Catch Up: the flood

So I did manage to post about Evan's first day of school but here are some pictures of the flooding that delayed his first day by a day!



The police came knocking at our door at like 5 am to tell us the creek was about to crest over the edge so we went to see and wander around the neighborhood.  

Luckily we didn't get a drop in our basement and no one was hurt here in Ithaca. Binghamton is still trying to dry out and fix the damage so we are truly blessed to have just enough flooding to make life interesting.

Fall Fun 2011

I created a photo album in iPhoto called Fall Fun 2011...and there was so much to put into it!  The fun started with taking my Dad out for a swanky dinner for his 60th birthday!  Happy Birthday Dad!



Then there was some fun for Russ and I...we got to hear Mahler's Second symphony by the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra and Russ sneaked a photo of the very ending with the full chorus and orchestra.  Just so huge in every way!  We treated ourselves to a night away (our first since Alec was born) and stayed in a B & B in Fairport.  The next morning we went for a very luxurious walk in a partk near the B & B and Russ took this pic of me taking a pic!


Next up was pumpkin picking at Iron Kettle Farm.  It's always a mob scene and a lot less fun then we think it will be so we'll be looking for other ways to get cute pumpkin pictures next year.

We finally made it out to the apple farm their LAST weekend of the season...but I HAD to have some photos and there are a bunch of cute ones.

Then for pumpkin carving and last but not least some Halloween fun and trick or treating with friends!

A few random shots of everyday type life and Alec as a baby model to round out the album.

Click on the flickr stream above to see it all! :)  Or click here

Trying to Streamline

I'll blame my lack of posts on technology.  I like iphoto for organizing photos but it's not very easy to use to post photos to the blog.  I have to use flickr as a middleman or I just wander around the files of the mac trying to figure out how to upload directly and just never finding success.   The older I get the better I am at trying to find something positive in everything that comes my way.  So, if I'm forced to use flickr each time I post, I'll just upload a bunch more photos than I need and you can go there and see them if you want, dear readers (especially grandmas and aunts :))

I told my sister about 4 months ago that I would send her a video of Alec walking and never did.  So, here he is recently, basically running around the place!

Frustrated with Flickr

IMG_1725
Originally uploaded by Russ Posegate

Here's Evan making a great face...  he sat in there fishing out trains and tracks and handing them to Alec to play with.  Hopefully I can manage to put up that photo too.  Sigh.

Boys bein' boys

Our first full week of Kindergarten/working momdom is going well.  Yesterday, I put Evan on the bus while Russ kept Alec home and had breakfast.  I helped Evan onto the bus, quickly helped him with his sea tbelt, kissed him goodbye and went to leave.  The bus driver told me that today I couldn't get on the bus.  I guess I can understand...she has a limited time frame to get these little buggers to school but it annoyed me and made me feel protective of Evan.  He's my little guy and I want to make sure he's ok.  Plus it was only DAY 2!!  But this morning, Russ told him ahead of time that he'd have to just get on the bus on his own and he did just fine with it.  As so many have told me it would be...it's way harder for me than for Evan. So...I'll just make Russ do it.  hehe   Evan also went through the lunch line in the cafeteria and bought himself a chocolate milk...I'm so proud!  It seems like a silly thing but for Evan to try something new on his own is pretty huge.

Evan is finally showing a very small amount of athletic ability.  We'll start with bounce catch and see if we can move on to throw and catch from there.  He was pretty proud of himself and thought it was fun...yippee for outdoor fun!  

The picture of Alec is of him playing with big brother's legos just the way big brother does...sitting at the dining room table.  He had the legos in his hand and he walked over to the chair and made it very clear that he wanted to sit in the chair.  So I helped him up and he sat there for a long time and just played with the new Ninjago legos.  Very cute!  (IMHO)

Well...I still have school work to be doing but all in all I'm enjoying being back at work.  It's busy there and busy at home but I think I'm happier being busy, busy, busy.  

