Tuesday fun...

Hi everyone!
We had a pretty good day today, and mommy was quite productive! On days where she seems to get everything done, she's gotta brag a little :-)
She finally fixed the doggy bed (that Watson had torn a hole through), then made a big batch of pears, and one of chicken and veggies (which now that she's made it again, it's quite yummy!)... then she worked on washing all the new clothes she got at the children's garage sale (sponsored by La Leche League... see the link!) and we got to have fun at our Tuesday playgroup, which we realize we haven't mentioned on here once!
We go (try to once a week) to our local Ontario Early Years Centre for a playgroup called 'Little Treasures', which is a drop in for parents & babies up to 18 months old. We've made some great friends, and more importantly found a great support network amongst us new moms (SO good for days we need to vent!) There's a smaller group of us who now meet regularly once a week, and each one of us host it at our home for the other moms. A mini playgroup, but better (it comes with munchies!) This week we've finally bit the bullet and invited the moms over for a movie! So on Thursday we'll be having our friends over to watch Happy Feet! Hopefully we'll have some pictures of that (so you can meet Tristan's friends!)
Good night!
Love,
Marcy, Will & Tristan

Walking in a Winter Wonderland...

So Abuelita Marcela and Abuelito Pablo left yesterday morning to go South for 2 weeks. They joked about us not needing to clear the snow for them as it'd be gone when they get back... at least I thought they were joking. The only downfall to maternity leave (if you want to call it a downfall) is that you don't pay attention to silly things like news and WEATHER!
So what did I wake up to this morning?!?!
THIS:
Oh well... moving on to the sunny indoors... so we mentioned last time how Tristan's making this absolutely hilarious sniffing noise/face, well, now he gets his whole face scrunched up and it's super cute! Mommy managed to get a picture of it (although it's nothing like when he's doing it in person). He did it all night when we went out for a delicious chili dinner at Aunty Samantha and Uncle Roel's home and had us all in giggles and then yesterday when we had brunch & dinner with Grandma and Grandpa Oliver, nothing. Not a little sniff anywhere. Instead, mommy & daddy spent the day sniffing at him and looking quite silly, which, sorry to say, was not nearly as cute as when Tristan does it! Of course, as soon as we got home, "sniff, sniff"... Oh well...
Here's a sweet shot of my two incredibly handsome guys... aren't I a lucky girl? :-)
On Saturday we (Tristan & mommy) went garage-sale shopping with Abuelita Marcela... looking for pj's and socks, and walked away with some outfits, bathing suits(Spidreman!), sun suits (Superman!), and toys gallore... I'll have to go to a store where they have the toys separated so I can focus on finding those darn socks!
Anyways, one of the toys we found is this table keyboard/drum/guitar/buttony thing toy. Makes lots of musical noises, which may be a headache for some, but for us is awesome as we like to encourage his musical talents :-) Here's a shot of the maestro himself composing his first symphony:

(We have video, but I gotta update the blog daily for my parents so it'll have to wait...)

Oh, the dogs are one of the few who don't mind the snow... especially Watson who LOVES to fetch snowballs! I got a pretty funny picture of him just as he's turning to catch a snowball I threw... it's hard finding a snowball in all the snow... it just blends in! Go figure...

Happy Monday!
Love,
Marcy, Will & Tristan

Catching up on adventures...

So Tristan's still crawling backwards, and picking up speed... it's so cute! He'll get on all fours now and rock back and forth, and he reminds me of those little cars that you run their wheels backwards to get the speed going, put them down and they zoom off... we're just waiting and watching for when he takes off (for now, he mostly just rocks, and sometimes pushes with his back legs and face-plants when he doesn't move his hands!)
We've tried to get it on video, but the other dogs (ahem, Copper!) like to get in the way of the camera sometimes, so when you watch this, keep that in mind (and that Tristan will someday look back at this and hopefully feel joy over watching his puppies hang out with him)...


The eating's also going very well... he's a very efficient eater (sit down, eat, be done) and doesn't often get too messy (although now I've jinxed everything) as he loves eating and doesn't like to waste the yummy food by wearing it... that being said, his mommy does not have the best of aims, and sometimes she puts a spoonful in when she thinks he's opening his mouth to eat when it's actually to sneeze (whoops!) We're learning!

As for new food, he's not a fan of peas when I've made them, but I'm a work in progress... he doesn't mind them when they're from a jar (thanks to his Abuelita and Abuelito for supplying them!) and likes to try to help with the feeding!

