Crazy Toddler On The Loose!

Things Nate has done this week:

Attempted to eat three glass beads

Colored on the walls with pen

Colored on the couch with crayon (pink, a nice compliment to our green couch)

Fallen off a kitchen chair while throwing a tantrum (as I stood next to him) which lead to a minor head injury at 4:45pm - just as our family practitioner was leaving for the day. This meant a 30 minute drive to find the nearest hospital to visit the ER. (always find this out before you need to know it)

Got skin glue on head wound which required being pinned down on his belly by his parents and a lovely RN named Candace.

Pulled 20 keys off of my laptop while I was washing dishes and assuming he was finding safe, non-destructive ways to entertain himself. You'd think after the first kid I wouldn't make assumptions about anything!

Made me smile at least 100 times. Made his brother laugh a good 75 times. Helped to make our family the amazing creation it is - countless times over.

Catching Up

I've had pics on my camera for a few weeks now - just sitting there waiting to get put on the computer and shared with the world. Now that is nearing midnight and everyone else in the house is finally asleep, I can do just that. They're random pics of things new to us and just generally cute photos of the kids. Cause you know you love them!

The first few are of the high chair cover that Nona made for Nate. It's made of a beautiful batik material that Nona and I found on clearance at JoAnn's. I'm thoroughly in love with it and Nate now pulls on the edge of it and says, "NOoona seat!" when he wants to eat. There's also a candid of Nate eating salsa while wearing his I'd Rather Be Breastfeeding hat - not at all true when it comes to that boy and salsa by the way. He would be ecstatic if my breasts could produce salsa instead of milk.

Then there is our new car!!!! Yay!!! It's a Mazda Protege5 and I thoroughly love it, I thank the goddess and god every day that we're finally able to afford a car payment and live in endless debt. It is a great car though and much better on gas and safer than our old van was. Ben was really sad when we dropped the van off at the dealership and drove this home, he thought that we would have two cars and was distraught about the loss of the van. He's over it. He had about two weeks where he complained but now he really likes the car and he even gave it its official name: Blooregard aka Bloo. (yes, from Foster's Home - he and I watch it together everyday)

Lastly, a beach shot from yesterday at our new favorite beach, New Castle Commons. I will post another blog all about it, it's deserving of a separate entry.

Camp In

Ben's been asking to camp out a lot recently and we had hoped to do a lot of camping last summer and never did thanks to my pancreatic issues. We still had our tent, brand new in the bag in the garage when we moved and Ben spotted it last weekend and asked to take it out. Well, originally he asked if we could go camping, but at 5pm on a Saturday we said it wasn't the best timing. We compromised with a camping trip in the office instead. The boys and I spent the night in the tent and slept very well, in spite of the hard floor below us. I'm sure it felt worse to me than to the boys, I think they can sleep on rocks and not notice. Tim camped out in the bedroom all by himself, which is a rare adventure of its own. We are hoping to do some real camping outside of our home soon. This summer is already filling up so fast so we've got to book a site soon and just plan it. (Tim are you reading this?)

MIA

So, we (I) might be away from the blog for a little bit. Nate has pneumonia and is fairly miserable and I'm starting to feel pretty crappy myself. Ben maintains that he's fine and not sick at all, but his cough betrays him. So we're all hiding out here, camped out in front of the tv with sippy cups of juice and books, legos and tissues scattered on the floor. I'll post a regular entry when we recover and update you all when we're better!

These Boobs Were Made For Walking

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Originally uploaded by leilamus

And that's just what they did!

The Seacoast Area La Leche League Breastfeeding Walk was this Saturday. We had a beautiful day for it! Warm but not too warm and sunny with a nice breeze and the gorgeous beach to walk next to as we raised money for breastfeeding education. We raised a little over $400 which will help to cover the cost for our leaders and Leader Applicants to attend the LDS in Albany this July. The LDS is a Leader Development Seminar that provides education, support and networking opportunities to LLL Leaders. We're very thankful to all of our supporters for their generosity!!!

Thank you to all the mamas, dadas, kiddos and friends who came out to share the beautiful day with us!!! Special thanks to La Festa of Dover and StrollPatroll for their donation of gift certificates which were used as raffle prizes.

I have to say, I'm really happy with how this turned out as it was my first experience coordinating a fundraiser for Seacoast Area LLL. I definietely learned a lot and now have areas to improve upon, but all in all I'm satisfied. I hope that we can try to do this again next year, I'd like to expand it and get more people involved and more donations and more prizes and activities to get a bigger participation...I really feel motivated to do it again. I'm also so glad that I'm attending a session about fundraising at the LDS - I believe it will be money well-spent.

PS Click on the pic above to see more photos from the walk and our fun day at the beach.

How To Keep Your Cool

We're having oddly warm weather for this time of year in Maine. It's starting to feel cooler tonight and rumore has it (aka the forecast) that we'll get some rain tonight and things will start to cool off. Here's hoping! In the meantime we've been doing the following to keep cool:

- Visited Pierce Island. A cute little playground near the water with a shore area so the boys can run around near the water (Piscataqua River to be precise) and have fun without having to deal with the large crowds that are at the "real" beaches on hot days. There's also a dog friendly area nearby which helps to meet Nate's dog-viewing quota for the week. I swear if the boy could become a dog he would...he's even taken to licking things like a dog now, but that's another post.

- Go to the movies! We went to Smitty's which is a restaurant/movie theater last night and saw Kung Fu Panda. It was surprsingly funny and Ben really liked it. Nate had fun too, but I think he enjoyed the pizza and running around the dark theater more.

- Hide out at Nona's. Cause she has AC and it's nice! Plus she has a backyard so we set up a wadding pool and sprinkler which we all thoroughly enjoyed today.

- Get ice cream (or froyo) at Annabelle's. www.annabellesicecream.com Amazing local, fresh ice cream with 16% butterfat. no lie! I have the froyo because of my dairy allergy but even that tastes freaking delicious. My favorite, Coffee Toffee Thunder - Coffee FroYo (real strong coffee flavor too, not imitation syrup stuff) swirls of Toffee and white choloate chips. Yeah...I just had one three hours ago and I could go for more! The shop is air conditioned and right in downtown Portsmouth so you don't have to deal with waiting in a long line outside in the heat with the bugs swarming. And it's locally owned so we're happy to support them and brag about the ice cream in our area.

PS
All the pics above were taken at Pierce Island by yours truly. Nate looks so mad in the wrap on my back but it's because he wants the camera. He happily let me wrap him and throw him on my back and I'm very proud that I'm getting so much better at back carries!!! I'm actually considering selling my BabyHawk even.....

New Projects

I've taken up knitting...again. This is probably my sixth time trying to knit ever. I tried a few times as a kid/teen and gave up and my last real effort was while pregnant with Nate. I got about a quarter of the way through a baby blanket and had my fill. So, for some reason, still unknown to me, I got the urge to start knitting again and it seems to be sticking this time. I've finished my first project, a scarf, I know very advanced. ;) But I'm really glad that I finished it and as soon as it was done I was eager to start something else. I'm currently working on another scarf (for holiday presents) and a baby blanket for a new babe in our little community. I'm currently really in love with Lion Brand Homespun yarn - it's what the scarf pictured is made from and it has this incredibly soft texture and a variety of colors weaved throughout which makes each piece so individual. It also explains why the scarf looks tan and the pink and then cranberry at points. I've also recently discovered bamboo knitting needles and I'm really enjoying them.
Anyway, that's the crafting news over here for now. I've really got to get working on my jewelry since it's prime farmer's market season!!! Pics of new jewelry to come next!