THE LIFE O' RILEY

Hi everyone! Tonight we went to my Riley family's house for dinner. It was a lot of fun. Mommy and Daddy forgot to bring my travel highchair so I sat on Mommy's lap at dinner & squirmed around so much that Mommy got fed up and put me down so I could run around and explore (works every time). That was great until I slammed my fingers in the lid of a wooden potato bin. Ouch. That smarts. Here's a picture of me with my Uncle Paul. Hey, Unky Paul, aren't you getting married soon? Can I come to your stag? Don't listen to Mommy, I'm totally up for the party.

Here's a picture of the steak I ate for dinner. Pretty impressive , huh? Okay, Daddy had a little of it, too, but I ate most of it... well, some of it... okay, fine, Daddy just gave me a bite but I had a late lunch.

I love going to other peoples' houses for dinner because they let me do things I'm never allowed to do at home. Like, sit & stare at dessert before dinner's even over. Um, could someone please give me a hand with this protective covering? I promise not to put my fingers in the icing... (as if, heh heh heh)

...and drink red wine. Yum.

Whew, drinking sure makes you sleepy, though. I'm ready to go to bed. Or is it considered "passing out" now that I'm a booze-hound? Anyway, night-night everyone! I'll have more adventures to report on soon.
love,
jules

I LOVE THIS "SPRING" THING!

Well, everyone kept telling me how much I would enjoy the warmer weather this year (last summer I was still a baby so I only have fuzzy memories of playing in the grass). So this is me saying, you're all right! I love nice weather! We get to go outside and run around and go to playgrounds! Here's a picture of me and Nathan inside a cool slide at the playground across the street from his house.

this is a playground for big kids so the slides are pretty high off the ground. Here is the proper way for a little person like me to dismount the slide (I've heard Mommy say it a million times "turn around, on your tummy, shuffle backwards")

it was a lesson that finally hit home today after I first dismounted by leaping off face-first into the mud, as seen here.

Hmm, what's this? Looks like something I could use to give Mommy a heart attack, so up I go.

I'm an excellent climber, if I do say so myself. You can't really tell in the picture but I made it all the way to the top (nearly). Mom's hand is there "just in case" but I could totally do it by myself.

C'mere Nathan, you gotta try this. Hey mom, can you help both of us climb this rickety ladder meant for kids much older than us AND take pictures all at once?

(We won't sell you out to Nathan's mom if he gets hurt. Promise.)

Today Mommy tried to corral me and Nathan into a picture with her (that she took herself, of course). This goes to show that 2 toddlers + 1 mommy + camera = a picture that's probably not going to become a treasured keepsake.

Gosh, I do like how my hair's coming in, though...

After dinner tonight Mommy & Daddy took me for a walk to the park around the corner from our house. But first I told Mommy she'd better clean up this place. "Put the recycling boxes up there, Mom, and out of my way!"

I've decided that I LOOOOOVE slides. Daddy deposits me near the top & then runs to the bottom to catch me. "Better hurry, Daddy! Mommy doesn't look like she's going to be any help at all since she won't put the camera down."

As you can imagine, all this playground time makes me pretty tired. Last night I even let mommy & daddy sleep through the night. Mommy keeps threatening to start sleep-training me in a couple of weeks so I figure if I throw her a bone here and there maybe we can avoid that unpleasantness.

Off to bed! Talk to you soon,
love,
jules

I LOVE NEW STUFF!

Yesterday was a fantastic day - I got three new things! The first was a new tooth. For anyone who's keeping track, that makes number six. Three on the top, three on the bottom.

The second new thing I got was this magnetic farm that sticks on the fridge. It comes with a bunch of animals that are cut in two & when you get the front half and the back half of an animal into the farm at the same time it sings a song to tell you that you made a match. I love the music & even dance to it. I can't imagine EVER getting tired of this toy. A couple of times Mommy & Daddy accidentally turned the sound off when I wasn't around. Good thing I figured out very quickly how to turn it back on!

The third new thing was this cool Spiderman chair. It's just my size. I love sitting in it. It makes me feel like a big person.

