The Great Ice Fort

Lennon, Mia and I spent several hours over two or three days time working on building a snow/ice fort. It was coming along really well and we were all excited to get it done. I didn't think I wanted to bother with trying to figure out how to get it to come together in the middle, so I thought we could just drape a blanket over the top when we were done. Unfortunately, Mateus had a sleepover and they wrecked the whole thing before we could get it finished and then we lost our motivation. Mia was pretty sad and cried, but Lennon took it in stride.

I didn't really get a great picture of the size of the fort, but this one at least gives you some idea of how tall it was. Lennon could stand up and it was still taller than him, so I'd say it was about 40 inches high and you could probably have fit four adults sitting cross legged inside.

We would have gotten further with the fort, but Lennon insisted on having a tunnel entrance on the side, so we spent about an hour making him his tunnel and making sure it was safe to crawl through. It turned out pretty cool and the kids thought it was awesome to glide through on their bellies.

This shot kind of gives you some perspective of the length of the fort. Wah! I think I am as upset or more about it being ruined. I had so much fun building it with them. Oh well. There will always be more snow.

Valentine's Day

The past two years now Granmommy has sent the kids a fun Valentine's kit with everything you could possibly think of to use for making home made Valentine's. They made some great Valentine's this year that we passed out at Claire's party next door on Valentine's Day. Thanks Granmommy!

Mia posing with some of her personal favorites. The yellow one was for Lennon and he chose it as his favorite before he knew it was for him. You can still see some of the remnants in this picture of whatever reaction she had to that raw milk. Poor baby. Thankfully it's all gone now with no scars or anything.

I decided too late the night before Valentine's to go buy flowers for the table and all the stores were closed, so I had to make paper flowers for the vase and cut and hang hearts from the ceiling. I got a great little ice dancing outfit for Mia's American Girl doll from some crazy lady on Craigslist for super cheap a couple of days before hand and Lennon had been asking for Buzz Lightyear wall decals. They were both stoked about their gifts.

I got up early and made breakfast before anyone was awake. Chocolate chip waffles for Mia, blueberry for Lennon and coffee for me and Shelby. Well, we had waffles too...with lots of butter.

For lunch the kids had pre picked some heart shaped raviolis and green beans. Mia said early on that this was the best Valentine's Day ever.

A little out of order. This is the day the kids opened their package from Granmommy.

Lennon being silly when I asked him to pose with the box he decorated.

This was one of the first things Mia made from the kit and she cut up an old shirt to make a dress for the little bear too which she then gave to Bianca.

For Dinner, Gaga had sent us a gift card to Cheesecake Factory for V-Day, so we ordered take out and shared two entrees between the four of us, and because it was Cheesecake Factory we even had leftovers. Thanks Gaga!

The kids also both got a card with money in it from Granmommy and Bill which they were so excited about. Lennon is always shocked when people give him money.

It was a pretty awesome Valentine's Day. After breakfast I took the kids to Mom to Mom where we had a speaker talking about the love languages which was a nice little reminder for the day that just because I like things a certain way, not every one receives things in the same way. A friend of mine said she hated the holiday because there was so much pressure to be romantic. I guess I've just never felt that way. I love having a whole day devoted to telling the most important people in my life that I love them and they are special to me and worth a little extra effort, if even just for one day.

I'm Still Here

***WARNING: THE FOLLOWING IS WAY TOO MANY WORDS AND NO PICTURES***

I just wanted to pop on and say that I know I've been majorly slacking with the blog lately. With home schooling, taking care of Lennon and trying (read: failing) to keep my house in order there's just not tons of time left for keeping up with the blog. Couple that with the fact that when Shelby updated our system it for some reason now won't read our camera when I try to upload pictures.

