Season Opener

Hard to believe, Thanksgiving is already behind us and time is marching on towards Christmas! We had a great turkey day in Long Island with Grandma and Grandpa, Lizzie, Owen, and Uncle Chris. Of course, Ashton ate nothing but the cranberry sauce and Alex slept through the whole thing, but that is no measure of how delicious the meal was. Grandma with the bird….

I have to say, she and Grandpa made it look pretty effortless. We hosted Thanksgiving last year and I feel like my kitchen was a sh*tshow. Thanks to both of you for a wonderful dinner 🙂

The day after Thanksgiving we hit the Children’s Museum in Bridgehampton with Lizzie and Owen and then headed back to MA to get going on Christmas. We took the boys to Lowes to see what they had for decorations. We were contemplating getting an inflatable, then we thought maybe a pair of those sparkly reindeer…we are new to the neighborhood so of course we needed to have an impressive display! So many possibilities.

Ultimately we just got a wreath and a new pet snowman for Alex.

He stood with his arm around it for awhile and then observed while Jason and Ashton twisted some lights into the little tree that stands in the front yard. It came out great! 

Uh, a little better in person. I still think we should add some lights to the bushes too though 🙂
Well on Saturday this past weekend it poured rain and the boys and I had ZERO to do, so at 4:30 pm I packed them up and we went to Toys R Us to scout some toys. I’ll tell you what, I avoid Black Friday like the plague, but I see now why other people don’t – the deals were still insane, even the next day. I wasn’t planning on buying anything though, just wanted to see what seemed to get the boys excited. Last year Jason and I shopped like two days before Christmas and it didn’t matter, but this year, Ashton is very aware of what is going on and has already made his list.
Jason: “Ok boys, let’s tell Santa what you want!”
Ashton: “Yeah! Let’s do it!” [Runs and gets out the paper, gets out the pencils, hops up on his chair and freezes.] “But Daddy! Oh no. I don’t know how to write.”
Jason: “How about you just tell me and I’ll write it for you?”
Ashton: “Yeah! Ok. I want….” He rambled off lots of things that had “big” and “huge” in the title 😉 
So back to Toys R Us. There we were and we round the bend to the Matchbox/HotWheels aisle. All of a sudden, before me was this box, this beacon of light, this Christmas miracle!!
This toy, dear readers, does not exist. HAS NOT existed for two years. I saw something similar being sold on one of my mom’s groups, did not get it, and have been on the hunt ever since. Sure, you can look on eBay or Amazon, but you’ll pay through the nose (right now Amazon has it for $159 and that’s cheap) because they seemingly don’t make it anymore. It is honestly impossible to find and I have looked at every obscure internet website there is to try and track it down with no luck. Until now! Toys R Us was selling it for $99.99, but the Black Friday deal was half off at $49.99. I could hardly believe I was looking at it in the flesh. Ashton has hundreds of cars and plays with them constantly. He would love this. LOVE LOVE LOVE this. 
There was one left. 
What should I do? I mean, Ashton was with me. Could I buy it right in front of him? No way. But look at it! If little metal cars had a mecca and a 4 year old was their god, they would live here.
It’s 8 feet of racetrack. I couldn’t risk losing it so I was just going to get it and face the consequences.
Well I picked up the box and made it two aisles before Ashton broke me down. He was like an excited puppy jumping and yapping at my feet. What was that? Who was it for? Why did I have it? Could he look at the box? Could he hold the box? Just for a second? When could he open it? Now? When we got home? AHHHHH!!! I put it down, got on the Toys R Us website right then and there and saw it listed for sale for the same price. I thought, I’ll just go home and order it tonight and that way I don’t have to deal with this right now.
I got home, clicked through and tried to add it to my cart and it said “this is an in-store item only. Please select a store for pickup.” Grrr! I was just there!! I entered my zip code, pulled up Framingham… “Out of Stock.” WHAT?! I called the store, explained I had been there ten minutes prior, could you please go grab this toy (and this is where I left the box) and put it aside for me. She put me on hold for honestly 15 minutes, came back and said sorry, it’s gone. AHHHH!! No!! She said yeah it’s been crazy today, and hung up. 
While I made the boys’ dinner I frantically called three other Toys R Us stores. I wondered if, despite the website saying they had none in stock, they actually might. That theory was wrong and it took me at least thirty minutes to find out. I was still not going to accept defeat. I didn’t believe that my original one was gone so first thing the next morning, I left Jason with the boys and marched back into the store. I rounded the same bend, checked the same shelf…there it was! Just one! I grabbed it and headed to the checkout. 
“Your total is $106.23.”
“What? Eight hours ago it was half that price!”
“Er, sorry. The sale ended.”
I asked for the manager please. She came over and I explained the whole scene from the night before. I said, “You were open until midnight and I would have come back to buy this once my husband was home, but when I called, your employee told me it had been sold! Clearly it was not sold – here it is!”
She punched some numbers into the computer and said, “Well, this one just came in last night.” 
“Really. You got a whole shipment and only got ONE more of these?”
“Yes.”
We stared each other down. I was getting this toy for half off if I had to stand there all day. I said, “Look, I am going to be buying a lot more here in the next few weeks, so this would really mean a lot to me.”
Three minutes later, I was loading my $49.99 Hotwheels Super 6 Lace Raceway into my trunk. I texted Jason a triumphant YESSSS!!! and then thought my god, is this what I am going to have to go through to get EVERY TOY FROM NOW ON? The answer so far, by the way, has been yes. I can’t even begin to tell you the story about the Paw Patroller. 

