I would like to apologize in advance... Oh and Happy Thanksgiving

Katie R.

I would like to apologize in advance to the following:

1.  Anyone staying in our hotel tonight

2.  The driver of our shuttle who will pick us up at 4:30 tomorrow morning

3.  Everyone at the Manchester airport including those who will be checking us in, the entire line in security, tsa workers and any of those who  are thinking they will quietly read their paper pre-flight

4.  The dunkin donuts employee who will have to deal with me needing a coffee after we should already be boarding, Wes screaming for a munchkin and Andrew whining for a donut with sprinkles.

4.  All of the passengers of the 5:55am flight tomorrow. 

5.  Everyone at the BWI airport where we will be arriving before the kids normally wake up. 

6.  The Hertz shuttle and employees who will have to deal with 2 tired parents, 2 cranky kids, 2 suitcases, 3 carry-ons, 1 stroller and 1 car seat most likely before they have had their morning coffee.

7.  The employees of the National Air and Space Museum where we plan on allowing our kids to "burn of some energy" and will do so until we are most likely asked to leave.

8.  The entire state of Virginia.  As we will be there 5 nights I'm pretty sure the whole state will need an apology.

If you do by chance see us please ignore my coffee cup full of bloody mary and pretend that my kids aren't eating lollipops at 6am.  If you are fortunate enough to not be in any of these locations tomorrow, consider that our Thanksgiving gift to you.

Have a great holiday.

Our bags are packed! 

The Sweetest Thing He Ever Said

Katie R.

With a bad weather prediction and early flight on Wednesday, we are now leaving for Thanksgiving tomorrow night.  Of course I was probably not going to be ready Wednesday morning so the fact we are leaving a day early means only one thing... a whole morning of tv for the kids while I booked hotels, packed, cleaned, etc.

So as I was packing suitcases the kids watched their 4th hour of  tv and ate lunch and although I tuned it out apparently a Febreeze commercial came on.  Andrew started screaming "mommy, mommy, mommy".  When he got my attention he said "Mommy if you bought that you would never have to do laundry.  You can just spray it and you'll never have to do laundry again. I think you should ask Nana for that for Christmas."

Greatest Kid Ever

Photograph By Rebecca Whitney Photography

Friend Thanksgiving

The holiday season is among us. Many people I know are honoring the season by doing crafts to highlight what families are thankful for. It's a lovely idea but it's just not happening in my house. Please understand, we talk about the importance of thanksgiving and talk about all of the different things we are thankful for but sometimes Thanksgiving becomes a non-craft vortex between all the Halloween stuff we do and the anticipation for what's to come for Christmas.   As sweet and wonderful as Colby is when I ask him what he is thankful for he says "Andrew and his entire family, daddy's car and TVs." Yup, I don't make the list but Tom's Sentra does! WTF!

In spite of my lack of craft this time of year, I do love showing my thanks to those important in my life. I hosted a friend thanksgiving this past weekend and the tally ended up being 12 adults and 13 children. The 5 families that celebrated with us are some of my greatest friends.  Becoming moms brought all of the women together. Each one of them is a strong, funny and brilliant woman that helps provide me with endless support and entertainment.  The camaraderie that we built being new moms together and all the trials and tribulations that babies can provide built a core friendship with these ladies that will endure.  

The leading ladies in my life
Becky, Heather, Myself, Katie, Katharine and Michelle

And not to mention how awesome it is that all the dads/husbands all get along great too. So much so they segregated themselves at dinner with a boys table. For the most part we are all transplants to the Upper Valley so to find amazing people in similar places in their lives is a blessing.

 

And our children...what I find most amazing and one of the things I'm most thankful for are the friends my boys have made.  Colby and Lincoln don't remember a time in their lives without these friends being around.  They care about them like they were family and miss them when it's been too long between play dates.

It was a perfect day to celebrate an early thanksgiving.  I hope your thanksgivings are filled with love and celebrated with those you hold dear too.

We got fancy and used the silver
and china (Tom perfected his polishing
skills)

 

 

We did have some crafts for the kids to do!
(not pictured are pilgrim hats)

Paper Plates

From time to time I like to share some of the crafts I do with the kids.  We have a good time and usually they come together rather well. Remember this gem...Getting My Craft On.  And then a well intentioned craft goes terrible wrong.  At school the teachers do an amazing job with a wide variety of crafts and projects that get the boys minds working. Colby had done some really neat paper plate crafts and he wanted to duplicate them at home. It seemed simple enough and we made a variety of spiders. Lincoln made a stop sign spider (of course), mine was a Christmas spider (again, of course) and Colby stuck with a traditional spider.  They came out great, lots of crayon and lots of tape and everyone seemed pleased.  And then I tried to step up my game.  Last week was "letter E" week at school and Colby needed to bring in a few things that start with the letter E. Colby and I decided to attempt to make an eagle out of paper plates.

