That's MY Story

Grandpa Gutoski has taken to telling Max stories in front of the campfire.  For the adults that get stuck listening to the story, the experience is painful, but Max LOVES it.  He cuddles up on Grandpa's lap and begs him for a story, while I sit nearby grumbling that it is already 1 hour past bedtime.  Grandpa has no regard for bedtime, and is at the mercy of his grandson's whims and so he launches into yet another story.

Most of grandpa's stories are knock offs from the well known "Magic Tree house" series, in which the main characters travel to new places inside a magic tree house filled with books.  They simply open the book to the page they are interested in, wish to be there and viola!  And so grandpa begins his tale with a magic tree house built on our very own river property.  Max climbs the ladder of the magic tree house and...

Grandpa:  Do you know what he saw when he climbed in?

Max: TRUCKS!

Grandpa: no, books.

Max: But I want it to be trucks.

Grandpa:  no its books.

Max: But grandpa, I like trucks.

Grandpa: We can't have trucks in the tree house.  It's books.

At this Max bursts into tears, sobbing over and over "but I wanted trucks!"

Grandpa: (exasperated) Fine!  There are trucks AND books.  But the trucks are small.

Max accepts this and Grandpa continues with his story.  In the story, Max opens a book about a construction site and wishes that he were there, the treehouse starts to spin and

Max: Grandpa, I want to see dinosaurs.

Grandpa: I thought you liked trucks.

Max: I also like dinosaurs.

Grandpa: Well, we are going to a construction site.

Before Max can interrupt again he finds himself in a deserted construction site exploring heavy machinery.  Before long, a construction worker appears and chases Max through the construction site yelling something like "stay away from my trucks".  But Max jumps into a bulldozer and starts to drive away and then...

Max: A DINOSAUR comes!

Grandpa: No.  There are no dinosaurs...we are at a CONSTRUCTION SITE.

Max: (ignoring grandpa) And its a T-rex and he grabs the construction worker and --

Grandpa: THIS IS MY STORY!!!!

And so it goes....as a pair, Grandpa and Max tell a very entertaining story.  My only regret is that I did not get it on video.

Leora and Anwyn visit Waterloo

Max's cousins Leora and Anwyn recently came to visit us in Waterloo.  They didn't bring their dad, so I don't have many photos to show for it.  We did take a couple of cute photos at the strawberry farm:

Check out those eyes!

I know this one is sideways....it is the right way up on my computer,
but for some reason, blogger wants it sideways.

I had to force Leo and Anwyn into this picture, but I still maintain that it is cute.

I also forced everyone into this well.   Leo and Anwyn complained loudly the
whole time about how their dad didn't like staged photos.  Ironically, the end result
is remarkably "unstaged".

I also have a nice album of pictures from our trip to the river on the Canada Day long weekend.  Unfortunately, there are not any pictures of Leora because she was the one behind the camera ALL WEEKEND LONG.  She claims she was doing her dad proud!

Cookie Monster

Max has always approached cookies with casual indifference.  He prefers them to zucchini soup, but if there is a truck to be had, the cookie is definitely a second class citizen.  This was concrete evidence that Max really couldn't have any of my genes....he must have got the recessive half.

Darwyn, on the other hand, is her mommy's girl.  She tried a cookie for the first time a few months ago, and since then has developed a healthy obsession.  Unlike most of her other words, she pronounces cookie quite clearly so as not to be misunderstood.  She has generalized the word to mean "that good thing", but is instantly aware if there are cookies to be had.  If I decide to bake cookies, I better not mention it or she will hang off my leg the entire time demanding "cookie...cookie...cookie".  The conversation even degrades into iterations of cookie if she only sees the bag of chocolate chips.  That's my girl.

Here are a couple of cute videos though they don't accurately convey her obsession!

The best pest in the garden

I couldn't decide whether to put this post on the family blog or my personal blog.  Eventually my personal blog won, mostly because it is a little short on posts.  For those of you that don't follow my personal blog, you might be interested in this cute story about the kids.  Check it out here:

http://hopelesshomesteader.blogspot.ca/2013/06/the-best-pest-in-garden.html

Does Darwyn look like mommy?

There has been much discussion around Waterloo about whether Darwyn resembles her me or not.  Given her blond hair and blue eyes most are inclined to claim that she looks like Gus (although she is not the exact duplicate that Max is).  Anyway, for the benefit of those who did not know me as a toddler I have uploaded a few photos.  My apologies for the poor quality of the photos of me (they are old) and the repeat photos of Darwyn.  

Baby Darwyn (to refresh your memory):

Baby Greta:

May photos (and a video)

Nothing much to say, just a few cute photos and a video.  Enjoy!

Grandpa cutting Max's hair.  That's a little short Grandpa.

Max "makes coffee" for everyone at the river

The can crusher

Max helps eat cook

Darwyn helps eat cook

Kathy, Denny and Darwyn

Same picture with cool lighting

Planet Earth for the whole family

So far Darwyn has shown absolutely no interest in television, but she loves animals.  Last night we decided to try watching planet earth as a family.  We've done this before with Max and it works well as long as we fast forward through any scenes without animals.  To our surprise, Darwyn was FASCINATED by planet earth.
She was so excited by the animals that she kept point and bouncing up and down on my lap while shrieking words that no one else could understand.

At one point we were watching a herd of gazelles grazing.  A storm began to blow in and a flash of lightening hit the savanna starting a grass fire.  The gazelles began to flee.  Both Darwyn and Max were glued to the television.  Darwyn perched on the edge of my lap, her little body wound up with tension.  She looked from the fire to me and then back again.  "Fire" I told her.  Finally she pointed at the TV and declared "uh-oh...." as though she thought I had not fully grasped the gravity of the situation.  I wish I had it on video...

Max was equally interested in planet earth, although he was more concerned by the displays of animals eating other animals...something he hasn't really understood until now.  I still have mixed feelings about whether we should have let him see those scenes, but it is the truth about how nature works and he has been slowly starting to discover it.

Anyway, at one point a fox attacked a goose colony and made off with some goslings.  Max was not impressed.

Max (emphatically): I want to HIT the fox!  If I were in planet earth I would hit the fox and then he couldn't get the goslings!

Then the fox brought the goslings home to his den of fox pups that were hungry and needed to eat the goslings to survive.  You could almost see the conflict play across Max's face.

At another heart breaking moment we watched a wolf take down a baby caribou.  Max observed this and then turned to me and declared very gravely "That caribou's mommy is not going to like that..." Staring into the face of my own 3-year-old, his words really packed a lot of punch.