It’s a giant van that opens up to hold all the characters from the show, each with their own machines – Ashton LOVES Paw Patrol and this is on his Santa list. While I did manage to buy the Paw Patroller, look again. Everything with a black circle is not included.
Yep, you actually get this.
A hollow shell. All the figurines are *of course* sold separately, and when I realized that, found that they were nearly none to be found. I tracked down a couple at Target (there are 7 total) for the appropriate price of $12.99 (each), but the others? Hit up eBay and be prepared to pay $50+. I think the general lesson here is caveat emptor. Toy boxes can be very deceiving. 
Speaking of deceiving boxes, I was admiring the Super 6 Lane Raceway, soaking in its amazingness, and suddenly noticed on the top flap:
ON BLU-RAY AND DVD FALL 2014.
Fall of…I’m sorry…what year? What is with this mysterious, elusive toy! Where has it been hiding? All I know is Ashton better play with it for hours and love it so much he only stops using it when he leaves for college. 
2 toys down, many to go. 23 more days of blood, sweat and tears. Bring it, Christmas. 

Beach Bums

So we got to take a little trip to a little place called Aruba 🙂 The last time we were there was 2012 and perhaps the biggest difference between that year and this year was Ashton!

Um no that’s not correct. The biggest difference was that this year Alex, Callie and Erik were with us! Alex and Callie didn’t exist in 2012 – hard to believe looking at their sweet faces 🙂

Erik did but he couldn’t come then 😛 So our group was made up of 14 people total! An upfront thanks to Poppy, Mema, Amy, Jason, Mckenna, Brody, Ben, Kari, Callie and Erik for an unforgettable week. THANK YOU, especially to Poppy and Mema – you know we know how lucky we are!

Back to the Nills. Well we did mostly the same things we did in 2012: snorkeled, floated, laid by the pool, lazed in the lazy river, played in the sand, ate, drank…all those normal vacation things. We went to the same beach and guess what I even wore the same bathing suits. But experiencing the trip through Ashton’s 4 year old eyes especially made this year that much better. He was so excited and soaked in every minute. We fed the iguanas some lettuce (more fun than you’d think!), he found a giant sea star, paddleboarded, swam, sailed, tried his luck at poolside Bingo and played his heart out at the beach. At one point he dug a large deep hole in the sand and every time a wave came and filled it he would go “Yes! YES! YEH-HEH-HESSS!!” Whenever Alex tried to come near it he would snap at me to “keep Alex occupied doing something else! This hole is mine!” He actually used the word “occupied”! He didn’t pronounce it right, but still.

The boys also each had their own set of puddle jumpers, which I know isn’t the best for actually learning how to swim but I was most concerned about their safety for the week. They made them so independent in the water and Alex just floated and smiled, floated and smiled, all by himself.

While the boys had their fun, the grownups certainly did too. We had probably the best setup you can have while being on vacation in a hotel: a 2 bed 2 bath condo separated by an kitchen and living space. Which means, you can put the kids to bed, shut the door, and still hang out! Also makes babysitting easy as we shared a condo with Kari and Ben and Callie. Pretty much every night we headed down to the beach bar, sat under the thatched roof with little twinkly lights and generally enjoyed ourselves. Signature drink of Aruba 2015: the Phase 3 Black Russian.

