Year: 2017

I will say, Sunday April 16 was probably one of the most beautiful days imaginable. Warm in the sun, a slight breeze…it was outside-all-day weather and that’s where the boys and I spent it. I’ve kind of had the blogging blahs, so I made a special effort to document our day so I’d have lots of good photos for my Easter post. We flew kites, dug in the sandbox, swung at the playground, went for a bike ride, a walk, another bike ride, another walk, and both lunch AND dinner were on the back deck. By the end of the day, the boys had no shirts on and ice cream dribbling down their faces, a most welcome sign that summer is on its way! I got some really cute pictures of my two little bunnies having a great time.

So then, on Monday morning, Alex came into my room and made off with my phone. Both he and Ashton love to sneak in while we are sleeping and steal it to play an app or something. Well somehow, he reset it and the last iCloud backup I had was Saturday night. As I restored my phone, I realized this would mean that every picture I took on Sunday was gone, vaporized into the abyss.

Luckily, Jason had snapped a couple in the morning during the egg hunt and basket-opening before he left for work, but it’s a far cry from what I planned to post. Oh well

I’ll admit, by the end of the day we were a taaaaaad bored. So I packed them up and we went to Walmart because I knew they were open, and the water guns that had been in their Easter baskets had broken instantly (I suspect the Easter Bunny shops at the dollar store). So Ashton and Alex each picked out a new magnum super mega-soaker something or other and we came home and had a good water fight (with warm water from the sink – hey, the sun had gone down!).

So we pretty much did nothing except hang out. There was no brunch, no bowties, no church. But I was so grateful for the beautiful weather that even though the clock moved verrrrrrrry slowwwwwwwwwly, the day was really relaxed and the boys could not have been (seriously, COULD NOT have been) more excited to open all the eggs they had found. With his mouth full of jelly beans, Ashton said repeatedly, “This is the best Easter EVER!” and then added “but not better than Halloween. There’s even more candy at Halloween” and then both boys started chattering about what their costumes would be. On to the next, I guess 😉

Not sure why I got started with the Spanish. Odd. Nevertheless, this is the last in the “Alex is 3!” series. Let’s break him down!

Height: 40 inches (85th percentile)
Weight: 37.4 pounds (92nd percentile)
Overall a hair smaller than Ashton was.

Shoe size: tricky! His Bogs are an 8, his sneakers are a 9, his cool high tops are a 10. But since this is the official record I’m going to say a 9.
Clothes: 4T
Diapers: Size 6
Naps: 1, occasionally, but he can usually make it from wake up to bedtime with no real issues
Hair: Blonde
Eyes: Hazel! A common misconception about Alex. His eyes are not blue.

Crib: Gone. He has been in a big boy bed since Thanksgiving.
Monitor: Gone. Can’t remember the last time we used it. It’s dead anyway.
High chair: Gone. He never really liked being confined. We’ve had this handy thing on the bottom of his seat for almost a year now and it works great.

Idol and hero: Jason. Obviously.
Best friend: Ashton

School: Miss Tammy’s, 2 mornings a week

Current favorite toy: If you had asked me last week, I would have said his doctor kit. He got it for his birthday and freaking loves it. His is a huge Doc McStuffins fan so he goes around singing “Time for your check up! Time for your check up!” a la the theme song and asks you if you are sick.

Ashton: Owex [Alex]! I am not sick!

And on it goes until you admit you are not feeling well so he can take out all his doctor tools and cure you.

But that was last week. This week it’s specifically Lego ninjas because that’s what Ashton is in to. Oh and reusable stickers.

Poops on the potty: If I had to guess, a few dozen, and only when he decides he feels like it. I have not pushed the potty training so far. Ashton was 3.5 and I knew he wasn’t ready until then. I’m not about to beat my head against the wall and clean up pee all day just for the sake of getting Alex out of diapers. It’s not time yet and something I feel absolutely no urgency for.

Behavior: In turning 3, Alex is a toddler no more. Which is funny, because there are still an awful lot of toddler behaviors that do not magically melt away at 36 months. He can still scream like a little banshee if something isn’t going his way. He loves a food one day and hates it the next. Juice in the red cup is preferable. Sometimes only Mommy can change his clothes, sometimes only Daddy can. There is really very little predictability and most 3 year olds aren’t exactly easy going – Alex is no different there.

