What? It's Monday?

It can't be Monday, I didn't have to go to work . . . wait, it is Monday and I am on VACATION!!!!!  

And I think that maybe Mother Nature read my blog post about the trees changing colour and how it is far too soon for fall, because we are getting some GORGEOUS summer weather!  Dare I say that it was even almost too hot this afternoon?

Nonetheless, we took advantage of the fact that we are on vacation and the beautiful weather and went for a nice picnic today.  We found a nice little park, took the little bbq, Henry cooked up some hot dogs for us and we fed the ducks!

Liam's amazement when he saw a real live duck was adorable.  He knows what a duck is when he sees a picture in a book.  He knows that the yellow squeeky things in his bath are ducks.  When he saw the first one, he did was he always does when he something interesting that he's never seen before.  He pointed and asked "whsat?"  When Daddy said it was a duck, he got this look of pure astonishment on his face.  He looked at the duck, looked at daddy and looked at the duck again.  "uck?"  And then looked to me for confirmation.  Then he got excited and said "uck" about a hundred times.

The excitement grew when Daddy got out a hot dog bun and showed him how to feed the "ucks".  Liam did a great job throwing the bread to the ducks.  And loved watching them.  He didn't want to stop for lunch and as soon as lunch was over, we where back to feeding the ducks and probably would have been there all day if we hadn't run out of bread!

"Daddy, can I help cook hot dogs yet?"

"Duck?  Is it really a duck?"

"I can throw the bread to the ducks?"

One of about six ducks that came over for a snack of hot dog bun!

"Feeding ducks is hard work.  I need to energize."

"Dad, can we feed the ducks again?"

"Come on Mom, let's go feed the ducks."

Hungry duck!

"Am I big enough to climb trees yet?"

Feeding the ducks with Mom.

Two days off work . . .

So, I realized last week that I had two vacation days that I needed to use before the end of the year, so I took a four day weekend! My plan was to spend Monday morning finishing my Christmas shopping and spend the rest of Monday and today cleaning and baking.

As much as it made me feel a like a horrible mommy, I sent Liam to daycare on Monday. I had a limited amount of time to do my shopping and many stores that I wanted to get to and I knew that having him along would just slow me down. I really wanted to finish shopping! And I did!! Given that I started my shopping excursion before 8:00 am, the stores were quiet and without a baby in tow, things went quickly! I actually found most of the things I was looking for without much difficulty! WooHoo! To celebrate, I went home to sweep and mop my floors!

All in all, Monday was a much more productive day than I'd expected. I wanted Tuesday to be the same, but at the same time, I wanted to keep Liam home. So, that's what I did. I did end up getting some of my baking done and a couple of other things crossed off my to do list, but in that sense, it wasn't as productive as Monday. But I did have some quality time with my Little Bear.

After his nap this morning, we got dressed up and went out to play in the snow. It is the first time I've had time to take him out try and play in the snow. We have been so busy lately that I haven't had much time at all to play uninterrupted with him and just enjoy being with him. Liam's feelings about the snow were mixed . . . it started out fine, until he got some on his mitts and then wiped his face with his hand . . . that was not good! And a sleigh ride around the yard was fun until mommy tipped his sleigh over with him in it.

After lunch, we embarked on another new and fun activity . . . FINGER PAINTING!!! We had so much fun! And we didn't even try to eat the paint! Yeah, my kid is a genius! hahaha! And now Daddy has a nice painting to put up on his wall at work.

Unfortunately, it is back to work tomorrow. I could use a few more days to catch up on my ever growing to do list and to have some more fun filled days with my Little Bear, but there are bills to be paid and I think that in the long run, both Liam and I would get bored with being home all day every day. He loves daycare and well, so do I, I wouldn't have lasted for almost 9 years if I didn't!