A Relaxing Weekend.

And it was great.
We stuck pretty close to home this weekend. It was good to have some time just to be.
It would have been better if the weather had cooperated, though. But it wasn't nearly as bad here as it was in other places - including where we used to live in CT. Wow. But, still - the forecast is rain for the foreseeable future. Sigh.
We went to the Ecotarium on Saturday morning. The new exhibits are great. Very interactive and very kid friendly.
It's late and I'm at a loss for words (?!?!?!)...so we'll have at it with pictures.

Here is how we found Caroline one night last week. She loves sleeping in her castle.

I know it's not a great picture, but this one pretty much summarizes the craziness of life here...

Here are the kids at the wildlife exhibit on chinchillas at the Ecotarium. It was actually pretty cute. The funniest part was, though, when the teacher told the kids that they couldn't touch the animal. We could tell Caroline wanted nothing more than to cuddle with the little thing. He said "If you think that would would like to pet the chinchilla, sit on your hands." Fast as lightening - Caroline was on her hands. At least we know she really listens. =-)


Caroline got hold of the camera and actually didn't do half bad...

Dada and Sam had a great time blowing bubbles:

I think the kid swallowed more bubbles than came out of the wand...it's remarkable he wasn't blowing bubbles out of his diaper...

In the three hours of sunshine we had this weekend, we had to get as many outdoors activities in as we could, so we filled up the pool and played in the sprinkler. Sam was less than thrilled with the pool at first.

But he soon embraced the fact that he was wet AND freezing his butt off by trying to bully his sister out of the pool:



Caroline really liked the sprinkler (Sam wouldn't follow her there):

Everyone had fun helping Dada make waffles for dinner tonight:

Have a great week!
PS - here is a video of Sam "learning" to blow bubbles. He had the wand in his mouth and the bubble came out from between his teeth!



Here is another video of the kids with their duck puppet. They see the thing and crack up! It's great. The kids were laughing so hard they couldn't even stand.
PS - no children were harmed in the making of this video. =-)

Another Sunday NIght

The trend continues.
It has been a busy week, but we had some breathing room. It's been nice like that lately.

It looks likes the poison ivy on my legs is finally clearing up and I'm looking forward to a non benadryl-induced sleep where I don't feel like ripping my skin off.

Caroline has been into everything this week. Which is a change, because we're usually saying that about Sam.
Monday was a tough day for her. She got her first black eye. There are no pictures. I felt bad for her - she was playing baseball with the little girl across the street and got whacked in the face. And all this after telling Uncle Matt a couple weeks ago that "I'm not going to catch a foul ball - it's too dangerous." I think her words proved true.
We also had an adventure on Monday night. It was about an hour and a half after the kids went down and Jim and I were getting ready for bed ourselves. Suddenly we heard (and felt) a tremendous CRASH come from Caroline's room. She had taken it upon herself to try and get something that was on top of her dresser and used the drawers as steps. Her weight pulled the dresser forward and the drawers came out and landed on her as she fell. Her Guardian Angel was working overtime because Caroline was fine (except for a bloody tooth and a split toe) and nothing broke (not even the Winnie-the-Pooh clock with the glass dome). It is really a miracle that she wasn't hurt. We have re-arranged things to eliminate whatever need there was for her to get on top of the dresser and we're thinking of bolting the dresser to the wall. She is not the child that I would expect to be doing things like that! I get a few more grey hairs every time I think about it. Ugh.
Wednesday night was softball. We lost to the DA's Office (don't ask me how they got into to the healthcare league) 3-4. But on the bright side, we totally (and unexpectedly) kicked Astra-Zeneca's butts the week before.
The rest of the week we've been taking it easy. We went to our favorite hangout with our favorite drink and had a lovely dinner on Friday night.
Saturday was also a very low key day.

Happy Father's Day to all!
To celebrate, after church we went for some bagels and then used our open ended Tornadoes tickets (Thank you Pat and Erica!). It was a rain soaked game. There were only about a hundred or so fans left by the end of the game. But we had a very nice time.
-We also had an Eric Gagne sighting - oh how the mighty have fallen.
Did I mention it was a bit wet at the game?

Well, wet didn't quite cover it. Soaked was probably more appropriate - but Sam didn't seem to mind!

I was glad I put some rags in our bag - the kids kept themselves entertained between innings by wiping off the bleachers.

This really does seem to be Sam's preferred way of wearing his hat.

And here is after the game when we were (finally) warm and dry. In case you wondered, it's Cinderella the bride and her pumpkin...

PS

Here are some more pictures from the weekend:

Jim and his cousins - they're too cute!