The view from our balcony was also quintessential tropics! To the left:

To the right (the swim up bar and beach, and where we spent a lot of our time because that pool is zero entry at the end. Also, as I mentioned, the swim up bar 😀 )

Directly below (the lazy river and hot tubs):

See in the upper left hand corner of this photo, that teeny bridge? That’s one of the main kiddie pools that the resort has and the boys loved it. Water guns, waterfalls, etc. That Marriott, they know what they’re doing. Between that and the 5 pm standing group float on the lazy river, things were good.

But let’s talk about the elephant in the room. The flights. In fact, we hadn’t flown anywhere since the last Aruba trip three years ago! There were two each way. They were long. Each boy had his own iPad, loaded up with apps and videos that were age appropriate, and a set of headphones.

While I was sandwiched between two kids for all 4 flights, Jason got to sit across the aisle in a seat I affectionately nicknamed “Paradise”. Overall, Ashton did great – the older he gets the more “manageable” he is. Thank goodness we had Alex’s carseat. Not feeling like being a human jungle gym for 6 hours, we had bought him his own seat and I strapped him right down. His little legs were *just* long enough to kick the seatback in front of him, but only on the last flight did we sit behind someone who was clearly annoyed by it (AND she had her own small kid with her! It was quite bizarre). A few times Alex really needed a nap and cried his face off. But overall we did ok. By the end of the travel days the boys had had way too much screen time and way too many snacks and got off the plane in a googly-eyed daze. I don’t think they knew whether to run a marathon or pass out cold on the floor. Luckily on the way down we had the pool to look forward to and on the way back, Thanksgiving and all the holidays!

So it’s time for the photo dump. I’ll try to keep it to a minimum. I actually didn’t take nearly as many as I thought I would, mainly because I was swimming with the boys most of the time! Off we go…

So there we were, all happy with a little bit of a tan and refreshed from a week in the water. We came back to cold, damp, dark Massachusetts and our weekend was spent gathering up the completely and utterly ridiculous and I mean ridiculous amount of leaves in our backyard. The whole neighborhood is massive oak trees and even though we have a blower, it’s been an ongoing process. Yard waste day (the town’s only one!!) was Monday so we bagged up forty nine bags of leaves and I am so sore I can barely move, even two days later!

It’s a lot more than it looks like, okay? But the whole time I was raking under the drizzling, gray cloudy sky I could easily imagine the blue water and sun and sand from a few days prior. It helped.

Next up…turkey day! We are headed to Long Island at 6 am tomorrow morning (Wednesday) because we procrastinated and there was not much left by way of ferry reservations. Us Nills are not letting much grass grow under our feet lately…here come the holidays!

Birthday Breakdown

I’m 35 years old! But, lest I dare to think that today would be about me, I left the house this morning to a crying preschooler who was upset because he wanted it to be his birthday, not mine. No love for mommy. At all.

This entire week, Thursday loomed not as the day that officially marks that I’m a year older, but as the day before we leave for our vacation in Aruba. Ahem, trip to Aruba. (Vacation means “freedom or release from duty, business, or activity”. Considering the boys are coming…it’s a trip.) Anyway tonight is PACK NIGHT. We leave at 6 am tomorrow morning so it’s serious I have a list of a thousand things to do. Off I go, see you when we get back!

Once upon a time…

There was a ninja and a puppy. Even though their mom suggested tons of cute matching costumes, the ninja needed to carry a sword and the puppy wanted to pant and bark. Welcome to

Where toddlers melt down, pre-schoolers run amok, and their parents drink hot toddies out of travel mugs while walking around in the pitch dark. Fun for all!

October 31 started with [finally] carving our pumpkins.

Hmmm…what is in here?

Something Alex did not like. No sirree.

Those scary pumpkins! We put him down for a nap and Ashton finished up.

From the inside looking out…

Eventually it was time to don the COSTUMES. After much ado (like seriously, the entire month of October).

Ta-dah! Tell me, do I look like a covert agent in feudal Japan that specializes in espionage, sabotage, infiltration and assassination?

Ashton really has no idea what a ninja even is. When he first put on his costume he said, “Great! Now watch me make things DISAPPEAR!” Ummm…meanwhile:
Just a dog and his iPhone. Frankly Alex looked more like a baby seal. It’s hard to describe.

Berg and Karen came over for Jayden’s first trick-or-treating experience, so we had a ninja, a puppy, and an elephant!

And there ends pretty much all my decent pictures. The boys were off like a shot as soon as we said go.

