Pumpkin pickin' and more

I love a good pork loin recipe. This one was easy and tasty and involved maple syrup and cayanne pepper. 

It rained ALL day Saturday, so we went a little stir crazy inside. Emma grabbed the iPad and googled Halloween crafts. She liked this one and we had a few sheets of orange paper left. Wala!! We hung them in our window. 

Chopped it! Me likey. 

At one point during the rain I sent them outside to play as I was tired of them fighting. Funny how playing in the rain can turn arguing siblings into pleasant playing pals. (Note to self.)

We went down port after dinner for a little DD lovin'. How adorbs is this pic? DD needs to hire her for their next ad campaign. 

I spent Sunday curled up in my sunroom reading this goodness. Oh, baby, I'm gonna get a solid "honey do list" going!!

When children are bored days later I find pics like this on my phone. Ha!

Daddy has a new exercise regime to build arm strength in our kids. Greaaaaaat. Now they just want to use our open stairwell as a monkey bars set. Nice work, daddy. Not!

Sunday was beautiful so we headed east to pick pumpkins!!

Lots of good ones to choose from. :)

We drove by the apple orchards afterwards and they were still open for business so we popped inside for a bag that daddy turned into UPSIDE DOWN APPLE CAKE. It was ridiculously good. So amazing that we immediately delivered giant hunks to friends so that we wouldn't eat the entire cake ourselves!!!

In Business...

We have singlehandedly kept our local beloved mom and pop toy store in business with all our invites to birthday parties the past FOUR weekends. Build-a-be*r, aquarium, chocolate works, home parties - you name it, we have done it. 

Our twin pals had a super cool Safari party at their home - too bad they also had a bouncy house and the kids spent more time bouncing than enjoying the iguanas, snakes, turtles and lizards. (Ben included.) 

I got lucky this day - our sweet neighbors offered to take Em w them to the Long Island game farm for Girl Scout day (she is a troop leader). I'm confident Em had more fun than reptiles and bouncy houses. 

Party two for Ben was at the Long Island Aquarium. I've never been there, but wow what a fun place for a birthday party!!

We had an awesome behind the scenes tour complete with 18 five year olds put into a three d motion shuttle for an underwater adventure!! All we heard were screams of delight (and some fright!!!)

Next party up? Build a second mortgage! Or better known as build a bear. These locations are a HUGE rip off. $20 per bear plus waaaaaay overpriced clothes. Of course, Em had a blast and hasn't put the dang bear down since. :)

The girls of 2nd grade Mrs Kelly class:

More last minute cute pics from the game farm. 

So adorbs!!!

Now onto the chocolate works party! Hy sugar!!!! Best party ever - I want to be invited next time so I can eat as much chocolate as Em did. 

 

It must be almost Autumn

A few weekends ago we headed east to our favorite apple picking spot, Lewin's farms. I love this spot and am happy about the tradition we have of going there. I should do a comparison of pics from the last four years to see how the bunch have grown.

I'm getting BIG, ma!

The honeycrisps (our fav) we HUGE and we picked a giant bag full. These apples are sadly the only ones I can eat raw, all other apples give me that yucky scratch in my throat (!) - so weird. Needless to say, as soon as we paid for them, we dove in! All but Ben, that is. This kid is missing out on some serious nature's goodness.

Daddy did a good job of grabbing the high ones.

I'll never get tired of this shot year after year:

My favorite people in the whole wide world.

We headed over to the tomato / peppers / eggplant farm next and grabbed another giant bag of veggies with which Daddy made AMAZING "Ratatouille" - oh, the yum. Didn't snap a pic, sorry!

I'll just play here in the mud while you pick.

Em came with me to the supermarket afterwards to buy flour. I did not realize until we pulled into the parking lot that she wasn't wearing any shoes. My choices were to leave her in the car and risk being arrested on "child endangerment" charges, or bag her feet and risk being thrown out of the store by the manager. Bag'em it was!

The manager made it very KNOWN that we should not be in the store. WHATEVER!

Instead of an apple pie, Daddy made an apple galette. I highly recommend you try some!! :)

Sorry no smellovision yet...

Settling into school

We are four weeks deep into the school year. Em is very happy in 2nd grade. Her teacher is awesome - but we already knew that was going to be the case - she has gotten rave reviews every time her name has popped up. She continues to blow through her work and her penmanship is atrocious. If she would just SLOW DOWN all would be right with the world.

Ben is doing great. He has the school's BEST teacher (Em had her, too). This woman wins all kinds of accolades yearly and sets the bar high for future teachers of my kiddos. Daddy and I already had a private conference with her regarding Ben. He really is adjusting nicely - we just wanted to make sure we were on the same page to get him off to a solid start. His "distractability" is lessening, she said he pretty much goes with the flow all day. We are working on his pincer grip (they have an OT specialist come into the classroom a few ties a week to work with ALL the kiddos - how cool is that!). He has learned how to whistle (!) which means we are constantly reminding him that there is a time and place for whistling. :)

He rides the bus in the morning with no problems. I was picking him up after school and walking home (10 min walk), but he wanted to start riding the bus home. That lasted about a week (adds about 30 minutes to his day) and is now requesting I pick him up again because he is bored on the bus ride home.

