moments

This weekend so far has consisted of me planting myself in a chair on the deck to watch my boys play in the yard.  I am resisting every urge to whine about how much I want to run with them...ug. This doggone foot will get better.  Let's just say that while I'm posting these pictures J and Aiden are on a nice leisurely walk around the block and I am J-ea-lous with a capital J.  I'm going to ignore my sore foot and the moments I'm missing, and instead concentrate on these captured moments.  If they were scratch and sniff photos they would smell like grass.  If they had a soundtrack you'd hear Aiden's giggles competing with bird chirps and bees buzzing.

Running in the yard...

Two Boston fans swooping in for the ball...

Impromptu idea to bust out the grill for Friday night dinner...

Some buzzy bee friends were keeping me company swarming around the deck.

Aiden occassionally came over to the deck for some chalking 

An excited Aiden helped daddy water the strawberry plants.

good list

The good list this month includes some easter treats and travel goodness. The first good thing was discovered by Aiden. The sun is sometimes "too sunny" so he is lucky enough to have a book big enough to hide his eyes for a nap in the car.  BTW, these look and find books are absolutely awesome.

Heading to the park swings after work - Notice that he likes the big kid swing now... jeesh, where's my little baby?!  If he figures out how to pump his own legs to swing on his own, I'm going to get teary.

Red Stripe and their bottle tree.  The gourmet french fries served with a remoulade...yep. good. 

Coloring pads!  Technically there is no color, but Aiden enjoys drawing giants over and over and over again.  Here is what I believe was his very first giant (drawn without prompting) on the airplane to AZ.  They now frequently have noses and crazy hair.

This company called Kidlandia makes these really fun puzzles where you can input familiar names and it automatically names places and little creatures.  Then it allows you to fully customize it and add characters.  I was so quick with the proof that I didn't realize that I'd replace J's name with others too many times and inadvertently left him off the puzzle - whoops!  He even made up the cute little poem:

Aidenland

So very grand! Sparkling seas and golden sand.

Skies blue and mountains tall,

With peanut butter pies for all!

And should you ever make your way

To Brennantown or Seekonk Bay

Be prepared: You'll want to stay!

To Live and Laugh and Love and Play!

The King

Is famous for giggling and for helping others.

I'm still working on the jars of Dutch peanut butter that my sweet husband sent me for valentine's day.  Aiden likes it too!  I am also very happy that Peter Pan peanut butter is back and as good as always.

Buying the same jacket in a larger size - We (even Aiden!) love this corduroy hooded jacket that Aiden started wearing in the fall of 2008.  I recently found the same jacket at this little resale boutique in a larger size and scooped it up.  

visiting the pig

Spring has sprung, but unfortunately so have my ankle ligaments... so I had to change my RSVP on the walk events with my mom's club. We did make it to the little Saturday playdate at the bookstore to see Olivia the pig. Anyplace I can be dropped off at the door and just hobble in to watch the cuteness works out ok. Although I have trouble taking a decent photo especially on the iphone ;) Many of the mom's that came had kids that weren't into "large creatures" so they just hung out by the train set. Barnes and Noble isn't messing around and they know how to get the kids hooked. Although I think Aiden was much more excited to see the puppies in the pet store next door to the Trader Joes. He listened really well the whole time we cruised around and he picked out some orange peppers (that he ended up not wanting to eat for dinner - oh well, gotta keep trying new things).

Here are the kids trying to figure out how to shake the pig's hoof. They eventually gave her a big group hug and nearly knocked her over:

happy earth day

Since I'm hobbling around on crutches it's hard for me to kick the ball around in the yard for hours, and on top of it, today there was hail, thunder, and lightning when I got home from work. So, to celebrate Earth Day, I found some great crafts that don't require a hobbly wet trip to the craft store. Crafts using all that junk mail that would normally just become trash!

Aiden especially likes me to use long strips to make little springy papers...
Here are ideas I took from some NY newspaper:

Turn response envelopes into stickers
This craft is the perfect activity for a rainy day or after school playdate. Every time you receive a piece of junk mail, check to see if it has a response envelope. If an envelope is included, tuck it away in a drawer or storage box. That way, you'll have a good supply of envelopes on hand at a moment's notice.

You will need:
Response envelopes
Markers or crayons

Directions:
Cut the lick-and-stick strip of each envelope into 2-inch rectangles.
Decorate the non-adhesive side of the rectangle with markers or crayons.
Place anywhere you would normally put stickers.

Turn a catalog into woven coasters
These easy-to-make coasters are a throwback to the '70s, proving that when it comes to recycling, everything old is new again. Thank you to Jessica Jones and her blog howaboutorange.blogspot.com for sharing this fantastic idea.

You will need:
6 catalog pages (per coaster)

Directions:
Tear out six magazine pages.
Cut off the ragged edges on each page, and then cut each page in half lengthwise.
Cut each strip in half lengthwise again.
Fold the resulting pieces in thirds, folding the cut edges inward first so they're hidden inside.
Now you will have long, thick strips that are perfect for weaving. Before you begin, fold each strip in half at the center.
To weave, interlock two strips. This is the bottom left corner of your coaster.
Add another strip that wraps around the outside of the horizontal bottom strip, and continue until your coaster has 6 horizontal and 6 vertical strips.
Finish the edges by trimming, taping or folding pieces that stick out. The goal is to make sure each coaster is perfectly square and the edges are even.

