Category: Uncategorized

As you know, for the past few years I  have decided to change my lifestyle little by little to try and be more fit.  I’m not one for those ‘dive in and change your entire lifestyle’ diets or routines because I feel they don’t stick.  At least they don’t stick for me.

In the past year I was concerned at some back spasms I had when I was throwing Sierra up and down in the air and I have embarked on some strength training which I have failed miserably at when Ezra has taken up my time in the evenings.

But now things are looking up and he seems to not need to be held to fall asleep on the couch so maybe I will slowly get back into putting him on the couch, getting him to sleep, slithering off the couch myself and doing some exercise while rewatching The Mandalorian (best show ever).

Anyhow, this post isn’t about what I didn’t accomplish, it’s about what I have accomplished!  Let’s take a look at what Fitbit has shown me over the years.  I love stats and what better stats to look at than from the Palmer machinery.

Its always reassuring to see that I met and exceeded my goal of 10,000 steps per day.  Here is a comparison to years past:

2015: 10,599

2016: 12,284

2017: 12,289

2018: 12,215

2019: 11,381

But in the grand scheme of things you can see my trend has been falling since 2016.  Something to keep my mind on.  I still take walks at work during my breaks and at lunch but I haven’t gone on the elliptical as much in the past year as I have transitioned more to strength training and taking care of Ezra.

Active minutes may be the more interesting item to track because it tracks everything I do, not just steps.  Fitbit defines active minutes as when the activity you’re doing is more strenuous than regular walking, which includes everything from a brisk walk to a cardio workout or run.  The Centre of Disease Control recommends 20-30 minutes for adults each day.  I’m quite pleased in seeing that I have averaged 102 minutes a day.  Note that I love averages somehow hides the fact that some weekends that number sits around zero!

2015: 50

2016: 87

2017: 113

2018: 110

2019: 102

What’s interesting to see is that in 2016 I was walking an average of 12K+ steps but my active minutes were quite low.  This is when I started realizing that just taking walks wasn’t doing enough to strengthen my heart (which is my ultimate goal here).  If I go on a elliptical I need to make sure I have it set up to work my heart more and in this particular case, achieve a higher number of active minutes.

The calories burned is an interesting chart but I have to say that I don’t input my calorie intake (aka food and drink) into fitbit much these days.  So I’m not sure what I can discern from staring at the fact that I burned 3,407 calories per day on average.

2015: 2,408

2016: 3,328

2017: 3,484

2018: 3,525

2019: 3,407

Looking at the overall trend we can get some different perspective.  It looks like I was burning more and more calories over the past few years until this past year where I dipped back down.  This follows a similar trend on the number of active minutes I was achieving.  So…steps aren’t everything folks!

9km a day on average seems like a lot!  It also is the average distance walked over the past five years.  That’s interesting considering my step count has fluctuated but my distance hasn’t really changed.

My ultimate goal is to have a strong heart for the eventual day when I have a heart attack.  I’m basically building up my fortress wall to withstand any attack and with minimal damage.  Why?  Well, I’m not ready to leave this earthly plain anytime soon considering I have a few kids who needs to hear some good jokes.

From runningmagazine.com: Resting heart rate (RHR) varies from person to person but usually falls between 60 and 100 beats per minute (BPM) in most individuals. Athletes however, and particularly endurance athletes, are known to have a significantly lower RHR, usually between 30 and 50 BPM. A lower RHR represents greater (and more efficient) overall cardiovascular fitness. This means that the heart needs to contract fewer times to deliver sufficient volumes of blood to the body.

2015: 62 bpm

2016: 57 bpm

2017: 58 bpm

2018: 58 bpm

2018: 58 bpm

So I guess I’m not an athlete but I’m also below what the resting heart rate generally falls at.  I guess I’m happy with that!  I’m not entirely sure how much of this is due to my exercise vs. my genetics but I’ll take whatever life serves me.

This is a snapshot of what my cardio fitness is TODAY.  Good to very good…I guess I should strive for very good?

The ultimate goal is to have a strong heart but a good secondary bonus is always to have a lower weight on the weight scale.  The weight chart actually tracks my weight since the beginning so it’s interesting to see how everything was looking.

Here’s a photo in the summer of 2015.

