Star Wars, Peas, Pears, Pizza and Science

This summer has been full and fruitful for our family... literally.  We discovered that the tree we thought was a non fruiting apple tree turned out to be a pear tree with loads of pears, so send us your favorite pear recipes, these all look delicious!

Star Wars fever has taken over at our house... all the boys love the movies (that we have let them see that is;)).  I found some blow up light sabers that have lead to some really fun battles this summer.  Even Audrey is getting into the spirit and trying hard to wield her own lightsaber.  We were once playing in the yard and Audrey didn't have her lightsaber so she picked up a stick and tried to play;)  It has also lead to some interesting conversations about good guys vs. bad guys and "playing dead".

We are also enjoying the first "fruits" of our garden.  We had a great haul of peas and Audrey currently holds the record for most peas eaten. She even tries hard to share them with her brothers. After peas for breakfast we made some pizza "monsters" for supper.  I wish I could remember the back stories for all of the monsters!

One of the best activities this summer has been the summer reading program at the library.  This week the local chemistry teacher visited the library and wowed the kids with his cool experiments.  They have also had a bee keeper and an exotic animal lady visit.  We are currently working on our habitat unit for this summer, so the kids are thrilled to see some of the animals we have been learning about.  Our next unit is the human body so we will see what that brings:)

Clubhouse Getaway- 2014

As I am sure I have shared before, we have some wonderful friends in the Belgrade Lakes area who are kind enough to welcome us to their camp each year.  This was probably the best year yet for us given that all parents were present for the whole visit and it was so close to home.  These pictures sum up the trip well with some swimming, fishing, boating, and trying out our kayak topping the list. The kids got to play with their friends while we visited and given the 6 children between 1 and 6 things were only mildly out of control;)

We took a day trip to Boothbay Harbor and were not disappointed in our visit to the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens.  We didn't see much beyond the children's garden (because it was nap time, hot and Ben was not agreeable to doing any more), but that alone was worth the trip. The boys tended the garden, ran in the maze, climbed in a tree house and explored the bear cave.

On a rainy day at the clubhouse all the kids found great entertainment in watching the dryer... I take that as a measure that everyone had a relaxing stay:)  Thanks again Kevin and Alane for your hospitality, we had a great trip and enjoyed the company!!   

Frogs, Museum Play & Our Garden

At the end of last week we visited the Augusta Children's museum which our kids always love. It is a great treat for them after suffering though a trip to target;) Audrey was fighting off the boys for a chance to control the bus lights.

On Friday we took a quick trip to East Millinocket to take part in the Summerfest and my 15th high school reunion. We were fortunate to visit with lots of family, see some fireworks and enjoy time at the park.  The kids loved the games, the frog jumping contest and the coin digging race.  The lack of pictures here will have to hint at the fun we had!

Our garden is starting to grow and the kids are getting very excited to start eating our first crop of peas.  We can't wait to see what grows!

Fourth of July- 2014

A rainy start to this 4th of July turned out to be quite nice.  On the 3rd we traveled down to Jay for their fireworks (since Gabe was on call all weekend and we couldn't travel far after that).  Those fireworks were postponed after we arrived, but we did get to have some popcorn and listen to a local band concert.  On the 4th we attended the parade in Farmington and the kids loved all of the kids in the parade walking calves and riding on 4 wheelers. Happy Independence Day!

James Gets Glasses

This sweet thing got his glasses today! James had a standard eye exam at the end of the school year which showed great vision in his right eye, but pretty poor vision in his left eye.  Naturally, we wanted to check for ourselves thinking that he just wasn't cooperating, so I brought him into Gabe's office... the results were not reassuring... to the eye doctors we went.  As it turns out he has an astigmatism in his left eye causing the poor vision.  For the next few months he will be wearing glasses and intermittently patching to try and strengthen the eye.  Apparently, if this is caught early (as his was) it is often reversible... fingers crossed! For now though, he looks really cute in his new glasses (thanks for the frames Aunt Andrea!) and is being really good about wearing the patch... he has also started to eat tons of carrots (to help make his eye strong)... we have tried to explain that that is not how carrots work, but he still insists that they are helping;)

