A Morning with the Boys

It's a rare treat if it is a weekend, we are in Hampton Falls, and there is nothing pressing to do in the morning.  Like, super rare.  And, when this does happen, it reminds me of when they were real little littles.  When we stayed home a bit more and my guys would wake up super early.  I would pull them into my bed and snuggle with them, and if I was really lucky, they would fall back asleep in my arms.  At first their early wake up calls were torturous, but then the snuggling was awesome and I remembered to love the moments.

Now that they are bigger, they wake up (after the number I tell them to wake up, in this case 8) and then come into my bed and snuggle with me.  There is no more falling back asleep, and if it is the both of them that come in it usually ends in some kicking now -- but this morning it was just my Joelly and me.

He is such a mini-gentleman, he asked if "we could prepare breakfast together as a surprise to Daddy and James."  As we were getting up James met us in the hallway and recounted to Joel that "I was just in your room, I went to say 'Boo!' but you were not there to say 'Boo' back."  They laughed with each other - Joel tapped him on the shoulder and then they walked downstairs together.

Seems simple, but my guys are super big and this is a moment that makes me realize that.  Not babies now, buddies.  And, I love that they are buddies.

Not too big though, Joel Andrew just came up to ask me what I was doing and I asked him to make me breakfast too, and he said: "I can't reach the crossiants!"  Time to stop writing and time to start spending the morning with my boys.

Corn Maze

Yesterday Joel Andrew and I went through the Corn Maze at Scammon's in Stratham, NH.  I had no idea this was even there - it is aMAZEing.  No, but seriously.  The thing is huge.  Joel Andrew and I spent a good 1/2 hour just the two of us trying to get around, and it was quality time for sure.  I neglected to bring my camera, and my phone was in the process of being upgraded.  I was completely unplugged and it was just me and him time and I was loving it, and so was he, until he became frustrated by the maze.

Just as he and I were giving up…  Laurel came along with Bryce and Heather and saved the day!  We tried the maze again, which involved Heather and I trailing after the kids who were going through that thing with speedy determination.  We made it out, with Bryce's great guidance, in about 30 minutes.  The lady at the stand told us that was the quickest she had ever seen!

We will need to go back and bring James.  Who knew this was even on the Seacoast?  What a huge treat!  They also have a mini-hay bale maze which is free, and a bouncy house too which is free, tons of pumpkins grown on their property for sale, as well as the usual fall treats.  It must be a mob scene today.  We are usually Applecrest peeps because they are around the corner from our house, but I am so glad that Heather tipped me off to this awesome attraction just down the road!

Basketball with my Boys

As Joel Husband has been in Canada, I have been exhausted.  Actually, I have just been exhausted in general lately, from work, life and the epic continued weight gain with the eating bad and the eating a ton and all that jazz.  But that is for a different type of blog so I will not bore you with that here except to say it has been hard to not have a short fuse, and to be a good Mommy with all this whiny and tiredness and pants that don't fit as you can imagine.  But I'm trying.

To solve a few of these issues, I picked my guys up from school yesterday and promised myself I would play outside with them.  The boys can occupy themselves for hours between our swing set and bikes, and I usually see everything from the kitchen window and check through the garage door too.  But Joel Andrew caught me when I told him we were having sandwiches for dinner: "Those are easy, so you can play with us."  How can you turn down your child wanting to play with us?  I am sad to admit I almost want to so I can organize something or look at the stupid phone, but I forced myself not to and it was fun.

We have a life sized and a kid sized basketball hoop, and I taught Joelly how to play. I was most improved player for my CYO league you know.  Joelly noted that this weekend we should have a team with Pa, and we will play against Nana, Daddy and Jamesy.  Fine with me!

It is a good thing the boys generally immediately put on their helmets for outside play time.  They go right for their bikes, so their helmets help.  But then they keep them on by default and continue playing.  Throwing a football, it hit Joelly square in the helmet and he laughed (we have to work on that sport).  On the return of one of my numerous basketball scores I got James in the head too - and he barely flinched.  Not saying I am trying to do this - I freaked out each time it happened, just saying the helmets really work!

So glad spring is finally here and playtime outside is a possibility!  I totally lost it when James marketed the carpet on Monday.  I think we shall not play inside again until December.

Cookie Baking

Everyone else is doing it…  So I felt the need to do some cookie baking with my littles.  This is especially hard for me.  One, because when we are home we tend to let the TV do the kid rearing (this is why I take my kids out a lot).  Two, because I am a neat freak and having kids with kid fingers in food, with flour and sugar and more all over the place usually does not spell happy fun time for me.

