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side by side

My two little boys are changing every day. That is the nature of childhood of course; constant change. But one thing that I see evolving before my eyes is this: They are becoming brothers. I see this scene a thousand times a day, and in a hundred different settings. Indoors.... ...or outside, I see the two of them, hunkered down next to each other. Over legos, or a book or a snack there they are thick as thieves. And like little criminals, they do have their disagreements. Many, many disagreements. About how fast the pages should be turned and who gets to put which lego brick where. But no matter how many disputes they have, and how many times I am called in to broker a deal ("well, since he chose that book, he gets to decide how fast to turn the pages. Next time it will be your turn.") they still end up sitting together. Even when they are fighting they just can't bear to leave each other alone. (seriously, would you please leave your brother alone!) And I can't help but think that in the long run, that will be a good thing. 

TWO!

Alright, now for the picture recap of the Baby's birthday. 

We started the day with a gift of course. We had a few things to give him, and did not want to overload him with multiple presents at once. So we spaced them out over the course of the day.  The Little Dude thought it would be fun to hide the first present, so we tucked it behind the pillow on this chair. As you can see, the Baby is quite triumphant in his discovery. 

The Little Dude was also a very eager and helpful co-unwrapper. Ahem. That's what big brothers are for right?

On a side note, it was interesting to watch him learn/deal with/negotiate his feelings about it being his brother's birthday and not his own. I'm a bit of an old-fashioned parent this way, in that I don't really think its necessary to get the other child a sort of 'consolation prize' present on their siblings birthday. I think that even at the developmentally self-centred age of four, it is important for them to learn that not everything is about them. We also took the Little Dude out shopping earlier this week so that he could choose a present for the Baby that he could give himself. We had to have a good, clear talk about how we were going to the toy store and were going to see lots of lovely things, but that we were not going to buy anything for him that day. He suggested that we could choose a lego set and put it away for when his birthday comes and then we had to have a looooong example filled conversation about how his birthday is still several months away and that he might change his mind about what he wanted before then, plus also, we wanted his present to be a surprise so we would not buy it when he was there. He's been quite good about it, with only a little bit of regretfulness as he told me that he did not want his birthday to be in the summer any more, but that he wanted a winter birthday instead. Like the Baby. It reminds me of one of my favourite kid's books A Birthday For Frances, where the little girl/badger says to her imaginary friend "That's how it is with birthdays Grace, yours is always the one that is not now". Anyhow, he seemed to really enjoy the Baby's day, 'helping' him unwrap all his presents, and 'sharing' them with him. Its a good thing the Baby is pretty unpossessive as of yet, and always willing to let L.D. play with the new lego or the new fire truck as long as the L.D. asked him nicely first. And L.D. did ask very nicely to his credit. 

Here's the Baby, carefully assembling a little lego car, with Daddy's help of course. I just love his concentrating face in the early morning light. 

And that hair. Oh, the sweet bi-level baby mullet!

While the kids ate breakfast I made icing and Hubs cut out lots of little paper bunnies so that we could play Find the Rabbit later on. (side note: I did not go crazy with the games and themes like I will do when he is older. So Find the Rabbit is a simple, two-year-old appropriate game where you hide a couple dozen paper rabbits around the room and then let the kids find them. Easy, satisfying, cute. Done and done.)

I made some quick seven minute frosting for the cake I'd baked the night before, and of course, the birthday boy wanted a beater to lick. Its his birthday, so I was all like, "icing for breakfast? Why not?" He was very pleased.

Here is the final decorated cake. A small four layer gluten-free, dairy-free white cake, flavoured with a bit of cinnamon and cardamom, and iced with orange flavoured seven minute frosting topped with berries.

The Baby managed to successfully blow out his own candles (after several tries). I'm laughing in this picture because like many two-year-olds, he still finds blowing in a specific direction quite tricky. He mostly kept sticking out his lower lip and blowing up, so that his bangs fluttered, which was really really cute. After about five tries he did manage it though, about which he seemed very satisfied. 

He sure did like that cake. As did the other kids. All plates were cleaned in a matter of minutes.

Later on in the day, after lunch and nap time, GranGran and Grandpapa came over. GranGran had made the Baby a card, which he really liked....