August 2016

July 2017

August 2018

August 2019

It’s interesting to see how I look over the progression of weight loss and gain.  The cheeks and beergut definitely are the target areas for weight gain on the Palmer!  Not a big deal though.  Did you see the other charts in this entire post?  It’s what is inside that counts and it looks like I’m a fine specimen of a human being.

I really enjoyed seeing how the Fitbit has tracked my fitness over the past five years.  It’s an interesting snapshot of of life spanning from 36 to 41 years.  Here’s to many more!

This recipe is a complete cheat considering I put in a jar of vegetarian chili from “recipes in a jar”.  This isn’t a meal from scratch!

That being said, here’s the recipe for the next time I have a jar handy.

one jar of vegetarian chili

one large can of diced tomatoes

3 3/4 cups of water

2 cups of diced turkey we had leftover from Christmas.

I set the manual high for 22 minutes but the next time I will do it for 30 minutes,  the issue is that there are dry beans in the jar which take a lot of time to cook.  It was t horrible but if you’re used to the texture of a kidney or black bean the timer will need to go longer.

let cool down for 15 minutes and then vent.

here’s the ingredients in case I don’t have the jar next time and I want to try and make it from scratch.

I know the year is going to be a good one when after I set up Sierra with a bowl of oatmeal and Dora the Explorer she comes running into the office saying “I want to give you a hug because I love you!”

This got me thinking that all the things I do for her are finally starting to click inside her brain and all this effort I put into parenting is finally paying off!

Then she realizes she wanted Cheerios instead of oatmeal and proceeds to have a meltdown.

Hey look, it’s New Year’s Eve and I managed to get a few minutes reprieve to put some thought into my favourite albums from the past decade.  An entire decade!

iTunes shows I have 8,004 songs from the past decade.  Let’s dig in!  I’m not counting reissues but the Beatles had an incredible reissue campaign in the past decade.

Alice in Chains – Rainier Fog 2018

Arcade Fire – Reflektor 2014

Bad Uncle – The Surgeon’s Lament 2013

Big Wreck – Ghosts 2014

Billy Talent – Afraid of Heights 2016

Black Ribbons – Neuromancer 2012

Manchester Orchestra – A Black Mile to the Surface 2017

Boxer Rebellion – The Cold Still 2011

Broken Social Scene – Hug of Thunder 2017

Cannons – Open Letter 2013

Collective Soul – Live 2017

Dan Mangan – Nice, Nice, Very Nice 2010

Dear Rouge – Black to Gold – 2015

The Dears Acoustic: 2001-2005 (2016)

The Dears – Times Infinity Volume Two 2017

The Devin Cuddy Band – Volune One 2012

Fontarabie – Fontarabie 2014

Glen Hansard – Between Two Shores 2018

Gord Downie and the Country of Miracles – The Grand Bounce 2010

How To Destroy Angels – Welcome Oblivion

July Talk – July Talk 2013

Kathleen Edwards – Voyageur 2012

Les Cowboys Fringants – Octobre 2015

LIVE – Woodstock ’94 2019

Loon Choir – All of This and Everything Else 2015

The Lumineers – The Lumineers 2013

Matt Mays – Coyote 2012

Megadeth – Dystopia 2016

Metallica – Hardwired…To Self-Destruct 2016

Metric – Art of Doubt 2018

Murray Lightburn – Mass:Light 2013

Muse – The 2nd Law 2012

My Chemical Romance – Danger Days 2010

The National – Sleep Well Beast 2017

Nine Inch Nails – Add Violence, Bad Witch, Not The Actual Events 2017

Patrick Watson – Adventures In Your Own Backyard 2012

Pearl Jam – Lightning Bolt 2013

Postdata – Let’s Be Wilderness 2018

Radiohead – A Moon Shaped Pool 2016

The Reverb Syndicate – Odyssey 2015

Rob Zombie – Venomous Rat Regeneration Vendor 2013

Roger Waters – Is This The Life We Really Want? 2017

Royal Canoe – Today We’re Believers 2013

Sam Roberts Band – Collider 2011

Silversun Pickups – Widow’s Weeds 2019

Skye Wallace – Skye Wallace 2019 (this one is tricky…I literally got this album a month ago so I don’t know if it has the staying power to be the best of a decade.  But it’s definitely the best of 2019 and it’s still going strong into 2020!)