This gives you a look at the spiders and the, wait, is that a turkey? No, it's a freaking eagle. It's such a bad eagle that Colby refused to bring it to school and show it off. Oh well, it filled an entire afternoon and we had a great time even if none of it made it to letter day!

So my takeaway from the craft activity is I can make a mean turkey out of paper plates.

Damn You Benjamin Franklin

Katie R.

So Andrew seems to be a somewhat normal kid, until he talks about his love for Benjamin Franklin.  I wouldn't say he is obsessed with Ben but we sure talk about him a lot.  For example these conversations have taken place:

- Do you think that Ben Franklin should go back and invent some more electricity for those Amish?

- Grandma... were you born before or after Ben Franklin?

-  I want to be Ben Franklin for Halloween... never mind I'll be Thor instead

-  Wow a Ben Franklin book!  That is awesome.

So the book "Now & Ben" which Andrew recently received as a gift after I spent 3 days eating and drinking my way through New England with high school girlfriends, became an instant favorite. And yes, you read it correctly, "Now & Ben"

 

 

So last night I was reading this book for the first time since Sunday and I got to this page.

 



 

 

Because this is hard to read, the picture explains how Daylight Savings time was his idea.  For those of you without young children you enjoyed your extra hour of sleep and now you're right back on track like nothing every happened.  And then there are the rest of us.  I want my extra 30 minutes of sleep back Ben!

 

So I speak for parents of young children every where by saying "Damn you Ben Franklin."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Not This Again

I have often said I would rather sleep train another child then deal with potty training one.  I'm not saying sleep training was a good time. It was awful but after a couple of weeks it was done and I had boys sleeping through the night.  And then potty training time comes and it's long, drawn out and a freaking mess.  Remember this little flash back... I've still never shared my secret! Colby's stubbornness and sheer will against going to the bathroom anywhere but home made for a long and trying time for the entire household.  After a good year from when we started Colby finally got a handle on it.  We had ups and downs but we made it through the world of potty training. And then Lincoln had to grow up and became of age to be potty trained.  As I stressed about how horrible it's going to become, as I agonize about what day to start on, as I fear all of the horrible poop stained underwear I'm going to go through Lincoln goes off and trains himself.

 

No joke! We had the little potty kicking around and we always talked about it and asked if he wanted to try but we never pushed it. He has been wearing pull-ups for a few weeks just to get in the habit of pulling them up and down and then last Friday he decided to pee and poop and the potty. Cut to 5 days later and he still hasn't had an accident.  Tom and I are heading away for the weekend so I'm not putting him in underwear yet but his pull-ups are dry all day and most nights.  How do 2 boys train so very differently?  I understand we haven't switched to underwear and tested our skills in the real world but I'm amazed at where we are with him compared to his brother.  I'm grateful this happened in this order because I was ready for another battle in the world of potty training and would have been blind-sided if this was easy the first time around. So watch out world, Lincoln is taking on the world next week in big boy underwear!!!!

Getting My Craft On

My level of craftiness varies from day to day depending on my mood.  I'll make masks out of paper plates, sew curtains for a bedroom or pipe with frosting the face of mickey mouse on a cake. But I'll be honest, the thought of doing a footprint craft with my boys just sounds like a hot mess.  So when my dad, the boys' Pepere, had his birthday and they wanted to make him something I had to think about it for a bit.  After some thought, a lot of time on Pinterest, and visits to my local craft stores I had come up with a plan. 

A blank canvas, masking tape, paint and brushes was all I needed to complete this craft. I've seen it done for the holidays using the words "thankful" or "believe". I was impressed at how well the craft came together.

Having the boys help me with ripping the masking tape was great fun for them. The trickiest part was getting the name to fit properly on the canvas. We shifted the letters around a bit and the masking tape still worked well.

I let them pick out 5 colors to use and let them at it.  With the tape firmly in place they had a great time using paint brushes and hands to slather paint.  I enjoy a good craft when you don't have to worry about boundaries. 

Once dry, the masking tape pulled up nicely to reveal the finished project.  For those of you without a French background Pepere is French for grandfather and is probably my dad's favorite role in this world.

The boys where very pleased with themselves and the final product.  I wouldn't be surprised if we try this one again.