Well, Well, Well

....can we just pretend that I haven't been ignoring this blog?  I've honestly thought about not writing it anymore, but every time I click on "memories" and am awarded with pics of the boys and silly stories from the last ten years, I don't want to quit.  (SHUT UP....ten years???)  I know that I write mostly for myself, and my husband, mom and maybe a friend read, but really, it's just to preserve what I want to preserve:  time.

So anyway.....here goes.

1. I successfully said "no."  Mostly by non-action, but a "no" nonetheless!  I swiftly avoided the school fundraiser.  The kids came home from school all excited, saying "MOM!  We could win a Nintendo Switch!  We only have to sell like a million items in the fundraiser to win!"  Well bud, we have a small family and not a big need for cookies, wrapping paper and magazine subscriptions.  Mom does a great job ignoring the magazine subscriptions that she already has.  (Except the knitting ones, of course!)  So the deadline quietly slipped by and I triumphantly recycled the materials. 

2.  We're having a really weird Autumn.  No foliage, and warm temps.  I keep forgetting it's October.  Until yesterday, we were still using air conditioning.  Usually by now I'm bringing out the cooler weather clothes.  Not that this has stopped Sean from wearing long pants and a henley shirt every morning.  And no matter how many times I send him back to change, he's unhappy about it.  That boy is always freezing....he's the only person I know that needs a sweatshirt at the dinner table if the window is open.  My sweet, chilly boy. 

3.  Speaking of Sean, he had a great solution for being out of chip clips the other day.  He grabbed a toy wrench to keep a bag of frozen strawberries from rolling and spilling the other day.  Nice.

4.  In less than two weeks, I'm going to have a pre-teen.  That's right....Will's turning 11.  I wonder if he'll get a Hogwarts letter?  I'm prepared to be super jealous. 

And finally,

5.  I'm not knitting Christmas gifts this year.  Yes, you read that right.  I'm giving myself a gift of less stress at the holidays, and I'm knitting what I please instead.  Which turns out to be shawls for me actually, who knew? 

Maybe the next post will be about Halloween.  We shall see.

Halloween 2016

The boys went as SWATS this year.  They have learned from their experience as ninjas last year that it's not worth it to carry props.  Will's velcro SWAT vest held all of his tools.  Sean promptly lost most of his, but he was still pretty happy.  This is them before we headed to "Trunk or Treat" at their karate school.

As always, first we have a serious pose.

And then, a silly pose.  You almost want to be arrested by these fellas.

We have an annual tradition to go trick or treating with some friends.  Their neighborhood, unlike ours, gets tons of kids and is a lot of fun.  Sean and his best bud Patrick.  Patrick and his older brother Tom went as the Ghostbusters.  Awesome!

Finally, this crazy kid traded all of his Halloween candy for 2,000 paperclips!!  He said that he wanted to make a long chain out of them.  Naturally, it didn't stick, and he's been eating candy this week like a fiend.  I never expected it to stick.  

 And a little throwback.....these two have always loved dressing up together and are already coming up with ideas for next year.  So far they've done firefighters, ninjas, pirates and now police.  What will they come up with next!

Wand Duels

One of the favorite activities of the boys are "wand duels."  This is where we chase each other around the house, pointing Harry Potter wands (large plastic drinking straws in mine and Sean's case) and yell spells at each other.  It drives my husband crazy, because the boys are pretty loud about it.  He said that he always thought that he had more time before we started talking around him, probably when the boys took Spanish in school.  Instead it's in Latin and in a fandom kind of way.  He's a muggle so.....there's also that.  

Anyway, the boys want to do more spells, and they want "Harry Potter Homework."  So who am I to deny them?   We'll definitely have to upgrade our straws at some point.

I love the fact that the boys are turning into voracious Harry Potter fans, I am so proud.  :)

Childhood Flick Favorites

I've instituted an unofficial Friday Night movie night at the house.  Daddy plays volleyball on Fridays, so it's a good time to snuggle up and watch a flick.  It's not every Friday, sometimes Pokemon wins out, or computer time.  But the last time we did this was a few Fridays ago, and we watched "The Neverending Story."  I had read that it was coming back to theaters for it's 30th anniversary and though I wanted to go, I didn't want to go by myself.  So I set it up to record, and we settled down to watch.

They were really engaged, but had lots of questions.  And I'll tell you, they were a lot less scared than I was back in the day!

Other movies we've watched:

Matilda.  Sean LOVED it and has asked when we can watch it again.