The Smashing Pumpkins – Oceania 2012

Sound of Lions – 11:44 2011

Spencer Burton – Don’t Let the World See Your Love 2014

St. Vincent – MASSEDUCTION 2017

Tame Impala – Currents 2015

Taylor Swift – 1989 (2014)

The Tea Party – Live from Australia 2012

Ted Leo and the Pharmacists – The Brutalist Bricks 2010

Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross – The Social Network soundtrack 2010

The Trews – …Thank You and I’m Sorry 2012

U2 – Songs of Experience 2017

The War on Drugs – A Deeper Understanding 2017

The Weeknd – House of Balloons

Whale Tooth – Search Party 2012

William Patrick Corgan – Ogilala 2017

Wintersleep – The Great Detachment 2016, In The Land Of 2019

It’s really interesting going down the rabbit hole of memories of all these great albums that have impacted me.

And for the greatest disappointment of the past decade…30 Seconds to Mars.  You were destined to take the top spot from Smashing Pumpkins and Pearl Jam.  Then you produced crap for an entire decade.

Happy new year!

I’ve run a little late with this entry considering I’m writing this on January 16, 2020 and there’s a whole lot of snow on the ground.  It’s strange to see that we were outside at the park like this six weeks ago!  I do remember getting worried about the lack of snow for Christmas.

December was a fun month with Sierra.  She is grasping the concepts of giving gifts, opening gifts, asking for items from Santa.  Her attention span definitely wanes though.  The evidence of this is her advent calendar which still isn’t completely opened yet!

For the second year in a row, we wanted to try and open up gifts for a series of days instead of opening them all in one morning.  The way we see it is that we are stuck inside for the Christmas break, why not have something special to look forward to each day?  Sierra was definitely blowing through a few gifts on Christmas morning until she stopped at the greatest gift ever…a fishing game.  We stopped everything and played that game.  We also played it the next day.  And the next.  Every time we asked if she wanted to open up some gifts, she said “No, I want to play the fishing game!”  It warms our hearts to see that she actually enjoys playing with the gifts she receives instead of blowing through them and leaving them in a pile on Christmas morning.

Before I forget to mention, this past month (or past season…it’s been so long!) has been the time where Sierra isn’t the nicest person in the world.  She constantly says no to us at every turn.  “Let’s brush your teeth.”  Non.  “Let’s get you dressed.”  Non.  “Let’s leave daycare so you can go home.” Non.  Argh!  It is very frustrating right now.  We are trying to give her a reward system like “Hey, if you get dressed to go to daycare you can watch television tonight.” but it doesn’t seem to phase her.  When we point out that she can’t get something special, she just says “It’s ok.” like she’s consoling us!  Hopefully this phase will pass soon enough because it’s getting too frustrating in the morning when I’m trying to have her speak quietly so she doesn’t wake Ezra but at the same time she’s saying no to everything!

Onto some photos!

Typically on a weekend I try and get away with both kids to give Maman a break.  This must have been the day where Ezra was still sleeping in so I decided to hit the road with Sierra.  First stop…breakfast!

We were pretty lucky to see Santa Claus while we were out at the grocery store!!

Sierra is starting to not like her picture being taken.

Etienne and I made a photo book of ourselves for the Christmas gift exchange at work.  We were pretty disheartened when we found out at the last minute that there was NOT going to be any exchange this year!  Luckily Kelly didn’t get the memo either so we did an exchange between ourselves.  She was over the moon with this gift and proceeded to bring it to every meeting she could in the proceeding weeks.

Sierra’s first advent calendar!  Note for next year: get the cheap ones where the chocolates have a different design to them.  This kinder one was the same exact chocolate each day.

Preparing for her first job.

As parents with two kids, you sometimes have to split up when it comes to activities.  Vero headed downtown with Trish to see Damien Robitaille at the opening ceremony for the Christmas lights in Ottawa.  Jealous that they got to meet him on their way into the event!  By the way, if you don’t have his new Christmas album, go get it now.  It’s great!

Sierra showing me how the ratio of icing to cookie should be at least 50/50.

Sierra and I went to David’s Tea to pick up a gift for Maman and they treated her to some decaffeinated tea.  Yum!

Bahaha!

Helping put up the Christmas decorations.  Stan Lee’s Santa hat came out for the event!

