The Days of our Lives (Nov 17-23)

Sunday - Common meal (potluck) at church following Sunday morning service then home for naps for the whole family.  I guess we were all still tired from raking/playing in leaves the day before!

Monday - Spent the morning at home with the kids, catching up on laundry and cleaning and so forth.  That afternoon the kids and I went to meet our friend Bekah from North Carolina who was in town for a work conference.  We took her downtown and walked the first part of the Freedom Trail between the Boston Common and Faneuil Hall.  The kids' favorite part was sitting up on the donkey statue in front of Old City Hall and then listening to a street performer playing music while dressed up as a bear (he was standing below the balcony of the Old State House where the Declaration of Independence was first read and also the site of the Boston Massacre).  Nothing like the juxtaposition of past and present here in this city!  Brian was able to get off work early enough to meet us at Quincy Market for dinner.  I had the most delectable Lobster Bisque for dinner... I'm almost drooling thinking about it!  It was super fun to be able to spend the afternoon with an old friend!

Tuesday - The kids and I went for another round at the Children's Museum where we did a few "new" things.  For the first time the kids were interested in playing with the train table in the little kids' room...
 

... and BOTH kids did some major climbing on the big tower.  Neither kid had ever shown any interest in climbing above the lowest level before, but Nathan suddenly decided that he was going to climb up pretty high and then (of course) Sarah decided she needed to try too!

Nathan is towards the top here...

...and this is after he came back down and climbed up with Sarah a little ways.

We made a detour on the way home and stopped by Trader Joe's to pick up some peanut-free walnuts and pecans.  We gave Sarah walnuts Tuesday night and pecans Wednesday night and both are good to go!  Next up: almonds and pistachios!  (And I'm loving having nuts back in the house!)

Wednesday - I had my yearly physical so the kids and I strolled 20 minutes down the street to my new physician's office.  It would have been nice walk if it hadn't been so cold that morning (wind chill was in the 20s). On the way to the office we passed a new park, so I wanted to check it out on the way back home since it was a pretty day.  Nathan was pretty reluctant at first (he hadn't wanted to put his hat and gloves back on so I think he was a little cold), but after we rounded the corner and saw a cool new climbing apparatus, he changed his tune.  Sarah had fun playing in the sandbox for a long time...

...but Nathan was entranced by the rope climbing tower.

After a while, Sarah decided she wanted to climb up and sit in the seats too, so I gave her a boost.  We ended up having a great time.  And the temperature?  37F with a windchill of 30F.  Never in my life would I have expected to voluntarily be on a (crowded) playground at those temperatures!

Thursday - Library day and then picked berries on the bushes outside the library again.  That's all I can remember...

Friday - I had thought about taking the kids to the zoo since the high was supposed to be in the 50s and I figured it would be our last chance until warmer weather came in a few months.  But rain showers squashed that idea!  So the kids and I ran to Target to tackle a long shopping list instead.  Sarah and Nathan loved carrying their umbrellas on our walks to and from the car.

Saturday - We stayed home in the morning, trying to clean and get the apartment ready for Gran and Pawpaw's visit.  After nap we took the kids downtown to Faneuil Hall for the lighting of the Christmas Tree.  I read that last year there were 30,000 people there, but couldn't find a number for this year - but there was definitely a huge crowd!  We slogged our way through Quincy Market to get dinner (lobster bisque again for me!) and when we finally got outside and ready to eat, we realized that Sarah had dropped her hat inside.  So Brian went back in to futile search for the hat... we ended up buying her a new one.  After dinner, Nathan really wanted ice cream for a treat even though the temperature was in the low 30s!  But it killed time before the tree lighting, so we indulged the kids.  Then at 7:00 we found some good spots to view the lighting of the 80 foot tall Christmas tree (the largest in the NE - even larger then the one in Rockefeller Center in NYC!).  Unfortunately I thought the lighting was supposed to be at 7:30 and actually the televised event was from 7:30-8:00, which meant that the tree didn't get lit until about 7:55, so Nathan sat on Brian's shoulder for almost a whole hour! 

We all enjoyed the lights show set to two songs, but ended up waiting around for another 5-10 minutes after it stopped because we were sure there was going to be more!  Nathan's favorite part was the "fake snow" (actually confetti) that they blew into the air.    There was quite a wait for the T getting home, and when our train finally came and everyone started crowding on I had to somewhat aggressively push people to keep Nathan from getting squished against the open doors of the train.  Once we had made it safely on the train, two people graciously gave the kids and me their seats, but Brian was left to get squashed since he was standing up with the stroller.  It was another memorable Boston experience, though Brian and I agreed that we wouldn't exactly have called it a fun night.  And we've crossed the lighting of the Boston Common tree off our our "to-do" list - one tree lighting was plenty for us this year!

