My quince tree just flowered overnight!
Quince
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Author Archives: Tessa
Boston bound!
School vacation week. When I think about it, months in advance, it always seems like so much time. I make hundreds of loose plans and think we’ll have all the time in the world. Then it arrives and suddenly it’s over! Whoosh. Blink and you miss it. I am not, and hopefully will never be, one of those mom’s who eagerly counts down the days until the kids go back to school. (no offense intended to anyone out there who is)
This week we took a mini-vacation to Boston. We drove down Tuesday morning, checked in to our hotel and then walked to the Children’s Museum. I have never been there and the kids had a great time. Lots to see and do. We even ran into a friend of mine, who was there with her friend and five kids. Her son came up and said hi to Eve. It was a fun surprise. :)
Snack outside the Children's Museum.
After that we took the subway home (the kids were most excited about that!) and stopped at a Whole Foods Market by our hotel for dinner. I discovered that I love Whole Foods. :) I wish we had one closer by. They had many, many hot and cold salad bars, lots of tofu and other veggie options, and everyone found something tasty to eat. It was jam-packed and therefore I wouldn’t want to do my regular weekly shopping there, but it was a great place for dinner.
Dinner overlooking the... well, the parking lot to the Whole Food store. Plenty to watch anyway.
The next morning we checked out of the hotel and arrived bright and early (the best time to arrive!) at the Boston Aquarium. The kids were thrilled (subway ride) before we even got there and ever more excited to see seals in a tank outside of the museum. We were having a great time before we even went inside.
Penguins in front of the aquarium.
I’m glad we got there early because the place really filled up fast! By lunch time I was exhausted and ready to leave. We took a quick trip through the gift shop (at my request, my kids still don’t ask or expect things from gift shops… though I sense that is changing quickly!) then we headed back to the hotel to get our car out of the valet parking before our time expired and they kept it forever! Or just charged us extra. Then we drove over to the Museum of Science where things were already in full swing. We managed to get our tired bodies to the cafe for some lunch and then, re-energized, we hit the Blue Wing. Alan was very excited for the lightening show. (Ask him how he stumped his physics professor in college.) We spent some time in the electricity exhibit, waiting for the show. The more excited Alan got about it, the more excited Eve got, and the less excited Lex got. He eventually insisted on leaving so he and I escaped before the turned out the the lights and turned on the noise. Lex was very tired at this point and I think coming down with a head cold.
It's electric!
We explored our way through three floors of the science museum before we could go no more. Then we dragged ourselves back to the cafe for a final snack (cookies and m&ms!) and a pass through the gift shop. Lex didn’t pick anything at the aquarium and he saw a super cool magic trick demo outside the gift shop. Guess what we bought? :) You’ll have to ask him about it next time you see him.
When we found ourselves planted, and transfixed, in front of this huge exhibit (a very large version of Lex's favorite exibit at the Montshire) we decided it was time to get some food.
Then, in case our kids weren’t tired enough and to avoid Boston commuter traffic, we went for a walk to find dinner. It was chilly and windy, but luckily the kids are amazing and they kept it all together. We ended up at The Cheesecake Factory. Have you been to one? It was loud and the menu was overwhelming, but they gave us a nice big booth and the food was good, so we were all happy. One final hurrah before hitting the road!
We bought a fun book called "Zero the Hero" at the gift shop. That was handy to have while we waited for dinner to arrive.
Then back to the car and back home. New Hampshire welcomed us back with a beautiful sunset and the kids fell asleep in the car. Have I mentioned that the kids amazing travelers? They are!
I posted all of the pictures in a Picasa album. I started adding captions as well, but now both kids are up and I have ignored them for too long. Maybe I’ll get a chance to finish the captions later tonight. Maybe now. The pics are all there though. :)
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| 1204 – Boston MA, April 2012 |
Date night with my boy :)
Our new pet
It followed him to school one day, school one day, school one day. It followed him to school one day, which was… well, completely within the rules. They now have a behavior system that rewards kids with hole punches in cards. When they fill a card they can turn it in for a reward of some sort. Lex says there is a whole list of rewards but he could only remember bring a stuffed animal to school and bring a show-and-tell item. He only told me about this system on Wednesday night when I asked if there was any way he could bring it in for show-and-tell. Apparently he already had two and a half cards filled up and didn’t really have any interest in trading them in for anything. Until now. He asked his teacher on Thursday if he could trade in one card for a show-and-tell. Today he brought in the gator and apparently his class was very excited about it. He doesn’t remember details (he is not one to be counted on for a detailed account of the day!) but he said it was fun.
Swimming with Aunt Rose
Like two fish in a … school? We had a great time at the aquatic center. If only the other fish in the family weren’t trapped on a boat these days!
Learning and making music
Think about how much learning is going into this little scene. Sorting shapes, sizes, colors, balance, rhythm, dance, turn taking, etc. It’s the simple things in life that bring the most pleasure.
Me, on the other hand, am seriously procrastinating. I have hours of Good Beginnings work that has to be done tonight, Alan is out playing poker, the kids are asleep and I am blogging. Hmm… I think it’s going to be a long night. I finally finished the Easter 2012 post tonight as well. Lots for you to read and see. :)
One more birthday card…
Isn’t this the sweetest birthday card? Lex brought it home from school the other day. One of his friends made it for Eve. He was going to draw all of the boys listed, but he ran out of time. She is so loved.
New Roller Skates
The kids LOVE their new roller skates! We went out the other day and it took half an hour to make it down the road, around the cul-de-sac, and back to our house. Reminded me of the early days, walking to “visit the fire hydrant” when they were just toddlers.
