2017: 12 Months in 12 Photos

Yes, I know the collage only has nine photos.

January
We faced down a long winter, and celebrated the second birthday of this little fashionista. Also, Mr. Husband and I took a first-time homebuyer's class.

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February

We celebrated a fifth ring for our quarterback and started our home search. Also, winter in a two-bedroom apartment, which is a well-beaten deceased equus on this blog.

March
We traveled with friends up into the Green Mountains and spend a long weekend feasting, resting by the gas fireplace, exploring quaint little mountain towns, and letting our kids eat a shameful amount of Annie's Mac and Cheese. Then we went home, looked at a house, put an offer on it, had the offer accepted, and signed our first Purchase and Sales agreement.

April
We celebrated the fourth birthday of our oldest and my thirtieth birthday. Then we got the keys to our very first house and said goodbye to our shabby little apartment. God bless family, friends, and neighbors who were willing to help me break down outdoor play sets, schlep boxes and play sets in their notreallytiny cars, pack all of our furniture including a heavy washer and dryer into a truck and then unpack it all over again, surprise me by taking over all of the backyard stuff (including a plastic bin full of compost! my black gold!) I was planning to leave until the following day, and help with all manner of minor crisis like slow drains and rewiring the dryer. And all for the payment of a few beers and BJ's burgers grilled on our new (to us) back deck.

May
The renovating begins in earnest! Although our house was technically "move in ready," we learned during our first tour that there was a reason why no pictures of the second story were included in the listing. The upstairs needs a lot of updating, including covering up a gross tiled ceiling, major patching and repainting of the walls (who uses a staple gun to hang posters?!), and replacing a stained and filthy carpet.

June
Not pictured: repainted upstairs walls and ceilings. Or the office having its wallpaper removed over two sweaty weekends of steaming, then walls replastered and painted. Pictured: Kids enjoying the fruits of having a real outdoor water source.

July
We took a roadtrip to Valley Forge and Philadelphia! Mr. Husband and I enjoyed the history, architecture, and the art. The kids enjoyed the Please Touch Museum and the fountains.

August
Another month, another roadtrip! This time we went to Québec City and got on marvelously well considering neither of us speak much French. More beautiful architecture, art, and history for the adults, and Le Musée de la Civilisation for the kids. I may or may not have started casually looking at home prices in Lévis (where we stayed) while we were there.

September
We started MODG pre-K and youth soccer with Mr. B. I also stared de-beige-ifying our downstairs, and joined a local community orchestra.

October
We continued homeschooling, and Miss. A continued to try to join her brother's soccer team.

November
We bought laminate flooring and baseboards, transported them in our tiny cars home, and Mr. Husband, with his dad, installed them upstairs. Transformation nearly complete!

December
We had our first run with a Jessie Tree (using our faux fir as a stand-in). I felt like we had a very focused, anticipatory Advent, and was excited to host our first Christmas dinner. Then, starting two days before Christmas, Mr. Husband came down with a nasty cold +fever virus that proceeded to infect every other member of the family and transform our living room into a sick ward. I think this past week will be remembered as "The Lost Christmas." At least we have a few more days before the Epiphany to catch up!

Here's to 2018 and more frequent blog posts!

{7QT} After A Long Winter's Nap

1. I'm back. I took a long hiatus this fall and most of this winter not just from blogging but many other things due to some health issues. I'm doing much better, and I've learned some valuable lessons about accepting help and taking care of myself.

Enjoying a nice blizzard. Our neighbors thought we were insane.

2. We have been blessed by an unusually mild winter, and I guess I can't complain too much it this year. Snow and freezing temperatures always highlight, at least to me, the silly little inconveniences inherent in our living situation--like the distance between the parking lot and our door, or not having any devices on the roof whatsoever to break up ice dams hanging a full foot over the back of the building. So I'm grateful that we've had minimal shuffling of two little ones over the plowed-over sidewalk on our busy street to our car.

Freaky.

3. Despite the mild winter, I'm so glad that I finally invested in quality winter wear this year. After ten winters in New England wearing a pea coat, I finally purchased a coat system from L.L. Bean. It has been worth every penny (especially the gift card I got with the purchase that went toward the first pair of snow mittens that stay on Mr. B's hands). Then, last week, I took advantage of their ridiculously generous return policy to exchange some cracked Wellies for the popular Bean Boots. I consider myself pretty thrifty as far as clothing is concerned (I mostly rock the clearance rack and Savers), but it's more fun to enjoy the snow with my kids without being super cold and wet.

Enjoying afternoon cereal the classy way.

4. Miss A has now turned two, and I'm marveling at how many baby things are disappearing from our main living floor. Half of our baby toys have been dropped off surreptitiously at Savers (they take stuffed animals! Praise God!) and we had to retire all the baby gates because the kids were using them to mash each other into the wall. Lest you think our children are precocious little angels, I also had to throw Miss A's toothbrush away this week because she snuck into the bathroom, got her toothbrush down (which is on a shelf over the toilet because our bathroom sucks is quirky.) and used it to clean the very dirty drain pipe in the sink (because when the drain stopper broke my landlord replaced it with a $0.50 mesh sieve).