The whole loop didn’t last long. When we got back to the house around 6:30 pm, I don’t know what I was thinking, but I tried to make Ashton sit down and have dinner. The doorbell kept ringing so he kept popping up and running full speed to the front door. Listening to him tell the trick-or-treaters “Guys! Look you could have this one. Or look at this one! You know, you can take two!” it was just too much. He was obsessed with the candy – the bright colors, the shiny wrapping, all the different kinds…
When it was over, I told him to choose his favorite piece to try first. 

He picked out a totally disgusting marshmallow lollipop and luckily hated it. Alex had a dum-dum and no joke, handed this back to me when he was done. 
Ashton was on cloud nine in his costume with his candy. He told Jason: “Daddy! I have a secret. I’m gonna stay up late tonight, and if Mommy asks, start talking about something else.” !!!
The entire next day Ashton dragged the green pumpkin that housed his beloved candy around with him. It did not leave his sight. He would empty all the candy out, count it, organize it, admire it, put it back and then do it all over again. He took his nap with the pumpkin right by his pillow. He asked over and over again which kinds he could have. Did this one have egg in it? What about peanuts? Could he have this one piece after lunch and this one piece after dinner? Actually, no, how about this one and then this one? What if he saved the piece I said he could have after lunch so he could have two after dinner? It.was.all.he.talked.about. He actually cried at one point because Halloween was not every day. 
By the end of the weekend I was like ENOUGH WITH THE CANDY ALREADY!!! But what proved to be far scarier than Halloween was how long Sunday was. We turned the clocks back. The boys were up at 6 am and it was officially the lonnnngesssssst daaaaaay everrrrrrrrrrrrrr. It was dark at five pm. Five! It was almost enough to put Ashton back in his ninja costume so he could make me disappear.
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Family Photos 2015

We’ve come a long way from Family Photos 2014. But even though Alex is now 19 months, Ashton is 4.2, I keep waiting for things to get easier because everyone promises me they will! Haha. Stillllll waaaaaaiting, especially because Alex’s new favorite word is the big fat “N-O”.

In preparation for our family photo shoot this year, which was at Regis College and shot by August and Iris Photography, I took the boys for their requisite haircuts. Jason usually does them, but he has had a super busy fall and I just knew he would not get to it. So we went to SnipIts, the haircut place for kids. Ashton was done in about 5 minutes – that lady knew what she was doing. Alex, I fear, got an inexperienced stylist who took forever. Which meant he cried for 30 minutes while bits of hair clung to his cheeks (made sticky by his lollipop and tears). It was actually a disaster. I finally told her to please just stop, stood back and studied my red-faced toddler with the choppiest, most uneven haircut you’ve ever seen. Sigh. I went to the counter, and, too tired to sugar-coat it, told the receptionist I wasn’t leaving until someone fixed it because we had our family photos coming up and while I usually would not care I was paying a lot of money for the photos and a lot of money for the haircut and really didn’t want both to come out bad. She understood. I actually think the entire salon did – Alex’s hair was a mess. Back in the chair he went and after more tears, more lollipops, and more teeny weeny bits of hair stuck everywhere, he was nearly perfect. Good enough.

Next I had to pick their outfits. I wanted them to coordinate yet not match exactly. I went bin-diving in the basement to see what old stuff we had that Alex could wear and squeezed Ashton into one of last year’s sweaters. I had shopped quickly for a cute fall outfit for myself, but of course ended up throwing on something that’s been in my closet for (no joke) a decade.

Lights, camera…

The day of the shoot was Saturday October 10. We were getting ready to go, Jason was meeting us there, and of course I was already running late when my neighbors, whom I had not met yet, decided to stop by and introduce themselves. 15 minutes ticked by, Ashton was still in his sweats, Alex was still napping, and I was trying to be polite. When they left, I realized Ashton had had an accident, which required a tub, and then I woke Alex up, who cried his face off the entire way there and through the first five minutes of the shoot. Ashton would not stop grimacing, I was cranky and like last year, just wanted to go home.

But, also just like last year, the pictures say none of this. The photographer did a gorgeous job in the 25 minutes we had and this one in particular that she captured of Alex…I die.

My two peas.

And a couple more favorites (some of these are not high-res so if they look fuzzy, that’s why – I have the originals).

And a couple more.

And what the heck, a couple more.

So that’s the Nills, 10/10/15, cliche fall photo shoot in hopes of getting a good christmas card picture. We’rrre so-oh vaaaain… ha ha  😀

Weekend awaaaaaay!!

