Just Because...

He looks so darn cute while utterly absorbed in watching tv... ;)

Fish

Apparently not only does Charlie like to catch fish and read about fish, he also likes to draw them. Go figure.

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Charlie's First Check Mate

(Yes, it was heavily coaxed, but still...)

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Christmas Morning 2011

Here are some pictures of the kids unwrapping their presents this morning. Merry Christmas everyone!

Christmas Video 2011

Amelia's response to the presents under the tree was underwhelming, presumably because she is afraid of santa claus... Once she started opening her presents, though, she warmed up considerably, saying "I wuv it! I wuv it!" as she unwrapped her princess shoes, baby doll and dress up clothes.

Guess We Had Some Good Kids in 2011

Christmas Party

Mike and I hosted my rehab department Christmas party last night. It actually went off without a hitch; we had a great turn out with the whole department coming and many people bringing guests. Amelia somehow slept through the entire party despite the noise level and Charlie had his own little party in the playroom thanks to Melanie bringing her son Ryan and Rhonda bringing her two sons -- the kids obediently trashed the playroom with the help of juice boxes, chocolate covered pretzels and chips, while us grown ups were left alone to drink copious amounts of alcohol including a now famous Christmas punch that was thanks to Katie who found the recipe and Mike who determinedly went to 4 liquor stores the night before to procure the ingredients. Here are a few pictures I took at the party, although I didn't break out the camera until I had had more than a few glasses of punch so sorry for the randomness of the pictures!

Holiday Concert

Charlie's holiday concert is this morning. It being a Wednesday morning at 9am and being my first day back at work after being away last week, I was unable to attend but here he is this morning giving us a preview of "Gingerbread Cookie" and "Christmas Makes Me Want to Sing".

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The Birth of Caroline Rose Kaplan

In pictures.
Welcome to the family, Caroline!

Introducing Caroline Rose Kaplan!

8lbs 12 oz and perfectly besutiful! Plenty more pics to follow!

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At The Top Of The Agenda...

... For the week is going to Charlotte for the birth of my newest (and I am assuming last) niece or nephew! Lots of pictures to follow!

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ActioNet Christmas Party

Last night was Mike's work Christmas party on the Spirit of Boston. As always his company throws a nice party; the food was great, there was plenty of free alcohol, and they do a generous raffle. The one draw back being that since it was on a boat, those of us who worked all day Saturday and then had to work all day Sunday were not able to leave early ;)

Sue babysat the kids for us (thanks Sue!) and snapped a picture of us before we left:

Charlie's Attempt At Potty Training Amelia

Unsuccessful attempt, I might add.

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Time For More..

... Home made peppermint bark!

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Symphony

I tortured Charlie this evening by taking him to his first symphony: a holiday performance by the Quincy City Symphony (no I didn't know there was one either) at the performing arts center at Quincy High School. Despite being at the high school we were still ridiculously under dressed (what, we weren't supposed to wear ripped jeans and fleece?? Who knew?) We only stayed until the intermission since it is a school night and I didn't want Charlie to be up too ridiculously past his bedtime, but he seemed to enjoy the performance, or at least to be intrigued by the conductor and the cellos. And I was excited to actually see the inside of the new Quincy High School, which has only been open since last fall, and is gorgeous, decidedly unlike any high school I have ever been in. So all in all, a fun night out.

Charlie's First Sentence

Charlie wrote his first sentence today, with absolutely no help from me. Way to go, Charlie! Here it is:

Santa's Helper

Santa's Jewish Elf was hard at work helping me wrap Christmas presents this morning (okay let's be honest, wrapping them for me) while her baby Elf looked on... Thanks a million Katie!!

Charlie's Ginger Bread House...

... Has some obvious structural issues.

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Helping

Amelia has spent all morning trying to help me with various things, accompanied by her chanting "I helping! I helping!"

Here are a few pictures of her endeavors:

Helping me put the laundry in the wash:


Helping me carry wrapping paper in from the store:


And alas, helping to wipe her own butt during a diaper change:


That's enough helping for one day, honey!

