Sam is a Good Little Baby and Always Very Curious

A day in her life …

Thursday morning

Sam eats all her waffles on her plate. Then wonders what the plate will look like on her head? Strands of syrup attach from her head to the plate when she pulls it away. Amused by her antics Matthew asks, “Can we keep Sammy forever?”

Thursday mid morning

While Mom works on her laptop Sam plays nicely with her toys.

She takes out Matthew’s football men and lines them up in a chorus line fashion on the football field. When asked if she will help clean them up into the bucket she interprets that to mean the trash bucket and promptly carries out the order by dropping a fistful in. The men are quickly recovered and returned to the proper bucket by Mom.

Thursday afternoon

Mom offers her some markers and crayons to color with. Sam obediently colors on paper and in her Sesame Street coloring book. Then on her face. She looks like Health Leger’s Joker in Batman.

Following a bath she parades around on top of the coffee table while Mom puts the bath towel in the laundry bucket.

“No Sammy! Get down from there,” Mom scolds. Sam waves.





Resigned Mom has no other choice but to use her secret weapon. Sam does not listen to the word No unless it is drawn out in a level tone like the word Boo.  “Noo.”  Sam quickly climbs down and spends the next two minutes inconsolable.

Thursday Evening

The family is watching Toy Story (Matthew is amazed when Mom tells him stories about his Toy Story phase and how he changed his name to Buzz Matthew R. for a year –  he claims to have no recollection of it). Sam covers Matthew up with the blanket and kisses him a half dozen times. Matthew politely thanks her but does not take his eyes off the movie. Before he knows what has happened Sam has wedged her way onto the chair by climbing in behind him and he is sitting on the floor. Without a blanket.

Apple Town, California

One morning last weekend Matthew invented Apple Town, California. When asked where this was coming from he responded that he liked apples. As he talked we drew and colored his ideas onto paper. Seven pages later a town was born.

(L-R)

 

The Red apple train station. One train drives through the town with signs that read, ‘Welcome to Apple Town,’ and ‘Leave out cups when it rain for Apple Juice’. The Green Apple bank where someone stands outside with a basket of apples for you to take one. The passenger train which also provides transportation to the Yellow Apple School for grades K-12.

 The Apple Town Stadium where a football game with the Patriots and Vikings is going on. The building with a golden apple on top is the Apple Town Hotel and next to it is the restaurant. 

Matthew: Do you know what it is called?

Me: Apple Town restaurant?

Matthew: Of course not. It's Applebees!

The Apple Science Museum -with sign noting the dinosaur exhibit. The Apple Town Amusement Park where day passes to all the rides can be purchased for a steal at $10.99. Lastly in the bottom right corner is Boba Fett. This is Matthew's imagination after all!

  Apple Town, California in all its glory!

Veterans Day Fun

Happy Veteran’s Day! We had some no school day fun at The PlayTown Express. Here are some pictures from the event: 

Bob's Birthday

Bob's birthday loot

This Saturday marked the end of the flag football season. Our league did a field day with six separate events rather than playoff games against one another. Afterwards we had a tailgate and Bob handed out the medals.



48 Viking cupcakes, I felt like a Patriots traitor!




The flag football princess




End of season tailgate




Medal ceremony



Showing off their medals to each other

Party? What party?

We celebrated Bob’s birthday on Sunday with a trip to The Patriots Hall of Fame and dinner with his family at The Olive Garden.



Can you spot the rookie?




Dad and Matt



 It was a great weekend spent celebrating!

Happy Halloween!

After trick-or-treating for two hours tonight we are ready to say goodbye to yet another great Halloween!

(L-R) Hailey, Riley, Conner, Hayden, & Matthew ready to go

Frankenstorm

Hurricane Sandy or Frankenstorm as it has been nicknamed by the media blew through here yesterday but luckily did not do any damage here other than knock a few branches from the trees in the yard and the power out for a couple of hours.

While the wind and rain blew around leaves furiously outside we kept the kids busy with pumpkin painting (Sammy) and carving (Matthew), read books, ate a lunch of  bacon and cheese muffins with eggs (recipe here), and camped out in the living room at Matthew’s instance once the power went out near his bedroom. Today school was cancelled for Matthew and Sammy had pajama day at daycare but the weather wound up being warm. We have moved on to counting down the hours until it is time to go trick-or-treating tomorrow night.

