Things That Go Bump in the Night

I have always been a big fan of Halloween, but it's become even more of a favorite since having kids. Lucky for me, the boys (particularly the oldest one) share in my enthusiasm for this hallowed day. Ben used to laugh at me when I asked (usually sometime in July) what he was going to be for Halloween that year. But Ethan, he plays along with his Mommy and came up with an adorable, easy, and incredibly appropriate idea for the boys' costume this year. We won't mention the fact that he has already decided what he wants to be next year and that given the concept, I am really glad I have a whole year to think about how I am going to pull it off... But back to this year - we started the day with some pumpkin carving, and were thankful to have a champion pumpkin carver in residence.

The boys watch the master carver at work

I asked Ethan what kind of face he wanted on his pumpkin - scary, silly, mad? His response: "Sleepy." Here is my attempt:

After carving pumpkins, it was a long day of "When do we get candy? When can we put our costumes on? When can we go out trick-or-treating? Mommy, I see someone putting candy out - it's time!" We were able to hold them off until about 5 or so, and then did a quick tour of the neighborhood in some less-than-ideal trick-or-treating conditions. It was FREEZING! Here are Thing 1 and Thing 2 raring to go:

For those who haven't had the pleasure of reading The Cat in the Hat a gazillion times, Thing 1 and Thing 2 are two little blue-haired, red jammie-clad creatures that burst out of a box at full steam, wreaking havoc and creating destruction wherever they go. Hmmm.....sounds familiar.

Hope you all had a fun day with your little ghosts and goblins. I'm off to raid Thing 1 and Thing 2's loot.

And Now You Are Two

To my baby boy on his second birthday,

Wasn’t it just yesterday that we waited…and waited…and waited some more for your arrival? Didn’t you just tumble into the world in the middle of a warm, windy, foggy night? Didn’t we just meet you for the very first time, holding you in our arms and kissing your sweet little forehead and welcoming you to the world? Weren’t we just calling your grandparents, your big brother, your aunts and uncles, waking them up to announce your arrival, your name, your perfection?

And now you are already two. At two you are a little boy. You still have your Buddha belly and your chubby wrists and ankles, but soon those will fade and your limbs will be long and lean like your brother’s. You still run like a toddler, but you climb like a monkey. You are a rule-challenger, a spitfire, a natural comedian. Just the other day, after we all chuckled at one of your jokes, you said “I funny” with your adorable snaggle-toothed grin. That you are, little man. You were challenging assumptions before you were even born. I assumed you would be born early – aren’t all second children early? But no, you had to prove that to be a myth and hang out in my belly for ten long days past your due date. You are stubborn and like to be right, and you know exactly how to get your way. Your eyes twinkle and the corners of your mouth turn up just so, your eyebrows lift, and yup, you’ve won. Mommy is a puddle and you got what you wanted. At two, you are incredibly social. Unlike your big brother, you never ever need alone time. If any of us starts to leave a room, you run behind us shouting “I coming!” You want to be where the action is all the time, and you don’t care much what we’re doing, as long as it involves you. Even if you know a word perfectly well, you ask “What dat?” anyway, just to interact. Your latest joke is to point at something and purposely call it the wrong name, as a question, and then shout “Noooooo!” with a big guffaw. Your belly laugh is contagious.

I am sure you will ask me some day, “What did I like to do as a kid?” Well, at two, you love to play snort monster with Daddy. This involves chasing each other around with little snorting noises, and it makes you laugh like nothing else. You also like to trade animal noises with Daddy. Ethan likes these games too, but they are really your special games with Daddy. You love animals and trains, and flushing the toilet. You love yogurt (without granola on top), applesauce, cheese, eggs, broccoli, green beans, and anything Daddy is eating. Your table manners are atrocious, and you refuse to eat with a fork and a spoon unless absolutely necessary. You are incredibly affectionate, always asking for “hug” and then “kiss”. You are learning your manners, and have perfected “Please”, “Thank you”, “Bless you”, “Sorry”, and “Excuse me”. You are working on “You’re welcome” but haven’t quite mastered the correct use of that one yet. You ask to be picked up a lot, in your own little verbiage – “Hold you me”. You have superb pronunciation of most words, but yet you still call your brother “Ah-keen”. You can say your name very well: “Amam”. You are learning your “ABCs” and love to sing them loudly with your brother; “W” is your favorite. You are loving, witty, charming, smart, and sometimes a little devilish. You are our little munchkin and we love you to pieces.

Happy 2^nd birthday Adam!

