Talented

I am. Aren’t I?

A Birthday Celebration

We celebrated Courtney and Noel’s birthdays last weekend. Yes, if you read this blog closely…and I know that you do (ha!)….you will have noticed that in the spring we celebrated Hilary and Tom’s birthdays together too. Their birthdays are a day apart. Courtney and Noel’s are 4 days apart. Erik and I are the odd couple out celebrating them 6 months apart. How’s that for an interesting little piece of trivia.

It was a lovely celebration with the whole family together.

And when the whole family gets together…they act a little crazy.

Jealous now –huh?

Everyone settled down  and we enjoy some cake, ice cream, and presents.

Courtney is holding up the Disney Princess sparkle lip gloss that Alec picked out for her. If you know Courtney…you know how funny that is. She’s umm…not so much the Disney Princess type…..but like a good auntie she opened ‘er up and dabbed on the glitter. :)

We left Alec at Erik’s parent’s house to spend the night with Leo and the sibs came back our house to continue the party grown-up style.

Yep…and after a few drinks there was a little dancin…DDR style. Courtney was lovin’ it.

It was a happy birthday celebration.

Sledding

The boys and some of the grown-ups had a great time sledding on Sunday afternoon. The boys went up and down together multiple times on the safer paths and then decided to try ones that had bumps in them…1st trip down they hit the bump and Leo went flying off and landed face first in the snow.  The tears started and we had them get right back on and go again (with out the bump) so he wouldn’t be afraid after that. He hopped right back on and did another run and that was it. We stayed a little longer than Courtney, Noel and Leo. Once they were gone Alec went right back for the bumps.  Crazy kid!

Chipwrecked 3

We took Alec to the movies last weekend. It was brutally cold out and we were more than a little desperate to get out of the house for some family fun time. 

And the cool part was I discovered they have booster seats. We’ve been going for a few years but never this. Alec was psyched because the seat was not continually trying to close on him.

A great way to spend a chilly afternoon. :)

Ant Farm

Alec got an ant farm for Christmas. Thankfully, it was sans the ants because there was no way I was ready to set up the fish tank and figure out the ants directly following the holidays. 

The other day, we opened it up to find the coupon to order the ants. Not surprisingly,  it needs to be a certain temperature to receive the ants (like above freezing) so this project is on hold until spring.

We’ll keep you posted on the progress this spring!

ICY

It snowed.

It rained.

It got cold.

Very cold.

We have a frozen yard.

And that makes it hard to play.

It was icy.

But fun.

Tornado

Alec got a tornado simulator for Christmas.

To feed his thirst for all things science, we watched an episode of Storm Chasers that came in the box before setting up simulator.

He loved it.

He’s an odd kid.

Cute.

But odd.

It’s pretty cool.

Snow

We haven’t had any snow since October. Maybe a light dusting but that’s it. Thanksgiving snow missed us, on Christmas it flurried and so last Friday when it snowed a little – Alec and Ben were out there in it. They were a little desperate to play in snow. Clearly you can see it wasn’t much since you can still see the grass but they were hopeful.
It melted the next day. I can’t say I was sad about that.

And then this week we finally got it. Real snow. Yeah!



Happiness for Alec.
Sadness for the birds.


Welcome to winter in Maine little birdies.

Children’s Museum

Friday afternoons at 3:30 at the Children’s Museum are my favorite. There are usually about 5 kids in the the whole building.

It’s awesome.

No need to remind me how my definition of awesome has changed.

I am aware.

Early 20’s –awesome was $.50 well drinks at the bar and dancing up a storm.

Late 20’s/early 30’s less bar hopping more road trips and redoing the house.

Mid 30’s fancy dinners/Europe/watching movies on Sunday mornings.

and now:

Sleeping until 7 (sweet!) and an empty children’s museum.

I digress.

This past Friday – I convinced Noelle that she and Ben should come with us.

A proper place for both boys….behind bars!

Clearly the young girl running the art center did not have kids. She handed Alec the paint and brush before she got out the paper. Classic mistake. He, of course, painted on the table. And then this sweet lovely girl says- “oh that’s ok…see what we can do”. She takes the paper and presses it to the table and shows him the design.  “Isn’t that cool?” she says.  And then lets him paint on the table more. I was about to jump out of my skin and trying to shoot him the hairy eyeball. He ignored me.

Yep chickie …you just showed my kid how cool it was to paint on tables.

UGH! 

And since Erik and Aaron both work in town- we met up for dinner. 

Alec and Ben were well behaved which for them is just short of miraculous. 

They did end up wrestling under the table while we were still eating.

It wasn’t very crowded and we ignored it. 

We enjoyed out dinner.

And that is awesome these days!

Cloudy with a chance of….bagels?

Alec and I were sitting at the kitchen table working on his thank yous when we heard a loud thunk.
I pulled up the shades to figure out what it was….and there it sat….all alone…..
A Bagel.
Yep a bagel.
Weird.
And based on the thunk…a frozen bagel.


It was a strange moment.
We were waiting for the cream cheese to fall…but it never came.

A Birthday Party!

We celebrated Leo’s 4th birthday the other day. He shares a birthday with Nana in mid-December but since he was in Albany then- we got to celebrate it with him here after Christmas.

It was a monster party! Grrrrh!

Fun!

What a cute 4 year old ..huh?