SCHOOL STUFF:

Since Christmas we have been very busy. Once we finally got home from Texas in the middle of January we went right to work on 3rd grade. We had ordered Mia's math book, but hadn't really started on it. In the past 4 weeks we have worked our way through an entire semester of math. We have the second semester stuff now that we just ordered and will start on that next week. She's doing great learning her multiplication tables and also working on division. We haven't done a ton in our history book this month. Mia wrote a letter to her cousin Morgan, in Hawaii for an English assignment, but she wanted to type it up, so we haven't sent it off just yet. The kids have been back to The Boston Museum of Fine Art for their home school art classes too and always love it. They did self portraits most recently and they turned out great. Mia's was not exactly a self portrait though, but it was still really good. I'll have Shelby scan them in if he can later.

I just found out about a great science curriculum called Noeo that I am going to order. It's a bit pricey because everything you need for each experiment is included, but Claire is going to split the cost with me and we will just do science together for the kids.

SHELBY

Shelby has been very busy between working for Walderi every morning and school three nights a week plus the occasional job around the house. Right now he's working on a bid for a job for Walderi that was designed by the firm that interviewed him a few months back.

EXTRAS:

Lennon is only doing gymnastics right now and he still loves it. Mia is taking ballet and piano and doing great in both. She is hoping they can get 6 girls to sign up for a tap class to be tacked on to the end of her current ballet class. It would only be an extra $25 per session which would be a really good deal.

OUTINGS:

This Thursday we went to another home school day at Old Sturbridge Village. We went together with the Lima's as we've done sometimes in the past. Everyone had a blast except that it was extremely cold. As we were leaving our computer said it was 26 degrees! We bundled up and braved the cold. It turned out great too because there weren't many people there so the kids got a lot of extras they would not have ordinarily gotten. In the blacksmith's shop he let each of them come back behind the counter to help him make a fancy iron hook to take home. The kids all thought that was amazing. In the potter's shop Mia got to help make a flower vase on the potter's wheel and all the kids were given a bag of clay to take home. Mia and Mateus took a class on making old fashioned remedies for colds. We also got to visit with an actor portraying Esther Howland, the mother of the American Valentine. It was really interesting to hear her tell of how this woman in the early 1800's took the simple idea of creating a better valentine and turned it into a $100,000 per year business! It's amazing to think about having that much money back then. They also had these awesome wooden sleds and a huge hill that we spent probably an hour sledding down with the kids.

Just after sledding we ducked into an old farm house where they were making fresh hot chocolate, but not the usual way. They had fresh cocoa beans that they were roasting that day then the kids got to peel the hard outer shell off to reveal the cocoa nibs. They ground the cocoa and made hot chocolate two different ways. The traditional way of the 1830's with no sugar and with cayenne pepper and nutmeg and other spices and also with just a touch of milk and sugar for anyone who didn't want to try the spicy kind. The spicy kind was so much better even without the sugar. The freshly roasted and ground chocolate was soooo yummy! They served it with a "chocolate cake." It was no chocolate and neither was it cake. It was more like a semi sweet biscuit or cracker that you dipped in the hot chocolate. Kind of like a biscotti I guess. None of the kids liked that much though.

RANDOM NEWS:

In other news, Angel has seemed to stop peeing outside the litter box for now so we are holding off on making any kind of decision about his future. We are all really relieved that the whole situation has sort of diffused itself.

Lennon had his three year check up a little late yesterday. The doctor suggested we have him evaluated for sure to see if he needs speech therapy. His opinion was that he did, but still he gave me a number to call a place that would do a formal evaluation.

Mia is up in NH right now with Chloe and her mom, just the girls. She went to ski school today and they will be heading back some time tomorrow. Then, tuesday after gymnastics, Claire, the kids and I are all heading up to NH. The Little's have offered us their house for the week since they only go on weekends. Shelby can't go because of work and school, so I'm taking Claire up to keep me company.

That's all I know right now. I'll try to get Christmas done sometime soon on here and put some more pictures up. I took a bunch at Old Sturbridge Village which would have probably made this post a whole lot more interesting.