Goonies.  We did this one last year.  Will thought it was great.  I had forgotten about some of the crude humor in the beginning with the statue and Corey Feldman's character, but luckily it whooshed right over their heads.

Princess Bride.  We did this one two years ago and Will just fell in love with it.  I love it too, I always stop to watch when it's on.


I'm waiting til they're a little older for Spaceballs, but that's certainly on the list.  Always looking for ideas.

Suck it up, Cupcake!

Finishing soccer practice with Will and Sean on a Friday night.  (Soccer practice on a Friday night=bad idea. I unplug my brain at 4:30pm on Fridays.   But I digress.)

It was a busy night and we were headed to the Relay for Life to support the karate school.  And Mom had to pee.  There was a porta-potty in the school parking lot.  I gave it a sideways glance and decided I'd rather stop at home.  Even though stopping at home means a possible derailment of said plans.

 Kids are bickering in the car.  (Shocking, I know.)  I announce that we're stopping at home first and naturally, the boys want to know why.  I said "So mom can stop to use the bathroom."  Will points out that there's a porta-potty.  I said yeah, but I'd rather go at home.

Then out of the blue, in a nice deep voice he says "Suck it up, Cupcake!"

I wasn't sure how to react.  So I laughed.  Hysterically.  And sucked it up.  Hey, I'm washable.

WW: First Day of School!!

Maker's Faire

My friend Danielle had told me about this thing called a Maker's Faire in Boston a couple of months ago.  Upon finding out that it would have robots, a tiny house, opportunities to build stuff, etc, we decided that the family MUST go.  Tickets were $10.00 apiece and the event was held under several tents in front of the Boston Children's Museum.

First of all, the boys' favorite part was taking the train from Newton to Boston.  Their first train ride was practically met with applause.  :)  And then, the idea that everyone could eat something different for lunch at South Station was also popular.

The fair itself was very hot, but not too terribly crowded.  We met robots from Battlebots, and Will got to experience driving a robot.  (It was kind of like a Roomba)  After watching so many TV shows about tiny house living, we got to tour one.  (It's not for me, for sure.)  We built mazes, and "hacked the dollar store."  There was a Japanese weaver, and I would've like to try it, but there wasn't enough time.  And Sean got to build a decorative doodad, using saws and hammers, etc.  We were all exhausted and ready for ice cream upon getting back to South Station.  The train ride was crowded on the way home, and Sean practically fell asleep in my lap.  All in all, a great summer day.

Well, Hello

Hello from Summer Living, where we're running around living life and not blogging about it!  It's late July already, and we've done so much stuff this summer already.

The boys spent a week with their grandparents in PA, enjoying the things that campground life has to offer.  Stuff like arcade games, swimming pools and riding in the golf cart.  Mom and Dad, having to work back at home for the week, did NOT enjoy going out to eat at non-kid-friendly restaurants, nor getting ice cream almost every night at a different place each time.  No, no they didn't.  :)

Then we took the kids for a week in Williamsburg, VA.  And man, we did it ALL.  If Williamsburg offered it, we took it up.  Busch Gardens (twice), Water Country, Colonial Williamsburg.....and had a lovely time.  It was a heavy-walking vacation, I logged 17,400 steps on my Fitbit one of the days.  We'd been four years ago so we knew the area and Will could relax quickly being somewhere familar.  Sean, our resident daredevil, went on every single wild ride that he was tall enough for, which this year was a lot!

After that, camp started.  And now we're in kind of a groove, routine-wise.  Enjoying the dog days of summer, doing day trips to things like the Maker's Fair in Boston, and heading to Six Flags this weekend.  School will be here again before we know it.

Summer is Here!

Last day of school today.  Bittersweet, as I no longer have a third grader and a kindergartner.  Here they are on their last day:

It's been a really great year for both boys.  Will had a great team helping him be the best that he could be and it looks like fourth grade will continue to be great!  Don't get me wrong, it'll still be hard sometimes.  It just feels so good to be supported.

And kindergarten....man, Sean hit the jackpot.  The teacher sent out an email yesterday to all the parents saying thanks for sharing your great kids with me, that it was a pleasure.  One thing that she mentioned is that this class really accepted each other for who they are, that everyone genuinely liked each other, was one of the most polite and respectful classes, etc.  One kid summed it up:  "There are lots of good friends with good hearts."  It warmed this mom's heart.

On to summer:  tonight is the boys' last karate class for at least two weeks.  Because they are headed to a fun-filled week with Grandmom and Grandpop on Saturday! And after that.....vacation with us!  Summer's full of fun plans--robotics camp, karate camp, trips to Six Flags, etc.  We'll make it a great one.

