Pigtails!

Tonight Mom put Emily's hair in pigtails at snack time, just for a change of pace.

Kate got jealous (of course), so she got pigtails too.Even Mama got in on it!

Mama's Birthday

Today we celebrated Mama's birthday (she's 29 again!) at Nana's house. Our family is still pretty sick and possibly contagious, so we warned Uncle Seth, Grandpa N., and Millie, and they sent birthday wishes over the phone instead of coming over. Grandma & Grandpa L. decided to risk it and came over anyway.

We got to Nana's a little early, and Mama and Emily drifted off to sleep on the couch. They were up late last night going to the emergency room for Emily's double ear infections, so they needed to catch up on a little sleep.

Kate took advantage of her status as the only awake grandchild to command everyone's attention.Finally Emily and the Birthday Girl woke up and joined the party. It's hard to celebrate when you're feeling sick, but they tried to rally.We all sat down to some coffee and Nana's delicious Chocolate Torte birthday cake. Chris and her brothers always request this cake on their birthday, and it is very very tasty.Everyone loved the cake!After cake, the girls did a little more playing while the grownups did some chatting.

Then it was time for Mama to open her cards and presents. Emily wanted to help, of course.Mama received a very nice hydrometer for measuring the sugar content in her maple syrup--no more guessing! What a great idea.Then she was really surprised when she opened her card from Mom and found two tickets to the Red Sox vs. Yankees at Fenway in April!She could not wait to get on the phone with Melinda and start trash-talking (Melinda is a big Yankees fan).Happy Birthday Mama!

Early Spring Biking

Saturday was supposed to be in the 50's.  Boy, did NOAA get that wrong!  It was foggy, 40 degrees, and sprinkling.  Brenda was still excited to ride though.

Chris and LeeAnn ride together often.
Amy has been riding with us also.  Love those matching bikes!  (Ok PSSO, here's the glam.)

Swingset Shopping

We are in the market for some type of swingset or play structure for the girls, so today Mom and Nana took the kids to a place in Rockport that makes fancy cedar structures, just to check it out. It was amazing!

The structures are really beautiful, and the kids loved them. Emily was thrilled that she could go up super high, and everything was just the right size.It was colder than we expected and kind of foggy, so all the slides were wet and unusable. This was too bad for Kate, because she loves slides.Emily found all kinds of fun things to try though, including this climbing wall.Kate did find some things she could steer, which made her happy (she loves to drive).Some of the ladders and stairs were a little big for her (the suggested age range is 2 and up).Emily's favorite playground activity is swinging, and she found lots of different swings to try out. There was the trapeze swing.......the skateboard swing........the wooden horse swing.........and a tire swing!Nana found the swing that she liked the best.After playing on the structures, we went into the showroom to meet with a "designer" and check out the prices. Sadly, all this beautiful stuff comes with a pretty high price tag. They do have an economy line, which we are considering, but we'll probably have to look somewhere else for our swingset.But it was a lot of fun to go check it out!

Sweet Victory! Trivia Night Win

Tonight Chris, Brenda, and Amy headed back to Trivia Night at the pub, with a few new additions to the team (Nana stayed home with the kids--thanks Nana!). Grandma & Grandpa L. and Chris's friend Jen rounded out the trivia team, which we named "Super Sonic Transport", or SST.

The competition started off well, with a couple of easy ones first. Jen was a French major in college, and took the role of Team French Expert.Grandpa and Grandma came through with lots of answers--it turns out they were Enumclaw champions before they moved to Maine!During intermission Brenda tried out the Deer Hunter game......because, well, why not?After intermission the drinks were flowing and SST just got better and better. 

The final question was about knitting, of all things, and Amy was possibly the only person in the entire building who knew the answer. Yay Amy!When the scores were added up and the winner announced, team SST had taken the victory! The big payout came from the trivia pot-- $95 cash money. We all walked away with a little cash (minus the cost of dinner and drinks, of course), and the satisfaction of a job well done.Good job SST!

Sick

Emily, Kate, and Mama have all been feeling pretty sick for the last few days (so far Mom has managed to avoid it). Today both kids had runny noses and coughs and they took huge afternoon naps. When Emily is sick, she clings very closely to Mama.

In Emily's ideal world, she would just lay on Mama all day when she's sick.We all hope we'll feel better soon!

Presents From Keri

Today in the mail we got a big package from Keri, Chris' good friend from college. The girls were very excited about the package, but we waited until just before bedtime to open it.

The girls couldn't wait to see what was inside!It was presents! Some were for Kate's birthday, and some were for Chris' birthday, which is coming up next week.Connor got a present too! He even opened it himself.It was a blue octopus--he was thrilled! He shook it as hard as he could.Kate got a little can with a cow on it that makes a "moo" sound when she shakes it. She loves it!Kate also got a fuzzy cuddly bunny, which immediately got some hugs.It wasn't Emily's birthday, but we pretended that the "Punk-u-pine" was for her. It's a scrub brush shaped like a porcupine. Oddly, she loves it!Chris got a "New Milford, CT" shirt, which is Keri's home town. Keri is a faithful reader of our blog, and commented on how Chris wears the same damn t-shirt in many of the posts. Chris promises to rotate in the Connecticut shirt as much as possible.Thank you for thinking of us Keri!