20 Favorite Photos from August 2011

August was a month of sun and laughter and ice cream. It also marked a few milestones, namely Thora's last day at her beloved preschool. She started there way back in February of 2010, when she was a wee little 2 year and 10 month old baby.






Because I'm suddenly feeling nostalgic, here she is on her first day of preschool.
















And here she is this past August, running up the hill in her favorite sundress and, yes, a blue cape, on her last day of school, a year and half later but somehow lifetimes older. Uggh, it's bittersweet, the feeling a parent has watching their child grow up.










Anyway, on to my favorite moments captured on camera (there are a couple videos below, too). For a look at the whole photo album, click here.




In early August, my friend Hilary and I took 5 kids (four of our own, plus one) down to her in-laws place on the Cape. We had a great time. And as luck would have it, Zach's family friend Hannah came down too. Hannah is 8 and yet she gets along really well with Thora and Zach who are both 4. Here they are hunting for minnows and crabs.









Here is Auric eating some raw corn, the only way he would eat it this summer. He loves to shuck it and dig right in. I can't blame him. The corn is so sweet, we barely warm ours through when we eat it.










This moment just breaks my heart. We had dinner at Zach's grandparents' house and then hit the road, around bedtime. Thora sacked out almost immediately, but Auric took a while to go to sleep. At one point I looked back and saw him holding his sister's hand while she slept. This kid! Just when I think he can't do anything sweeter than honey, he goes and proves me wrong.






This month also marked Auric's first trip to the movie theatre. We saw the recent Winnie the Pooh movie. It was great. The kids did pretty well. Although, at one point, Auric's slow progress down the aisle took a turn for the embarrassing when he wandered right in front of the front row and through the doorway marked EXIT. Sean caught him, before he could actually get to the exit door. These things happen when you try to get a toddler to sit still for over an hour. And the theatre was only about 1/3 full with families just like ours, with antsy kids who needed to wander around. However, it was slightly more embarrassing than normal since several other kids had decided to follow his lead. Oops. (Sorry, other parents.)






During one of my Tuesday afternoons with Thora and Zach, we went to Ricky's flower market down the street and picked out some summer annuals to spruce up our front steps prior to my birthday party that weekend. Here they are helping me re-pot the flowers.









One of Auric's favorite outdoor activities is STILL jumping in puddles. He comments on all the puddles he sees, no matter how small or random. (One time he identified a dime-sized "puddle" in the recessed bolt of a manhole cover.) Here he is, strutting his stuff in his much-loved fireman rain boots. (He also has an impressive strut these days.)








And surprisingly, this outfit of jammie top, diaper, and firefighter rain boots is not unique to this one moment. In fact, unbeknownst to me until just now, there's a very similar outfit in the below video, "Auric Loves to Race." Enjoy.



And while we're on Auric and his cuteness, here is another short video, "Auric's Budding Vocabulary Part 5." This footage was all taken during August, when he was 1 year and 11 months. I captured on camera one of our favorite Auric-ism: "Slop Shoe" for "flip flop." Also, at the end, he is asking Kitty if she's okay. This footage was taken during the infamous hurricane that swept through the northeast. We were very lucky and suffered no damage and only a 40-minute long power outage. However at one point, the wind blew a tree branch into a power line or transformer across the street and there were two, firecracker-loud pops that startled us all, but particularly Kitty. Auric was super sweet to her when he found her cuddled on the far side of our bed. Enjoy.







And now for something completely different, here are Thora and Zach, dressed to the nines, and probably right before, during, or after one of their weddings. They're too much.






Later in the month, we traveled out to Kimball Farm with Zach's family and River's family. Hilary and Summer took the three big kids on a fun, tethered hot air balloon ride. I have a significant fear of heights and so I was perfect for the job of babysitting the three little kids, Auric, Ellie and Lila down in the parking lot below. For a great post, some pictures, and a video of the trip 300 feet in the air, and the rest of the day, check out Summer's blog post here.

Here is my favorite shot of the big kids at one point in the day. I think this was after the balloon ride and after the most ridiculous game of mini-golf I've ever witnessed but before lunch and chasing away chickens, and incredible ice cream. Now back to that mini-golf game, if you can, imagine three 4 year-olds, and three 1 year-olds, and despite us getting extra balls for the the little kids, they keep trying to take the balls of the big kids. There were golf balls flying everywhere, and I had to jump into about 4 streams for missed shots. It was hilarious.