We also tried making an easier version with a big open placemat. Aiden got the idea, but needed help sliding them under. He helped me figure out if it was ready to go over or under.

whoosh

Whoosh, and time flies away and it's the END of April! whoosh. We were off in Aiden's latest version of Grandparent Heaven in Philadelphia. My dad and I were photographing the beautiful wedding of an old friend (a coworker from the summer J and I met). We cruised through the traffic H-E-double hockey sticks from here to Philly... but this cruising was the low and slow kind that Ramone from Cars likes to talk about. We arrived at dinner time on Friday night and it turns out the easter bunny had left treats for Aiden in Ohio. He stayed up way past bed time!

The next morning we found this awesome airplane museum that we all got to visit before my dad and I headed off to the wedding. My mom, J, and Aiden went the Please Touch Museum, which is Philly's children's museum. It's a popular place and from what I heard Aiden really seemed to like it. Everyone was snug as a bug by the time my dad and I got back with my big throbbing ankle. Yep, klutzy camera lady took two tumbles (one where the camera joined in the the tumble, but made out better than I did). The first was off a tiny little step and the second was a bump into the DJ table by an enthusiastic couple doing the Pennsylvania Polka. The twists resulted in torn ligaments on both sides of my foot, a big air jordan inflatable boot, a shiny new pair of crutches, and an uncertain healing timeline. Ug. But in good news I came home with a boatload of wedding photos which I loooove to play with. Can't. Stop. Looking. At. Them. Here are some airplane museum shots:

old friends

Old and new friends helped us gather and enjoy some sunny days last week.

We had our last mini egg hunt of the season at our house last week when some old friends stopped by to visit. Their little ones have doubled in size since we last saw them, which didn't seem that long ago. It was so nice to catch up a bit.

I also wanted to share some action shots from Stella's party - I'm so glad to have stills, but sometimes videos really do give you more of that really-being-there-yourself feeling. When will they have smellovision?!

Stella's 4th! from LB on Vimeo.

We also had the perfect distraction from the current hubaloo stressy things in our life (including poor grandpa's recovery, tuberculosis tests, and our mystery bath tub leak continuing) with the engagement shoot we never had. It's never too late, eh? I was a fan of this local photographer on facebook and she posted looking for couples for a free shoot.

She emailed with me that she thought of it as a great "romantic date night" idea. J said it turned out to be a lot more fun than expected (and a bit more nerve wrecking than I expected). I actually bought new jeans and shoes for it, which was actually kinda fun since I haven't shopped for myself in sooo long. We ended up shooting with the photographer for so long that we ran out of babysitter time, so Aiden crashed the rest of our date night and came out to dinner with us. It was fun to enjoy some steak, stuffed shrimp, baked flounder, and chicken pomodoro with both my boys!

I was excited to see how the photographer worked and get a vibe for her shooting style. We haven't seen the full set yet, but looking at this one is a good way to de-stress - I want to go back and freeze this moment in time:

stella's bday

Aiden's little friend Stella turned 4 and we were there to celebrate! Her dad plays harmonica for Joe's Backyard Band (they tour all around New England), so she had her own personal band. But before you start thinking we were at the four year old version of the MTV My Sweet 16, they aren't famous, yet. Aiden was impressed and tried to play maracas like a guitar to schmooze with the guitar player. His hair was also very happy and it all decided to dance in the trampoline. As usual I took a ton of photos, here are some favorites: http://flickr.com/gp/brennans/60339c

egg hunt photos

A couple weeks back we joined this fun kid outing photo group for an egg hunt. The photographer was very sweet and she captured some fun moments. I'm hoping we can join more activities with them in the future...anything involving meeting new people and photography - check plus!

music in sahuarita

Here's a big Happy Birthday / Get Well Soon send out to Nana and Grandpa!

Music with Grands from LB on Vimeo.

mommy's work

Story by Aiden: “Once upon a day, I walked all the way to the stop sign by mommy’s work to visit the big band of Giants. They let me sing! I danced with Ava and the dollies.”

Story by Mommy: “I had to work at an event after normal work hours and couldn’t find a babysitter, so my friend who had the same problem offered to look after them at the event. They had more fun than the whole crowd combined moving and grooving to the band of engineering professors, Green's Theorem.”

Last Friday

Friday – We cruised out of our hotel room at 3:30am with a few hours of sleep to gas up the rental car, drop it off, take the shuttle, and wait around at the airport for our earlier-than-dawn-bad-idea flight (J says I never get to book the flights again). Aiden was literally giggling and giddy as we dragged ourselves to check-in. The first flight can be filed in the Aiden bad behavior file with a solid D due to overtired contradictions of what he wanted to play with, dissatisfaction with the pilot's seatbelt requirement, and upset over missing foam puzzle pieces. We had a huge layover with a minor delay in Houston, and Aiden literally snoozed for nearly 3 hours. The next flight he gets a D+ (his overall average grade would have been better but he discovered that kicking the seat in front of him was funny), but he was mostly content because we said the pilot wasn't going to stop to see Lizzie unless he was good. He was so excited to see Lizzie in the airport! He ran off the plane and jumped in his too-small-yet-used-to-seem-so-big stroller for another cruise. We met up with Lizzie in the tiny meeting area that CLE offers, where she had brought dinner tacos and an invisible ink pen book (thanks!!). We had about an hour and a half to giggle with Lizzie before we were off again. We must have looked tired because a nice cart driver caught us as we made it through security and offered to drive us to the gate. Those little golf carts can cruise and Aiden loved the wind in his hair. He was totally content on the third and final leg of our giganto journey earning an A. We arrived back to Providence at 9:30pm, threw our bags in the car, and cruised home to find the lonely kitties (who hadn't even knocked over the easter tree!) and a nice dry house (thank goodness, since the flooding was not as kind to our neighbors).

If I wasn't there for his birth I might believe that Aiden is my sister's kid.