A Blast From The Not Too Distant Past

So, for your pleasure, Gaga and Hillary's October visit for my birthday. I knew all along about Gaga coming, but Hillary and Baron surprised me at the last minute. They showed up on my doorstep the morning of the party. I still knew nothing of the party though until it actually happened. I cried when I realized Jackson was really not with Hillary. I thought they were teasing at first and just had him behind a door or something, but he was really not there. I love that little guy. Baron is the sweetest baby ever though, and it was nice to get to spend some more one on one time with him for a change.

As I arrived Lennon started shouting "Everbody's here! Everybody's here!" He was very excited about the party.

Mia apparently took a lot of time getting dressed and choosing just the right dress and earrings for the party. She was precious and made the night.

The other highlight was an awesome video Gaga made for me with some interviews with friends of mine and old pictures from childhood and high school. It was awesome! This is me laughing hysterically at something stupid I did that is being retold on the video. Definitely the best birthday gift other than the surprise of Hillary and Baron.

Goofing around with The Brills as they were leaving. It was such a wild bunch, the whole party was over before 10 o'clock. I guess that's what happens when you get old, your parties end earlier. :)

I love this baby so much!

Not sure what she was going for here, but I think she looks awesome!

The whole weekend, the kids were playing some game which I cannot remember the name of right now, but basically it involved leaning the couch cushion up against the coffee table and jumping down it while being as loud as possible. They thought they were geniuses.

Gaga with Baron.

Mia wants another baby because she thinks they're all like Baron. Oh, how quickly she has forgotten that that is not always the case.

One night during the visit, Mia put on a concert for us. Lennon ran a concession stand and handed out play money to whoever bought concessions. They even had a little play list by the "stage" (coffee table)

Lennon announcing at the end of the show that "this was a pretty cool show. The only part of it that was not cool is that I didn't get to sing."

Luckily, both of Mia's grandmas play piano so whenever they visit we take advantage of their services.

One morning we went out to breakfast at our favorite brunch place in Cambridge, Full Moon Cafe. Afterwards we headed over to a little farm in Concord where they had a haunted hay ride and fresh apple cider. The kids had a blast. Baron napped in the car and I think we rode the hay ride about 4 times.

Lennon found these props in the shop afterwards and ran around pretending to be a flying witch.

It was a great visit and a total surprise that Hill was here and that there was a party. Gaga and Hillary even got to come to my mom's group at the church with me which was super fun for them to meet some of my friends there. It seems like we just moved up here, but all of a sudden Lennon is the age Mia was when we first moved. It seems strange to think of there only being a year and a half left here. We'll be spending way less money of plane tickets when the time finally comes.

Thanksgiving in Hendersonville, TN

Once again, I am far far behind on here. I haven't yet posted about my awesome surprise party that my mom and sister and Shelby threw for me, I haven't put anything up about Christmas or January, so how I decided to start with Thanksgiving I don't know. But anyway, here it is. Prepare yourself because there are a lot of pictures.

We got to TN a couple of days before anyone else, and Granmommy and Grandaddy both had to work the first full day we were there, so we had some time to settle in and play around just the three of us. The kids both thought it was pretty cool that we had our own suite at their new house.

Lennon and Mia setting up Lennon's "private room" within our room. Mia and Peyton ended up sleeping in the sun room part of Granmommy and Grandaddy's room and thought that was totally awesome.

At the breakfast bar in the new kitchen.

This is Lennon's airport he made out of super structs.

The AWESOME playroom above the garage. Mia spent a lot of time playing around with Shelby's old keyboard. Both kids played a lot with the kitchen and grocery store stuff.

On Saturday afternoon we went to the awesome science museum in Nashville. The kids had a blast and our membership here in Boston got all of us in for free except for Grandaddy, so it was a cheap outing too. Here, Mia is climbing down a spine ladder.

