Tristan's 1st Birthday PARTY!!!!

It was the most amazing party ever!
Tristan had a great time, and it was wonderful to see how, in just one short year, Tristan had made already so many friends... including this sweet little cow-girl named Ella!
We were lucky that we had the Abuelos’ home to borrow to host the party, and the weather co-operated with us so we had half the party in their new deck, and half indoors!
We went with a pirate theme (at the Abuela’s suggestion) and he was the most adorable pirate ever! We had vests and hats for the little ones, and both sets of Grandparents and the parents had some pirate-y wear as well :-)
We had almost all of our friends from the mommy group (if you recall we had a picture of a movie-afternoon that Tristan and mama hosted earlier last year) so Tristan had plenty of playmates, and we had most of our family and close friends join us in this enormously important occasion.
We had wonderful munchies (thank you Samantha for helping me plan the menu and to my family for helping me put it together! It’s funny how crazy one can get when they’re making things like fish-shaped sandwiches for their baby’s first party!) and those munchies were followed by I think one of the best parts of the party... a pirate ship cake!

Here's Tristan.... guess who taught him how to eat this way???

"Okay Mamma, I'll eat with a fork... but I'm messier this way!"
"See? I told her it was messier... she didn't listen!"
" Too much sugar... need hydration...."

This is what a sugar high looks like on a 12 month old...
Tristan got some lovely gifts (although far too many!) and at the end of the day, I was glad we had a van with such a roomy back!

"Umm... hello? My cousin is looking at MY card... why is Momma sharing?"

What's that saying about not looking at a gift horse's teeth? Does that apply to doggies too???This is by far the coolest gift-wrapping job ever... thanks Leilani! (and Nancy and Mike too!)
Big round gift... I wonder what it is...

Oooh! A ball! A ball!

Tristan loves this (it's still bigger than him today!) and loves playing catch with it, monkey in the middle, and even tries to play fetch with Watson!Time to munch on Momma's arm... His favourite thing in the whole wide world (much like his Momma's): BOOKS!
Sugar high leads to... sugar crash... little man poopered out before the party was done :-)
zzz....

Arrgh matey... wake the baby and you'll walk the plank... Doggie kisses...

Dear friend and party planner extraordinaire Samantha... and a nice bruise on her arm :)Samantha and I with Jess, the awesome photographer of the day... Firebolt loaded with goodies... didn't even fill to half-way! Hurrah Nissan for cargo space! :-)We wanted to take just a quick moment to thank everyone for a memorable first birthday (it’ll be hard to top for his 2nd birthday!), and most importantly, thank you to Tristan for being such an amazing son. We are truly blessed to have such a loving, sweet and wonderful child.

P.S. - Thank you Samantha and Jessica for the pictures! We couldn’t have done this blog update without you! And looking forward to the album! :-)

Love,
Marcy, Will and Tristan :)

A Whoop Whoop for all BEAGLES!

Watson would like to send his official congratulations to Uno, the Best In Breed at the Westminster Dog Show... He's a beatiful dog, a great representative for all beagles, although, we still think our's is cuter (watchout Uno, Watson could be next!)
Here's the winner:

Next post will definately be Tristan's birthday party! We had to have a quick interruption with this!

If you're interested in an article about the win ... read here

The first birthday

Ok... so it's been almost 6 months since Tristan's birthday... but it still boggles my mind... how in a mere 12 months we can have a person transform from a teeny, tiny (ish) beautiful little baby...

... to this unbelieveably gorgeous little boy who can run, talk, eat with cutlery, sign (yes, sign language) a whole whack load of words and whose energy and vivacity fills our days with joy... and who was already in dire need for a hair cut (we thought we'd celebrate his birthday by getting it done!) My goodness how time flies...
We went to First Choice (they give you a certificate... oooh!) for the big event:
And here we have a list of things we have learned Tristan was not impressed with (but tolerated just for us):
1: Getting head sprayed right after nap time... "where's my water to spray back???"

2. Having a wet head after nap time... 3. Having a strange lady play with my hair ("what is she doing??? Does she not realize I JUST WOKE UP???")

4. Having things falling on my face (aka - hair pieces)... it tickles... hey! There's a monkey on this thing!

5. The air blower thingy that Mamma teases me with... 6. Not getting that mowhawk that I asked for... well... Mamma says I look handsome so I guess that's okay...
Tada! One short/even haired baby/toddler... so handsome :)

Dadda was working at Dell when Tristan turned one, and had a night shift, so he missed out on birthday dinner at the abuelo's... the highlight of the dinner.... CAKE!

Trying to eat his piece without making too big a mess.... Oh whatever... it's chocolate!!!
And a couple of days later (when Dadda was not working at night) we had yummy carrot cake (with cream cheese icing!) for a second, little more intimate birthday celebration...

Next... the birthday party!

Marcy's new toy...

Forgot the picture!

