Our Baby Size Life! » fall

Goodbye Fall, Hello White Sh… Stuff

John — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 13:44:57 +0000

It’s been a few days since my last post, but life’s been kicking up the busy recently. I don’t know why, but Melissa and I just get stuck in these weird periods when we suddenly have a crazy influx of appointments and meetings and family events that just keep us constantly on the go for a few days. Then, nothing. Which is nice, cause now I can catch up on some posts! Hence, the events in this post happened over 2 weeks ago, back when Fall was still nice and the bitter cold of winters’ creeping hands couldn’t be felt. It’s ironic too, that as I’m writing this, we are getting hit with our first dump of snow. So, I guess this will be my farewell to Fall, even though Halloween has yet to pass!

About three weeks ago, I wrote about a walk in the woods near my place, and I said at the time that I might have been a little premature in expecting a vibrant display of Mother Natures Fall colors. Well, after a busy Thanksgiving weekend, which I’ll be telling you about soon, we decided to head out for another walk, and this time we hoped Sam would stay awake and see some colors! Well, he stayed awake and as you can see from the pic on the left, we got some serious color action! We then found a quiet part of the forested area to sit down in some leaves and just let Sam explore. We, of course took some pics, way to many to post here and way to many to be healthy. The weather was nice and the sun kept poking through some shoddy clouds that didn’t offer much resistance. It was quiet too. No car noise or other people around being annoying. Just us and a pile of leaves, and a few curious squirrels.

Sammy and Dad enjoying the leaves

Sam and Mom taking a seat

A good Samaritan squirrel took a family pic for us. He was nice, if a little nuts.

We spent a good lazy hour tossing leaves around, playing peek-a-boo and spinning Sam around and through the air a bit, then headed for home as somebody was getting a little cranky because he was a little hungry! Yeah well, I only had a quick sandwich for lunch alright! I was starved! Frolicking and merry making family style takes it’s burden on a man! Should have brought some crackers and cheese… Mmmmmm… Cheese. When we got home, we decided that five gigs of photos wasn’t enough. So we propped Sam up on our decorative hay stack and pumpkin outdoor deco and took a few terabytes more pictures… You know, just in case the other thousand come out bad. Ah to be trigger happy, gone gaga parents in the digital age. Sam’s only 8 months old and he’s got more documented about his life than Jesus! And yes folks, Sammy-boy does look pretty kick-ass in his bomber jacket huh? Before you say it, or think it, or comment it below, we didn’t buy it for him, his Aunt did. So we are not that gaga. Close. But not yet! OK, gotta run as I’ve got a few Halloween things to prepare and with only 2 days left… time is tight! Take care!

A Very Fall Weekend

John — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 06:12:58 +0000

It’s Fall over here in Canada, and I couldn’t be happier! If you don’t live around here, you wouldn’t know that we just had one of the worst, crappiest, rainy, blah summers ever. We could hardly get a weeks worth of sunshine and we were constantly peed on by some mean looking cumuli. So, bring on Fall! If we’re going to sit through crappy weather like that, we might as well have some perks to go along with it right? Yummy apples made for some great, crunchy apple crisp and the chilly weather made from some nice Fall colors. We decided to take a walk and check things out, as we both love walking in the forest paths that are right at the end of our street. This may sound familiar as I’ve posted about this before, this past March, while I was looking for signs of Spring. you can check out that post here. That post and this one, kind of make nice bookends to a sub par summer. I would ask for a refund if I could folks, but all sales are final with Mother Nature.

Sunday was your typical Fall day: overcast with a stiff, cold breeze. Melissa and I packed Sam up with a few layers of clothing, poor kid couldn’t move his arms. He was wearing his new Fall coat and he seemed to be totally… unaware that it was his new Fall coat. Which, in retrospect, is perfectly normal. It’s the parents expecting their 7 month old to notice that it’s his new Fall coat that’s the problem. We then “crow-barred” him into his super wheeled, off-road, full suspension, 4 wheel drive stroller that Sam’s Uncle Mike gave him, and set off on our merry little way. He seemed to enjoy the chilly air on his cheeks, cause that’s all of him that was exposed, and soon fell asleep! He always does this. Whenever we bring him somewhere… he’s gone. This summer, we went to the ocean, which is as you know one of the grandest of natures beauties, limitless in its expanse and inspiring wonder. But Sam fell asleep right when we hit the beach. You can read that adventure series here, some here, a little here and lastly here.

