A week in pictures

And nowwww it’s time forrrrr…my annual post about our summer vacation! The pictures and people, for the most part, stay the same (haha) – the boys just get bigger! Last year Alex was just a baby, snoozing in his carseat and laying there on a beach blanket all nice and clean. This year…boy did he just want in on the action. Shovels! Sand! Swimming! Both he and Ashton played their hearts out at the beach every single day. We simply had the best time, there’s nothing else to it. I got to go for some beautiful island runs, the men got up before sunrise to fish, Berg/Karen/Jayden came for a couple days and then Ben/Kari/Callie came for a couple days and overall, Ashton and Alex spent a perfect week in the sun with Grandma and Grandpa and GG. Oh, and we ate and drank really well. Oof.

This will come as a shock, but I have TONS of pictures. Very nearly an unmanageable amount. I’ve decided, for ease of your reading experience, to divide them into categories. Here we go.

1. Bugs

A huge bulk shopping trip is always necessary before hitting BI. The grocery store there is very expensive (and by expensive I mean $13 for a container of orange juice). So we like to go to BJ’s first and Jason came home with this in addition to what was on our food list.

It’s a bug kit! And that main gun there, with the yellow barrel? It’s a vacuum. Sucks those bugs right up so you can put them in the MAGNA BUCKET and stare at them. Boy I couldn’t wait to get out there to see what I could find! I was so excited, Jason really knows me well and gets me the best presents.

Pbbbthhh NOT. I was like no way on earth am I leading that expedition. Good luck. Thankfully Jason, Uncle Berg, Uncle Ben and GG all took turns going out with Ashton. Bug hunting quickly became part of the daily routine when we got home from the beach but before we had dinner. The house we rented has lots of rock walls and miscellaneous things for creatures to hide under and Ashton had prized trophies after every trip: potato bugs, centipedes, crickets, spiders, ants…you name it. National Geographic ain’t got nothin’ on us.

I’m happy to say, no bugs lost their lives as a result of these backyard safaris. If you know any preschool age boys and need to get them a present, get them this. Ashton LOVED it. The vacuum gun may have had something to do with it.

2. Beach

Quite possibly the most bulky category. We went every day to the same spot at the same time. We dug a lot of holes. There was a lot of sand. The boys (and when I say boys I include all the men in our group) were very busy and rarely even looked up. The pictures are not award winning, but nonetheless…

3. Boys and babies

This category has general combinations of, well, boys and babies. See how creative I was there?

3a) In the clean: Jason gave Ashton and Alex their rinses after the beach every night in the outdoor shower (show me a vacation where I don’t have to do bathtime and I’ll show you a happy mama!) 😉

3b) Boys and babies at breakfast: the kids ate all their meals at the island together.

3c) Boys and babies with GG.

3d) And in general, hanging out and looking cute.

4. Fishing

Grandpa and the men got up several mornings before sunrise to go surfcasting. Personally, I slept. The one time we all went to the inlet for cocktail hour, Ashton caught a flounder. He was initially excited but then petrified and said “I don’t like flounder” about a hundred times over the next two days. (Incidentally, it was barely big enough to keep and despite life-saving efforts, it had unfortunately swallowed the hook so we took it home for Saturday night’s fish fry

)

5. Birthdays

Let’s just say the fish (besides Ashton’s flounder) weren’t really biting last week so Jason and Ben hit the seafood market for Ashton and Callie’s joint birthday dinner on Saturday night. Now, ALL Callie had to do was be born 2 hours later and she and Ashton would have shared an August 3rd birthday. But nope, she came on August 2. Fiiiiiiiine. So she was turning 1 and Ashton was turning 4 so we threw them a mini-party.

Alex was upset not because it wasn’t his party but because I would not give him the dustpan. (What? He had no pile!)

It would figure that our last night was one of the most beautiful ones. We had an amazing dinner followed by a (shared) birthday cake and presents. Callie got new shoes, Ashton got a new Paw Patrol backpack and lunchbox, and all was right in the world.

5. Bye bye

Wow I’m sick of this post haha. Too many pictures! Too late now 😉 When I think of the memories I want Ashton and Alex to have of growing up, I hope there are always summer weeks on Block Island for them to look back fondly on. Ashton’s first official trip was 2013, then there was 2014, and this year I think he enjoyed it more than ever. At 4 years old his mind and his heart are totally open and his curiosity and zest for everything is just so…awesome.

