Thanksgiving

Here are some photos from our impromptu trip to Dresden for Thanksgiving!

We had to make a few stops so Parker could go to the washroom and April could feed Lauren.  Here's Parker wandering around during one of our stops (I have no idea where we were).

 Nana and Lauren, hanging out.

 Checking on the herbs.

 In her favourite pose, propped up in the corner of a couch!

 Smiling at Nana!

 Parker loves babies.  He always tries so hard to interact with them and make sure everyone is happy.  Here he is checking on his little cousin, Mason.

 BUMP BUMP!

 Percy making a delivery under a foot stool.

 Parker pushing the shutter button himself.

 Playing a crazy-addictive fishing game with cousin Brenna!

 Checking out Mason's dinosaur.

 Maria, Brenna, and baby Lauren!  They kind of have matching hair.

 Great grandma and Lauren, hanging out.

 Smiles for Great Grandma!

Brenna, taking a break from playing with toddlers, and she still looks pretty happy!

Hanging Out, Looking Around

Pumpkin Patch

Parker's class went to a pumpkin patch last Thursday for a field trip! Here's a hilarious photo that his teacher, Miss Caroline, sent to us. He looks pretty psyched to have a pumpkin.

April took a few other photos while she was there so I'll post them soon as well, but this photo makes me laugh so much that I thought it was worthy of its own post.  Parker is a human Awesome Smiley!

Shimmy Shimmy

When April went in to check on Lauren this morning, she had wiggled her way to the other side of the crib!  Are almost-2-month olds supposed to be able to do that?  When April put her down for a nap in the morning, she did the same thing!  Crazy girl.

And now here are some photos of her propped up in the corner of the couch.  :D

 That's not the couch!  How did that get in here?

 Fancy dress! 

 Big yawn!

 New fuzzy jammies. 

Her hair is definitely more brown and less black than it was!  And she smiles a lot now when she sees peoples' faces, which is super cute!

A Melody

Me: Parker, do you know what a melody is?
Parker: Yeah!
Me: What is it?
Parker: A soccer player!

Best Shirt Ever!

A while back we bought Parker a cool (well, cool to us) Star Wars shirt in the States and he's finally big enough to wear it!  Hooray!

 An airplane!

It's a Star Wars-themed blog post day!

Tatooine by Jeremy Messersmith

This isn't specifically Parker-related, but I'm a Star Wars nerd and this is pretty awesome.  It's a song called "Tatooine" by Jeremy Messersmith and the video is done by a guy named Eric Power.  He recreated some of the good parts in the Star Wars trilogy using construction paper animation, and it looks pretty cool.  And the song is pretty catchy, too!  

I'm surprised it doesn't show Han shooting Greedo, though.  I'm just saying.

Nursery School & Swimming Setbacks!

Although nursery school started out without any problems, the last two trips have been a lot worse.  Parker has been REALLY sad when I try to drop him off and last Thursday they actually called us at home to come and see him because he was so miserable!  So yesterday I sat in the back of the class while he played, and I'm going to do the same thing tomorrow.  Hopefully if I do this a few times, he'll gradually see that it's okay and won't have a meltdown when I go to leave.  The strange thing is that he was never a crier, even as a little baby, and now he cries all the time.  Well, not all the time, but to go from nothing to something is kind of an adjustment for everyone, so it's been an interesting process so far.  He also really seems to hate swimming lessons (he's supposed to go in the pool by himself while we watch from the side) but so far it's been mostly him screaming that he doesn't want to go in the pool and us trying to keep him calm.  Maybe the new baby is affecting him more than we initially thought?

The Post Every Other Parent Hates

When we first brought Lauren home we weren't really sure what to do with a new baby and kind of forgot about sleeping and schedules and stuff.  For the first few weeks she was mostly pleasant but would get pretty cranky when we tried to put her down for naps (and she was waking multiple times in the night).  A few weeks ago the light bulb went off, April figured out Lauren's sleep schedule, and she's like a new baby!  She's been sleeping for 10-12 hour stretches at night, takes multiple loooong naps during the day, and is pretty much only awake for a few hours.  And when she's awake she's super happy and alert and ready to hang out and look around.  Her awake window is about 1 hour (or less) and then she's ready for another nap!  We used to think Parker was the best sleeper ever, but I think Lauren might have him beat.

Tall Towers

One of Parker's weird obsessions are those hydro towers at the side of the road, which he calls "tall towers". His favourite is the elusive "banana tall tower", which looks like this:

It's named for the banana-like shape at the very top.  There are a bunch of these on the 401 when we're heading west.  For some reason, he's really into stacking his blocks up in a row and calling them tall towers.  Then he drives his cars past them, re-arranges them, and repeats.  Sometimes he makes banana tall towers, like the one in the middle that he has his hand on.

 Moving a bunch all at once takes extreme skill and concentration and gigantic hands.

 Counting the towers. 

 Some minor adjustments.

Taking a break to snack on some raisins.

 Stacky stack.

Tall towers encompass a large portion of our conversation, so I thought it was only fitting that I post 100 different photos of Parker playing with his blocks as towers.

Random Stuff

So far Parker seems to be enjoying nursery school!  It's so weird asking him to tell us about his day and listening to the things he did.  His go-to line after, "What did you do at school today?" is always, "Played with the big red bridge!"  But after a bit more prying, he'll tell you more, like what he had for a snack and who read a book to them that day.  He also likes to play a computer game where you use the mouse to pop bubbles containing letters, which eventually spell words.  Here he is sporting his "bear hat" that he made last Thursday.

And here he is reluctantly posing for a portrait. 

 And here he is playing with his Chirpy clock (thanks Auntie Claire) and trying to tell time.