Kid in a Candy Store

Sooky is having some 70's candy party at work so she asked me to pick up some nougat candy from the Weston bakery. I brought the candy home and went into the kitchen to do something only to come back and find this...

BBQ at Ken and Lillie's

Saturday we stopped by my old co-worker Ken's house for a little bbq. Their daughter Camilla is almost 18 months and it was great for the kids to play together. Camilla is very friendly and loves to come up and hug your leg out of blue, it was so adorable. We also stopped by one of Lillie's friend's kid birthday party. They had pony rides! Marley was a bit too small to ride the pony so we'll have to wait until she's a bit older. Afterwards we sat in Ken's backyard and enjoyed the afternoon.

Playdate with Jacen and Scarlett

Picnic at the Beach

Today we met Sally and her friend Leslie at the beach for an afternoon picnic. Leslie's son Nolan is a few weeks older than Jacen. It was a gorgeous day and although a bit chilly in the shade, still a great day for a picnic. Leslie and Sally brought lots of snacks and I brought my appetite. A great way to spend a summer day on maternity leave. Not too many left so I need to enjoy them while they last.

Loving the stroller!

A big thank you to my cousins Mark and Meredith for lending us their umbrella stroller. I have been using it all around town and today Ms. Marley enjoyed it to its fullest while zipping around the city for Father's Day. As you can see, I'm not the only one loving the new ride!

Happy Father's Day!

Today we celebrated Gerwyn's first 'official' father's day. First Marley thought it would be nice to wake up at 8 am and get daddy some fresh chocolate croissants from Bonjour Brioche. I managed to keep her in bed until 9 but then we were off and also managed to get some Mercury Espresso coffees along the way. Then Marley wanted to wake daddy up to open his presents so up we went into the bedroom and jumped on the bed! Daddy got to open his presents (Foo Fighters tickets from me and a Foo Fighters cd from Marley along with a book about why she loves her daddy) then enjoyed his morning treats and then we headed out to harbourfront for lunch on a patio followed by dessert at Centre Island. Marley got to enjoy her first ferry ride and I got to enjoy my first funnel cake of the year! As soon as we arrived at Centre Island it was all I could think of and as soon as I saw it on someone's plate, I knew I had to have it. It was deeleecious and oh so good. Worth the stomach ache afterwards. Then we hopped back on the ferry, walked to the streetcar stop and finally made it home. Everyone was pooped which means we all had a great day!

Welcome Dinner

Today my sister hosted a dinner for my cousin Madeleine and the kids at her place. Unfortunately most of my cousins couldn't make it, so it was a small gathering but great nonetheless. We had plenty of food (I made pulled pork sandwiches and coleslaw) and Carol made her famous chocolate pavlova. My sister provided fried chicken and Loblaws cake (the white sugary kind with deeleeciously sweet icing). Any excuse for a family get together is a good one, especially when we get to catch up with some familiar faces. (Or maybe not so familiar, its amazing how much the kids have grown!) They are here for a couple of months so I'm sure there will be many more get togethers in our near future.

Cheap Labour

Last week my cousin Madeleine and her 3 kids arrived from Korea for their annual Toronto visit. Due to jet lag the first few days are generally spent lazing around and taking a lot of naps. While visiting my house, her son Michael decided he wanted to try and stay awake and be active. So being the helpful aunt that I am, I offered him a job of weeding our front lawn in exchange for ten dollars and some Ed's ice cream. Surprisingly he was very excited to take on the job and so, 11 year old Micheal, his sister 4 year old Stephanie and their cousin 3 year old Samara all went out and started weeding. Michael pulled the weeds and the girls tossed them into our brown bag. As you can tell by the photo, our lawn is more weed than actual grass. But a couple of hours later, that lawn was weed free. Gerwyn eventually went out to help (we thought it might look bad to people passing by if we just stood by and continued watching) and the lawn is now weed free. Still a mess, but the kids did a fantastic job. I'm hoping I can make this an annual tradition the next time they come for a visit!!

Jacen and Marley

This is a photo from Jacen and Marley's play date today. Which pretty much was spent with Marley attacking Jacen and Jacen giving her that same facial expression. He's just learned to sit up by himself so its only a matter of time before he will be able to defend himself and fight back. I guess Marley likes the easy target...

WOOFstock!

This weekend was Toronto's annual summer Woofstock. St. Lawrence Market shuts down and the dogs come out to play. The weather was great so we bundled up Marley and met a few of Gerwyn's friends to pet some dogs and enjoy a patio. It was our first patio of the season and it felt great! It was also nice to be in my old neighbourhood again, I definitely miss it.