...because it had a picture of a baby on it. And not just any baby but "Baby Me!" as he likes to say. He loves photographs these days, and if he can get his hands on one of himself will carry it around proudly proclaiming "Picture Me!" to anyone who will listen. The use of the first person pronoun for himself is another indicator of his growing up, as he used to refer to himself as "Baby", but now is more likely to say "Me".

And here his is telling Grandpapa (just off to the side of this picture) how old he is. Holding up one finger on each hand he earnestly announces "Doo!", meaning 'two' of course. 

And of course, we had to do the yearly ritual of measuring how much he'd grown. He is exactly the same height as the Little Dude was on his second birthday, which is funny as I think of his as the smaller of my two babies. I know the Little Dude weighed more all though his babyhood than the Baby did, but clearly he's caught up to him in terms of hight. 

And we ended the day just as it had begun, with more icing (though on a cupcake this time). I believe he had a least four helpings of cake (and icing) over the course of the day. But since I had anticipated that this might happen I made two batches of cupcakes; one with the left over batter from my little cake (which is GF and DF but has plenty of sugar in it) and a second batch which was a sugar free carrot cake, with just a little bit of decorative icing on it. That way he felt like he was eating cake all day, but was not actually ingesting a ton of sugar. So that when bedtime rolled around he was happy and tired instead of cranky and wired. 

Such a lovely, lovely day it was. Happy birthday my not-so-little anymore Baby!

 

 

kid stuff

As mentioned we had our far-away cousins visiting last week (hence my absence here on the blog. Both the Little Dude and the Baby LOVED having other littles who were more or less their age around the house. It may have been slightly busier than normal in terms of food prep and whatnot, but I'll tell you what, the presence of new and exciting people totally balanced that out. The kids were SO EASY with their little relative-friends around. Always someone to plan a new game with, re-discover old toys, and share favourite stories. There was pretty much no whining or requests to "play with meeeee..." at awkward times (re: meal prep hour) It was a real treat.  Lookit those two little co-conspiritors. 

Its funny how I did not notice how red the Baby's hair is until I saw him next to his blonde little cousin. And I'm still sad about the fact that I was not fast enough with the camera to catch the awesome side-by-side, spontaneous dance party that the two of them had at one point. Too cute for words. I don't have any suitable for blogging pictures of the older two, as they were pretty much constantly in motion, and the resulting images are very blurry or have one of the two of them with their eyes closed. But still, we have our memories!

Oh, and just a few other random funny kid things. The Little Dude has added the phrase "and whatnot" to his vocabulary. As in "Lets play with playdough, and we can make cut out shapes and whatnot and whatnot." But he always does it like that, with two whatnots. Very funny. 

Also, I was nursing the Baby the other day and my stomach growled and he did a nearly pitch perfect impression of it, with his voice. Seriously, he mimicked my borborygmi. Its like living with a myna bird. 

Oh, and I made these gluten free, dairy free drop biscuits tonight and they were SO FREAKIN' GOOD! Hubs raved about them (and he really is not a man who is prone to raving), so I take that very seriously. The recipe calls for butter, but I replaced that with Crisco and it was awesome. The tip about freezing the butter/shortening so you can grate it is a good one, but I did not have quite enough lead time to do that, so just the regular way of cutting in the butter with a pastry cutter worked just fine. They all got eaten up, and I have many ideas for other uses of this recipe. Add a little sugar and I'll bet it'd be an awesome cobbler topping. Also, I want to use it for the top layer on chicken pot pie/chicken stew. I love finding a good recipe. So many possibilities. 

story time

My oldest sister came over for a visit this afternoon. The Little Dude continues to be croup-y and unhappy and only placated by lots of lego playing time with Hubs, but the Baby was very happy to see Auntie Gwen. Auntie Gwen mostly wanted to read her book, but the Baby had other plans. First he found himself his favourite farm-machinery related book, and then he clambered up on the couch and wedged himself into the little spot between her and the arm of the couch.

Then he proceeded to read his book alongside her. All the while pointing out items of interest and chattering and squealing away in a bid for her attention.  When this didn't work he switched it up with an entirely different book, though this also on the subject of tractors. This one had little doors to open. That seemed to get her attention. Clever Baby. 

Soon they were opening little doors together in search of an elusive chicken. Then the Baby knew he had her right where he wanted her. 

There was a search for new and more varied tractor related material, and a quick seat change (better light over here).

