Hey....

I love this photo. Haley's like, "Hey... whose birthday is this supposed to be, anyway?" while her brother swiftly unwraps her presents "for her".... She knows the score.

Happy Birthday to Doo!

I know it's total cliche, but I can't believe my little girl is already a year old! The year has flown by, but at the same time it feels as though she's been part of our family forever. She's already so opinionated and stubborn at age 1... I think we might be in trouble with this one! Luckily she's also very happy and silly and sweet. Not to mention cute.

Grandma Chris came up from Long Island to visit for Haley's birthday week, and she got in lots of good play time with both Haley and Aiden. When she arrived it was brutally hot (high 90s and muggy) for a few days so we spent a lot of time on various local beaches trying to cool off. Aiden discovered he loves "diving" (basically a modified bellyflop underwater, then popping up to breathe) at Wadleigh Beach, his new favorite place due to the many freshwater mussels that can be collected in the water. And Haley was her usual crazy self in the water. Either she is trying to get loose of your grip so she can try to swim on her own (not recommended), or she's popping fistfulls of rocks and sand into her mouth (trouble, like I said!)

We had a small birthday party for Haley on Sunday which featured family and local friends, Andy's smoked ribs, slip n' slides, a pinata, homebrewed beer, burgers and dogs, and chocolate cupcakes. It had finally cooled off a bit and it was perfect summer weather under the shade of trees in the backyard. Haley and Phoebe scored the splash pool at the end of a huge defective slip n' slide to play in, while the older kids slipped and slid on a smaller one that did work. The first taste of chocolate cake was also a hit for Haley-doo - she went right for the pink frosting and enjoyed every crumb.

Other activities with Grandma during the week included going to see Cars 2 at the movie theatre (Aiden's second movie experience went really well...the first was Up at age 2 that went so badly we hadn't been back!), strolling the farmer's market, painting a large mural on the driveway, getting ice cream, hitting a giant booksale, and going blueberry picking. Now that Grandma is gone it's back to reality for Aiden (not that it's a tough reality at Windy Hill) but we'll see her again in a few weeks on Long Island!

Tweedle-Dum & Tweedle-Dee

There are two babies in our household now, and they are in cahoots with each other. I can't tell who is worse most of the time, but they are usually to be found together under a table, plotting something devious. When Haley wakes up in the morning the first thing she says is "DAW-dee!" and makes a beeline for Kimball's kennel (which, much to her chagrin, she is not allowed inside). Kimball does a little happy dance around Haley, licking her for the most part, but stealing a naughty nibble here and there on her ears and toes. Which Haley ignores. Haley then usually hands her pacifier to the dog, who runs around the living room chew-sucking on it like a human baby would...while Haley helps herself to the assortment of rubbery dog toys on the living room floor.

We spend most of the day saying "NO bite Kimball!" and "NO mouth Haley"...."no bite" being the term we've decided upon for the pup and "no mouth" for the child. But when things get really hectic and Haley is whack-petting the dog, dentabone in her mouth, while Kimball gnaws on her leg, it comes out more like, "No mouth NO Kimball Haley NO bite NO NO!!" And they both look up at us like, What gives? We're just having a bit of fun!

Night Bugs

When was the last time you stayed up late to look at bugs? I have to admit it's been awhile for me... probably since the last time I saw a field alight with flashing fireflies, and that has to be at least 10 years ago. Knights Hill Nature Park, a town owned conservation parcel near us, was offering an exploration of nocturnal insects event last week and it was too good to pass up. When I asked Aiden if he'd like to stay up way past his bedtime and go on a nature adventure with a few friends, he didn't pause to consider the offer. YEEESSS! PLEEEEZZZZ!

