Author: kristennill

Guys, it is January and I am feeling very behind and overwhelmed with this blog! There is not a whole lot of new material now that we go through the same routines and go on the same vacations with the same cast year over year. I am at a dangerous precipice where, if I don’t catch up now, there will be no going back. Now that the crazy holiday season is behind us, we are kicking off some *new!* projects and I’ve decided to dive back in to sharing our daily nitty gritty. You’re like, sooo lucky.

Some housekeeping items. I am going to backdate these posts to when I should have written them so as not to muck up my blog history. They will also be more frequent because they are probably going to be short, like this first one for Thanksgiving. Frankly I can’t remember much about it now that it was nearly two months ago, so I’m going to throw my pictures up here and call it a day. We hosted my friend Jessica as well as Grandma, Grandpa, Aunt Lizzie, Uncle Chris, Cousin Owen, Uncle Berg, Aunt Karen and Jayden!

Hahaha. No seriously everything was labeled. If Jason had a schedule to hand out, we all would have had a copy. No messing around. Grandpa was put to work:

There’s a lot to cover here folks. Let’s begin.

Part 1: Pumpkins
We got them for free when we went apple picking (and by “free” I mean they came with our $156 farm admission for 4 adults and 2 kids!). But that is beside the point. What I’d like to call attention to is Ashton’s completely hilarious pumpkin that I thought could not possibly come out right. He did it all by himself and the result was amazing.

I think it’s the tiny eyes but I was dying laughing. It is perfectly imperfect 🙂

The others came out as you would expect (ooo, pointy teeth, how original) and you can probably guess which one I did.

In fact I was intending to copy the eyeroll emoji – ah well. Still fits.

Part 2: Adornment
Let’s get to the epic saga that was costumes. The fundamental component of any Halloween. The boys started the decision-making process last July and for a brief month, they would be superheroes. Of course, because their outfits from last year were in shreds and yes I would love to buy them identical $40 costumes to the ones we already had. But I didn’t jump and good thing because Alex moved on and for a time was proposing random household items. He thought maybe he could be a lightbulb, or a ladder? How about a banana? He said “shark” right around the time that Target was having a half off sale at the beginning of October and I hit “purchase”. (I like to think I’d let my kids be anything they want, but really it has to align with something somewhat identifiable and at least partially store-bought. I don’t do homemade. Yet.)

The shark sat in the closet along with Ashton’s Lego guy costume. He had picked that in September and stuck with it. We were done and ready.

Except then the boys watched Moana mid-October and found themselves possessed. I’m not sure if you saw my YouTube video but the music in this movie has both boys singing and dancing – it’s quite a sight. Ashton then wanted to be Maui (shapeshifter, demigod of the wind and sea, hero to all):

The handcuffs! The walkie talkie! The WHISTLE! He was in heaven while Ashton was in the corner sobbing because now he wanted to be a “pweece” too. I made Jason deal with it the next day while I went to Target and tried to get my money back for the shark and the Lego guy. Remember those? The employee was like “MMMM hmmm, I don’t think so sister. Halloween is tomorrow”, but I showed her my receipt and the tags and she had to push it through. Who returns costumes at 6:30 pm on October 30? ME. Boom.

Part 3: Other lead-up
We skipped a lot of Halloween events this year in the name of having no costumes (and also, I was not prepared mentally – once any sort of costume goes on, all bets are off, so I sure as heck didn’t want to start with that five days in advance of the actual holiday). But if we had made everything happen, we would have gone to the Lilja dance, Zoo Howl at the Stone Zoo, the Spooktacular in Natick, the Brae Burn kids Halloween and one of Ashton’s classmates’ “boo-day” party. As it was, we managed just fine with Alex’s parade on Monday:

And Ashton’s K parade on Tuesday:

Which was not without a class party afterwards and I had signed up for “healthy snack” so, voila.

This doesn’t merit its own category but I wanted to love on it somewhere.

Part 4. The main event.
Ready for it? My two little members of law enforcement – “watch out bad guys!”

After all that practice, we had our first run-in!!!