And then he had Auntie Gwen all to himeself, reading aloud from his favourite tractor catalogue. 

Thorough literalist that she is, Auntie Gwen read him every word of copy in that catalogue. ("Behind every Massey Fergusson emblem is an unbeatable combinations of industry-leaading technology, proven reliability and equipment solutions that make you more productive and more profitable. It also represent one of the most complete lines of agricultural equipment...."etc). I usually just paraphrase and talk about the pictures. 

Finally, he switched it up and went with a book about his other favourite topic - babies and the faces they make. 

I think its fair to say that Auntie Gwen enjoyed this one better. (She's not quite as interested in tractors as he is, but they share a fondness for babies).

Now aside from the heartwarming 'my sister reading to my baby and my baby enjoying it' aspect of these pictures, I have to say, that they mean just a little bit more to me than that. 

When my oldest sister was very small, she was diagnosed as being developmentally delayed. Or "mentally handicapped" as they used to call it. "Retarded" was what the mean kids on the bus said. When my parents were informed of this fact by a startlingly unsensitive doctor, they were told that she'd never read more than "Men's" and "Lady's" on the bathroom door. But due to the dilligence and effort of my parents (my mother was a trained school teacher and not a bit of that training went to waste) that unfortunate doctor was proven quite wrong. 

Because reading books and books and more books is one of my sister's favourite pastimes now. And how very, very sweet it is to see her sharing that joy with my son.

 

wildlife sighting

We've had a new visitor around here lately. We've seen him once or twice before, but today we decided to try and sneak up on him for a closer look. Camera in hand I carefully edged my way under the cover of trees down the hill to the valley. And this is what I saw.

Come in a little closer then. You see. Its a beaver! 

I got to the bottom of the hill before he seemed to care that I was there. But once I set foot on the even ground of the valley, his head was up and he decided that he didn't want to hang around.  And much faster than you'd think for an animal so bulky, he was off through the reeds...

...and disappeared with a quiet splash into the creek. 

By this time I was joined by a few other hastily coated and hatted nature enthusiasts, still munching their afternoon snacks, (that's a pancake left over from this morning. When eaten as a snack in this manner we call it a 'handcake')

All hastened over to the creek to see where the beaver had gone, and two of them, as you can see above hastened to keep the Baby from getting too close to said creek. Or perhaps the Little Dude was trying to push him aside in order to get there first. Could have gone either way. (But fear not Gran and Oma, his watchful Daddy will never let him get too close to the creek)

We poked around, enjoying the smell of wild mint crushed under our feet and the pleasant muddy rotting smell of fall, looking at the reed and shoots where he'd been eating and wondering if he was trying to build a dam. We followed the creek a little up the bend, and then heard a great rustling and a very vehement splosh as he or she angrily slapped their tail at our intrusion.

We decided to look around a bit more for evidence of the beaver's work, and found two or three places on the bank of the creek where he'd made little mud slides from dragging branches into the water and then probably climbing up and down himself. 

When we went around the other side of the creek to find out what he'd been doing there we found a lot of trees that'd been chomped away at...

..and lots of these little pieces on the ground the resulted from all the chomping. We picked up a few to take home with us as souvenirs. (I remember doing this myself as a child, with my Dad as our nature guide)

L.D began to get quite good at finding these bright spots of freshly gnawed wood.

Whole branches were lopped off in some cases.

And entire small trees in others.

L.D. even discovered some nice sized beaver made logs, which he said we should take home "for firewood". We decided on taking just one, possibly to use for show and tell this week. 

We also found this neat little pile of sticks, uniformly stripped of their bark. The result of many meals I'm sure. 

We wandered further up the creek, to the bridge at the other end of the valley. There are two bridges there in fact, one nice one that Hubs built and one that is just a plank laid across the water. We heard a bit of rustling in the reeds, and Hubs had the bright idea to stomp on the plank, causing it to slap the water in a pretty reasonable approximation of a beaver's tail. The Baby, who was up on his shoulders at the time, found this completely hilarious.  The combination of his giggling and the slaps of that board on the water did finally encourage the beaver to make one more very brief appearance, sliding into the water almost silently and slipping away as completely as a ghost. I hope we did not frighten him away for good. Having annoyed him enough for one day we took our excitement and cold hands back to the house to warm up and make dinner. 

