Ripley Fall Fair

Ah, finally I'm up to date! Here are the pictures from last weekends hijinks! Brendan did very well on his first rollercoaster, but kept trying to turn around. He loves to watch moving parts, that's the only explanation that makes sense to me... You can see Harrison is really starting to put on some chubby cheeks. No more Mister NICU, the nurses would be so proud to see him now !

The final shot of Harrison is with a monkey he got at the fair. Hope he's having sweet dreams of his first fair!

6 Week Photo Shoot

These pictures are mostly of Heidi (sorry folks, I should be labelling all of them I guess, we've finally figured out how to tell which twin is which, but I shouldn't assume everyone else can) on her and Harrison's 6 week birthday (the 20th). He certainly is taller than her!

More Algonquin Photos

We had a lovely site right on the water at Algonquin, and a gorgeous misty morning on the Saturday we left... We came home and went to the train show in Picton for Brendan. You wouldn't know he loved the model trains from the amount of time he spent playing on the wooden track in the canteen area... And an extra picture of the kids, hanging out in their crib. Even though they're focussing on our faces, they still don't seem to acgknowledge one another. All in good time, I guess!

Algonquin Pictures

Here are some pictures from our camping trip to Algonquin 2 weeks ago.

Heidi smiles...

Phew! I need to download these pictures more often, it has taken me the better part of the morning to sort through them all! Here are the best pictures though, enjoy! I will open with my favourite one; Heidi's (inadvertant) smile. The rest are various shots of the twins hanging out, looking cute. The blue outfit is the one Brendan wore in his birth announcement and it still seems very strange to see Harrison in it. No matter, he's almost grown out of it!

Getting Into A Routine

Well, it's been a relatively quiet week for the Lock family; could it be we're actually settling into some sort of domestic routine? Impossible! We're actually off to a wedding this weekend; our very good friend Gregg is getting married. Rob is part of the wedding (watch for dapper tuxedo pictures next week) and Bob and Gail are coming down to look after the whole brood (brave grandparents!) in our hotel suite 5 minutes away from the wedding site. It could all go very smoothly, or it could not. So far these kids seem to roll with whatever we throw at them, so we'll just have to try it and see! It has been a very quiet week at home though. Brendan had a new milestone this week; first day home from school sick (on Wednesday); a short lived fever and still present cough. It doesn't seem to have slowed him down for more than the one day. We also had our first open house at the school this evening and the teacher was very complimentary; she said Brendan was very sweet and polite and very... "young". We apologized for his, er, limited sharing skills with trains and she defended him soundly, saying that "it's the older kids who egg him on". Rob and I are still puzzling that out... It's been ages since I downloaded photos off the camera, so that's on my to do list for tomorrow. If I succeed, I'll post them up right away. I caught an inadvertant smile on Heidi in one photo that I'll post for sure. The twins are growing like weeds (no new weights) and now make eye contact, which sounds like a small thing, but feels so so special when you look down at them in your arms and realize they're looking up at you. Harrison is getting slugglier by the minute and can sense the minute you put him down. I'm convinced that what Fisher Price needs is not vibrating or rocking seats, but warming seats. Our little Heidi likes to coo while she drinks, a very odd sounding combination. Hopefully I'll get those photos up tomorrow, take care.

Back to Reality

It's Monday morning and back to reality after a lovely weekend at Fall Fair in Ripley. Harrison and Heidi got to meet lots of their Aunts and Uncles and Cousins and generally snuggled with anyone they could find.

The fair itself was wonderful; hot and sunny despite the forecast for rain and Brendan rode the train, the alligator rollercoaster (his first!) and ran through the helter skelter (slide/rope/obstacle course thingy) over and over and over and over and over. Thank goodness for all day ride bracelets. We'd be broke by now if not for them. Harrison won youngest boy at the fair (he won a stuffed frog). Poor Heidi was edged out by a young 3 week old upstart.

Poor Blaze. Friday night he was running around the back garden for a late night pee with Rob when he must have met a skunk head on. Literally. He was sprayed in the face, and the whites of his eyes are just starting to turn back to white from red. The good news about the direct assault was that his "contaminated" area was very localized. He smelled daisy fresh from his shoulders back and even under his chin was fine (he must have had his nose down sniffing around). So his face and ears were absolutely covered, but not much else. Using the means at our disposal, we soaked him down with Bloody Mary Mix (thank you Uncle George for your generous donation), scrubbed him a few times with detergent and then rubbed a half a tube of Crest toothpaste onto his face and ears. He was not what you would call impressed. Then, we had to put the poor guy out in the barn with a pile of blankets for the night. He weathered the whole thing pretty well, but looked pretty dejected all weekend, and I think took it very personally that no one would pet him on the head. I've just given him another wash, and he's smelling pretty good. His predominant smell is now mint instead of skunk, even after many rinses. Oh well!

Twins first fall fair

A wonderful sunny day, twins sleeping peacefully,  Brendan in seventh heaven riding the train, and his first rollercoaster.

Skunk!

