Weekend Festivities

Avery is so much fun this holiday season. He asks to watch Reindeer (Rudolph) every waking moment! We had brunch with Santa on Saturday morning and then went out to get our tree.

In Your Shoes!

Here is Avery-Monkey in his daddy's shoes! We won the drawing in my office for U Maine hockey tickets for tonight's game.... Avery loves Bananas (the Maine mascot...). Should be fun!

Good Sharing!

Sweetness for the Grandmothers

This is Avery assisting me with the Thanksgiving baking! He is such a character these days. He can now sing Baa Baa Black Sheep AND Row Row Your Boat (quite accurately). He does a pretty mean Bob The Builder song too. He asks for Papa's Song (even more since Papa visited and HE sang... so much better than momma) and (Puff the) Magic Dragon often as well. He's counting everything "two" "three" "two". He refers to himself in third person a lot. He runs around the house playing football (sometimes with and sometimes without his actual football)... yelling "tack-le... hurt... okay" "ruuuunnnnn" "hike" and "touch down" while raising both hands above his head. He's using his "please" and "thank you". He LOVES the Christmas lights and lets us know how pretty they are. He is growing up so fast. Life is so amazing through the eyes of Avery!

The Hunt

The bad news is that I won't be deer hunting any more this year. The good news is that it's because I took a 136-lb doe on Saturday. With the invaluable assistance and guidance of my Mom, it's already been processed and put in the freezer. -jgr

daddy, care

Jen has been out of state for a few days and Avery and I have been left to take care of each other.  I have had the best time with Avery.  He’s been talking non-stop about everything, and it has been great to spend the time with him. 

More Farm Fun

More photos of little A's pumpkin patch adventures!

Pumpkin Patch

This was our first trip to this pumpkin patch. We found three beautiful pumpkins, went for a hayride pulled by a tractor, and saw lots of animals at the petting zoo (llamas, goats, bunnies, and chickens). We fed the goats some grain. Avery loved the chickens! The apple cider was delicious. It was a great fall day to be outside.

EB

Today is our 3rd wedding anniversary. Most of our days and routines all run together and it seems we must be celebrating more years than just three. Especially considering that we have known each other for more than two decades now. And yet, there are times when it seems like yesterday when we closed the door to our separate independent lives and chose togetherness. Old and new all at the same time. I don't say it often enough - but I deeply love, admire, respect and adore my husband. Happy Anniversary. Big Fat EB to you!

My Guys

Avery and Daddy at Gram and Gramp's party last weekend.

Ride'em Cow/Boy

 
We had an enjoyable weekend visiting family. Avery got a chance to ride a very small cow. He's feeling much better each day. 

Breathless

Avery is feeling much better! Thank you everyone for your warm thoughts and prayers! Grammah had a post about little A's condition... but if you missed it... here's a recap. Avery developed a cold over the weekend. He awoke Tuesday morning with difficulty breathing - he was breathing with his belly, panting, sucking so hard that his ribs were showing and wheezing. Our pediatrician's office tried unsuccessfully for three hours to stabilize his blood oxygen levels with multiple nebulizer treatments, oxygen and steroids. So, Avery and I shared our first amublance ride (he kept saying Truck the entire ride!) to the hospital where he was admitted for overnight observation. Once we arrived at the hospital, his O2 levels stabilized. He had a chest X-ray to rule out pneumonia, typical bloodwork, nasal and throat cultures. His O2 dropped overnight, but came back on its own. So, he received lots of neb treatments and a few more doses of steriods and we were discharged at noon on Wednesday. We are continuing the nebs at home. The final diagnosis, bronchulitis. Basically, he had an asthmatic reaction to the cold. He returned to daycare yesterday and had lots of fun with his friends. He was very happy to be back in his regular routine. So... that's the update on Avery-Monkey. He's ok.

Summer Outing

Saturday was my company's summer picnic. Avery played in the bouncy house. He had no fear - even with the big kids playing in it! The BBQ was delicious. Avery loved the cows, particularly the group mooing loudly. He sat with the big kids for awhile and watched the juggling show. He decided to cop a squat in this chair... I'm still not sure who it belonged to... but A got in and stayed a long time. He's growing so quickly!

Lawn Mowing Enthusiasm

Avery is quite excited to have his own lawn mower, and quite adamant that his Dad recognizes that Avery has a lawnmower. Think he'll be this enthusiastic about it when he's twelve? 

