Happy Thanksgiving!!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. This year we hosted my family at our place for Thanksgiving dinner. (actually lunch since Mark, my sister's husband, had to be at work by 3pm) I was lucky enough to win a turkey through a raffle at work; super exciting as I never win anything! It was a fresh turkey from Whole Foods, a 26 pound turkey!! I had never seen a bigger turkey, it barely fit in the roasting pan! It was so yummy too. Of course since we had to eat at 12:30 and that turkey took a whole lot of time in the oven, that meant that I had to wake up at 4:30 to turn the oven on to have it in the oven by 5:00am. I did manage to go back to bed for a little bit when Jason got up, but I was definitely ready for a nap in the afternoon. ;) It was worth it though, that was one of the yummiest turkeys I'd ever had. I forgot to take pics of the rest of the meal, got too distracted with eating to even think of the camera, but we had all the fixins: mashed potatoes, squash, green bean casserole, gravy, stuffing, 2 kinds of cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie, pecan pie, etc. It was wonderful. Here I am posing proudly behind my giant turkey. :)
Jason looking at me completely exasperated. Doesn't his expression just say: "Enough pics already, can I just carve this thing already?"

The post-meal football watching, which rather quickly turned into the post-meal snoozing on the couch. ;)
It was also my sister's 30th birthday that day, so she got candles in a pumpkin pie, which the kiddos all wanted to help blow out, of course. We managed to let them help without letting them spit all over the pie, somehow. ;)
And this pic I just thought was cute. I think this was a couple of days later, Isabel wanted me to take her pic making her best grumpy face. She was actually in a great mood, she just wanted to make faces for the camera so she could see what she looked like. Already a little actress, she definitely gets that dramatic streak from her Daddy.:)

Happy Halloween

We had a great time on Friday night trick or treating with Rowan and Sophia. I managed to get out of work at 3pm so as not to miss a minute of it. :) Isabel was a beautiful, very pink, fairy. She is a huge fan of pink lately, not my influence, I swear! But as long as she still loves to dig in the dirt I can handle all the pink.;) Rowan was a pirate and Sophia was an adorable little bumblebee. We went to my parent's neighbors houses, then up the street a ways where the houses are thick and the candy is plentiful. The kids had a great time, even Sophia who managed to be carried most of the time. Isabel caught sight of a huge leaf pile in one yard on our way back and with all of us yelling for her to stop, she ran straight for it and jumped right in the middle. She has really loved playing in leaf piles lately, and I guess she just didn't understand why other people might not want small children jumping in theirs. It was pretty cute seeing this small pink fairy barrel into the pile though. It was a fun time and I'm glad I was able to be there for all of it instead of at work. This is before heading out, they were so excited it was hard to keep them still for a pic. It was a pretty cool night, so Isabel has thick fleece pants and a fleece top on under her costume, she's a rather fluffy fairy. ;)
You can see that Rowan was very proud to be a pirate.
Here they are, all ready to go. :)

They were much more cooperative after trick or treating, they were tired and Isabel and Rowan were happy to sit and eat a lollipop each. Surprisingly Isabel has had no problem observing the "one piece of candy a day" rule and she looks forward to picking out her one piece each day. Call me stingy if you want, but I'm the one here with her and I can't deal with a sugar-crazed child! And she really doesn't seem to mind at all. :)These are our pumpkins that Jason carved for us this year, mommy, daddy, and little girl pumpkins, of course. ;)

Our evening entertainment

I thought I'd share a little sample of what life looks like in our house most evenings. Isabel is a very creative little tyke, and a huge devotee of method acting. ;) Once she chooses a character to portray she stays with it for hours on end. Tonight Jason decided to make her wings out of construction paper and some origami baby birds. She quickly became Mommy Birdie and took good care of her baby birdies in their nest on the floor. I grabbed the camera and took a couple of videos of her. Enjoy!