To Block Island (and the Fagan House and Grandma and Grandpa and GG and Berg and Karen and Jayden and Ben and Kari and Callie) – we could not have had a better time. Thank you for another amazing week!! Much love, the Nills xx

Two very important things

Is anyone out there? Do I have any readers left?? In case I do, just a quick post to share two important things. First, we just spent the most amazing week on Block Island! We got back yesterday and to say we were all blue is an understatement. I think I said “Wow I can’t believe the week is over, I don’t want to go home!” like a hundred times. And I really didn’t! I felt worlds away and the only time I picked up my phone was to take pictures. No facebook, no emails, not even any texts really. I was too busy digging holes in the sand with the boys! It was revitalizing. Complete BI 2015 post to arrive in the next day or two.

Second, guess how old Ashton is today. Not one, two OR three. He’s FOUR. We threw a mini-party on BI for him and Callie (she turned one yesterday!) and Ashton was obsessed with the birthday “crowns”. Like literally has worn one for two days and this morning, trotted off to camp with the string firmly cinched under his chin.

He has been asking for about a month now if it’s his birthday yet and finally, FINALLY when he woke up I could tell him, “Guess what? Today is your birthday!” “Today? Today Mommy?! I’m four??!?!?!” Yes, August 3rd is here at last. Thank god.

Happy birthday Ashton! My favorite four year old on my favorite beach:

Two very important things in one picture 🙂 Be back soon!

July Madness

Last July, I posted 3 times. Life just gets busy in the summer but let me say, this month has been some kind of record haha. It started when we went to Long Island for July 4th, and my car broke down on the way home. We had to get towed, I had to get an Uber for myself and the boys due to the tow truck not being able to take car seats and we landed at a Honda service place in West Warwick. The car was in RI for three days (we ultimately had to get a rental car to get home later that day), I managed to find time to drive back down to get it, it broke again on the way home, went into the shop up here and was out of commission another solid 5 days and then I finally just got it back last Friday, only to have my blinker light go out, which Jason had to go get fixed today, because my car needs to be inspected by 7/31 but we leave Sunday for Block Island and I do NOT want to get stuck with a ticket for that on top of everything else. <— (That was supposed to be one big run-on sentence. See how out of breath I am?) Of course, now we want our money back from the place in West Warwick and it is just this whole thing.

On top of that, after our driveway and walkway projects were finished, Jason and I decided (perhaps haphazardly) to put our house up as a Make Me Move listing/FSBO on Zillow. THAT has turned into another whole thing in that we now have an accepted offer with an October 9 close date. Can you believe it? Our house is, like, pending sale. So in addition to our week on BI coming up and my mile long pack and to-do list for that, we also been prepping for our home inspection (which is Wednesday) and the small task of figuring out where on earth we are going to move. Not stressful at all! When we get back from BI, I have approximately five minutes to get some sort of 4th birthday party together for Ashton (yikes), and oh, Alex qualified for Early Intervention last week in speech and language, so I’ve been scheduling the starting sessions on that front. Phew! I’m so sorry, anewnill.blogspot.com. You’ve been neglected! But all of that is why.

Because no post is complete without an umpteenth picture of the boys, last Friday we went blueberry picking at Smolak Farms in North Andover with Jackson and Adrian. We packed a lunch, headed into the fields, had an ice cream…it was a great day in which Ashton learned he could carry his weight in blueberries and Alex found out the green ones don’t taste good. Here are a few of my favorite pictures, not in reader-friendly collage form like usual because that takes more time than I have right now 😉

Sticky faces and naps in the car on the way home. Big win all around 🙂

Before and After: Walkway and Driveway

In the 2.5 years that we’ve lived in our house, I am so proud of all the big things we have done. Jason deserves about 95% of the credit, having been the builder of our living room bench and bookshelves, fireplace, master closet, and back deck, not to mention our kitchen updates, half bath and dining room (whoops, still no post on that) and all the other little projects here and there. I typed “before and after” in the search bar on the right and there are a LOT of posts!

Anyway, those linked above are biggies, as is when we had our entire house painted last year. But the exterior project, along with our recent new driveway and walkway, are in a slightly different category because we had to hire someone to do it. We had a bumpy ride with our painter, let me tell you. And as it turned out, a bumpy ride with our paver too. But finally last week, our walkway and driveway were finished. We lost a little bit of grass but Jason was out there with some seed in no time. What is it with guys and their lawns.

Anyway.

Side by side before and afters on the walkway:

And then other direction, from the top of the porch.

Panorama attempt.