In mid-August, I had my second annual kid-friendly kegger celebrating my 35th birthday. The festivities ping ponged between our place, where the keg was, and the park across the street. It was loads of fun. I was happy to have so many friends with whom I could share the celebration. We began the festivities early with our friends Greg and Dana, and their daughter Etta.







And here are some of the infamous Cambridgeport Moms.













I don't think there's a story behind this one. I just love it.
















Here is what Thora and Zach's green thumbs created! And yes, Thora's classic red boots were reincarnated as planters. She wore them everyday through June and July, and at some point she wore holes in the soles. I wasn't willing to let go of them, so I was glad to give them a new lease on life. And in case you're wondering, she is currently wearing to death a new pair of red boots.









Back to Thora's big milestone, she finished up preschool in late August. It was only tearful for me and her teachers. Thora was blissfully unaware that she would never see these people again, friends and teachers who'd been such a large part of her life for the last year and a half. Instead of being sad, she was proud of her new big girl step of becoming a kindergartener. Her time in preschool was great for her and I'm glad she had this wonderful environment. Here she is getting a surprise hug by her favorite teacher, Stephanie. Actually, maybe she wasn't as blissfully unaware as I thought, since I couldn't get her to go give Stephanie a hug, hence Stephanie's surprise hug.





I made sure to have a fun playdate planned for after her last day of school, as much for Thora as for me. (I was realistic about the likelihood that it would be a tearful experience for me.) And this afternoon proved to be a great diversion. Here is Thora, Zach, River, and Aidan, enjoying treats from the ice cream truck, while taking a break from the playground near Harvard's campus.









And here's Auric and his friend Lila, being photogenic as usual.















August also saw Thora's first cognizant trip to Fenway. (We took her when she was about 17 or 18 months old.) Each summer, when the Sox are away, the minor league teams get to play a double-header in the legendary stadium against their league opponents. It's called Futures at Fenway. The tickets are cheap, the concessions are cheaper, and it's a great way for a family to see some baseball. Here's Thora eating her first-ever cotton candy.





I love this photo for two reasons. It shows one of Zach's many great qualities: he is happy-go-lucky! Here he is laughing about a single peanut (as opposed to the more common double peanut). And secondly, it shows what a major production it was for them to eat these peanuts, as is visible in Thora's expression as she navigates biting through the shell, with residue from a former peanut on her face. (If you click the above link and look through the album, you'll see that residue in several photos.) Their endeavor with the peanuts involved a 4 year-old's sense of wonder as they examined the strange shapes and contours of almost every peanut, the work of cracking them open, and the glee at finding peanuts at their feet that they previously thought were lost forever. Oh, to be 4 and at the ball park.




August brought us the annual Middlesex County 4-H Fair, which brings Thora and Auric, and this year their friends River, Lila, and Aidan, up close and personal with farm animals and their kid caretakers from all over the county. Our kids loved our day at the fairgrounds. And for the record, Thora was the only kid with pink hair there.



And I had to include this picture for Thora's expression as she gazes at River. Is that telling or what!?! Thora has known River since she was an infant. But it was this past April, when Hilary and I took Thora, River and Zach to the Big Apple Circus, that their relationship became more complex. Regularly, when telling a story about that night at the circus, Thora will say, "You remember that night, Mom? The night River and I fell in love?" Sometimes I forget that she's four, when she talks like a character from a Gene Kelly musical.


And on that note, stay tuned for my September photos!

20 Best Photos from April 2011

April... what a month. The most notable event was Sean's somewhat troublesome (for him, not us!) but ultimately successful surgery. We're grateful for the team of doctors, nurses, and hospital staff who gave him such great care. He was home and walking around during the beginning of April, enjoying lots of time with his family, including his parents, whose visit lasted through the first part of April. Sean was on the go a lot, always testing the limits of what he could do physically, not one to lay around and recover through rest. And his determination has paid off. As I write this, four months after his surgery, he's back to running the same distances (25-35 miles per week) that he was prior to the surgery. It's amazing, really. I count our blessings every day.