Leaves!

Last Saturday was "Leaf Day" at our church - raking the leaves in the building's spacious back yard.  When we got there a little after 10am there was already a huge pile of leaves that one of the members had blown earlier in the week.  The kids wasted no time and jumped right in!

After many, many, MANY minutes of playing in the leaves, the kids finally got to work.  Sarah helped pick up sticks for a while...

... and then Nathan and Sarah were both working hard carrying handfuls of leaves from the large pile and depositing them on a smaller pile.  They took their work very seriously.

The way leaf collection happens in Brookline is that the leaves are bagged in giant paper bags purchased from a store, which then sit on the curb and are collected.  This is what our congregation has done in years past, but as you can imagine this yard produces an enormous amount of bags.  So this year a brilliant mind decided to rent a dumpster to pack all those leaves into.  And pack them we did!  Once we had the dumpster and enough tarps to move the leaves, the loading went rather quickly since there were so many hands helping with the work.  We also had an unseasonably warm day which made it even nicer to be working outside.

It wasn't all work and no play... our friend M let Sarah kick the ball around with him during a kiddo break.  Then after the work was done and pizza was eaten, Sarah and Nathan got to kick the ball around for quite a while with the big kids.  In fact Nathan was having so much fun playing soccer with the big guys that he didn't want to leave, which he made clear by yelling "I want to go BAAACCCKK!" the whole wagon ride home.  I was glad that he ended up having so much fun, but Brian and I were not pleased with his method of expression!

Sarah helping to rake up one of the last piles of leaves out front.

Right at the end we finally let the kids up in the dumpster to "help" pack down the leaves.  Nathan, true to form, was quite an observant lookout and would alert everyone when another tarp-full of leaves was approaching. 

The Days of our Lives (Nov 10 - Nov 16)

Sunday - Church and small groups.  Ordinary, lazy family Sunday.

Monday - Decided to make a grocery run in the morning due to the even colder weather forecast for the rest of the week.  Nathan didn't want to change out of his shorts and short sleeve shirt and since I had two people recently encourage me to let him suffer natural consequences of his choices, I told him what I though he should wear but also that he could make the final decision.  He chose to stay in his "inside clothes".  I did ask him to pick out a pair of long pants and long sleeve shirt to put in my backpack in case he changed his mind and he eagerly complied (with that request at least).  I took a scenic route home from the store and we found ourselves driving by the  Chestnut Hill Reservoir.  Sarah kept asking "Me touch lake" and since it was her birthday I decided to pull over and we got out of the car.  Nathan was not interested from the get-go and put up lots of resistance at even getting out of the car.  Did I mention it was a cold and blustery day, made even windier since we were by the water?  At first he refused to even put on his zip-up jacket, but after one minute he changed his mind.  Then one more minute and he asked me to help him put his pants over his shorts.  Unfortunately he was still cold/mad enough that he started crying as we got close to the lake (and the wind kept picking up speed), so I told him to sit down on some benches while Sarah and I walked up to the edge of the reservoir.  I snapped a picture then took pity on Nathan and we headed back to the car.  After we got home and chatted with him about it, I think he may have learned the wrong lesson from this experience - instead of "wear warm clothes when Mommy suggests it" I think his take away was "resist any attempts to make him go outside in the cold."  *sigh*

That night I made pizza for Sarah's birthday dinner and she had a lot of fun opening her presents.  That post is back here.

Tuesday - SNOW!!  Thankfully just flurries for a short while in the morning, but still!  So the kids and I stayed home for the morning and made playdough and played with it for hours.  Then we got out Sarah's new Gears playset and played with that for a while.

During Nathan's "work time" after nap I challenged him to write some new letters, and boy did he ever write!!  We practiced Bs and Ds and found out that Bs start out as Ps.  Also Es and Fs and Os and one L and one G.  The scribbles are where Nathan didn't like how his letter turned out - seems like he may have some perfectionist tendencies.

Wednesday - Sarah's two year checkup was this morning and got all good news about how she's growing and developing.  I also chatted with the pediatrician about her eczema and got a new topical steroid Rx and recommendation for a new everyday lotion.  Then we headed over to Children's Hospital for the allergy blood test.  I texted Brian and wonderfully he was able to come down and see us, he sat with Nathan while Sarah had her blood drawn then we all went outside to a little courtyard to play on the playground that we had seen outside the window.  Then Daddy had to get back to work and we had another hospital meal of mac n' cheese (for the kids) and cheddar broccoli soup (for me), we headed home for naps.  That night I did some googling to find peanut-free tree nut suppliers since I was hoping and praying for good news (which, of course, we go!).