But, we had a great time.  I found, I think, the perfect cookie making recipe with a 2 and 4 year old. So, I will pat myself on the back and share it with you guys now too.  It involves lots of work from them, ingredients easily found around the house, creativity can play a part, a contained mess, and they are super quick to make. The recipe is from my "Cookie Cookbook"- even more ironic, it is an 18th century recipe and I read elsewhere on the internet that Martha Washington used a variation on this recipe.  This is ironic for those of you who know my day job and me just having spent 10 hours making Martha Washington's the Great Cake for it.  Anyway, I digress.

You will need for these Jumbles: 2 slightly softened sticks of butter; 1-1/4 cups of Flour; 2/3 cup of sugar; 1 teaspoon ground cloves (I didn't have this and I used 1/2 teaspoon of allspice and 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon); 1/4 teaspoon salt; 1 whole egg plus one egg yolk; other sugar for the rolling; Things (at your preference) to decorate baked product.

Mix butter and sugar together; separately mix flour, salt and seasoning together.  Then, combine two mixtures, along with the eggs and beat until well incorporated.  Form your cookies (see below for fun part). Bake on generously greased cookie sheets at 350 for 12 minutes or until bottoms just start to lightly brown. Keeps for 2 weeks, or in the freezer for 4 months.

So, I had help with the mixing and the measuring yes, but it was the making of the cookies that was the most fun for the boys.  First, you take a chestnut size piece of dough, roll it into a ball.  Then you roll out the dough into a long rope - about 4 inches long.  Roll them on your counter, using lots of sugar to both prevent sticking but also add more deliciousness to the cookies as you go.

Then, you put the rope into a circle, place it on your cookie sheet.  Then, you stomp it so it flattens into a circular cookie (see above) - or a wreath as which worked for this project (I can imagine hearts for valentines day and eggs for easter).  James loves the flattening part.  Joel Andrew loved the rolling part and then came up with the fantastic idea of adding chocolate chips to the cookies before we bake them.  They looked like little ornaments on the wreaths.  Joel Andrew placed each chocolate chip perfectly on one cookie, about 10 little chocolate chip ornaments total making it look gorgeous.  Then, on the second cookie used about five chips; by the fourth cookie we were down to one chip and then he immediately asked: "I'm done decorating, can I eat the rest of the chocolate?"  Yes, yes, you can Joel.

We plan on decorating more tonight with frosting and sprinkles.  It was fun, and it came out delicious too.  I am thinking next year we might do a class at my Museum's Tavern!

Artastic

Today was a good day for the Williams household, and for Mommy as a Mommy.  A new place has opened up literally a mile from our house, and it is going to be our next go-to place to be.  It is called Artastic, and it is pretty fantastic.

This place has everything for art activities, including potter painting, wood painting, spin art, candy making, t-shirt making, even a whole area where you can sift through "dirt" to find treasures.  The painting stuff is great too because it is not just stilly things that take up space, but nice mugs, bracelets, bowls, etc.  So everyone we know is sure to get something from the boys in the next year.. . hand painted…

Not only that, but there were toys all around for the kids to play with when they inevitably got bored.  They loved the toys so much that we spent a good 15 minutes more just playing with the puzzle trucks on the floor.  I hear there is a whole additional space going in in January - called Imagination Station where they can play with a mini-kitchen and things like that, kind of like Imajine That - but much, much closer for me.  So psyched this is right here, and is open on a Monday too!

More good times will be had, for sure!

Party Sunday - including the Hampton Beach Seafood Festival

We had a nice little Sunday.  There was no Home Depot, there was not enough time.  But, there was lots of socialization, party, fun and chores done.  It was nice to have a full weekend at home, no driving to another place, no packing food up and cleaning another place - just being home.  Lovely. 

We started out by all waking up past 8:30, leisurely watching TV, playing with toys and eating breakfast before going to Party #1, at our neighbors house.  It was Epic!  A tailgate in their driveway before the first Patriot's game.  Everyone brought delicious food, and the King buffalo chicken dip was a huge hit.  The boys loved riding around in the neighbors John Deere truck.  Not an adult free task mind you, someone needed to run around with them at all times to ensure there was no tipping.  Joel Andrew is very good at backing up.

Once the game was on, and we had our first touchdown Joel Husband high-tailed it home to watch in the comfort of his own seats.  He does not watch the game well at other's homes.  I was tired and thought I would take a nap but then quickly realized that I was about to let another year of the Hampton Beach Seafood Festival slip by me - so I took Joel Andrew and we went, and it was awesome.  If you go next year, go on a Sunday during a Patriots game, there was no traffic, we parked right next to the entrance, and we had no line to get in.  The food tents were mobbed, but Joel and I managed well.  We got to ride the kiddie train, play in the playground, but by the time we got to the Disney sponsored "Kiddieland" it was already packing up.  Joel Andrew refused to enjoy it anyway, he was missing his dancing buddy Poppy, who is away at college now.