Indian Summer

I love when the weather in October turns warm to tease us before the months of cold weather kick in. We certainly made the most of it by playing outside every chance we got this weekend.

We also had some Halloween fun by making monster cookies and reading these books:

Do Not Build A Frankenstein

Arthur’s Halloween/ Franklin’s Halloween/ Corduroy’s Halloween

Tucker’s Spooky Halloween

Skeleton Hiccups

Twas the Night before Halloween

Bernstein Bears Ghost of the Forrest

Happy Halloween Stinky Face

Frankie Stein

Bob, Matthew, and I went to a Sharks hockey game on Saturday night too. Matthew's favorite moment from the game was when there was a fight.

Sammy might have celebrated a little too much this weekend as she came home sick from daycare on Monday and stayed home Tuesday. But she recovered and was back outside in no time at all.  

October Weekending

"Hey Mom, you should go to college to become a cheerleader. You would not have to work much except during Patriots games. And you could just wear your underwear!" Matthew told me this during a Patriots game. In his unprejudiced mind I could totally become Patriots cheerleader in my underwear or anything for that matter if I went to college for it. Currently his plans are to go to college to play goalie for the Bruins and to divide his time teaching and being a police officer during the off season.

Speaking of football Matthew had a special guest coach this week – his Grampa! Bob’s assistant coaches couldn’t make it to the game this week so Grampa helped out in a pinch. 

This past weekend there was a library sale and I gathered my pile of books for the winter plus some armloads for the kids. We didn’t have any plans Saturday night so we built a fort with blankets to read in. I wanted us to enjoy some chocolate chip cookies too, that were still warm from the oven, but that turned out to be a bad idea like the time I decided that we should eat pancakes on the beach. This time instead of sand getting everywhere it was little chocolate covered hands.

Naturally I’ve been coercing the children into doing Halloween crafts. I’ve used our ghost shaped cookie cutter on everything from sandwich bread to pancakes. Matthew and I made some spooky Play Doh characters and Sammy and I painted pumpkins. 

It was nice to spend a weekend at home unwinding and making messes.  

Voyage to Vermont

“What color were the Patriots jerseys in 1492?” Matthew asked Bob during the drive to Vermont.

 I had my doubts that Bob choice of DVDs for the car ride to Vermont which was History of the Patriots, Bill Belichick football life, and 21 the NFL’s longest winning streak. However Matthew watched them intently during the three hour car ride both there and home. 

If the Patriots had been around in 1942 I am certain that he would have been interested in viewing a DVD of the season highlights.  

Bear in the Big House was there to greet us

We stayed at Sarah’s house for the weekend. The first morning we had a big pancake breakfast and then went to the Ben and Jerry’s factory. 

We did the tour and both children were extremely well behaved during it except towards the very end Sammy got a little impatient while waiting for her ice cream sample. 

Then we visited the flavor graveyard. Matthew was very curious all weekend about what “dead ice cream” looks like. We also  ate some ice cream under covered picnic tables in the rain. 

We spent the rest of the day at the toy and train museum. Matthew could have spent all day at the train museum portion if we let him.

The adults were most excited to see all our favorite childhood toys, especially Bob who got to see Faker his favorite He-Man action figure. 

That night we ate dinner at an old favorite of ours Lui Lui which is now semi famous in the area because Mitt Romney ate there last month. 

I don't have a picture from Lui Lui but I do have a picture of Sammy enjoying her pancake breakfast

Matthew also played a lot of Wii there. Sammy "played" too

The second morning we had a big pancake breakfast and then went to Billings Farm and Museum.

This cow was born that morning at 4 am

Matthew loved playing with the stick and hoop toys.

Sammy could not tear herself away from the sheep nearby.

We toured an old farmhouse that made butter, and put Matthew to work making cider and peeling apples. 

After that we took a trolley into Woodstock to browse a couple stores before heading back to Sarah’s house to eat lunch. After lunch we hit the road to travel back to our home. 

Insomniac at play

With the one exception that Sammy seems to have given up sleeping from the hours of 1 am until 3, opting to cry at that time instead, this weekend was perfect. We had a lot of fun!