Also, Sarah's stats were:
   Weight - 25 lbs (30%)
   Height - 33.5" (50%)
   Head - 48 cm

I also asked the nurse to pull up Nathan's stats for me, so here are those as well:
   Weight - 33.2 lbs (25%)
   Height - 39.5" (33%)

Thursday - We hit up the library in the morning and recognized one of the moms from the playgroup at the park that we went to in September!  So after checking out our books, we headed to a new park with them and had a nice time.  One of the boys who lives in the apartment next door was out at recess when we were there and came up to say hi to Nathan.  Nathan tried to tell me this later, but I didn't understand with he meant until the his mom mentioned it to us in passing.

That night Brian and I wanted "some-fin yummy for dinner" as we say to each other, so we walked across the street to the Texas-style smokehouse restaurant.  I think I've mentioned Sarah's adventerous eating, but it was taken to a new level when she wanted to try our fried jalapeno peppers!  They actually weren't spicy until you got close to the stem and ate the seeds, so we kept that part away from her and she was loving the mild end of the pepper!

The kids had decided they needed their umbrellas that night even though there was not a hint of rain.  But when you get cool umbrellas for your birthdays, you shouldn't need an excuse to carry them around, right?

Because of a major fight with Nathan before dinner about changing from shorts to long pants, after we got home Brian and I confiscated all his shorts and short sleeve shirts.  He did ask nicely and got his undershirts back (that Nana and Grand Dad had just sent hem), but the rest of his summer clothes are now put away.  Amazingly he only asked for his shorts one morning and since then he's embraced wearing long pants.  I was envisioning days of angst about not having shorts to wear, but turns out I was creating angst by letting him hang onto them for so long.  Go figure!

Friday - On Thursday as we were leaving the library, Nathan told me he forgot to look for something to check out of the library.  I told him we would get it next time - turned out that "next time" was the next day!  So we all headed to the library for the second day in a row.  I had a nice chat with the librarian and confessed that I felt bad when I would cart in a stack of 20 - 30 books to turn back into them.  She assured me that it wasn't a problem and she was grateful for people like me that kept them in business.  She also said that she recognized us coming with our red wagon and knew Nathan by name (from looking at his library record while checking in books).  After that chat I feel like I know her better and like that I can greet her by name as we pile books on her desk to be checked back in!

Saturday - Leaf day at church (pics and videos in another post to come)!  We all had lots of fun, then came home and the kids crashed.  Lazy day for the rest of the day.

A Few More Knoxville Pics

I was going through my October pictures, trying to figure out why I have 400 photos that I took last month (not including any of the wedding photos). I went through and deleted quite a few of the bad ones and duplicates.  Mom I can hear you, but at the rate that I take pictures, I just can't keep every picture I ever take!  Not even I will ever want to go through them and look at them all again!

Anyways, I came across some from our Knoxville trip that never made it to the blog, so here's a random assortment of pictures from the week.

We celebrated Nana's birthday on Monday, and I think I mentioned that Sarah REALLY LOVED the chocolate cupcakes.  Here's what I meant:

Grand Dad had a "new" black Corvette he had bought for Sarah.  I think the battery was bad, which is why the battery charger is strapped to the hood, but both kids really enjoyed riding around Grand Dad and Nana's driveway in their car.

When we went back for a second visit to Granddaddy and Grandmother's house, we did all the things we always do: play with the pool ball, play on the piano, and visited the big brown swing in the backyard.

And here are a few pictures of our family at Uncle David and Aunt Bridget's wedding.

Oh Nuts! (Sarah's Allergy Update)

Sarah had her two year check up last Wednesday and her pediatrician ordered this panel of blood tests for her:

We were out to dinner tonight so I didn't get the message until just a few minutes ago with her test results... Sarah tested NEGATIVE for allergies to all tree nuts and peanuts!

This means two things:

First, blood allergy tests can have both false positive and false negative results.  So keeping in mind that Sarah did have quite a reaction to the peanut butter toast, our pediatrician is NOT giving us the all clear on peanuts (which Brian concurs with completely).  Instead she is referring us to an allergist at Boston Children's Hospital and he will decide what the next step will be.  Brian thinks it may be a skin test for peanut allergy.

