Gaga's Visit Part 1

Gaga and David came in the day after Christmas and it was wonderful to have some family with us at Christmas time.

They got in around noon on Monday and we went straight to Chipotle to pick up some lunch before grabbing Shelby from his office and heading home to eat and open the presents the kids had been drooling over. We took the rest of the day pretty easy as Gaga and David were pretty exhausted after getting up at 3:30 to catch a 6AM flight out here.

Kids with their traditional giant gingerbread men from Gaga

Tuesday we watched Claire's kids for her so she could get her house cleaned up for her company that was coming in on Wednesday. Once she was done cleaning she took all the kids for a walk down the street for some pizza.

On Wednesday we got up and drove over to the train to ride into Boston. Gaga had never been on a subway before and the kids always think it's exciting to ride the train into town. We had lunch at Quincy Market and then started on the Freedom Trail. We started out at The Old State House where The Boston Massacre happened then headed out toward Paul Revere's house and the Old North Church. We stopped at a really old cemetery that none of us had ever been to before. Most of the graves were from the 1700's and a lot of the people didn't even live past their 30's. We curved back around and walked down Canal Street where Shelby worked the first three years we were here. We finished at the New England Holocaust Monument before getting back on the train and heading home.

On the train home from Boston the kids sat with David and played angry birds.

In front of Paul Revere's house

We dropped off Lennon and David at home while Gaga, Mia and I went to use Mia's gift card at Justice. We made it home just in time to pick everyone up and make it to our dinner reservation at a Tapas Restaurant in Somerville, called Dali. It was a first experience for everyone except for Shelby and me and everyone had fun. Lennon wanted us to all have a parade after leaving the restaurant all the way to the car, and everyone agreed. I wish I could have been one of the people stopped at the intersection to see four adults and two kids playing pretend instruments and singing while marching across the street to the sidewalk and to our car. We all had fun, but Lennon said the music was not to his satisfaction.

Our table at Dali

Thursday morning we went to a matinee of the new Chipmunk movie, Alvin and The Chipmuncks: Chipwrecked. The kids were both mesmerized, especially Lennon. Gaga and David mostly slept through it and I was less than impressed. Both kids agreed that they liked it much better than the new Muppets movie, which I thought was tragic because I loved the new Muppets movie. Oh well. Thursday night Dusty got here and we put him in Mia's room. And, because we gave Lennon's room to Gaga and David, it meant that we were now all four in our room for the remainder of the visit. Lennon mostly slept on a pallet on the floor and Mia doesn't kick and move like she used to so it was kind of nice to be all snuggly with the kids for a couple of nights.

Friday we played lots of games and hung around the house, went to exchange some French instructions that came in one of the games Gaga gave us for English instructions so that we could figure out how to play it, but mostly just relaxed.

Saturday morning we went out to brunch at our favorite spot, Full Moon Cafe in Cambridge. It was far less busy than we had ever seen it which allowed us to linger over the meal and not feel rushed to let them seat someone else at our table. After brunch we dropped everyone off and Gaga and I went to do the shopping for the New Years Eve celebration we were having with the Lima's that night. It was super low key. I had promised the boys that I would play this game called Castle Panic with them and it ended up taking more than an hour to play one game and by then it was about time to ring in the new year on Rio de Janiero time. The kids all toasted with their hot cocoa and went off to bed after throwing lots of streamers around the living room and blowing lots of horn blasts. The adults then played a super silly, fun game called Quelf. At one point in the game Shelby had to pretend to be riding an Ostrich around a beached whale, but could not tell us what his card said to do. Claire's mom had to lie down under the kitchen table for a whole round. Dusty had to wear a bicycle helmet for the last half of the game. Very silly game and we almost missed ringing in the new year because we were so wrapped up in it.

The kids slept in until about 8:30 the next day thankfully since we were all up until after 1. We had another day of just hanging out and playing games. After dinner the kids went to bed and Dusty had a friend of Dusty's came over to watch the sad Cowboy game. Gaga and I tried to stay awake through the game, I sort of made it.

Monday Gaga got up super early with the kids and hung out with them before having to get dressed and head to the airport. Mia cried her eyes out at the airport while Lennon shouted, smiling, "I love you guys! See you later!"

Thanks for an awesome visit Gaga and David!