Today after work I got a huge treat of taking my first Taiko drum lesson!!  So fun!  Thanks Alice!  Hopefully pictures to come...lessons are on Tuesdays.  :) 

First Day of Kindergarten

    After counting down the days, going to open house and playground night, following the bus like a secret spy, packing the back pack and the lunch poor Evan had to wait another day for his first day of Kindergarten.  Hurricane Lee brought us tons of rain and enough flooding in our area to close all the schools in our county, Cornell University, Ithaca College and all county roads.  But...the NEXT morning he had some toast for breakfast and we headed out.

 He was pretty nervous and asked Russ to carry him across the street to the bus stop.

 Then we had a few minutes of Dad's amazing ongoing saga of a story, "The Boy Who Could Fly" to keep our minds off what was coming.

Dad helped him onto the bus and into a seat.  I guess he was pretty sad when Russ left him but there was an aid who came right up to be with Evan.  I don't know about Evan but I was definitely in tears as the bus was pulling away.  

He came home happier than he left though and had lots to share about his big day.  We asked lots of questions to keep him talking and sharing information.   Apparently, they went outside for recess THREE times and even got to go on the back playground (bigger and usually for older kids).  The cafeteria was "SO small" and "only had 9 tables". I was very glad to hear this report on the cafeteria as I was concerned it might seem huge and loud to him.  They went to Art and PE.  He said he played cops and robbers with Abe and that Abe was "hard to find".  

We have high hopes for the coming week!  We're so proud of our big Kindergartener!!!

Strawberry Picking

It's amazing how short and sweet strawberry season is around here...  We managed to take the boys picking with the grandparents and had a great time at Indian River Farm. 

Evan wandered all over the strawberry patch and managed to leave about 12 strawberries in his bucket...the rest went in his mouth.

You can tell (as my mother loves to say) that Alec is a second child...seen here crawling in the dirt, under the hot sun, eating strawberries and getting them all over himself while Mom looks the other way. :) 

But he seems happy enough, eh?

Yum!!

Fun Fourth!

Well... a few things have happened between now and my last post but oh well.  We had a great long weekend with fabulous weather, family and time in the pool.  Evan took his first flight in Grandpa's plane and did great!  Pictures of Evan in the plane hopefully soon. 

Donuts

Despite being on a diet, I decided I just HAD to make donuts at home, from scratch.  Maybe it was Evan's Donut Maker on the Ipad or maybe it was being on a diet.  They were SO good.  The second batch wasn't quite as good but still yummy...just kind of heavy in comparison.  Anyways...here's the process. It was fun but you will need a bunch of friends and relatives to help you eat them all!  

Lucky Evan...

Pirate Party

In a very round-about way we ended up having a Pirate themed party for Evan and his friends.  This was his first "kid party" and I had WAY too much fun planning and shopping for it.  There were pirate costumes (sashes, hats, swords, parrots, hooks etc), a pirate ship fashioned from a moving box, pirate plates/napkins/goodie bags.  We hunted for "treasure".  A good time was had by all.  Never fear, Dahlia and Cedar, we are keeping the ship and some treasure saved for both of you!

Evan being Evan, he got really shy and upset when we sang happy birthday to him.  I let his guests blow out the candles and then had to firmly let Evan know that he was NOT allowed to abandon his guests and take his ice cream cake up to his room to eat it.  He eventually enjoyed it at the table with his friends and then we had a treasure hunt to find the goodie bags.  It was a good party and kind of nice to only have a small group...I can't imagine any more little pirates with swords running around!

Happy 5th Birthday Evan!

Spring Break

I know I vowed to keep up with this blog and here I am behind again.  Sigh.  Oh well.  Here's what we did over spring break.  Monday and Tuesday were boring chore/home days but things went fine even with both kiddos at home. 

Wednesday we packed a lunch and spent most of the day at the Sciencenter. 

 Thursday we went to Glowgolf (a strange and wonderful mini-golf inside the mall with black lights and neon paintings of the ocean) and lunch at Friendly's.  Then we got home and the boys "helped" me put together our new craft cabinet.  It was a hoot but I must say Evan is pretty good with the Dremel driver.

 

Then Friday was Evan's 5th birthday.  We bought some final things to get ready for his party and when Russ got home from work he got to open his presents from us... LEGOS!  

