This is What Happens When....

...you leave the kids alone to "play."

J was not too happy playing "winter dress-up."

Lost Tooth

Last Saturday one of S's bottom teeth became very loose. She was so excited that her tooth was loose that we had a plan for if it fell out while on the airplane back from Ohio! But, it didn't fall out on the plane. Today we decided to head to one of the Boston Harbor Islands. We gathered our things and walked to get the T, stopping at Dunkin Donuts on the way. Once settled on the T, S started in on her jelly donut. It was not until later when we were waiting for our next train that I noticed S had a missing tooth! She didn't even know it fell out! We assume that she might have consumed it when she was eating her donut, or maybe just fell out while she was on the T. Either way, not a bad way for a little Bostonian girl to lose her first tooth. Now she has 2 additional loose teeth on the bottom!

Ohio - the final week.

We're back home now, but I wanted to post a few pictures from the final week in Ohio. This year's trip seemed to have 2 themes - animals and the outdoors. We had many opportunities to have hands-on animal experiences. You can already see from the posts from our first week about the horses, cows, dogs, and other animals at the State Fair. The second week started off by visiting a Dairy Farm complete with a petting zoo of cows and goats. J was not even afraid to let goats eat food pellets from his hand! Brave boy!

The kids also got to know Aunt Linda's dog, Lacy, better and Lacy and Sydney became especially good friends. This was much different from when we saw Lacy in December when S was pretty afraid of the dog.

We also had a bonus day in Ohio since our flight back on the 23rd was cancelled. Seeing as though we were already packed we headed to the zoo first thing on the 24th before our evening flight. We got to see the new Polar Bear exhibit at the zoo, which was quite exciting. The bears put on a great show and we even got to see them wrestling from the underwater viewing area!

And, we can't forget the petting area at the zoo where nice and docile goats just lay around waiting to be brushed and combed by the kids. S&J had a great time!

The second theme of Ohio's trip was the outdoors. I say this because S&J loved being outside at my parent's house. They live in a nice and quiet subdivision with straight, smooth sidewalks. J liked pushing or pulling a xylophone or his popping lawn mower up and down over and over again. S liked riding a little tricycle or her regular bike around, too. S&J were also very helpful to sweep Grandpa's driveway and sidewalk. J learned the word "outside" and would get very upset when someone left the house to go outside without him.

Boy Heaven

On the way home from Shelley's house we stopped by to visit my Aunt and Uncle. They graciously take care of 6 of their grandchildren each day while my cousin and her husband work. These 6 boys are some of the nicest kids. They met us at the car and instantly started playing with Sydney and Jayden like they've known them for years!

Sydney and Jayden with 5 out of 6 of their second cousins present, all of which have names starting with J, including "Big Jaden" (in the green shirt!)

Since there were so many boys around Jayden felt right at home with the huge rock pile and the large trucks in the sand pile! Sydney did fine, too, exploring the wild cherry bushes and playing with all the toys in the playroom. What was the best part for me was knowing that Jayden could play downstairs with all his bigger cousins and since they are so used to watching out for their own little brothers they did not mind watching one more!

Shelley's Farm

Since we're in Ohio for a couple weeks we decided to drive 3 hours to visit my friend, Shelley, who lives near Cleveland. Shelley and her family have a small farm with a variety of animals and last year Sydney had such a good time visiting her. This year Jayden got to join in on some of the fun. He loved watching all the animals, which seems to be the latest "thing" he's interested in.

Farmer Jayden!

Farmer Sydney!

Horses!

Sydney enjoyed her first horse riding experience last December while in Ohio so we made arrangements for her to do it again on this trip. This time she rode a horse named Reiley and got to practice steering the horse all by herself!

Jayden enjoyed waving hi to all the animals in the barn - pony, horse, kitten, and dog!

"DeeDee"

Jayden has a new word, "deedee." He says it when he sees a dog, or any other 4 legged animal like a cow or a cat. He loves to point at the deedee, wave to it, and pet it. He gets a little nervous if the animal's face gets close to him, but he simply backs away from it or pushes him away!

