it's beginning to look a lot like christmas

Obviously, given that Christmas is tomorrow...  And, given that Christmas is tomorrow, how about I tell you about our Christmas preparations?

Sure, why not?! You wouldn't be reading this if you weren't interest, right?

We celebrated Seal Pup 2.0's birthday.  Because, he just happened to be born in December; and, it's us!

We celebrate birthdays like it's our job!

Grammy came to visit.  It was awesome.

We picked a tree and cut it down.

There were some shenanigans with a snow man.

We did our annual Christmas card photo shoot, here is an outtake, because I think it's cute, even if it didn't make the cut.

We are going to the Christmas Eve service at church this afternoon, there may even be bow ties....

summer wind down

After our trip to California we were busy doing all sorts of things.

We picked plums from our plum tree and canned it (because that's the kind of people we are...the throw it in a jar and see how it tastes, kind).

There were lots of trips to the playground.

My mom bought the boys a playground set thing.  Papa thought it could be built in a day; much like Rome, that was not the case.

We are still working on it.  It might get built by the middle of fall?  Maybe?

 We went to Lake Compounce to celebrate Coast Guard Day (annual tradition!).

 The kids were occupied with preschoold (the Seal Pup 2.0) and various camps.  Seal Pup 1.0's favorite was Arts Camp.  There was drawing, circus and theater arts.  There was performance at the end of the week.  Pretty good stuff.

Child the Elder and I went to an art museum before braving the Outlets shopping crowd for school clothes during Connecticut tax free week (a big deal).

And the biggest news of all?  Seal Pup 1.0, learned how to ride his bicycle without training wheels.  To quote Papa: "so it takes approximately 2 to 3 hours to teach your kid to ride a bicycle without traning wheels.  I Googled it.  There's a You Tube video."  Of course you did.  Of course there is.

It was a good summer.

 

tooth down

So Seal Pup 1.0 lost his first tooth last week.  It was a pretty big deal.  Papa Seal was away in California at a conference and I was in Providence attending a Color Theory class at RISD.  I got a text with a picture attached from our sitter Michelle (the boys' pre-school teacher) that there was a casualty during dinner.  Here are the memorable moments:
1) He lost the tooth while taking a bite out of "his most favorite food in the world," garlic bread.
2) He was concerned about the tooth fairy not being able to left his head to get the tooth underneath his pillow because she is small, "since she is a fairy like Tinkerbell."  [Yes, this is the same child that does not really believe in Santa Claus.]
3) Even though he left the tooth at the edge of his bed where I the Tooth Fairy could easily get it, he still opted to not sleep with his head on the pillow fearing that the additional weight of his "big head" would pose a problem.
4) The tooth was at the edge of the bed and slipped off which meant I spent 15 minutes looking for it in the dark, which was awesome.
5) He received $3 for the first tooth and was excited because "that's like 300 cents!!" Or, 300 cents exactly, but, whatever--it's what I had in my wallet, so there you are.
6) He was really please that the first tooth waited until he turned 6 to fall out, "because it makes being 6 that much better."

let's pretend it's spring!

We haven't done anything terribly exciting lately (obviously, or I certainly would have talked about it).  Since things were so quiet here on our little corner of the internet, I figured it was time to do something.  So the Pups and I had a "let's pretend it's spring!" adventure (it coincided very well with Papa's need to pretend that a weekend day was a work day, ahem). 

 We had fun.  No surprise, considering we were playing outside.

Tons more shots in flickr!

where there is snow, there is fun?

Over the past weekend we got some snow.  It wasn't really supposed to be that much; but, well, it was enough to make work for the grown ups and provide entertainment for the kids (mostly of the sledding variety, but they think shoveling snow is fun, too--oh, would that they hold on to this ridiculous notion)

 I don't really care for the whole snow bunny bit, to be honest.  But since Papa is going away next week (to someplace sunny and warm, I feel compelled to add), we figured it was a good idea for me to learn how to use the snow blower.  So, I now have a new skill--removing snow with a power tool, which is important...especially if it snows and I am the only one available to de-snow our driveway. So, get excited

After my new snow blowing skills were sufficiently demonstrated I went back inside where it was warm to watch everyone else mess about in the snow.  Now that is how you spend a snow day.

 More snowy pictures in flickr.

 

love was in the air

Somehow, I failed to tell you about the Valentine's Day high jinx we endured in our household. There were cupcakes (it seems like there are always sweets of one sort or another).

There were flowers.

And there were, of course, Valentines. Seal Pup 1.0 decided he was going to write out all his Valentines this year (2.0 decided to just take a nap and let me do his).

He had a lot of fun. It only took him two hours (in which I was required to watch his progress, weeeEEEeee!).

moving, still

We spent the weekend moving and settling, but mostly moving. If we are being honest here, and I am, the whole process of moving has lost its charm. It's three weeks to Christmas; and, quite frankly, I would rather be doing other things.
But needs must. With the help of friends, we were able to clear out pretty much everything this weekend and now we are left with only the basement (which we have artfully avoided since Halloween). We only have a week left before the house goes to its new owner (hip, hip, hooray!) so we should probably tackle that soon. Soonish...now."

spring has sprung

It occurred to me that this blog was still celebrating SP1.0's birthday, so clearly, it is time for an update. I meant to post after Easter; but, we were too busy chasing bunnies (we were also cleaning out our basment which got flooded when the northeast was hit with all those rainstorms, but let's not dwell on that).

We haven't been doing much besides enjoying the spring weather and trying to get out of doors as much as possible. We spend an inordinate amount of time outside blowing bubbles. Bubbles have, apparently, become our thing.
We have turned the learning of bike riding into a family affair.
There was kite day at school again. Someone may be over any sort of wariness he had about flying kites in years previous.
Kite day was an important day for the record books, it was the day that I may have conceded and admitted to Papa Seal that Seal Pup 2.0 did, indeed, need a haircut (sometimes his 'do maks Amy Winehouse appear well-groomed).

So we did that. First haircut, went okay. It was just a trim, because his curls are awesome.
And I got a new partner in meal planning. He is very opinionated.
We are going to see some sheep this weekend, so there will probably be cute pictures in the corner of the itnernet net week.

Have a good weekend!

new year

Because the first month of the year will soon come to an end, I figure it only logical to finally get around to sharing how are year ended last year and began this year. The operative word: low-key (technically, that's two). My back went out two days before Christmas (it is still on a little vacation, if you find it, please tell it to come home) and I was a wee incapacitated for about three weeks. I was still able to get our Christmas stockings done, though (because I am, to be sure, a crafting champion). I figure these should last for a while, you know, until the kids have their own favorite nicknames and they start calling us Mom and Dad (which is always better than "hey you").Christmas Day was fun (I am pretty sure, I was asleep for most of it, but the pictures tell the story of great joy, so there you are). The pups were right and properly spoiled.

Papa wasted no time in removing the jolly from our house the day after Christmas, because that is how we roll.

We spent the days after Christmas and around New Year's Day messing about with holiday giftage. Santa brought Papa an HO scale train set, that will be the start of his collection (maybe he will get around to getting the trains from his childhood, too). The whole train thing is a big deal because it's why he got into engineering, and really, I am just glad for him to have a hobby that is, potentially, as expensive as mine (um, all of them).

And then the new year also saw us digging out of snow again. But we also got a chance to practice our snow angel technique.

Happy New Year! Tons of photos in flickr.