  Nick put it best “I really enjoy how all of us came as different versions of clowns!”

So here’s the thing…Halloween was a wash.  Literally.  Torrential downpours hit the Nation’s Capital this year and it sucked!  Vero was nice enough to head out with Sierra and I stayed at home with Ezra handing out candy.  We ended up giving only half of the regular amount (around 45 pieces) which must be because of all the rain.  Kids weren’t venturing too far outside this cold, rainy night.  Vero did come up with a genius idea of putting Sierra in her parka but with a Dora apron.

Ezra and I watched An American Werewolf in London while handing out candies.  Did you know the director of that film also directed Michael Jackson’s Thriller video? 

What a haul!

I think these poppy stickers are a great idea (except they didn’t really stick to this type of jacket).

Bahaha!  Facebook has some gems sometimes.

The neighbours missed Halloween due to illness so a couple of days later they managed to score a LOT of candy considering we had boxes of it left!

I get a call from Vero saying there is a water leak in the basement.  GREAT.  Luckily the leak was not to the boiler as I had originally feared.  But it still was a pinhole leak spraying water in behind a wall.  Vero said the latex paint had a giant bubble forming out of the wall that she has to poke with a fork to get the water out!

I took this picture to show all home renovators what NOT to do.  When you have an unfinished basement and are thinking of putting some walls up, please don’t build a wall where it’s impossible to get to some shut off valves!  Ridiculous!  I actually ended up having to cut a piece of the joist out of this because after I fixed the actual leak down the line, when I went to turn the water back on this valve wouldn’t stop leaking!  This was happening to me at 9pm at night!  I managed to get the valve into a spot where it was dripping once a minute.  I put a towel in there and decided to wait until Dad showed up that weekend to give me a hand.

I have to thank my parents for giving me the skills to repair things in the house.  Generally I can wait for someone to help me but this was one of the first times that I looked at the issue and said to myself “I have the skills required to fix this.  Just get it done no matter how long it takes.”  It was a pain working on the piping in behind the wall but I managed to get it done with the help of some Sharkbites.

I also love how I just realized I spoke about this already on the blog!  

Sierra is a big fan of Passe-Partout so I took this photo at work for her.

Troy and Connie sent up these nice earmuffs for Sierra.  She wears them all the time!

We’ve always had this doghouse on our property.

No more!  Dad was itching to get outside and do something one morning so we decided to take down this doghouse.  What a pain.  It had this really sturdy rooftop built with shingles that we had to take down and cut up into manageable pieces.  What a job!  I’ll probably find a bunch of things in the spring that need cleaning up.  I am thankful I figured out there was a Vars dump just down the road to drop things off to!  If anyone needs 50 feet of chain link fence and some of the accessories, they are yours!

Sierra’s getting pretty good at putting her snowsuit on.

First snow of the year came quite early in November this year!  Sierra wasn’t too excited about going to the daycare until I mentioned we could go on the sled.

A typical Saturday morning for Sierra.

Heading out for a walk.

Sierra is really nice when it comes to letting Maman have a nap.

At least the snowfall let us get some holiday photos done in time for Christmas.

I died of laughter for this one.

Sierra trying to catch Maman.

Sierra is now understanding the concept of what cashiers do.

The snow left us as fast as it came in!  Sierra and I took a walk around the neighbourhood and ended up at her daycare’s playground.  

Krista and the kids came out for a beautiful Sunday afternoon so we could see the Russell Christmas parade.

Fire trucks!

Merry KISSmas!  Vero couldn’t stop laughing at this float.

Nor the dinosaurs!

The main man and lady themselves!

I hadn’t been to a Christmas parade in years.  I had forgotten that the kids get A LOT of candy.

Sierra surprised me a few days ago when she drew this picture and said “This is for your friend Etienne.”  She must hear me speak about him a lot.  She’s only met him once in the summer.  How nice of her!  She also drew another bunch of pictures for him later in the weekend so I suggested they go to my other friends.  What a pleasant surprise my friends have in store on Monday morning!

Ezra has finally entered what I like to call the ‘Guy Smiley’ zone.  Every time we smile at him he returns them to us!  I think I even got him laughing a little the other day.  This is the beginning of a great addition to the family.  Before this moment I’m sure there were a few times where I thought “What am I gaining from having this kid in my arms who is crying?”

There have been quite a few evenings in the past month where he is a fussy baby.  Sometime after supper.  Which coincidentally turns out to be when I take him downstairs to give Vero a break.  There are some good nights where he takes the bottle, smiles at me for awhile and then falls asleep (like last night!).  There are other nights where I give him the bottle, he smiles for a bit but then for the next hour and a half he is NOT liking life and cries at me for the entire time.  I rock him, I walk with him, I twirl him around like pizza dough.  Nothing works.  These are some trying times!  I wonder if he is developing an intolerance like Sierra had even though Vero isn’t eating any dairy.  Is there some soy allergy sneaking in there?  Who knows?  I’ve even had to put the subtitles on Star Trek Deep Space Nine while I’m watching with him because there’s no way I can make out what the actors are saying!  Ha ha.