I got a calendar notification reminding me to infiltrate the girls’ Christmas party with a gift of my own.  I sent a long a photo book of my life.  Vero thought it was hilarious and supposedly there were a few people fighting over the item! 

Holly won it in the end and she tells me that her kids look at pictures of Uncle Ryan each night.

This is probably the photo they like to look at.

Tis the season to make sausage dip!

Sierra insisted that our tree had a star on top this year so we went out and picked one up.

The best part of Vars is their annual Christmas celebration!  Someone tried to get me to play tunes for the kids but I wasn’t prepared in time.  Luckily they got the guy who had been doing it for years and he knows how to get the kids entertained!

Sierra and her friend were more focussed on crawling on the floor than singing and dancing!

Ho Ho Ho!

I had a homework assignment for the month of December.  I was going to play some Christmas tunes for the daycare along with our friend Vero.  There has never been a French translation of Frosty the Snowman   …until now!  The daycare had this book and I copied the words down and figured out how to play it in French.

Clearly they had fun at daycare today!

I’m not sure if I have already posted this but this is this year’s school photo.  I put in another two minutes of effort on her hair that morning.  Usually it’s a rat’s nest.

For YEARS I have gone to the department’s Christmas party and they only had tea or coffee on hand.  Finally, they have smarted up and offered up some hot chocolate as well!

Ah, the work Christmas party.  Always a fun time.  We now reserve Le Troquet for our festivities and rightly so!  We spend most of our time there during the year anyhow!

For the past two years, Nanny Ruth’s Christmas sweater (I’m wearing it in this photo) has one the Branch’s Christmas sweater prize!  We were going to go for a third year in a row which I mistakenly thought was four years in a row.  So you will see that everyone’s t-shirt says FOUR FOR FOUR accidentally.  I never told them the truth and if they are reading this now…sorry?  My team loves Nanny Ruth’s sweater so much that they rallied behind the cause of winning another year in a row and we got some t-shirts made for the event.  Unfortunately, we were completely shut out of winning this year…we didn’t even make it into the Top 3!  I think that’s a little unfair, but whatever.  At the end of the day, there’s no tears shed over losing a sweater competition.  It is Christmas after all!  Nanny, if you are reading this, I hope you enjoy seeing how much joy you bring to my colleagues!  Special thanks to the great group I work with and the fun times that were brought to the Branch Christmas party even though most of you were severely hungover from the previous night’s party.

Now that Christmas has passed I can start posting photos of a project I was working on.  I was going to attempt to make a cribbage board for my parents as well as another one for Vero’s dad.  I got these biscuits from Emile at work who had taken down a few trees on his property.  I let them dry over a month’s time on the heater at work.  I had purchased a router to do the middle portion but after speaking to Dad I realized that the router needed bits and other things that I wasn’t prepared to purchase so I returned it and worked at carving out the middle portion for the cards.

I sat on the project for a few weeks seeing that the clock was ticking.  I needed to get this done!  I then took an old credit card and drilled a few holes in it to act as a template to drill over 300 holes into the board.  As you can see from the photo above I marked it with a pencil before going all out!

Birthday party fun!

Everyone loves a good marshmallow.

Sierra pulling Maman on the sled!

After some varnish.

Making some Christmas cookies

Note the Mr. T action figure!!

Might steal this idea for next year.

Finished product!  The only thing that really messed up with this entire project were the custom playing cards I ordered…the box they came in was larger than the spot I carved for them!

I can’t figure out if the cribbage board or the custom playing cards were the best part of the gift!

It’s been a long Star Wars ride but we went and watched Rise of Skywalker on opening night and it was great!

For a few years I have been suffering from styes that form on my eyelid.  I was having a good run of not having any for a few weeks but it came back in full force.  I hadn’t had it this bad since when it first started up years ago.  Hopefully one day we’ll figure out how to get rid of them but as the specialist once told me: “You won’t die from it, but you will die with it!”

Sierra riding the escalator at my work

There were carollers so Sierra and I sat down in the lobby to listen to a few songs.

Santa was nice enough to pay us a visit at work!

After awhile at work, it’s time for a break.

It was great to see some of the old gang from when we worked together back in 2010.  It’s also crazy to think that some of us still work together!  Hey, when you love your job and the people you work with, why would you leave?