I did, however, have to have a little one-on-one with Spidey when he first arrived. I said, "Spidey, look. There's really only room for one superhero around here and... well... have you seen how good I look in tights and a cape?"

Daddy even turned my new chair into a RECLINER! Sweeeet.

After that I decided that was enough playing around & it was time to do some work. I built this tower using nothing but determination and the knowledge gained from watching a few episodes of Bob the Builder. Not bad, eh?

I thought I'd randomly include this picture in today's post of crazy Mommy & Daddy. Daddy has something called "spicy calabrese" hanging out of his mouth. I'm posting this picture to make the point that I DO NOT understand grown up humour. They were laughing like crazy taking this picture and yet when someone sneezes and I crack up no one else seems to think it's funny at all! Weird-o-rama.

Then yesterday evening Mommy went to a party without me. I was pretty angry (I mean, what's a party without little ol' me?) so I made Daddy miserable by deciding not to go to sleep & then crying for a loooooong time. I cried so much that Daddy called Mommy to come home from the party (which was my plan all along... sometimes it's just too easy, heh heh heh). But before she left she took this picture of a town crier. This just confirms I should have been at the party because apparently not too many of them have town criers.

Anyhoo, after the crying episode you'd think I'd have been too tired to wake Mommy & Daddy up in the middle of the night but... nuh-uh! I did it! I'm like a professional waker-upper. I'm kind of suffering today for all my antics. I'm a little tired. So I'm going to go to bed. I may not even wake up in the night. We'll see how it goes.

night-night!
love,
jules

CHILLIN WID MY PEEPS IN DA CRIB

Hey everyone! Today I went to Nathan's and for a while we hung out in his crib... I realize there's some kind of double entendre there that has to do with gangsta lingo. Mommy explained it to me and I smiled & nodded but, to tell you the truth, I still don't really get it. All I know is that Nathan and I played... in his crib.... for real.

Let's kick some tunes here, brutha. How do you turn this thing on?

Hear that base? Mom, fire up the stroller we need to go in search of a dance par-tay.

This evening my friend Tyeler came to visit me (she's actually my god-sister so we're kinda family). We had tons of fun. She played with me and all my toys and showed me how to put my puzzles together (it's harder than it sounds). We even ate ice cream & mandarin orange sundaes. Then she showed me Avril Lavigne's new video on YouTube. I'm soooooo hip.

My Auntie Kiley is Tyeler's mom. Here she is holding me, but... wait. Auntie Kiley! Wake up! I don't want you to drop me. Or worse, drop hippo.

ah, that's better. Now I shall simply assume my superman pose and... UP, UP, AND AWAY!

(later! love, jules)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY PAPA!

It was Papa's birthday yesterday so Mommy, Daddy, Nana and I all met him for coffee in the afternoon. It was a good opportunity to take some pics for me to post but silly Mommy forgot to bring back-up camera batteries and the ones in the camera died almost as soon as we got there. Mommy did manage to get this picture of her cappuccino (because that's SOOOOO important... pictures of me with my Papa on his birthday are, I guess, not quite as important! Silly Mommy).

She did take this one of her and me but my eyes aren't even open.

and a couple of Daddy smothering me with kisses. She didn't get any of Papa, the guest of honour, unfortunately. I'll have to go back to Papa's house another day soon and take some pictures to post.

*sigh* and then it was Monday again and Mommy & Daddy have decided I should start earning my keep around here so I got myself a job. The dress is business casual but I thought I should impress management by wearing a tie on my first day.

JUST JOKING! I'm too small to have a job. I am signing up for Kindergym again, though, so that's KIND of like a job.

I'll talk to you soon!

love,

jules

It's been a LOOOOOONG time!

Hey everyone! I'm sorry it's been so long since I last updated my blog. I caught a bit of a flu and haven't been feeling 100%. I'm feeling much better now so I'll catch you up on my entire week.

