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Friday, September 30, 2011

DVR

John and I have...I guess you could call it...an inside joke about our DVR. Well not so much inside anymore, since I'm about to share it with all of you.

He calls me the DVR Nazi because as soon as I watch something I erase it. And if I see a show that has been there for a long period of time, I erase it, assuming whoever wanted to watch it would have done so in a timely manner. This drives him crazy because I often delete things that he hasn't seen and I have no desire to see. Furthermore, the DVR is set to delete the oldest recording when space needs to be made available so he doesn't deem it necessary to ever delete anything.

I can't help it though. It's like weeding out your closet. By deleting the shows we already watched, the list of recording is shorter and is less to scroll through. Alright, lame excuse right.

The truth is...I'm embarrassed of the shows my husband schedules to record!! It's bad enough he watched Criminal Minds, which gives me nightmares. But shows like River Monsters, Swamp People and Whale Wars...seriously?? I'm sorry but on the off chance a guest happens to scroll through our DVR, I would prefer they see Grey's Anatomy and the Amazing Race and shelter them from the cold hard evidence that my husband is indeed a hillbilly at heart!!!

Thursday, September 29, 2011

Fall, Fairs and Food

Fall equals fair season here in New England. So we have spent the last few weekends driving the state to go to all the local fairs. The kids love the rides (although I can't wait for them to be big enough to ride the Zipper with me), the parents love the food (chowder bowls, loaded baked potatoes, corn dogs) and we all love the animals (surprised we made it out of there without a bunny!)

The kids are getting into their school routines. I'm happy to report the novelty of 1st grade hasn't worn off yet, even with the extra workload. And little miss Camryn happily goes to school...no more tears...barely even a goodbye! In fact, she is asking to go on her days off!!!

John and I are bike riding together now that we have some free time without the kids. I'm wiping his butt into shape!! We even took Callie for a two hour hike the other day. Not on purpose...we actually got lost! After circling the same swamp area a few times, I'm just happy we made it out of there without West Nile Virus. The bugs were brutal!!

Although I miss the carefree summer days, its nice to have our routine in place. Fall is not so bad...I love sleeping with the windows open when it gets cool at night. I love the feel of my favorite jeans! The freezer is filling up with delicious soups. And I already started baking apple cakes and pumpkin bread. I better be careful or those favorite jeans won't fit for long!!!

Thursday, September 15, 2011

No Boys Allowed

Drop-off at pre-school is not getting easier with Camryn. Although she willingly gets in the car to go to school and happily recounts her days when I pick her up. The teachers tell me the crying period is shorter every time and she is beginning to participate in activities rather than watch longingly out the window for me.

So you can see why when I leave her in a full blown tantrum of hysterics, I wonder how she is holding up the entire time she is gone. WELL...apparently she is transitioning just fine. Although she has not yet given up the show she puts on for my sake, she must feel comfortable with her classmates. Today when I picked her up from the playground her teacher told me she was "growling at kids." Now anyone that knows Camryn, knows she has a death stare like no other. So hearing that she was less than thrilled to be spoken to or even looked at by a stranger didn't phase me in the least. But that was not the case.

As I located her on the playground and watched the scene unfold, I was baffled that this little girl had been a crumbling mess when I left her. In a few short hours, she had turned into the ring leader of the group. She had all the girls in the playhouse while she guarded the door and growled at any boys that wanted to come in! Her all female posse were happily obliging to all her commands and the more she scowled at the boys, the more persistent they became.

I have to admit, I was glad to see that she was having fun. But now I'm worried she the class bully and her bossy little 'tude will leave her friendless. My solution was to select one of her favorites "The Berenstein Bears No Girls Allowed" book for bedtime and remind her how sister bear felt when she was left out. A three year old should be able to make the correlation, right?

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

A tiger in training

Tiger Woods that is...

For Dylan's sixth birthday my golf fanatic parents bought him his own set of clubs! He was thrilled. He carefully took each club out of the bag and swung a few practice swings. He made sure to put the covers back on and place them in their respective spot in the bag. He is fascinated by the stand that pops out of the bag when you put it down and closes up when he tosses the bag over his shoulders.

Along with the gift, came a day of golf with Pop! So the gift was given on Thursday and Dylan already redeemed his round of golf on Sunday!!! My dad took him to a local 9 hole course in hopes to teach him how to play.

They had a ball! Dylan completed seven holes and carried his bag the whole way. Despite the double digit score on every hole, he thinks he is ready to golf at Pop's course.

All I know is he must have been hanging on to his new clubs for dear life because that afternoon I found a huge blister between his thumb and pointer finger. When I asked him why he didn't tell Pop it was hurting, he said: "I thought it was a sliver and didnt want him to take it out!" No pain, no gain I guess!