And now, the driveway. Ahhhh, the driveway. I swear with every season the grass crept further into the old asphalt, the frost heaves got worse, and by this spring the whole thing was basically crumbling. Ashton just looooooved to grab his shovel and get in there. So did his friends.

I joked that we should get some money credited to us for having our own demo crew. Alas.

There is a slight pitch downhill and the water drainage was awful, which meant we had a perpetual mud puddle at the bottom.

The boys loved that too.

So time for the big reveal (oooo!). What I am going to post first is the TRUE before, when we had just bought the house and had not even moved in yet. Those pictures compared to the ones today are pretty crazy!

Looking down:

Looking up:

And then with another newer “before” picture.

I can’t believe how much fresher the new driveway makes our house look. This:

vs. THIS.

Sooo happy! The only remaining real money project is a new fence and we are still on the fence (ha!) about whether we will invest in that at all.

I called the town not long ago to ask the rules about putting a curb in to frame the strip of grass out front. They told us we could, but the entire street is scheduled for new asphalt, sidewalks and granite curbs by the end of 2016 (thank god, because our little avenue is a mess of patchwork and holes). That will be the last piece in getting our exterior all cleaned up!

It’s pretty weird, the fact that we have checked off so many boxes on our “to-do” list from when we moved in. Jason was pacing around the other day going, “NOW what am I going to do? I need projects!” I am sure I can think of something…

Father's Day 2015

Happy Father’s Day to all the daaaaaaaaaads out there! The Nills had a great day, Jason was off and overall we had a good amount of family time this weekend which was such a nice treat!

On Saturday we watched Ashton get his very first “trophy” for successful completion of the 6 week season of Little Kickers. Notice the difference between his reaction to the medal:

And the snack afterwards.

We don’t usually buy Pirate’s Booty for whatever reason (actually it’s a specific reason and that is that it’s MESSY) and Ashton was like, on overload. So was Alex. He whined and whined so we gave him a bag too and he made himself right at home with some other kids on the team.

Highlight of Little Kickers 2015: the snack. Go figure.

Anyway, we snapped our token pictures and called it a season! A season that ended with Ashton scoring a goal but only because he picked up the ball with his hands, dropped it near the net and then kicked it in. Who says you can’t teach soccer to preschoolers! We were so proud.

So then Sunday, Father’s Day, it was pouring rain from the minute we woke up. Joyyyyy. Ashton opened all of Jason’s presents (herb scissors, Natives, and a cute three-way picture of the boys that I totally staged last week).

That took all of sixteen seconds. Alex napped and then we decided to head down to the Museum of Science just like every other family with young children in the greater Boston area. We had never been and really had a fun time! My favorite highlights:

There was a ton to do there. We were all over the place and then it was time for lunch (pause for second family picture in this post):

I had packed it all up while Alex napped and it was definitely the right decision vs. buying it at the cafeteria. So there I am at the table and I look down and…

Share a Diet Coke with DAD! I said “Babe! Look at my can! I totally didn’t even plan that!” And obviously had to Instagram that right away as my “Happy Father’s Day” photo. Then I looked at Jason’s can and THAT one said Share a Diet Coke with a SUPERSTAR, which (duh!) meant me. Boy, our Diet Cokes were right on point yesterday I can say that!

After naps, the rain cleared up, Berg and Karen came over for a little walk and a barbecue and then we watched the rest of the U.S. Open (and poor Dustin Johnson’s three-putt). I hope Jason’s Father’s Day was all he could have wanted. Jason, if you’re reading (haha), I love you I love you I love you a million times! You are everything. The boys could not have a better dad and you could not have two sweeter little shadows 🙂

So beyond lucky to be your wife. Life is golden, thank you for all of it, every single last piece.

xoxox

Alex is 15 months!

Another tick on the age scale…Alex is 15 months old! His molars are coming in, he had his third haircut, and he is *always* on the move! Our own little mini-tornado. Let’s check out his stats:

Height: 32 inches (80th percentile)
Weight: 26.31 pounds (91st percentile)

Head: 18.5 inches (56th percentile)

Shots: Dtap-IPV-HiB (Pentacel)

Teeth: A full set of four on the top and four on the bottom, and then all four molars have broken through or are definitely on their way.
Hair color: White, basically. [Towhead: a blond person whose very pale, almost white hair resembles tow, “tow” being flax or help fibers. Alex’s hair is definitely flax-ey.]