2nd Thanksgiving

Since we missed out on turkey with Mike's parents, we headed up to New Hampshire on Sunday for another turkey dinner with all the trimmings. This time the kids didn't snack all day before dinner so they both chowed down on turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, carrots and broccoli. Amelia also helped herself to the cranberry sauce which she literally gobbled up by the handful! Thanks for a delicious dinner, Grammy and Grampy Robinson, and for the plate of leftovers I am going to have for lunch this afternoon!

Double Date Night

We had a fun night out on Saturday night; Anthony babysat and we met Phil & Sue at the Midwest Grille in Cambridge. It was Sue's first time there, amazingly, since it is one of our favorite restaurants and we have gone many times with many people over the years. We had a leisurely and delicious dinner which involved multiple bottles of wine followed by coffee and dessert. Thanks for the fun night out Phil & Sue, and to Anthony for babysitting!

Christmas Tree 2011...

... And my super duper Christmas tree decorator!

Advent Calendar

Not being Catholic I really don't know what an advent calendar is, but I bought this fancy playmobil one for Charlie in an attempt to prevent him from asking me how many days there are til Christmas 106 times per day.

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Look Carefully...

Yes that is a faint mustache you see on Mike's face, the result of growing it for the entire month of November, for prostate cancer awareness month. Mike immediately shaved it off today, since it was December 1st, and I now believe him when he says he can't grow facial hair ;)

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The Elf on the Shelf

We welcomed the Elf on the Shelf today! For those of you not in the know, he is a magic elf who reports to Santa every night about whether Charlie and Amelia have been naughty or nice that day. Every morning he returns to a different spot in the house, and the kids have to look for him. Charlie is thrilled to have a magic elf visiting us for the holidays, while Amelia is scared of him.

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Thanks Mom and Dad!!

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Unevenly Matched?

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Letters to Santa

Charlie and Amelia mailed their letters to Santa this afternoon. Let's hope they are a good boy and girl from now until Christmas so they get everything on their list!

Amelia & Vivian

Amelia with her BFF Vivian this morning.

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Christmas Parade

I took a break from the unpacking and mountains of laundry today to take the kids to the Christmas Parade. Here are some pictures:

Visit with Kristina

On Saturday before heading home we stopped by to visit my friend Kristina who has been battling stage IV breast cancer, but who still remains amazingly positive! I hadn't seen her since my wedding day & she had never met the kids, so it was a special treat to get to see her, especially since this morning she was re-admitted to the hospital :(

Here we are with the kids -- it was great to see you Kristina, stay strong!

Longwood Gardens

On Friday we spent the day at Longwood Gardens with Alex & Miki and the kids. Most of these photos are shamelessly lifted from Miki's Facebook album because, well, Mike, Alex, Amelia and I spent our whole time at Longwood Gardens looking for Miki and the kids... Don't ask...

Thanksgiving 2011

We had a great Thanksgiving this year with the family in Philadelphia; Amelia got to meet Uncle Alex, Aunt Miki and cousins Annie, Jay & Yoshi for the first time. Charlie and Jay got along famously, so much so that Charlie is now asking to take violin lessons and wants to know why he doesn't speak Japanese.

Here are some pictures from Thanksgiving Day:

Dinner With Jessica

We had a great time with Jessica tonight, whom I hadn't seen since Amelia was 2 weeks old. We had dinner at Bertuccis and then walked around the mall, taking the kids on the carousel and into the Zoo Outpost store where Jessica spoiled the kids with presents, all for a good cause. Amelia took to Jessica right away, as she regularly talks on the phone to her, calling her "Sticky", mostly because I think it is funny, not because she can't say "Jessica". To top the night off I even got to take home some of Jessica's mom's fruit cake. Thanks Jessica's mom & great to see you Jessica!

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First Of Many Manicures!

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My Little Indian

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Warming Up

Amelia warmed up considerably to this week's story time session, dancing about to the turkey themed fun. Much better than last week's session when she wouldn't leave my lap!

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Amelia...

Watching Lion King in her blanket sleeper and a life jacket... Whatever makes her happy...

