A Day At The Fair

Today we got up early to go to the Annual Rochester Fair in Rochester, NH after a full night of sleep (thank you Oni!).  It took us quite a while to get out the door this morning as Liam was feeling emotional in the way that only a two year old can causing us to take twice as long as normal to get out the door.

An example of our morning conversation would be this:

Mom: “Lets put on your sneaker so we can go get in the car”

Liam: “I don’t want sneakers, I want boots!”

Mom: “Ok, wear you boots then, that is a good choice”

Liam: “I WANT BOOOOOTTTSSSS!” (throws himself onto the floor for a two minute fit)

Mom: ….

 

Finally we made it out the door and drove off to pick up Aunty Moonshine and Alvine to head on over to the fair.   It was a beautiful day, slightly overcast with perfect fall temperatures.  If you head into the fair before all the rides are open it is free to get in so we enjoyed our day for a cost of only $5 to park.  The kids, Aunty Moonshine, and I all had a blast and Liam even scored a new hat for the winter!

Checking out the dairy bottle collection

“Carry Me”

Stickers from the very nice balloon animal artist for being polite and well behaved

pumpkins!

checking out the kids craft corner

Oni

Alvine

Liam

using his “looking eyes”

tractors!

tractors!

Alvine

Derby race cars with the boy scouts

pig car won the first race

yellow car won the second

bulldozer!

checking out the animal barns

Liam is a bit wary of farm animals

Oni

One day old calf that was born at the fair

petting the bunnny

Liam got a new hat

It is (of course) next to impossible to get both two year olds to stand next to each other and smile.

Now I am enjoying nap time to the fullest extent 🙂

15 months later…

I can’t believe how the time has flown, Liam is 15 months already! It has been so exciting to watch him play, grow, and learn these last few months. Everything happens so fast at this point, it’s like a neural explosion. Over the last 3 months Liam has:

• Gone from stumbling to run-stumbling
• Learned to say over 25 words, although he mostly refers to animals by the sounds they make, except our youngest dog, Bruise, who he calls Rooze.
• Learned how to walk backwards and spin in a circle
• Begun helping Conan and I with simple tasks (carrying light things mostly)

His favorite things right now are:

• Reading… By himself, to the bear, to Conan and I… This little boy loves to be the one reading the story.
• His big white bear, “Baby”… When Liam was born Conan’s company sent us a present, a giant white polar bear which I never named because I figured it would be too big to drag around. Liam has proven me wrong and he has named it “Baby”. The other stuffed animals are babies too, but there is only one Baby and he goes everywhere with Liam.
• Yogurt, cereal bars, and berries
• Going to the park
• The tub, this little guy loves his baths (and his bath toys)

He has had a lot of adventures over the last three months, including:

• His first sleepovers with Grammy and Grampy F.
• His second annual Flynnstock with Conan
• His first trip to the beach!

Liam and Conan, taking a dip

Bouncy house fun

My Little Fish

While I have tried (desperately sometimes) to be there for every single event it just hasn’t been possible and sometimes Conan and Liam are a two man team while I am at home with the puppy brothers doing homework or at work.  We do our best with the time we have and try to make every moment count.

Today the three of us went out to lunch to one of our favorite Mexican restaurants and then to the park for some quality time (and to exhaust Liam before his nap).  It was suppose to rain all day today so it was a pleasant surprise to be able to get out and about.  My park plan however backfired as it was not just Liam that needed the nap when we got home 😉

Sliding fun!

Sliding fun!

“Boo!”

And now a parting message from Liam himself and a few more of my favorite pictures from the last few months….

mddddddddddddddddddddddcnn vvvvvvvvvvvvmvb nffkbgghashgklbjcv b hvfghm jk df6988888888888888888

I can’t wait to see what the next three months brings!

Artsy Toddlers

Liam and The Bean have been exploring their artistic side this week.  For the most part we have been playing with crayons and stickers, using this exploration in art as an opportunity to learn shapes and colors.  Today I was tired of drawing green circles and purple squares so I decided to be brave and break out the finger paints.

I set up this activity with one color of paint only placed onto a plate for easy dipping for their small hands, I also prepared by grabbing a roll of paper towels and a bowl of water in advance for emergency clean ups (surprise! there were a few!).  We started out by taking turns and making hand prints (for Momma’s memory box), then it was a finger painting free for all.  All in all it was a great time and entertained them for about 30 minutes total. Even the clean up afterwards wasn’t all that difficult thanks to being prepared with water and towels.  The kids had a blast!

And now for the photos… this is the last few days of art activities 🙂 It looks like the Grammy’s and Grampy’s are going to be getting LOTS of presents!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Day 37

Day 37 of the selfie challenge: 365 Days of Momma

It’s Sunday! AND! I have the day off!!!!

That’s right, its my weekend off… I firmly believe that having to work every other weekend makes me that much more appreciative of the ones I have off.

This morning Liam took off after breakfast, grabbed a book and his teddy bear, and then proceeded to set himself up on the couch next to me to “study” with me.  That’s right, I used the “s” word.  Someone though it would be a brilliant idea to take a full course load in the summer during the most gorgeous weather of the year because the semester is shorter and it would be nice to just get the work done with.  The same someone is now incredibly worried that maybe, just maybe, she might not be able to keep up.  I don’t know who comes up with these brilliant ideas but they probably should have less of them.

So the adorableness ensued this morning and Liam and I studied together for about 10 minutes before my urge to snap a picture completely overcame me.  Of course as soon as I picked up the camera phone he had to climb into my lap to get it…. The result is this:

Today’s selfie is less of me and more of us, but it is an awesome memory that I want to hold on to…. especially with the puppy photo-bomb in the second shot!