Clearly Sierra was not too happy with Mina trying to watch her iPad.

It’s Christmas eve and the cookies, milk, and carrots are ready for Santa and his reindeer!

Christmas morning

Alright, some context is needed for this five minute video, but it is well worth watching.  A few months ago while eating a smoked meat sandwich for lunch, we asked Sierra what she wanted from Santa Claus.  She thought about it for a bit and then said “a smoked meat sandwich!”.  We thought this was quite funny but when we asked her a few more times as Christmas got closer, she had the same answer.  But she also added a few things…”un smoked meat sandwich puis un non et un oui!”  Only Santa could figure out what she meant by this and Santa delivered!  Sierra was VERY excited to see some smoked meat come her way for Christmas.

Smoked meat!!!

Prepping Christmas dinner.

What a great Christmas treat!  Poppa, Grandma, Abbey and Maureen came to visit us for a few days!  Too bad it was freezing rain most of the time!

Sierra enjoyed the activity tablecloth that Grandma brought for Christmas.

I had a good laugh at this one on Facebook.

Sierra enjoyed the slippers that Nanny Ruth made for her.

Kitchen party!

I love how this photo makes it look like I’m playing to an audience of one.

Obligatory moose mug shot!

https://thesaltymarshmallow.com/instant-pot-spaghetti/

I modified the recipe from the site above and it came out decent.  Vero really likes it.  I feel there’s a little bit of flavour needed.  The comments section mentions someone adding some brown sugar as they like a sweeter taste,  I may try that next time.  Update: I did try the cup of brown sugar and while good, I wasn’t a fan.  I need to figure out the missing ingredient.

Ingredients

Kids.

Sometimes they are like this:

But then sometimes they are like this:

And if you’re really lucky, they give you this once in awhile:

Ezra is full out screaming at me 50% of the nights but then other nights he’s content to hang out with me.  You never know what you’re going to get!  But he’s doing good for the most part.  I don’t feel he’s got any health issues that we need to be concerned about.  What do I know?  Maybe the 50% of the time he’s screaming at me is because he’s allergic to hanging out next to his Dad?

A typical evening for me is to return home, help out with Sierra to put her to bed and then I bring Ezra downstairs and we watch some TV/movies.  Somewhere along this ride he gets a bottle and then if I’m lucky he’s all smiles for 30 minutes and then he starts to get cranky so I rock him to sleep or wrap him in a blanket and he falls asleep next to me for an hour until the next feeding.  Feedings are slowly stretching past the two hour mark.  Sometimes he’s can go another 30 minutes, sometimes not.  That’s on a good day.  On a bad day, he’s crying after I give him the bottle and he doesn’t let up for two hours.  I even had to employ this handy device one night:

I’ve learned to watch Star Wars with the subtitles on.

He’s enjoying the Christmas lights we have put up.  Vero tells me that he stares at the Christmas tree a lot.

Onto the pictures!

Mom’s still got the Midas touch!

We’re teaching Sierra how to take photos.

Two beauties!

Maggie Simpson.

I’ve never seen this outfit before.  Is this supposed to be Mickey Mouse?

Sierra gets some cuddle time with Ezra before bedtime usually.  At a quick glance you would think Sierra is looking at the camera but we all know she is staring at the television behind us.

Vero goes out for the night and the supper of champions emerges!

Vero would probably tell you that this is a typical morning for Ezra.  Having a nap while taking a walk around the neighbourhood.

Taking Ezra for a sled ride.

It was the just the three of us one night so Sierra helped give the bottle while I cleaned up the kitchen.  They both did quite well!

The snow comes and goes around Ottawa so we took advantage of it when we could.  It’s interesting to see how Ezra reacts in the cold.  If there is the slightest gust of wind it takes his breath away so we generally have to bundle him up in blankets.  But on a day like today he was doing good.

I think they are both getting used to having photos taken.

I saw this at the Canadian Tire toy section and I thought “Yep, that sounds right.”

Fredo and Ezra hanging out.

THIS is what we like to see in the evenings!

Ezra enjoys the time spent in his little play yard.

Checking out what the family is doing.

Relaxing.

Watching Christmas specials on a Saturday morning.

Sierradinosaur and Ezra were really into Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.

Ezra was loving playing with this.

And this!