Speech:  This, by far, is the biggest ongoing element of Alex’s little life. All done with EI, we went through the extensive evaluation process at NPS. Observe the error chart that was included in the resulting 9 page report:

In addition to the substitutions, you’ll note that most of the last column is just a zero/omittance. He just flat out doesn’t say a lot of sounds and substitutes like crazy. For example, his favorite substitute letter is H. So:

“firefighter” is “hirehighter”
“family” is “hamily”
“so silly” is “ho hilly”
“song” is “hong”
“dinosaur” is “dinohoar”

He also hates the d’s, s’s and the z’s. So he wont say “his”, “snake” is “nake”, “house” is “howe”, “nice” is “nie” and “hold my hand” is “ho my heh”. “Hatty birday” is “happy birthday”, “You’re welcome” is “you’re weltum”, and “I spilled milk” is “I pill mill.”

That’s probably enough examples but there are many, many more. The technical terms for his errors are Final Consonant Deletion, Stopping, Fronting and Gliding. He has a great vocabulary and speaks in long sentences but since his articulation is terrible, he qualified for one 30 minute speech therapy each week at Lilja, our local elementary school. I might push for two, we’ll see how it goes. Hopefully his services will start in April.

Summing him up: Alex is a love. He just is. He smiles all the time, is goofy, silly and so endearing. He is liberal with his affection. The most common phrase I hear (and I swear, multiple people with no connections to each other have said this on separate occasions): “He’s just so damn cute.” If Alex has your attention, he shines in it. His quirky little voice and pronunciation combined with his spiky blonde hair and hugs really melt you. I almost feel awkward writing this glowing paragraph! People just respond to him. At the second evaluation at NPS, the speech pathologist (not immune to Alex’s charms) said to me, “god he is just so cute” and I said “oh thanks, you don’t have to say that!” She said “I really mean it” and I said “well thank you, yes Alex has quite the fan club actually” and she didn’t miss a beat and replied “I’ll be president.”

A few of my favorite recent photos…

In the last one, he is managing all his texts and emails. It’s hard work to be so popular 😉

So we threw our little Alex a party last weekend! We sort of had to. It has turned out to be an insane month for birthdays (oh and we did the math – guess which June holiday we have to thank? FATHER’S DAY! Helloooo second children born in March! LOL we were dying laughing when we realized).  Anyway, we literally got 8 other invitations this month and Alex started to really grasp this whole birthday concept. Let’s just do something small at the house, we said. It will be easy, we said.

BAHAHAHA.

Actually it really wasn’t that bad besides a guest list that turned out to be double what we planned on. We have a lot of neighbors and friends I guess! So we had 19 kids and 20 adults for a quick and dirty 90 minutes. I hired a musician to come play for 30 of those, thinking he would have all the children hypnotized in the front room while the parents drank in peace in the kitchen. Well he was a total bust but it wasn’t really his fault. All the kids wanted to do was run around like headless chickens and hit the toy box. Which was honestly fine. I think us grownups were still able to enjoy ourselves despite the complete chaos that was happening at 3 feet.

The party was otherwise simple. I sent an Evite, which goes against every fiber of my being as I love paper products and stationary, but as I said, “simple”. Decorations were balloons and streamers of all colors that did not match. There was no theme, no goodie bags, and no gifts. Probably the most high maintenance thing I did was rent kids tables and chairs. One trip to Party City, one trip to BJ’s, done and done. Oh and I did order a vegan cake from Quebrada. Not that this was about Ashton, but the look on his face at parties when he can’t have the cake (due to the egg) is heartmeltingly sad. All he ever wants is to have a piece just like everyone else. He cries about it sometimes. So he and one other boy with a dairy allergy benefited from this decision and no one could even tell the difference 😉

I did attempt one Pinterest-y decoration that was strips of plastic tablecloths with balloons in the middle.

Alex helped me with the rest of the set up. He walked around all morning wearing his crown and saying “I’m the VERY happy birthday boy, yep, I am!”

We did a big cheese board and chips and guacamole (<– best recipe you'll find) for snacks, and served the kids pizza and fruit for dinner. This is an actual representation of said dinner:

The blur is real.

General party pics:

 (The little girl next to Alex is Addie our neighbor, we went to her 2nd birthday party the next day!)