What a lovely afternoon. Beavers always make me feel... Canadian I guess? And excited in a nostalgic kind of way. My very first school 'project' was on the subject of beavers, and I remember a Ranger Rick book on the subject that was a favourite of mine. So fun to have the chance to share my little bit of grade school knowledge about nature with the boys. It felt like the very best kind of learning. 

 

 

thanksgiving

There was family, from near and far. There were groups assembled and pictures taken. The day was cold and just a bit rainy but that did not stop the fun outdoors at all. And it only made the indoors feel even more warm and welcoming by constrast. There were old friends and new babies and lego everywhere. The happy din of children playing and adults laughing was everywhere.

And then there was the food. Gorgeous, well prepared food. All the favourites that only get enjoyed at this particular time of the year, and lots to go around. For this we are thankful.

And to end it all, the Baby had his first piece of pumpkin pie. With whipped cream of course.

I'm sure it won't be his last. 

Happy Thanksgiving to you all!

crafternoon

We are squeezing every last bit of fun and goodness out of the end of this month of August. The summer rushed by me, once again it seems. I pretty much forgot to do anything with it. We didn't really go anywhere or do anything especially summery it seems and the days so easily fly by filled with making breakfast and doing laundry and cleaning up lunch and planning dinner and all the daily stuff that must be done so that every one is clothed and fed and happy, and by the time you lift your head up to look around, lo and behold the summer is drawing to a close. And I missed it!

Luckily, some fun has come to us, in the form of various visiting cousins. Last week we had a trip to the zoo with one of our lovely BC cousins (penguins and polar bears and giraffes, oh my!), and this week, one of the Little Dude's favourite 'big' cousins came to stay at GranGran's house. And not only did his 'big' cousin come, but she brought a friend along too! I'm telling you, when these two thirteen-year-old girls come to visit, its like there are celebrities down the street. He gets SO excited to see "The Girls" as he calls them collectively. "Are The Girls going to come and play with me this morning?" he asks upon waking. "Can I go to GranGrans and see The Girls again after lunch?" I'm telling you, he's barely been home at all this week, as they (along with GranGran) have been picking him up at around mid-morning and most days have been keeping him out and about all day. He arrives home after dinner, just minutes before bedtime, full of energy and stories of the adventures they had (...and then we went to the Lizard store and saw a Water Monitor....) and sleeps like a stone when his head hits the pillow. 

But today I had the pleasure of hosting The Girls at my house, and of course, we decided the best way to spend our time was to make a craft. (they're a little burnt out on playing Lego. L.D. would keep them at the Lego table 24-7 if he could) So we put The Baby down for his nap and then proceeded to craft it up. 

Here are The Girls, hard at work.

Our plan was to make denim covered notebooks. So we picked up a cheap binder and notebook with nice hard covers, and then used my stack of worn-out jeans to cover them with. Above you can see the covered spiral bound notebook....

...and here is the covered binder. 

We had limited time (nap time is two hours, max) so these are not full slip-on sewn covers, but simply a piece of denim that is cut carefully to cover the front of the binder or notebook, and then glued on with a heavy duty glue (we used Weldbond, my favourite). We did sew on the pockets, because I had the machine out anyways, and we really wanted them to stay on despite heavy use. Then we used a blend of machine embroidery, stamping with fabric paint, painting with fabric paint and glueing on buttons and other patches of denim to embellish them. 

I'm so proud of the amazing job that The Girls did. They both made such great choices and ended up with final products that are so completely them. Its such a pleasure to watch them work. 

Not to be left out, the Little Dude asked me to take a picture of what he made this afternoon: A Lego spaceship, natch.

Oh how he LOVES these Girls, and what a gift they gave him this week by spending so much good time with him, playing trains and lego, introducing him to new foods (he had pizza with them yesterday, something he doesn't usually bother with. I know, am I the only parent in the world who's four year old is like "pizza? meh.") and coaxing him into the pond. It was like his own personal summer camp and they were his very own cool camp counsellors. What better way to spend the last week of summer.

siblings

We celebrated my big sister's birthday this weekend. She is the firstborn in our family, and I'm telling you, that girl loves a celebration. Friends, gift, cards - the works.  Oh, also she likes cake.