So Jason and I managed to get out of the house this past weekend. Three days, two nights, zero kids. It was poetic. We attended a fabulous wedding, shopped til we dropped at the Tanger Outlets, went out to dinner and slept late. And I did not change one diaper or perhaps more significantly, I did not wash one dish. I wasn’t in the kitchen at all! Sorry to say, I loved every minute 🙂 STARTING WITH the completely gorgeous wedding of two of the most beautiful people ever: Evan and Kaelyn. I am 100% certain they don’t read this but I’m going to post about it anyway. Evan is one of Jason’s best friends from college, he and Kaelyn live in Manhattan and we try to make it to a Giants game with them every fall. Except this one, because they were busy getting married 🙂 This past Friday, October 16 at Wolffer Estate Vineyard in Sagaponack, NY, this was my view at approximately 4 pm:

That’s rosé, of course. Some of my other favorites from the wedding and events:



.

The story about my dress. Back in September, I had ordered two dresses from Rent the Runway for this black-tie-optional occasion. I wanted to wear a really special cocktail dress and knew that even if I could find what I was looking for in a store, I didn’t have time to shop for it. So I picked out a couple of sparkly numbers to have delivered to me on Thursday, the day before the wedding. 
Fast forward to last week. There I am in TJ Maxx and I think to myself, “I should really have a backup dress for the wedding, just in case the dresses from RTR don’t fit, they don’t come, etc.” I perused the racks, found a gold one, forty bucks, loved it, done. I ask you, when is TJ Maxx not the greatest.
I won’t bore you with the long saga of what happened but the dresses from RTR were not delivered in time. I was very stressed and very disappointed, The package did eventually arrive (sometime when we were already at the wedding) so I tried them on for fun the next day.
Excuse my morning-after hair and makeup ha! Although the dresses were fabulous (the navy blue one has an open slit in the back), in the end my backup dress was perfect. Funny how things work out.
Anyway, after my fashion show, Jason and I headed over to the Tanger Outlets and spent 2.5 hours in the Pottery Barn outlet. I’m telling you, I was in some sort of heaven. Feast your eyes.

No boys to worry about and nothing but time! Plus a new house to decorate…we got a new dresser, two rugs, a mirror, a lamp, bedding and all sorts of odds and ends that fit in my car no problem because oh yeah we had no carseats 😀 
Then we headed over to JCrew, Banana, etc. before it was time to go home, change, and head out for cocktails and dinner in Southampton (Le Charlot and Tuscan House, for those that know). We got home on Sunday around lunchtime and I made a mental note to not let another 4 years go by before we do that again!! Ashton showed us how happy he was that we were back by sneaking into our bathroom during his quiet time and squeezing out the entire tube of toothpaste all over the place. I was so relaxed though, being fresh off our weekend, I didn’t even get mad. I instead chose to savor how minty everything smelled. 
Anyway, it was a wonderful couple of days. Thanks so much to Evan and Kaelyn for getting married – it was the kick we needed to get out of the house! And thanks even more to Poppy and Mema and Jen and Mike for tag-teaming the boys while we were gone. Awesomeness all around. 

Happy things!

Two weeks down in our new house and there is so much that has made me happy so far! In no particular order:

1) The neighborhood. We have gone for some good walks and met so many families! There is a good number of them who are several years ahead of us but Ashton already has a new friend in Caleb who is 5. It’s also fun to watch Ashton marvel at the bigger boys playing basketball – there are a LOT of hoops set up on the sidewalks and the kids just shoot from the street! There is zero traffic and it’s awesome. There’s also a beautiful pond you can walk down to and toss rocks into the water.

I wish there was a nature trail around it but for now, kerplunking the stones works fine.

2) The Hannah Williams playground. Technically, you have to drive to it and technically, it’s in Wayland, But I am very much a “leave the house as much as possible” mom and this is the best destination I’ve found so far. The boys and I spent our entire morning there this past Sunday. The sandbox area had one of those diggers where kids can pull the handles to make it scoop – Ashton didn’t get off that thing except when I made him because others were waiting for a turn.

Ashton is a great climber and can do the monkey bars and big structures all on his own and I don’t even worry about him anymore! What??

This park had all the cozy coupes and push toys for Alex as well and in general was just a great spot! They both took 3 hour naps that afternoon.