I have to admit, me being a person who truly dislikes being dirty, I thought I'd have a hard tme letting him get messy without trying to teach him (ridiculously early) how to do things properly and cleanly... but I haven't! I love to just give him his spoon and dish when he's done eating so he can 'lick the spoon clean'... and we have a fun time cleaning him up afterwards "Mommy makes all these funny noises while she tickles me with a towel and tries to eat my hands with it too!" He's not only brought out my inner child (which wasn't hidden too deeply) but created my inner messy child (mud puddles here we go!)

He loves his butternut squash (yey!) and apples, and we're going to try chicken again this week (Will & I ate about a gazillion bowls of chicken soup when I slightly - 2 large stock pots - made too much soup for Tristan's food) so we're hoping to have a better go at it so we can get meats incorporated in his meals!

A new thing that Tristan's been doing is discovering how to make noises using his nose. Ever since he had that yucky case of the sniffles (aka - the week mommy & daddy poked and prodded at my nose and drove me crazy!) he learned he can breathe with his mouth and make these funny 'hhhh' sounds (like his buddy Nathan) and today he's started sniffing (like his puppies!) and while he does he scrunches up his face in the most adorable manner... I'm just happy that he made human noises before dog noises! You might have to have the volume relatively loud for these videos, as he’s got a little nose, therefore the noises are still pretty quiet (but you can see his cute face scrunching up!)





And to wrap things up, just a few cute pictures (ps - download here)...

(above) Tristan looking very much like a little boy in his overalls (sniff sniff!)

(above) "Mommy this toy is so yummy!"

(above) "Okay, so the wood coloured bits go up to the top, and then I can eat them... right?"

(above) We're not sure if Rocky's asking for a bath (it's been a while) or if he's trying to tell us he's a baby too!

So if April showers bring May flowers, what do April snowfalls bring???

Love,
Marcy, Will & Tristan

Is that a bird???

No, it's a plane!

No, it's SUPER TRISTAN!!!!!

Thanks to Tristan's great uncle John, great aunt Penny and their munchkins for these great pj's!

Love to all,
Marcy, Will & Super T :-)

Happy Birthday Abuelito!

Boy what a very good weekend!
First let me say that I was going to put the picture above at the end (best for last), but I decided it was just to good to wait for! I think this is my favourite picture of two of the most important men in my life :-)
Sunday night we went to a Portuguese restaurant to celebrate my dad's (and Tristan's super-awesome Abuelo!) birthday... and Tristan finally (he's been trying for quite a while) got to try that funky toy that his cousin Mary's always totting about with. He wasn't sure what the big deal with it was...

but Mary was understandably not amused (especially since he had nothing she could take!) and with one look asked me very politely to keep that boy away from her soother!
Last night we went over to my parent's house for a small birthday dinner/hang out. His favourite snack: His Abuelito's head!


And surprisingly enough, he still used his teeth! (apparently a "funny" sensation on the head...I'm using "funny" anyways!)

He is loving to 'walk' around, and did a tour of the main floor with his Abuelita last night

All in all a very good evening last night, considering that it's looking like Tristan might have a touch of the sniffles... he got very stuffy/runny nosed as of Sunday night (he barely slept and he's not used to that anymore so looked very tired all day yesterday!) and last night (after we got home) we noticed that he was sounding a little hoarse (probably from all the screaming over getting his nose cleaned) but last night we cranked the humidifier with some Vicks, and he's not stuffy nosed, but still a little hoarse when he talks...

Oh! On the food front, Tristan tried chicken (mixed with carrots) for the first time this weekend! He's officially an omnivore! His review: "It's not great, but not bad. Mommy makes a pretty good chicken soup compared to the jar stuff. I like it when she mixes my pears in it too"
We're not quite sure if his body's liking it though, so we're going to wait for a bit before he tries some again...

Oh!!! I forgot!!! Tristan is officially CRAWLING!!! Backwards, but crawling none the less! Official date: March 22nd - we were over at a play date with his buddy Nathan, and he started crawling away from a toy, and has been going at it ever since! He likes to crawl away from his diaper, off the play mat (makes it easier to play with the dogs since they're not allowed on the mat) but he's not quite sure how to make his bum go forward! Yipee!

Happy March showers everyone!

Love,
Marcy, Will & Tristan

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Happy Friday everyone!
Love,
Marcy, Will and Tristan

Ooopsies...