We shared a whoppie pie, Joel got some french fries and I had some lobster tails.  It wasn't the "gourmet" experience one may think, they should probably call it the fried food festival!  And, each tent had it's own long line, so if you wanted something from here and something from there it would be a mess and take forever.  If you wanted to drink with it, then you had to coordinate everything and go into a whole different tent.  I guess this is just the way a Festival is, I should know!

We got home, did some chores and had a late dinner before going to bed by 8:30.  It was a nice day.  And, it meant Monday we could wake up at home and have an adventure!

Water Country

Yep.  I have done it twice now.  And, what's worse, we even bought Season Passes - for 2014 - so I am guaranteed to do it at least three more times in the next 365 days...  We hung out in human soup all day long, at Water Country.  No photos, I apologize, but it is difficult to lug the big fancy camera with all the towels, snacks, and the worry of someone taking it at such a place.  So, I finally wised up and left the camera home.

We woke up thinking we would go to Funtown Splashtown.  We got in the car thinking this, but after lots of hesitancy by Joel Husband, I finally convinced him today was not our day to make that large trip, that is much closer to Sebago anyways.  As we were turning to go home, and they boys were saying "Awwweeee" with extreme disappointment, Joel Husband got the idea to go to Water Country instead, only 25 minutes from our house... Opens at 10:30 (it was 10:20 at the time), we had all the necessary equipment - it was capped off by extreme cheers from the back: "yay!" - so we did it and off we went.

It took a while to get set, get in with the passes, get a locker and life vest (if you get your deposit at the end, the life vests are actually free and much easier than adding another thing to lug in the park), sunscreened up and potty stop - we were off.  To the pirate ship we went and it was a good time.  James was hesitant, and he pulled a "shades of Mommy" thing...  He would climb to the top of the slide, full of confidence but once he got to the top he would turn back down, screaming in terror at the thought of actually sliding down.  He does not have this problem with dry slides, so I think it had something to do with the water at the bottom.  Finally I convinced him to go to the top, and I held his hand, and he went down, loved it, and we did this again, and again and again, until finally when he reached for my hand I pulled it away and he slid down by himself.  If I did this to Joel Andrew, he would have been mad at my non-trustworthy move, but James - was elated he did it by himself and wanted to go back up immediately.  I tried to take a (mental) snap shot of James' face, at the top of that dolphin slide with full grin, yelling: "hold my hand, Mommy" - so cute.  He is not going to grow up anymore is he?

Joel Andrew had a great day too.  He was off doing his own thing, going down the slides and "swimming" in the water.  We took both boys down lazy river, which was a disaster.  Whoops.  At the end of this ride Joel Husband said, we should go again - to which Joel Andrew did not reply anything - but just gave a blank stare as if to say: "are you kidding?"  It was perfect.

On the way home we stopped at the Airfield Cafe which is incredibly underutilized by this family.  It serves breakfast and lunch all day, and sits literally on an Airfield.  You can watch little planes take off and land.  Sadly none were doing that while we were there this time, but we will be back.

Good day for Daddy to play hookie!  We might only have one more this summer, Funtown will happen, we swear! Starting in September though, I think the kids will go to school 4 days a week and Mommy will adjust her schedule to being 5 hours at work a day.  This is supposed to allow me more time to go to the gym and get groceries done without having to lug the boys.  Also, it is a lot to program a 2 and 4 year old without a normal schedule...  There has been lots of fun and activity and visiting fun places, but also lots of TV watching for sure.  Hopefully with the new schedule I can take them out of school with enough time to have an activity at the end of the day sometimes, we all might win?  Even daycare, who will charge us more!

James and Mommy Time

James has been sick - coughing, snots, the cold works - the last few days.  We think it might have been croup, and he did have a fever which was so low - yet still required one of us to stay home with him all week which was a bummer - but now he is looking much better.  Still the nose and the cough, I anticipate that will kick around until spring.

It was tough spending the whole week trying to get work done, and have this little guy.  I was on many a conference call when in the background they would hear cough-mcgee.  When I said "Bye" to my fellow callers, James shouted one time: "Bye-Bye" and I heard all of them take a collective: "awe, so cute."  He was actually very good compared to how his brother might have been at this age, he can entertain himself for way longer, and is easily distracted by food!