3) My commute. I officially have my route(s) down – it depends whether or not I have Ashton with me, but when I don’t, I can make it from my front door to my desk in 30 minutes. And the roads are beautiful right now. I avoid all the major highways because the traffic lines are red a lot of the time. So I take the back roads through Weston and Wayland from the lower left hand corner to the upper right hand corner (sorry for the small map, I guess you can’t really see anything):

It looks far, but there are really no big stops and the roads look like this right now:

So it’s beautiful and I’m happy.

4) Bargain finds!! This house needs furniture in a bad way. The boys have outgrown their gliders, we have more space, and the general filling-up process has begun. As it turns out, there is a place called ReStore in Dedham. There’s a lot of these in fact – they are like thrift stores for furniture, appliances, etc. As it happens, Jen’s boyfriend Mike has an uncle and his uncle works there. Occasionally, there is an “inside scoop” to be had. For example, if a movie is being shot in Boston, the furniture used on the sets might be donated to ReStore after filming. They get factory seconds, estate sale stuff, cabinets from kitchen renovations…it’s generally a mish mash and you never know what you will find.

Enter relevance. Mike told me that Wayfair (the home decor site) was having a big clearance sale in downtown Boston on Friday night, October 2. Wayfair had told ReStore that anything that didn’t go, ReStore was welcome to come get when the event was over. Boy do I wish I had been at ReStore on Saturday morning, October 3, when they opened. Apparently they had SO much gorgeous brand new furniture (and we are talking steep, steep discounts because whatever they make goes to Habitat for Humanity). Alas, we showed up at 11 am or so and a lot was sold. BUT, I spied these chairs:

They are big oversized comfy armchairs and I LOVED them. I bought two for $150 each!! And put one in each boy’s room for their new reading chairs. They are huge and I am obsessed. Naturally I got right on Wayfair to rate my find and similar chairs by this designer are in the $700’s. Yessssss.

I also scored a really sweet Land of Nod bookcase for Alex’s room on Craigslist for $20. I love Craigslist.

5) THIS.

THIS is my new vacuum. It’s cordless. And does a 360 spin. It’s lightweight. And FUCHSIA.

You won’t watch this, but it’s the Dyson V6 Motorhead Plus Cordless Vacuum product video. No more sweeping, no more vacuuming on my knees. I zip around with this, take corners by storm, go under stools, over the rug, and I’m done. It’s, say it with me, AH-mazing. Gosh, you know what, if you have hardwood floors, just get one. You will thank yourself.

6) My weekend starting tomorrow. Jason and I are heading to Long Island for one of his best friend’s weddings. We will be gone two nights. Without the boys. Poppy and Mema are staying at our house for a night and then Jen and Mike are staying for a night and we will be home on Sunday. To say I’m excited is an understatement. I’ve been away from Ashton for a handful of nights in his past 4.2 years, but never Alex, and certainly never three days where we are out of town! I am so looking forward to the wedding, my sparkly dress, the mini-break with my husband, all of it. I can’t wait.

Anyway, that’s all I’ve got for the past week. We did get some bedroom furniture delivered today – due to the master closet in Watertown, we never needed any! I have a new bed picked out as well but for now our mattress and box spring are just sitting on the floor until I order it. After that, window treatments and then I should be able to do my first Craft Road before and after post. Happy things!! 🙂