Birthday girl pics

Everyone managed to get healthy enough to have Isabel's birthday party on Sunday night, yay! We also lucked out with the weather, it was raining that morning, but it cleared up by noon and by the time everyone showed up at 5:30pm it was nice enough to eat out on the deck. Jason grilled up lots of hot dogs and hamburgers and we had some wonderful fresh corn on the cob and plenty of other food. Isabel helped me make the birthday cupcakes that morning and was in agony all day waiting to have one. We had about a dozen people here, including us, not a huge party, but definitely enough people for our rather small place. Isabel had a blast and got lots of great presents. This first pic is from earlier on in the day. A customer upon finding out that Jason had an almost 3 year old gave him this for her: A giraffe costume! We had hidden it in our closet, waiting to give it to her, and she found it that morning. Of course she wanted to put it on immediately. I think she makes a very cute little giraffe, don't you? :)
Almost as soon as Rowan arrived Isabel stole his army hat and became Cowboy Isabel. Her Pooh train became her horse and she rode around saying "yeehaw" for the next hour.
Isabel turned into an excited little whirlwind when it was present time. I think she was a bit overwhelmed by all the loot. She ripped through the bags, tossing clothes and toys in every direction. Here she was mesmerized, for a minute, by a cute new pair of shoes. My kid absolutely loves shoes!
Rowan and Isabel were both quite excited by this Play-Doh ice cream maker. Isabel had a bit of a meltdown later that night when she was told she'd have to wait till the next day to try it out.
Here she is in the midst of the mess she created. In the background is my friend Shelah, and on the floor are Rowan, Sophia, and of course Jason. :) When Shelah showed up and I hugged her Isabel yelled at me, telling me "Mommy, I told you Shelah is my friend now, not yours!" :)
Blowing out the candles on her pink cupcake, she requested the pink frosting.
I think this was her favorite present of all, a Cinderella dress from Auntie Sarah. She even wanted to wear it to bed and she insisted that I call her Cinderella for the rest of the evening.Rowan plopped himself down on the couch next to our friend Josh and said to him, "Give her to me", asking to hold baby Aliyah. He did a pretty good job, and all the kids decided to cuddle up together, although never looking at the camera at the same time, of course.
Isabel and Rowan were both big fans of the pretty baby girl and she was a pretty good sport about it too. :)
The next day Isabel got all decked out in her new apron and chef's hat and made her daddy and I some wonderful ice cream cones with her new
Play-Doh set. She has played with it every day since. She also got lots of new clothes, which we requested as she didn't have much for Fall, and some new books. Have I mentioned before how much Isabel loves books? I'm so happy that she takes after me in that area. She usually has about 10-15 books in bed with her and she lies there and "reads" them to herself and her animal friends before and after naptime and bedtime. She usually remembers most of the story after only one reading of it by Jason or I. I love to turn on the monitor and listen to her "reading" stories alone in her bed, so cute!!
I still can't believe my baby is a big (okay not so big, she's still a tiny tyke) 3 year old. Now I just have to find time for all those thank you notes!

Isabel is 3!

My baby is a big 3 year old as of yesterday! We had plans to celebrate with a bbq/party tonight, but then Isabel caught a really miserable cold, so we're pushing it off until tomorrow night instead. I ended up having to call in to work yesterday and spend Isabel's birthday at home watching movies with her and trying to keep her as comfy as possible. She is just like her Daddy when she gets sick, extremely dramatic. ;) We gave her two of her presents yesterday, and have a couple more small things to give her at her party. One thing we got was a drawing "desk", sort of a lapdesk with a space for holding her paper and markers. She really loves drawing pictures and has drawn us about 20 since we gave it to her yesterday. The rest of her day was spent watching movies, as she really had no energy at all. We bought The Little Mermaid for her, one of my all-time favorites. She seemed to like that one a lot and of course we had to watch her favorite movie, Cars, for the millionth time. She knows all the lines now and sometimes recites them along with the movie. Luckily I like it too and don't get too sick of watching it, I guess I should appreciate that my kid has good taste. ;)
I will post some pics of her party once we have it and some more recent pics soon. I just can't believe that my baby is 3 now.

Happy Birthday Sophia!

My adorable little neice, Sophia, turned 1 this past saturday! Happy Birthday little girl!Sophia, one year ago And here she is at her birthday party, opening up her new farm from Gramma and Grampa.
Birthday cake
It took her a little while to figure out what to do with the cake, then she got the hang of it and definitely enjoyed it.
Quite the cute little mess.
My sis and a super cute, cake-covered Sophia.

Harvest

I had to share a couple of pics of the harvest from my vegetable garden. Isabel and I spent about an hour out there this morning picking tons of tomatoes, yellow squash, and zucchini. My tomato plants are bigger than I've ever seen and are taking over my garden. It's a bit of a jungle as it's been raining most days since we got back from Maine and I haven't had much chance to weed or pick anything. Today is an absolutely gorgeous and sunny day, so finally we had a chance to attack the garden. Isabel was a great help, without her I'd still be out there picking tomatoes. :) She loves to eat them too, cherry tomatoes by the bowl full is one of her favorite snacks. I have cherry and roma tomatoes, green onions, carrots, beets, lettuce, broccoli, mint, sage, basil, thyme, chives, oregano, and eventually I will have pumpkins and maybe some sunflowers. I was a little ambitious this year, but now we're reaping the benefits and they are yummy!! Today's harvest, anyone need some cherry tomatoes?
A very proud, and a little over-heated, Isabel with all the veggies.

