Walk Day and Graduation Day- warning, picture heavy!

A huge thank you to everyone who supported us as we raised money for Boston Children's Hospital!  (Official Thank Yous will be sent out in the next week or so.)  The walk was on Sunday and the weather was perfect.  We got there early so that we could try out the games, face painting, etc. and then headed out before the crowds.

The "official" team photo in front of the Hatch Shell.



I added our team name to the back of the shirts. 
Cutting out the stencils was a bit tedious, but freezer paper stenciling is pretty easy.



Bennett liked playing in the bubbles.

Getting his face painted for the first time.  He wasn't so sure what to make of it.



Hmm, would Bennett be a tortoise or a hare?



Bennett and Fiona pre-walk.




And we're off!



Perhaps the cutest moment of the day was when Fiona took Bennett's hand as we started off and then held his hand for the entire walk!   He asked a couple of times to be picked up, but we suggested that he take Fiona's hand instead and he kept on going!



Bennett and Fiona are just 2 of those 500,000 patients!


Another way they raise a little more money is by selling these "honor flags".  They are pretty inexpensive (only $20 each) so I'm surprised that more people don't buy them.  Alicia thought in the future there should be an "add-on" option on the donation pages so that donors might be able to more easily purchase them.

With our flags.

After the walk we went to the playground that was next to the start/finish line.  There was a climbing structure with a nice big slide.  This is not an easy climbing structure!  It got even worse at the top where you had to maneuver between two small platforms that had widely spaced netting between them.  Bennett kept wanting to go up again but Daddy couldn't handle it anymore.  I think twice was two times too many for his liking.

Instead the kids tried out this spinning disk.  Bennett seems to love all of these "thrill" type activities.  Can't wait to go to an amusement park with him!



Hugs as we said goodbye.

 Now let's review what happened the rest of the week.

I have a helper in the garden.  He also tried watering it one day recently by taking a microfiber towel, dipping it into his pool, and then dripping/squeezing the water out over the plants.  Not a very effective method, but it kept him happy.

He's also been very interested in puzzles.  Of course his favorites are a set of four Curious George puzzles that we have, but those are only 12 pieces each so they aren't very challenging.  We also have a few 24 piece puzzles that he enjoys.

I'm not sure how it happened, because I certainly didn't get any older, but Hanna somehow turned from the three-year-old that I first met into a high school graduate!



During the processional.  I wonder if they are smiling because someone else was taking their picture.  I was so far away they would have had no idea that I had a camera aimed at them.  (Yay zoom lenses!)

 And speaking of growing up, when did this happen?  He looks so much older to me in this picture.  (Taken during a mini run-around break during the ceremony.

A note to all people who will be on stage at a graduation, especially those who will be handing out diplomas or shaking hands with the graduates and thus having your picture taken:  Please be aware of the school colors and don't dress in conflicting colors.  The school colors were maroon and white.  The person handing out diplomas was wearing an orangey-coral.  It looked horrid next to the maroon robes!  (It doesn't look quite as bad to me in this picture, but in real life it was horrible!  Even Chris agreed.

Of course the wind picked up just as Hanna had to cross the stage, so she was fighting with her cap and her hair the whole time.

Throwing caps.  It looks really cool, but it must be a pain to try to find your cap again.  I asked Hanna how hard it was to find her cap and she said she only did a mock throw.  Smart girl!

In typical teenage fashion, after the ceremony locating the boyfriend was more importand than locating the family.  :)



With the proud parents.

The whole family.  Ooops, Uncle Kevin is stuck behind Hanna's cap.

Bennett walked back to the house with Grandpa. (Until Bennett had to take a potty break in some bushes.)

There's a tradition in town for families to hang a banner to acknowlege their graduate.

Let's not rush things too much, but here's my "graduate".

Hope you enjoyed seeing our week!