The Joel's went off to Sunday River this past weekend, and I stayed home with sick-boy, who by Saturday morning was much better.  I needed a weekend to get caught up on around the house stuff, and I am happy to say I had a lot of me time too - finished Downton Abbey, got ready for our impending trip to Chicago, etc.

As James was feeling better, and he hadn't been out of the house in ages, we went to the Children's Museum of NH in Stratham.  Sadly, this is the first time I went to a Museum with just James, and really the first time James has been to a Museum.  Sure, he tagged along with Joel Andrew during my pre-work days, but in all honesty he was strapped in the stroller and I hardly let him out except for one or two photo ops here or there.  This time it was all him, the Museum was his oyster.

Boy, did he love it.  He was so overwhelmed with all of the colors, people, kids, sounds, you name it.  When we first walked in he was mezmorized by a ball at the top of a bench, and sat there for five minutes. I had to convince him that this was only the tip of the iceberg, buddy.  He would enter a new room in the Museum, and probably would be content to stay there for 2 hours each.  I had to urge him to see the next thing so we could see most of it, and he was so excited and overwhelmed that he did not object.

His favorites were the musical instruments, the choo-choos, and he probably would have spend more time in the archaelogy dig or the submarine if I had let him, but we had to get going.

We have had some good meals together this weekend.  Mommy is trying to get back on track with weight-loss which has been temporarily derailed.  We discovered he loves the movies The Incredibles and Chicken Run, but really nothing else.  I have also found my child who loves to color (A-Ca-ddur, he likes to yell) - which is nice, but a bummer too.  He will not only color the paper, but the furniture and the dog and just about anything if you are not watching him.  My brut artist.

Finger Painting

What to do after a long day of work at home, when the cleaning lady was here and the house is spotless?  I know, break out the fingerpaints and play with the kids!  I am a little crazy.  This is probably, next to letting baby James go to town with his own ice cream, the scariest thing I could do to me, but we all had a great time.

The tremendous use of red by Baby James made my kitchen and bathroom look as if there was a serious accident, but it is a good thing this stuff is washable, because it is all gone now.  No evidence left!  Just two really lovely works of art and two really happy little boys.

It was nice to have an evening activity when Daddy was out of town, we played outside when they got home from school, Mommy made homemade meatloaf, supplemented by Trader Joe's pasta (my kids will eat any of the pasta combinations from Trader Joe's, tonight was bowties with brie and asparagus). Now Joel is enjoying a Mickey (wind-down time), Baby James is sleeping, and Mommy will do just two quick work things before OnDemand.  Today, was a very nice day.

(here James is blowing a kiss).

Frog Catching

This weekend we had a nice and relaxing time at Bago Lake.  Yes, Daddy rushed Mommy out of the house, and sadly, Mommy's car took the brunt of his anger, but we regrouped, went up the the lake and had a nice time anyway.  There were no guests, and Auntie Jennie and Uncle Jeremy were not there either, so we just had some quality Nana and Pa time, which was lovely.

There was lots of playing in the lake, hot tubbing, delicious meals on the porch, Mommy killing it at our favorite card game, Go Spit in the Lake (aka Oh S#%T!) and walks around the circle - but most of all, our new favorite past time, catching frogs.  Mommy is a pro at catching frogs around the cabins (I have caught way more than Daddy so far), so Pa thought I might like to catch the really big frogs and took us all on a walk, to where else, Tadpole Lane.

 This place is amazing.  We caught so many frogs, and huge ones at that!  Mommy even caught two - though I had a hard time getting them into the bucket as when they jumped out of the net I freaked and would scream and run in the other direction.  After a while I held onto one to try to get Joel Andrew to pet it, and they are quite fun to hold.  Frogs are cute.

James would of course touch and pet the things, no fear.  But generally he was not interested.  Joel Andrew caught one all by himself and even got it in the bucket too!  We were super proud.  But he still shrieked when we tried to get him to touch it. The whole walk home we were all pretty proud, and I think Nana was thankful that we were done with frogs for a bit.  See attached video here, notice what Karen says just before I cut it off. We need to get some good guests next year, because I can imagine catching a bunch of these huge guys and sticking them in their car (this was Joel Husband's idea).  Ha!

Monkeys Jumping on the Bed (aka Bad Parenting)

So, it has been a while since I have gotten a good brother photo shoot, so I decided that while they were wearing their matching PJs, I would get some shots of them.  Monkey Pjs, no less, on my bed.  I let them go crazy.  And it was hysterical to watch.  Pure joy emanated from the both of them.  They had a great time.  I am not the worst parent in the world, my bed is on the ground, so if there was an accident, they wouldn't have far to fall...

