Mod Mischief

We hope you're enjoying a beautiful holiday!

As Axel's birthday falls so close to Halloween, I was hoping to save a little sanity by working his Halloween costume into his party theme. He was really excited about his upcoming Rocket and Groot party, but, three-year-olds being the fickle creatures that they are, on the day of the party he insisted that he would be the Flash and nothing could convince him otherwise. Now that Axel is getting older he has strong opinions on things, like how his party should be, which can be a little challenging for me, but on the flip side he is able to help out with the preparations which is a lot of fun. This theme worked well for the skill levels of a preschooler since nebulas and starscapes don't need to be precise and actually look best a little messy. My little helper and I had a great time baking and decorating galaxy star sugar cookies and painting the photobooth backdrop. His pride in the projects was so heartwarming, I'm smiling just thinking of it.   We als...

We had a lot of fun decorating our house for Halloween this year. Our enthusiasm apparently rubbed off on some of our neighbours and several other houses on our block joined in on the fun and handed out candy this year. We only had about a dozen kids come by, but that's up from the 3-5 we have gotten in years past. Axel had been asking to go trick-or-treating for weeks, so he was pretty excited when the big day finally arrived!

Just like I did with Axel , I've been taking a weekly photo of Lennox. I've kept it mostly the same, but swapped out the German safety goggles for some fun steampunk costume googles, so there is something to set his photos apart from Axel's.     Even though they were both born 5 weeks early, Lennox is way bigger than Axel was at the same age. He's growing so fast he's already too big for his newborn sized clothes. Axel at 6 weeks Lennox at 5 weeks Lennox at 6 weeks Axel at 4 weeks Besides their size, the other big difference is how much harder it is to photograph Lennox. Finding time to set up the picture and take the shots with a 3-year-old running around and "helping" is challenging!

Halloween is almost here! Last week Axel, Lennox and I went to a dress up party. There's no shortage of costumes around here, so when Axel decided to be Spiderman, I pulled out some superhero costumes for Lennox and me too. Yesterday we dressed up again for the Canada Games Centre's Spooktacular event. This time it was just Axel and I, and we went as Rocket Raccoon and Groot from Guardians of the Galaxy. I made the Rocket costume and Groot mask for Yukomicon. There's also a full Groot body suit for Chris but it's not finished yet. Hopefully it will be done in time for Halloween and Axel's Guardians of the Galaxy themed birthday party.

This week we got our first snowfall of the season. I'm glad we had already put up a bunch of our Halloween decorations, although it does hide many of the details, like the fresh mounds of dirt on the graves and the bones strewn around the yard. We're going for full-on, obnoxious-level, Halloween decor this year. Axel loves it, even if  he finds some of it scary. Hopefully it will help attract more trick-or-treaters to our house. I'll have to post more photos when it's all done - there's still lots to add! The snow has pretty much all melted away now, but winter is almost upon us.

Google's artificial intelligence is creepy good sometimes. Yesterday, Chris' Google Photos assistant made him a little video that pulls on the heart strings perfectly.

This blog has pretty quiet for the last little while. I've been busy with work and other commitments, but mostly I've been dealing with another pregnancy. Some women love being pregnant, but I am not one of them . For me, it's months of being tired, nauseous and generally miserable. But now I can forget about all of that, because another adorable little boy has joined our family. Arriving in a rush, 5 weeks premature just like his big brother, Lennox made his grand entrance early on a Saturday morning, weighing an impressive 6 pounds 13 ounces (that's a lot for a preemie!). Fortunately, Chris was in town this time and did a great job supporting me through the labour and looking after everything while Lennox and I were in the hospital. Despite having gone through this all before, we're only slightly more prepared than last time, and have been slowly settling in to life as a family of four. It's definitely more hectic dealing with a toddler in a...

The Canadian Arctic Aviation Tour was in town this weekend.  Sunday was a beautiful day; it was perfect for sipping lemonade and watching the trick planes from our front porch. We took Axel up the airport to see the planes up close. He was so excited he was skipping and jumping the whole way from the parking spot to the planes. Not a bad way to spend the day with a 2 year-old!

  While I was in love with his adorable curls, Axel has been brushing his hair out of his eyes an awful lot lately and we decided it was finally time for his first haircut. before Axel and Chris both went for a trim today at the Shed .   The stylists were awesome and handled Axel's tears and screams with incredible patience. I'm very impressed the final results considering all the squirming he did! after

  I hope you are enjoying the long weekend! We've been having lots of fun with Easter stuff now that Axel is old enough to be excited about bunnies and eggs. Axel helped blow out and dye the eggs. I'm impressed that we only broke one! We used food colouring, water, vinegar and a bit of olive oil to get some pretty marbled eggs. And it was easy enough for a two-and-a-half-year-old (with a bit of supervision). We decided to cook a turkey and invited a few friends over for dinner. I really need to host dinner parties more often, they're so fun!   I set the table with cute napkin bunnies ( thanks Martha Stewart !) and flowers in some stuff from our silver tea set collection.   Since we have a huge collection of bunny ears for the Billion Bunny March , I had enough for everyone at dinner. This morning Axel hunted for eggs around the house (the ones we dyed and a few chocolate ones too). I think Chris and I had as much fun hiding the eggs...

So what do you do when you've been invited to a Star Wars party and realize the morning of the party that you need costumes? You whip up a last minute toddler Jedi and imperial officer. First you gather a bunch of earth toned clothing for the Jedi. I found some beige/khaki coloured pants and a long sleeved shirt in Axel's closet. I grabbed an old belt of mine and some brown shirts from our clothing swap donation bin. I figured this Old Navy shirt that no longer fits Chris would make a good Jedi tunic.   The best part about working with t-shirts is that the fabric doesn't fray, so there was no need to worry about finishing the edges. I cut off the shirt's sleeves and collar, and then cut down the center of the front.   Layered over the beige shirt and pants, and with a belt around the center, it was already looking like a Jedi outfit! The belt has holes all the way around, so I just folded it in half to fit Axel. I had Axel try i...