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All Bundled Up

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Amelia's Bedtime Neuroses

It is beginning to dawn on me that Amelia's list of bedtime requirements has become nothing less than, well, neurotic. Here is a list of things that she must have before settling down to sleep:

Her purple bunny pillow pal must be positioned just so with a polka dot receiving blanket folded around it. If she doesn't like the folding job she will have you refold it again. And again.
She must have two books in her crib, usually "Brown Bear Brown Bear" and "Getting Dressed" - the aforementioned book needs to be positioned at the top right of her crib and the latter at the bottom of her crib.
She needs a pair of shoes by the top left of her pillow - surprisingly it does not matter what pair of shoes, as long as there is a pair of shoes there.
She needs not one but two sippys in her crib which need to be filled with fresh water every night. Under no circumstances will she let the filling of the sippys slide. Also under no circumstances can you take both sippys out of the crib at the same time to fill them. You MUST FILL THEM SEPARATELY which thanks to the location of her bedroom necessitates two trips up and down the stairs.
She also needs you to blow her nose about 164,000 times.
Once you have done all of these things you are almost there. There are just a few more little things she needs.
She needs the bathroom light on to keep the "scaries" away.
She needs her pink blanket positioned over her absolutely perfectly right, which may take between 5 and 10 tries. Even if it is very cold she will have no other blanket in her crib - all other blankets are "scary".
She needs to have her stuffed "Bun Bun", her obsession with Bun Bun could fill another blog post and woe to us if we ever lose her.

Once you have taken care of the above list, you should be good to go!

Proof

That Charlie isn't afraid of all dogs.

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Tired of Blonde Hair

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Negotiations

This is what I went through this morning getting Amelia dressed. Come to think of it, every morning is pretty similar.
AMELIA: "Want Elmo shirt!"
ME: "It's too cold for Elmo, wear this one."
AMELIA: "Don't want that one, WANT ELMO SHIRT!" She starts smacking me on the arm.
ME: "Ouch, you're giving Mommy a boo-boo, do you want to give Mommy a boo-boo?"
AMELIA: "Yes."
I wrestle her into the shirt and start in on a sweatshirt.
AMELIA: "Don't want sweater."
ME: "Yes you do- look, it's a pretty pretty sweater."
AMELIA: "DON'T WANT SWEATER! WANT JACKET!"
ME: "You're going to wear your jacket too, your new pretty pink coat."
I wrestle her into the sweater and start on the sneakers.
AMELIA: "Don't want this one, want boots."

Mother Goose On The Loose

Yesterday I took Amelia to the first of a series of story hours that I signed up for at the Quincy Public Library, specifically for kids aged 18 to 24 months. Amelia became a living barnacle the minute we walked into the room and stayed in my lap/ in my arms pulling the I-am ridiculously- shy act the whole time, but nevertheless did seem to enjoy herself. The theme of the story hour was "Owls"; we read two cute owl stories and sang songs about owls, complete with owls puppets, stuffed owls, and various other props. The lady who ran it seemed utterly unfazed by the chaos of two dozen not quite two year olds, which I suppose is why she is able to do this for a living. All in all it was very cute, and I was happy to get out and do something just for Amelia - I am looking forward to next week's session, but thinking I will pre-medicate with ibuprofen first :)

First Report Card

Today was our first parent/teacher conference and Charlie got his first report card! I met not only with Charlie's kindergarten teacher but also with the reading specialist, whom Charlie has been seeing in a small group for half an hour a day, four times a week. Both were very positive, saying that Charlie is "sweet" and "adorable" and that he listens carefully, works well independently, takes rules very seriously and is considerate of others. They also said that his "phonemic awareness" has greatly improved since starting with the reading specialist - I can attest to this personally, as he is beginning to sound out his first words. On his report card he got satisfactory marks in all academic areas with a smattering of areas where he is "consistently exceeding expectations" such as recognition of letters, associating numbers with sets of objects, counting with meaning, recognizing and producing rhymes, etc.

Overall, a great report card - way to go Charlie and keep up the good work!