Candy Heart Snippets

Both the Valentine's Day celebration and the 100th Day of School (that wasn't an "event" when I was a kid) coincided for our Sean, and he couldn't have been more excited.  When I picked him up this afternoon he happily showed me a big paper bag that he'd decorated that was chock-full of Valentines, candy and the "trail mix" that they made as a class.  So. Much. Candy.

Immediately he brought me a lollipop and asked to open it.  He'd tried to do it, but couldn't get it open.  I gave it a shot and well, the bag won.  So quickly we had a lolly-stick and a heat-shaped lozenge.  Will asked if there was any such thing and I told him that we'd just invented the heart-shaped lozenge.  He said that he doubted that we had done that and I said until I hear differently.  "And if you hear differently?"  Well....we're the SECOND people to invent the heart-shaped lozenge.

Since the lollipop didn't work out, Sean brought over a itty bitty bag of candy conversation hearts.  I started reading them and the three of us started making up our own personal hearts.

Sean:  chicken nugget, chicken nugget.

Me:  I love Yarn.

Will:  Throw me in the nearest trashcan and eat chocolate instead.

Yep.  I don't know where he gets his wry sense of humor.

The Day After

Christmas has come and gone for another year....and it was a pretty good one.  For one thing, it's got to be one of the warmest Christmases on record!  It felt weird but I'm not complaining for sure.   We were festive, we were prepared, and we had fun.  For once I had all of the wrapping done in plenty of time, and I was only sewing buttons and weaving in ends on TWO projects during the day on Christmas Eve.  Considering other years, that's pretty good.  Brian and I hosted this year, and all was well.  Dinner went off with only a slight hiccup and dessert was really lovely.  The house isn't even as trashed as it usually is the day after Christmas.  No gift returns this year, and the best surprise was Alton Brown tickets for Brian.  All FOUR of us are going to see his show in April.  It was a great family secret and I'm particularly proud of the boys for keeping it.

Today has been kind of a lazy day, and I feel really comfortable and happy.  We've let the boys run around and do whatever they like today.  That equals a huge blanket fort in their bedroom, breaking open geodes from the kit that was sent by Uncle Matt and Aunt Katie, eating copious amounts of treats and right now, building a robot from the kit that Will received from us for Christmas.  I spent part of it in new pajamas, reading "The Kids are All Right:  A Memoir" by Liz Welch and Diana Welch.  (It's a true story, and pretty riveting.  I had trouble putting it down.)  Later on I braved shopping and even that wasn't too terrible.  For the first time in 15 years, all of the wrapping paper and boxes/tissue paper have been purged and organized, and will be going back to the garage in better shape than they came upstairs.

Now tonight is a dinner of leftover pasta and meat sauce, and the movie Inside Out.  I'm loving this winter vacation.

Wordless Wednesday: EarlyHoliday Pics

A Big Mashup Holiday Post

Yep.  I haven't posted once in December so let me sum up.

1.  I have a love-hate relationship with the month of December.  I love the holidays, but I hate the chaos.  Plus it's difficult to keep any sort of routine, so the kids suffer a bit.  This is Sean's first year having Christmas at school (they didn't celebrate holidays at his preschool) so the crazies are strong there.  Lots of frustration, stomping of feet, slamming of doors and remarks like "this is the worst Tuesday of my life" and my personal favorite:  "It's not even time to go to the bus yet and I. Already. Have. A. Frown. on. my. FACE!!!"  It was tough not to laugh, let me tell you.  Lots of extra snuggles and patience.  I'm great at the snuggles, but patience is not a strong suit for me.

2.  Have I mentioned that I am the BIGGEST HYPOCRITE EVER??  Yes, I am.  Sean was so sad that there's no Elf on the Shelf at his house that I caved and bought one last week at the mall.  Will's been so sweet to his younger brother, helping him name the Elf (Chippy) and coming up with ideas.  So we have an Elf, but I said that Chippy is a trainee, having shown up the week before Christmas.  Brian and I don't believe in the whole "The elf is reporting back to Santa" thing so it's just a fun thing in our house.  As soon as the kids go to bed at night one of us moves him. Brian watched me set up a Connect Four game between Chippy and Will's favorite Pokemon, Oshawott last night.  He remarked that I seemed to be enjoying it, and honestly, I was.  I love whimsical things.  I also will NOT be putting up a daily photo on Facebook about what Chippy's up to.  If Chippy wants to be on FB he can get his own account.