Our host at Knights Hill, the ever-patient Fred, tacked up a blank white sheet against the side of the interpretive hut and shined a huge spotlight on it. And then we waited for the moths to show up. Since "waiting" is not something four-year-olds are particularly good at, Aiden and his friends Molly and Sam spent the time searching with flashlights and headlamps in the nearby fields, ransacking Fred's interpretive hut, and consulting each other about cool caterpillars, moths, and butterflies they looked up in the many field guides Fred had out. After a while a very large and cool moth did arrive, which turned out to be a "Blinded Hawk Moth" - complete with fake eye spots to keep predators at bay. The remaining moths that showed up were mostly small, but some were very beautifully patterned. We also saw dozens of huge green katydids eating the milkweed plants in the fields, a mad junebug, and an absolutely enormous and fleshy grey mottled spider that was hanging out on a corner of the interpretive hut, clearly psyched that someone had ordered a hundred small moths to be delivered to his residence that evening.

Looking up bugs

Katydid caught in the light

The blinded hawk moth

Fred identifying something

The huge and almost full moon had just risen above the pines beyond the fields as we were getting ready to leave, so we decided on a quick moonlight hike around the fields with the kids before turning in. It was a beautiful evening and a great way to explore something you don't see every day.

Mountains, Berries & Beach

Grandpa Dada, Crazy Uncle Dan and Aunt Paulette drove up to NH last week for a short visit. Their timing was perfect since I was about to leave Andy alone with both kids and the puppy for five days straight during Monadnock Trails Week (one of my biggest work events of the year). As we're both feeling a little bit overwhelmed with the addition of the pup... sort of like we need eyes in the back of our heads, and extra set of hands, and the ability to instantly clone ourselves on demand... it was great to have the help. They arrived the day before my work event started, so I did get to spend a bit of time with everyone. On Thursday evening we ascended Mount Sunapee by chairlift for a summit BBQ... the weather was perfect for gazing at the expansive views while sipping a beer on the top deck of the summit lodge. Aiden was inspired to take about 1000 photos of the mountain views.

Mmmm... hamburger

The next day we went raspberry picking in a BIG way... 12 quarts worth. It was force-feeding of raspberries at every meal after that... on bagels, on cereal, on ice cream. In the end we ended up freezing the last 4 quarts for smoothies before they went bad. On Saturday the crew (minus myself) went to Sunapee State Beach where Haley demonstrated her crazy baby butterfly stroke. She gets so insanely excited when she gets in the water and thrusts her butt up and down like a little dolphin, looping her arms and kicking both legs together like she's doing the butterfly. She's so strong I swear if we let her go she might actually swim away. She clearly belongs in the water though.

got raspberries?

Sunapee State Beach

water bug

And Munson... poor Munson. He was not thrilled to have a frenetic little shadow named Kimball attached to him all weekend! They actually got along fine as long as Kimball remained very calm, but one small growl from Munson and Kimball would mistake it for wanting to play... which was NOT Munson's idea of fun. He was so quiet trying to hide from Kimball all weekend that we barely knew he was there... which is kind of a rare Munson experience!

Hideout!

4th of July Weekend

In addition to getting a dog over the holiday weekend, we also had a lot of other fun activities planned. We spent Saturday at the lake house in VT with HaPa, Grandma, Micah, Becky and Phoebe. We hadn't seen the Pheebster since late winter, so it was fun to see her almost walking and to watch both girls as they played together in the kiddie pool. At this point it's all parallel play but they at least sort of acknowledged each other this time, even if it was only one sticking her fingers in the others mouth or sharing a cheerio or a binky.

On Sunday we all attempted a feat of incredible bravery (or madness?) in driving 4 hours over the Adirondacks in the morning to attend the Dean Family picnic at Higley Flow (with the kids and new puppy all stuffed in the van) and then driving 4 hours back to Lake Champlalin the same day. I can't say I'd do it that way again, but it was a beautiful day for driving through the mountain scenery and ADK towns. The 4th of July picnic was also lots of fun... Aiden and Haley spent 80% of their out-of-car time that day playing in the water with Ciara, and even little Kimball pup took an unintended dip or two (I think she thought the water was solid at first). In the late afternoon Aiden and I and Jeni and Glen snuck in a scenic pontoon boat ride all around Higley Flow. On our drive back we were crossing Lake Champlain by ferry just as it got dark, so we got to see the fireworks displays of Vergennes, Basin Harbor, and Burlington simultaneously. Pretty cool.