Even more vacation pics

So I got ahold of my dad's two cameras and downloaded some more pics and I just had to share them. :) The second night that we were there the menfolk went out to buy some seafood for dinner and came back with 7 lobsters, 3 pounds of steamers, and some awesome asiago bread. Add some yummy roasted potatoes and a veggie and it was a feast! There were nine of us there, 6 adults and 3 kids, so that worked out to one lobster apiece for the adults, one for Isabel and Rowan, and a pound of steamers per family group. Sophia was still considered too little for shellfish, lucky for the rest of us! ;) Isabel and Rowan wanted to see the lobsters before we cooked them, but that turned Isabel off wanting to eat any, she thought the were rather scary. So that just meant more lobster for the rest of us. She did love the steamers though and ate plenty of those. Here's all of us digging in to our feast!
Closer up view of Uncle Mark breaking open his lobster. Yumm!
Three little cutie-pies, all lined up by height on the train.

This next picture needs a little explanation. In my previous post I included a cute pic of Rowan and Sophia posed on the train steps. What I didn't share then was that Rowan neglected to hold onto his sister and the result was this:
It's a blurry action shot, but it ends up looking like Rowan is shoving his little sister off of the train with a big smile on his face. She caught herself and was just fine, she's a tough little girl. Any ideas for a great caption? Sophia fell asleep in the pack on the hike down the mountain. Doesn't that just look so uncomfortable? I love how little kids can just fall asleep anywhere.
Here's the posed group shot of us all at the summit.
On Friday we went on a treasure hunt. My parents learned of a mineral collecting site where you could dig for smoky quartz crystals. It was a quick 1 mile hike to the site, although the mosquitoes attacking me made it seem a little longer. Isabel loves digging in the dirt, and what kid doesn't love the idea of looking for treasure, so it was a big hit with her. We found some cool crystals and lots of pretty sparkly rocks, so it was a pretty good time. Isabel did get super tired and I had to carry her on my shoulders most of the way out, thank God she's so little! (Jason had to carry her most of the way in, so it was my turn on the return trip)
Just another pic of Isabel and I digging for treasure.
It was a really great trip, I hope you all enjoyed all the pics, I got a bit camera-happy on this trip. ;)

Lots and lots of vacation pics

We just got back from a week in Maine with my parents and my sis and her husband and kids. We stayed in a little cabin on Lovewell Pond, actually a decent sized lake despite the name. It was perfect: nice sandy beach for the kids to play on, lots of fish for Jason to catch, beautiful weather all week long, and lots of relaxation for all. I took a ton of pics, these are only the ones from my camera, I still need to get the ones from my Dad's. I might do a second post when I get the rest of the pics. But for now, here you go: This was the first night there. Isabel had already been in the water that afternoon, but when we went back down to the beach that evening she jumped right back in, fully clothed. She was trying to help Daddy fish in this pic.

She also just had to help Gramma and Daddy carry the kayak down to the beach.
Heading out for a little kayak trip with Daddy.
Heading out while Grampa comes back in.
Toasting marshmallows, also on the fist night there.
Isabel really liked the marshmallow at first...
...then she hit overload and didn't know what to do with it. :)

Fully clothed kids having a blast in the water, still that first night there.
Making sandcastles on another day. We had amazing weather almost the whole time we were there.

We took a ride on the scenic train from North Conway to Conway, New Hampshire. The kids all had a blast and at just 1 hour roundtrip it was just the right length for their attention spans. I love the first pic of Isabel and I...
..but Jason prefers this one. Isabel is very into making funny faces for the camera lately.
Me and Isabel and Rowan relaxing on the train.
Sophia, the happiest baby every, climbed right into the kayak and looked like she wanted to go out too.
Auntie Sarah was trying to show Isabel how to fish with Rowan's pole.
She didn't quite get it, but she made some progress.
Here's my dad flyfishing as the sun set. Isn't the lake gorgeous?
We took a beautiful hike up Black Cap Peak in the White Mtns of New Hampshire. This is the view from the top.

Isabel and Rowan enjoyed splitting a bag of trail mix on the summit.
Here's the whole crew, enjoying the scenery and relaxing at the top.
A couple of times we made ice cream in my Dad's ice cream ball. It's a very ingenious little novelty, you fill the outside with ice and rock salt, and the inside with half and half, vanilla, and sugar. Then you roll it around for about 20 minutes, then you have about a pint of ice cream to enjoy. The kids had a blast helping out by rolling it around the living room.

My sis got just a bit sunburnt. :)

Sophia tried to help out too.


And finally, we had yummy ice cream to eat, mmmm.

It was a great week, lots of fun memories, and I'm even rather tan! Now we're back to life in the real world again, I hope you enjoyed the pics!