 

I do promise an update soon on my personal progress towards self acceptance of myself in photographs.  This project has turned into more than I originally planned.  What started out as something that was just for me has also evolved into a mechanism to show Liam my memories from his early childhood.

 

 

Somersworth Children’s Festival

So I am a little behind in keeping up with the blog.. I blame the awesomely hot weather (and my subsequent desire to spend my life in the splash pool with the toddlers).

I also am prepping to head back to school in a big way next week after taking the spring semester off (it was so nice!).  I have a year left of classes, and a year left of an internship before I can take my administrator boards, so it is all serious all the time starting next week.  It really is a shame I can’t (safely) bring the laptop into the splash pool with me.  That would be some amazing multitasking.

This group of pictures is from the annual International Children’s Festival in Somersworth NH that we went to with a pretty big group of the family a few weeks ago.   It was an absolute blast and if you are in the seacoast NH region on the 3rd Saturday in June you should definitely make plans to bring your family!  The activities there were definitely geared to the 10 an under crowd, but even the 1 year olds had a blast dancing and hanging out with the animals at the miniature petting zoo.  As a parent the events on the various stages kept me entertained as well, and it was so much fun to see the kids enjoying themselves.  I think this is going to be a yearly trip for us.

Want more information about the festival?  Visit the website for the Somersworth Festival Association.

And without further adieu… pictures!

Turtles

Pigs

Bunnies

Goats

Lizards

Pythons

 

First stop for us was the Wildlife Encounters area.  There were animals and a mini petting zoo for the kids.. a hit with all of them.  The folks over at wildlife encounters were super busy, but also super nice.  they do Birthday Parties in the area and my sister-in-law who works at a local day care center said that their visits to the daycare are always a kid/parent favorite.  Personally I loved the staffing ratio they had, despite all of the kids that were milling around they were able to keep everything well organized, the animals not overcrowded, and everyone happy and safe.

splash pool

cool down time

a long walk made fun

big wheels!

big wheels!

After the animals we had some fun on the playground, drawing pictures in the shade, and then cooled off with the splash pool that was set up before taking a long walk down to the second site of the festival (note* there was a trolley that we did not know about that would have taken us down minus the hike… good to know for next year!)

The Bean and Aunty

C is fascinated

The Bean and Grampa

TaeKwon Do demo

Next up for us was a nice cold drink and snack time while we watched a Jamaican band and then the TaeKwon Do demo put on by Mr. B’s school.  The older kids were fascinated, the toddlers wanted to risk life and limb to run out among all the kicking and punching people.  Apparently it looked like fun!

Balloon Animals

Aunty C, beat us all with the longest ride

shell paintings

You can cross riding a mechanical bull off my bucket list

Our stamps

C+F posing in front of the bull

Giant Tiger Slide

Aunty Moonshine

The international tent

The second site had all the normal fair like activities, including rides, face painting, games, fair food and balloon animals.  There also was a pretty cool craft fair inside the school and a tented area that highlighted the cultural trends of different nationalities.

Aunty C and F

The Bean playing on a fire engine

Grampy and Grammy!

Aunty and Uncle Moonshine, and The Bean

This is where Liam passed out (literally, while walking), so Conan and I trudged back to the car and went to go pick up pizza while everyone else got to enjoy a lovely trolley ride and some more fun!

My Guy Likes To Party All The Time

It is a few days after the actual first birthday and we had (a lot of) the family over to Grammy and Grampy D’s house for a celebration!

Grammy set up a ball pit that was a hit with the kids.

Liam stole a ball… delicious!

Mila and Riley

Liam and The Bean

We socialized

Grampy F and Liam

Roomies!!!!

The Bean and Aunty C

Three generations!

Aunty C… or a chair? Pig Pile!

Liam and GREAT Aunt K

Liam sort of opened presents… thankfully his cousins were more than willing to help!

Rocking the hat!

Toddler sized golf clubs!

Hello? The trike has a play cell phone… its never to early to teach a child how to talk and drive!

New Clothes!

Future Pro-golfer?

ooh, a mower!

See?

“That?”

Helpful Cousins!

The Bean checking out the new transportation

A gift from Da

1,2,3 RIP!

 

And CAKE!

Hmmm, I could like this

Mine!

With the chefs 🙂 Momma and Aunty D

“See?” someone loves cake!

Coming up for air

Sugar High!

We had a blast! Liam’s sugar high lasted until 8pm.

Thank you so much to everyone who could make it, you all really made this a fabulous day for us to remember!  We all had so much fun!

Easter

Yes… Easter was almost a week ago.  Unfortunately I ended up working a 17 hour shift the day before Easter and ended up being pretty much a zombie on Easter day.  Liam was hanging with the Grandparents across the state so I took the opportunity to have a nice long cuddle nap with the puppy brothers in the morning and hang with the husband in the afternoon.  We may or may not have spent four hours playing video games together instead of doing any of the many projects that need doing around the house.

This gallery is of all the Easter events that have occurred over the last few weeks.  We celebrated a week early with my family because my older brother came home from Rome for a long weekend.  Then Liam got to go for his first sleepover to my husband’s parents house on Easter weekend.  He had a blast… I may have gained a few gray hairs due to stressing out for no reason at all.  Liam got to participate in two Easter egg hunts!  He now thinks eggs filled with treats are the best thing ever.

 

First Easter:

 

 

Second Easter:

 

Grammy F and Liam

Maybe next year he will find more than one egg without becoming distracted by the goodies inside 🙂

Play Time

Play time with momma and da vary quite a bit. With momma there is typically more action (dance party!), and with da usually a little more structure (look at the yellow truck!). I firmly believe that both have there place in every child’s life. Sure playtime is learning time, but sometimes you just have to let loose. Here are some various playtime pictures from this evenings time with momma and then da 🙂