This picture isn't significant in any way except that you can see the light glinting through my hair... eh? eh? see that? Light doesn't glint through hair that doesn't exist so as you can see it's coming in REAL NICE! Before you know it I'll have enough for a proper comb-over.

Mommy and Daddy bought me a big box of diapers that they left in the livingroom. I discovered that diapers aren't only functional... they're fun. You can climb on them, sit on them, jump on them and as they start to diminish in number you can actually fit yourself INTO the box they come in and it's kind of like a little fort.

which was great until... I got stuck.

Dear god, would someone get some Crisco & a shoehorn? My foot's falling asleep... PLEEEAAAAASSSSSSE HURRY!

After the whole box trauma Daddy gave me a loaf of bread to make me feel better. You would think it would take more than that to erase such painful memories but... it totally worked. That loaf was a helluva good time.

The highlight of my week was that on Tuesday the weather was really warm (although it doesn't look that nice in the pic) and my girlfriend Natalie came and picked me up and we went for a walk & got to swing on the swings down by the water. I haven't been on a swing since the fall - it was really nice.

Here's a picture of our crazy moms galavanting while Natalie and I were on the swings. They may have been drunk, we're not sure. All Natalie and I know is that they are embarassing with a capital "E".

WARNING: what happened next isn't for the fainthearted. If you have a weak stomach you may want to stop reading here.

So there we were, walking by the water, enjoying the nice weather and scintillating conversation when we gazed out toward the horizon and...

...this big-ass swan started going to town on a dead fish! He was EATING it! I do NOT want to see that! Who am I, David Suzuki?

As you can see, I was pretty disturbed by the whole thing. Afterall, I do consider myself something of a lover of wildlife - and that includes both land and sea animals.

Natalie, on the other hand, is totally hard-core. She was all, "Cool corpse... Hey, Ma, can you wheel me in for a closer look?"

What a week! Flu... dead fish... almost losing my lower extremities in a box-climbing incident. No wonder I didn't have any time left for blogging. But I do feel much better and promise to update more often from here on in!

Talk to you soon!
love,
Jules

Nana and Papa and Cheese, Oh My!

Today was very exciting. Mommy's gone to "work" for the week which means she leaves early in the morning and only gets home in time for my bath. Fortunately it's only short-term. The good thing about it is that I get to go on outings with Nana. Today we went and met Papa for coffee. Coffee means you litter a table with snacks and drinks and get to pick whatever you like from the booty.

Here I am with Nana. She's trying to interest me in some lunch but I'm easily distracted by the paparazzi.

And here I am with Papa. He had cheese. You may not realize it but this is a very, very big deal.

That's all for now! I'll have more up dates for you soon!

love,

Jules

It's been a while!

Hi everyone. I'm sorry I haven't blogged for a while. At the beginning of the week Mommy couldn't find the camera (because I had strategically placed it between two of the couch cushions) and then, when she did find it, she kept forgetting to bring it with us when we went anywhere. Plus, it wasn't a very eventful week.

The only really exciting thing that happened was a huge snow and ice storm on Thursday. Mommy and I drove home from Nathan's house in the storm. It took us three hours and I didn't sleep at all the whole time! The cars weren't moving at all for part of the trip, though, so Mommy didn't have to concentrate. She just turned around in her seat and played with me.

Today we went to Toys R Us to get a birthday present for my cousin Allyson but I scored this cool new cup and it's not even CLOSE to my birthday! It has a really twisty, bendy straw... see?

It's very cool but a little pointy - sometimes it ends up in places I wish it wouldn't... ouch.

I had an extra-long bath tonight which was tons of fun. Daddy gave me something called a "watch" to play with. I'm pretty intuitive so I knew right away what to do with it.

... oh, wait a sec. What's that, Dad? I'm supposed to wear it? On my arm? *sigh* I'll never understand you grown-ups. Such a waste of a shiny, smooth, metallic-tasting treat for the senses.

I'm practically an Olympic swimmer these days (or as close as you can get in a 5-foot tub with 4 inches of water in it). I float on my back if mommy or daddy hold me and I blow bubbles all by myself... like this.