My sister is off sugar these days, and of course Hubs and a few of my other siblings are off wheat and dairy. So my challenge was to make a gluten free, dairy free, sugar free cake. Phew. Which is darn near impossible. But I used my trusty carrot cake recipe, subbed in the Silvana's gluten free flour mix and good ole' Crisco. It wasn't bad, but it also wasn't amazing, so I'm not going to bother you with the recipe here. It looked like a cake and tasted like a cake but it was very, very crumbly. It was improved vastly by the addition of fresh sliced cherries between the layers and on top. Oh, and also whipped cream. Which I know cancels out the non-dairy aspect. I tried to do a non-dairy coconut whipped topping, but it failed miserably, probably because I did not have coconut milk that was high-fat enough. And then it turned out that a few of the non-diary eating guests could not make it, so that was all right. But despite its shortcomings, everyone ate it up. There was no cake left at the end of the party, but there were also a lot of people there, so, you know. 

We'd picked out a 'talking' card for Auntie Gwen, and the Little Dude was almost as excited about it as she was. Almost. Because she was pretty excited. It was a lovely afternoon, perfect weather, fun outside, amazing dinner (my mom can rock a salad line up like no one else). And out on the lawn watching Kingfishers dive for their supper in the pond while we ate ours up on the hill, it was pretty idyllic. A happy peaceful family time. 

Then, later on in the evening, my little brother dropped by.

(He's impersonating a chainsaw-weilding zombie killer in this photo. Don't ask. My favourite thing about this is that his mouth is open so wide you can see his fillings).

Honestly, could my siblings be any different? Chalk and cheese, I'm telling you. And of course, I love them both. 

my brother can walk on water

Sort of.

 My Dad has installed not one, but two zip lines across his pond. So you can zip over it and back again. So much fun. And my long armed, long legged chimpanzee of a brother can reach the water from it. (or should that be orangutan?) That kid. Always showin' up the rest of us!

Wait, maybe I have my animal metaphors wrong. Perhaps I mean lizard. 

At 0:59 its a pretty good match-up, don't you think?

So what's your vote, is my brother a lizard or a chimp? Those who know him well are sure to have an opinion. I myself am having a tough time deciding. And for those of you who think I am mocking my 'little' brother, I can almost guarantee you that he'll find either of these comparisons a compliment. Just sayin'.

summer weekend fun

What a wonderful day we had this weekend. We continued to celebrate the Little Dude's birthday, this time with all my siblings and neices and nephews. They were all very kind and brought gifts for the Little Dude, and he was over the moon excited about the lego and Thomas and games he received. He was particularly pleased with this cops and robbers lego set. I can't describe to you how cute it is to hear him exclaim "this is exactly the one I wanted!" So joyful and sweet and excited at the same time. 

And he seemed equally excited to give a gift to Grandpapa (who also has a birthday at this time of year). A gift that he'd picked himself. And wrapped himself (well, you know, put into the bag, but still) and carried on his lap in the car on the way over. There was no way he was letting me put it into the bag with all the other stuff. That was his gift to give Grandpapa!

And speaking of Grandpapa, I propose that we shall now call him "The Architect of Thrills", because he's really gone above and beyond with realizing his dream of a zip line. We had one last summer, but this year he's done a serious upgrade. 

Now you can go from the top of the hill, over the pond...

...or into the pond if you wish. (that's my big sister ya'll!)

And then, once over (or out of) the pond, you can hook your pulley onto another zip line and swing back over the pond. 

My friend Sara also took the brave zip-line plunge. I did not, and not because I'm scared or nothin'. No, I was just too busy taking pictures. 

Here's my Dad, in full dolphin mode, diving off the doc. (That man is a senior, you guys, I mean, he gets the 70 plus discount at the movies. And still zip lining and dock diving. I'm just sayin')

Hubs and the Little Dude did not end up going in the pond, but did enjoy a leisurely float about on top of it in the paddle boat. 

And the Baby got his fair share of mud and pond water by running into it fully clothed (with mama and GranGran and Daddy all very close at hand, don't worry). By the time we'd finished what was just supposed to be playing in the sand on the shore and paddling our feet in the water, there was not an item of clothing that was not soaked and muddy. We headed straight back up to the house for an early bath. 

You know it was a good day when everyone goes to bed without complaining. And it was a very good day.