FINALLY!
A nice picture of Mama and Dada. It was very strange to not have our children afoot during the wedding. I wonder what we ever did before they came along...

This is Getting to be a Pattern.

Seems like Sunday night is about the only time that I'm consistently able to sit down and blog. I do feel badly about it. But there is only so much time in the day.
We have been making a much more concentrated effort recently to take time to relax. It IS kind of sad when you have to put relaxing on your "To-Do" list. But the effort does appear to be paying off. Sanity has been a little easier to come by recently, which is nice (even if the lawn isn't mowed and there are piles of laundry about).

We had a lovely weekend. Meri and Jesse's wedding was beautiful. The setting could not have been more picturesque. Who knew Lake Winnipesaukee was so gorgeous?!?!

A HUGE thank you goes to Nina and Pops for not only watching Caroline and Sam, but adding cousin Rhys to the mix. I'm pretty sure they had a good time, but am definetly sure that they'll sleep well for the next few nights.
Happy Birthday to Pops!! We hope you enjoyed your Boston Creme Pie.



Here are some other pictures from the weekend:
Sam likes to multitask during his potty time.

AND appeared less than thrilled that he had to share with Rhys.

I think we tuckered out Rhys

They got along much of the time, though.

He's totally up to something here.

We did have some time to play dress up on Saturday morning

We also had fun on Saturday watching the men take down the trees. Between the ice storm and the beetles, it's a wonder there are any trees left.

All it takes is a little heavy machinery to keep Sam entertained for hours!


Caroline is just getting too big. She looks so old here. Hard to believe she's only three.

And (courtesy of Grampy and Grampa) here are some pictures of the kids "stoopin' it" - which is becoming one of their favorite pastimes (especially when ice cream is involved)...




And here is one more from Christmas-time that I just found - I may remember Caroline having Sam in a half-nelson about ten seconds after the picture was taken

Whew! What a Week.0-[o90

We're just sitting here relaxing watching a little Wall E, trying to recover from this week and weekend. It actually has been lovely, but there has been one big hitch. We've all had mega colds. We're all tired from what seems to be continual sleep deprivation and being dependent on some sort of benadryl or sudafed just to breathe. But we all are on the mend now, which is the most important thing.
On Wednesday night we drove out to Holyoke to see Matt. It wasn't exactly a close game, but we had a good time.


Conference at the mound:

Here's the scoreboard when we left - we're not sure how it ended...

The power went out here on Thursday night. It was a welcome change from the usual routine. It was only out from six o'clock to nine thirty, but it was long enough for us to host an impromptu block party on our front lawn. It was so much fun that I kind of wish the power would go out more often. =-)

I had to work on Friday to make up for the time I missed from being sick, so our weekend routine was a little off. On our way home from grocery shopping we hit some garage sales. Can you say JACKPOT?!?!?!? It was quite possibly the best garage sale haul ever. It just happened to be the luck of the sales that we hit that Caroline got most of the booty. Sam did get two new pairs of very cool galoshes, though. One of which will actually fit him now(they're brand new with the tags still on!) - Jim said he needed some "Man Boots" after the pictures last weekend.
Caroline got so much stuff. Most of it name brand (brands I could never buy - Gymboree, Lands End, LL Bean) and all of it in very good shape.
She got: two dresses, a set of jammies, a Dora t-shirt and jeans set, an overall jumper and t-shirt set, two pairs of jeans, a pair of velvet jeans, a pair of knit pants, a beautiful cardigan, two fleece jackets, a red velour outfit for next Christmas, five long sleeve t-shirts, a short sleeve t-shirt, a pair of dress shoes and an LL Bean snowsuit. The grand total for everything (including Sam's stuff)?
ELEVEN DOLLARS!!!!!
Considering the snowsuit alone goes for forty dollars...I think we did great. =-)

Caroline has been wearing princess dresses around as much as she possibly can lately. She is adorable.


We made a super duper tower of power today:

The other deal of the week is that we downloaded the The 100 Greatest Classical Masterpieces of All Time from Amazon.com for an amazing price. We've only listened to the first fifty, but think we've already more than got our money's worth. The kids totally dig it! They dance in their carseats to Bizet and Beethoven. It's so neat to watch them get so excited about music.
Grampy and Grampa visited Sam and Caroline, too. It was so nice to see them.
Today after church we went up to the Albanian Festival. Good food. Good music. Fun dancing.

Here is a cute video of the kids dancing:



And now it's time for bed. Thanks goodness.

PS - the Caroline quote of the day from yesterday:
Caroline came into our room last night with a stuffed hippo. We asked her what her hippo's name was. Her responce? "Her name is Alka Seltzer."
It just keeps getting curiouser and curiouser, I tell you. =-)