Funny moment this morning: Lennon was getting his socks and David was questioning why he needed two socks, just to mess with him. Lennon replied finally, "Everyone needs two socks. What are you, a flamingo?"

David showing Lennon how to tighten up our new table legs if they get wabbly again. He also did a few other handy man jobs around the house including fixing my armoir that the doors were falling off of and replacing a head light on our car that had been out for a while. Thank you David!

Christmas Tree Time

Once again, it's that time of year. Okay, I admit it. We've been listening to Christmas music since the beginning of last week. We were all expressing our thankfulness for Christmas music. And really, if you are going to spend too long celebrating something, Christmas is a pretty good one to choose. Growing up, the tradition was to cut down our tree the day after Thanksgiving. This year, Shelby had to work, so we went today instead. The weather was amazing. It was in the 60's and beautiful clear skies. I found this great little tree farm about an hour west that had everything I wanted in a tree farm.

Ahhhh...Selighbell Christmas Tree Farm. I searched online for about an hour to find you, and you did not disappoint me. Thank you!

The trees were all one price. (Less than we paid for our tree that we did not cut ourselves last year) so we had money left over to share two delicious pulled pork sandwiches a local caterer was selling. The kids here are also enjoying their free hot coco and cider.

Lennon cutting his first tree down. The last time we went he was only 2 and wasn't interested in helping. This year though, he made a few attempts at it.

The tree we ended up choosing had a birds nest in it, which many people at the farm told us meant good luck. We took the nest out before they shook the tree out and placed it back in the tree at home as an ornament. Mia was more excited about the nest, I think, than the tree itself.

Just a pretty little photo op

The hay ride was great. There was hardly anyone on it with us, it was long enough to sit back and relax a while and they were piping holiday tunes in for us through some speakers. That was one high tech hay ride!

My little tree baby.

Our gingerbread sweetheart

We went straight home and got started decorating. Shelby went to the office for a few hours while the kids and I fixed up the tree and made our traditional tree trimming dinner. Another tradition from my childhood. Only, our kids have renamed Chicken Squares, "Christmas Chicken." Because we usually only have it this once a year. Although, each year we wonder why we don't have it more often.

The kids were awesome all day. It's so fun to see them having fun together. Mia is such an awesome big sister and doesn't just humor him, she really enjoys playing with and hanging out with him lately. They did a great job of cooperating during the tree trimming. Mia had her heart set on having a color scheme for our tree this year. She fell in love with the idea at our hotel in NH because all of their trees stuck to two or three colors each. Lennon went right along with her plan (although I let him stick a few of the out of bound colored ornaments on the back of the tree.) They are pretty cool kids. I like them a lot.

Inspiration

Mia was inspired at the craft fair yesterday to make fairy houses so today she gathered all the necessary materials from the back yard and came and to build a fairy house. She's built plenty of fairy houses outside, but she wanted to build one that could be moved from place to place as a play thing. I think she did an amazing job. What do you think?

Mia kneeling beside her house taking about to take some pictures with her camera.

The little characters are some she bought from the people who were selling the fairy houses at the fair. The houses were out of her price range - one reason she wanted to make one.

When she was finished, she declared that this was definitely as good as the ones for sale at the fair and if she wanted to, she could turn right around and sell it. I was glad that she was so proud of her work. I like it a lot too.

Mia's Greek/Roman God Family Tree

Mia's craft project for history this week was to make a family tree for the Greek/Roman Gods and Goddesses. She chose a branch from the backyard. Luckily for her, the recent snow storm left quite a few big fallen branches in it's path. She then had the idea to spray paint it gold before collecting dirt to fill this pitcher we found at a thrift shop for her birthday party. Next, she chose a leaf to trace and cut out 23 times for the tree. She wrote the name of each God on each leaf and then we hot glued them onto the tree descending from most important to least important. She loved working on it and in the end Lennon helped with the glueing. It's so festive and fall looking too, so we're going to keep it up for a while!

Strawbery Banke Museum

On Tuesday we went on a field trip with a home school group to a museum we had been to before called Strawbery Banke in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. We got to do a special program focusing on how Thanksgiving has changed over the years. The kids got to help with kitchen chores that kids their ages would have been responsible for in the 1700's, 1800's and early 1900's. They had a blast despite the fact that Lennon was on his way to being sick. We didn't know that yet.

