Fun Friday!!!

Happy Friday!

We are so done with rain up here.  Seems like we got one sunny day, and 6 rainy ones this week.  So how do I tame my rambunctious three year old, and have some fun!??  Chalk hats in the garage…

I did the crown first, and then Avery got the idea and started making hats for himself (the first one is bunny ears he made), and then he made some for me…

I don’t let Avery play with my phone very often, but he quickly figured out how to use the camera.  Fun times!  After a few days of this, the garage is now a giant mural of drawings.  I’m really amazed at how Avery’s ‘artwork’ is actually more than just scribbles now.  He made a fish, a spaceship, and a cloud recently at school for me, and they actually almost resemble something 🙂

When it is sunny, we take advantage and bring the fun outside!  Mimi was painting the front doors on the house, and Avery wanted to join in and paint too, so I had him paint something not attached to the house…

My parents gave me a canvas and artwork box full of paints, and I haven’t used it yet – I was so happy to have Avery break it in.

He concentrated so hard, and wanted to try every color in the box.

Towards the end of painting, he started mixing colors.

And he was so proud when he was done.

I hung it up with my artwork in our room.

And thankfully, Grampy took Avery and I fishing last Friday down at the falls before all this rain hit.

It was nice and sunny, and Avery worked on casting and slowly reeling in his line.

Avery loved picking out his worm and washing it off to see it.

Avery pulled in his line and we didn’t realize it had a fish on it!  He caught the only one that day.

Grampy got the hook out because the fish swallowed it, but once it was out, Avery held the fish and let it go back in the river.

After he caught his fish, he was over fishing – his short attention span is understandable for a three year old.  He did some ‘rock climbing’ as he called it and threw some rocks and sticks in the water.

Grampy kept fishing….

And when the container for the worms fell in the water, I tried to snag it with my fishing pole, but slipped in…  

I did save it though!  Grampy got a kick out of it and we called it a night.  Avery wanted to go check out the falls, so we did some more ‘rock climbing’ and my soggy camera snagged some photos.

We had fun climbing the rocks and seeing the rushing waters.

The past couple days, this area they are standing on has been under water because of all the rain.

Oh and we can’t forget the play date we had with Avery’s (second) cousins.  We tagged along with Grampy to my cousins house for a couple hours on Sunday.  Grampy was helping them finish the basement.  Avery and his cousins went to the park, shared some snacks, and played toys inside.  So nice being close to family we can have play dates with!

We had a busy week…we also went to a baby shower (congrats Jenn and Michael – my cousins –  They are having a little girl).  Mimi and I had fun shopping for a gift for them – it was practical tho!  Avery played with his cousins and I got to chat with ladies on that side of the family.  We also went to a graduation on Thursday night for Joseph, another cousin (I have so many cousins, lol – gotta love having a big family!) so proud of him and happy to celebrate with him.

Let’s hope some nice weather is ahead for the weekend.  We have have pizza and a movie tonight, grocery shopping and a birthday party tomorrow, and who knows what else!?

Happy Friday!

❤ Meghan

Tired, Sniffley, and Halfway

Ok, it’s been a crazy week.  I’m tired and sniffley and my head is pounding.  Why?  Lack of sleep caught up to me and a weekend with 12 year olds wore me out I guess.  And maybe the hotel and travel got me sick, who knows?  I just need a tissue every 15 minutes and I’m good to go.

After a down and back trip to Boston on Thursday (thanks to Mom for riding/driving along, and no thanks to Mother Nature – sheets of rain are not ideal for travelling 500 miles in a day), and 4 1/2 hours of sleep (would have been 5 1/2 but we were so focused on getting home we forgot to swing by and pick up Mom’s truck at her school where I had picked her up earlier that day – whoops! We got home and realized her truck wasn’t in the driveway – turned around and drove 20 min to go get it), I headed off to chaperone my cousin’s 6th grade class trip.

We had a weekend jam packed of touristy things to do from dusk to dawn for three days.  So much fun, but so exhausting!
  
Came home on Monday to a rambunctious toddler and an annoyed boyfriend – just our luck that the one weekend I’m gone and don’t have cell service to communicate that the wood guy calls and has our load of wood (you know, for the wood stove in the house we don’t have yet) so he had to deal with all that without me.  Mom and Dad ordered wood last year and it came so late that some of it wasn’t dried yet.  So we wanted to make sure we didn’t get it too late this year – well, it’s here and Steve’s already cutting it up (best boyfriend ever) and that means a warm and cozy wood stove heated house this winter, yay!  Wood’s much cheaper than burning oil, so you can imagine this makes me very happy – you know, since we’ll have a nice big morgage to pay come this fall.