Second, I'm going to squeeze a trip to Trader Joe's into our planned outing to the Children's Museum tomorrow morning.  There I will stock up on all kinds of tree nuts that are processed in a peanut-free plant (I already scoped those out this weekend while thinking positive thought!).  Then tomorrow night (after Brian gets home, just in case) we will commence with a tree nut tasting extravaganza with the kids. 

I have definitely done the happy dance a few times tonight... and I'm pretty sure there will be more spontaneous outbursts of joy to come!

The Days of Our Lives (Nov 3 - Nov 9)

Sunday - Daylight Savings Time - the bane of all parents everywhere!  We had been keeping the kids up so they may have slept in until 6:30.  At least that's when their clock turned green and they were up right away, so who knows when they actually woke up.  Church was a little dicey with tired kids, but thankfully we had small group in the evening which keeps all in a good mood even when we're up way late!  (Side note: Sunset on Sunday was 4:35!!!!!!!!!  This winter may do me in just due to the short days!)

Monday - Cold, cold today so the kids and I stayed home and hung out at the house.  It was great just to putter and play and read.  

Tuesday - We ran errands in the morning to Target, the Asian/Mexican grocery store, and TJ Maxx.  Nathan did not want to change out of his shorts before we left, so I confiscated them for the rest day as his consequence.  When we got home he ran to change like he usually does and asked for his shorts back.  I told him he was out of luck for the day so he came to lunch in his short sleeve shirt and undies!  After lunch I helped him find a pair of fleece "soft" pants that he decided he liked enough to wear for the day.  Before bed, he helped me go through his summer clothes and only keep out 2 pairs of shorts and 3 short sleeve shirts for him to wear inside during the winter.

Wednesday - I woke up laughing because Sarah walked into my room in her diaper saying "Naked!  Naked!"  Apparently the kids had been up a while and Sarah decided to take off her jommies while still in her crib.  I hadn't heard them because I put one ear plug in after I woke up at 4am to our upstairs neighbor vacuuming their apartment.  It seems that they only vacuum between the hours of 11pm and 5am.  Really?!?!  Anyways, she said she was cold when I asked her, so we went straight back to her room to change her diaper and get her dressed.  About half the time Nathan will get out of bed and change from his pjs into clothes, so she must finally be deciding to emulate him.

Our landlord was replacing our washer/dryer that day so we were excited to hang around and see the action.  When they had removed the old unit, the maintenance man wondered if I wanted to clean up in the closet while it was empty.  Imagining just a thick layer of dryer lint and dust on everything, I happily agreed.  But this was what I actually found in the closet, thanks to the previous tenant.  Yikes!  There must have been 50 or 100 plastic garbage bags and tons of other junk.  A couple of trashbags and trips to the dumpster later, though, it looked much better.

Sarah wasn't sure she was on board with the men removing our old machines.  She kept telling me "No take wa sheen!"  But I explained to her how our old one was really loud and they were going to give us a new one that was much quieter.  So for the rest of the day she kept reminding me "Old wa sheen woud.  New wa sheen qui-e."  (Old washing machine loud.  New washing machine quiet.)

So the good news is that the new washing machine doesn't sound like it is trying to blast off into outer space during the spin cycle.  The bad news is that the washer capacity is WAY smaller and the buzzer on the dryer can't be turned off - bad news for trying to finish laundry during naps!  But overall I'm still really thankful that we have laundry in our apartment, so these are just minor annoyances that I can totally live with!

Thursday - Sarah came into my room naked for the second day in a row!  Then later, Nathan was thrilled when I told him he could wear his shorts and short sleeve shirt with a jacket to the library today since the temperature was in the low 60s this morning!  Once again he wasn't interested in going to storytime, but was very interested with piling his basket high with lots of books to check out.

We stopped outside the library to pick up some leaves from the beautiful maple, since it was supposed to rain in the afternoon and I keep thinking "this will be our last chance to play in the leaves".  A lady was walking by with her toddler daughter and saw us playing, so decided to stop and let her daughter play too.  And it turns out (this was so random) she is one of Brian's attending physicians at Boston Children's Hospital!!  She actually hadn't worked with him, but since there's about 100 attending physicians and 13 fellows, I guess that's not unexpected.

I brought my leaves home to (hopefully) do some projects with, but Nathan and Sarah took theirs straight to their play kitchen and started 'cooking' with them.  Nathan picked out a miniature "Where's Waldo" book from the library (first one he's ever done) and is crazy good at finding Waldo!  On the first two pages he found waldo in less then three minutes, but the third page stumped him a bit when there was another guy dressed up in Waldo clothes, but he got that too after a few more minutes. 