James got really into jumping and could do just as good as his brother.  Joel made sure to exercise his ability to tackle, though, and did that, a lot.  I am thinking in a few short months James will have the upper hand and it will be the other way around.

Just wish the camera was in focus a little more, only downside.  Otherwise a fantastic morning activity!

Spaghetti Dinner at the Fire House

Tonight Joel Andrew and I had a date night.  It was awesome.  Everything a date night should be.  We ate, we laughed, we had dessert.  He even told me: "Mommy, I like spending time with you."  Unprompted.  Just said it, when we were in the car.  Yes, I cried.  What a gentleman.

It all started off in the driveway, getting ready to go.  I told him we were going to have spaghetti dinner in the firehouse, and he said, "Oh wait, I need my fireman hat."  How do you argue with that?  So, we got his fireman hat (and he proceeded to wear it backwards the whole time, but whatever).  Back in the car, Joel Andrew picks up the laptop toy that was in there, leftover from Baby James many Dr visits this week.  He feverishly "typed" away at the buttons and when I moved his arm to put the strap on he exclaimed: "Mommy, I am just trying to get my work done.  One minute!"  Ummm.  Wonder where he learned that from...

We arrived at our dinner place, and it was pretty cool.  Not just prego, actual homemade sauce.  The boy scouts put this on as a fundraiser.  I think it is super cool in our town to be in the boy scouts, because there were a lot of them there.  It was nice to see!  The firemen were there too - but then had to leave for a call.  I love that in my small town they have various fundraisers in the firehouse.  I wonder if we could ever rent it out for a party.  hmmmm.

Joel Andrew ate more than I have seen him eat in a while, he really enjoyed the challenge of eating spaghetti and for the first time ever he actually ate sauce, which is now all over his shirt...  He also ate salad.  Like lettuce and everything, three pieces of bread (I think he had a crush on the girl who was giving out the bread), and then two cookies and watermelon.  Yummy.  We sat with friends and neighbors.  It was nice.

We stopped at the supermarket on the way home, and it was question time.  Joel Andrew loves you to ask him questions to things he knows the answers too.  And, there are quite a number of things now he knows the answer to.  Where do you live?  What's your address (I recently taught him that!).  What's your middle name?  What's Baby James' middle name?  Where does Nana and Pa live?  Where do Grumpy and Ama live?  What's Grumpy and Ama's cat's name? What's Mommy's name, Daddy's name, etc.  We went through everyone's name - and he knew it all!  Except, when I asked him What's Nana's name.  He said "Nana, Nana Boo-Boo."  And, he said it like, duh, Mommy...  Good thing Nana Nana Boo Boo does not read this blog!

Stop Fast Forwarding

We had a great night yesterday.  I have been sad and missing my boys at work, and Joel Husband has been in Canada, so I have been swamped trying to keep things organized, keep kids fed, keep things going, etc.  But last night I decided that the only tasks were for us to eat, party and go to bed.

This was awesome.  We picked up food from my favorite Thai place, the women there LOVE the boys.  Take them behind the counter.  Joel Andrew was a little skeptical, but he loved it too.  When we got home, the boys wanted to play outside, so dinner could wait.  We played on the swing set, I had both boys swinging at once.  There was lots of laughs.

We ate dinner, and it was surprisingly painless.  In fact, the only pain was that they loved things so much that Mommy didn't get a bite of shumai, and Joel Andrew now wants to always dip his chicken in peanut butter (peanut sauce).

Then we had a Dance Party.  We went crazy to Beyonce's Single Ladies, a few Lady Gaga songs, and the Hop version of "I want candy."  Good times.  I am pretty sure that when Joel Husband sees this video, he will no longer be going to Canada.

It was a really nice night, where I felt I had time to connect with the boys.  I do miss our daily adventures though, a little bit.

First Choo-Choo Ride

Yesterday, while Baby James was napping (mommy is insisting this boy adhere to his schedule this trip, since we get back and the next day he starts daycare) - Grumpy and Joely went to the Train Station to see some trains.  It was Joel's first time at the train station, he loved it.  He was overwhelmed by the big double decker trains and got to see one pulling out of the station.

We then walked to the elevated subway train, and went in one of the stations.  How cool are they?  The loop train stations, which are all elevated in Chicago, are just as they were 70, 80 years ago it seems (maybe older, didn't get the history lesson here).  Anyway, they are super-neat to walk in.  Grumpy paid 5 bucks (kids ride free) and we got on the "choo-choo" for one stop.  Joel's first ride!  All of the passengers though he was hysterical.  Then we walked back home.  Great way to kill an hour in the city!  Photos to come soon!