3.  You saw that Will is helping with Chippy, huh....  Well, Will pulled me aside at Thanksgiving and said "I have a suspicion that Santa Claus is really you and Dad.  I really need you to tell me that's not true."  I can't lie, it breaks my heart a little bit that he no longer believes.  But now he's excited about the magic of it and is encouraging his brother's belief in Santa instead of telling him.  It's sweet to watch.

4.  We had two Holiday concerts this year, Will's was last week at night at the high school and Sean's was this morning.  Both boys were adorable!  Now we have karate graduation tonight and I think that's all the obligations.  Wait no.....both boys have holiday parties in class tomorrow and I need to buy donut holes for one of them, I just can't remember which kid.  Hopefully I figure that out by tomorrow morning!

5.  Two things that have gone WELL this year....the holiday knitting is DONE and I won't be spending all day Christmas Eve wrapping gifts for my extended family.  However, I need to learn my lesson and weave in ends and block finished items sooner.  And next year, I think that I'm going to do the same item for all knit gift recipients, like an infinity scarf for everyone.

Well, that's pretty much all that is going in our world.  Merry Christmas to All and to All a Good Night!!

I'm starting a Mom Zombie Gang....Wanna Join?

Sleep.

It's something that I haven't had a "normal" relationship with for years.  It's the bad boyfriend that keeps luring you back with promises of falling asleep easily and waking well-rested. I suffer from insomnia, especially on Sunday nights.  And now we can add anxiety to that list, too, nothing like a brain that's worrying to keep a girl up at night.

But last night was my fault....Hubby's traveling for work and I let the kids sweet-talk me into sharing my bed.  Yeah.....I've had better ideas in my life, especially on a weeknight.  First the little one needed more light, so I left the bathroom door open AND got another nightlight to make him comfortable. Then the big one....man, he is a bed hog.  And the little one is a blanket hog and murmurs in his sleep.  The final straw was getting the knees and elbows of the big one in the back at 3am, and waking up to him sneezing like crazy.  I wandered into their bedroom and got a pillow, and gently transferred the not-quite-awake Will onto the floor with a blanket.  Sean woke up too, and I asked him if he wanted to join his brother on the floor.  "No I wanna stay in the bed."  Of course you do, Darling.

The alarm going off at 6:15am was like an assault to the senses.  Usually they like to pop right out of bed, but they suffered through the snooze cycle with me today.  Will has no memory of me putting him on the floor and was a bit chagrined.  Sean was complaining as we were heading out to the bus stop that he didn't sleep well.  My response:  "None of us did, Baby.  We'll get better sleep tonight."

May tonight bring more sense to this zombie.  (Mombie?)  It's a late day for us too, with karate.  Thank goodness I had the foresight to cook tonight's dinner yesterday--I'm going to be pretty useless tonight but probably will be able to work a microwave.  Probably.

And I Didn't Cry....Much

The big yellow bus came today and took my boys to school.  My younger one for the first time.  And I didn't cry.  He was a bit apprehensive and needed a "Go ahead!  You've got this."  for encouragement.   He was excited right up til that point.  The big kid, well....he was anxious to start a new school but was taking solace in the fact that it's a new school for EVERY kid there because last year it was a middle school and not elementary.

 Here they are, and yes, if Big Bro is wearing a Minecraft shirt then you can be sure the Little Bro is wearing one as well!

Right after the kids got on the bus and we walked home, Hubby grabbed his bags and headed for a work conference in Texas.  There may have been a couple of tears.  And they MAY have been that I don't have my own ticket on the plane, and am running the show this week.  Nah....I'll miss him.  That's the first reason.  The second is jealousy of his nice hotel room all on his own.  I had my turn in Vermont last May, though.

So it's "Friday Night Fun Club:  The Extended Edition" until (you guessed it) Friday.  There will be lots of pasta, school fundraiser, karate class, etc etc.  Oh, and that pesky thing called Work.

Our Two Ninjas

Saturday was summer graduation for karate school.  This graduation was a big one, because A. it was Sean's first and B.  Will did his black dragon testing!!

We are so incredibly proud of Will and Sean!  Sean learned so much this summer and he looks like he's having a lot of fun out there.  I'm still a bit surprised how much he learned in eight weeks of camp, but he had it down.