Charlie's School Picture 2011

Please excuse the obvious picture of a picture, our school's photographer is still clearly in the dark ages and didn't give us anything digital.

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On The Train

Amelia and I took the train into Harvard Square this morning to buy Harvard tee shirts for the Philly cousins. Here is Amelia happily riding the train like a big girl, complete with her Starbucks. (Don't worry, it wasn't actually coffee...)

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Bows & Boots

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Video Gaming Audience

Charlie's friend Patrick came over after school today; the boys' play date consisted entirely of Patrick watching Charlie playing Super Mario Galaxy. And here I thought they were going to be playing with actual toys...

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Random Monday Updates

We had a nice weekend; Mike and I got out Saturday night and had dinner at Hingham Beer Works and did some more shopping for winter gear at Old Navy. Everyone is finally outfitted with hats and gloves for the winter, at least until somebody loses something.
On Sunday we had a nice visit to Grammy and Grampy's although Charle discovered that the fishing in November isn't so good...

Amelia has been talking up a blue streak. She has started in on the questions so now all day long it is "Watchya doing?" "What happened?" "Where's (fill in the blank)?"

Charlie has been learning addition, thanks to a new dinosaur addition/ subtraction board game we got him, and is now adding numbers like a pro (okay well counting on his fingers, but hey I still do it that way...) We are about ready to brave the initial frustrated temper tantrums and teach him the subtraction part of the game. He has his first parent/teacher conference next week and first quarter report card, so that will be interesting... :)

Otherwise, not much is new - gearing up for our trip to Philly for Thanksgiving in a couple weeks!

Squirrel Watching At Grammy's

Grudgingly Costumed

Since I couldn't get Amelia to keep her cat ears and nose on (and then the cat nose was lost at daycare to further complicate matters) I dug out Charlie's old skunk costume. Amelia grudgingly agreed to put it on after I explained that this was the only way she would get to go to our next door neighbor's house to get chocolate. I only took her to three houses, as it was our job to stay home and pass out candy while Mike took Charlie out, but she somehow managed to score quite a bit of candy for just three houses... Here she is as my cute little stinker :)

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Not So Snowy Weekend

At least in Quincy, anyway!
Despite predictions of six inches of snow last night, we woke up to find barely a dusting - not even picture worthy. Other parts of the area were not so lucky, with parts of MA and NH getting two feet of snow! Uncle Phil and Aunt Sue are currently without power in Billerica, as are Heather & Matt in Dracut. I am guessing Grammy and Grampy Robinson are without power too, but atleast they have a generator. Here we just had a very windy and rainy night.

Last night after work I dragged Mike and the kids out in the wind and rain to the Hingham shipyard, thinking that we would try out the Wahlbergs' latest restaurant there, a burger joint called Wahlburgers. I erroneously thought that the bad weather would keep people away -- no such luck. The line was three people deep and right to the door, so we skipped it and went to Panera instead. Afterward we went across the street to Old Navy where I attempted to shop for the kids while Amelia was a little devil child and pulled everything off the shelves and all the balls out of the bins (but really, what do you expect, Old Navy, when you have random bins of brightly colored balls throughout the store, and don't even get me started on all the crap you have in the check out line.) That store is basically just begging for toddler tantrums.

Today we spent the afternoon at Kate and Brian's house, where Charlie and Finn had a blast playing together and Amelia was actually cute and sweet until it got past her bedtime and she got cranky. Both kids fell asleep in the car on the way home (no wonder especially for Charlie, seeing as Finn has a trampoline, jungle gym AND a zip line, all of which the boys played pretty hard on.

All in all a fun weekend!

Scary Pumpkin

According to Amelia, anyway.

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Amelia's Halloween Costume

(She won't actually wear it)

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Charlie's Pumpkin Patch Entry

Hopefully it won't rot before he gets it to school tomorrow. I did shellac it with clear nail polish, for what that's worth...