AND THEN it was time for cake. You don’t know what trial by fire means until you’ve had to cut, plate and pass out cake at a kid’s birthday party. Dozens of sets of little eyes are fixated on you and your every move. In particular, I’m trying not to relive the moment where they all realized there were gummy bears on the cake and I WANT A GUMMY BEAR WITH MY PIECE! A RED ONE! CAN I HAVE TWO GUMMY BEARS ACTUALLY?? And suddenly my ears were filled with shouts and demands and my own husband telling me to “go faster“.

It’s a special kind of pressure and it’s intense. They could probably make a TV show out of it. In a strange twist, Ashton was the only one who waited patiently.

6 pm and that’s a wrap everybody. We did have some neighbors stay until more like 6:30/6:45 pm just chatting which was great. After they left, clean up was really a breeze and Alex opened a few cards and that was it! It was a [crazy wild and hectic] success that took a long time to come down from haha.

Alex, you were the perfect little master of ceremonies! You knew it was your party, you blew out your candles and shared all your toys and only cried once. Happy birthday, we love you!!

Today our little Mr. Alexander Michael Nill turns 3 years old. We have been waiting all week for this day. Alex has been acutely aware of his upcoming birthday and perhaps his older brother Ashton even more so [present alert!]. Things have been coming in the mail, his party (Saturday) has been planned, and he got the special circle time attention yesterday at school with a sticker and a crown. We know about it. Our neighbors know about it. Everyone knows about it. After lights out last night Alex could be heard singing happy birthday to himself before falling asleep. It’s this whole thing 🙂

Today he had soccer with Ashton and I’m thinking about taking them out to dinner, but we really aren’t doing presents or any other celebrations until his party. Which was supposed to be small but in fact, uh, won’t be. Not sure how that happened. Wish me luck on Saturday around 4:30 pm as I will have 19 children in my house 😀

So I’ll post all that after the weekend and all the updated stats etc. after his pedi appointment. But for now just had to tell Alex: Happy 3rd birthday honey bun! You make everyone around you smile all the time, you are just that cute. WE LOVE YOU!! xoxoxox

I say it every year, but I don’t have much to blog about towards the end of these winter seasons. Florida seems like forever ago and we are sort of “going through the motions” as they say, chugging along towards spring. We move the clocks forward on Sunday; getting out of the darkness is going to be huuuuuuge for our psyches. The weather has been all over the place, as high as mid-60’s but also setting record lows.

Caption: Alex shouting a hundred times while chasing Ashton: “AH-tee bike power! I RUNNING power! Yeah!”

You guys let me just get straight to the point. Disney World was so, so, SO fantastic. Looking back at my pictures I just can’t believe it’s over. Never have we been to a place that is so HAPPY! The Magic Kingdom is so beautiful and joyful, with music, colors, smiles everywhere…it was simply amazing and of course I am now one of the zillions of people who say “I can’t wait to go again!” I do give myself a bit of a pat on the back because I spent a ton of time planning our two days there. <– (This comment won't make sense to anyone that hasn't done it.) But I didn't want to waste any more time than was necessary waiting in lines or backtracking, and I think the way I chose to tackle Fantasyland and Tomorrowland on Day 1, Adventureland and Frontierland on Day 2, worked perfectly. It was quite overwhelming in the beginning with the website and app, the Fast Passes etc. but now I feel like an expert! On the Magic Kingdom at least 🙂

But of course I have one piece of advice to share. I read so many websites and tips on how to maximize (but not stress out) your Disney experience but the one thing no one said and I wish I had known/thought about: Most of the rides are based on the movies! Peter Pan, Little Mermaid, and Winnie the Pooh all take you through the storylines and Ashton and Alex would have made stronger connections to them had they seen those movies. I mean, it seems obvious now, but on no one’s tip list was “watch the movies before you go!” and, well, we didn’t really But the boys do watch Disney Junior and by far one of the most magical moments was meeting Mickey himself. He has his own little theater at the front of the park and you go in to see him basically by yourself. He talks of course, but his face moves and his expression changes – he seems really alive. Which is funny, because when we were talking about going to Disney and meeting all of our favorite friends, Ashton was skeptical like “So are they going to be real? I mean, not just people in costumes?”