Lined up:

And off we went! Honestly I didn’t bother with any of the night time shots. You guys know what trick or treating looks like. The interesting part is that Ashton is the only kid who lasted! The other three were all “Eh. Can we go home now?” while Ashton raced around the neighborhood and Jason struggled to keep up. He filled his pumpkin three times!! But I did manage to get these last two gems:

Happy Halloween to my two little mall cops. Thanks for keeping me safe! (Someday I’ll tell you the truth about the whistles that came with your costumes. For now, they are still “lost” 😉 )

I can’t really explain myself but I’ve had no love for blogging lately 😦 Everything that I would typically turn into a post I am just like, meh. I am on a dangerous precipice because I know if I quit, I’ll regret it. Mainly we have just been really busy. This school business is no joke you guys. Between both boys, the number of donation drives, birthday parties, class events, school picture days, projects, save-the-dates, sign-ups, “make-sure-to-send-this-in”s and overall things going on completely fills my day to the brim. My next two weeks are so beyond that I actually had to make a calendar on top of our regular calendar to fit it all. Let’s take a look at the next 12 days! It’s a little blurry but I can’t figure out how to paste it otherwise.

There are three main issues. First, the Scholastic Book Fair is next week. This massive fundraiser for Lilja? Yep, I’m the chair of it. Binders and folders and webinars and committee members and parent helpers and to-do lists of information – it is way, way bigger than I anticipated when I volunteered. I’ll leave it at that but it’s been weeks of preparation already and it’s simply huge. Second, it’s Ashton’s week for Family Week next week. He needs to make a very specific poster with photos and things on it, and I will be visiting his class on Thursday to share something special and I have no earthly idea what that is going to be yet. We don’t have a unique family culture or anything that makes us that interesting sooo yeah, Kristen, good luck with that when 19 sets of kindergarten eyes are on you and waiting for something good to happen. Third, Halloween is coming. The costumes, the candy, the parties, the parades…I’m already on a couple sign up sheets for snacks and supplies and all that. Also, of course Alex’s costume is too big so now I have to get him a smaller one, meanwhile I hid BOTH costumes because otherwise the boys wouldn’t wear anything else and I don’t want them getting wrecked before the one zillion Halloween things they will be wearing them to..Overall I’m just PRAYING I don’t forget something, like the sticker chain letter that I have to copy and send out to a bunch of people but first I have to go buy the stickers. Definitely haven’t done that yet and I think my deadline is Monday. Hmmm.

Not listed in all of this is of course the regular school schedule for both boys plus Jason’s work schedule plus mine. But, what’s the point here. Am I drowning? No. Is it fun? Mostly. I guess I’m just doing other things besides blogging lately 😉

The weather has been gorgeous and warm, the boys are doing great at their schools and I’m hoping my wild west book fair goes off without a hitch next week. But first, Grandma and Grandpa came for a quick visit last weekend we went out apple picking, here are a few pictures! I would say I found the biggest one 😀

There hasn’t been a whole lot going on in our lives other than school school school! Besides the regular schedule, which is every day for Ashton 8:30 am – 2:56 pm at Lilja Elementary in Natick and MWF for Alex 9-11:45 am at Community Nursery School in Wayland, there’s all the extras. For example, last week, Monday night was the soccer meeting and equipment pickup, Wednesday night was Curriculum Night where the teachers all made presentations to their classrooms and the principal gave an address, and then Friday night was the Kindergarten picnic. Plus, I am the chair of the book fair which is in October, so I have had meetings for that and I am really looking forward to it, but it is a huge fundraiser that is turning out to be more involved than I was expecting haha. We got invited to the first class birthday party and the field trip permission slips are starting to come home, and that’s just Ashton’s part of things! Btw we did a retake of his first day picture once I found the sign I had made:

And also here is Alex, ready to rock CNS on his first day a couple weeks later! I think it’s the shark shirt – that one is a real confidence booster 😉

Papa and GG, I loved having you here! (XOXOXOXOX!)

Right after that we cruised through Labor Day Weekend, which, you know what stinks when you’re in Long Island and supposed to be at the beach or in the pool? Crappy weather. And that’s what we had. The boys played some baseball, fished and swam anyway.

And we made it to Southwick’s Zoo last weekend, the largest zoo in New England. I have to say I was impressed (with the zoo, not Jason’s pictures, which are what follow 😉 )

We had a really great day there! The boys read books about rhinos, lions, tigers, giraffes, monkeys, zebras, etc. all day long and seeing those animals in real life is always so much fun for them. Grandma and Grandpa took them to the Riverhead aquarium over Labor Day weekend too and she said they were losing it over the sharks and sting rays 🙂

Lastly, the star of the summer: our garden. Freshly planted at the beginning of June:

And the tomatoes as I type this are even taller. Most of it has been cut back by now but the amount of summer squash, zucchini, tomatoes, peppers, mini eggplants, herbs, and cucumbers that this little plot spit out…whoa. Jason did an AMAZING job taking care of it, I honestly did nothing, but do get to reap the rewards by making things that look like this.