It was a lovely week and though we missed Amanda and Cedar who were traveling we managed to have a good time and Mom wasn't too lonely. ;)  

Evan's Birthday Montage

I freely admit that I'm a sentimental fool.  Hopefully I won't get sued for using Paul Simon's music...the song we used as a lullaby for Evan as a baby.  Enjoy!

Happenings

Alec loves to stand up and play.  So, it's been really fun (for both of us!) to head over to B & N to play for awhile.  The train table in Evan's room is almost as fun, but there aren't other kids to watch and Alec just ends up destroying the track set up.  I remember when Evan was at this stage...so fun!

Evan's birthday celebration at school was this past Friday.  I guess he was uncomfortable with the idea of lots of extra attention.  He requested no paper crown, no singing of Happy Birthday and no Happy Birthday wishes.  Instead, his teacher took us up to the library so he could pick a couple special books.  (I'm SO glad his teacher "gets him")

Birthday treat -- rice krispy treats w/sprinkles!

It was great to have a visit from Aunt Annika this past weekend!  She surprised everyone for Kerry's 30th birthday.  There was a great party at Dave and Kerry's house and then we got to hang out on Saturday and Sunday morning too!   Then it was on to Aurora for Russ's recital.  It was great and I even got to enjoy it thanks to one of the Wells students who watched the kids in Russ's office! :) 

Random Memories

So this happened a long time ago....maybe even while I was still pregnant with Alec but I never posted it. 

Last night while I was putting Evan to bed I had the hiccups.  I was trying desperately to read him his bedtime story between the hiccups but we kept breaking into giggle fits because of the crazy sounds I was making while reading and hiccuping at the same time.  I love Evan's laugh these days...it just comes from his toes and keeps on coming.  He's still young enough that he's not editing himself at all but old enough that he's got a sense of humor and can really find things funny to laugh at.  It's really hard to catch it on video though or I'd be posting it for sure.

5 year old birthday fun

On the Importance of Blogging

Even though I haven't posted much, I've been thinking about the blog some lately. Does that count? I've been thinking about moving the blog to wordpress. But, upon second thought have decided to KISS (keep it simple, stupid) and keep it here on blogger. Sadly, all the fun things about wordpress are not worth giving up all the lovely youtube links and photos. I can't figure out how to get them to import over easily and it's not worth it right now. What I really wanted was to get away from flickr and I think I'll still be able to do that and stay at blogger with probably less work.

Anywhoooo...I've also been looking back at old posts. It is SO fun and has reminded me of the importance of blogging, especially since my journaling habit is completely nonexistant now. :( Not to mention that I need all the help I can get in the memory department. How's your memory? Do you have a lot of memories of your childhood? I feel like I really need to purposefully recall my memories to keep them. Maybe not everyone does. So, I need some good walks down memory lane on a regular basis or I'll forget it all. 

Sometimes I wonder if all these photos and videos actually diminish our actual memories. At first I was bummed that I didn't take any pictures of our trip to the farmer's market this past weekend. But, I spent a few minutes recalling (just to myself) some of what we did there that day and it made for some lovely memories. There was a regata so we got to watch some boats going by. I'll remember Alec sitting on the woodchips playing in the dirt and Evan climbing around the tree roots by the waters edge. He got pretty brave and actually climbed UP a tree a little ways. We ran into several friends with children and chatted with them while the kids played. All of this on the first warm/sunny/weekend day of the spring. It was so nice to be out in the sun doing fun things! We wandered around buying and eating whatever looked good. Evan had a waffle with an enormous amount of syrup. I'll remember that he stood by a bench in the north end of the market eating it (and not sharing it with me ;). Russ and I kept getting separated on our different trips to get the next yummy thing but the day was OURS so we kept finding each other just fine amoung the other market goers. Alec rode around in the Ergo mostly and I'll remember sharing our first purchase of the day with him-- a chocolate chip scone. He was kind of tired but perked up when we let him out of the ergo to explore. He really loves to walk around holding our fingers.

While I don't have any pictures of this lovely outing I did take a bunch lately of just normal everyday stuff. Like the boys in the living room playing. Pretty typical.

Alec playing in the cupboard

At Cedar's birthday party

enjoying his hockey puck cupcake