Out and About

We've been keeping very busy these last few weeks.  Brody officially finished his first year of pre-school, complete with a end of year concert and everything.  Unfortunatly, we still have to work in the summer so Thursday marked the end of "school" and Monday he started "camp".  Now you see, school and camp are at the same place with the same teachers and mostly the same kids, but less of a curriculum and more field trips.  So basically, it's the same thing, disguised under a different name.  We tried to get Brody excited about going by telling him that he didn't have to go to school and instead he was going to camp.  He thought he had won the lottery.  He was so excited to go "camping" as he called it, that he was ready 20 minutes early!  

On the drive to school - I mean camp - he said, "Hey, this is the same way we go to school".  And yes, our plan for camp to be cool and exciting quickly unraveled.  I'll spare you the details of his heartbreak and mini-meltdown and just tell you that he was displeased that we tricked him to thinking he was going somewhere cool, but kissed me goodbye and had a great first day of camp.

So in our free time, we've tried to get out an about and enjoy the summer while it lasts.  Here are some photos of our adventures...

After picking up a big boy bike (well actually it's a purple girl's schwinn, but Brody doesn't care) at a yard sale.  We hit up Target for a bike helmet.  One look at this Thomas the Train helmet and Brody was sold.  He wanted to wear it on the ride home...and once the excitement wore off, he caught some Z's.

We heard that Tractor Mac was going to be at Portsmouth Market Day this year so, despite the drizzly weather, we headed to the Seacoast to see one of Brody's favorite book characters.  He was in heaven!

Life's a Beach!

After spending Memorial Day at the beach, we're feeling a little sad about not renting a place this summer.  Not that we don't love spending time at home and that we don't have enough landscaping to full up the next three summers, but there is just something about the beach that allows our shoulders to relax and lets us breath a little deeper and a little easier.  The beach is the only place that we seem to be able to slow down.  Where we gauge the passing of time by the movement of the sun in the sky and the grumbles in our stomachs instead of the clocks on the wall and the beeping of alarms!

While we enjoyed our respective ice cream cones (frozen yogurt for Ryan!) at Browns and enjoyed the healing sea air we vowed to take as many day trips as possible and to eat ice cream on each and every trip!  Brody had an absolutely fabulous time.  We have vacationed at the beache very year since he was born - a tradition that I will thank Auntie Ev and Uncle Pat for since their wedding in York, ME started it all!  Brody picked up right where he left off last year.  Playing in the sand, chasing the waves.  He had a BLAST and was pooped out by the time we headed home.

Trucks on the beach...

Looking at the seagulls

Checking out the ocean...

Snack time!

Stolen kisses!

All tuckered out!

Rock n Race

So Ryan was the only one who actually ran the Rock n Race in Concord last night - a 5K race for the Payson Cancer Center in Concord, but Brody made a seriously good attempt, and we had a nice picnic dinner on the state house lawn after.  Despite the bad weather, there was a huge turnout and Brody was in heaven with all the people watching and live music!

Here he is, in great form at the beginning of the race.  A 2.5 year old's dream come true, being able to run down the middle of Main Street and not have your mother yell at you!

And then came the distractions...like courtyards with really cool rock sculptures, poorly maintained catch basins filled with debris (or yucky blucka things - Brody's technical term), and the live music...once he heard the music, we quickly went off course in search of it...that's OK though.  By the time we had run down Main Street and investigated all of the distractions, Ryan was crossing the finish line!

Post-race picnic!

Like father, like son

So Brody asked to have an english muffin for a snack the other day.  I made him one and brought it to him.  He said he wanted it cut in strips, so I went to get a knife...when I came back, this is what I found...like father like son I guess.

Once his blood sugar was back up, it was apparently time to dance - those of you who have seen Ryan on a dance floor, well let me just say again, like father like son...it's really quite a sight!

After Dinner Snack?

So with our grocery bills already at well over $100 a week, I have no idea what we're going to do when Brody hits adolescence and starts eating even more - is that even possible.  For dinner the other night, he had scrambled eggs, two veggie sausages, an english muffin, and a bowl of blackberries.  When Daddy got home, he was starving and decided to have some chips and hummus before Brody's bath...despite the monstrous dinner he just ate, Brody decided that he wanted a snack and proceeded to dip his breakfast cereal in hummus.  Now I don't know what's more disturbing...the fact that my child must have two stomachs in order to contain the absurd amount of food that he was ingesting, or the fact that he was choosing to dip cereal in hummus...

Close up of hummus-coated cereal...

 

And just in case you weren't grossed out enough...here is the proof that he actually ate it!

Rock Walls and Tractor Rides

It took us 9 months to build our house, start to finish.  At the pace we're going, I think landscaping might take 9 years...or more.  We had great hopes of building a small rock retaining wall in the front of the house to definea raised perennial garden (to be planted someday).  So we went and bought the stone and dug out the area and got started...and then I don't know what happened.  We bought some blueberry bushes (yet to be planted) and got some strawberry plants (planted in an area that doesn't really make sense, but they were drying up and dying) and then we started painting the posts on the front porch (I said "started" because we still haven't finished)...so at my last count we have 18 ongoing projects and no completion dates in site.  Now I will not blame this entirely on our fiesty 2.5 year old, but he is certainly a contributing factor to the lack of completion on just about everything we have started.  So...we started another project - building a swing set - in hopes that once the swing set was built, Brody would be entertained enough for us to maybe, just maybe, get something wrapped up!

Here are some photos from our attempt at building a rock wall and "tractor" rides, that have distracted us from finishing the wall!

Two Happy Boys...One Lonely Mother

For Brody's April vacation, Brody, Ryan, and Jan went to see Uncle Pat and Auntie Ev in Charlotte while I stayed home to work and enjoy some alone time.  They left on Wednesday morning and when I got home from work on Wednesday afternoon I was like a teenager whose parents had left for the weekend.  I played loud music, I made something with very little nutritional value for dinner and ate it in front of the TV, I stayed up late.  It was great.  In the morning I woke up and took my time getting ready for work...only having to get myself out the door, I got to work early...fabulous!  Then Thursday afternoon came...and I headed home from work..and it wasn't so bad at first.  I said hello to the cat, sat on the back porch and listened to the birds, thought about making something more nutritious for dinner...and then it happened, I was hit with an overwhelming, awful feeling...I MISSED MY FAMILY!  Alone time, shmalone time, I wanted my boys back. 

Needless to say, the next 4 days without them were not nearly as enjoyable as I had imagined.  I had pictured going to yoga every day, cooking fabulous things for dinner every night, taking long luxurious baths, sleeping like a baby, and feeling rejuvinated.  Instead, I realized that I will take my busy, often chaotic, life WITH my boys over alone time any day...and yes, you can remind me of that when I complain that I never have any time to myself!

They, on the other hand, had a blast.  Brody just adores his Uncle Pat and apparently even became a fan of Sydney, their dog.  Thankfully, their trip came to an end and we were all reunited on Monday.  I have never been so happy for Monday to get here or to put a cranky two and a half year old to bed! 

Here are a few pictures from their trip...

Brody apparently had to pull his own suitcase through the airport...and he became a big fan of the moving sidewalks and escalators!

A visit to the Charlotte Nature Museum...and yes, Brody in a pint-sized apron melts my heart!

The cutest bug in Charlotte!

Peak-a-boo!

Pretending to be a T-rex in Sydney's crate...we might have to consider purchasing one of these for home!