In my parent's neighborhood there are many dogs. If Jayden is outside and sees one walking with it's owner he starts walking toward it down the sidewalk pointing and saying, "deedee, deedee" as he walks. I really think he would just keep going and going trying to catch up with dog forever!

The Ohio State Fair

The kids and I have been in Ohio for the past week and a half. The day we arrived we went to the Ohio State Fair and had lots of fun. Here are some of the highlights:

Deep Fried Buckeyes! (For those who don't know, Buckeyes are the traditional candy of Ohio - chocolate covered peanut butter balls.) The deep fried version was very good, but you probably can only get them here. The food stand also had deep fried PB&J, snickers, milky ways, Oreos, and Nutter Butters. By the way, the Ohio State Fair was also the place to try chocolate covered frozen bananas, cheesecake on a stick, and chocolate covered bacon - the latter of which was said to not be very good at all!

Cows, cows, and more cows! There were baby cows born that morning, cows you could milk (Sydney got to do that!), cows you could pet, and cows getting brushed for their shows. Jayden loved the cows and loved waving and saying, "hi," to them all day. We also got to see horses, chickens, ducks, turkeys, and rabbits!

Rides! Sydney enjoyed kiddieland with all the kid rides. Her favorite was the kiddie bumper boats. J was very jealous he couldn't get in too.

The Lemon Shake Up! A full cup of freshly made lemonade for the "bargain" price of $6! J thought this was one of the best things he's ever had and you could barely get the cup away from him! We also had Coke Icees at the fair!

The trampoline! Sydney was not quite heavy enough to get her own self jumping high so one of the workers had to keep coming over and pulling her legs down so she didn't just stay suspended in the air!

My "prize winning" tomato

So, we decided to plant a vegetable garden this summer for the first time ever. Nothing too extravagant, just a 3X8 foot container garden. We planted tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, basil, parsley, cilantro, peppers, and squash.

The lettuce was fantastic, but ended up being too good. We couldn't keep up with the supply and eventually the lettuce bolted and became bitter. The cilantro also proved to be challenging. It just has such a short growing cycle before it wants to produce seed that you're left with a short window of when you can use it. I tried picking off the flower buds, but eventually I was picking off dozens of flower buds a day and I just couldn't keep up. I love cilantro, but I'm not sure I'll grow it again next summer. We'll see.

The cucumbers ended up growing much more than I expected as well. I had to install some make shift fencing to get them to climb up rather than overtaking the entire yard. At least they have produced a nice steady supply of vegetables, which we have more or less been able to keep up with.

But the most impressive have been the tomato plants. In the end, I put them too close together, as I didn't know they would grow as much as they did. We ended up with a densley packed forest of tomato bushes which completely dwarfed some of the other plants we had growing nearby. We had three varieties of cherry tomatos, and those have been my favorite, as the fruits mature at a nice pace so that every day we have a new crop of newly ripened tomatos.

We had a few large tomato plants as well, but I have been less impressed with them. I think mostly because they only seem to have a few tomatoes per plant, so it seems like a lot of work and effort for just a few tomatoes. I do have one "prize winner", though. I'm saving this one for a special occasion and I'll be really curious to see how it tastes. The coke can is to provide some perspective.

July - A Month of a Few Firsts

July 4th Family Photo

When you haven't updated your blog in over a month you realize that there have been many blog worthy posts, but the thought of how much time it would take to actually do the work becomes just too much. I will, therefore, just do the short version of what July held for us.

July started with Jayden's first trip to the Boston Fireworks. He stayed awake the whole time and stared intently at the fireworks. (Unlike his sister who for the first time in her life seemed afraid of them and sat in the stroller with the picnic blanket over her head!)

On July 11th we headed to Holden Beach, North Carolina for 12 days of fun in the sun with some of my immediate and extended family. Like last year it was a blast! Sydney swam for hours each day in the pool and really excelled in her swimming ability. She floated on her back for 2 whole minutes and swam for the first time with her face in the water. She also for the first time rode a regular bike (no training wheels) and did well very well!

While Sydney was learning biking and swimming, Jayden continued to master waving and saying "hi" to all the beach house folks. But his biggest accomplishment came on July 19th when he decided to start walking on his own! Sydney and her friend, Taylor, were cheering him on and since then he's only gotten better!