How We Roll

Hey! Do I have the best blog readers or what? Thanks for all your kind comments after my sadsack last post.

Well, it's Halloween and we started celebrating early with the traditional "dress up the child" ritual.

You may remember these:

I may be short, but I know when I look like a dork.


Yes, I will humour you.

I can safely say that Liliane has now pretty much embraced the dress-up thing. Please see evidence below from this morning:


Why yes, I AM the cutest panda in all the land.



We dressed up the house a little, too:


Even my nasturtium bloomed an orange flower in the spirit of the season.




Happy Halloween everybody!

PS - Have started to get over the H1N1 thing. We will get the vaccine, but I'm not feeling the panic so much anymore. My husband is a different story. I'll let you know how he does at the Halloween party (a.k.a. Gathering-of-Deadly-Toddlers-Swarming-With-Swine-Flu) tomorrow. It could be very, very scary.

The One With the Citrouilles

Alright internet, I understand. My blogging has been sketchy lately, I haven't been keeping up my end of the bargain. But do you have to be so cruel as to leave me ZERO comments on my last entry? My big huge photo-filled post about my preshus baby's birthday party? Including pictures of our new house? And CUPCAKES? Man, if you want to break up with me, just do us both a favour and get it over with already.

No? Well OK then. I'm not picky. But I sure would like to HEAR FROM YOU. Don't make me do another post about Roman Polanski, people!

End of lecture. Sigh. Moving on:

We spent all of last weekend just hanging out. Still recovering from the previous week's activities extravaganza, we were happy to keep cooley cool boys. (name that show!)

We managed to get organized enough to go down the the Jardin Botanique (that's Botanical Gardens for all you unilingual types) to see all the awesome Halloween stuff.

Liliane's favourite word these days is citrouille (see-troo-ee - Frenchy town speak for pumpkin)
so it was like vocab nirvana once we made it past endless greenhouses of distinctly NON-Halloween cacti, bonzai and the like.



Look! 2010 Olympics themed pumpkins!



In stripes we trust.



The biggest see-troo-ee of them all!

You might even say, The Great Pumpkin. If you're a Halloween special-nerd like me, that is.

Crappy photo karma.

Case in point: this is the BEST photo I could find of her with some actual decorated pumpkins. And no, she's not sitting on a prickly pear or anything, I promise.

After the pumpkins we headed outside to meet up with our pals Julie, Joyce and little Rosie (Liliane's BFF, we mothers have decided) to check out the lanterns.

There was a super cool outdoor play area for the kiddos to burn off steam and to take some cool photos:

And away we go...

We still had a little light left in the sky which made for some yummy photo ops. I could have photographed that place for hours, it was gorgeous.

Julie and Rosie having a bit of a singalong.

As an aside, I will let you all know that Rosie has since come down with croup. We're keeping an eye on Liliane in case Rosie decided to share her croup as best friends are wont to do. So far, so good.

Again with the photo karma.

Sheesh.

Let me get this straight... If you get sick tomorrow, you should be all good by the weekend. I'll wait to get it next week so we can still hook up for Halloween, kay?

Five dollars is a very small price to pay for 45 minutes of metro ride's worth of entertainment.

Voilà. Are you happy now? No more silent treatment?

In other news... anyone else so OVER hearing about the H1N1 virus? We here at NPLH will all be receiving the vaccine as soon as it becomes available - you? Thoughts? Discuss!

I'll be back soon, no whining. Unless it is in the form of a COMMENT. Ahem.

2 (a.k.a. We MADE it!)

On Friday we stopped at the boulangerie and bought birthday treats...







And opened a few presents...



Then Maman went a little crazy...

...trying to get these done for the party on Saturday.



Here's our new home! Decked out for the birthday/housewarming:





So the guests came! Stéphane works with these lovely ladies:





The birthday girl had a blast.





The cupcakes went over well.

Yep, definitely my kid.



Our friend Jonathan hangin' out with some blonde babes


This is what happens when I say "smile!"

L is not so clear on the concept. Maybe next year.



So many more things to say, but at least you're up to speed on the celebrating around here.

Hoping to post more often now that life has gone back to normal...

Other big news - Liliane doesn't use a soother anymore! We were fretting for weeks about when to cut out the su-su and we finally decided to do it after her birthday. As of Sunday morning, we explained that she was a big girl now and didn't need her soother anymore. It worked! As I write this it's been 36 hours and no meltdowns. The Baby Guru TOLD me it would be easy, but like every new parent, you can't believe that it'll be easy with YOUR kid.

I'm so relieved. Plus it's fun because she talks a lot more! I still can't understand half of what she says, but at least there's nothing in her mouth to block her cheerful chatter.

Still loving fall, going through a big baking phase. Which is leading to a big butt phase, but I'm trying to give away as much of it as possible! If you're in the Montréal area, please let me know. Pumpkin muffins are next on my list and my thighs are begging for mercy...