And Will....ridiculously proud.  He's kind of a perfectionist and one of the things that the Dragons had to work on this cycle was accepting criticism.  NOT one of his strong suits.  If you watch the video though, in his second form he started doing the wrong one.  He was corrected and quickly jumped into the correct form, without a fuss.  This is something that he worked really hard on, practicing his forms EVERYWHERE:  our bathroom, in the yard, at Target, at a birthday party.....everywhere.  His dedication is admirable.

Now Will moves up into an older group of kids and has three or four buddies moving up with him.  You've got this, Buddy!

School Bell's Starting to Ring

School starts in less than two weeks.  Which is strange, because our town is going back almost two weeks later than the others around us, due to construction and restructuring.  Karate camp ends tomorrow....and I'm just as sad this year as I was last summer. It's been a good one and I know that the boys have loved going every day.  

We're hurriedly finishing the summer homework, and the emails and robo-calls have started rolling in with school announcements.  I got Will's back to school supplies the other night to the tune of $85!  Dry erase markers, 48 sharpened pencils, a slew of folders, a bunch of highlighters (chisel tip ONLY).....and that's not even all of it.  He still needs a pair of earbuds and I told the boys that I'd treat them to new lunchboxes this weekend.  I'm thankful that there's no supply list for kindergarten, but am SO LOOKING FORWARD to shopping for supplies for both kids next year.

It's great to have good friends.  Especially friends who offer to take your younger son to Kindergarten Orientation with their son!  I'm stuck working today while Sean's meeting his teacher and taking a ride on the bus.  Ah well, I'll get to meet the teacher next week at open house.

It's a bit of a whirlwind, with some longing and happiness mixed together.  We'll get through it.

Blink.

Another summer, almost over in the blink of an eye.  School starts three weeks from tomorrow.  Karate camp ends next week, and then it's a week of one parent taking a day with the kids, Nana taking a day with the boys, etc.  I love the fall, but I don't want "carefree summer" to be over!  September brings school and responsibility, and homework etc.  So we'll try to cherish the next three weeks instead of dreading what comes after them.  

Apparently Will has a lot of friends with August birthdays.....yesterday marked the fourth birthday party we've been to in the last two weeks!  That gets expensive....but I'm so happy for friends and being invited places.  

The theme for the last week of camp is "Crazy Hair."  So I'm going to experiment with some hair chalk.  It needed to be something VERY temporary and easy to wash out, since it's so close to school starting.  Had "Crazy hair week" been earlier on, I would've dyed Sean's hair blue like he asked.  Or allowed Will the mohawk that he asked for.  :)

"The Gaga Pit"

 The karate school that the boys go to is next door to a used car dealership.  The parking lot can be pretty hairy, especially in the winter.  So the school has a little space blocked off with boards shaped into an octogon.  The boys tell me that this is called the Gaga Pit, where they play lots of ball games like Snake in the Garden and  (what else) Gaga.  (Will explained the rules of Gaga to me once and I got lost.)

Poor Seanie.  He's a tough dude, but even tough dudes get hurt sometimes.  He's tripped over this Gaga Pit a couple of times and beat the heck outta those knees.  It's me that picks them up most nights and if Sean comes over with a huge band-aid on his knee and a grin, I always say "Uh-oh....did the Gaga Pit strike again?"  "yeah."  "Well....gotta be careful buddy, use the GATE on one side instead of trying to jump over."  The third and (hopefully) last time he also scratched his arm and got a couple of dings on his chin.  "Mom, I didn't cry the first two times but today I cried."

Will told me that another kid came over to him that last time and said "Your brother tripped over the gaga pit!"  Will's response:  "Typical Sean."  "But Will, he's bleeding!"  "Yeah....that's kind of typical too....I'm coming over now."

So now we have a new phrase in our house:  "Beware the Gaga Pit!" I plan on using it for years to come.  On the way to midterms in high school...."Beware the Gaga Pit!"  Dropping Sean off at college "Beware the Gaga Pit!"  Getting married and having kids....watch out for that Gaga Pit, Sean!

My Two Ninjas

Look out World....there's a new karate student in town!

Sean is enrolled in Karate camp with his big brother this summer.  So far he loves it!  The only drawback is that it feels like his growing up has hit warp-speed.  I think it comes with hanging out with all the older kids.  He's the youngest in camp, and kids kind of fawn all over him.  And who can blame them, this kid is adorable.  (And I'm not just saying that because he's mine!)  Will's been happy to have someone at home to practice with, and even play "instructor."  

We're past the halfway mark on Summer, and soon the next karate graduation.  Will's going to try for Black Dragon, which is a special designation.  We're very proud of him!