May 2012 Highlights

Apparently, I managed to skip from April to July while doing my highlights tour of 2012. So this post will see me jump back a couple of months and show you the rest of the best for May. Before I get to that, I wanted to mention that it's a boys' weekend for Lucas and me since Marilu headed off with her girlfriends for a scrapbooking weekend until Sunday afternoon. Unlike past weekends alone with the boy, we have plenty of stuff lined up. Tomorrow morning, he has his martial arts lessons, and then in the afternoon, we've been invited over to a friend's house for a LAN party, which is basically a fancy way of saying we'll be playing video games with a bunch of other people. What 5-year-old wouldn't love that? On Sunday, he has ski lessons and then a birthday party for one of his classmates. Marilu will be home by the end of that, and we'll finish off the weekend by hopefully watching the Falcons and Patriots winning their respective NFL conference championships.

So, back to May. Now that Lucas is a full-blown student, I expect we'll be seeing more pictures like this one as we help him with his homework. To be honest, I'm not sure if he's even doing anything school-related in this picture or just coloring, but I liked the idea.

 As you may recall, Lucas played in a T-ball league called Blast Ball last May and June. I even think I posted some pictures way back when. Well, here's some more plus video. It's too early to tell if we'll sign him up for this again, but I thought it was a positive experience so we'll see.

My mom came down to visit toward the end of the month, and she helped make our "garden" in the front yard look good. Lucas and I provided limited help.

One of the highlights in May, at least from a photo perspective, was a little carnival they had at the nearby Hazeldean Mall. We went the year before, but 2012 was the first year Lucas was brave enough to go on some rides by himself.

Not the most thrilling ride in the world. Luckily, we went to this carnival before Six Flags, otherwise he would have been REALLY bored.

Incidentally, the photo above of him with his finger in his mouth is the 666th one I've posted to this blog. Take that for you will.

It's possible I've posted this next picture before, or maybe I just uploaded one that looked like it. Either way, it's cute so here you go: Lucas and Marilu at Montana's restaurant.

 And finally, sometimes you just need to kick back and relax on your Tauntaun sleeping bag.

Highlights from July 2012

As I mentioned last time, I'm not going to forget about catching up. So without any further adieu, here are the best of the rest of July 2012.

I can't recall what the story was behind these first 3 pictures, but I have a bunch of photos of Lucas sitting at the table laughing. Most of the time nowadays, he fake smiles for the camera or makes some goofy face so it's refreshing to see a genuinely happy kid.

When his hair gets long, it gets crazy as evidenced by our in-bath sculpting.

During a visit to Carleton Place, Jay took Lucas for a ride on his ATV.

Finally, Lucas doing his best to goof up a photo of him and Grace. This is the face we expect more often than the first three photos.

Happy New Year!

I'm back! Sorry about the delay since Christmas. Between seeing friends or family nearly every day between Christmas and New Years and my mom being here for most of the last week, I lost track of my postings, but I'm back now and ready to get a strong start for 2013.

I still plan to catch up with all the older photos from 2012, but I'm going to try and post current photos as soon as possible so as not to get stuck in this hole once again. In that spirit, this first post of 2013 is going to highlight Lucas's first ski lesson of 2013, which we went to at Mt Pakenham this past Sunday.

We put Lucas in the same level of classes as last year since he hasn't been since then, and we figured it might be good to get a refresher. What's new this time around is that Marilu bought skis so she'll be skiing during his lessons and then taking him up some hills afterwards to get some extra practice.

That plan already paid off in this first week as he had a blast skiing with Marilu. During his lesson, they only got a chance to go up the little practice hill a couple of times during the hour due to all the other kids taking lessons. With Marilu, he went on a slightly bigger hill 4-5 times before we had lunch. After lunch, they went a couple of more times, and then much to our surprise, he asked to go up the chair lift to the top. He and Marilu made it all the way down the gentlest run, the Wizard, without too many issues so it looks like he's off to a great start. I think we can change the level of his lesson so that might be something to look into if he gets a lot more experience with Marilu over the next couple of weeks.

You can barely recognize him here as he is completely covered. Probably more than needed since it was a relatively mild day. He ended up taking the balaclava off after lunch. FYI, the color for his lesson group was "berry," and I guess they nicknamed themselves the Purple Ninjas.

On the slopes with Marilu. He fell his first few times going up the towbar, but by the 4th one he had it down pat. He also got much better on the hill, eventually skiing the whole way down without crashing.

Here they are, about to get ready for his first chairlift ride. If he ever becomes an Olympic skiier, I guess we can look back at this picture as where it all started.

Posing for the camera.

Finally, a couple of videos of the two of them on the towbar hill.

Christmas 2012

Merry Christmas, everyone! We're literally headed out the door as soon as I finish this update since we're driving across town for dinner at Marilu's cousin's so I'm going to post the pictures from this morning sans commentary. Have a great day!

Christmas Eve 2012

Every Christmas Eve since Lucas was in Marilu's belly, we've gone to the home of our friends Andre and Tracey. Since I'm updating this post via my iPhone, I'll keep it short and sweet. Here's a photo of the kids from this year's edition of our get-together.

Winter in Kanata

If you've been watching the weather channel, you've probably noticed that we've received a lot of snow this week. This morning, Lucas and I made the most of it, playing with some of the neighborhood kids for an hour or two. The cold weather also served to help out my slight Crown Royal-induced hangover from last night. :)

Before we came in, I had Marilu take a few pictures of the two of us hanging out in the snow. I hope you enjoy the pictures.

We're probably going sledding soon. I don't know if we'll bring the camera, but if we do, expect those pictures later today or tomorrow.

Portable North Pole 2012

As you may remember from last year, Portable North Pole is a website that allows you to create a personalized video message from Santa for your kid. We've done it for the past 2-3 years, and since Lucas has enjoyed it, I made him another one this year. Since he has been better overall this year, we let him be on the good list as opposed to having to work his way onto it. If you'd like to see the video, you can view it here.

April 2012

My plan to update every day until the end of the year hit a snag since I've been sick the last couple of days, thanks to a cold Lucas brought home last week. As much as being under the weather sucks, at least it has been infrequent this school year. In fact, I believe this is the first time I've been sick since he started back up in September. Contrast that with last year where I was sick almost once a month.

Today's blog post focuses on the five remaining photos from April 2012. Up first is a picture of Lucas and his Nanny from when she came to visit. I just noticed I am inadvertently photobombing in the background.

It used to be that when you asked Lucas to pose for the camera, you would get the cheese smile, where he grinned from ear to ear. Nowadays, you are more likely to get something like this.

As you may know, Lucas loves Legos. In fact, two of his biggest Christmas gifts this year are going to be Lego sets. He tends to be a lot more creative with them than I was at his age, as you can see below.

I'm not exactly sure what look he was going for here, but as with most 4-year-olds, he pulls it off.

Finally, a shot from the park. I call this one "Heavy Metal Cowboy."

March 2012

I already posted a lot of pictures from March earlier in the year. If you recall, that's when we went on our cruise. Of the remaining photos from that month, these 4 are the highlights.

This first photo is a bit fuzzy, but it's the first shot I ever took of Lucas with his cousin Colby so I wanted to include it for posterity.

This one of them was taken after the cruise, and I'm including it for the sheer cuteness. Plus, it will be fun to see their faces when we show it to them 10-15 years from now.

Lucas with a beef jerky cigar. I believe this is from the hotel room in Orlando the day before we left for the cruise.

And finally, a candidate for Picture of the Year 2012.