Eyes: blue

Diapers: Size 5

Shoes: Size 6

Clothes: 18-24 months, or 24 months. We have not broken into the 2Ts just yet.

Sleep: 2 Naps a day, usually 9:30 -10:45 am and 2-3:30 pm. Bedtime at 7:30 pm and he sleeps through (has for awhile). Wakeup is around 7:15 am.

Food: Like all of us, he has days he eats a ton and others not so much. He doesn’t have a consistent favorite food! It’s really annoying actually because a lot of the time I don’t have a guaranteed thing he will eat no matter what. I have started giving him some of Ashton’s sneaky kale smoothies and he loves those – he mastered the straw a couple months ago and that was pretty life-changing. Fortunately, he has no allergies, at least that we know of. He’s had peanut butter and eggs with no issues – because Ashton is so allergic to sesame we don’t keep much of anything in the house that has that in it, so that’s another big one we need to somehow try with Alex.
Biggest vice: bottles. He still gets three 6-ouncers a day of whole milk, at each wakeup (before breakfast, and after each nap). He’s never taken a paci and it’s a comfort thing I think. He walks around with it and is quiet while he has his milk and it’s just a nice time haha. But a lot of people would tsk tsk this so I’m going to start thinking about phasing it out.

Words: Well, none. So guess what – his Early Intervention evaluation is next week. If you’ve been reading this since the beginning, you’ll know that Ashton went down this road and it was nothing but a great experience for us. So I’ll post again about that after I know whether Alex qualified. He makes all kinds of sounds (and has said “mama” but not directed at me, just the sounds in general).

Usually found: playing with toys and books. Very appropriate. But he does move, let me tell you. He just spins around the house and on the back deck and generally loves to check things out.

Loves to: Give hugs, try and keep up with Ashton, get into the kitchen cabinets, bring you a book and whine until you open it to read it, so you read one page and then he shuts it and wants to get down. Also loves to ride around the neighborhood in his blue car, go down the slide all by himself, and LOVES the water. Whenever we are in the backyard he goes over to the water table and hits the cover and looks at me expectantly. I took him to Beaver Brook for the first time the other day and he outlasted all the bigger kids he was with, including his brother! And finally, Alex also shares Ashton’s love of mud puddles.

In general: I find Alex to be a lot more…advanced? Than Ashton was at this age. I’m confident it’s largely because he has Ashton as a role model and watches and learns so much from him. Alex seems to understand a ton and sometimes his behavior is very interesting. A little while ago he was playing in the dining room and found the yellow top to the shape sorter. He picked it up, walked through the living room over to the toy box, found the bottom and placed the yellow piece right on top before going back to his under-the-dining-room-table lair. He picks up cars and trains and runs them along the floor or wall and makes whooshing noises.

Last word: Our little guy is just a happy-go-lucky explorer who is generally very busy but will stop everything for a popsicle. Here are some photos of things that have made him who he is today 🙂 xoxo Alex!

Shoe Storage

Listen everyone. I’m in a crisis here. The number of shoes strewn around the house is taking.me.over. Big shoes! Small shoes! Crocs! Rain boots! Flats! Jason’s monster sneakers! Four people’s worth of footwear and it’s been slowly making me crazy. We don’t have a mudroom and honestly, if I could choose between that or a luxurious master bathroom, I’d pick mudroom every time.

So in the last couple of weeks, I was just bopping around on the interwebs and this flashed before me:

51 Game-Changing Storage Solutions That Will Expand Your Horizons

I like to think that my horizons are already pretty broad when it comes to storage but I mean, I still clicked. I’m a sucker for that kind of stuff. A lot of the ideas I had seen here or there but I scrolled through the list and WHAP! #9 hit me.

A coat rack hung low on the wall makes a space-saving shoe rack.

Really! Because that “before” pile looks an awful lot like what I’ve got in my house. I thought to myself, “Self, you could make that!” and trotted off to tell Jason to make that.

Which is just what he did. He got a piece of wood and some knobs, let me mark where I wanted them placed, and one day while I was at work, he sent me this picture:

I said AHHH! Looks great! Can you do 2 rows?

Indeed, I had not. But where Alex just looooves to come and knock the shoes off, Ashton is actually very into putting them all back. Anyway it’s not a perfect solution and most of the time, the nook still looks like this.

But at least now I have the OPTION of someplace to hang up (a small fraction of) the zillions of pairs of shoes floating around.

That picture is captioned: “The best this area will ever look.”

