a summery weekend

We had a really nice, busy weekend. The weather was beautiful and perfect for spending a lot of time outside. On Saturday, I went for a walk and did some things around the house in the morning. Then we packed up and went to a state park. The beach there was almost empty. We had a picnic lunch, and watched the kids play. They played in the sand, and at the water's edge catching tadpoles. 

It was too cool for swimming, but they played for a long time. 

On the way home from the park, we stopped at a Humane Society animal shelter. We have been thinking about getting a pet. We aren't ready yet, but thought it would be fun to stop and see some animals. The kids really liked seeing the cats and dogs, and wanted to bring a cat home immediately. I am not a dog person, but I am a softy and felt so bad for the poor dogs needing homes. We will probably end up with both a cat and dog eventually. 

On Sunday morning Celia and I went grocery shopping together, and picked up a couple of things we needed at the craft store to make a gift for her teachers. It is really nice going out and spending time alone with her these days. Then we packed another picnic lunch and headed to our town playground. The kids had such a good time. They make friends quickly at the playground, and before long they were hanging out with another little boy and girl. It was adorable. They played, and then would just sit in a circle on the ground and talk. We could overhear some of their conversations and they were so funny and cute. Henry was really quite outgoing. He is going to love preschool in the fall. 

The rest of the day was spent keeping the kids entertained, finishing laundry, prepping food, and cleaning up the house. We had a "salad bar" for dinner, which the kids have been enjoying lately. I roasted sweet potatoes and beets to put on the salads. 

That's about all for today. 

on the deck in june

catching up

It has been a long time, but I'm not ready to give up on the blog yet. Life is just too busy lately, and when I have free time I tend to use it for other things. I really like being able to look back at how the kids have grown and how life has changed, so it's time to start catching up a little. 

We had a lovely Thanksgiving. As it turned out, there was a big snow storm that knocked out power at my parents' house for several days. We went anyway, and other than small inconveniences (no internet) everything was able to function on their generator. 

Beautiful drive north:

Henry turned three the day after Thanksgiving. We had a cake and he opened a few presents. 

Henry is very proud to be a three-year-old. 

Since Thanksgiving was late this year, we jumped right into Christmas activities that weekend. After arriving home from New Hampshire, we went for a ride on the Polar Express. 

We also go each year to a day of Christmas events around town. There are a lot of things for kids, and at the end of the day Santa arrives at the town common on a fire truck. Last year he talked to Celia, and this year Henry got a high five. 

Somewhere in there, we decorated gingerbread houses and made peppermint ornaments for our neighbors. 

A botanical garden near us has a lot of events throughout the year, including crafts for kids, musical performances and light displays at Christmas. We went one day, but the kids didn't last long enough for us to see all the lights. We would have had to wait until it got dark. I'd like to do it another year. 

There was a theme this year, of using found or recycled materials to decorate trees. There were some really neat ones. This was my favorite, covered in paper peonies. 

We had a good Christmas. I hardly took any pictures. My parents were here Christmas Eve and stayed over, and we had both families here on Christmas Day. It is a lot of people, but it always works well having everyone here. 

Here they are with their Christmas loot. Couldn't get them both looking and smiling, but each picture has one kid looking...

We're at the very end of a nice, long vacation week. We were pretty successful at keeping the kids busy, but also had some moments of insanity. We had a friend of Celia's over to play one day. They had a great time, and the kids were so busy with each other that it was actually a break for me too! We went to an indoor playground one day, and another day it was warm enough to go to an outdoor playground. Since it has been unseasonably warm, with no snow yet, I've been trying to get the kids outside and running around as much as I can. At some point soon we'll have a long period of cold. Another day we went to the mall to use the play area and ride the carousel, and on another day Celia went to play at another friend's house. She has some nice kids in her class, and we're planning to start inviting more friends over. We've also done quite a bit of painting and drawing. 

Henry is starting to do more with his scribbling, painting and drawing. He is starting to make more representative drawings, rather than scribbling all the time. The other day he drew this face and said, "Does this look like me?" He is also recognizing more letters, and is starting to write a few. 

Henry had his three year check-up this week too. He did very well getting a finger prick and a flu shot. His flu shot gave him a fever later that day, as it has done before. He seems to have a little reaction every year. He weighs 30.5 pounds and is 37 inches tall, around the 30th percentile for both. His iron levels were high, and the doctor and nurse were very impressed that a vegan toddler could have such good iron levels. 

Honestly, is he not the cutest little monkey? 

There you have our last couple of months in a nutshell.

fall fun and big milestones

It's been a long time again. I think of things to write about during the day, but by the time the kids are in bed I'm all out of energy for writing. We are really deep into autumn here now. We're probably just past peak fall foliage. We had some rain and wind that blew a lot of trees bare this week. Henry and I have been playing in leaves while sister's at school, we've taken some walks, and we've all been outside quite a bit. Today the kids played while Chris and I started preparing the yard and garage for winter. We brought some firewood inside and had our first fire, which is something I look forward to every year. (Ask me how I feel come February, when I'm dusting the house daily and constantly running and cleaning the humidifier.) 

It was a dreary day when I took this picture, but we've had some beautiful views from the back deck.

In other news, Henry has surprised us and ended up potty training over the last few days! He was very resistant to it, so I had decided we'd let him go until his third birthday and then train him. But it seems that he's now ready and has done a great job this weekend. He has been in underwear all day with no accidents! He is very proud of himself, and has even been going to the potty when he needs to without us always reminding him. 

He is so adorable in his little undies.

