Fire and Ice Fest 2014

 

Well, we survived the last week and that is all I can say.  After James, Noah and Audrey had the GI illness all about a week apart we had really put it out of our minds... until Wednesday afternoon...  Gabe and I both got it 12 hours apart.... the last several days have been a blur;) The picture above with the overflowing bowl of cheerios was the result of Ben trying to pour himself the second bowl of cereal...

Last week was Dr. Seuss's birthday celebration week at Noah's school.  Each day was a special day and Wednesday (pictured here) was "wacky Wednesday".  Noah's class had a competition to see how many books they could read during the week and it was amazing to see how all the kids in his class really got into this.  They had reached their weekly goal of 60 books after just 2 nights!  As a reward they had a special party at the end of the week.

Thursday was Noah's "student in the spotlight" day.  Each student in the school gets a month to be recognized so that other students may get to know them better.  They are recognized at an assembly at the beginning of the day and have to stand up and say something about themselves.  Noah's was, "a special skill I have is skiing". It was really cute!  Later that same day was also his last day of the ski program where he earned the award for "sweetest helper on the hill".  We are very proud of him!

This past weekend was Farmington's Fire and Ice Festival.  There were a host of cool winter activities for the kids to partake in.  Sledding, tubing, snowman decorating, a hay maze (James's favorite), ice sculptures, horse/wagon rides, cookie decorating, s'mores and fireworks.  The kids really enjoyed themselves despite several bumps and bruises (James's face took a bit of a beating from sledding).  The highlight of the day was getting to see the Lego movie! The kids loved it and daily ask when we will get to go back again.  

This movie has really created what we can only describe as "lego mania" at our house.  For the past month all anyone wants to do is play with Legos.  All three boys sat at the table and played little legos for 2 hours they other day..... it was unreal..... no fighting, less asking for tv, I am not sure what could be better.  They love the little legos, but after we pulled three pieces out of Audrey's mouth we have scaled back the use of those and they have happily transitioned back to the duple (bigger) legos.  Even Ben loves to create things with them.  This picture is a bit blurry, but a good representation.  James made this model of me... "She is the strongest man in the world"... I choose to take it as a compliment because he seems to really like it, but I definitely see the irony that it seems to be modeled after the villain "President Business" who insists on routine, order and following the instructions in the cities.... hmmmm... touché James:)

On Sunday morning we took James for his first skiing experience.  He was more than a little unsteady, but absolutely loved zooming down the hill with Gabe.  Noah was so excited to have James skiing too and tried hard to teach him all he had learned this year;)

Skiing Fun in March!

 

 

 

This past weekend Gabe finally got to go "real skiing" beyond the bunny hill by our house with Noah and I.  Hillary and her friend Mary came to visit us and accompany Gabe to Sugarloaf.  It sounds like they had a great day getting out doors and enjoying winter!  The kids and I took a day trip to Bangor to visit Trey and Lily... it wasn't originally on my list for the weekend, but the kids had been asking me every morning for a week (since our last trip was cancelled due to Noah's illness).  They were able to enjoy the Bangor children's museum and (more importantly) burn off some energy.  They ended our visit with finally getting to play with Trey's toys and everyone was happy;)  

Sunday morning Noah and I took Hillary and Mary to Titcomb ski area by us so that Noah could show off his skiing skills.  After a morning of skiing we took in the end of the dogsled racing being held locally.  The kids loved seeing all of the dogs, the different kinds of sleds and even seeing people on skis being pulled by their dogs!  It was a really fun end to a fun weekend.  Thanks for coming to visit Hillary!!

End of February 2014

February vacation ended with a bang for us.  Noah became victim #2 of the GI bug 9 days after James got it... weird... I hope this is the end.  We had to cut our vacation activities short, but that just allowed us to play at home, play outside and spend time with friends. Although, it was odd to have a February vacation pass without getting to a single playoff basketball game! Noah and James have started swimming lessons again and seem really glad to be back into the swing of things.  Noah continues to love his skiing lessons and is getting really confident on the slopes.

