Dad's Experiments

My hubs Steve likes to perform experiments...ask my seester Sue. Her son Aaron is deaf. Sue and I came into the room one time to see Steve twirling Aaron around and around in circles. Aaron was grinning from ear to ear. "What are you doing?" we ask Steve. "Aaron is deaf - if he truly has no middle ear then he won't get dizzy. I want to prove this theory wrong. I think he will get dizzy!" Steve twirled Aaron around some more and then set him down and took a few steps back and asked Aaron to walk to him. Aaron weaved his way toward Uncle Steve hoping to get some more twirling. "Aha! He's dizzy!" Steve exclaimed. Sue and I looked at each other in awe. This little experiment really did debunk the doctor's reports. This is just one example of Steve and his experiments....

Here is another:

Steve is an ED nurse - he always claims kids in car seats are rarely injured.

"Look how secure she is- she didn't even move!" he says.

Fin is squealing with delight!

"See she's totally fine in there," Steve tells me.

All this came about after we had to adjust the straps in the car seat as Finley has grown.

Steve & Fin after the experiment - she's happy and ready for more Daddy time.

What's next?

Wordless Wednesday - Left Overs

Finley & Cecil HELP THEMSELVES to lasagna.

Um, Yeah. You've been caught in the act! On video too.

The Log Farm & Nature Walk in Ottawa

The Log Farm

This is the Log Farm in Ottawa (Nepean). It stands rustic and beautiful amongst the fields in between Cedarview Road and the 416. It's an awesome little farm.

The horse, sheep, pot bellied pig, goat and chickens roam the property and are well socialized. A little girl came running out of the hen houses calling her daddy to come see what she had. She was super delighted to find a newly laid egg. "It's still warm," she says to me, holding it out for me to touch. The egg and our breakfast were the ONLY WARM things out on the farm that day - man it was cold! Minus 8 degree Celsius. FREEEEEEEZING!

Finley and her cousin Aaron looking at the Sheep.

The Lone Star catered a pancake breakfast with fresh maple syrup from the Log Farm Sugar Bush. Juice, coffee, hot chocolate, scrambled eggs, sausages, and all the pancakes you could eat for $6.00 per person. We wanted to get out to the sugar bush but the field road out there was a bog and we were not equipped with hip waders or the desire to put our muddy feet in the car for the short ride home. We did dig into the pancakes though -YUMMO!

Nature Walking

Same neck of the woods on The Beaver Trail (insert your own jokes here) off Cedarview Road, not a week later than the Log Farm visit, the weather was at plus 28 degrees Celsius! We walked, ran, and sat down all the way through the forest to feed the chickadees and nuthatch from our hands. Only in the good weather they weren't so much interested in feeding as frolicking and mating! Wacka -Wacka! And we lost our bag of birdseed somewhere on the trail about 10 minutes into the walk. Ha ha.

Seester Sue, Fin & Aaron

Aaron and Moi!

Finley checking out the moss.

These are a couple of things my seester and I got up to while we visited in Ottawa, Ontario Canada. It's my home town and it's super fun to visit the places our parents took us with our own children.

Fin's FIRST Birthday Party

A Photo Essay of Fin's Party.

The Invite & The Table

It's strawberry season!

I made a spongecake with a strawberry jam fresh berry filling.

Steve made the real whip cream.

Fin's cake was french vanilla. YUMMY!

Strawberry cupcakes with cream cheese icing.

(Yes, Heather I'll make them for your 40th bday party!)

I decorated a few with little gummie animals.

They were a hit with the kids.

Fin playing UNDER the table.

I used to do the same thing at parties when I was a kid.

Opening Presents

Finley & Ike

I think they played hard to get with each other for like 5 seconds.

Mmm Cake. Steve serving up cake to Uncle Ryan.

Happy FIRST Birthday!!!

The year has flown by like everyone told me it would. Our lives are so much brighter with Finley. We love you Happy Birthday Sweet One!

Momma is not sitting on an ice pack this year - YAY!

Ladies Who Lunch

Finley and I were in Ottawa Ontario Canada - my home town - for Easter week. We had an awesome time visiting our family. On Easter Monday we had lunch with my mom's seester, my Aunt Dianne. Finley's great Aunt Dianne. She is Canada's answer to Paula Dean!

Aunt Dianne made little cream cheese and salmon sandwich fingers for Miss Fin with rice pudding and peaches for dessert.

Fin is waiting for lunch, she is taking in all of Aunt Dianne's beautiful house decor. So many treasures to see!

Aunt Dianne always has her aantique bears taking tea somewhere under a special piece of furniture. It's fun to look for them when we come to visit. The bears were replaced with bunnies for Easter and Finley had a blast tearing through the tea party. She broke two of the chairs...sorry Aunt Dianne!

Next time we visit I'll arrive with crazy glue.

Finley was all abut taking the Easter eggs out of the bowl. Most of them were marble...

The Easter tree to rival all Easter trees! Finley left with a gift of a little basket holding two chicks from Aunt Dianne's tree.

Thank you Aunt Dianne! It was an awesome visit and a DELICIOUS lunch! Finley was so BUSY I didn't have time to steal anything from your house this time! Or did I?

Kisses!

The Countdown Is On!

Our Finley Mae is turning ONE on Saturday April 10th!

Where has the year gone?

All I can think about is how fat I was this time last year, how I drank two litres of soy milk a day with a box of Shreddies. I wondered if my mother's instinct telling me I was carrying a daughter was wishful thinking or accurate. I wondered what our birth story would be, and if I would be terrified. I wanted a Natural birth and in a state where 76 percent of births are C sections I wondered how feasible my natural delivery would be. How would Steve and I get through it? Would our baby be okay? Would she look like me or Steve?

Now Steve and I have a little darling who plays peek a boo, runs a car across the floor making the bruuuum sound, points at the vacuum and tells her daddy rrrrvvvvuuuum, she signs (ASL) about 20 words and says DADDY clear as a bell. She is the light of our days. She is my greatest joy and Steve and I marvel daily on how spirited , bright, funny, smart and loving she is. Sometime we stop and look at each other and say: We made her.

And now we are planning a PARTAAAAAY! YIPEEE! I LOVE parties!