Each of the kids made their own corn husk doll to bring home.

Lennon was fascinated by this old fashioned spit turning machine which would have been new fangled in it's day.

All the kids took turns doing various kitchen tasks including grating cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves, stringing beans, weighing different ingredients on a scale and grinding corn with a mortar and pestle.

Right at the beginning Lennon found a very exciting piece of history for him - These water pipes from the early 1800's. He and his friend Luca had fun talking to each other through the pipes.

A bit out of order, here is a picture of the kids hard at work in the kitchen. They actually strung the beans on string with a sewing needle.

Among other activities of the day, they had the kids complete a vin diagram, watched a short video on the history of Thanksgiving, talked about some of the myths surrounding the origin of the holiday and focused on what the real meaning is of the holiday. Throughout the day they emphasized that we are celebrating being thankful for what we have and the ability to share any excess with others. It was a great day, and we even made it home in time for Lennon to go to school and Mia and Jaeda went to choir.

Thanksgiving Collage

Apparently it is a tradition at Lennon's preschool to send home a blank cut out of a turkey to each family in November. Our assignment is to decorate it in whatever way we want to, then return it to the school to decorate their halls for November. I suggested we do a collage and Lennon added that we should choose colors to make the turkey look like the colors of a real turkey. So, Shelby and I cut out a bunch of pictures for the kids to choose from and let them go to town cutting and pasting them wherever they wanted. The end result is really cute. They did a great job and had a lot of fun. They ended up making another collage each later in the morning.

Field Trip and Play Date

This past Tuesday I got to go with Lennon's class on their walking field trip to the Fire Department that is just across from the school. It was originally just his class, but one of the 3's classes had low attendance so they ended up joining us too. It was really fun to see Lennon in "class mode." He was very attentive although a little disappointed because we had such an awesome tour of a fire station in Plano last year and this didn't quite meet his standards.

Luckily, since Shelby's office is walking distance to our house, I was able to leave Mia home for her piano lesson and then Shelby took a late lunch, picked Mia up after her piano lesson and dropped her off at choir practice. Then he brought the car back to his office where I met him when I was done with Lennon's field trip and I went off to pick Mia up from choir and then dash back to Stoneham to pick Lennon up from pre school. It was bit crazy, but it worked.

Another somewhat crazy day. It started with a friend invited us to Drumlin Farm for a little morning play date. Then Mia decided she didn't want to go. Claire was home, so I left Mia here doing her school work until Claire had to drop her off at The South School for her gym class. Claire had a swimming class to get her kids to though, so she had to drop Mia off at 10:15 when her gym class didn't start until 10:45. I cleared it with the secretary first and Mia brought a book to read. It ended up taking me an hour to get to the farm when it should have taken only about 20-30 minutes. Then, I lost track of time at the farm and didn't leave until 11:45 when I need to have Lennon to school at 12:30 and Mia was done at gym at 11:30. It ended up only taking us about 20 minutes to get back to the school though and the secretary said Mia was great and just sat reading her book. Lesson learned: Don't plan play dates for mornings when Lennon has school.

Lennon isn't quite in this one, but it's a good shot of his friend Aleric, who "prefers to be called Beaver." These two were made for each other. The little girl is in Aleric's class at The Waldorf school, Ina.

Lennon had begged for a hay ride and I thought I remembered it being $5 or something, but it was only $2, so we did it. He was thrilled.

Lennon always wants his picture taken in any of these cut outs he sees.

Lennon and Aleric, AKA Beaver saying hello to the sow. They had a scale you could step on to tell you what age pig you were. Lennon was a piglet and I...was a finishing pig - ready for market! Pretty funny. Lennon told Mia the story and then said, "so basically, she's dead meat."

After I dropped Lennon off at school and picked Mia up from school, Mia and I whizzed home for a quick lunch before hopping in the car to bring dinner to a friend 45 minutes away who just had a baby. We got there with enough time to hold the baby for 10 minutes before we had to get back in the car and drive the 45 minutes back home with 3 minutes to spare before Lennon's class let out. I figured out I spent somewhere around 3.5 hours in the car today. I am definitely coming down with something and I can't get sick because there is just too much to get done for me to slow down at this point. Gotta go to bed. Good night!