Anyway, it was so special. Next to Santa, I would imagine meeting Mickey is as magical as it gets when you are a child and it really showed on Ashton’s face (Alex on the other hand was a bit suspicious and didn’t go near any of the characters). But Ashton wore his mouse ears proudly the whole time and BOTH boys went on all the rides! I mean, even Alex, on the roller coasters and splash mountain! He was barely 40″ tall, literally a hair too short, but they let him through. Poppy and Mema were with us too, I honestly didn’t take too many photos but we did SO MUCH and the parade and all of it…incredibly awesome. WE LOVED IT. Here goes…

First stop Seven Dwarfs Mine Train – we waited 50 minutes for what is currently the hottest ride! Which was not built in to my itinerary but we recovered just fine 😉

Meeting Goofy and Donald at Pete’s Silly Side Show:

It’s a Small World (even when you wait in line at Disney it is somehow fun!)

Meeting Mickey:

Jungle Cruise:

Splash Mountain cam:

Alex finally, finally fell asleep on Day 2 around 4:30 pm in front of the Country Bear Jamboree. Everyone was pushing around their zonked out kids but my youngest persevered until basically the last second.

(Ashton and I got soaked and I mean DRENCHED on Splash Mountain, which is why I had a sweatshirt on and you can see his shorts are only half dry:)

I am like SMILING right now posting all these pictures (and thinking how much we experienced that as I said I don’t have pictures of). But even if I did, words and pictures just can’t describe it. It’s that kind of place.

So when we weren’t at Disney, we were staying at the Orlando World Center Marriott. It was massive, over 2100 rooms!! Multiple pools, water slides, and a kid splash area:

Ashton Alex and Jason were tiny specks in the huge ocean that was this pool. I couldn’t even get it all in one picture (it goes way to the right with a hot tub and cave, and two more sections go back to the left beyond the first bump out).

I should mention, we were here because Jason had a conference. So he was in and out during the time that we weren’t at Disney and basically all day Thursday. Thursday was especially sweet because I knew a winter storm was dumping about 18 inches of snow in Massachusetts and I was in my bathing suit and sunglasses 😉

Friday we checked out and headed up to Palm Coast to Poppy and Mema’s house. We sailed along the intercoastal waterway, swam in the pool and hit the beach (again, like zero pics) but it was perfect weather and I did NOT want to go home.

Being warm when it was so cold at home was heaven. I’ll tell you what though, the angels abruptly stopped singing when we landed in Boston on Sunday.

So there’s that. Did I mention how much I loved Florida?

Well it was Groundhog Day yesterday, Phil saw his shadow and started the clock on 6 more weeks of winter. I’ll say though, so far it’s been mostly dry, minimal snow and rain, and averaging in the 30’s. I can definitely handle it. In fact, my mind is already on summer, I signed Ashton up for a June Lego camp yesterday and have to fill out registrations for a few more. And beyond that, I’ve had to focus on the fall! I had to personally drop off Ashton’s kindergarten papers last week, and just got the notification this week that Alex was admitted to the preschool at the same elementary school (Lilja – did I already talk on here about how we were redistricted? I really overreacted haha). But turns out the preschool is full day, all week, which is more than we need. As much as I would have loved to have both boys at the same school, it’s not happening. I just sent a check to Community Nursery School of Wayland to enroll Alex on MWF 9-1 in the fall. So that’s all set. (Fun fact: I’ve never even been there haha. But my friend’s son is going and I have heard nothing but wonderful things, so I don’t anticipate not loving it once I finally go for a tour.)

Well I haven’t written anything for the past few weeks. I’ve kind of had the blogger blahs lately. Butttt, I never officially wrapped up Christmas did I.

I have about zero enthusiasm to post this considering December feels like a decade ago, but my future self will be annoyed with my current self if I don’t.

Generally it was a wonderful holiday – the boys were as you would expect on Christmas morning (video of Ashton showing Alex their loot) and of course got (mostly) everything they wanted. Alex got a lawnmower. In fact all Alex asked for was lawn equipment “to help Daddy”. In his letter to Santa he requested “a lawnmower, a rake, a wheelbarrow, a flower pot, a watering can and a teddy bear.” Ashton’s list included two Lego sets, the Blaze Racetrack, a striped monster machine (?) and a stuffed animal likeless of Pete that he could actually touch and play with.

