The Most Wonderful Time of the Year! (???!!!???)

It's been a month since my last post - and a very busy month at that!!!  Three birthdays, school functions, Christmas!!  Frankly, I'm glad it's over now and things can calm down.  Pfft!  Who am I kidding??  Things around here NEVER calm down.  Anyway, here's a recap of the last month.

Here's Mitch with his birthday brownie!  47??  Uh-oh... 50 is getting awfully close! :)

Handsome devil, isn't he?? ;)

The arrival of the holiday season brought the arrival of "Bob", our 'Elf on the Shelf'.  If you don't know about the 'Elf on the Shelf', do your research, because I don't have time to explain it (it's taking me several hours just to get this blog post done because I have to get up every 45 seconds or so to answer to one of the children)!  (http://www.elfontheshelf.com/)

I'm glad he's gone now, because it was becoming a real chore trying to find a new place to put him every night and I'm not nearly as creative as some of my friends (I'd love to post some of their wonderfully creative pictures here, but I didn't ask them for permission so I won't).

Early in the month, the kids' school "performed" at the tree lighting festivities in Haymarket.  Here is my crew before the show:

And here are the boys front and center (Tyler in the red coat to the right of the little girl in the white coat, and Evan to the right of Tyler).

This year I was smart - instead of waiting until evening when Mitch got home, or the weekend, Mom and I took the boys to see Santa at 10:00 a.m. on a Monday - the minute it opened.  We were the first (and only) ones in line and were in and out of there!  He was a very nice Santa too!

Here are the boys enjoying their lollipops afterwards.

Yet another school activity!  The boys had their Christmas program in which all the different classes performed songs indvidually, and then all together.  Here is everyone before the kids got called backstage to assemble:

The show took place at this odd, yet intesting church where they have a great performace space.  You can see the stage in this next picture, with a screen above it where they were running a slide show of the kids from the school year thus far.  You can also see Ms. Belinda, in the red scarf - she is Evan's beloved teacher. :)

Here's Evan on stage with his classmates, looking a little scared!!  He did sing a little bit, but looked uncomfortable most of the time, which is odd because he is usually our little performer at home!

And here is Tyler - he sang some too, but seemed very distracted and spent a lot of time scanning the crowd.  I imagine it was pretty frightening for both boys having never been in front of that many people before.

It was a fun show! Fammy and Granddad came and there was food afterwards. I'll admit to being teary-eyed as I watched the boys on stage, having a hard time believing that they are old enough now to be part of such things.

Though Maddy's birthday is first, the best opportunity to celebrate Evan's birthday at school was before that.  I made blue Batman cupcakes for the occasion!

My big 4 year old!!!!!

I had fun sitting with the kids and eating cupcakes. They're a pretty cute bunch.  In this next photo, the little boy on the right with the yellow shirt and dark curly hair is Aamore.  He is Evan's "best friend" :)

The next day was Madelyn's birthday - 2 YEARS OLD!!!  Here she is dressed and ready to go out to lunch with the other Madeleine on our street who is 6 days younger.  Her mom Jenny and I have become good friends.  Madeleine (NOT Madelyn!!) will be getting a baby sister in February!

When the weekend hit, it was time for a proper celebration with the family!!  All the local family came over, and my brother Doug and his NOW FIANCEE!!! :) Jeannine came down as well.  I wish I had thought to take a picture of the newly engaged couple, but I didn't. Big congrats to them and all good wishes for a wonderful future together!

Now back to the party.....  The theme was half Batman, half Disney Princesses! :)

LOTS of presents! All this a weekend before Christmas!

Maddy got her play kitchen!!!  She LOVEs it!

And Evan got all things Batman!

Then it was time to enjoy some sweet treats...

Plates of cookies, a tower o' cupcakes and a whole lotta YUM!!


And then, at last, it was Christmas.  As tradition dictates, Christmas Eve was celebrated at Fammy and Granddad's.  Look at all this loot!!

And a beautiful table set for a scrumptious dinner - as usual!

I didn't get any pictures of the present opening, but I assure you it was frantic and chaotic as to be expected.  One of the gifts Tyler got was an ant farm!  Totally cool (especially because #1, he LOVES bugs and #2, I always wanted an ant farm when I was a kid) - but alas, he has already gotten the top off and I had to kill a couple escaped ants before anyone got stung, so the farm now lives atop the refrigerator and gets only supervised visitations...


Then it was back home to prepare for the arrival of Santa.  We left him cookies and milk, of course, and some carrots for Rudolph.  And the boys left some pictures for Santa - they thought they should leave him gifts since he always brings gifts for them! :)  Tyler thought of that all on his own - I was very impressed!!

Before:



After:



Morning brought the dumping of stockings,

the discovery of eaten cookies and carrots, drunken milk, missing pictures, and a farewell note from Bob, who returned to the North Pole with the big guy, but will be back next year,

great anticipation and nervous excitement,

and FINALLY, after a proper pancake breakfast, the opening of gifts!!!!!

They opened the biggest thing first - a nice wooden table and chairs set from Mimi.

Maddy is sporting the new sunglasses she got in her stocking!

It was great, as usual, and the kids got LOTS of stuff!!  During the weeks leading up to Christmas, I had been surreptiously getting rid of old toys, some to Goodwill, some to the trash heap, in anticipation.  I still have more clearing out to do!!!

On the last weekday of the year, Mom and I took the kids to the National Zoo for the first time.  We had a great day and I have lots of pictures, but this post has already gone on too long, so I'll have to save that all for another time.

As 2011 drew to a close last night, Mitch and I put the kids to bed, and I believe we were both passed out by 9:00 p.m.!!  Lame, I know, but when the chance to sleep comes along around here, YOU TAKE IT!!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL!!!  xoxo

Happy Birthday!!!