Weekend away

As I mentioned last week, Bennett has a new friend- Curious George.  One morning last week Bennett was giving George raisins and then George was sharing them with Bennett.

Bennett also helped with the laundry.  I probably won't encourage too much of this particular behaviour or I might need to replace the dryer door, but it was cute.

There's also a video of this.

And here's a conversation we had in the car on the way home from school one day.  Not really all that intersting, but I tried to get him to say of of the words that we think are fun.

Then Mummy and Daddy went away for the weekend (celebrating our 10th anniversary!) and Bennett stayed with Uncle Andrew and Aunt Gentry.  Gentry works from home on Saturdays, so Andrew took Bennett to the Children's Museum to get him out of her hair.  While there they visited the "barber" and Andrew sent me this picture claiming that he had taken Bennett for his first hair cut.

Right next to the Children's Museum is the Boston Fire Museum.  How excited Bennett looks!

On Sunday they went to Sturbridge for Wool Days.  Bennett got to see a sheep be shorn, and Andrew and Gentry learned that with a small child in tow, it's really hard to spend time in the exhibits!  Then on Monday morning they went to a sheep farm.  As much as Bennett loves looking at animals, he wanted nothing to do with petting them!
Meanwhile on Martha's Vineyard, the weather was cold and rainy.  Saturday had the worst weather, but we still had a nice time walking around the various towns on the island and checking out the shops.  Sunday we went to one of the lighthouses where it was extremely windy.

We also checked out the Tabernacle and the cottages in Oak Bluffs.  We stopped at the Cottage Museum and enjoyed talking with the guides there.  Unfortunately it was right before closing, so we weren't able to talk for very long. 

Of course Monday had the best weather but we didn't stick around for very long as we wanted to try to beat some of the traffic on the way back.  And we did luck out!  Overall, it was a nice getaway, but probably a bit more low-key than we typically like.  Other than poking around shops there isn't much to do.  Maybe in nicer weather it would have been different because then we would have brought out bikes.

When we got home Bennett was a little more clingy than normal, but that was to be expected.  We gave him his souvenier- a Martha's Vineyard potholder- and he immediately brought us some "cookies" fresh out of the oven in his play kitchen.  We did some gardening and lawn mowing, and then we took a belated monthly photo.  (It might be just about time for a real hair cut!)

Walks, wardrobes, and weekends...

We are so close to meeting our goals for the upcoming walk to support Boston Children's Hospital.  In fact, Bennett has met and surpassed his goal.   I met my original goal and decided to aim to be a "Miracle Maker".  I'm just $45 away from that goal.  And Chris is a measly $15 away from reaching the minimum amount that he needs to raise.  Would you consider donating to help us reach our goals?  Pretty please?  You'll receive a lovely photo thank you card after the walk....

In the category of cute things that kids say, we have the following two entries.

• "Trash can truck- dump dump"  Each week he likes helping us bring the trash can to the curb.  And when we can, we like watching the trash truck come and pick up the trash can and dump the contents into the truck.  But Chris and I like how he blended the terms together to get trash can truck.  And the "dump dump" is just describing the action of the truck.
• Happy Birthday Mummy Mumma's Day

For the past couple of nights Bennett has been lining up all of his toys in the tub.  Another one of his OCD tendendcies?

We've been trying to get Bennett to dress himself.  For the most part he can do it, but if we are near him he always says that he needs help.  The only thing we weren't sure if he could do was his shirt.  So one morning this past week Chris picked out Bennett's clothes and left them in his room and asked him to put them on.  Then he left.  A few minutes later Bennett comes into our room completely dressed.  Undies and socks were on correctly, but the pants and shirt were backwards.  Oh well.  We decided to leave him as is and sent him to school that way.  And he was even still dressed that way when we picked him up.

On Saturday night we had a game night with friends.  It's been about 5 months since we've seen everyone.  Schedules are just way too busy!  Proof that it's been too long- one friend commented that Bennett is now speaking intelligent words.  We feel like he's been doing this for a while now!