Damien Robitaille!  Trish and Vero got to see him play a few Christmas tunes down near City Hall.

He has a new Christmas album out this year which is a great listen (and a great gift under the tree!)

And so it begins!  With the Rise of Skywalker coming out in a few weeks I decided to take Ezra on the journey of watching six Star Wars films with me.

For Holly’s Christmas party I infiltrated with a gift of my own…a photo book of my life!  It was a hot ticket item for the gift exchange!

Sausage dip!

Ezra was helping put the Christmas tree up.

Ezra and Sierra got to meet Santa at the Vars Christmas celebration!

I have to take tips from this guy.  He was a great entertainer.

The afternoon was a hit and we give thanks to the Optimist Club for putting on this great event each year.

Watatow!  Four months old already!

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.

Sierra caught wind that Hallowe’en was sometime in October so every night after supper she asks for her bonbon d’Hallowe’en.  Luckily she never ate any of her candy from the year prior so there is still some decent candy in there that hasn’t expired.

The key this year will be to see if she will wear a costume or not.  Sierra LOVES Dora the Explorer so we are going to outfit her in that and see how it goes.

Sierra is quite the independent soul around our house.  While she does insist that we help her put on her shoes and clothes from time to time, for the most part she refuses any help with anything.  She is also getting used to playing on our own.  The other evening I had to take care of Ezra on my own so I asked her to go play downstairs and she didn’t encounter any issues with it.  Saturday mornings are quite fun as I can just set her down in front of Dora the Explorer for a few hours while I catch up on things that I haven’t been able to do throughout the week.  Then we typically hit the road and do something with Ezra during the morning.

Sierra is still taking afternoon naps and we are quite lucky she does.  I don’t know how we would function if we had to work with Ezra AND Sierra without getting a nap!

I will write more about the creation of this music box I built for Sierra but for the time being, I can say that Sierra enjoys being able to choose her own music to play out of this box.

Having fun outside in the rain!

Sierra was a fantastic helper for me on Sunday morning.  For years we never did anything around our fire pit and we ended up with a layer of pine needles that we cleaned up last spring.  Now that it’s Autumn a new batch have fallen down and I decided we need to get ahead of the game and pick these needles up!

It’s interesting not having a hot tub for the moment.  We have made a lot more campfires this Fall.

Sierra was having a grand old time drinking a giant mug of apple juice.  She didn’t care for the onion rings at all and we had to go back and order some fries for her.  Also, I can’t believe Vero didn’t know I don’t like root beer!  She shows up with a mug of it and I’m thinking “I’ve been with you over a decade and you don’t know this about me?!”

People, don’t forget to lock up your car at night!  Someone ransacked our cars and the neighbours cars.  I have officially hit old man status when NOTHING was taken from my car.  I guess CDs and GPS systems aren’t in vogue for thieves?

With the mornings getting darker and darker, you get to see some really great sunrises from our front lawn.

Spaghetti supper!

Here’s a typical Saturday for us.  Hanging out on the shopping carts at Canadian Tire.

We scored some great Halloween decorations from Canadian Tire!  Sierra really liked putting these up in the window.

Last year all Sierra wanted to watch was It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown.  This year she watched it for a week and switched back to Dora.

My friend Nat came back to work after a year of maternity leave.  Here she was excited to go back.  Two hours later she was wondering why people have to sit inside cubicles all day.

It was school picture day so I worked extra long on her hair.  I decided to take a photo in case she destroyed it before the photo session.

Still some beautiful lunch hour walks to be had with Etienne!

Vero bought a tool that helps slice up vegetables into spaghetti like noodles.  I have to admit that it was pretty neat eating zucchini spaghetti!

I’m not sure why the photos are reversed order, but Sierra thought she could escape a photo taken of her but AHA!  I managed to capture her joy on riding her little scooter.

Happy Hallowe’en Jason!

This photo was taken on a BEAUTIFUL Friday lunch hour where Marijo and I found a sunny spot on the patio at Le Troquet (best bar ever).  Could it be the last patio day of the season?

Here is Sierra strumming the ukelele at the campfire.

This is the birthday card we prepared before the party.

The birthday girl and Sierra checking out something interesting on the Internet.

Getting some cake is always fun!  For some reason Sierra did NOT want to sing Happy Birthday when the cake came out which was strange considering she had been singing it for a few days prior.

