Door Guardian

Parker figured out how to open our front door by himself maybe a month or so ago, but luckily he's pretty good and doesn't really run outside without us knowing.  But that's not to say he won't.  So we went looking for some new locks to put on the front door.  I picked up one of these at Home Depot:

And I also picked up one of these, because I didn't know which would work better:

But I ended up being too paranoid to install it.  You have to drill the bolt part into your door, and I didn't really want to drill into our steel door.  I'm not the most handy person in the world.....  Luckily, while I was at a playdate the other day, they had this crazy locking mechanism on their door called the Door Guardian.

  Apparently they had them at Home Depot and I didn't even notice.  So I went back today and picked one up, and I have to say it might be the greatest invention ever (behind the GPS).  It's so simple, but so effective. And the best part is that it just screws into the wooden door frame and you don't have to damage your actual door!  If you're worried about your kids escaping, pick up a Door Guardian.  They're about $28 and even a moron like me can install them!  Here's a video of the Door Guardian in action:

Baby On Board

Good Times At Rotary Park

We stopped in at Rotary Park the other morning after our unsuccessful attempt to fly our Brobee Kite at Lemoine Point.  I think we needed more wind, so we'll give it another go next week hopefully.  I wanted to take some cool kite-flying photos and videos, so hopefully we can do it!  Luckily the park doesn't require wind to play.

He enjoyed sitting at this little table set....

And pretending to eat cookies.....

Scooping some up......

Stuffing his mouth full!  Om nom nom nom....

Here he is doing that weird thing where he doesn't actually look where he's walking, but instead stares off to the side.  This is exceptionally dangerous on a play structure because there are openings for fire poles and climbing bars and slides that he could just tumble down without noticing.

Clapping for himself after he sat down on the little stool.

Staring at the lady and kid swinging next to us.

Doing that walking/staring thing again.  A common thing heard from me is, "WATCH WHERE YOU'RE WALKING PLEASE!!!!!"

On our way to the car, Parker saw a gigantic puddle and wanted to walk through it.  It just so happened that I wanted to take photos of mud splashing everywhere, so we were a good combination.

There was a family having a picnic nearby and they stared at us the entire time, probably thinking we were crazy.

But the mud explosions were pretty awesome.

He was pretending to be a blender, mixing up ingredients to make juice.  April makes him juice that he calls "New Juice" which is usually made up of frozen strawberries, a banana, and some orange juice or apple juice (there might be one or two other ingredients in there that I'm forgetting because I never actually make it).

When we got home we had a nice lunch of peanut butter sandwiches, raspberries, and Goldfish crackers.

Ready for an Ozzy concert.

Baby On Board

Lil' Drummer Boy

Here's what's going through Parker's head:

"Thanks for the cool shirt Uncle Devon, Aunt Tracy, Connor, and Mason!  Now watch as I examine this cake thing......and smell it.....and laugh a little bit........and eat it.  Om nom nom nom...."

Elmo And Jason Mraz Want You To Stop Reading This....

And go outside.  Parker does a funny impression of Elmo singing and dancing during this song.

First Photo!

Here's our one and only ultrasound of baby Lauren!  When we went to get Parker's ultrasound the technician was really excited for us and helpful and gave us like 8 or 9 different scans (including a few 3D ones)!  The lady who was working when we went this time?  Not so much.  She was pretty dry, and only gave us one scan.  Ah well.  She still looks pretty cute.

Yo Gabba Gabba Babies

Parker recommends this catchy tune about being a cute baby.

Also, I'm not sure if I mentioned this previously or not, but I picked up tickets for Yo Gabba Gabba live in Ottawa!  It's not until September but I'm pretty psyched.  

Behold........

The tricycle!  While we were visiting Nana and Papa, they picked up a cool tricycle for him!  We went shopping and found a nice helmet and then tried to teach him how to ride it!  Here we are back at home trying to learn in the busy streets of Amherstview.  He's really good at keeping his feet on the pedals but still doesn't quite get the whole pedaling motion.  We made a trip to the mailboxes and back and he thought that was pretty cool.

Dinner With Scott, Gemma, and Milo!

Scott, Gemma, and Milo came over for dinner last night!  I didn't take very many photos but here are a few.

Scott throwing Parker up to the ceiling, which might his new favourite thing ever.

Milo watching Parker fly.

Scott teaching Parker some advanced calculus.

This might be some sort of UFC submission move, I think?