Sunday was Mother's Day andd we went to Sturbridge.  Moms got in free (not that it mattered to us since we're members) so it was pretty busy.  Bennett continues to get comments from everyone about how cute his is in his hat.  If only he wouldn't smoosh it down onto his head.  It makes visibility a bit tricky.

We also got a picture of him in the final opening of this mult-person cutout.  I'll have to photoshop all of the images together at some point.

And of course we visited Doc and Blue (the oxen) and also looked at the cows.

After nap Bennett gave me his Mother's Day present that he bought with some help from Daddy.  It's a little hard to see here, but it's a "bouquet" made out of a few skeins of yarn with knitting needles as stems.  I had seen the idea and passed along a link to Chris.  I had a feeling this is what I would be getting but I hadn't known which option it would be.  There had been multiple choices in various colors and prices.

And then to finish the day we went outside and did some gardening.  Bennett helped me mix some compost into my garden beds.  I still have a bit more work to do, but need to get some more supplies before I can finish.  Hopefully that will happen later this week or next weekend. 



Museum Memberships

We have memberships to two different museums: Old Sturbridge Village and the Boston Children's Museum.  In the 6 months we've had the OSV membership, we've gone 9 times.  The Children's museum we've had since the end of July and we've gone twice.  The latter was a good idea in theory, but seems to take more planning on our part.  Plus we have to pay for parking, which is also a deterrent.  It will pay for itself in 2 more visits, and we're confident we'll do that (especially over the winter), but I don't think we'll be renewing that membership.

But we definitely love OSV.  My family had a membership for a while when I was younger and I fondly remember our visits.  Then Chris and I got a membership a couple of years ago (while I was pregnant with Bennett, actually).  I know we got our money's worth with that membership, but it was nothing like now!



Hanging out with Mumma in the Boba

 What's nice about the membership is that we don't feel bad if we're there for only a short amount of time.  And we mostly look at the animals, check out the gardens, etc.  Occassionally we go into a building, but not usually.  It's also interesting to see how our visits have evolved from Bennett being mostly in the stroller to mostly in the Boba (baby carrier), to mostly walking/riding on shoulders.  We went last weekend and he pretty much refused the Boba, but was happy as a clam riding on Daddy's shoulders.

 

The new waterwheel, officially in action for the first time
since being replaced.  (They had tested it earlier in the week.)



On our most recent visit, this past weekend, they were celebrating "Harvest Days".  It was a chance to help harvest corn, potatoes, beets, etc.  Plus they gave tours of the root cellar, smoke house, and barns.  Unfortunately we had to miss that since it was in the middle of nap time.  But an added bonus of our visit on Saturday was the rededication of the gristmill.  It's been out of operation for a number of years as it needed a new waterwheel as well as some other repairs.  It was finally done!  We happened to be in the area of the mills when the ceremony was coming to an end.  We stopped by, and as we were standing there, someone vaguely familiar looking walked by.  He had a name tag on because he was a trustee of the museum.  It was none other than Norm Abram, host of This Old House and The New Yankee Workshop.





Norm Abram watching the rededication ceremony

After the ceremony Norm went to talk with the master craftsmen who had worked on the project. Chris wanted to take a picture and talk with him, but he also didn't want to interrupt. We waited around for a little while, but they were having a nice long conversation. So in the end, this is the only photo I have- taken on the sly with my phone as we all stood watching the ceremony.



I think at this time of year things are going to quiet down a bit at the village.  Most of our other visits had been on weekends where special events were going on, but the calendar looks a bit sparce for the next few months.  Makes sense, since there's really no farming to do over the winter.  Plus with the chillier weather, I imagine fewer people will want to visit.  Maybe now we'll make a point of going into all of the buildings to check them out.

Also, as a random aside, I got stung by a yellow jacket while we were there on Saturday.  4 days later and it still hurts!