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Corn Maize

We took the kids to Marini Farms in Ipswich this afternoon, where we picked our pumpkins (one little one for Charlie to decorate for his school's "pumpkin patch" and one extremely giant one for us to carve, I am already dreading scooping out the insides of that one...) and went through the corn maize. The corn maize was extremely big and it got extremely tiring carrying Amelia through it, so we eventually cheated and asked one of the workers to direct us the fastest way out. The kids also enjoyed the "jumping pillow" or whatever they called it -- we let them go on twice, and both times Amelia had to be dragged off kicking and screaming when her ten minutes was up ("NOOO!! MY TURN!!! I JUMPY!!!") Charlie also got to try his hand at shooting potatoes out of a cannon before we left. Here are some pictures from the afternoon:

Apple Crisp

After two apple pies, two apple cakes and the above pictured apple crisp, I am happy to report we are officially down to single digit apples...

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Charlie Ninja

After telling us for months that he wanted to be a ninja for Halloween, Charlie did not disappoint when we got to the costume aisle.

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Long Weekend

With Mike and Charlie both off for Columbus Day we enjoyed the long weekend up in NH. The weather was perfect -- we enjoyed one last boat ride before the season ended and the boys enjoyed what is probably the final fishing of the year. Mike and Charlie even took a dip in the lake, but it looked awfully cold in there!! Here are a few pictures from the boat:

Picture Day

Hopefully the photographer had better luck capturing a smile than I did...

Home Made Apple Pie!

The best part? The kids won't touch it!

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Lots of Apples

We had a great time apple picking this afternoon, lots of apple themed baked goods sure to follow!

Not So Sick Day

Charlie came home from school Wednesday afternoon with a fever (clearly caught from Amelia's contagion earlier in the week) and Mike stayed home with him on Thursday. With his temperature still at 102 at 5pm on Thursday I called out of work for Friday and told Charlie he would be staying home another day, this time with me.

Charlie woke up this morning bright and early and his usual chipper self, ready for his day home with Mom. No fever, but I was still skeptical since Amelia's bug had lasted a full 48 hours. However by the time 10am rolled around and he was still perfectly fine, I decided I wasn't going to stay in the house and let him beat me at air hockey all day. So we went to the mall, where we had lunch and did some shopping. I discovered that Charlie's feet had grown by a size and a half since I had last bothered to buy him shoes (oops) and procured him a pair of khaki pants for picture day that don't have mustard stains all over them.

I also discovered that Charlie inherited Mike's sense of direction, not mine (thank god!) as he navigated me around the mall: "Mom, Chipotle is right down THIS way..."

All in all it was a fun day and I am happy to report that Charlie seems to be fully over his bug.

Must Be...

Getting close(r) to Halloween!

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Happy Birthday Grammy!

We made it up to New Hampshire yesterday to celebrate Grammy Robinson's birthday a few days early; Charlie enjoyed what is probably the last of the fishing and although Amelia was sick with a fever she rallied enough to eat some birthday cake. Happy birthday again Grammy! Here are a few pictures from our visit:

First Homework Assignment!

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King Richard's Faire

We took the kids to King Richard's Faire yesterday for the first time. There was lots going on and Charlie had a great time. Aside from the above pictured pony ride he got to try his hand at throwing darts, throwing stars, and shooting crossbows. Amelia was unimpressed, and we were unimpressed at the price of the food ($8 for an ear of corn? $16 for a turkey leg? Really?) but otherwise we had a good time.

Busy Day In Boston

We had a full day in Boston with Grammy Bess and Grampy Paxton today. We started out at Legal Seafood Harborside, which is the flagship Legal Seafood and among other things has a fish market, three floors of restaurants and, the draw for us, an indoor trout pond that they let kids fish from on the weekends. The trout, unfortunately, were far too smart to actually take bait from a hook, so the only person who actually caught anything was Mike, who was patiently using a net.

From Legal Seafood we went to the New England Aquarium, which has a new shark and ray touch tank, and also, much to Charlie's delight, has a large anaconda that eats mice.

After the aquarium we walked to Mike's Pastries in the North End where I shamelessly bypassed the block long 3 deep line to get a dozen cannolis. (Only rookies stand in line at Mike's Pastries, I swear!)

I forgot my camera, so here is the best I could do for pictures from the day.

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