Boston Mini Vacay (Caution: No Baby Pictures Until the End of this Post. Scroll if Necessary, it's OK.)

Since I've been putting this off for so long (blogging as homework, so sad), I'll let the pictures do the explaining...

The reason we were in Boston in the first place...

I think it's good to keep it real and post dorky photos when they are available. So here you go.

The game was crazy fun. Bruins fans are just plain crazy but we made it out alive. Now that the Habs are out of the playoffs, we are officially a Canucks household. For now.

Got a great Priceline deal at the Copely Square Marriot. This room service breakfast was almost as expensive as one night of accomodation. I won't even get into the valet parking... But it was worth it.

Boston Public Library

Took a Duck tour of the city and had a good time. That's me with my duck lips.

One of the Duck fleet that has a cool name.

That's Sergent Meatball, our Duck tour leader.

We learned a lot about the history of Boston.

None of which I will bore you with here. (Like I remember now anyway!)

I just thought this was cool. It's on the ground by the way.

I do remember that this is the USS Constitution. Historical significance? Hmmm.. must be the same place my keys are...

Oh yeah, it's spring!

After tooling around the city in our giant yellow banana (to quote Sergeant Meatball) we cruised the Charles River!

We got chased by these scary looking pirates. Er middle-aged accountants on vacation. Whatever. The kids thought it was hilarious.

Yeah, so what, I like a good pun. (It's an antiques store, get it?!)

Where everybody knows your nay-a-a-me!

(see sign on fence below middle awning)

It's hard to see, but those window boxes have running shoes in them filled with flowers. This is traditional decoration for the upcoming Boston marathon. Cute, right?

More spring.

Now this is where the angry mob got riled up enough to storm down to the docks and throw the King's tea overboard. The same exact building!

It's OK, I'm a total history nerd.

The only other thing I can't get enough of when I'm in an oldey-timey town (besides punny signs and historical buildings, oh and churches) is cemetaries.

Hello!! Paul REVERE is buried here!

Plus I love how it's right in the middle of town. There's like apartment buildings and what looks like a daycare butting right up next to it.

The Boston version of our usual self portrait.

Oooh, shiny. And important. Legislature?

Look how classy the Starbucks sign is! We also saw a fancy lookin' 7-11.

I think the Commons was our favourite part of the whole city. It's so pretty in there!

Sorry, we don't have any of these yet in Montréal so I went a little spring flower crazy...

If I was a little more with the program I would be able to explain the significane of these ducks. There is a children's story about ducks coming to the Commons but that's about as much as I can gather. They look cute anyway.

I like these kinds of statues too.

After all that history and walking around, we got down to some serious business. I read somewhere that the best place to get authentic Boston Cream Pie is at the Oak Room which is in the Fairmount Copley Square hotel. We strode in there in our jeans and running shoes and politely asked if we could sully their lovely dining room in order to indulge our (my) need to try the definitive Boston Cream Pie. They were very sweet and invited us in (picture a lavish gentlemen's club with lots of mahogany and rich fabrics and heavy furniture) and we blatanly had just dessert.

But what a dessert it was.

That stuff on the top and on the plate is big huge curls of white chocolate. It kinds of looks like cheese in this photo and actually it was kind of like overkill on top of all the rest, but I appreciated the effort.

Aren't we classy?

The lady who took this picture for us asked if we were on our honeymoon. We laughed and explained that it was merely our first time away from our 18-month old for TWO WHOLE nights. Then we kept laughing. She backed away slowly...

That night we went out for dinner at Legal Seafood and splurged on a brilliant, fishy meal that even I appreciated. I also bought a magazine and just SAT AND READ for like an hour in the afternoon. Amazing. Saturday we got up slowly, grabbed a Starbucks (in our hotel thank you!) and hit the road by 11. We got to Stéphane's parents by around 5:30 and got Liliane home and tucked into bed by her usual 8PM.

