Photographs taken by a 3 year old

In action!

Tristan's feet - oops.

Even when it's done, he's still taking pictures.

Cupcake Math

Vancouver dragon boat festival

We brought our toddler to see the dragon boat race today for the first time. If we had gone in any earlier year, it would have been overwhelming for him. He's 2 1/2 now and seems to deal fairly well with large crowds.

It was a nice day out so there were lots of people walking about. In fact both yesterday and today was nice so the festival really lucked out. Vancouver weather is unpredictable and it has been raining on and off for awhile now. Today really felt like summer.

I want to dragon boat race! Like many competitions I am a spectator of, I always feel the urge to join. In fact, I volunteered for the dragon boat event before and all the volunteers got to paddle in the boats when the event ended. I got a taste of it and it was super hard. Padding that fast was tiring and I remembered my arms died after about 30 seconds. I still want to join in though because it is so much fun! I saw seniors and even a pregnant lady competing today. Amazing. Inspiring. When Tristan gets older, we'll do it as a family and try to compete too!

Our cute toddler biker

Tristan bikes on his strider outside from Mommying Around on Vimeo.

Loving the canvas print!

Recently, we purchased a canvas print from CanvasPop. It's our first one and I'm quite impressed with the quality of it. We always wanted to get a canvas print so when Groupon had a deal on it, I just had to get it! Here are the dimensions and settings in our order:

Size: 16 X 20
Frame: 0.75" deep
Edge: Photo Wrap
Free Digital Proof

The hardest part about this purchase was having to choose the right photo. We have over 6000 photos that are flagged and most of them are good! I love the photo wrap effect so I really wanted to find a photo that I could apply the effect to. Luckily, CanvasPop provides a free digital print for you to see before they do the actual printing :) After a few days, we ended up going with something that was colorful. It's sitting in our living room right now but if we were to move it elsewhere one day into a darker area like the hallway, the print should still stand out nicely because it's a bright portrait.

Snow day late February

When it snows inside the city in Vancouver, it's a big event. A big event for the kids, that is! It snows a lot on the mountains but you need to drive up there first to enjoy it. This year, it has only snowed three or four times in the city. Each time it snowed, the snow would stick around for half a day or less. I'm not talking about the yucky snow that may linger for days. It's the nice, soft snow that covers the ground that we want to play in. When it snows, we try to get outside as soon as enough snow accumulates.

Yesterday, we woke up to snow. There was around 5 centimeters of snow on the ground. Actually, we woke up to the sound of Tristan, followed by the sound of the telephone ringing :) My sister tried to call us to see if we wanted to go out and play in the snow. The forecast was calling for rain and she wanted to leave before all the snow washed away. Luckily, we got out before the rain started.

We walked to a nearby field with sloped hills. It was perfect for tobogganing. Too bad Tristan was not interested in doing it. We're not sure if he was scared or whether he was just not interested. He's probably scared, eh? Maybe next year when he is 3, he will be more excited. Too bad. I did go down with him once but right after, he said he didn't like it. Well, at least I had fun! :)

Tobogganing in late February from Mommying Around on Vimeo.

Tristan's first haircut

Today is a sad day. At least for me. I cut off Tristan's nice hair and I'm going to miss it :( It took 26 months to grow to this length.

We were at Winners today shopping and Jean-Louis once again tells me that people everywhere are calling him a girl. Why is it such a bad thing for little boys to have longish hair anyway?? The long hair didn't bother me much but it was sort of messy and needed cleaning up. The plan was to cut just the back of the head in time for Chinese New Year. Since Jean-Louis will be cleaning the house tomorrow and we were able to eat an early dinner, we decided it was time. The stars were aligned and I had no more excuses:(

It was our last time to have fun with his hair so we had to take pictures :)

A 5 minute haircut of just the back, ended up being a 30 minute haircut of the whole head. I had to cut the sides since it didn't make sense not to. Then I had to even things out and ended up cutting more and more and more. I would have cut more too but I made myself stop before too much damage was made. Overall, the haircut looks good but it definitely could be better. Since it was my first toddler haircut, I'm cool with just good :)


Tristan behaved well, considering it lasted a long time. He was constantly moving so it was actually very challenging. I never came close to poking him with the scissors but his hair is not quite even since he was moving so much. Well, also because I have never done any other haircut aside from a full head buzz on Jean-Louis. Near the end, we had to give him things to hold and play with just to keep him in his seat. First the hair clip, then the iPhone. I know! Horrible but we won't be doing this often. The new haircut will take some getting used to. Jean-Louis says he looks chubbier. I'm not sure it's an improvement but he definitely looks more boyish now!

