Winter Fun

I have been really lax about posting to the blog but I wanted to post a few fun pictures. We have had an odd winter so far. First the ice storm, then a big snow storm, some rain, and for the last several weeks back and forth between bitter cold and snow storms. But, we have managed to get outside some to play (no me so much as I have no snowpants or long underwear that fit). Josh got the kids their own snowshovels, but unfortunately, they have outgrown the sled. Still, they manage to enjoy the snow. Diamond and Cisco love it as well, and every time it snows, Diamond acts like a 2YO dog, not a 12.5 YO with arthritis. I love watching it. No snowmen this year so far, though. It has all been perfect powder snow.

After the storm

Our town got hit pretty hard in the recent ice storm.  Power was knocked out throughout the region as ice-covered trees and branches pulled down power lines for miles around.  The storm came in on Thursday night and we work up to a dark house on Friday morning.   Not only was most our town without power, but the power cables had been pulled from our house as well.  I went to work on Friday and I managed to contact an electrician who came out over the weekend to re-attached the electricity service entrance to the house where it had been pull loose.  

Friday night we drove to Maine and stayed with Dorothy's Mom,  and on Saturday through Sunday we stayed with Dorothy's Dad for a weekend we had already planned.  They both had power at their houses, though Maine had not gone unaffected.  I had spoken to one of my brothers on Saturday and he updated me on the rest of the family.  All five siblings were without power, and my sister and her family had moved in with another brother who was running on a generator.  The rest of us were making due with candles and wood stoves.   Sunday we drove home to Massachusetts, ever hopeful that service had been restored.  

So we got lucky, at least for one day.  Power was on when we got home on Sunday, and even the Internet came back not long after our arrival.  Considering many of our neighbors were still without, and all of my family in NH was (is) still without, we felt pretty lucky to be back with heat, water, lights... all those good things.  Well, apparently that was just a teaser.  Monday afternoon Dorothy came home to find the house dark again!  Our street has power, but we and our two adjacent neighbors do not.  To make things worse, the town has been notified by the

 power company that they are pulling out of Westford to focus on areas where they can have a bigger impact.  Our little stretch of three houses is not going to be a priority and it will be at least the end of the week before we see the crews again.  So we have a fireplace and some wood, some bottled water, and a car battery with an inverter to power some lights.  Still, the kids love watching the candles, and we even roasted marshmallows in the fireplace the other night.   We're a little lacking on the conveniences but we're going to make it through just fine.

Today I surveyed the branches in the yard.  Besides the pile of branches that took down the power, and one large branch that narrowly missed our shed and fence, things don't look too bad.  There is plenty of timber on the ground, most of which was the pines and not the maples.  I'll be having some fun with the chainsaw this week, but at least there was no real damage to our property.  So we camp indoors in for a few more days and spend time together as a family.  It's going to be nice.

-Josh

Giving Thanks

I know it is a day early, but this evening, when we sat down for dinner, I asked everyone to talk about what they were thankful for. This was actually prompted by Max's teacher, who mentioned to me at pickup that I would really be happy to see what Max had said he was thankful for when they did that at school today. Unfortunately, I have a very short memory these days and forgot to check his backpack to see what it was, so I just figured I would ask. Max said he was thankful for the baby growing in my belly. I can not begin to tell you how that made me feel. Tears welled up in my eyes. He is one of the sweetest children that I know, and I am very thankful that I am lucky enough to be his mother.

Funny Things Kids Say:

Max, while explaining that the ancestors of one of his classmates "were Pilgrims:"

"They came over on the Cauliflower."