02472 -> 01760

Well we officially did it – we are Natick natives! It seems like forever ago when, one warm June day, Jason and I stood on our freshly paved driveway and said, “We’re done with our projects! Let’s be crazy and list it!” The house went up on Zillow on July 1 and the rest is history. We somehow navigated the sale of Edenfield Ave and the purchase of Craft Road without a realtor, closed both transactions the same day, and made it through unscathed! It really all worked out perfectly.
So Wednesday last week, September 30, was move day. As I mentioned we did have a storage container for our big stuff, but most everything else was taken by Berg and Jason on several trips over to the house beforehand. Things went very smoothly until we woke up that last morning in Watertown to, honoring its namesake, a town filled with water! A monsoon, to be precise. The storm drains were all blocked, the road was flooding, it was a MESS. We needed an ark! It was foggy, muddy, windy and rainy. It definitely dampened the mood (haha, get it).
Anyway, I got busy cleaning the house and Jason mainly paced around, waiting for some break in the downpour to get the rest of our stuff outside and packed in. At one point he went outside with his crow bar to pry open the storm drain – we were so worried the water was rising and would leak into the pod and ruin our stuff! I don’t have any pictures of this treacherous time because we were very busy stressing out. 10:45 am came, the new owners pulled up with the moving van, we did one last run though, said our goodbyes and drove away! I thought I would be sadder than I was, I did love that house. But I had lots to look forward to in the new one so we were happy.
Alex was with Jen and Ashton was at school, so we found ourselves alone and temporarily homeless! The closing for Edenfield Ave was in the morning, and the closing for Craft Road was at 1 pm, and even though we had had legitimate access to Craft Road since the 20th it still felt weird! 
Later that night, after the boys were home and our container had been delivered, we set up the kitchen and the living room right away and all our stuff from Edenfield Ave was literally right at home. It didn’t even look like we had just moved!
Although, panning to the left, it’s a little more sparse.
[I think I mentioned we had the walls painted and the floors re-done before we moved in- it made a world of a difference and I’m so happy with how it all came out. The main wall color downstairs is Benjamin Moore Quiet Moments – it sometimes seems blue, sometimes green, sometimes gray, and it looks awesome. For anyone needing a good color.]
Overall, we have spent the last week trying to settle in. Of course we have a very big list of things to do: buy A, fix B, call for a quote for C, look at other options for D, build E, etc. But most importantly, the boys seem really happy. They are cozy in their rooms, play in the backyard, and we’ve walked around the neighborhood to the playground. It’s actually at an old school that is no longer being used but hey, a playground is a playground, even if it’s abandoned! 
Just means more room for us 😉 [That’s Route 9 in the background – hop on that puppy and in 5 minutes you have every kind of shopping you could possibly ever need or want – I’m loving our new location!] I’m hoping I will eventually meet other parents here but last night there were 3 ten year old boys playing and I was asking them all sorts of questions. Turns out they love their school, Halloween is a huge deal in the neighborhood, and one of them was having meatloaf for dinner. I said all of those things sound good!
I’ll probably be posting a random assortment of things for my next few entries, just in the interest of getting settled and what I’m learning about my new surroundings. Even though I took most of last week off, I did practice my commute Thursday and Friday by bringing Ashton to school. It was not the fastest but not the slowest. I’ve figured out the best route when I don’t have to bring him (which is T/R) but M/W/F will definitely be 50 minutes in the car from when we leave home to when I sit down at my desk. Still could be worse. I’ve decided to look for new schools for him in Natick/Wayland/Wellesley but it’s a lot more expensive with a lot fewer openings. So that’s a work in progress, along with finding Alex a little toddler program that he is desperately ready for, along with figuring out why our brand new washer won’t balance, along with everything else right now! Objects in motion…

Movin' On

Well I can sum up our weekend in three words: “packing and moving”. In a previous post I did note that we have a big 16 foot pod that will be picked up on Wednesday, but Jason (and Uncle Berg) have taken several trips over the house in advance with bins, boxes, etc. We were granted access to the house on September 20th, and it has been beyond amazing to get a head start with moving everything. Ashton of course has been right there in the mix.


 He literally followed Jason and Berg everywhere yesterday. When they moved stuff into the pod he ran circles around them saying “Don’t drop it! Guys, don’t scratch it! BE CAREFUL!!” A little policeman. It was so funny.
The sellers also gave us permission to do some work on the house before the close date, and by the skin of my teeth I lined up someone to refinish the floors (they look brand new!) as well as paint (the purple-gray in the family room was not my taste). Both of these were several day projects and I’m so happy we were able to squeeze it all in. I desperately wanted to replace the carpet in the bedrooms (the sellers had two big dogs, which is why we did the floors to buff out their claw marks) but I just could not get anything new installed in time for a reasonable price. So tomorrow we have a crew coming to deep clean the house and shampoo the carpets, and then a guy coming Wednesday morning to stretch/restaple them – I’m hoping they are sparkling. Honestly I’m so skeeved out by used carpets but I’m told it washing them should do the trick. Anyway, the best we can do for now and then we move in!
As I mentioned, the family room and dining area were repainted, along with the boys’ bedrooms and the master bedroom. I took a chance in the master and went with Benjamin Moore Willow Creek…Here’s the (very UN-high resolution) before:

And the after:


Now I know you’re thinking, the before picture was so light and airy! Trust me, it was not a good beige color, plus all the trim was cream. I want to really cozy up this space and give it some wow factor – it’s starting with the paint! I promise you’ll agree with me 🙂 Anyway, all the new updates will come in due time with a brand new set of before-and-afters!
What was great about this weekend was that it was absolutely beautiful and we took the boys over on Saturday morning for the first time. The playset and swings in the backyard could not be more perfect for them and they wasted no time.