As a family, we have many special days in December.  Today, December 1st, is the first of those special days.

Happy Birthday to my hubby, my love, my best friend!  xoxo

As promised, here is a look back at our summer vacation to Vermont!!  We usually take an early fall trip to OBX, but this year we decided to do something different.  With all the kids getting older, it's getting harder to go during school, and perhaps last year's less than stellar house and lousy weather soured us a little bit on the beach!  So this year, we decided to head north - in July!!

We headed out on Friday afternoon.  The kids and I drove downtown to pick Mitch up at his office and left from there.  This first leg of the drive wasn't too pleasant - it poured the whole time!!

But we managed to make our way to Parsippany, NJ, where we all got a good night's sleep at a very clean, pleasant, recently renovated Hampton Inn.

On Saturday morning, it was time to hit the road again - and luckily, the weather was beautiful.

It was a looooooooong drive, but we finally made it to VERMONT.  We hadn't been up there since Evan was 11 months old.

Of course, making it to VT was one thing.  It was another couple of hours before we made it to our final destination - this 100+ year old farmhouse on Lake Champlain in South Hero.

As you can see, it had a LOVELY, huge veranda.  A lot of time was spent out there!!

Much time was also spent in the back yard where there was a lovely hammock, and a swing.

We all also all spent a lot of time in, around, or near the water!

There was as nice state park a few miles north of where we were with a great beach.

Some major highlights of the week for me were visits with long lost friends.  That is something I can be thankful to Facebook for!

Ok - check out this picture:

The other red head in the picture, standing right next to me is Tina.  My family and hers lived across the street from each other as kids - it's probably been more than 30 years since I've seen her.  Next to her, in the pink shirt is Sue.  She and I were in high school together - she was a couple years ahead of me, but we were good friends because we were in drama together.  It's been at least 25 years since I've seen her.  She ended up going to college with Tina and they have been friends ever since.  On the end is Laurie.  She went to a different high school than Sue and I, but we became friends through drama festivals and another organization we all belonged to called GMTI.  Again, at least 25 years since I last saw her.  Growing up she took years of dance lessons.... with Tina.  Through Facebook, we all found each other and discovered we were connected.  Sue and Tina still live in Vermont, Laurie lives in Georgia.  When we discovered that Laurie and I would both be visiting VT at the same time, we of course had to get together!  We met for lunch at a fun restaurant on the water in Burlington.  It was so surreal, and SO much fun!

This is another Sue!  She and I (and her husband Andy) went to high school together.  She recently adopted this beautiful little girl, Marah Lynn!  Feeling newly connected because the adoption experience, we wanted to get together.  We met for dinner one evening and shared our adoption stories with each other.  Though Tyler is our adoptee, he wasn't interested in going to a restaurant with mommy (too much fun stuff to do and people to hang out with at the house!), so I brought Maddy.

The two girls bonded! :)

Mitch and I got the opportunity to go out alone one night while my sister babysat our brood.  We headed to a dive bar in Essex Junction to hear a fabulous musical duo.  Half of that duo is my dear old friend Shaun.  We were very close friends through junior high and high school, and even went to the same college.  He was a year ahead of me and we lost touch after the first couple of years at St. Mike's.  It's been over 20 years since I've seen him.  He is married and also has 3 kids, but all boys!

Great music and a spectacularly fun night.  Mitch and I had a blast!!

Another fabulous visit during the week was with my friend Julie!!!!!  Julie and I go waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back.  We were in the same first grade class.  Then I moved away and we didn't see each other until one time in high school at a soccer game - she and I both did stats for varsity boys soccer and my school traveled to her school one game.  After that, we ended up at college together - living on the same floor of the same dorm and studying THE SAME MAJOR!!  So much of our four years at St. Mike's was spent together, and we have remained close ever since.  After college, she moved to NYC.  Then I moved to NYC.  Then she moved to Virginia.  Then I moved to Virginia.  Anyway, over a decade ago, she went to live in Nice, France on a Fulbright scholarship.  She was only supposed to be gone a couple of years.  I told her she was going to meet a nice Frenchman, get married and not move back. She told me I was crazy.

She met a nice Frenchman, got married, and hasn't moved back.  But luckily for all of us that love her, she visits.  And extremely lucky for me that I was going to be in Vermont during her 7 week visit there this summer!  She and her two lovely daughters met up with me, Mitch, and the boys at the state park.

Evan and Estelle played wonderfully together for hours!

Tyler and Lena played around each other!  That's very typically Tyler! :)

After the beach, they came back to the house to hang for a while.

It was a lovely day and I'm so grateful we got to visit!

We also got to see some family!!!  My Aunt Lynda (my dad's sister), Uncle See See, and cousin Todd came up one morning.  It was great to see them!!

Mads took a shine to Toddy - like mother, like daughter! When we were kids, I used to follow Todd EVERYWHERE!  I think I drove him a little crazy :)!

I couldn't spend a summer week in Vermont without bringing Mitch and the kids to one of my favorite childhood places:

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!C R E E M E E S!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

YUM!!!

It was such a great week, and the weather was perfect all but maybe one day.  But sadly, like all vacations, it had to come to an end.  We did the return trip all in one day.  It was a looooooooong trip. 



 

Maddy fussed pretty much the entire trip, save for the maybe 45 minutes that she slept.  It was pretty brutal.  But was it worth it??  Um, yes.  Except for our honeymoon and our 2006 trip to Australia, this was probably my favorite vacation ever.  I hope that everyone else had a good enough time that they'll agree we should return in 2012!!!  :)