hot, hot heat

so it's been hot this week.  also known in other places as "summer" but in bc it always comes across as kind of a surprise.  jamie flew the usual "after one week of heat let's buy an air conditioner" conversation today but i am so opposed and we agreed to go down to the storage locker tonight and get out the box of fans.  it was labeled "boots n' fans" because when we moved we consolidated seldom-used items into one large box of, yes, old rubber boots and fans.  perfect for the pumpkin patch photo-op and the week of hot bc weather.

and rather than sit indoors with our boots 'n fans, cole and i have been enjoying our patio lately.  we've had a few playdates and visits outside this week and cole never seems to get tired of getting out his favourites: playdough, paints and markers.  we've been getting a lot of use from the water table (we had to kick out the dead spiders that had accumulated during the rainy spell) and he cast a wary eye over a new sprinkler.  i just discovered today that our patio umbrella tilts - lovely.  and we've eaten every meal out there for days.  cole keeps requesting "a picnic - that would be nice" and i agree.  food tastes better outside and it is so pleasant to hose off the under-table area after a toddler meal.

on a heat-related note, we stopped by trout lake for a brief visit today after a trip downtown to buy camping gear.  cole loved the beach and wading in the water - and didn't mind the ice cream sandwich either...  an excellent way to stay cool!  and not very messy, compared to popsicles.  the whole melting thing is a tricky concept to grasp, plus cole usually wants me to cut up his popsicle like he's mr. pitt on seinfeld or something...

here's to hoping for a lot more nice weather this summer.  at least until monday - we are going camping on sunday!  ps, i am liking the private blog set-up - i can actually say things like "we are leaving the house" without assuming that burglars are reading.  unless anyone i know has a hankering for a smallish tv.  ;-)

camera love - it's genetic

coco has his own little camera. i should clarify - he has his own hand-me-down slightly broken camera.

when i was expecting, this old camera's flash bit the dust and i saved it for just such a time. cole has no immediate need for flash photography (thank you very much, say everyone's as-yet uninjured eyeballs) but he loves playing with this. so far, for the most part, he's been doing a bang-up job documenting various floors and close-up shots of his thumb, but it's so cute to see him excited about it. he calls it "my camera" and actually reached up to grab it today when we left the house. a chip off the old (hey!) block, i tells you.

be prepared - if you give a small person a camera, you will be seeing plenty of crazy photos of yourself while you try to show them how to point it at things other than the ground... ;-)

slow! they called you slow!

obviously, i've been very slow at posting news & photos lately. not for lack of doing things, mind you. many indoor things and a lot of playdates with our neighbours, and a good deal of running around. actually, oddly, because we've been so busy, updating has been low on my list. after things like: doing things, taking photos of us doing things, doing crafty such and such, more of that, some other work, making food, eating food, random and ceaseless chores, catching up on shows i like and people i know and listening to the wind try to carry our bbq away and hey - i guess i'm getting around to it now... ;-)

i braved the world of logic today and took this photo of cole sleeping during naptime:

i actually snuck in to make sure he was ok because a) i am deranged and b) he had his h1n1 vaccination today prior to our upcoming vacation, despite my vacillating about getting it, and i wanted to make sure he was doing ok. he was sleeping like the proverbial baby and even the focusing noise of the camera in his pitch-black room and resulting bounced flash didn't wake him up! i took two, tempting my luck and thankfully i had another hour of his napping in which to do work (sewing tooth fairy pillows - what a grown-up i am!).

after he woke up he was giggly and wanted to snuggle on the couch, where we laughed and played hide & peek (so he calls it) with the blankets and listened to the rain hit the windows. he wanted to hear a story, so i told him a long-winded and rambling tale about a kitty named coco (he names everything coco except sometimes he likes to drum up 'tommy' or 'abby' or 'bobby bobby') who meowed a lot and met an owl and another cat, also named coco. they ran around in a field and meowed some more and i think they might have eaten toys and cream and crackers (i get him to fill in the blanks). the problem with my stories is that i end them and then cole asks for more, so i have to keep the story alive after it's logical demise - kind of like most serial movies. some days we have more ambition and do more, things like going outdoors or even this:

finger painting! we've tried regular painting too, with great success, but of course i had to try the messiest of all painting techniques last week. it was so much fun and cole loved it. the thick yet washable paints were actually a lot less messy than i pictured, and we did it seated at the high chair. i had hippie visions of diapers-only painting on the floor, but i realized during pumpkin carving, when we got pumpkin guts everywhere, that maybe i don't want paint on my couch just yet...

and in case, like us, you are not a super-nerd who practically memorized every simpsons episode back before they went downhill and then straight to hell after about season 7 when every episode became the worst-episode-ever, you would perhaps like to know what the heck i'm talking about in that title? sorry - no video. we live in canada which, you may have realized, should you be the kind of nerd/cheapskate who likes free streaming online videos, might as well be the wilkins ice shelf or poor old pluto.