Pemaquid

We all went camping this week. We found a really nice campground called Sherwood Forest Campsite (click here). We were luck enough to be able to borrow Grammah's tent, which was very nice and very spacious. We spent yesterday relaxing at our shady campsite. Avery was feeling a bit under the weather and was running a fever. We thought he'd snap out of it, but he didn't so we cut our trip short by a day and came home so maybe he could sleep more comfortably. We did see a few sights--checking out the lighthouse at Pemaquid Point and the fort as well. It was extremly hot, though, so we tried to stick to the campsite and stay in the shade. Avery got cooled off with a swim and a few popsicles. It was a nice place and we'll definitely go back. 

Open Farm Day

Today was Open Farm Day in Maine, where 95 farms across the state opened their doors to the public. We visited the Curran Farmstead in Orrington. We all got to take a hayride behind an old John Deere farm tractor (see picture), and Avery got to see some bunnies, goats, sheep and horses. It made for a fun morning.  

Camp

We spent the weekend with friends at the lake. Avery had SO much fun being outside all weekend. He loved swimming, he played in the dirt, found bugs, saw lots of birds, filled his truck with rocks, played with the four dogs, and went for his first boat ride. We were very comfortable as we stayed in our very own cabin! What a great weekend, thanks so much to John and Kim for extending the invitation!!

Gone.

We sold my Kayak today. Looking forward to getting a canoe! -jgr

Weekend's Work

This weekend we fixed the stairs that we built last fall, stripped and stained both the stairs and landing and added railings. We reused the balusters that used to be along the front of the landing. Now it just needs some paint and some trim boards along the side of the landing and it's finished. What do you think? Remember those rickety skinny steps that were there when we bought the place? Note my extremely handy carpenter's toolbox in the photo. -jgr 

A Window Update

The contractor finished up with our windows today, so we thought we'd post some updated pictures. An AGR update also: he had fun today playing with Grammy. She took him for a couple of tractor rides, which he was psyched about! He had a great day.

Windows Installed!

Our windows were installed today. Tomorrow the contractor comes back to install the outside trim, then they are finished. We think the three double-hungs on the front of the house is a big improvement over the old picture window. Next we'll have to install the interior trim on the windows and doors. This project seems to be finally drawing to a close.

We have had a great afternoon with Avery and Isabelle. We colored, had naps, had dinner, went for a walk, played outside with Max, took baths, and read stories. These cousins are now sound asleep!! Its really fun to see Avery watching everything Isabelle does. Thanks to Amy for letting us love on Ibelle for a sleep-over. 

Super Model

Well, after much staleness, finally a new post. We are almost done installing the bamboo floor (just a small spot at the base of the stairs left to do). It is really beautiful! We're learning a lot on this project!! New windows for the living room will be installed next week. We have a little trim work and touch up painting to do and then we're done the construction process. Its a really big transformation from the stained country blue carpet, ceiling tiles, dark trim, crooked bookshelf room that it was (and for the mom's who walked through when we bought it - remember the hanging chandelier?). And of course, we must have a well dressed model in the photo for a sense of scale.

Old and New

OLD-Avery is sporting an antique shirt that his dad wore as a tot. NEW- Avery now has his 'A' hung in his room. He is newly obsessed with trucks. He loves this truck - the handle makes it really easy to push around (non-stop with truck sounds of course). He now points at EVERY truck on the highway and says "See, See, Truck". We never realized just how many trucks are on the road. 

Three Generations

This is Memorial Day male bonding between three generations. Avery was very proud to back up by himself and sit on the first step with Papa and Dada (he says both very clearly). 

Getaway

We took a two-day getaway this week. We spent a day in Camden, driving up Mount Battie and walking around near the harbor. Jen got the lobster roll she's been talking about. We stayed in a cabin in Lincolnville along Route 1. Even Max got to stay. We headed back this morning and spent some time at Fort Knox on the way back. It was a great day for it. That's where we snapped this picture of Avery, with the new bridge being built in background. It was good to get away for a couple of days. 

If nothing else, we have some cool tools

So we may not have made much more progress on our living room renovation, but we do seem to be accumulating some sweet tools. Recently added to the stable: a table saw. We'll be using this to rip flooring when that project gets underway. We did manage to dive into the crown molding. We decided to just miter all of the corners. We have the longest piece up, and we're just going to work our way around the room, trying to make the joints come out as well as possible. I think we often spend too much energy trying to figure out how to get something to come out perfectly, rather than just doing it. Witht he molding, though the mitered joints might not come out perfectly, it's nothing a litle caulk and paint won't fix. 

Happy Mothers Day

Happy Mothers Day to all of the mothers! We went visiting today and saw all of the Moms, GrandMoms, and in the process, Great GrandMoms. It was nice to see everyone and everyone seemed to enjoy seeing little A.

If you're wondering, that's the dog's water.