Year: 2011

Halloween #2

Mara enjoyed her second Halloween! It was our first time trick-or-treating with her.

We also went into James’ work this morning, to show off Mara’s costume and to catch a glimpse of the kids from the daycare doing their tour of the building (they all have parents that work in that office). Mara was so excited when we ran into the crowd of kids! They were a bit older than she is, but she would have happily gone off with them for the rest of the tour.


I carved our pumpkin this time — Mara helped, mostly by napping long enough for me to get the bulk of the work done!

Big weekend

We managed to make the most of our quiet weekend in Ottawa. It’s been a busy summer (just got back from a quick trip to Winnipeg!), so a little downtime is welcome.

James got our bikes up and running so we were able to take Mara out for her first bike ride.

He also set up her wading pool, which she seems to love. She figured out all on her own that there is a slide (I wasn’t in a hurry for her to discover this feature).

This afternoon, Mara and I checked out a kids’ gym for the first time. It was pretty hectic there, but Mara definitely had fun. Not sure if I’m ready to keep up with her on the trampoline, though!

Caught in the rain

Mara was having an odd sort of morning today. She slept fairly soundly after waking her dad up beforeĀ  6 am, and got up around 9:10 am with a confused look on her face as if to say, “How did I sleep so long? And where am I?”

She wouldn’t get into her seat for breakfast, but I managed to get her to eat some cereal while sitting on my lap. We also nursed on the couch a bit during a thunderstorm. Yesterday had been very active, with us going to Babytime at the library in the morning and then to the park (wading pool and playground) in the afternoon. But with all the storms forecast for today I thought we’d just stay in.

That didn’t seem like the right plan for Mara today, though. Between rain showers I ended up putting her in the carrier and we walked to the plaza down the street. I hadn’t eaten anything myself yet, so we walked to Starbucks for me to get something. I only had $10 on my since I had left the diaper bag at home and luckily my order came to that exactly (expensive!).

Mara was suddenly in a very good mood, and totally won over the mother and young daughter at another table. I think she wanted to invite them to come home with us!

On our way home, the next rain storm started (thankfully, no thunder this time!). We got absolutely drenched, but Mara seemed quite happy.

Now we’re all dried off and just need some lunch…

Open on Sunday

Turns out that our wading pool is also open on the weekend!

We didn’t know this, so when my dad and I took Mara to the park we didn’t have all her swim gear along. She didn’t seem to mind going in wearing her clothes!

After some time paddling around we decided to dry off in the sand…

She’s One

It was Mara’s first birthday back in June! So hard to believe. Some parts of the past year have gone by quickly and others fairly slowly. At the moment, James and I are loving all the new developments of the early toddler stage. (I know I might come to be shocked by that statement, so just thought I would record it now so I remember!)

We postponed celebrating Mara’s birthday until the Canada Day weekend. They say not to invite too many children to a first birthday party, but I think Mara was glad that we had 3 other kids there. And here she is with her first piece of cake: