Ribbon or Bibo Video

Winter Storm Brooke

Evan's First Big Boy Bath!

The Krystal Gnome

Matt's mom makes gorgeous christmas decorations every year - here's Syd with her adorable "Krystal Gnome," the gnome of all the things that grow in the earth, according to the story card. Just beautiful!

Post-Thanksgiving Get-Together

I had SUCH a great time yesterday spending time with Matt & Sarah, Alison & family, and Shannon & family. The kids (7 of 'em!) got along amazingly well, and we enjoyed good wine and good food (thanks everyone!). We're going to try to make a date for a winter break get-together, too...Anne, Brittany, Nancy - hope you can make it then!!

Dr. Wallace brought out his beautiful bug collection for the kids - how cool. And Evan had no lack of girlfriends to entertain him (evidence below).

I'm so glad we've been keeping our little after Thanksgiving mini-reunion tradition going.

Sydney's 7th Birthday

"Shake, shake, shake your shakers"

Evan and I are in our second session of "baby music" classes with Kath Bloom at the Artwell Gallery in Torrington.  Kath is wonderful and Evan LOVES the class.  His reaction to her singing and guitar playing is amazing - hopefully I will remember to give my camera to one of the other moms to snap a few shots before the session is over.  

Kath is a really neat person, and has written some really beautiful lullabies and kids tunes. At the end of every class, she sings a song she wrote called "Bye Bye Baby Bye," which gets me a little teary every week - the lyrics are just beautiful.  

So we had to get Evan his own shakers for home.  He loves them - he holds them high up in the air and goes to town!!

The title of this post is a link to Kath's myspace page, where you can check out a clip from the movie "Before Sunrise" with Ethan Hawk - the scene is built around Kath singing her song "Come Here."

Tubby Tub Tub

Apple Picking at March Farms

My new favorite photo of Evan

Bronx Zoo

Since we didn't make it up to New Hampshire, we took Mom and Dad to the Bronx Zoo for Dad's birthday trip.  Syd had her moments of impatience, but it was a nice day otherwise - perfect weather for a drive.

Evan's Half Birthday

Just realized tonight that it was Evan's "half birthday" today - the big man is 6 months old!  My mom sent me some photos tonight that were taken of Syd around the same age - in the same high chair, even.  You can tell they're brother and sister, for sure!

The Last Sunday of Summer

Another Day of Firsts

I had a long conversation with my friend Suzanne this morning about all of the things that could possibly be keeping Evan awake at night. I fed him a breakfast of cereal and sweet potatoes (we've only been giving him one "real" meal a day - dinner), thinking he might need more substance to make it through the day AND the night. While washing his face afterwards, I checked his gums, as I've been doing lately, and there was A TOOTH! That could explain things.

So on this day, September 15th, at 5 months and one day old, Evan pushed up his first tooth. And also on this day, he went to Costco and sat in the grocery cart like a big boy!

Baby You Can Drive My Car

Baby Einstein...

Evan seems to be just as into these DVDs as Sydney was. I cleaned up Syd's old "original" exersaucer (which actually was Ray and Emily's before that), so now we have one upstairs and one downstairs. I bet if I look around I could find a photo of Syd in the same position!

First Day Fun

Poor Syd. We failed to get her into her school-year bedtime routine before school started. The poor kid DID get into bed on time on Monday night, but still didn't want to get out of bed on Tuesday morning.

Not a completely smooth first morning - the outfit she bought for the first day was too warm for the weather, so we had to find something else. I was able to at least give her a different NWT (that's eBay lingo for "New With Tags") outfit out of her closet, and she wore her cool new Keens (thanks Grammy!), so she was just as happy.

Then she took so long eating breakfast that we didn't have enough time to do her hair very well...and to top it all off we missed the bus going up the road. Lucky for us, it's also got to come back DOWN the road and past our house, so it wasn't a total miss.

She came home happy and reported that 2nd grade is "fun." Guess the wacky morning didn't throw her off her game!

The First Day of Second Grade

'Nanners

Since he's been taking rice cereal for a week or so, we thought it was time to see how he liked banana baby food. I'll spare everyone the photos of it coming back OUT (apparently he's not a big fan of the 'nanners), but here are some adorable shots of Evan and the jar of bananas before we tried to get them into him...

Would You Like Fries With That?

Will that complete your order?!

Releasing the Monarch

Monarch Chrysalis

Dave and Syd found a number of monarch chrysalises hanging from the zebra grass next to the milk weed. This one was beginning to turn translucent - a sign that it's about to hatch. If you look closely, you can see the colors and details of its wings. I'm betting that tomorrow there will be just an empty shell hanging in its place...