Picture Day - Lauren

Today is our very first picture day. Max missed his last year because he started school so late, so we have never done one before. They said put on your best outfit or something like that, but we just don't have a lot of dressy girl stuff, with the exception of the dress Lauren wore to Greg's wedding (which will be posted about one of these days) which is sleeveless, and with the pixie cut, there was no doing a fancy haircut, so I wasn't sure what I was going to do. However, Lauren got up and had plans. She dressed herself. It definitely wasn't what I had in mind. I spent the next 30 minutes requesting, suggesting, begging, pleading, and bribing Lauren out of her chosen outfit. We finally managed a compromise, a dress that I think looks nice on her, some leggings that actually match, and socks and shoes chosen by Lauren. I don't think that part of her will show so that shouldn't matter. It took another 15 minutes to get her hair brushed and calm down the fuzz in the back. We got there and all the other girls had hair bows and fancy skirts, but let's face it, that is not really Lauren, so it is probably better to just let her personality shine through. I just didn't want it to shine as much as it would have had I let her go to school in her chosen outfit. In case you can't figure it out, the first outfit pictured is what Lauren chose, the second, my choice. I am not sure I am looking forward to another 15 years of this....

Super Lauren

Lauren has always seemed to get the short end of the stick around here. (I probably shouldn't write this or she will use it against me in about 12 years.) Just when she was starting to develop her own personality, Max got sick, and life became all about Max. She has never had a real birthday party. Her first one got cancelled because of Max's illness, I just wasn't up to throwing one for her second because things were still stressful because of Max, and this year, her uncle got married two days after she turned three, plus, I am pregnant and tired all the time and once again just wasn't up to doing much. Yet, she is one of the happiest children I have ever met, and a total joy to be around. She makes me smile every day with her humor, hugs, and laughter. She seems to enjoy pretty much everyone, even giving total strangers hugs (we may need to work on this one, but she is still little and it is so funny to see the confused looks on people's faces). She is still into everything and so strong, especially for her size. When we met with her teachers, they laughed that she was the youngest and smallest child in her class and yet nothing phases her. They did mention having to tell her to get off the table on a regular basis. I was really hoping she wouldn't do that there, but they said it with a smile. She is definitely my little tomboy, spending hours playing with trains and trucks, though her "babies" don't get ignored. Josh brought home a Hotwheels for Max and a Barbie for Lauren (from a super rare visit to McD's) and while Lauren did spend time playing with the Barbie, the car was much more popular. She was a pirate again this halloween and it was the perfect costume for her personality.

Even now that Lauren is 3, she is still a pleasure to be around most of the time. Yes, she is stubborn, but she has always been that, and she has hit the "it didn't go exactly as I wanted so the world is ending" phase, but compared to many 3YOs that I know, it hasn't been too bad. I still do think I should have had her in my 20s, though. Her level of activity often leaves me worn out. But, I can set her up with paints or crayons or trains, and she will play quietly for quite a while, so I do get a break. I am trying to do more to take advantage of the us time, and instead of just giving her things to do by herself, have been making an effort to do stuff with her. She seems to really enjoy puzzles right now, and often asks to "play puzzles, mommy" so we are doing them a lot. We only have three at the moment, but she is plenty happy with them. The dinosaur one seems to be her favorite.

I sometimes worry that having this new baby come along will stiffle her some, but I hope that it won't affect her. I think that her strong personality will survive the middle child syndrome, and can't wait to see her take care of her little brother. Another thought that just makes me smile.

Sibling Time

I have been getting complaints that I haven't posted in ages. I am so sorry. Since the kids started school, I theoretically have more time to myself. The results have been that the house is cleaner, I am behind on laundry less often, and I have managed to get my web work done, but I certainly do not feel like I have any more free time. I am not even sure what that is anymore. I decided to write up a lovely post about how much Max and Lauren enjoy each other's company, and keep getting pulled away to keep them from screaming at each other, hitting each other, etc. Oh well, Life is filled with irony. Anyway, the kids continue to enjoy school. If Lauren had her way, she would go every day. She just loves it there and asks to go on the off days. Max is enjoying it as well, and learning so much that is just amazes me. He is learning to write, spending more and more time sounding out words, and is picking up Spanish at an amazing rate. He has been taking enrichment classes one to two days a week, and really likes the women who does the science based enrichment classes. She was nice enough to put her science ones on Wednesdays going forward, which is the best day for me to have him gone all day. Boy does Lauren miss him when he is gone, though. She spends much of the day asking me to go get him. When he is home, they spend a lot of time playing together (though, as mentioned earlier, they do have their moments of unpleasantness). A couple of days ago, they had a lovely tea party, with real tea (lucky me). Baby and Giraffe joined in. They really seem very fond of each other most of the time, and I hope that they continue to have this relationship. I know that it will have to change as they grow older, as they will change, but in some ways, it should also improve. Max finds it frustrating when he wants to do things with Lauren that she isn't capable of doing yet. She does not always understand that fort building is for playing in the fort, not knocking it down, for example. But they are getting there. It always makes me smile. More often than not these days, I really enjoy their company and they fill me with happiness.

