Kids Birthday Party

So, last month on November 19th, Liam and Rowan had their 4 and 2 year old birthday party. We found a company online that offered to set up a HUGE bounce house in a rented room at Noah's. We invited all the cousins/family and some friends, and the kids jumped and slid down the slide to their hearts content. We had some sandwiches and sides for lunch, and then they got to open their presents, followed by cake and ice-cream. I think everyone had a great time!! We did get a video of the cake (I think), but no pictures, except this one I got w/ my phone after I picked it up, oh well!)





























SEE REST OF PICTURES HERE

OCTOBER Pictures

So thankfully over the long holiday I was able to work on pictures, and below are a few of my favorites...The first two where taken early October at the farm at Thanksgiving Point. I love the picture of Liam, and how proud he looks on the horse. It was his first time riding on the pony while he held on all by himself!! I walked with him, just in case, but didn't hold on. And the picture of Rowan riding was great too! This was her first time riding the pony and she LOVED it!!



The kids were really into Halloween this year. Liam decided he wanted to be a skeleton. Liam was pretty interested in the scary part of Halloween too. This house is near Grandma's house, and he wanted to go see it all the time! We loved how he said 'Wampire' too. He's pretty interested in Zombies too. And he says he wants to be Frankenstein next year, but I'm sure that will change a few times before next Halloween comes round.


This was Rowan's first year Trick-Or-Treating, and she had a blast! She still says 'Trick-or-Treat' when she hears a doorbell.


After I took the kids around to several houses, Dad took Liam out to several more while Rowan and I stayed home to hand out the candy. I started playing 'Nightmare Before Christmas' and she just smiled and sat really still while I got a bunch of cute pictures of her. She is still obsessed with Jack and Sally a month later, so we are trying to get her onto other things, like princesses and Sesame street : )


Happy Halloween 2011


(There are lots more pictures on our Smugmug page...still working on Birthday party pics though)

Update

So realized I haven't blogged in a while. Thanksgiving is coming soon, and I plan to sit down for a few hours, and work on our pictures...we have Halloween and the kids Birthday party to post! So in other news, my company was acquired. They sent everyone in the company a generous gift card for Thanksgiving, was pretty happy about that. Anyway, I'm writing this on my phone,so check back for new pics. soon.

School Pictures

We got our school pictures today!! So, my first impression was....oh, he's doing the 'I know they want me to smile, so I'm going to give my silly squint smile'. I thought, well maybe we can do the retakes on Tuesday, but really who's to say he will give a better smile...I think they did a great job touching up is boo-boo above his lip though. You can sorta see it in the class photo. So even though it is a little of a goofy smile, we still think he's cute...just wished he smiled a little in the class photo :) Oh well!

Halloween Program

So Liam's Halloween Program was yesterday...and ALL the kids were soooo cute showing off their costumes, and singing. We left his mask home since we didn't want to scare anyone, and also so we could see his cute face...but I did give him his skeleton hat at the last minute, and he ended up covering up his face anyway...silly boy. He gets so shy at first, and it takes him a little while to warm up to new situations...so most of the time his face was either covered, or he had his hands in his mouth. Oh well, we enjoyed being there and seeing all the kids from his class. He seems to really have a good group of kids this year. I don't know if the 2-3 yr age group are just more rough on each other, or he had an unusually rough group last year, but he hasn't complained once that anyone has hurt him this year. In fact the one person he talks about most is the girl that he has a crush on...and come to find out, her mom told us that she talks about Liam all the time too.

Stuff on My Mind

This latest tragic local story about the 3 girls that were killed while taking pictures by the trains, has been weighing on my mind lately. It scares me more now that we have kids, and knowing one day they are going to make dumb decisions that may or may not hurt them. I never thought I would ever have to tell our kids 'If you ever find yourself between 2 passing trains, lay on the ground, so the wind doesn't toss you onto the track'. Or better yet, don't play near the train tracks?! But, I will tell them, just in case. I will have to start making a list of all the things I hear about!! They will think I'm crazy, I'm sure.

It reminds me of one of the dumbest things I did as a kid, and am grateful to be alive to tell it. We lived near a pond, and we would often go ice skating on it, but one day we decided to walk on it, but the ice was very questionable, and we knew it. My friend slipped in, and I quickly grabbed her hand and pulled her out. Thank goodness the ice I was on didn't break too because then we both would have been goners. I don't think we ever told anyone about it. I am friends with her on FB, and she has a little boy that just celebrated his 1st birthday, and I often think of that time when she fell in the ice, and am grateful to this day we both were OK. Anyway, I just hope we can instill some common sense in our kids...I know they will make mistakes, and do dumb stuff, that is just part of growing up.

Pumpkin Land 2011

Took the kids to Pumpkin Land to get some pictures, and our pumpkins. The kids had a great time, and the day was beautiful!! And because I can't believe I forgot to blog about this yearly tradition last year, I am including a picture at the end of me and kids from 2010.




