Should we water the house with sand or mud?

5. All of a sudden my children have gone from being indifferent and/or antagonistic toward each other to being frenemies--a vast improvement, really. I can sometimes set them up with something to do--trains, coloring, dressing up--and back away to either accomplish something, relax, or just listen in on their conversation. Today they painted the heck out of eight coloring pages and discussed which Bob the Builder characters they each were. It was surreal, I tell you.

I almost took one of those signs home.

6. Because we're crazy, we decided to break up our winter by driving north. We left our mild, snowless abode in southern New England for the mountainous reaches of Vermont and stayed in this little place for four days:

The view of the Green Mountains was fantastic.

It was too cold to hike, and not snowy enough to do snow things, so we took a few trips into the nearby towns for maple syrup, chocolate, and cheese, but mostly we sat in front of the gas fireplace, cooked, and ate. We also made a futile attempt to procure Chartreuse liquor, but were stymied by unpaved roads not maintained in the winter, a fallen tree, and our southern New England city slicker vehicles. The kids had a blast on the trip, but Mr. B was very, very confused.

7. He was confused that we were going to live in Vermont indefinitely because we may be leaving our little apartment abode soon for four walls, a driveway, and a yard of our very own. We're thrilled by the washer/dryer hookups that are next to one another, a kitchen with more than fifteen continuous inches of counter space, closets wide enough for hangers, and enough space in the bathroom to swing a cat. Among other amenities.

Linking up with Kelly.

A Yankee in Texas

Before we had children, Mr. Husband and I loved to travel. We weren't avid globetrotters, but we made a few trips together to visit family or attend out-of-town weddings, both by plane and car. (Most notably, we drove from  eastern Massachusetts to Toronto, with just one stop each way in upstate New York. If you like looking at farms A LOT, I highly recommend this drive.) After we had children, and most especially after B was old enough that we needed to buy his own plane ticket, our trips have gotten fewer and fewer. We'd been talking about visiting close friends (a married couple with three beautiful children) from college who had moved to Texas, but hesitated at the expense and inconvenience. Then we had the ingenious idea to take turns visiting.

a beach vacation with kids

Last year, we spent a four-day-three-night vacation in a cottage by the beach the last weekend of August. We had gorgeous weather and survived travel with a two year old and a baby. This year, we stayed at the same beach, but a different (and cheaper) cottage, during Labor Day weekend, and had less agreeable weather. Not only did we survive travel, but we still managed to have a lovely time. There are probably a thousand and one more helpful blog posts about travelling with kids, so I won't make this entirely into a "tips for travel" post, but rather a "this is what worked for us" post.

Catching Up

As just about everybody who reads this blog already knows, we've been keeping pretty busy lately, with both big and small things. I took lots of pictures "for the blog," so in order to not waste all those photos here is a nice looooong catch-up post.

Big: We went on vacation.

This "cottage" is the roughly same square footage as our apartment, except with no shared walls.

This was our first-ever trip as a family of four. (I supposed you could count our trip to Florida last December as a family trip--I was almost-too-pregnant-to-fly with Lady Infant--but since we were staying with family it was a much different experience than the process of renting our living space.) We got an end-of-summer rate on a cottage "90 yards from a private beach!" in the town where my husband grew up.

90 yards and about 90 steps. I actually couldn't fit all of the stairs in the picture, so I took this after descending the first set.

In any case, the beach was worth it.

I love New England beaches. Call me a weirdo who likes cold water.

Nursing on the beach? Check.

Invite your cousins and their trucks.

I love this picture.

We did a day trip to the beach earlier in July with the kids, but it was so much easier to manage them in shorter spurts. We had agreeably hot, sunny weather while we were there, so we could take the kids down for a swim, go home for lunch and naps, and come back, hitting low tide both times. We stayed four days and three nights, the kids slept great, and despite bringing two diaper-clad minions, we got our security deposit back!

Big: We're moving Sir Toddler to a bed.

Despite previous declarations that never would I ever 1) purchase a toddler bed, 2) purchase a toddler bed from IKEA, or 3) purchase a mattress from IKEA, we wound up doing just that after a fruitless trip to Jordan's and countless hours wasted scouring Craigslist. (When you drive a small sedan that only fits disassembled furniture in flat packs and Jordan's only has overpriced twin beds that are four feet off the ground and made entirely of MDF, assembling Swedish furniture with the aid of smirking stick figures is the easiest option). We purchased the TROGEN adjustable bed and the corresponding mattress that comes in three pieces, and I'm actually glad we did since the soon-to-be shared kids' room is not huge.

The adjustment period to the bed is going...okay.

The first day, Sir Toddler was eager to nap in his new "big boy bed!" and I put him right in, assuming that the little wooden side pieces would keep him from rolling out. He fell asleep, amazingly, and roooolled onto the floor with a thump. We found him sobbing with a bitten tongue, and ran out to Babies R Us to buy a side rail. To add insult to injury, it took 20 minutes to get through the line and then the rail didn't work with a slatted bed base. Sir Toddler spend that night in his crib, and the next morning I put two rolled-up towels under the fitted sheet, and an unused mattress section on the floor next to his bed.