Speaking of the house, I’m halfway thru my 6 month saving period and I’ve saved 57% of the down payment…

I have June, July, & August left to save up the rest – that’s $1417 each month.  Seems very doable since this is the savings breakdown for each of the past 3 months:

• March $1800
• April $1500
• May $2450

I splurged on a new bathing suit for this summer (you know, since the 9 I already have aren’t enough), and I have a race to register for, but other than that (oh and some gifts for three birthday girls this month), it’s serious lock down on my wallet.  Essenials only!!  I was good in Montreal too, only spent $ on two drinks at dinner the last night we were there, oh and a souvenir for Mom and Dad.  I brought Avery back a plush Turtle from a carnival game we (my cousin, his friends, and I) played at La Ronde the last day of the trip, and Avery hasn’t parted with it.  He named it ‘Turdy’… yup, you read that right – bet you can’t say it without smiling, lol.  It’s green and goes everywhere with him.  He won’t leave his bed in the morning without it.

Crazy to think it’s already June!  Where did May go?!  These warm months always seem to zoom by while Jan-March felt like an eternity this year.  Hopefully with the house this winter it’ll be more bearable since I’ll have lots of projects to do inside.  So exciting!

Headed to get Avery and play outside tonight – maybe some soccer, bike riding, and check out the strawberry patch.

Happy Thursday – it’s almost the weekend!!!

❤ Meghan

Memorial Day Camping Weekend

We are back from a long (and FUN) camping weekend.  We spent last week getting geared up for it – MiMi and Grampy stocked up the camper while Avery and I made some goodies to pack.

Avery was a big helper making apple chips.  Yes, he took a bite out of almost every one before putting them on the tray.

That batch of apple chips barely lasted Friday afternoon – Avery devoured them as soon as we got to camp and shared them with his friends.  I’ll make two batches next trip. And if you noticed Avery’s face in the last picture…

He also helped me make cookies and since stirring is hard work, some flour escaped the bowl.

Friday morning came and Avery was so excited…. that he just kept sleeping and sleeping.

I even tried my ‘mommy tactics on him – opened the window, turned on the lights… but he was still snoozing.  I guess he knew he had a big camping weekend ahead of him and he needed to stock up on sleep!  Friday at noon, we were off!  Grampy and I (Mimi had to work all day and joined us later Friday night) picked Avery up at daycare (which Avery thought was pretty cool since we had the camper with us!).

(Oh, Avery looks like a grump in this picture because he’s making a “Pokey Face”)

Just over an hour later, we pulled into the campground – and we were the first ones there! (first ones in our group – we had 6 sites reserved for my Papa’s side of the family – my Mom’s Dad).  After setting up the camper, we headed off to the railroad track.

We stayed at River’s Bend, in New Haven VT.  It’s very secluded along a river, but there is a train track and bridge near the entrance.

We climbed up the hill and I snagged a couple good pictures of these two.

I wouldn’t dare walk over the bridge part – eek too high.  But Grampy and Joseph did.

Avery and I stayed on the tracks and I almost got a very poetic picture of Avery on the tracks, then the dogs photobombed it.

We put down pennies and dimes for the train to flatten.  We went back on Saturday and we found them all – smushed.  Avery and Joseph (my cousin) thought it was pretty cool!

To bring our first day camping to a close, we did popcorn over the fire…

Good thing we brought two bags of it because the first one exploded, haha.  Avery and Grampy enjoyed their usual nighttime snack.

The rest of the weekend was a blur of fun… lots of fishing, playing in the sand, kayaking, playing with family – cornhole and woffleball and some new game called KamnJam.  Avery skipped rocks in the water and rode his bike around with Joseph.  They played soccer and with this helicopter spinner Avery would let off and Joseph or Mia would catch.

Grampy finally caught a couple fish.  Avery had so much fun playing with his second cousins – ‘my friends’ as he calls them.  He woke up Sunday morning and asked ‘where are my friends?’ since they only came for the day on Saturday and had left that night.  He really loves playing with them.

Avery, Grampy, and I spent hours looking for fish.  I took this picture a split second before Avery fell in right there.  It was too funny.  He had a soaked pantleg (just one) and a shoe. We were all laughing.  The water wasn’t deep so he didn’t get far and his pants dried before we got back to camp.

The river was so low in places that we walked out to islands like this a couple times.  We found broken pottery, dug holes making rivers and floating sticks and leaves down – so much fun.

And Avery and I went out in the kayak 4 times I think… one time we even took Frasier along!

I didn’t carry my phone around with me, so there aren’t pictures of every second of the weekend, but that’s what camping is all about – leaving work, and housework, and electronics at home and enjoying the outdoors and the people you’re with – and we sure did that.

We closed the weekend with smores… oh and catching a frog – the second one of the weekend.

Thank you Johnson Family for such a fun camping weekend.  Sunday afternoon while I was baking up a storm for the week and Avery was playing play doh, he says ‘I want to go camping’.  I think he had fun 🙂

❤ Meghan