This picture of Ben is him wearing my new ski helmet, or if you ask him, it is his helmet... and can only be worn like this... It is sometimes exhausting dealing with the mindset of a 2 year old;) Audrey continues to military crawl, but she can get herself into a sitting position and really just goes wherever she wants... getting the kids to keep the cellar door closed has been a challenge.  This is a picture I have gotten of all of the other kids. I don't know what it is about being able to crawl under the exersaucer, but they all have done it... it is like a bizarre little milestone they all reach:)

February Vacation 2014- Part 2

Gabe took some vacation time at the beginning of this week so we continued our "stay-cation".  Monday we made puppets inspired by the festival at UMF last weekend.  The requirement, per the kids, was for a castle, a little boy, a king, a queen, a knight and a dragon ("to chase the little boy back into the castle saying ahhhh!").  During nap time Noah, James and I took on painting the clubhouse... this really stretched the limits on my patience;)  Once I gave in and embraced the mess deciding that we would just paint over the floor spills with gray paint things got better.  James some how managed to step in the paint not once, but twice leaving footprints everywhere.  The kids picked specific colors and decided on the pattern themselves and they are pretty proud of the results. After painting the boys and I went outside to slide and snowshoe in the yard.  I put the extra pair of snowshoes on Ben just to see if he could do it and he just took off on them... I didn't have to carry him once.  Another win for his bigger size!  The snow has gotten so high that it is almost up to the fencing keeping the kids in the yard... We also spent some time digging out the swings and making them higher so everyone could still swing.  

Tuesday we went ice skating in the morning, took the kids to the library and out to lunch.  Nannie arrived for a visit at lunch time and got to enjoy the boys and their new obsession with "little" legos.  After nap time, in an effort to make sure the kids are super tired at night, just like real vacation, we went bowling.  Ben showed us that he needs to be a bit older before bowling again, but everyone had fun just the same;)  

Wednesday morning we took Nannie on a great snowshoeing adventure to the back of our property (Ben walked almost the entire way on his own).  After playing outside for a bit we made a campfire and roasted hot dogs for lunch.  That afternoon Gabe and I took Noah skiing for my inaugural run on my "new to me" skis.  Noah is way better than I am, but I got the hang of it pretty quickly;)  Noah even met one of his classmates there and had a great time skiing for the afternoon with him.  

We will see what the rest of the week holds as we continue to check things off our February vacation bucket list... basketball tournaments hopefully!

February Vacation 2014- Part 1

Just like Christmas vacation the kids got an extra day of vacation due to a huge snow storm.  Actually, they had a half day on Thursday also, so we are doubly excited about all of the extra fun time!  We spent Thursday afternoon and Friday getting ready for Daddy's birthday and celebrating Valentine's Day.  I found a really cool math activity with a box of candy hearts and Noah and James really got into.  We played outside for a while in the afternoon, but quickly discovered that playing outside wasn't fun without snowshoes.  I got a pretty intense work out carrying each kid from the playset back to the house with each step going up to my thighs.... they all claim to have crawled out there, but somehow weren't able to crawl back... suspicious...

Saturday Grammy, Grampy and Aunt Andrea came to visit and we all went to the Children's festival at UMF.  There were lots of great games, crafts, face painting and puppet making which was perfect for our kids.  The picture above is of Ben, James and Noah dressed at a carrot, a blueberry and a strawberry.  After the festival, during nap time, Daddy and Grampy built a safety railing on the basement stairs and a clubhouse under the stairs for the kids.  They are very excited for this!  Noah calls it his restaurant, but with the understanding that it can be other things to other people.  James thinks it is a house and Ben thinks it is a car garage with a secret entrance he can squeeze through.  That night we celebrated Daddy's birthday since he got home just as the kids were going to bed on his actual birthday.