It's been almost a month! (According to my computer, I still have 44 minutes left...)
Sorry everyone, we've been incredibly busy! Babies get busier the older they get!
What have we been up to? Well, Tristan's become a food connoisseur (we're waiting for his food critique articles to get published in the Ottawa citizen any day now), a vice president of a company, male model, inspirational speaker, part time beaver/carpenter and an animal trainer... he's got a very busy schedule! We're just lucky we're VIPs in his life!
So right of the bat, Tristan's been introduced to food. Right now he eats rice cereal, barley cereal, oatmeal cereal (which does not look like oatmeal. More like pureed oatmeal), as well as carrots, pears, bananas, and avocados (which he loves! He's such a Mexican)
Here's a little clip of his first meal ever (rice cereal)


And here's our cutie after feasting on avocado:

One of the funny things Tristan likes to do while eating (I think when he gets bored and you're not feeding him fast enough) is try out other things to clamp on with his mouth... he likes to hang on to the spoon (just in case you're trying to withhold some food we think), his bib, and also this:


Teeth update: we're up to four!!! What I love about the top teeth is that even when they were small, they were still so easy to photograph whenever he smiled, which, lucky for us, is very often!Here are a few more pictures of his cutie smiles... they just make your day don't they?

Staying on the pictures topic, we decided to be a little vain and enter Tristan in the cutest baby contest from the A Channel (where uncle Ryan works) and Capital Parent magazine. Apparently they're supposed to randomly pick 50 pictures from the ones submitted, and make their selection from there, so who knows what will happen (random selection can suck!) but I challenge anyone to tell me this is not the cutest, sweetest baby ever:

That's the picture we submitted... of course, this picture doesn't do him justice, but I'm totally an amateur with this baby photography thing, so I won't be surprised if we don't win... here are a few of the runner up pictures in our selection of which ones to send (the picture for the contest also had to be less than 30 days old, which had us on a scramble)

Tristan's also been busy making some incredibly beautiful speeches (and his grammar, in both Spanish and English is superb) - here are his first words!!!! (and if you need deciphering, he's saying MAMA, BABA and WAWA. We think he might be trying to call Will by his first name. That or barking at the dogs. Either way, we're trying to say DADA more often around the house)

He's also taken after his Abuelito Pablo and has begun dabbling in basic carpentry. His first project is wittling (or widdling? I'm not too familiar with the carpentry lingo) down the bars in his crib - they're so close together, there's no way for him to sneak out! Unfortunately this was done without our permission, so we're not giving him his allowance this week...

We realized we don't often take pictures of Tristan and his doggies (we're too busy saying silly things like "Don't eat his fur! Gentle with the puppy! Good boy *insert dog name* for letting Tristan not be gentle! No! Don't stick your hand there!" and so on... but we finally got some shots.
This is Tristan and Copper discussing what the next word he says should be. Copper also thinks that it's better for him to lick his own paw, but that Rocky would love to have a chat with Tristan about the current situation in Iraq...

Naturally, Rocky didn't want to talk about Iraq. He knows Bush is an idiot, and the rest he gets too upset to talk about. Sneaky Copper just didn't want to loose his paw fur...
Here's the world's most amazing dog, Rocky. Does not even flinch when Tristan tries really hard to get to his nose (to eat if of course), and gives him a partial facelift in the process (this is usually the part where we're begging Tristan to be gentle!)


And here's the only way we can photograph Watson near Tristan - when Watson's chewing on his bone, the whole world dissapears, including babies who like to try to eat everything! In Tristan's defence, he's never hurt Watson, but Watson's always been afraid of getting hurt (or maybe getting in trouble for being too close to him? Who knows) so he'll usually go up to Tristan with his ears back, sniff him, lick him quick, and bolt the other way. He's a beagle and a big chicken. Shocking. Because it's hard to tell from just a picture, Tristan here was trying to figure out how to train Watson to carry him like a pony (we told him he'd have an easier time teaching him to plow like an ox, but he wasn't sure what an ox was)

And because this is a family blog (and not just Tristan, although our world does revolve around him), we thought we'd include the funniest picture of Watson...

So even though Tristan's so busy that he has no time to even fix the bed-head before a photo-op......we're so happy he still has time to share a giggle with mommy and daddy (the lucky VIPs in his life):

Well, it's past midnight now, but we finally got this thing updated! Sorry about the length! For those of you who know me (the Mommy's typing while Daddy and Tristan sleep) you know I like to ramble on and on... doesn't matter if I'm typing or talking!

Goodnight to all, and we promise to update more frequently (and therefore have briefer updates!)

Love,

Marcy, Will & Tristan