The best part is that the slide has a small hump in it so that when Alex hits it, he flies a little bit and the momentum is just enough to catapult him onto the ground at the bottom. He loves it.
Overall I’m a little sad about leaving Edenfield Ave, it was such a wonderful first house for us. In the grand scheme of things though we lived there less than 3 years and are ready for our next step. I’ve lined up a modified work schedule where I will go in earlier and leave earlier. I’ll actually be out at 3 pm on Mondays and Fridays and head straight to pick up Ashton from school. Until I figure out the Natick preschool situation, he’s going to stay where he is and commute with me (but he will go MWF for longer days, vs. all five days until lunch, which is his current routine). I think I mentioned Jen is going to make the trip and will continue watching Alex and sometimes Ashton on Tues and Thurs.  I do need to find the best route to Bentley. But first things first: get through this week! Our new house is waiting… one more day!

p.s. the month long yard sale? We made $1,007!!

18 Months of Alex

My sweetie pie Alexander has hit another age-related milestone…18 months! It’s hard to even describe this little character. I can tell you he’s incredibly determined and strong, so if he doesn’t want to do something, that’s pretty much that. This kid can whine with the best of them too. For long, long periods. And I’ve never seen anyone shake their head with quite as much vigor. The harder he shakes it, the bigger his NO. Words are a pretty big issue. He’s been seeing Fran with Early Intervention for about 6 weeks now, but of course, we’re moving, so I need to get him transferred to the Natick Criterion group. Sometimes I swear he has phrases: all done, I did it, I want down, etc. but you’d have to be either me, Jason or Jen to decipher them. We’re really working on pronouncing actual sounds instead of just babbling. It IS cute that he sticks his tongue out and pants when he sees a dog, but I think we should set our sights a bit higher 😉

Alex has two moods: happy and really not happy. He’s either toddling around laughing and smiling or crying and whining. There’s honestly very little in between. Here are his stats after his pediatrician appointment this morning:

Height: 34 inches (90th percentile)
Weight: 28.14 pounds (90th percentile)
Head: 19 inches (75th percentile)
Shots: Just the flu shot
Diapers: Size 5
Clothes: Some 18-24 or 24 months, but they are getting tight. I’ve broken into the 2T bin for him.
Teeth: He’s consistently had four on the top, four on the bottom, and all his first molars, but now there are definitely teeth coming in to fill the gaps and he is CRANKY.
Hair and eyes: still blond and blue. I think I will stop including this category because there are never any changes. But while we are on hair, here’s a behind-the-scenes at the salon Alex goes to.

It’s called “The Garage.”

Loves to: use me as a segway. He’ll lift his arms to be picked up, and then once comfortably on my hip, leans forward in the direction he’d like me to walk in. It’s almost like he wants to get back down, but no. He leans and waits for me to move. Also loves to ride in his blue car, go down the big slide all by himself, and give kisses and hugs.

Naps: he’s down to 1 long one – hooray! Which means mornings can actually be used for something. It’s a struggle to get him past lunch and he is not above trying to fall asleep in his highchair. He’s a great sleeper generally, up around 7:15 am, naps from 2-2.5 hours in the afternoon, bed by 7:30 pm and usually he doesn’t make any peeps about going down or in the middle of the night.

Favorite toy: anything Ashton has. Also chalk.

Foods: Just like his brother, basically carbs and fruit. He’s more of a dipper than Ashton was, so I can get him to eat cucumbers with ranch or chicken with some BBQ sauce for dunking, but basically things aren’t pretty. I don’t get it! I try to offer different things but I get so sick of scooping uneaten food off the floor that most days I say forget it.

Alex has gone international: His passport arrived this week, complete with this mug shot:

We’re going to Aruba in November so he has to be legit.

Up next for my favorite 18 month old: getting a new room and deciding on a Halloween costume. I also signed him up for a home daycare for just Mondays starting after we move, but I don’t know if I’m going to be able to pull the trigger and send him.

Overall, Alex is very aware that he choices now and loves to exert control over anything he can. He wants to do a lot of things himself, like brush his teeth (his top front row is VERY clean), hold an open cup (disaster every time) and put his shoes on (he can’t). He tries so hard to keep up with his older brother and gets frustrated when I don’t let him do the same things as Ashton. But he definitely has his own adventures. Here are some of my recent favorite pictures. Happy 18 months Alexander Michael!