The Three Musketeers

Here is Jacen, Marley and Sully at a recent mall visit we did together. Hard to tell from this pic, but Jacen is actually the biggest. He's also the youngest. Hard to believe they've grown so much, especially if you look back 6 months to the photo of the 3 of them when Jacen was first born. Looks like the start of a great friendship!

Cry It Out Update

Not that any of you readers are actually interested, but I wanted to update my blog just so I have a record of what's been happening. Its been difficult to continue CIO with such a busy weekend. We did both morning naps (15-45 mins of crying each which resulted in 40 min naps). Last night we actually experienced our first success with NO crying at all. I put her in the crib and she went right to sleep on her own. However this morning, we had another 20 minute cry before our morning nap. Then I went to the mall so the afternoon nap was in the Bjorn and tonight, she was so tired (I had a visit with Saadia,) that she fell asleep while feeding so I just put her in the crib. Hoping this week we'll see some progress...

Lunch at Lola's

What a busy weekend! Sunday we headed up to Thornhill for lunch at Gerwyn's mom's house. Gerwyn's aunts and uncles were visiting from out of town so his mom prepared a huge lunch in honour of their visit. It was a beautiful day and great for Marley to spend some time meeting her new Lolas (grandmother in Filipino).

Lawrence And Crystal's Baby Shower

Saturday we headed up to Vaughn to celebrate the upcoming birth of Lawrence and Crystal's baby boy. Lawrence was one of Gerwyn's groomsmen and has been a good friend of G's for many years. The party was at Crystal's sister's house which was absolutely beautiful. The street was lined with mansions and her sister's house didn't disappoint. The boys spent most of the time outside on their patio while the girls played the typical shower games and ate. A great party, we are looking forward to Baby Lee's arrival in July!

GeeJay and Sami's wedding

Friday night we went to the wedding reception of Gerwyn's cousin GeeJay at Fantasy Farm. It had been ages since we'd been out and my cousin Jenn and her bf Justin so kindly babysat for us. This gave us a chance to get dressed up, have a few drinks and par-tay! Well, we did get dressed, we did have a few drinks but we spent most of the night sitting. I finally dragged Gerwyn onto the dance floor for one song just so we could "say" we "partied". We quickly took the couple of photos above and swiftly got back to our seats. Ok, so we're not the party animals we used to be, but we enjoyed the evening out and also got to catch up with Gerwyn's other cousins Jenn and Brian at whose wedding I caught the bouquet!

Crying it out

So after weeks of 2 hour sleeps, I've decided to bite the bullet and try crying it out. Mostly out of sheer lack of patience, I'm not as upset as I thought I would be listening to her cry. We started last night. I gave her a bath, then the boob and then we played in her crib together and she was very happy. Then when I had her distracted with her toys, I snuck out. Things were quiet for a good 5 minutes and then it started. Instead of standing by the door, (which I think is crazy, of course you'll give in if you have to stand by the door listening to your poor baby cry their lungs out!) I went downstairs, turned on the radio and made dinner. That took a good 30 minutes and I was sufficiently distracted. I could hear crying in the background, but I was able to stick to my task at hand.
Gerwyn came home from the gym and I warned him that I had started "Operation: Cry It Out" and let him know that he could go in and soothe her if he wanted but he couldn't bring her out of her room. After he went in, she calmed down and of course, once he left, she started back up again.

At the 45 minute mark, I started to get antsy. Luckily the crying wasn't as hard as when she first started but she was still crying nonetheless. After just over an hour, the room was finally silent. It was well past her usual bedtime (9:30pm) but she finally did it. Cried herself to sleep. I was hoping this might mean she would sleep for a longer period before waking up but alas, I only got 3 hours. Technically I should have continued to let her cry it out throughout the night but since Gerwyn has to work and I need SOME sleep, I went in every couple of hours again and breastfed her back to sleep.

Today is attempt number 2, nap time. Once the eye rubbing started, we went upstairs, gave her the boob, read some stories and then again I snuck out and crying ensued. This time she only cried for 45 minutes and I'd say only about 15 of it was "hard" crying. On the one had, I do find myself with more time to myself while "waiting her out". But its not nearly as enjoyable with a crying baby in the background.

Every time I've thought about "Cry it out", I always thought it was so harsh and didn't think I would have the heart for it. Turns out, I'm not as soft as I thought and don't mind the crying so much. We'll see how the rest of the day goes, another nap and bed time to go...

Update: For nap number 2, there was only 23 minutes of crying. But it was hard crying the entire time and a bit difficult to sit through. But seeing as how the crying is getting shorter, hopefully that's a good sign.

My first strawberry!

Another play date with Sully

Its interesting to see how the babies interact as they get older. Before they could care less if they were next to each other. Now, they make eye contact, swat at each other and even give kisses! So cute!