Ok this is going to be really long. I have way too much to say about this giant milestone so here we go.

First of all, I could have been doing this post a year ago. Ashton was 5 by 8/31/16 and technically eligible for Kindergarten, but it took us about four seconds to decide to wait another year. I am SO glad we did, for so many reasons. One of the surprising results of Ashton sticking around? How close he and Alex have become. They have had a lot of adventures together this past year and truly, one of the central emotions I have felt about Ashton starting school is sadness for Alex! Alex will be in preschool just MWF from 9 – 11:45 am. Ashton on the other hand will be gone from 8:15 am – 3:15 pm (school is 8:30 am – 2:56 pm) MTWThF! That’s.every.day. That’s 35 hours a week. That’s a full time job!

So, the prep for this new gig has been insane. Sometime last January, I said “Hey Natick Public Schools, I have a student for you next year!” and thus opened the floodgates of the most incredible amount of paperwork you have ever seen. Name, address, demographics, insurances, immunizations, emergency contacts, family history, what was the birth like? I had to present a giant packet, in person, with an appointment. That was first, in April. Followed by bus registration. Then over the summer we started getting weekly e-blasts, signing up for iPass, Virtual Backpack, and the school’s Facebook group(s). The playdate schedule came out, I had to bring nametags to one of them. I volunteered to do the book fair with the PTA in October. What was Ashton’s daily dismissal plan? Please fill out this form. Has Ashton had a lead test? Please fill out this form. In the event of Ashton needing an Epi-Pen administration, please fill out this form. You think you want to chaperone or be a room parent? Please fill out this form. Do you want to participate in BOKS (before school fitness program)? Yes? No? Regardless, make sure Ashton has a rest mat (tri-fold only), brings in a family picture on the first day, and has a backpack and a lunchbox. The soft kind. On Tuesdays the class has PE so wear sneakers. Oh, and everything needs to be labelled. It wouldn’t hurt to label your labels. Your son will need a fresh haircut and of course we recommend getting him microchipped.

Kidding (about that last part). But it’s been a LOT. I’ve lost sleep haha. Overall I’m so impressed with the school but whoa!

So here’s the breakdown of the beginning of it all. Last Wednesday, August 30, was the first day for Ashton’s group. Only half the class started (the second half went Thursday so Ashton had that day off) and the schedule ran from 9-1. Before school pictures:

We gathered in the lobby at Lilja, the K’ers lined up as their teachers called them and off they went down a lonnnng hall.

And that was it! I didn’t even cry? Was I shell-shocked??

At 1 pm the parents came back for pickup and we got to see their classroom. Ashton’s class with Ms. K is 19 kids and they are in one of the 6 new modulars at Lilja (and the only K class in there – the other 4 are in the main school). I know they’ve been really in a rush with the project so the rooms aren’t completely done, but this is the quick glimpse I got.

By 1:30 pm it was time to go home and Ashton was fried. He was complaining about everything including the walk to the car and started to cry over a snack. Ms. K warned us that the first days of kindergarten are a lot on children and to expect complete and utter exhaustion. Ashton was the very definition. On the plus side, he was obsessed with the idea that he could buy lunch. It was all he talked about: that there were different things every day, that there was a menu, that you could take money and go to the cafeteria and buy it. And there was PIZZA. He put his lunch money together pretty much as soon as we got home Wednesday and carried it around until Friday, which was the first full official day: drop-off line, school bus home, pizza that you could buy, the whole bit. Jason Facetimed me on Friday so I could “be there” at drop off and when I heard Alex’s voice call after him: “Bye Ah-ton! BYE!” that’s when I finally cried.

Friday went really well I think, he described in full detail what it was like to buy lunch, how he put his name under “Pizza” on the classroom lunch list and then the lady gave him a HUGE piece of pizza, like the biggest piece he had ever had. “I asked her, I said um excuse me, could you please cut this? But it was TOO LATE, I had to keep pushing my tray down the metal thing and she didn’t hear me.” The other thing was, he was sooo excited to take the bus home but it was running super late, I was literally panicking because I had no idea where he was, so I called the school and they said he was still there (it was 3:40 pm! He was supposed to be dropped off by 3:10 pm!). So I went to get him and he saw me and was like “AW! You’re not the bus!” and I explained that he was going to come with me just today and he was like “THIS IS THE WORST BUS DAY EVER”. (Jason’s planning to drop him off in the mornings because the ride is way too long, in my opinion: 35 minutes to go 1 mile! Such a long story.)