Friday - We had a dentist appointment for Nathan in the morning and it went SO GREAT!  On the new patient information I filled out, they asked if there was anything they could do to make the process easier for the kids, so I wrote something like "Nathan really likes to know what's going to happen before it happens."  I'm not sure if was that or just standard procedure, but the dental hygenist (named Sara!) spent lots of time talking through the different equipment with Nathan and showing him how it all works and feels before he even sat down in the chair.  It was the first time that he had his teeth cleaned with the spinny toothbrush or used the suction tube ("bubble sucker") or had water squirted in his mouth, and he just rolled with it all like a champ!  His option of chocolate-flavored toothpaste may have helped with his cooperative spirit!

Nathan with his mirror (so he could watch what Sara was doing) and his 'bubble sucker'.

 Sarah was practicing with her new toothbrush so that she would get a good report next year when it was her turn to sit in the chair!

The happy kiddo after his teeth were nice and clean!

Nathan came home with a big bag of things - toothbrush, floss, toothpaste, 2 stickers, 2 toys from the "treasure chest" and a picture that they took and printed out of him with his hygienist.  He counted the items in his bag twice before nap and twice again in the hour after he got up, just to make sure nothing was missing.  That bag and its contents are his new prized possessions (at least for today!).

I was talking with Brian later about it, about how Nathan keeps completely surprising me lately.  He was so cheerful and cooperative at the pediatrician's office, both when getting his flu shot and again during his yearly checkup, and then again at the dentist office.  He can be so stubborn and frustrating at times, but recently when he's in new and potentially stressful situations he's been so cheerful and cooperative.  Last year at the dentist he we had moments of freaking out and crying even though all they did was count his teeth, but this year he handled a new dentist office and weird dental equipment like its no big thing.  I guess he really is maturing!

Saturday - After we had gotten up and puttered around for a bit, Brian and I though that maybe we should DO SOMETHING.  But this colder weather has really sapped our motivation to get out of the house.  Also the fact that it gets dark SO EARLY makes it hard to try and plan anything for after naptime.  So we decided that next weekend we would try to do something as a family.  We'll see how that works out...

Sarah's Second

As is obvious, I go through phases where its nothing to churn out a blog post every day or two, and then the next week I can't even manage to get the most important things up because I have NO MOTIVATION at the end of the day.  That seems to be this week.  But since it was Sarah's birthday, I forced myself to put something together tonight.  It may continue to be a slow blog week though...

We had an adventure-filled day on Monday, but right now I'm going to focus on the Moment Sarah Turned 2 (according to Nathan's reckonings) aka the singing of "Happy Birthday" and blowing out of candles.

I love our tradition of the number cakes (thanks again Aunt Karen for the pans!).  Unfortunately on Sunday night after I finished baking all the cupcakes, I realized that we had two dozen strawberry cupcakes for the four of to gorge ourselves on, but I forgot to bake Sarah's "2".  Fortunately I had ended up with batter left over and had stuck it in the fridge, so it was just a matter of turning on the oven during naptime to make the required cake.

Weeks ago, when Nathan requested his chocolate cake, Sarah echoed Nathan's request but then mentioned pink cupcakes.  And since my recipe for this cake is entitled "Brian's Favorite Strawberry Cake" from Nana, I seized upon her suggestion and talked up the pink cake to make sure she was excited.  Then I tinted the icing pink for good measure and added sprinkles for the win.

Sarah "accidentally" stuck her finger in the icing before we sang to her.  

Now if Mommy would just stop taking pictures, we could get this show on the road.

She loved the singing...

... and blew her candles out no problem!

Ever since Nathan's birthday, Sarah's been asking for a watch for her birthday.  It become a default prayer request...
Mama: "Sarah, what do you want to say 'thank you God' for?"
Sarah: "Me watch birf-day"
Mama: "Well, we'll see!"
Nathan: "Mommy, you can order one off the internet!"
(Thanks son for ruining any chance of a surprise!)

So we got her the watch and it was a hit.  No pictures though because its obscured under her pink zip-up sweater from Granddaddy and Grandmother, which she was very excited about.  Her other Sarah-only present that we bought was a new pink "Kee Cat" wallet (she calls Hello Kitty "Kee Cat").  I gave her some change from our bowl and she spent quite a while zipping and unzipping the coin purse to put the coins in and take them back out. 

Her prayer request that night was "[Thank you for] My own watch, my own wawwet."  I think we'll call that another successful birthday!