Henry has been a bit of a terror lately, but this weekend he seemed to turn a corner. He still had a few moments, but was much happier and more compliant. I think potty training has something to do with it. 

Celia has also hit a big milestone this week. She is reading! It's amazing. We've worked on letters and their sounds, and a little on the beginning concepts of reading and spelling. We came across a set of BOB books at my in-laws' last weekend, and I brought them home to try. Celia picked them up and something just clicked for her, and she read them! She's doing very well at it. 

Guess that's all for now. 

weekend fun and an extra day

It was a very summery weekend with temperatures in the 80s. Weird! I much prefer the cool fall weather, so hopefully we'll be back to that soon. On Saturday we all went to Celia's soccer practice. It might have been more fun if it hadn't been so hot, but Henry and I were just hanging around and it was too hot outside. There was a new playground for him to play on, and he really liked that, and we sat in the shady dugout on the baseball field for a while. I wanted to see Celia's soccer a little, so we went to watch the last ten minutes. We had lunch, the kids played on the playground for a while, and we went home. Chris and I were all worn out for the rest of the day! 

On Sunday we went to a place with a corn maze, corn crib, a couple rides and other fun stuff. It was fun, but again it was very hot outside. Definitely would have been more fun on a 60 degree day. The kids really like the corn crib. They could have stayed in there all day. We spent more than half an hour just in there.

I had noticed earlier that Henry felt warm, and then he didn't want any lunch and was really dragging as we walked around. He was very quiet, and I kept asking if he was okay and he would say yes. He did perk up a little for ice cream. But sure enough, when we got home I took his temperature and he had a fever of almost 102. Poor little guy. He spent the rest of the afternoon glued to either me or Chris. We rented the movie Cars, which we guessed Henry would like, and he sat for the entire thing. He didn't want dinner, and then fell asleep sitting in Chris's lap when Celia and I went up to take a shower. Poor little guy. So he slept from 6:15 to 8:15, and then we got him changed and put him to bed. We were afraid he wouldn't sleep well, but he slept through the night until 7:00 this morning.

Celia was so cute when she found out Henry was sick. She kept saying how cute Henry was, sleeping with Chris in the chair, and she really wanted to take a picture of them. She was concerned about how we would get him to bed, and as soon as she woke up this morning she asked how Henry did. She is such a sweet little mommy. I hate when Henry is sick, but it was cute that he fell asleep and reminded us a little of having a newborn. 

I cancelled my work appointments today, and had a bonus day at home with the little guy. Luckily, it seems like the worst is over for him. I took him to the doctor and he has Hand, Foot, and Mouth. His throat is sore, so he hasn't eaten much today. He started feeling a little warm before his nap and I have him some Motrin, but other than that he's been a pretty happy guy. We stopped at the store on the way home from the doctor, and got him popsicles and sauce pouches. He was so funny talking to people in the store. Someone would say hi to him, and he would say in a tiny little voice: "Hi. I'm Henwee." Haha.

I got some work done and prepped dinner during nap time, and then Henry and I went outside to wait for the bus. The kids played so well together outside that we stayed out until it was almost time for dinner. 

They have pretend houses under the magnolia tree, and they play in there for a long time. They collect berries and acorns in dishes, and pretend all kinds of things. They stay so busy. It will be hard when it's too cold to play outside every day. 

It's ended up being a very nice day "off". 

weekend in review

Just a little post on our weekend fun. My weekend starts on Fridays, which is awfully nice. Henry and I went to music class, which was kind of disastrous. He is very sensitive to loud sound, and I think this is why he gets upset and acts out during music class. I ordered a pair of loudness reducing headphones for him. Hopefully he will wear and like them next week. Otherwise, I am out of ideas and I don't think we'll be able to continue music classes. That would be really sad. Then my parents came, which is always nice.

A side story: Henry was coming down with a cold on Friday, and I was really dreading the week to come because he never sleeps well with a cold. I started giving him extra doses of elderberry syrup, we got his room really humid with the humidifier before bed, and put Vapo Rub on his chest and feet. Miraculously, he slept without a peep all night and woke up with no sign of a cold in the morning! I still can't believe it. 

Celia has soccer on Saturday mornings now and Chris is her coach, so they went to soccer and Henry and I stayed home. We went for a long walk, with me pushing him on his tricycle. We ended up going more than a mile, which is quite a bit with the tricycle. 

It was a beautiful day. We stayed outside in the yard until lunch time. Then Celia and I went grocery shopping and to the library in the afternoon while Henry napped. 

On Sunday we drove to Mount Wachusett for their Kidfest. Chris's parents met us there. The kids were excited to see them, and we had an extra couple of adults to help wrangle the kids. We stayed for a few hours, and before heading home Chris and I decided to drive up to the summit just for fun. I hadn't realized that Wachusett State Park was so nice and so extensive. It will be a nice place to hike with the kids when they get older. We all enjoyed the drive, and the air was nice and cool and fresh at the summit. Henry and Celia loved climbing the rocks. Henry had no fear whatsoever, and we really had to watch him. He was quite insulted that I insisted on spotting him as he leaped off of large rocks. And in the picture below, he refused to even look at the camera. He is so ridiculous sometimes. 

Wearing wolf ears!

We went home, the kids played outside, and we had dinner, baths and bedtime. Last week I took Celia to Children's Hospital for an appointment, and we had her kindergarten open house one evening. This week we have a normal week planned with no appointments or extra stuff to do. And hopefully no one will get a cold. I'm going to go crazy with elderberry syrup until spring!