Stepping up the compost pile

We've been building a small compost pile in the back woods for some time now. It's been slow-going as I had only been adding the "greens" kitchen scraps mostly in the form of kitchen scraps. So it's been more like feeding the woodland creatures than it has been like building a compost pile. This summer we started taking it more seriously and I started adding the "browns" as well and the pile of scraps is finally starting to look like real compost.

One of my vacation projects was to build some real compost bins for our slow-cook compost piles. Of course I chose to enlist the help of Max to do some serious building. I dragged my circular saw out to the backyard and sliced up some old pallets I had collected for just this kind of project. Max brought his hammer and the nails, and we pounded together a nice double-wide compost bin with a removable front wall. The next day Lauren and I went to hardware store and picked up some some hook & eye latches to secure the front wall and she helped me screw them in place.

Here's a picture of Lauren modeling the finished product. As you can see we have transferred the existing pile into one bin and moved the garden-scraps container into the other. Next spring I'm going to sift out some serious compost for the garden. :-) I'll have to post a picture of the sliding compost sifter I built when the time comes to use it. Until then, the piles have a comfy place to cook!

Apple picking at home

Apple picking is a regular annual event for many New England families. We've taken our kids to Westford's town-owned orchard every year since we moved here. This year, however, we picked apples in our own yard for the first time. There are four young apple trees in our yard that had not been cared for and were not producing any worthwhile fruit. Well, last year I read up on how to properly prune the apple trees and I cut them back by about 30%, though they still need plenty more care. Well, this year we saw a huge difference in the fruit! Now that the branches have more room and more light, two of the trees started producing real apples. The kids and I went out this weekend with a stepladder and a basket and we harvested what I estimate to be about 50 apples! (We don't know what varieties we have, but all four appear to be red apples, and a friend says one of them looks like the "red delicious" variety.) It was good fun picking the apples, and even better that we harvested from our very own apples trees! Mom helped the kids make some applesauce that afternoon, and I'm sure there will be apple pie, apple crisp, and lots of other apple goodness coming from that harvest. This fall I'll work on recovering the trees a bit more and we'll start planning on what we'll do with next year's harvest!

First Day of School! First Day of School!

If only Max had been ready as early and Nemo. lol

Today, both Max and Lauren had their first day of school, Max, kindergarten, and Lauren, preschool. Lauren was really excited, and insisted on picking out her own clothes (though at least she did let me guide her a bit). Max was looking forward to it, but not in a get up early and get yourself dressed and go sit in the car waiting for Mom way. Max's was only a short day to get the kids used to the class, but Lauren's was the full half day. It was a bit crazy for me as I had to drop Max off, drop Lauren off, pick Max up, run an errand, then pick up Lauren. I was exhausted by 11:30. But, they both had nice days.

I tried to get pictures of both of them, but Max wasn't dressed until we were supposed to already be in the car, so none of him before, and when I tried to get some afterwards, he ran from the camera yelling "no pictures!" so I didnt' exactly get a stellar picture. Lauren was more cooperative, but I somehow lost the ones I took outside the school. The most unfortunate thing is that when Max and I picked Lauren up (something that will only happen very rarely if at all), he was so excited to see her and she, him and they ran to each other and gave each other a huge hug, and the camera was in the car. The whole group of parents and teachers awwwed at it. Oh well, I have it in my memory bank. :)

Tomorrow, Max starts his normal schedule. Hopefully I will have this down after a week or two.