This game was so frustrating. Mia was awesome at it. The straps on their heads somehow measure how relaxed you are and by being relaxed you move a ball toward the other persons goal. I was terrible even though I felt totally relaxed. I guess I have a thing or two to learn about being relaxed.

This sign was at the top of a slide which at the bottom made a gassy pooping sound. The kids went down several times.

Afterwards we went out to eat at a famous local chicken place. The food was yummy and the kids had fun. Everyone got a free teeny tiny ice cream after the meal.

A couple people were a little sleepy after such a full day of fun.

Finally the cousins arrived! Here the kids are all enjoying a little snack out on the screened in porch.

One nice day we went out to a nearby park to let the kids run around. Mia found a ladybug.

Time to stop for a snack.

The kids had a lot of fun playing in all the beautiful fall leaves in the backyard.

Lennon felt like a big boy carrying that rake around.

Aunt Bethany making some yummy cranberry muffins.

The kids got in lots of morning time cartoon snuggles during our visit.

See. I told you the muffins were yummy.

Piano practice.

The two little ones loved playing inside Bonzai's crate. Mia would be their owner and try to find customers to buy a new pet.

We went out to Monkey Joe's one afternoon and with all the stuff they had to play on, our kids ended up spending most of their time in the "under 3" bounce area playing pirates.

Helping Aunt Bethany make chocolate peanut butter cookies

Reagan was a pro at skee ball at Chuck E Cheese. Mia actually passed up going to cook with Bethany and Granmommy. I was so sad that she is old enough to choose anything over Chuck E Cheese.

Lennon got lucky and won something like 50 tickets from one token in one game!

These two did this virtual roller coaster about 10 times.

Shelby and I always play a little basketball when we take the kids to Chuck E's.

It is officially tradition for the kids to help make the rolls for the Thanksgiving feast.

Our playdoh aquarium.

Reagan and Lennon get along really well.

The kids beautifully set table with decorations by Mia.

Lennon always wanted to sit by Peyton.

The built in fire bit is very very deep.

Inspecting the fire starting to grow.

Reagan pretending to be scared.

The two Francis hams

All the boys

Our beautiful babies

They couldn't wait for the smores

Due to the angle we had to roast our marshmellows we lost a few to the flames.

After this photo session Reagan realized her bow was gone. Grandaddy ended up getting out a huge spotlight and the search was on for about 10 minutes before someone finally found the missing brown bow. Yeah, that's right. We found a brown bow in a huge pile of brown leaves.

On one of the two porch swings

Bethany's piano lesson :)

Mia made this place cards for everyone in the family

The kids helping decorate the tree.

Lennon fell in love with his rocket at first sight. He even has his own theme music he sings when he plays with it.

Hugging her new Hogwarts robe.

She's such a wittle sweetie

Uncle Duh wrestling with the kids at the empty old house down the street.

Another tradition: gingerbread houses Granmommy got two sets. A train for the little guys to do together and a whole tiny village for Mia and Peyton to divide up.

These two worked so well together and did a great job. They had so much fun and didn't fight at all.

The Francis man back rub chain

We went out to Opryland hotel and checked out all the pretty lights and decorations. We love going out there every year, but parking was a nightmare. We ended up walking almost 20 minutes to the hotel from where we ended up parking, but we still had fun.

Mia loved this lighted bear.

Lennon playing outer space with Uncle Kelsey

Our obsession with Wii begins

One of Lennon's favorite games is called Lotus Focus and all you do is try to sit really still on the board. It's good practice for a very active little boy.

Our last dinner in Hendersonville at a Mexican restaurant near their house.

We had so much fun being together with the whole family all week. The kids all got along beautifully and since we all took turns cooking no one had very much work to do all week. It was a very nice, relaxing week all around. The new house is beautiful and perfect and we hope we get to be there more than just once every two years. Maybe when we are back in Texas we'll be able to come more often. Mia suggested we just move in...but I think that's going a bit too far. :)