From 2010

Surgery

So I was nervous ALL week before my surgery. When I got there, they checked me in, and had me make a payment of my share. When I called the insurance company they said they would pay 100% if they were in network, which they are, but I guess we will see after they submit it. Then this girl with dark brown hair came to get me. She asked me how my morning was. I basically said I was nervous. She made small talk while she was preparing me for the twilight medicine. I remember being even more nervous because she kept repeating questions to me...I had hoped she didn't mess up because of it. Then the room got a little fuzzy, and I was basically OUT. I have this memory of the Dr. saying something like 'Oh Crap' or some kind of expletive. After when they were waking me up, I asked one of the girls if the Dr. had any kind of trouble because I remembered him being worried about something. The girl basically said she didn't know because she wasn't there. I also remember a picture of someones mouth on the big TV screen. It didn't look like my mouth, but who knows I was totally OUT OF IT!! Anyway, Mike has been wonderful!! He got me home, picked up my meds, and then watched the kids while I slept the rest of the day. I'm pretty hungry!! But can only have liquids the first 24 hrs. And only soft stuff for about 2 weeks...BLAH. Well, hopefully I can lose some weight out of this experience.

Life Update

Realized I haven't posted in a couple of weeks. Things are OK. Liam is doing really great in school. He has a crush on a little girl in his class. It's so adorable, and I had no idea it started this young!

Rowan is doing great! She has been a lot better about sleeping again. One night she just wanted to be snuggled and rocked, and I totally loved it. It seems she is growing out of that stage where all they want to do is explore, and she is starting to snuggle and hang out more. She loves to give hugs and kisses too...just so cute! I will be updating more about the kids soon on their site...

2 weeks ago I had a dentist appointment, and he recommended that I get a gum graft for a couple of my teeth. Turns out I need it for 3!! On both sides of my mouth too....so not looking forward to it. But hopefully it will help get rid of my sensitivity when I have hot or cold drinks and food. Plus maybe I will lose the rest of my baby weight, that will be nice!

It's that time of year that the yard starts giving us food. We have managed to get some tomatoes and squash from the garden after-all. AND all four of our fruit trees produced this year! Even the the little peach tree we planted in the spring gave us a bunch! It's been really nice! Mike spent the day yesterday canning pears. I feel bad I wasn't able to help, but I had to watch Rowan since she is only down to one nap now! Thankfully, we canned so many peaches last year, we have enough for the next year. Anyway, not a whole lot else going on...just got to figure a costume for Rowan...Liam made it easy for me this year by telling me he wants to be a skeleton :)

In Memoriam

Some of you may know that I grew up back East, in New Hampshire. Sadly my family did not go on many trips...but, thankfully my dad had a younger brother that moved to NYC and he came to visit our family often, and he would pretty much force my mom and dad to do some family trips. I remember a trip to Montreal, Canada, and we also went to visit him in NYC. I have very fond memories of our time together with Uncle Krayton. Here are some pictures I have of our trip to NYC...My first and only trip there. I took the pictures of the close up ones of the twin towers. I was around 12 or 13 years old. And the year was probably 1987 or 1988. I have been meaning to share these for a long time, and I figured the 10 year anniversary of 9-11 would be appropriate.

Lady Liberty


Uncle Krayton

Labor Day Party/Weekend

So, Mike and I have been wanting to have a family party at our house all summer. We have had one for the past 2 years since moving to our new house, usually around July 4th, but the stars just didn't align this year. So we decided we should have it for Labor day weekend, the last real chance to have an outdoor event before it gets too cold and dark in the evening. Mike got a new smoker this summer, and decided to do something different than our usual sausages. He got a some pork, and decided to do pulled pork sandwiches. And since I don't eat any meat except for fish, he was such a wonderful hubby and got some salmon and smoked that too!

There were some technical difficulties along the way regarding a new part he got for his smoker that was supposed to help control the temperature, but it ended up defective. So many times that day he wasn't sure if the meat was going to turn out. But 12+ hrs later it was finally done!! And it seemed that everyone enjoyed it! Everyone brought some great sides too, thanks to all of you!! The kids had a blast playing on the swing-set and the bounce house. Thank you so much Erica for taking pictures and sharing them with us. It's very hard to get a second to do that when you are hosting and keeping an eye on the kids!!

We had spent 3 days preparing and cleaning up for the party, that we were very glad to have Monday off as a holiday. And it was a really good thing too since Rowan was not being herself, and kept waking up all through the night. She didn't sleep more than an hour combined probably. I spent the night up with her, and she decided she wanted to play!! Such an odd behavior for her since she is usually such a great sleeper. She didn't have a fever, but maybe she was teething, or maybe she had a tummy upset from all the sweets?! I'm not sure, but am very grateful that she slept through the next night, since we all have work and school.




















Rowan playing at 4:30 am