Portraits of Tristan via "Paint it!" Now

Puerto Vallarta beach with effects

Squirrels are everywhere!

It must be squirrel season because on our walk to daycare, we see at least a couple of squirrels. When we go into the big parks, you see one every few meters. It's actually quite scary. They must all be out in armies trying to gather food for the winter. It's a little early to start, isn't it? It's still August after all.

I think the squirrels have taken over Central Park in Burnaby. We had a walk through the park yesterday and knew instantly that Tristan was going to have a blast. He loves squirrels! It was actually one of his first words and he loves signing squirrel and making squirrel noises. At one point, we saw five squirrels in just this one area. I don't think I've seen that many at one place since walking through Stanley Park. Squirrel season, right? It sure looks like it.

I was shocked to see so many people feeding the squirrels inside Central Park. We knew this had to be the case when the squirrels started approaching us. Then we saw people throwing peanuts at them and even Cheerios. Aren't there "do not feed wildlife signs" anywhere? We didn't see any sign but you would think people would know better. The squirrels by our house are scared of humans and they should be! They came so close to us, I was scared. They may be cute from far away but not inches from us.


Our Central Park visit was actually my first. We ran on the side of it before but I had never walked inside of it. We went with the stroller and the trail was actually very flat and stroller friendly. I love stroller friendly trails :) Not surprisingly, we encountered a lot of runners and bikers along the trail. With all the trees in there, I imagine it would be beautiful in the Fall. We will definitely go back for a walk and some more pictures when the leaves turn color and fall.

Enjoying the outdoors like tourists

When Tristan came along, we felt a need to tour Vancouver again because he hadn't seen any of it. Even if we went to a place a gazillion times already, we would have to return again because it would be his first visit. First visits are the best visits, although he may not remember much of it right now. First visits also means we have to document it with lots of picture taking! No problem. We love playing tourists in our own town :)

To be honest, we haven't really taken advantage of this summer. When August came along, it suddenly hit us that summer is almost over. Now, we are starting to go out more and walk on trails, pick blackberries, and we're barbecuing in our patio again! Last weekend, we walked all around Deer Lake in Burnaby. The walk was stroller friendly but the trail disconnects here and there and you end up on the road a few times. That, I didn't like much. It was a very hot day too and there was not enough shade along the lake. I would recommend walking there on a day with overcast skies. Since it is so close to us, we will definitely go back!


Today, we went to Lynn Canyon Park in North Vancouver. It's a nice park with very easy trails and a suspension bridge. Parking is limited but free and so is the park. We went there ages ago because we heard that it had a suspension bridge and it was recommended over the Capilano Suspension bridge. I personally think the Capilano Suspension bridge is not worth it's admission fee and a bit lame. Sorry :( We ended up having a great time at Lynn Canyon. The day was almost ruined because before we left the house, Jean-Louis over pumped the tires on our Bugaboo stroller and while we were on the highway, the tires blew up. It was pretty scary actually. I was very upset but then we stopped by Canadian Tires and bought replacement tubes for them and all seemed fine again :) So thankful! After all that delay, we actually ended up not using our stroller much.





Lynn Canyon is a great park to walk in but not with a stroller. There is a suspension bridge and then everywhere you go there are steps and stairs. We did plan to take the stroller apart and then walk over with it but we decided not to and it was a good thing. Tristan wanted to walk, of course, and we wanted to take pictures and it would have been a nightmare lugging all of our stuff around. We saw another family carry over their stroller but then they had a lot of people with them. We also saw another family push their stroller over the suspension bridge! I'm not even sure they are allowed but they did it. Tristan did great walking around the park. He even did stairs up and down. We barely carried him at all. He should be able to sleep well tonight! :)

Got our daycare photos just in time

Daycare photos of Tristan apparently arrived right when we left for France. Luckily, they are still available for purchase until the end of this week. Even though he wasn't smiling in them, they look quite good so we bought them all for $39. If you buy all 6 sheets of photo, you also receive the class photo for free.

We did Sears photos before and I wasn't such a big fan of them. Tristan was younger and he wasn't in a great mood that day. We ended up only buying a couple of sheets of just him. These daycare photos by Life Touch Canada are way better. The background is nice and the colors are attraction. I think the photo paper is thicker and better too.

Now we have a gazillion pictures of him. We don't have that many people to give the photos to. Oh well. It was still better than buying each sheet for $14. Those who we normally don't give photos to may receive one too :)

Just for comparison, here are the Sears photos. They were taken back in February and he is actually wearing the same outfit in the daycare photo above as well.