Sunday we braved the frigid wind for the ice fishing derby on Wilson Lake downtown.  Since it was free fishing day and James has been badgering us to take him ice fishing we went.  It would have been a perfect ice fishing day if it hadn't been for the whipping wind down the lake.  Thankfully, they had a few shacks set up on a plowed area of the lake and the kids got to enjoy the children's clinic demonstrations and spent a good amount of time "jigging" in the shacks... even Ben.  No one caught anything, but they had fun anyway.  Audrey enjoyed herself as long as we were in the tent and not outside.  We spent the rest of the sunny day inside after that;)

And Winter Marches On:)

The last few weekends have been very full and very fun!  Mt. Blue State Park had a "Get Outside" event with activities ranging from skating, to snowshoeing, to animal pelts/print identification, to cross-country skiing and snowmobiling.  The top few pictures are of the view on the ride the park ranger took us on... Uncle Jon, this is what we need for our family... think you can weld it?  The day was really fun until lunchtime when Gabe experienced his first "judgment" from on lookers when Ben threw an all out fit in the doorway of the packed lunch area... the other kids and I were in line pretending we didn't know them... we all got in the car and went home after that:)

We finished up Audrey's room and I remembered to get some pictures of her in it.  She doesn't really like the crib mattress so far, but I hope that is just a temporary adjustment.  We have discovered that she talks in her sleep which is really the cutest thing ever at this age.  At first I thought she was waking up to play at 2 am, but she would go back to sleep on her own with out crying.... then I checked on her and she was sound asleep talking away.  Audrey has also been experiencing a huge developmental explosion.  She now military crawls around to anywhere she wants to get to, she claps her hands whenever she gets excited about something, she "dances" to any type of rhythm (which makes me sad that we don't do a music class anymore) and she can say "hi" and "bye bye".  Her speech is far and away advanced for our family... we will see how that holds up over time;)

James continues to enjoy and do well at school... he is having far fewer "accidents" at school, so we are optimistic that by the time he is 5 he will be completely potty trained during the day. A few nights ago he came out of his room after bedtime and said, "I have the silly putty stuck in my hair".  I put some ice on it and made a cursory attempt at removing it, then like all good parents, I told him to put a hat on and we would deal with it in the morning;)  In all fairness this was not an emergency and it gave me a chance to google "how to remove silly putty from hair".  As it turns out the answer is baby oil... came right out the next morning. That same afternoon the boys and I went out to play in the snow while Audrey napped.  I was out front with Ben and Noah while James was making his way around to the front from the back. As he walked closer he had blood pouring from his mouth with a trail of blood in the snow behind him. It should be noted that he had no idea he was bleeding and was totally unfazed by what had happened.  Here is how the conversation went:

James: "Hi Mommy, could I please have the purple shovel?"
Me: "James, what happened?"
James: "Nothing"
Me: "Why is there blood dripping from your mouth?"
James: "I don't know"
Me: "James, look at the snow"
James: "Oh, I have blood coming out"
Me: "Yes you do, did you lick the fence?"
James: "Sort of"
Me: "Sort of?"
James: "Yes, my lip and tongue got a little bit stuck"

Seriously, that sucker bled for over an hour and at no point did he complain.  However, he does now say that he should only lick the snow when he is outside;)

Ben has been making huge strides in the potty training area!  I can't believe that we have a child willing to potty train before 3.5 years old!  He has been ready for about 6 months now, but I just didn't have the energy to do it. Since he is getting bigger though he is resisting diaper changes more and has started kicking while being changed so I finally just got rid of his diapers.  He is very motivated, does everything on his own (including cleaning up spills) and isn't afraid for falling in the toilet (it has happened a few times) even in public places.  This is one area that his bigger size is a huge advantage!

Noah has started learning to ski! There is a program offered in this area called "snowcats" that is run by the college and is fantastic.  They meet 2 days/week after school for 2 hours lasting 6 weeks.  The progress Noah makes each week is really impressive.  This is a picture of his group while they were competing in the "olympics". They called themselves the "rainbow trout" since their flag color is rainbow.  He is really enjoying himself and we can't wait for James to be old enough to participate in this next year... Now for me to learn to ski...:)

Last weekend Gabe's best friend from childhood, Dave came to visit.  In true fashion, that couldn't have been scripted better, he arrived to a scene of chaos.  We had other friends with 2 girls (4 and 6 yo) over for dinner and everything was going well.  But, wouldn't you know as Dave walked through the door our 3 boys were fighting over the yogurt on the counter spilling it everywhere and pulling each other backwards while kicking and screaming... fantastic!  Thanks for staying Dave!  It was a really nice visit after that including Dave helping us make a dump run and stacking wood in our basement.... oh the joys of being an adult:)