Anyway today is Tuesday and Ashton’s second full day. Jason dropped him off this morning and I have been thinking about him constantly. I need to teach him to tie his shoes. I wonder if he ate his sandwich (we tried turkey today). Lunch is at 11 am and he doesn’t get out until 2:56 pm – is he starving? Plus on Friday he got a little lost, I think because his classroom doesn’t have a bathroom or a nearby water fountain so he was fretting last night that he was going to “lose his way” again. The school is big when you are six.

It’s tough, this Kindergarten business. There’s no one watching him or helping him. He’s responsible for himself and the lump in my throat hasn’t quite dissolved yet. 5 full days a week seems like way too much. But Ms. K created an Instagram account (please fill out this form) and there’s been no shortage of letters and emails from the school all about the first few days. We’ll settle in… Alex and preschool is next!

Happy Kindergarten Ashton!!

Well Ashton has officially turned 6 so that post will be forthcoming, but firsssssst, our summer vacation! We’ve already been back for longer than we were gone (haha) but I needed some time to decompress and go through all my photos.

Our ferry plopped us on Block Island on Sunday, July 23rd by 10:30 am. It was windy, cloudy, and cold. Little did we know, the sun would not come out until Wednesday. It’s true, at several points during the first three days, I said “This is actually worst case scenario right now…” and then I’d go check the window again to see if there was any semblance of light coming from the sky. At any given moment while we were there, someone in the house was checking their doppler app. And then someone else would check theirs for a second opinion and we’d all sit around and say “surely it won’t stay this cold/windy/cloudy/rainy…”. I will say, the house we rented was floor to ceiling sliders on the main level and had spectacular views, so it helped not feeling closed in. And the kids did great. Better than the adults I’d venture (i.e., me). I brought a huge box of new toys/art supplies/games/puzzles/etc. and for the first half of the week the boys were with their cousin Owen and the second half they were with Callie and Holden and they all stayed very entertained and busy. In fact, we did a lot of stuff that we don’t normally do on BI because we are always at the beach, so it kind of worked itself out.

Sunday we were occupied by settling into the house we rented. Monday it just rained all day and I don’t remember a thing. Tuesday it was about 62 degrees and the wind was still whipping, but we forced ourselves to eat lunch on the beach and packed up after 45 minutes. GG arrived which was a nice distraction. And then finally, beach days on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday! But then Saturday was crappy again and Sunday it was time to go home, just in time to miss this glittering forecast for the upcoming week:

Despite the weather, on the way home all we could talk about was how amazing a trip we had had and how we wanted to go back next year for TWO weeks. LOL. What the what?

We hung with Grandma, Grandpa, Aunt Lizzie, Owen, GG, Aunt Kari, Uncle Ben, Callie, and Holden (and special guests Robyn and Mike) and in various combinations we went to the farm, shopped at the farmers market, hiked down Mohegan Bluffs, played at the playground, fished, ate, drank, ate, drank, went out a night or two and sunned ourselves wherever possible. I give you BI 2017! First, who wins for cutest picture of the week?

The end!

How tired is your scrolling finger right now?! Hahaha. See you next year Block Island!!

It’s 7/17/17! That has to be something, right?

Anyway, this is going to be an all-encompassing photo dump of a post, basically. I slacked in documenting our July 4th week and since all we’ve been doing is going to the beach or to the pool, you’re about to see a lot of pictures of boys in bathing suits. Don’t worry, I’ll distinguish as we go along.

Ahem. So we went down to visit Grandma and Grandpa for July 4th aka Jason’s 40th birthday trip. We had an awesome dinner at Cowfish on Monday night to celebrate 🙂

(Left to right: Deirdre and Jeff Greenwald, Jason’s bff that lives in Sag Harbor, Grandpa, Grandma, me, Jason, Karen and Berg who came down for a couple days too, Liz and Chris).

They didn’t catch anything

Wheeeeee! We have a grown up bedroom! Moody paint and all!

There was not too much “construction” that happened in here (Jason did build out the closet and put the drawers in the cabinet in this post) – it was mainly decor. The annoying thing about moving in to a house that is way bigger than your last one is all the stuff you need to buy to turn it into “home”. We are coming up on 2 years and I still have some empty wall space waiting for the perfect print, a spot for a grandfather clock, etc etc. But either you can’t find what you want or it costs too much or both. So things happen a little at a time, amiright?

And FINALLY, our window treatments have been swapped out and our curtain panels were hung for the finishing touches in our bedroom. EEEEE, ready for the pics??