As I suspect is true for most of those “game-changing storage solutions”, it’s better in theory than in practice. Now I just have to figure out where to put all the coats…

Preschool Graduation

Well. Yesterday Ashton graduated from his Pre-k 3 class! Honestly I’m speechless. Where did the last 9 months go? More importantly, what am I going to DO with him all summer? Luckily Belmont Nursery School runs several weeks of camp that starts on Monday. Alex still naps in the morning so having Ashton out of the house until 12 every day has been a perfect schedule that will absolutely continue.

Anyway, the big graduation was yesterday and included a breakfast and a recital. Ashton wore a green and white striped polo and sang his little heart out at the concert. I’d post a video but I think perhaps it’s something only his parents really appreciate 😉

Certificate time!

All in all it was a perfect little program yesterday and we were so happy with Ashton’s teacher this year, Miss Campbell. She was ALWAYS smiling and really got to know Ashton. There is no doubt in our minds that he learned a ton and will be ready for next year!

For whatever reason, the graduation was yesterday but today was his actual last day. Of course we had to do a before and after!

Ashton has definitely grown taller and thinner since last September. I wish I could say the same about me.

Anyway, one year of school under our belts! Congrats to our preschool graduate Ashton Christopher, age 3.10!

Where have I been??

Truth be told, I have had a bit of the blahs lately with this blog. I just have had no motivation to post despite that we did have an awesome Memorial Day weekend a few weeks ago. Uncle Erik flew out from California last minute to surprise everyone, which meant guess who was going in the water with the boys at Lake Iroquois 😉

We also got to spend a few days with my little niece Callie, which obviously I loved!

Overall, it was a great weekend – we hit the farmer’s market, Al’s creemees, the beach, took some walks, played in the backyard…we missed Jason but being up in Vermont is always such a nice break! I always forget how beautiful it is. So that was Memorial Day – the 3.5 hour drive went fine as long as the boys had snacks. I kept their little mouths stuffed full the whole way 😉

Sorry this is a short post, just wanted to check in and address this little hiatus I’ve been on. I should have some good stuff coming up (preschool graduation! new driveway! Alex turns 15 months!) so I promise to be back soon!

Happiness on a stick

I’m generating this post out of thin air, for the most part. I want to get something on the books before the long weekend and this is all I’ve got.

As a background, we are not a dessert household. There are never cookies, brownies, cupcakes, etc. laying around, mainly due to Ashton’s egg allergy. Sometimes right before bed, Ashton will get a couple tablespoons of vanilla ice cream with a drizzle of Hershey’s, but usually his only sugar is from his fruit snacks.

But now? It’s popsicle season! Look for these in your grocer’s freezer:

They are perfect for little hands, aren’t super messy, and the boys love eating off a stick. To say nothing of the mystery of what color lies inside the white wrapper. Ooooooo the drama of opening one. The intrigue! It’s jumping-up-and-down, hand-flapping excitement.

Last night, Ashton had a yellow and Alex got an orange and happiness abounded. Is that a word?

Ashton was going on and on about his popsicle. “Mmmmm! It’s COLD! Mmmmm!” And then he said he really likes them. I said “Of course you do – who doesn’t like popsicles?” It was rhetorical but he said, very seriously, “Owen.” His cousin Owen or his friend Owen? I have no idea. Then he asked that I make sure no one was going to come into his house, open the freezer, get his popsicles and take them home. “You gonna make sure Mommy? You gonna make sure no one takes them? I don’t want anyone to take them. MAKE SURE!” All right already with the popsicle paranoia! Sheesh.

Anyway, Popsicle is owned by Unilever and they did not pay me for this post. We just really like the minis and if there is anything these boys can teach us, it’s that the little things in life (literally with these), can bring much joy. I am reminded of the job I had in college at Baskin-Robbins. (I went to William and Mary, and the scoop shop was right off the main strip of Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia – we were the second highest-grossing BR in the country – so busy! All the time!) Nearly every order that I handed over the counter resulted in a smile, especially the cones. Young, old, man, woman- if they didn’t smile outright, something in their eyes lit up. Such a simple treat but such a thrill. Every time. It is a part of the experience that I will never forget (along with my hourly rate, which was $5.20, and the flavor I ate too much of, raspberry cheesecake). But even in the picture of Alex above, can’t you see the twinkle in his baby blues? Mini popsicles = big treat. Highly recommend.

Soooo, Jason is working this weekend so I’m heading up to Vermont tomorrow with my two little men. I neeeeeed to visit my little sweetheart niece Callie! Catch you on the flip side…