The second and third days, Sir Toddler spend his naptime hanging out in his bed, but not actually sleeping. It didn't occur to him to get out of bed on his own. Each night, we have enticed him with a "special light" (a nightlight, which we didn't use with him in the crib) to get him to sleep in his bed. Both nights, he has woken up confused and scared in the middle of the night, but stayed in bed.

Today, the jig was up. Sir Toddler realized that he could get out of bed during naptime and started roaming around his room. I hope he sleeps well tonight, because three days without naps made for a whiny, weepy evening. For both of us.

Big: Lady Infant is pulling up on furniture.

Life as we know it is over.

I keep snapping pictures that make it look like my children are playing together peacefully....

...when in reality Lady Infant, in her quest to be involved in whatever her brother is doing, is just learning how to annoy her brother.

Little: Baby teeth!

Little: Pigtails!

Lady Infant has long hair on top that hangs in her eyes like so...

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So I spent 45 minutes trying to wrangle her into pigtails. She did not like it, Sam I Am.

Big: Our backyard is no longer a minefield of feces.

Our neighbors of notpickingupaftertheirdog fame finally moved out and we've finally cleared up the last of the messes (although not before tracking some onto the kitchen floor, blergh). This is a game-changer. Today, with a slow start to the morning, the threat of rain, a napping baby, and and antsy two-year-old, I could just let. him. play. outside. Of course, since our yard isn't fully fenced in and still shared, I was out making sure he didn't bolt or get into our other neighbors' stuff, but it was nice to just let him be a little boy and explore nature.

He spent his playtime picking wild "yucky berries" that had fallen from a tree and mashing them in his fingers. Good times.

I have visions of maybe getting a sandbox. Or even a Cozy Coupe.

Disclaimer: I'll be political for the first time on this blog.

It's time for me to sign off, because I have a team/quarterback to cheer on...

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...no thanks to Roger Goodell.

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A Sunday Outing

1:40 PM. Decide to go for an outing due to a)restlessness, b)weather that is gorgeous but too cool for our original plan of a beach trip, and c)to wear out the toddler who is rattling the bars of his crib after a notnap. Choose a new park that we've never been to together and don't know exactly where it is.

2:00 PM. Everyone who wears such things has diapers and shoes, the diaper bag has full water bottles and emergency Cheerios, and Lady Infant is buckled into her bucket. Persuade Mr. Husband to take both kids to the car so I can sneak a snack and not share it with Sir Toddler before I lock up.

2:10 PM. Comment on the odd route weaving through back roads that Siri has chosen.

2:40 PM. Comment that we could have taken more familiar main roads in the same amount of time, and how strange that this park is accessible by such small neighborhood roads. This is done over the background noise of Lady Infant fussing and Sir Toddler repeatedly requesting that we get out of the car and go for a walk.

2:43 PM. Siri is directing us to park on a neighborhood street and walk through someone's backyard to access a distant border of this park. WHAT. Reference Google Maps on Mr. Husband's phone, since the navigation has sucked my phone's battery dry.

2:50 PM. Finally pull up to the parking lot of the park and discover that the parking fee is per person, rather than per car. Well, we've come this far...at least the kids are free.

2:52 PM. Discover the source of Lady Infant's distress: a diaper bomb that has ruined her adorable outfit. An awkward diaper change in the front passenger seat ensues.* The spare outfit is a little skimpy for the weather, but at least it's the correct size. This time.

2:53 PM. Briefly debate the merits of the double stroller versus making the toddler walk. The notnap that preceded this trip makes the decision for us, even though it means stopping to pick up every stick and leaf we came across.

(I've been told that babies should be worn high and tight, but please show me a structured (buckles please!) baby carrier that can be worn so by a 5'2" mother whose six-month-old is in the 70th percentile for length. She didn't get it from me.)

Sir Toddler was rewarded by one of his favorite sights, "Giant fan!"

The view wasn't too bad.

Not pictured: the mystery dead fish thing Mr. Husband found on the shore and insisted on investigating and photographing while Sir Toddler poked it with a stick. Gross. Lady Infant and I stood upwind of it and averted our eyes.

Success: Sir Toddler is tuckered out!

 3:55 PM. Buckle everyone back into the chariot, drive home, and send Mr. Husband around the corner on an urgent errand while I make dinner.

Post-hiking relaxation in a glass.

*Although it is always awful trying to do diaper changes in the front passenger seat (our compact sedan has few options now that the backseat is taken up entirely by car seats), at least it wasn't as bad as an ill-fated grocery trip wherein Lady Infant's diaper and outfit were changed into a completely outgrown long-sleeve onesie (on an 80 degree day) while Sir Toddler cried a river in the back seat about wanting to ride in the police car grocery cart. Naturally, once he was loaded into said grocery cart and Lady Infant strapped to my torso, he spotted the taxi grocery cart. There is nothing quite so glorious as an unaccompanied trip to the grocery store.