It’s kind of hard to get the full picture because the light from the windows was tough on the camera. But one final before (the listing photo):

And after:

I totally love it! The paint color is called Willow Creek by Benjamin Moore which is a brownish gray. We just had new window treatments installed last week, you can’t really tell but the old ones were the cheap pull down ones. We picked a Hunter Douglas gray color and the one over the bed is one giant retractable shade. In person the new ones really make a huge difference.

The curtains are from Target! I waited for these curtains for almost 2 years. Like, every Home Goods trip, every Target trip, every fabric store trip…I was waiting for panels that would work and not cost a million dollars each. So I bought these and rigged them up to work! Here’s what I did. I do not sew but I’m a whiz with a hot glue gun. With the help of my trusty mini, I tacked some pleaters tape to the backs of the curtains to stiffen them up. Then I added curtain hooks at even intervals so when they hung, I could pleat them out a little. They sell actual pleaters hooks that create the perfect look, but the tops of these curtains were SO thick because they were rod pockets and I knew the pleaters hooks wouldn’t work.

I had these gorgeous Pottery Barn rods and finials already from like a year ago and they sat in the closet and sat and sat. I can’t tell you how happy I was to finally put them up! So those were the finishing touch and it’s amazing how much warmer they made the room feel.

Now let me tell you about my bed. This, my friends, is why I actually LOATHE Pottery Barn. Even though I give them my money sometimes, I hate doing it. Here is the bed that I wanted to buy.

We knew we wanted a California King (education alert: California Kings are narrower than a regular King, but longer. That’s the difference. Most people get a king thinking it’s the biggest at 78″ by 80″ and in a way it is. But Jason had never had a bed where his feet didn’t hang off, so the California King just gives that extra length at 72″ by 84″. A Queen and a King are the same length. Should the words for bed sizes really be Capitalized? I’m unsure.) Anyway, we needed one that didn’t have a headboard that was too high considering the windows above. My choices were actually limited too because I was looking for the tufted, upholstered style that also had a footboard.

So after all was said and done I picked this one from PB. Or so I thought. Jason did give me his blessing but when I got to my check out, I just couldn’t do it. The fees were too much to bear.

Then I checked Wayfair. Ahhhhh! This bed:

Less than half the tax and the magical words that you can’t believe all retailers don’t offer in this day and age: FREE SHIPPING. Nanny nanny boo boo, Pottery Barn.

So the best shot, one more time:

Proud to say that’s a completely undoctored photo, you can tell because the boys’ red and green Lego bins are in the lower left hand corner. Usually the carpet is strewn with thousands of pieces and I quickly raked them up to get this glamorous photo. Just like the rest of the house, there is no hiding that kids live here. It already does not look like this anymore! I’ll have to save this post to remind me 😉

Well both boys are officially out for the summer as of last Friday!

Let’s do Alex first – he’s been done for a few weeks actually. Before and After:

Alex changed a lot this year, oh man. Miss Tammy’s was positively the most perfect place for him. He “grew up” so much, in terms of his speech and his overall sense of self. That happens anyway at this age, between 2 and 3, but still. He owned it! I admit I felt pretty disconnected from his life at Miss Tammy’s because Jason always did drop-off and Jen always did pick-up, but I got nothing but glowing reports on his sociability and lovable personality. A+ for Alex! The day after the official “last day” Miss Tammy had a little petting zoo and a party, Jen took him and these are just cute photos from that 🙂

Next stop: Community Nursery School in Wayland in the fall!

Now – Ashton! Ashton has been at Belmont Nursery School for THREE years. We kept him there even after we moved and he commuted with me 3 days a week for almost two full school years. There were two main factors: first, the cost. It was like half the price of the schools in Natick/surrounding area for the same days/times. And second, this year, he had Mrs. Cooney! She is a phenomenal teacher and when we made the decision to hold him back, I knew her class would be perfect. Junior Kindergartens or transitional Kindergartens are very hard to find. In Mrs. Cooney’s class, every student was 5 years old by December 31 so Ashton really was in a group of true peers. Before and After:

Notice my hack sign done frantically at the last minute on Friday hahaha. And Alex didn’t even have a sign. Parents are always so much more prepared at the beginning of the year lol. Anyway after the picture we all piled in the car and drove to Belmont for the final time for his graduation. First all the children gave a musical performance (behold the sound of music) and then here is Ashton getting his certificate:

 Proud parents! Alex was crying in the corner and in an inexplicably bad mood so, oh well.

And that’s it! Next stop is KINDERGARTEN at Lilja Elementary in Natick. But we have lots planned before September comes – Summer 2017, let’s do this!