Milo loooooved the corn!  He ate all of his (you can see the carcass on his plate), then ate half of Scott's (the carcass next to the plate) and then ate the other half of Scott's (the one in his mouf).

This was the Scott photo shoot, apparently!  No photos of April or Gemma, just Scott.

Fancy New Look?

Blogger has new easy-to-configure templates so I figured maybe it's time for a change!  I'm not 100% sure if I like it or not, so maybe I'll keep switching it up but it looks kind of cool for now.

Fancy New Look!

Blogger has some new easy-to-configure templates and I figured this pink one looked kind of girly, so the blog has a new look!  Yay!

Random Photos

Just hanging out, being a little boy.

AHHHHHHHH!!!!!

Um, yeah.

Kisses from Mommy!

Parker's Phone Calls

When Parker makes pretend phone calls now, they go something like this:

"Oh hi, this is Garrett Elliott....  um, okay...  thanks, bye!"

I guess I leave a lot of voice mail while he's around?

Parker's Blog Sells Out, Part 2

So, that didn't last very long, and I'm not entirely sure why.  I got this email from Google yesterday:

Hello,

After reviewing our records, we've determined that your AdSense account
poses a risk of generating invalid activity. Because we have a
responsibility to protect our AdWords advertisers from inflated costs due
to invalid activity, we've found it necessary to disable your AdSense
account. Your outstanding balance and Google's share of the revenue will
both be fully refunded back to the affected advertisers.

Please understand that we need to take such steps to maintain the
effectiveness of Google's advertising system, particularly the
advertiser-publisher relationship. We understand the inconvenience that
this may cause you, and we thank you in advance for your understanding and
cooperation.

If you have any questions or concerns about the actions we've taken, how
you can appeal this decision, or invalid activity in general, you can find
more information by visiting
http://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?answer=57153.

Sincerely,

The Google AdSense Team


So, I guess they disabled my AdSense account there's a risk of invalid activity?  I'm not entirely sure what that means, since it seemed like I was making money according to their statistics.  But now it sounds like they've taken away everything I've made so far.  Um, thanks, Google.  Sure, it was only like $8 but still.  Ah well.  The blog looks better without ads for vacations and pharmaceuticals anyways.  So I guess my money-making experience has officially failed!

Put Me Down, Daddy!

A photo my mom took yesterday.  Parker doesn't look nearly as happy as I do!

Nana & Papa's House

Before our new baby comes, April and I came up with a plan to give each other a free weekend to hang out and do whatever we want (since it might be our last chance for a while).  So this weekend I decided to bring Parker to Dresden to visit my parents while she had a book club, and did some scrap booking, and a bit of shopping and movie-watching!  We left on Friday morning and are sticking around until Wednesday morning.  I actually forgot to bring my camera (and realized it as soon as I pulled onto the 401, of course) but luckily Parker had his camera handy.  Here are some photos.

It was a long drive on the 401 because we had to stop for a lot of bathroom breaks.  Here's a rest stop!  I highly recommend their washrooms.

Parker reading some books.  I love how he sits with his leg crossed.  It seems like he should be reading The New Yorker while wearing a top hat and monocle.  Instead, he's reading Dora.

Some tall buildings as we pass through Toronto.

Parker trying to see where we're going, or if there are any train tracks coming.

We made it to Nana and Papa's house!  Yay!

Watching some TV.  I think CSI was on.

Just kidding, it was Elmo.

Parker and Nana playing a game.

Strolling through the kitchen with some serious arm swinging.

Playing some songs on the farm fridge magnet thing.  If you press the frog button at the top it plays 3 or 4 different songs.  He really likes when it plays Six Little Ducks (at least that's what Google says it's called).

Parker's been doing this weird thing lately where he walks really close to a wall, or chair, or some sort of surface while staring at it as he walks.  I keep reminding him to watch where he's walking so he doesn't bonk his head on a door knob or fall into an open manhole cover, but he seems to be really into this right now for some reason.

Enjoying some chocolate milk with his lunch while watching some birds in the back yard.

Being a little chef with Nana!  He helped make "chocolate cookies", which were actually just little chocolate muffin things.

Pour pour pour!

Parker took this photo of Nana.

And he took this photo of Papa.

Connor, Mason, and Uncle Devon came for a visit yesterday!  Here's Connor.

Here's my BFF Mason.

Mason showing Parker some Elmo stickers.