(I think many of these updates have been Thora-focused. Be forewarned, this one is clearly Auric-focused. Be sure to click here to view the whole April photo album. It might be less biased.)

And one of our blessings, is our little Peachy, aka Auric. What a character he is. He's been a little charmer from his first weeks, cooing and cuddling, and always flashing those dimples. His charisma and likability continues to shine as one of his most outstanding features. Click here for a short, cute video of him performing, on command: crying, laughing, and our favorite, yawning. Even his tantrums are a little cute. Click here to see one of those. As Winter transitioned to Spring, he hit a language boom, and his ability to parrot became really noticeable. For a video, "Auric's Budding Vocabulary, Part 3," click here. (Read on for an explanation for one of the stranger words he came up with for "spoon.")

Most of his words are pretty dead-on. And in fact, he hears if he doesn't get the word out the right way, and so will repeat it several times, unprompted, until he gets it as close as he can, which is the opposite of his big sister. She was very verbal from very young. But despite talking sooner, her words were less sophisticated. She had a tendency to hear the syllables, but process them in reverse, and so "meow" was "owmm". And she liked double-syllable words: "cereal" was "cee-cee"; "Thora" was "Sa-sa"; and our upstairs neighbor "Carl" was "Ca-Cow." She also came up with some doozies: "lass-i-mo," for "mollasses," "lez-lo" for "Lopez," and "bommut" for "bottom." Thora had many of these funny words. Auric's words sound pretty accurate right from the beginning; thus, so far he has only had two pretty funny words: "Ahh-poh" for "open" and, our household favorite, "Up High" for "spoon." We have NO IDEA from where this last one generated. The only explanation that I came up with, was perhaps he was connecting the idea of sitting "up high" in his high chair and the spoon with which we fed him. Regardless, it's a pretty cute Auric-ism and we enjoyed it while it lasted (several months).

His love for cars and trucks and trains, really anything that goes, continues to be his guiding light in life. Here he is enjoying digging and dumping the pebbles into the trucks at the park.


Now on to one of our favorite Thora-isms, namely Baby Trash Can. She's been in Thora's room al this time, all but forgotten about. Until one time this month, Thora included BTC in her dress-up play. Here's is BTC, up on a foot stool, getting all glammed up.


Bath time gets fun, as Auric gets older. Good times!



Brian and Auric got lots of quality time during their visit. (Beverly also got lots of quality time. However, it seems that she suffers the same fate as I, that of always being the one behind the camera.)


During Sean's first weeks at home, he would regularly walk over to the MIT track and walk laps. Auric loved being brought along on the outing, for the wide open space to run, and on this occasion, the good fortune of finding a forgotten baseball.



The spring saw the official hand-me-down of Thora's trike to Auric. Here is one of his inaugural rides.


Auric continued with swimming lessons in the Spring. He still does not quite grasp what's needed of him. He's a great kicker, and has this very funny frog-like kick where he simultaneously kicks both legs out behind him repeatedly. What he thinks he needs to do with his arms, I'm not sure. Basically he mostly uses his arms to cling to me and at times, hang on to the straps of my swimsuit, just daring them to come loose. Fun! Click here for a very short video of him swimming (don't worry, my suit never comes loose!) in which I attempt to get his arms moving. But he's having none of it.



And it wouldn't be an update if it didn't include a photo of Thora and Zach, dressed to nines, and doing some kind of performance. Here they are, tapping away on our portable tap floor. (Notice Auric in the background, mimicking them, and also wearing a pajama top that his belly has out-grown.)


Easter weekend saw another great visit from Baba and NuNu. Here is Baba monitoring Thora's egg-dyeing. He's having about as much fun as you can while balancing a squirmy toddler on your lap and attempting to keep the various dyes in their respective cups while a 4 year-old, sort of willy-nilly stirs them all up, while she poses for pictures. Good times.


Here she is taking in her accomplishment. This look of satisfaction and pride changes dramatically (see link above to view the whole April album) when she notices that I'm snapping away, at which point she becomes absurdly protective of the eggs and refuses that they be photographed or even looked at. Oh Thora, she never fails to make an innocuous moment a dramatic one.