Syd's Monarchs

A few years ago we planted some milk weed seeds we collected while hiking and the plants are now mature and attracting monarchs! Sydney spotted a good 9 or 10 caterpillars a couple of weeks ago, and raised two of them in her little bug house. She took care to bring them fresh milkweed leaves daily, and we watched them grow into HUGE caterpillars. One of the two chrysalises in her cage hatched today, and cooperated in letting us give it a nice farewell moment...Happy Trails!

Syd's New Bike

Last weekend we decided that Syd needed a new bike, so Dave took her to pick one out -- we've hit the Farmington River Trail with it a few times already - it's perfect because there are no cars, no hills, and no potholes...

Flamig Farm

Mary planned a little end-of-summer field trip for friends yesterday to Flamig Farm. Syd made sure to wear her backward EGGS t-shirt from camp. In attendance: Mary with Matthew, Nicholas and Thomas, Tammy with Alexa and Natalie, Suzanne with Josh and Jonathan, Kathy with Connor, and me with Sydney and Evan. We had lunch with the barn cats then headed to Mary's house for some backyard time. Thank you cruise director Mary!

Flamig Farm with friends!

Comments on Rice Cereal

When we visited the Dr. last Tuesday, she suggested that we could give Evan a little rice cereal any time now. He's not been sleeping through the night the way he used to, so I was thinking a little more substance would help him.

Last night, after spending (no joke) 4 or 5 hours filled with 20 or 30 work stoppages, I managed to get Syd's old high chair clean and in working condition. We so need a new one. At one point Sydney told me "Mom, you're getting very frustrated." After a few Tylenol and no dinner for anyone, we put Evan in the seat and gave it a try.

Syd was better than I was at getting the cereal in his mouth! She said she learned how to feed a baby from watching "The Incredibles."

We literally had to wring out Evan's bib - thank god I had bought some vinyl-backed ones - so who knows what really got into his mouth. Syd chose this package of bibs because of this "Tough Guy" bib. It was fun to feed him, even though he still woke up twice last night to eat!

Zzzzzzz.....

Evan's First Meal

August Garden

Sydney the Comedienne

Evan's Four Month Check-Up

The big man weighed in at 18 lbs. 6 oz. (90th percentile), and 27 1/4" tall - off the charts! He grew an impressive 3 1/4 inches in just 2 months! Crazy...I was expecting him to weigh more, but he's just perfectly in proportion. Yay Evan!!

Papillon performance at the Canton Public Library

Yet another cell phone photo - this past Monday we went to the "end of summer reading party" at the Canton Public Library. Harwinton had a strong showing at the event - probably 5 or 6 Harwintonian families in attendance! Miss Heather was our librarian here in town until last summer, and lots of folks have followed her and her wonderful programs over to Canton. Now we get the benefit of two libraries! I will definitely sign Evan up for Miss Heather's programs (as well as the ones here in town) so he gets to have the same awesome experiences that Syd did through her preschool years.

A bit of trivia: the Canton Library is housed in what used to be Canton Elementary School, where I attended 2nd and 3rd grade! I can remember quite clearly what the old layout used to look like...the gymnasium is now the children's room. Some of the original classrooms are now function rooms. It's been very nicely redone.

More trivia: when the Canton library moved from their old location in downtown Collinsville, I went to their "tag sale" and purchased 2 big old heavy wooden armchairs from the big table in the main room. They're at the top of the stairs in our house now...

Caution: Random Posts Below

Well beam me into the 21st century! I just discovered that I can post directly to the blog from my cell phone. Now that I can blog on the go, look out for more random posts! In the meantime, here are some photos that have been held captive in my cell phone for a few years...

;-)

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday aunt diane!

July 30, 2006

A day of "memorable parenting." Dave, do you recall this day on the beach in New Haven with my parents? Not that we need to be reminded of it, but I think I took this photo before all hell broke loose. And holy cow - look how skinny you were!!!

What?

On October 28, 2006, Dave borrowed my phone. Where exactly WERE you??!! ;-P

Apple Picking at March Farms, 2006

Finally, a photo of this blog's namesake

Shortly after I took this photo Syd crashed into the bushes at the bottom of the yard. I hadn't yet taught her how to drag her feet to slow down the sled!!

Reluctant Subject With Rainbow

"Scram, You Old Goat!"

I think this is from Clark's Trading Post, circa August 2006!

"Something" on Ice from 2006!

This one's for you, Gramma!