Year: 2009

Sticks and Leaves

When we go outside lately, Sean makes a special point of collecting some sticks and leaves. I wonder if it's because they are collecting things outside at school for their projects? I suppose I'll find out over the next week or so as the projects start coming home.

Big Girl Bike

I think it's time to buy Carter a big-girl bike. She's been stealing rides on Sean's, and she's really getting the hang of it. She's figured out how to pedal it up and down the driveway, and can turn and stop and everything. This spring, we'll take her to pick out a cute little girly bike.

Sean’s Drawing – Gargamel

Sean drew this sometime last week. Lori and the kids brought home a Smurf video from the library, and Sean really likes Gargamel. You can see that he even got the hair right, and he drew his body as a long rectangle because he wears that robe. And I think the arch shape around the top is supposed to be the stones that make up the arched entrance to Gargamel's tower/castle thing.

Maudslay State Park

Going hiking in the Whites with Dad really lit a fire under me to try to start hiking more again. The past two weekends, I've gotten up early on Saturday morning (before dawn) to go for a hike without taking too much time away from the fam. Both times so far, I've gone out to Maudslay State Park in Newburyport. It's great - it's a beautiful park, plus that early in the morning I see hardly anyone. Yesterday I hiked for two hours, and saw a grand total of three people - all joggers. Next weekend I'm planning to try somewhere new. I'm considering Willowdale State Forest.

North and Middle Sugarloaf

Two weekends ago, Dad and I went up north just for weekend, so that we could do a hike in the White Mountains. We ended up doing North and Middle Sugarloaf. I've never been up there before, and it was great. The views were fantastic, but it was freezing on the summit. It was low 40's to begin with, plus there was a whole lot of wind. But all in all, an awesome hike.

Cider Hill Farm

Yesterday we all went to Cider Hill Farm - with pumpkins as the goal. We didn't actually end up getting any pumpkins, but we still had fun. The kids got to feed the chickens and goats, and they had a hay maze that Sean especially loved. We also brought home some cider donuts that are amazing.

T-Shirt Blanket

I saw an idea on the Make Magazine blog, where someone made a quilt out of old t-shirts. By a happy circumstance, I had just noticed three big bags of the kids old clothes that we were planning to give to Goodwill. What you see here is the blanket I made for Sean (Carter's is up next). He asks me to put it on him every night at bedtime, and we talk about the shirts that were used to make it, and what he remembers about them. When I had first finished it, Carter and I were laying under it on his bed and he read us a goodnight story, as you can see to the right.

Little Woman

Here are some pictures Lori took while the kids were playing outside one day last week. Carter is looking more and more grown-up all the time. Doesn't she look sweet in this photos?

Princess

No story behind this one - just a very cute picture of Carter that Lori took when the little ones were playing in their dress-up costumes. We are definitely going to have to do this again, this year. Buying up a bunch of clearance costumes after Halloween worked out really well - they still put last year's costumes on all the time to play.