Goodbye Summer.

Sad to say...but Summer is over. Here are a couple shots from our last pool party out at the Lyalls on Labor Day Weekend. It was an excellent pool summer and we got some major use of their lovely pool. There can never be enough thank you's for having access to this perfectly hidden, solar heated, gem of a pool. I miss you already.

 

On Labor Day (we took the day off for real) and headed out to a little hike I used to do growing up here. It's called Deer's Leap and looks over the valleys to Rutland. It's just a few miles long but was just enough to get the kids grumpy with us. He was seriously dragging (well refusing) to go any further on the way up after about 15 minutes so we swapped him into the back pack and forged ahead so we could make it to the look out. He enjoyed jumping over each of the ten thousand rocks on the way down though. Not sure where he got the air fist thing but he did it after each jump as you can see in the little video. It was a gorgeous, clear Vermont summer's day and I write this as I wear a wool top in slippers. Crazy how fast the weather changes.

He's Three!

Yay, he's three! Just for fun, here's zero, one & two. It's been busy around these parts so I didn't get to organizing his bday like I wanted but I then remembered, he was three, and popcorn is exciting so I hung up a few streamers that I had on hand and put a sign up on the chalkboard which he loved. He said, "happy birfday to me?" He started the morning off with one of Grammy's cinnamon rolls and there was a lot of cousin playing all day. Aunt Joy got him a Spiderman balloon and my nieces made him some cupcakes which he wanted to eat all day. We made our traditional yummy pizzas (except now Mike makes the most amazing homemade sauce as well so they are even better) and then we did cupcakes outside and opened his few presents. Mike has wanted to get him him a matchbox race car track that goes on the wall for ages so thank you grandma lizzie & Pete for sending him one. He was entranced by it for a good hour until a part of it broke and he ripped the whole thing off the wall which was hilarious in its own right. Now, we have to get more sticky stuff to put it back up but he loved it for that hour. Oh, three! Meanwhile, Rox Rocky was loving the plastic from the cars--her two bottom teeth are coming in.

He is beautiful and amazing but right now, for me, really frustrating and exhausting as well. But he is dymanic and loving and empathetic and silly and energetic and smart. Here's to three!

January via phone shots

2012 is well on its way. We had some very very cold days this month but only one little snow storm--very mild winter 'round these parts. Our boy is talking a lot and some of it even people who don't know him can understand. As you can see we've had lots of time inside during the month of January. It's just not as easy to get out when it's cold but we try which means there is a lot of toddler wandering all over the house, destroying things and lots of Bumbo-ing for the girl.

The big news is last night he went up to Mike and asked to go potty. Sat down and went. Actually he went twice last night and then again this morning when he woke up. We were going to wait until the last possible moment when we knew he wanted to but he is kind of asking us to get with it. I don't know. I am still not convinced but we'll see how the weekend goes and then I might start reading up on the ole training tricks of the trade. I am happy to receive anyone's advice if they have any to share but again I am not sure we will be delving into this very seriously since I can't tell if he is really that into it and if he's not, I'm sure not.

Tomorrow our little Rocky Red will be 4 months.