And voilà! An excellent little trip, I highly recommend it.

Speaking of Liliane, I took this at the park yesterday:

That kid LOVES the swings. The only thing she loves more is the slide:



And the only thing she loves more than the slide is ice cream! We had our first trip of the season to Dairy Queen (for my west-coast readers, DQ isn't open all year round out here!) but since this post is already huge, I'll leave those for the next one. Which will not take two weeks to finish. Promise.

Easter Bunny (Just Before Church This Morning)

Liliane has had this outfit since she was born.

It's Tommy Hilfiger (fancy!) size 18-24 months.

I remember not being able to imagine how she could ever be big enough to wear it.

And now she is.

(See those dimples? Killer.)

Happy Easter my baby! Having you around for Easter is better than chocolate! (Even Mini-Eggs.)

Love,

Maman xo

PS - Pix to come of our Boston trip!

Cookie Monster in Training

These photos are actually from last weekend, but we seem to be running about a week behind all around these days. Case in point: I had carefully written TAXES in the spaces in my agenda alloted to this very weekend. It's now Sunday after 10PM and I assure you, not a T-4 in sight. But, given the rhythm of things lately I'm right on schedule - by the time I actually sit down to DO my taxes, it will be NEXT weekend. I may even over-achieve and not get to them until even later! Oooh. Living dangerously is fun.

Anyway... I wanted to make cookies last weekend (this amazing PW recipe incidentally) but couldn't find a quiet moment to do it so I dragged a chair up to the counter and introduced my baby to the joys of baking.


Please ignore her wacky PJ combination. It's a long story. Thank you.


And her bed hair. And my hair to for that matter. I got it cut yesterday. Phewf.



She totally got into it. I mean that literally. I've been cleaning flour out of the kitchen crevices ever since. But she was really interested in everything and had fun getting her hands dirty.

Then I introduced her to the best part of making cookies!

I have seen the light, the light of chocolate shining down on me.

Food show!

I can haz moar?

Delish. Looking forward to doing that again!

UPDATE ON THE BOTTLE SITCH: It's done! No more bottles! Go figure, she didn't throw up anymore in the night once we stopped giving them to her... (insert smack to the forehead here) And it just seemed like a natural time to stop.

UPDATE ON THE SLEEP SITCH: The Baby Guru warned me about the hidden dangers of nighttime activities such as rocking and cuddling when our precious bundles wake up because they're teething. I lived with two weeks of spending a couple of hours (usually from 3-5) with my cranky babe, soothing her back to sleep by lying down on the couch with her (our bed never works for her. I think that's a good thing). After the first 5 nights or so, I raised my haggard face to the heavens to beg for this torture to end only to realize that she wasn't really waking up in pain anymore. She was waking up for cuddles! That's the horror of sleep deprivation. Your BRAIN STOPS WORKING. Anyway, we basically made a pact to let her just cry for a bit when we knew she was otherwise OK and it worked. It was painful, but it worked. Actually, it's painful to realize that you THOUGHT you were comforting your child in pain, but in fact, it's all an evil charade. Hey, betrayal is betrayal! Well, it went down to one wake-up per night for a soother replacement and a little whining then next to nothing last night. Seriously, keep the bedroom doors closed. I think it's the key to sleep success.

UPDATE ON THE HOUSE SITCH: All is well with the new place. Our current landlord however... sigh. Two words: CA-RAZY. She has decided to make our lives decidely unpleasant but we're dealing with it, dignity and sanity intact. So far.

And besides that, we're taking a mini-vacation! Stéphane and I will spend over 48 blissful hours together driving down to Boston this weekend (while Liliane gets the royal treatment at her grandparents') where we will catch a Canadiens hockey game and do a bunch of touristy stuff and stay at a hotel and everything! Can't wait.

OK now it's really too late to even think about taxes. See how easy it is to procrastinate? And I didn't even have to go on Facebook!