Last year we took our letters to the library to mail them because they have a special box that goes to the North Pole and a couple weeks later you a personal reply from Santa (actually from a nice old lady in Natick, but the boys don’t know that). I missed the deadline this year and was more or less panicking when I thought, Um, I can write and mail letters too! Duh.

Which is exactly what I did.

Here’s me reading Alex’s letter to him. And then, what was maybe the cutest thing, they both suddenly took their letters and rushed over to show Pete that Santa had written to them.

Let’s see what else. We made Christmas cookies at our neighbor Alina’s house, Ashton had a surprise solo in his school concert (which of course, my phone was at capacity and I couldn’t record), the boys met Santa as I think I already posted…so, yeah, it was a December full of merry making!

I have literally 3 pictures from Christmas morning. First, a sweet picture of Ashton helping Alex (no hidden agenda there, no sirree!):

Remember how I told you I had swapped the boys’ pajama bottoms by accident and Ashton was wearing Alex’s and vice versa. A clear illustration:

Here’s the footage of Alex opening his lawnmower. Incredible, isn’t it? Get your popcorn.

After we said goodbye to GG and Uncle Erik, we packed up and headed to Grandma and Grandpa’s in NY. There we had another gift tornado and then dinner and spent a nice couple days hanging out before heading home.

And that, my friends, was Christmas 2016!

Brae Burn is officially closed for their 3 week shut down, Jason’s off and things are definitely happening around the house! Our guest room is getting spruced up, crown molding and board and batten is going in everywhere, our door guy comes Thursday to start replacing all the old crappy dated downstairs doors that either stick or don’t close, my new piano room rug should be on my doorstep tomorrow…woo!

I’m heading up to Vermont to meet my new little nephew this weekend, of course Ashton has decided to throw me for a loop and not feel great/stay home from school, and don’t even get me going on all the drama about our neighborhood being redistricted from Ben-Hem to Lilja…never a dull moment 😀

You guys, I don’t even know where to begin. It’s very overwhelming to have a few weeks go by with no blog post, especially when so much happens that you need to cover! And especially when the minute you get back from the holidays, you *BAM!* get hit with summer! Like I have been consumed this week with finding a house on Block Island for the last week in July, scheduling who will be there with us and when, booking ferries and all the associated paperwork and check mailing. THEN, we decided to join Longfellow for the summer to use the pool, which led me to realize that all the summer camp registrations are open there as well (AND Alex can go this year, he will be 3) so we’ve been all calendar-crazy with those weeks. LASTLY, we go to Disney in a month, and I have just decided to see about planning that, but it turns out people prepare for their trips for years and it’s such a massive undertaking to make sure we hit the rides and reservations and restaurants and all the things in the right time frame and I have to have a master schedule with the fast passes and AHHHHHHH IT’S SO MUCH!! TICKETS COST $632 AND THAT’S JUST THE TICKETS!!!

So you see, I’ve been a tad on the frazzled side and have already completely moved on from Christmas. I’m also now obsessed with furnishing our front room and in addition, literally in the middle of the night, it comes to me that in order to make the house feel newer I need to swap out all our old crappy downstairs doors that have original hardware and don’t even close properly. I’m not sure Jason shares my urgency here but this needed to happen yesterday as far as I’m concerned. Instead of blogging, I have been researching doors, getting a guy to come do the work (the frames and jambs or whatever need to be redone as well), picking knobs out and searching for baby grand pianos.

I’m quite busy. Oh plus I have to work. Heh heh.

I’ll post Christmas in short pieces, which should be easy because I took zero pictures. I mean, very few. In the past I document like crazy so I can post it here and this year I did not feel like doing that.

I’ll start with a funny story and that is that I bought the boys matching pajamas. I washed them and on Christmas Eve morning of course Pete had left them for the boys to wear. I helped them get dressed and ready:

All through the next morning I kept saying to myself gosh Ashton’s pj’s really shrunk. Well if you look at their bottom halves, you’ll maybe see Ashton is wearing size 3 pants and Alex is wearing size 5 pants. Whoops. Alex’s were far too long and Ashton’s were far too short. Oh well 😀 They didn’t notice.

Also funny is that last year’s Santa picture didn’t look much different from this year’s.

Alex hasn’t really gotten in tight yet with Santa, just like zillions of other toddlers out there. Luckily he had no issues on Christmas morning when he saw all the presents 😉