And speaking of Drama, Thora and Zach continued their Education of the Theatre when we took in a Wheelock College production of "Alladin and the Wonderful Lamp." Here they are, waiting for the show to start, with Zach holding up the program. It was a really engaging performance, with the actors regularly appearing out of the side doors to the auditorium and walking up and down the aisles. So the kids were pretty awe-struck at having the show come down to them. The costumes were also incredibly vivid and spectacular.


And again, what can I say? This kid just cracks me up and breaks my heart at the same time. Like a hundred times a day.


Thora's friend Ally and family hosted their second annual Easter party. The kids played and enjoyed the incredibly well-stocked easter egg hunt. A great time, as always!

Clockwise from left: Liem, Lila, Ally, River, Thora, Auric, and Khai.

Thora continues to put on shows, even when she's NOT putting on a show. How does she do this? Click here for a short video of Thora NOT being a mermaid, even though she's hamming it up as one. One thing you can say about Thora: she likes being unpredictable.


April also saw Thora and her friends, Zach and River, attend the Big Apple Circus in downtown Boston. This was such a fun outing. We started with the multiple trains to Government Center, a dinner at The Hard Rock Cafe, and then an evening of entertainment at the circus. My favorite entertainment of the whole night had to be when Thora turned to me, midway through the first act and said, with complete earnestness, of course, "Mom, take my boa. I'm going on stage!" See the long pink boa in the photo below that was part of her circus-attending outfit.

From left: Zach, River, and Thora

And back at the ranch... this is going on. Auric and his best buddies, getting a bath. Babies in bathtubs... it doesn't get much cuter.

From left: Etta, Ellie, and Auric.

And at last... April saw some color re-enter our lives in the form of blooming flowers in our yard. Here is a Bleeding Heart flower, something that Thora became obsessed with this spring. She loved spotting them in other people's yards and they were regularly expressed in her works of art.


Thanks for catching up with us. Look back soon for the best photos from May.

August Update: 10 Favorite Photos

I feel like it's been a lifetime since I last updated you all on our comings and goings. I don't like having fallen so far behind. In an effort to quickly catch back up, here are the highlights from August 2010. These are ten photos that give the fullest picture of how we spent our time. For a look at the full photo album, click here.


This summer will surely be remembered as the Zach and Thora summer. It's the summer that they became great friends. Here they are after Zach and his family's return from a trip to Hawaii with luau costumes for both kids.



Thora, Zach and Noah also became busom buddies this summer. Here we are on a sweltering August day taking the Charles River Boat Tour.


We cherished all our time with Lauren and Noah as they spent their last months here in Boston before returning home to their native England. They left last week. They will be sorely missed. Sean and I are already planning a visit to see them in May, to coincide with the alumni dinner for the English boarding school that Sean attended for high school.

The late summer provided us with lots of great food. We gorged ourselves at various harvest festivals. Here we are at the Verrill Farm Corn and Tomato Festival, out in Concord, MA.


And here we are shucking corn at Zach's house. This was a great job for three year olds. And entertaining for the babies, Auric and Zach's little sister, Ellie.



Also, our container vegetable garden was a success. We had tons of yellow cherry tomatoes, a nice crop of big, flavorful brandywine heirloom tomatoes, several peppers, quite a few cucumbers, and lots of herbs. Here's a harvest on a particular night.



And in addition to healthy farm and garden foods, we had many occasions for ice cream. Here is Thora, literally covered from head to foot in chocolate ice cream. Normally she's not quite this messy.


In August, we had several close encounters with animals, mostly pony rides and petting zoos. Here, Auric is getting his hat nibbled by a hungry goat.


And speaking of our boy, Auric got 4 teeth this summer. He's a speedy crawler and likes to walk holding on to hands. His favorite thing is to walk while pushing toys or large wheeled things like strollers or luggage racks. I'm sure it won't be long now before he's walking on his own.


We had many hot days and so spent a lot of our afternoons at the local playground that has a sprinkler. My friends and I regularly shared our collective dread at the long winter ahead when we'll be desperate for activities that allow our kids the exercise that they get at these local parks.


This was a great end of summer, one with lots of fond memories.