Monday it was a lazy morning at Camp and then back to New London and straight into the next party... July 4th BBQ at the McVrankens house. The kids had so much fun playing in the inflatable pool and carrying Kimball around like a doll that I'm not even sure they stopped to eat dinner. As dusk fell we broke out the sparklers, lit an outdoor fire, and sipped whiskey and fancy tequila until the kids were droopy-eyed and exhausted. Another great day!

And just to put the cherry on the top of a perfect holiday weekend, we kept on celebrating at Finn's birthday party on Pleasant Lake on Tuesday. It was the most gorgeous warm evening, and the kids pretty much had the beach to themselves after the day crowds had all gone home for supper and bed. Sonya & Kyle made a delicious pulled-pork BBQ, and we all watched the kids splashing in the low golden glow over the lake. It was hard to pull ourselves away from that idyll and put a close to our fun Independence weekend, but I guess nothing lasts forever.

HoneyMutt

Aiden has been wanting a dog since he was about two years old. He spent the better part of one whole winter pretending he was a dog, yip-yapping responses to questions asked by adults such as, "What would you like to drink with dinner?" Ans: "Yip! Yip!" or "Did you brush your teeth?" Ans: "Grrrrr..." At one point he had his whole school class barking and whining on all fours for several days and I think his teachers were ready to kill us. He finally lobbied Andy onto his side, and the two of them have been putting the squeeze on me for months now for being the lone hold-out. "See, even Haley wants a puppy!" they'd say when she crawled around chewing on the furniture.

Andy had been sending me photos of pups on Petfinder for weeks, andI was having none of it. Then finally, I allowed myself a small peek at the photos.... BAD idea! It wasn't long before I was picking my favorite pooches and plotting to visit shelter dogs. But it turned out adopting a mutt wasn't as easy as we thought it would be. Most shelters in our area advertise puppies that they don't actually have in their possession (they are all in the south somewhere, Alabama or Georgia) so you can't meet the dog in advance. Which wasn't OK with us. After several dead ends we finally found a shelter in VT that had a bunch of puppies actually in the state of VT... and conveniently enough, we were headed up to VT the next weekend.

At PuppyPalooza there were about 20 mutt pups, from 9 weeks old to about 6 months. Aiden immediately gravitated towards the tiny ones (what kid wouldn't I suppose), of which there were only 4. He asked to see a brown one and within a few minutes he'd made up his mind. THIS one. Would you like to see these other dogs over here too? Nope. How about that one over there? No. I'll see it but I want THIS one. And so we had our puppy.

Then on to the name! Aiden had always dreamed of calling his puppy either Scooby Doo or Fudrucker... both of which are distinctly masculine, but our puppy is a girl. It took a lot of effort but we managed to convince him that the puppy needed a different name... Aiden's vote was then for Daphne (the perky redhead in Scooby Doo... of course) but Andy and I were not sold. Over the holiday weekend, people threw out tons of potential names... Smudge, Dandelion, Chili Dog, Sandy... Aiden vetoed them all. It was looking like Daphne would prevail when someone suggested Kimball (the dirt road the camp at Lake Champlain is on). OK! said Aiden. Thank goodness.

So far Kimball (a.k.a. honeymutt, Kballs, or pup-pup) is a very chill puppy dog. She tolerates being passed from 4-year old to 4-year old like a little stuffed doll and then chases them all around when they run. She's had a few accidents in the house and chewed on a few things she shouldn't already, so we know she's going to be a typical puppy, but she seems very bright. We taught her how to sit in about 10 minutes and she'll do it anywhere you ask now (you mean i just have to put my hiney on the floor and i get a treat? No problem!). We're going to have fun with her.