They got tired of waiting on me to tie their new skates, so they got the "How to tie your shoes" book and gave it a shot themselves. That's how eager they were to get skating!
Sibling love <3
All smiles!
I'm delighted when they both smile for the camera, even if they do have pretty goofy smiles these days. :)
Easter 2012
This is your lucky day! Eve insisted on another audio book so I gave in and went upstairs to start one for her. Along the way I turned on the TV computer. Now I’ll try to get a blog post in before my laptop battery dies. If you have no idea what I’m talking about then clearly you haven’t read my tired post.
(Side note: I just found tree bark in my slipper. How does that happen?!)
We had a really nice Easter this year. The kids are so funny about Easter. They don’t quite understand the religious aspect of it (hmm.. I wonder whose fault that is!) and the bunny side of the story is cute, but doesn’t make a lot of sense either. I think they enjoy the holiday but almost in a “humoring mom” sort of way.
When they woke up in the morning they both walked right past this
The bunny leaves treats at the table in our house.
and into the bathroom for our normal routine of clothes and teeth brushing. I said Happy Easter to each of them several times, they returned the phrase but had no expectations. Then they went into the living room to play. I had to draw their attention to the table before they noticed the baskets. I could have totally forgotten (and I almost did!) and they wouldn’t have even noticed.
The day before we had colored Easter eggs with some weird glitter dye set I bought on sale last year. We ended up with pastel shades of blue, pink, and green.
Easter morning they unpacked their baskets and dug into the candy. The Easter bunny doesn’t leave too much chocolate in this house, mostly because I would eat it all! Instead they got jump ropes, gardening gloves, and suncatcher projects. And some candy too, of course.
Then we began one of many Easter egg hunts. Each hunt results in at least one cracked egg. Lex gave us some excitement when he hid the eggs so well we couldn’t find them all. He is a master egg hider! Fortunately he eventually remembered where they all were so our house doesn’t stink like four day old rotten eggs!
Ok, now my laptop battery is about to die and both kids are at my elbow. I’ll have to leave you hanging here, but don’t worry, I’ll be back soon for part two of our exciting Easter day! If you just can’t stand the wait, check out the fancy photos on Rosy’s blog. That should tide you over.
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After a sufficient amount of time was spent hunting for pastel Easter eggs, we all got dressed and packed up a picnic lunch of tofu salad, pb&j, baby carrots, and angel food cake with chocolate frosting, strawberries and not one, but TWO, flavors of ice cream! Then we headed down to the rehab facility for an Easter/birthday celebration. We met Grandma there (obviously!) and Grandpa and Katie. We had lunch in the cafeteria and I’m pretty sure no two people ate the same thing. Then we moved to a beautiful sun-room where we set up presents and cake and made ourselves at home. The sun was playing peek-a-boo with the clouds and the day was lovely. We had Easter presents, birthday presents for Dad, and birthday presents for Eve. Plus a brother present for Lex. :)
Eve pretending to tend to the fake flowers, with her new gardening gloves.
Lex brought along his Mindstorm Lego ball sorter to play with. More to come on this cool toy in another post. It has currently taken the form of a walking, snapping alligator in my kitchen!
Easter love. (bunny ears compliments of Alan)
We found a fake birds nest in the fake tree, so we gave it a fake egg.
Time for presents!
Happy Birthday Dad!
Lex got bored of watching other people open presents so he decided to practice his jump roping for awhile.
What's in the box? Roller skates!
Skates for Lex too!
Lex put them on immediately and hit the road!
Eve took hers for a spin as well.
Eve and Popcube. I wish I had a better angle on this shot. It was a beautiful hug.
He is a quick study these days! Good balance and eager to learn.
Cake time. Eve shared hers with her new horse and Barbie.
Time for another egg hunt. I'm sure we amused all of the residents with windows overlooking the courtyard.
She gets very excited when she finds the eggs.
Then the kids took a turn hiding the eggs. Grandpa Tom overruled all of my good parental advice so we made him stay outside and supervise the hiding process. Good thing too because there were several we were unable to find and he had to come to the rescue! These kids are excellent egg hiders!
I never put that much effort into hiding an egg!
After that we (mainly ME!) were tired and ready to hit the road. It took a few trips but I get everything loaded into the car and we headed home. The rest of the evening was a bit of a blur. I’m sure we ate some dinner, and the kids found their way to bed eventually. Surprisingly they even woke up and went to school without much fuss the next day. Thankfully!
This post has taken me three days to write, but I made it to the end. The “add a picture” process is time consuming, so when I add many pictures it takes awhile. Enjoy! Happy Easter! :)
Tired
I am so tired. Unbelievably tired. I had trouble keeping my eyes open on the drive home from school. I think we all are. Eve had a meltdown (sadly that’s not unusual for her) and Lex said he felt ill. When we got home I instituted an emergency quiet time for everyone. Eve is in her room with an audio book, Lex is in the office with his Legos, and I’m at the table with my laptop, tea, and burgundy chunks. Oops, I wasn’t going to mention those. I have hundreds of pictures to post and Easter update and all that jazz… but I’m too tired to go turn on the tv computer (which houses the photos) and I’m even more too tired to write coherent posts about all the pictures. So you get this instead. Just stopping by to say hi. I have a super busy week this week (when does it end?!) and then the kids have vacation next week (with an overnight trip to Boston in the works!) and then, maybe then, we’ll settle back into a routine and I won’t be quite so tired… maybe.