Summer Life:)

Audrey has hit 15 months and is loving life.  Her hair is long enough now so we have to actually do something with it so that it doesn't get in her eyes.  She is communicating more and more, although she still doesn't say much... or anything really;)  She still isn't walking, but is a pretty fast crawler.  She is into anything the boys are into and is just such a sweet and happy little girl.  She loves the attention of her brothers and would prefer to sit in your lap and cuddle to crawling off and playing alone.  She has started giving kisses and hugs which is just so cute.  She loves watching her brothers play in the pool and will readily laugh at them and clap when they jump into the pool.

We have, once again this year, developed a "Civiello family bucket list" for summer vacation.  We make the list at the beginning of summer and spend the days crossing off activities.  There is nothing huge on the list, but it helps us focus our days and weeks when we have ideas and goals of fun things to do.  They range from taking a hike to having a thumb war to telling ghost stories.  On this afternoon we crossed off "make solar oven s'mores".  We used a pizza box and "cooked" s'mores for desert.  Next we can't wait to make some english muffin pizzas for lunch;)

In other news, our garden is starting to show some signs of life and the kids are learning how to weed... pictures soon I hope!

Beach Day!

We can officially say that summer is here, now that we have spent a day at the beach.  More impressively, is how well the day went... I dare say that it was relaxing.  The kids and I met up with friends of ours and despite the fact that we were two adults to 6 kids (3 of whom were 2 or less) it was a very fun day and we stayed way longer than we have ever stayed at the beach with kids... 4 hours!  The favorite activity for the kids was jumping the waves as the tide came in. Noah really liked to be buried and was almost stepped on more than once because he was lying so still.  Audrey loved playing with her little friend Jackson and was content to lift and shut the bed on the dump truck. James and Ben also enjoyed helping to make a dam in the stream with some bigger kids. More than anything the kids listened well, were well behaved and there was minimal fighting. A great day at the beach and the kids are already asking to go back:) 

Noah's First Katahdin Hike- 2014

On Monday we took Noah for his first hike up Katahdin.  He was a real trooper and did way better than I thought he would.  We had low expectations going in and Noah really rose to the occasion and completed the hike. We parked at roaring brook and hiked to chimney pond.  We then climbed to the summit via the cathedral trail.  It was at this point we decided we could never go up cathedral with two or more children until they had longer legs because there are some pretty difficult parts when your legs aren't long enough to climb up the boulders.  At the same time, being smaller had its advantages in many places where Gabe and I were too big to squeeze through and had to take the long way around.  

We were pretty thrilled to reach the summit in just 5 hours!  Noah was doing so well in fact, that Gabe and I managed to convince ourselves to go down the Helon Taylor trail via knifes edge as it was 1 mile shorter and Noah could make it... It is safe to say that we obviously didn't think through what knifes edge looks like if you are 7 and your legs can't easily make it over the "easy" section of trail.  There were definitely times as we were all scaling the rocks where only inches of error were allowed, when Gabe and I would look at each other and think, "maybe this was a mistake".  Not from Noah's perspective because he had no clue of the challenge or danger of the trail and was having a grand time making explosion sounds every time we would get to a difficult part in the trail:) From our perspective however, we knew exactly what could happen and could see the newspaper headlines should something happen. 

Thirteen hours after we began, we reached the ranger station back at roaring brook, exhausted, but feeling very accomplished and thankful that everyone completed the climb safely.  Noah's favorite part of the day was getting to put his feet in the mountain stream at the end of the trail.  The great part is that Noah wasn't traumatized from the hike and is already asking when we will be able to hike it again.  He does add the stipulation though that the hike we did was too long and we have agreed not to make him do knifes edge again until he was a teenager and asked to do it;)  All in all it was a lovely day, perfect weather for hiking and some special time with Noah.