Sunday, September 11, 2011

Astronaut Training

Dylan turned six!!! I know it's crazy, I'm hardly old enough to have a six year old. But I do...and to celebrate we had an astronaut training party at our house. This is what it entailed:



The invite








The guests got t-shirts with the Nasa logo (which I hijacked) on the front



And on the back it said: Mission Specialist with their name
The shirts were super easy and inexpensive. I grabbed a pack of Hanes undershirts and I bought printable iron-on paper for my printer. They were a huge hit!




Station 1# Astronaut Safety Test


The kids had to fill their space shuttle with the right equipment to protect their astronaut



I gave them shredded newspaper, cotton balls and bubble wrap to fill two plastic cups. We taped them together with an egg inside and dropped them off the deck to demonstrate the effects of gravity!




Station #2 Shuttle Repair






The kids had to screw nuts and bolts underwater while wearing dish washing gloves.





Station #3 Rocket Launch




Stomp Rocket



My sister (donning her official astronaut outfit from space camp) brought a water powered rocket too!
Station #4 Moon Walk







Walking around the trampoline while balancing a water balloon on a plate. Not sure it emulated walking on the moon, but what kid doesn't like bouncing on the trampoline with the added bonus of potentially getting wet??



Station #5 Moon Rock HuntA scavenger hunt for rocks that I spray painted with green glitter. They also got bags to collect them with.








The cake!!!
Dylan's two favorite ice cream flavors I froze in a bowl to shape like the moon. I scooped out the craters, covered it with fondant and used "Duff's" cake graffiti silver spray to color it!
Rainbow Jell-O was a birthday boy request




All the boys left with their shirts, moon rocks, astronaut ice cream and moon dough!






Friday, September 9, 2011

Back to school

The kids going back to school is not an event I look forward to. It marks the end of our carefree summer days. It means another year has gone by and the kids are getting older. It's a difficult transition for everyone...mainly me!

I don't have the typical, new outfits, backpacks on, huge smile first day of school photo of my kids. Going from an eager kindergartner to a big shot first grader has catapulted my son into the "too cool for school" category. Don't get me wrong, he loves school. He just doesn't need any cheesy photos documenting it. Nor does he need me to walk him to the door. Gone are the days of wearing two straps of his backpack. Instead, he rocks the one strap carelessly thrown across his chest look!

Camryn was too busy hiding for a picture. She was so excited about the prospect of pre-school, until it was actually time to go. Similar to my post three years ago, Camryn's first day did not go so well. She was hysterical when I left her. Cried even harder when the teacher tried to console her. Finally they figured out it would be best to let her calm down on her own in a corner. In which she remained in for the better part of the day. Anxiously waiting at home, I received a phone call from the pre-school director to come pick her up early.

The good news is by the time I got there she was happily playing and I was able to sneak out before she saw me. So indeed she did make it through the entire first day....all three hours of it! Luckily, this isn't my first go around so I know drop-off will get better and that she will love school. And in two short years, she will be running for the door without so much as a glance over her shoulder too.

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Summer Wrap-up

August seems to get shorter every year. I know it's a lame excuse for not posting in over a month but I'm sticking to it.

August started off with a trip to Boothbay Harbor Maine, where we had an amazing week. We rented a house right on the ocean with some lifelong friends of ours! We spent our days doing everything from beaching it, to working on a live lobster boat, ziplining, bike riding and fishing. At night the adults enjoyed fresh seafood dinners accompanied by some cold refreshments! We played cards and shared lots of laughs.

The next two weeks were spent at the beach or the lake. Swimming, water skiing and tubing. Dylan earned a train ride to a pizza party through the reading program at the library! We had playdates, went hiking and frequented the local playground.

My high school girlfriends and I fled to Newport for the weekend to celebrate our 30th birthdays....although we are all pushing 31! Sooo many laughs and too many drinks, I was sad to see it get cut short by the arrival of Hurricane Irene.

We evacuated Newport to all return home to our families and batten down the hatches before the storm hit. It was a good thing we did, she was nasty storm! We were out of power for 7 days, forcing the schools to delay their opening date. The kids enjoyed an extra week of summer, while I struggled to feed them nutritious meals (hell...even hot meals), scrounge up clean clothes for them to wear and keep them relatively clean!

Well a power outage certainly was not keeping me from my last adventure of the summer! Girls weekend #2!!!! (my hubby gets some major brownie points) This time it was with my college roommates who haven't all been together in seven years. I packed my last clean outfit, hid my greasy hair under a baseball cap and drove to Hoboken! It was a reunion for the books! Once we realized we couldn't party like we were still in college, we resorted to sitting on the couch in our pajamas re-telling stories of our glory days. How easy it was for all of us to come together and seem like we never skipped a beat. A fabulous weekend with tearfilled good-byes as we parted ways not sure of the next chance for such a reunion.

And finally, a Labor Day Pizza-Que at our house. Husbands and children included! It was a perfect way to end the summer!