The piggyback rider lives again!  Sierra really likes hopping on this thing now.  I’m enjoying the fact that she likes hopping on it.  In fact I was at the shopping mall the other day trying to figure out how to finagle a baby stroller and a toddler and she saw the piggyback rider and wanted to hop on around the mall!  Problem solved.

Vero’s family came to town for Thanksgiving so we went out to the Mer Bleue bog for a walk.  We had to park a kilometer away due to all the traffic.  Someone said there were no spots available ahead but lo and behold if we had just kept driving we would have seen that they were not speaking the truth to us!

The bog is neat as it has a boardwalk stretching through the entire thing.

Clearly Danielle didn’t want to be in the photo.

There were only a million people in the trail with us.  We were lucky to get a second to take this photo without people cutting through!  For historical reference this was also the weekend when the Gatineau Park had to close their doors to car traffic early in the morning!  Beautiful day for a hike though.

Sierra was pretty sure we could push this tree down.

This was a shot before we ate twenty pounds of turkey.

I’m not entirely sure what happened here but it sure looks like Sierra and Grandpapa are fixing some closet knobs.

I really like what they did on the walking path behind my work.

I wish I had seen this particular photo last weekend when I spent 30 minutes looking for our rake.  Grandpapa and Sierra left it in the leaves near this tree!

I was really intrigued by this macabre artwork we saw at lunchtime.  Turns out that each piece is inspired by a children’s tale.  They had a gruesome one of a dismembered hand being eaten with a fork and knife.  Turns out it was Captain Hook’s hand!

Dana’s hair is quite versatile.

Oh boy oh boy, we got to go on a tractor ride for an excursion to Ferme Drouin!  The daycare kids loved the entire day.  I was quite tired at the end of my day which ended around 2PM.

After the tractor ride we got to pick out one pumpkin to bring home.

SOMEONE wanted to get back to the tractor before all the others.  Someone amongst us says “Wow, Sierra is quite independent.”  In my head I’m thinking “Yeah, if you call a kid running away from her Dad when he’s wanting her to stay next to him independent…then yes, she’s quite independent!”

After the tractor ride we entered the spooky woods and looked at the spooky creatures hanging out in the woods.

Let’s be honest, the best part of any farm is the park they have set up.

Sierra was nice enough to give this goat some lunch.

This farm is well set up for kids to come and visit.  After the park we had some lunch and then visited the barn.  Afterwards we go into another barn/hall and they have a bouncy castle and some fun things like this alien picture to play around with.  Ferme Drouin is a great spot to bring the kids!

I would like to thank the daycare for inviting me along for the trip!  It was a cold but fun day outside with all the kids.  Next time I’ll have to figure out how to sneak my way onto the bus because that always seems like the best part!

It will be a costly day when she realizes that if I put a toonie in the machine the horsies actually move!  But until that day comes, she is content with just sitting on them and saying hello and goodbye to them.

Sierra and I spent some time at the shopping mall one Saturday morning when Ezra was still sleeping in.  We put a dress on and went looking for some new shirts.  We also found a popcorn stand and sat on the bench watching people while we ate some popcorn.  A small bag of popcorn could probably last 2 weeks with a kid eating it!

We unfortunately have a new critter giving us a hard time in the house….a lobster!

Saturday afternoon was a beautiful day to start mulching up some leaves on the lawn.  Before that we needed to hit up the pumpkin patch!

Sierra having more fun playing with Maman than actually picking out a pumpkin!

This was the moment immediately after Sierra tried to pick up the pumpkin by it’s top and the top fell off in her hands!

With a little wash this will be the perfect pumpkin.

Saturday night brought me to Mike and Melissa’s place for Mike’s birthday party.  I really love this picture as it looks like I’m the head of a group of evil masterminds!

My team at work are dressing as clowns so I this was my attempt at a minimalist clown costume.  I feel I need to find a coloured vest to make the outfit work.  Also, wearing lipstick for the first time was weird.  My lips were always super dry!

Nanny Ruth and Beth came for a visit on a rainy Sunday.  We had some soup for lunch and then we carved a small pumpkin with Sierra.  She was very excited to see a pumpkin come to life.  We still have two more to carve out in the next few days.

It’s the Great Pumpkin, Sierra!