As with every time I take a walk through this little forest trail, I spot little things that make me take pictures. Curious things like the white berries on the left, or the known but no-less-beautiful things like a bee getting some nectar in his belly before the big chill of winter. I even caught that “huge” dragonfly on the wall of my house, just sitting there starting at me. He scared the crap out of me as I stepped out of the house. Think that’s funny? Well it was H-U-G-E I tells ya! Just look at that pic! I was a little disappointed, however, that the leaves hadn’t changed colors as much as I had hoped. Here are a few shots of what we saw. I’ll try and get back out there this upcoming weekend and get a few more nice shots of the rainbow foliage… maybe even a few with Sam sitting in some leaves. If he’s awake. :/

Melissa waiting for me to hurry up and take the shot	Some wild Fall flowers	A couple big trees turned red
Zoom on a leaf	A trail to...?	A bee getting some of the Fall flower

Overall, it was a nice afternoon to be together as a family. Sam woke up after we had gotten home, which was about an hour after we had left. The way the fresh air had affected Sam now hit us full force. Melissa and I were yawing and thinking about laying down for a quick nap when Sam woke up, full of vim and ready for an intense crawling and playing session. So on the floor we went, playing with the little guy until supper. We had great fun together, as always. He’s just a giggle-puss that kid. Melissa and I got creative and stuck him in his toy bin to give us a little break (and get a funny picture). Joke was on us as he loved it in there! He had all his toys and buddies in there with him and he never complained. And as you can see, he’s got no way out which let us get supper ready.

Whew, what a day! We were all pooped when bedtime rolled around. We had nothing planned as of that morning, but it’s funny how things just seem to Fall into your lap during those lazy Sundays.

That’s it for now, thanks for reading!

Apple Picking!

John — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 20:57:40 +0000

An annual event Melissa and I like to partake in is apple picking. It’s kind of like a right of passage into Fall. A day were we acknowledge that summer has passed on and the beautiful and bountiful Fall season is now upon us. We love Fall and for many reasons other than the apple picking: the trees changing colors, the cool nights, Thanksgiving (lovin’ that turkey!), the Fall harvest, the return of the nice & thick wool sweater, an evening fire in the fire pit and of course Halloween!

We like going every year with friends and family, but this year was a big one as it was, of course, Sam’s first time apple picking. Now I know that Sam, being only 7 months old won’t remember jack squat from this. But you need to remember something folks, most people’s earliest memories are from around their third or fourth year of life. So any parents that do these kind of activities with their relatively young children aren’t crazy and wasting time and money. They are doing it for two reasons. Firstly, we do it for the moment, the present, the here and now, the immediate satisfaction, if you will, of doing something as a family and the pleasure it brings. The second reason is for the parents memories. We do these things to be able to remember the early times with our kids. I mean they go by so fast! Sam’s 7 months already! Plus we can tell our grown up children stories that begin with “I remember when you were only a little baby and we…”. Plus, parents want to show off their kids and the best place to do that is in public!

So last Sunday we head out to the apple orchard with Melissa’s two sisters, Norm, and my godchild Jeremy. We had a blast! They place was packed, however, and we got snubbed on one of the main attractions of the place: fresh, hot, right out of the oil, homemade apple and pumpkin donuts! Man o man they are a treat, let me tell ya! But, it wasn’t meant to be as I had been standing in line for 30 minutes before deciding to give up and go apple picking with the gang. We walked for a few minutes into the orchard to find a spot away from most of the crowd and settled down on a blanket we had brought. The sky was a perfect blue and the mountain in the back drop made for beautiful scenery as we ran, climbed, picked and ate our way among the orchard trees.

On the way out we bought about 30 bucks worth of food related to apples. They sold a lot of yummy looking stuff, so I had to restrain myself in my purchases. It was twice as hard to hold back buying everything in the store as we had not eaten lunch yet, and it was about 5 o’clock in the afternoon by then. In the parking lot, which was really a now trampled field, a couple hot air balloons were being filled and getting ready for liftoff. We decided to call it a day and check them out. It was impressive to see the angry orange flame and hear its roar as the balloon filled up and took flight. We’ll have to hitch a ride in one of those someday.

By that point, Sam fell asleep in his godmother’s arms as we walked back to our cars. He was in her arms because his super suspension, big wheeled, off-road, SUV-like stroller was filled with apples! It might seem cruel to kick Sam out of his wheels, but it was a simple matter of mathematics really. Sam weighs about 17 pounds and the apples weighed about 40 pounds! Case closed. Sam gets evicted from the stroller. Besides, there was no shortage of arms to carry the little guy. He was great again for us, being a happy, smiling baby. Needless to say, all that fresh air pooped us all out. It was an early night for bed, our bellies filled with apple goodness. Did I mention we had a nice warm, apple and maple syrup pie for dessert? Freakin’ good. Go get one.

Below are a couple more pics,

Take care and thanks for reading!