All my kids are hitting big milestones lately... blaze just got sprayed for the first time! Any suggestions are more than welcome.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

Professional Photos

Just got the CD of our professional photos - they're spectacular! A friend and former coworker at the hospital hasn't recently started doing some newborn photography on the side and runs a little studio out of her basement. When she heard we were having twins she called to ask if she could do a complimentary photo shoot for her own experience - she'd never tried to photograph two babies at once. It was quite an involved set up; the babies needed to be photographed at 9 days old or earlier (!) and her basement was sweltering (so the kids wouldn't mind being naked), so there we were in the middle of August in a basement with the propane fireplace on and a space heater pumping full blast. The twins behaved as well as 9 day olds could be expected... they pooped on every stitch of fabric Meryl placed them on and woke up before the final shot was done (hence the open eyes in the basket, a somewhat disconcerting look!). We were sooo curious to see how they came out, and I'm in awe. I think what little wall space we have left in our house will soon be covered with these photos! These are my favourite shots, we got 25 in total, all versions of these same poses (a second post will follow with the remaining pictures).

Next Challenge - The Long Drive

A quiet week of laundry, laundry and more laundry. The twins clothes are all small enough, but Rob and I can't seem to get through a day without getting covered in spit up, so the clothes really add up. I wish Marks Work Wearhouse would come up with a line of water repellant nursing tops and pyjamas...

Well, Ripley Fall Fair is this weekend, and never being the types to shy away from a challenge, we're going to attempt our first long drive (ie. more than one stop to feed kids required). We're going to leave Thursday morning, and slowly drag our way across the province; we assume it will take us most of the way. If we can make it to the edge of Toronto before they need to eat the first time, we should make it to Guelph-ish for the next meal and might be able to slide into Ripley for the next. Or it could all go terribly wrong and I could be writing next week on the blog that we were still only at Bowmanville!

Home from camping

<p>&lt;p&gt;A wonderful camping trip! Flipping cold in the mornings but wonderful. We had a huge site just 15 feet from the lake and the fog rolling off of it in the early hours of the morning made it worth being awake feeding babies. The big milestone of the trip was the twins first hike. We did a nice 1.5 km boardwalk in the stroller on Thursday to warm them up. They did great, so Friday we wrapped them up in three layers of fleece, stuffed them into a pair of baby bjorn carriers (like a backpack for your front) and hit the trail. They were perfect and slept for the whole of a beautiful 3.5 km hike along a lookout and beaver pond. Today we made Brendans day by doings walking trail at the logging museum that ended with an old locomotive.
<p> We're going to a model train show tomorrow in picton. Brendan may lose his mind with delight! 

Algonquin!

Made it in the dark last night. Saw 2 moose driving to the campsite!! Finally all set up by 11 this morning. We all fit in the trailer but it's a little snug.

Rob made Bannock for breakfast this morning! Ate at the kitchenette table with a view of the lake and changing leaves. Awesome!

Giant Babies!!

I can't believe I forgot to include in the post this afternoon that we got the babies weighed at a friends house this morning who has an infant scale. Drum roll please....

Heidi is 7 lbs 2 ozs!!!
And Harrison is a whopping 8 lbs 9 ozs!!!

Wow!

They still look so little to me!

Going Off Grid Again!

It's been a quiet few days at home. Brendan seems to be doing well at school. We have gone through the routine 3 days now; "Nooooooo, I don't want to go to school, yearghhhhhhhhhhh"... wait 15 minutes... "Brendan's love the school bus, let's go". He has an book that he comes home with each day and the teacher hasn't written anything other than bland positive comments so far, so he can't be tearing the place apart too badly yet. The classroom has wooden trains; a blue engine to be exact, so I'm sure that goes a long way to keeping him happy. He read Goldilocks the first day and has been having fun roaring at us since!

We seem to be a calmer, happier family when we are out of the house (ie. not trying to fit in showers, laundry, paying bills etc.) so we've decided to go camping! We're off to Algonquin this afternoon with our old camper trailer complete with space heater, lights and kitchen table... so not really roughing it. The plan is to come home Saturday. We've got a lovely site just down from the water near a beach (very close to where we autumn camped last year), so we should have a nice view even if we never leave the trailer, which is pretty much the plan.

We'll be in touch after the weekend!!

Baseball Tournament Photos Etc.

Rob had a 3 pitch tournament on Saturday, so we went along to enjoy the sunshine and company. Between the babysitter we brought for Brendan and all the neighbours (and I mean ALL) who held and rocked and patted the twins we lasted all day, a real success! It certainly proves the phrase though; It takes a village to raise a child... and a whole township to raise twins.

The picture of Harrison smiling is a photo I took in the middle of the night a few days ago. He looks very happy to be hanging out together. Me, not so much. He had lots of gas, hence the smile, and the 5 am...

They're both starting to spend more time awake now, although it's still relatively rare to catch them both awake and happy at the same time. Heidi is on the right, Harrison is on the left in their blue chairs.

The final picture may be one of earliest records of their potential sibling rivalry...

One Month Photos

The twins had to sit through their first photo shoot with mom on September 9th, their one month birthday. I posted a version of the bear photo from Rob's cell phone already, but this one's actually rotated. The were very patient with me, all things considered!

I love the first photo; I finally caught them in an identical moment!

Pictures of the Zoo and New Babies

Here are a few pictures of the day at the zoo. We found an amazing little classroom area tucked away in the Africa Pavillion to feed the twins in in the morning. Brendan was great, playing quietly with his cars while he waited. He was fascinated by a pair of wrestling otters, we watched these guys for nearly 15 mintues! The picture of Brendan and I was outside the newish Polar Bear area. They really are massive. I was in seventh heaven!