In the past week we are starting to see a transformation for the better.  Vero has said that he is starting to sleep from midnight until six am which is a welcome change.  He has done that consistently for the past five nights.  I also stumbled upon a position that typically makes him comfortable.  If I sit him on my knee and lean him forward he seems to not cry as much as was before.  This is good!  It’s really exciting when a parent finds a little trick that seems to make their kid feel better.

We have been giving him one bottle in the evening of four ounces of milk.  So far he doesn’t seem to want anymore.  At this point I can pretty well feed him the entire 4 ounces without giving him a burp and then he sits up and burps on his own.  Of course, this can vary from time to time but it’s exciting to see that he’s starting to do things on his own.  When will he be able to hold his own bottle!?

He is a happy baby and that’s what counts!

After bath time!  He seems to enjoy bath time these days.  He didn’t care for it entirely at first.  Even now I don’t seem him laughing at the thought of water but I’m sure that will change.

Wow, was it this nice outside one month ago?  I’m typing this as we got dumped with 10 centimetres of snow!

Some visitors for Thanksgiving

Beautiful morning for a campfire

“And that’s why we don’t talk about politics at the table!”

Ezra’s getting ready for Halloween!

Ezra sure loves snuggling up to Grandmaman.

Et Grandpapa aussi!

Sierra is such a funny person when posing for photos with Ezra.

Sierra wanted to help feed Ezra.

Ezra was lucky enough to get a bunch of more visitors in the past month.  Here is Melissa making sure he sleeps well.

He couldn’t stay asleep when Tante Carole wanted to hold him.

Hanging out in the playground.

A typical evening….just the boys hanging out downstairs on the couch watching Star Trek.

Some moments are pretty cool hanging out with this little dude.

But most moments were from a series I like to call “Don’t kid yourself.  Behind every good photo of Ezra smiling on this website is ten more of these videos where he is crying for an hour.”

This was probably the last campfire of the year.

Rob and Ezra singing.

This kid cracks me up!

Sierra taking Ezra for a walk showing him all the Halloween decorations.

Who would have thought that 24 years after Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness was released, we would be hanging out together watching a concert video from that era.  Ezra and Billy sure look alike!

Ezra is taking it all in at the pumpkin patch.

I’m not entirely sure what Ezra thought of my costume!

Nanny Ruth and Beth came to see what all the fuss was about.

To avoid crying, let the kid bring a book to the photo shoot.

I must have been telling a pretty good joke here.

I told Nanny she would have to stay for another few months considering I haven’t mastered this move yet.

I think Sierra was trying to take a selfie.  Not bad!

Out for a walk with Maman.

Maman must have been waving a chocolate bar in front of him.

Maman found this pumpkin in our backyard!

This pumpkin definitely moves a lot.

Vero took 20 photos to find the perfect one.  I chose this one to post.  I’m not sure if she would approve?

Pretty scary business handing out candy.

Ezra was guarding the candy at the front door whenever I would sneak off for a beer.

I had a good laugh when I saw where Ezra’s hands were heading on this photos of Mel and Jonathan!  The look on his face says “Awww yeah, watch this!”

Hanging out.

Out and about at the St Laurent shopping centre.

I worked from home one day and Vero passed Ezra to me for a few minutes while she had a shower.  He fell asleep!  We didn’t bother moving him.  It was quite interesting trying to type while he was laying asleep on my arm.

Basement chatter.

Vero called me one day to tell me that there was a leak in behind a wall in the guest room. FANTASTIC.  I get home, take a look at snap at photo of this lovely position where the leak is coming from.  It’s in behind a joist AND in behind a wall where the suspended ceiling doesn’t have access to.  Future home renovators: if you decide to build some rooms, why don’t you move it over a foot or two so you have actual access to the piping when it decides to leak!?  What a pain to fix.  I had to slice out some sections of the joists and will have to brace them again later.  I ended up using sharkbites for most of the job even though they are more expensive.  They had a slide coupling which made my life easier as I couldn’t move the two pipes much.  

The best part of the job was when I went to turn the water back on and a leak developed from the cut off valve.  ARE YOU KIDDING ME!?  I managed to get it down to a drip every 60 seconds so I waited a few days until Dad came down so we could patch that up.  It was also a pain of a job which required another section of the joist to come out.

Sierra bringing Ezra around the block.

I had a good laugh at this one.

Speaking about good laughs, here I was trying to get Ezra to laugh.

I took Ezra in this contraption for a spin around the house while vacuuming.  I’m not sure if he liked it or not.  I think he enjoyed it after getting used to it.

Mom, Dad and Nanny came for a quick visit over Remembrance Day weekend.  Here’s a photo of four generations of family together on the comfiest couch ever.

Troy sent up some beer from local breweries around London, ON.  Thanks!  Here’s Dad dipping into the many that were consumed that weekend.

Nanny was quite amused by Ezra, or was is the other way around?

Ezra is amused by anyone, even Poppa!

Three months already!  Ai ai aieeee.