For all Nissan fans out there... enjoy this pretty thing:

Marcy's update

So I’ve been keeping myself quite busy (hence the slow updates of the blog...) First there was Tristan’s birthday party to plan (more on that on his blog update) and that went pretty well I think - we had tons of kids but enough adults as well to have a nice mix... The week after began the preparations to get Will off to Basic, and mental preparations for being essentially a single mom for 3 months. So far, that’s been hard. Really hard. I have a slightly better understanding of what my mom had to do (I say slightly because first, my situation is only temporary, and second, because I’ve got an awesome support system) and I am in awe and have a much deeper amount of respect towards her and all single moms who manage to keep it together every day! Driving Will to Borden was I have to admit, pretty fun. OH! I forgot one big thing that happened shortly before Tristan’s birthday... I got a new toy! His (yes, it’s a boy) name is Fire Bolt (to any Harry Potter fans - yes, I’m that big of a geek), and he’s a 2004 Nissan Quest. The story behind that - well, to put it shortly, we wanted a 2004 to begin with (I like the speedometer & all the gadgets to be in the centre, and it has a nice little console in front of the steering wheel, and after not being able to find the 2007 model we wanted, by luck we ran into this one (not literally!) So I’m a Nissan girl now - and LOVE IT! We are going to have this van for years and years until it dies and then I’ll replace it with another Nissan, then another.... that’s assuming I don’t fall for a newer model... Overall everything’s going pretty well considering I’m missing my much better (and taller) half... of course, we (Tristan, Watson and I) stayed with my parents after surviving a month on our own... leaving a very disorganized house behind... that pretty much saved my sanity (so Mum & Dad, you have an official record that I will be forever grateful for all you did for us) and it kept Tristan very, very happy (mama gets boring after a while!) The 3 months were pretty hard without Will... I was lucky to see him almost every weekend, and that was hard on me and Tristan - the switching of routine was a lot to handle. The little guy is such a trouper though, and he loved seeing his Dadda! Back to me (it’s hard writing just about me!)... one of the downfalls of being on my own is that I could not be a full-time mom, a carry a full-time job and still have free time for me stuff... so I had to put my Karate on a semi-permanent hiatus :-( It’s hard not having that time to focus on me alone, and I’m feeling the lack of exercise (although Tristan gives me quite an aerobic exercise AND muscle work!) It’s also hard not to see all my dojo family... Will graduated on Dec 13th, and we got to drive him home on the 14th - and we were a family for a whole 3 weeks! Hurrah for Christmas breaks :) So by the time that Will graduated, we knew what the next stage in his training was - moving to Kingston to do almost a years’ worth of training for his trade. The nice thing is that they’ll move us so we can together! The bad thing is that we weren’t sure when this would happen, and on top of that, he was supposed to back to Borden to wait for the course to start... which would mean me alone with Tristan in Ottawa again (well, more like "alone"...) This past week was Will’s first week back (and he actually halfway through the week had to check out of Borden and get to Kingston as his course starts this Tuesday!!!!) and I’ve actually done well - I stayed at home and totally kicked home-tush (I’ve baked, cooked, cleaned and worked!) I think I’m finally getting a hang of things (it only took how long????) Now I just get to wait for Will to tell me that we’re moving... I’m very much on the mixed up in how I’m feeling on moving... I’m excited because first, I get to be living with Will again! I don’t care where we live, or what we do, I just want to be together again. Secondly, although anyone who knows me knows how much I hate moving (because of moving over, and over and over again) this time it’s different, because we will have packers AND movers. This is going to be easy, breezy! And Kingston is a beautiful city (not like Barrie, which in my opinion, is a hole in the ground due for filling) and it’s not too far from Ottawa. On the down side, this will be the first time I’m leaving my family EVER. Yes, it’s only at the most 2 hours away, but I’m now joining a group of people who don’t have their parents in the same city, and I’ve always known how lucky I’ve been to have them nearby for support! It’s going to be hard not seeing them almost every day (well, lately I’ve seen them every day because we’re all at the same office building!) and that will be tough... It’ll also be hard leaving all of our friends, and starting completely new in a different city... In the end, this is the start of quite an adventure!
Now I don't have a lot of pictures to go with my update (I'm usually the picture taker!) but here are a few...
Here we (T and I) are at Beechwood Memorial Cemetery on Remembrance Day shortly after seeing Will on Parade...
Here is Tristan and I on one of our favourite afternoon activities... playing horsey with mama! The camera was nearby, so I was able to squeeze out a couple of shots and this was my favourite (isn't it adorable how mischievous Tristan looks???)
Here we are at Will's graduation - and I'm sporting my amazingly sexy red leather coat I got for my birthday!
Here is Tristan and I coming back from shopping for our yearly Christmas ornament - it's a tradition we started when one of my very best friends Kristina gave Will and I an ornament the first year we were married - we've been buying one every year since, and this year, with Tristan being old enough, we let him pick. He was so cute! After searching, and picking a few, putting them back and searching again, he settled on not one, but two! And we couldn't say no - he picked his favourite things - one had a car on it (it was Lightning McQueen from 'Cars') and the other had a doggie on it (it was a dog standing at a vending machine with doggie treats)
This is one of my favourites because it's something that we don't photograph often enough - Tristan sleeping after nursing.
Lately (the last 6 months or so!) he's become quite an acrobat while nursing (especially while lying down) and when he doesn't end up lying down upside down (so I end up with his feet by my head), he will end up perpendicular across my torso - as he did on this picture. He was so sweet when he fell asleep, his lips were pursed and he just snuggled so I had to whisper out to Will to get the camera...
Well, it's almost 11pm, and I gotta hit the sack - up at 5am every morning to get T to daycare before I head to work (I'm at the office halfdays)...
Good night to all!
Oh, and Tristan's posts (I'm breaking them up because he's got the most to update on!) will be coming soon - I promise!