A family morning at the park...

On Sunday morning we went to Spencer Smith Park. It was nice to walk along the boardwalk, and we didn't realize that the fancy restaurant had a cheap cafe under it. We had some fries, which was very uncharacteristic.

Paige recently...

I haven't posted recently because I'm trying to finish my blog book so I can actually order it.

The weather has drastically changed for the worse (or better, depending how you look at it). It is especially cold today with a high of 12 or something like that. This prompted me to go buy Paige a snowsuit this morning. I was really looking more so for a hat and mitts, but I found a great deal on a snowsuit from sears that came with a hat, gloves, and scarf as well, so we jumped on that deal! It makes me excited for when it actually snows and Paige can play in it for the first time! I'm excited as well since I quite like my snow suit and have only used it a couple times for skiing.

Since it is colder, it is nice that we have a couple of indoor activities that have started. We're enrolled in Water Explorers on Wednesday afternoons, and a new program called "Our Special Time" on Thursday mornings. Water Explorers is interesting as I notice a huge difference in Paige since the last time we were in swimming "lessons". She is excited to jump in the water now, and she constantly asks for the slide. Water Explorers is basically exactly the same as both Water Babies, and Water Toddlers, except there are just older kids in it (especially since we are combined with another class that goes up to age 3). OST is a class that is partially an open play class with smaller toys and crafts as well as time in a gymnasium with larger cars, houses and slides. There is also circle time and story time (both of which Paige has a hard time sitting through). I like the fact that she gets to interact with other kids, as well as get a chance to play with these huge toys that I am promising myself I'll never buy.

Paige is obsessed with brushes lately. While she likes using her own brush to brush her hair, she would rather use her plastic garden tools. It doesn't help that we have called them brushes, so now that is what she thinks they are. Today at lunch she was brushing her hair with her dirty fork. Lovely!

Her words have become more high-pitched lately. Anything ending in an E sound is especially bad. Abb-EEEEE (Abby), Dad-EEEEE (Daddy), are repeated loudly and often in a shrill little voice.

Oh--Paige has her own bank account now. She had some cheques for her RESP, so we opened her an account since there are no fees until she is much older.

Blog fall update

I quite like this new fall look for the blog...now if I actually had time to post something.....

Poor Daddy...

This mornng as Mike was going to work Paige and I were downstairs. Normally he is gone when we get down there. As he was leaving Paige frantically races around saying "jacket" (grabs her jacket), and then says "shoes" and grabs her shoes and sits on the step to try to put them on. She thought she could go with him. So sad.

We're starting a new program this morning. We'll see how it goes....

Good fall pictures...

We went to the cottage this weekend......

Poor Paige....this is right after she stumbled and fell into the lake while throwing rocks in the water.... :(

Missed the opportunity but right before this Paige and Amy were walking through the Second Cup holding hands
We then went to Paletta park for some running around fun...

(short) Overdue update....

Since Mike was going away i felt compelled to pack my days full of activities with Paige. Now that he is back home I am realizing that I was so busy I didn't blog anything.

This past week we resumed diaperfit after the summer hiatus, started in Water Explorers swimming lessons, set up our fish tank, and went to a farm.

Amy thought the tv stand that the fish tank is on was a great place to hide.

Poor fish. One of them came home sick. He immediately was swimming vertically, which apparently is "swim bladder disease". He made it about 72 hours, and then sadly, we had a fish funeral. The other fish are happy now that they are not trying to swim with him. They're all schooling fish so after this weekend we will buy a few more. We just wanted to see how these ones fared before adding any more to the tank.

On Wednesday we went to Springridge farms with Tara and her son Blake. They went through a few straw mazes, some hay bales, and this pumpkin patch.

Oh--we bought Paige's Halloween costume as well...she is going to be a flower. But you'll have to wait till Halloween for the pictures...

New words: Brush, balloon, slide, heart

New (random) tooth

So, I notice last night that Paige has a random tooth (not quite as random as Amy's molar that was up :)) We were so focused on waiting for her other middle top tooth to come out that we had been ignoring another one. Another top tooth has come out but it is a second incisor, rather than the other top middle one. She has woken up a couple of nights this week looking for her soother, so I think she has some tooth pain, but during the day she has been generally normal. Up next: Middle incisor, I would say. Doesn't look like any other bottom teeth are coming at all.

Cutlery

Paige now refuses to be fed for the most part. She prefers to try to feed herself with a spoon, and most recently, a fork. Oh well, doesn't really matter to me except that it is a way bigger mess to clean up and it takes about 45 minutes longer.

We got library cards, Paige and I. They told me I should get her one now, something to do with cheaper late fees for children. I took out 1 book, and over the internet I was able to put holds on a couple more books. I am 55th in line for one new release and 17th for another. But, I'm thinking this will be good for the winter. If I can keep putting books on hold, they will call me when they are in, and then we will have to go in to get them. Double whammy...a trip out, and no money spent.

Paige gets hyper before bed...

oh, you're gonna laugh!

Bye bye summer!

Thus concludes our summer of vacations. The suitcase has returned to its permanent home of the basement rather than at-the-ready in the bedroom. We have only had 1 weekend at home this entire summer and will now officially not know what to do with ourselves until Christmas.

And what a nice weekend to go up North. It was by far the nicest weekend of the entire summer. Paige had a chance to go in a little baby pool and chase our local "Chippie" around. She had a fascination/fear of the chipmunk and would say "Chippie...CHIppie!" and call him, only to scream with fear when he came close to her. Then she would start it all over again even holding out peanuts to feed him.

I should also mention that despite all of the nice outdoor activities for Paige to do, her favourite thing by far, was to look at hunting magazines. Her personal favourite..."Hunting Regulations 2008". Strange?

She learned a new word this weekend. "UP" as in pick me up. This is her first command word (of many, I'm sure). I have never once attempted to get her to say up, but as I was changing her diaper she said "up" clearly. Then the rest of the weekend she continued to say up whenever she wanted to be picked up, to get out of her highchair etc. We were all impressed as she had just decided to say this all on her own. What's more impressive is she strung together a couple of words as well. "Up gamma" (grandma), and "mama shoes" (when she wanted her shoes on). Crazy smart I tell you.

an aside note...

I have been trying to cut down on buying a lot of "baby food". Instead, I try to feed Paige grown up food either by spoon or cut it into finger food sized pieces. She's getting a lot better at eating bigger pieces now that she has a top tooth. She can bite into pitas, crackers, tomato slices, etc. I notice that she isn't interested in purees anymore anyway. I gave her blueberries today as I was loading the laundry. She appeared to like them until I noticed that she was putting them in her mouth, sucking out the fruit and discarding the "shell" on her tray.

Also, I thought she might have chicken pox, but nope. Phew!