I have been getting to the gym about 4 times a week which makes me happy! My ankle is holding up nicely on my 45 minuted inclined treadmill work outs. I tried running a bit on the treadmill last week but am afraid to do too much pounding pressure like that for fear of relapse. Plus when I ran many parts of me jiggled that never jiggled before and I didn't like the way that felt so best to just not run and be reminded my body is doughy. :)

Snapped up a too good to be true Groupon for Target portraits - I wanted a newbie of Daddy and I for the office and bribed the kids to take a family pic, too. It poured all day, so I had to go curly (or I would have been a fuzzy mess) - and I am realizing that I need a new haircut. It may be time to chop if off again into a bob...

Still crazy about this guy...

Had to take them for GROSS happy meals afterwards.

I scream, you scream

We all scream for ice cream!

Sometimes you gotta wake up at 5am, catch the 6am ferry to Connecticut, then drive 4 1/2 hours to eat ICE CREAM!

I made a homemade bread late last night. We grabbed it and the giant Nutella jar as we ran out the door for a "healthy" breakfast on the ferry while we motored across the Long Island Sound from NY to CT. The cool thing about the 6am ferry, is we get to watch the sunrise! It was a beauty. 

We drove due North through Connecticut and Massachusetts arriving in Vermont with its chilly Autumn temps.  

We stopped at the Welcome Center for a potty break. It was loaded with cool exhibits, almost a museum like atmosphere!

They decided they wanted this kind of dog next - as long as he stays wooden, I'm in!

I love a good mom and pop place. We stumbled across deli on a side road near Woodstock. I had a smoked pulled pork sandwich and Daddy had a brisket sandwich. They were AMAZING. Emma refused to eat anything and Ben wanted another slice of bread with Nutella. Whatever! Sometimes you just have to enjoy your pulled pork alone. 

The kids are such good car travelers. Surely it doesn't hurt that we have a DVD player in the car. Our 1st and most important stop on the trip was the Ben & Jerry's ice cream factory tour.

We got our tickets and joined the crowd. This is Ben when he heard we were getting free samples at the end of the tour.

The tour started off with a five minute movie on the history of Ben & Jerry's. it was very entertaining and informative. The kids grabbed front row seats.

We couldn't take pics inside the plant, but it was a cute tour. When asked "How many pints do you think we output a day?" Em offered up 105. She was very close as they do 400,000 pints a day! That's a lot of milk, cream and sugar! Our free sample flavor of the day was "Cookies and Cream" YUMMY! Ben was reluctant at first, but ended up enjoying it.

This one did not hesitate at all when our guide said there was one extra free sample left. She BEELINED to the counter (without asking us) and grabbed it. The girl knows what she wants!

Who is Ben? Who is Jerry?

We got to tour the "flavor graveyard," too!

The factory from the graveyard. It was a fun way to spend the afternoon. It was a bit chilly - low 50s - or we probably would have stayed longer and let the kiddos play on the playground they had out back.

New Chapter

Summer vacation has come to an end. Ben is now in full day Kindergarten and Em is in 2nd grade. Before I get into those stories...

BEN CAN READ! Okay, so maybe he has the book memorized - but, I gotta tell ya, I was pretty freaked out because I have only read this book to the kid two or three times and he has it memorized (it's NOT an easy reader...) - which leads me to believe Daddy or Gramma Lou have read it multiple times or the kid is a genius!

Geez, Ma, give me some credit - I'm a GENIUS!

We sadly forgot Em's white noise machine behind at Gramma's house last month. Gramma kept it for herself and ordered Em a new one. It came with this eye mask. She has slept in it for three weeks straight. I may have a princess and the pea on our hands!

I'm pure perfection, Mother.

Our school did a practice bus run for the Kindergarteners the Thurs before school started. Ben was super nervous and very quiet while waiting for the bus. "I'm just nervous I'm gonna be shy, mom." as tears welled up in his eyes. Luckily, one parent got to ride the practice bus run with him - me! - and when we got home he was all, "I DID IT!!!!!" and seriously, I think it made him so at ease getting on the bus the first day of school. I'm very grateful for that experience!!

Nervous kid, sleepy mommy.

Daddy bought some fishing poles and guess what... we are now fishers! Every other meal is fish and we are loving it. Mostly Porgys, but occasionally a snapper. Apparently Blackfish are right around the corner.

School schmool. This is how we rock homework!

A dinner example:

YUMMMMM.

We partied heartily Labor Day weekend counting down to the first day of school. We beached and beached:

Em is the passenger...

Pooled and BBQd

He is requesting playdates with this family daily!

This was Ben three nights in a row in random homes:

I'm tired. I think I'll just go to....snooooooore.

But it was all worth it because Tuesday brought us the: "Dun dun dunnnnn" 1st day of school!

Getting our wiggles out at the bus stop with our neighbors!

Take the picture already!

Thank you for not making me hold up a sign saying what milestone this is. :)

My shirt label has all my info! Two bad I ripped it off two seconds later and crumpled it up!

Ben who? Bus what? Teacher who? Don't you worry - the force is strong in this one.

This kid on the other hand knows the drill:

Fake smile / pose number 127. I'm a 2nd grader now!

The bus is here!! The bus is here! I got a fat smooch and on he went all smiles! Yahoo! I then hit the gym, got my hair colored, did a meditation class at the library, power napped for 20 min, prepped for my class to teach that evening and then picked him up at dismissal... to be continued.

Hey, Mom, just who will you now be?