10/26/08

10/26/10

The Book Nook

Last weekend we had the pleasure of visiting Noni and Papi's new and improved Rockport house (affectionately referred to by the boys as "The Duck House"). After many months of renovations, the place was finally ready for visitors, and we jumped at the opportunity to go take a peek. The renovations are just gorgeous, and make the house infinitely more family-friendly. We especially enjoyed having Noni and Papi there to give us the tour and point out all the wonderful little details they created. From the moment we walked in on Friday evening, the boys started exploring and making themselves at home. Ethan found his cozy sleeping quarters on the 3rd floor and dragged Adam upstairs shouting, "Come look at my room!"

The architect must have had little boys in mind when he designed several little nooks for wee ones (or adults, for that matter) to read, snuggle, or hide in. The boys were particularly drawn to a perfect little reading bench on the 2nd floor.

All the old favorites are still there - the duck pond, the jumping rocks, the gorgeous views, and of course, Noni and Papi - but the new additions are wonderful. We look forward to spending more time at The Duck House!

Our Little Heroes

Rescue vehicles are big in our house these days. Just this evening during dinner, sirens began in the distance. Both boys immediately stopped dead in their tracks. Mouths open, spoons frozen in mid-air, eyes wide, eyebrows lifted - they just stared at each other with excitement and glee. Then Ethan launched into some crazy-fast and very involved story about how it was not a single ambulance, firetruck, or police car, but actually all three descending on some sort of accident that required an ambulance to take hurt people to the hospital, a firetruck to extinguish the burning car, and a policeman to give "time outs". Adam responded by simply shouting "NO! Ambulance!". With all this interest in our local heros, you can imagine the boys' excitement when we set this up in the basement playroom a couple of weeks ago:

This fantabulous hand-me-down had been sitting in our garage for months, and we finally decided to allow our firemen-in-training to put it to good use.

To say that the boys are enjoying their new toy would be a bit of an understatement. I am sure it will lose its appeal after awhile, but for now, it is the cause of constant begging to go play downstairs. And if all else fails, it is yet another thing for our little monkey to launch himself off of (or into, in this case).

Pumpkin Patch Kids

On the way back from closing camp at the lake this weekend, we made a stop at Grandpa's pumpkin patch to pick our own future jack-o-lanterns. If you are impressed with our garden, you should have a look at Tom's - I always joke that it is more along the lines of a farm than a garden. This year he started a little patch of pumpkin plants, with grandkids and a fun fall day of picking in mind. Sunday was a gorgeous day for this adventure, and Ethan, Adam, and cousin Caz could not wait to get out to the pumpkin patch.

Afraid to miss out on the best pumpkin, Ethan had claimed and picked his pumpkin before the rest of us even got out there.

But there were plenty of big beauties to choose from and all the boys were happy with their respective pumpkins.

Now we just have to wait 20 days to carve them!

All The Leaves Are Brown

All good things must come to an end, and with shorter days and colder nights upon us, our garden has slowed significantly over the past couple weeks. Soon it will be time to till the plants back into the earth and prepare for next year. Although I will be sad to say goodbye to daily fresh produce (I literally did not buy one vegetable from the beginning of July until this past Sunday), it will be nice to have my husband back. All joking aside, our garden was a huge success this year, and a lot of fun for our whole family. I promised the uber-proud farmer that I would report out stats at the end of the summer (yes, he kept a spreadsheet - you would not believe the things that are spreadsheet-ed in the Stockwell household), so here goes:

10 peppers

62 summer squash

66 zucchini

34 meals of beans (I am happy to report that Ben did not count each individual bean)

8 meals of beets

62 cucumbers

5 meals of chinese cabbage

3 delicata squash

9 butternut squash (totaling over 55 lbs!), with more growing on the vines

317 tomatoes

1,099 cherry tomatoes

And because pictures of dying gardens aren't that pretty to look at, some pictures of our other little sprouts:

Driving tractors at the Topsfield Fair

Enjoying the last few weeks of being able to play outside without full gear

Fall Friday

After lots of exciting travels and adventures these past few weekends (mostly for me - Ben has been Super Dad holding down the homefront of late), we are enjoying a quiet weekend at home. We were able to get outside for some playing, lawn mowing, and compost building this morning before the rains came, but once they started, they haven't let up one bit. So we spent the rest of the day being cozy and doing fall things - making some applesauce and a meatloaf for dinner, getting haircuts for school pictures next week, cleaning out closets, and reading lots of stories.

Strangers often comment on how much the boys look alike. I don't usually see it, but in this picture, I sure do:

The matching jammies certainly help. You gotta love getting a steady stream of hand-me-downs from a family with two boys, also about two years apart. Instant cute matching outfits!

Never still for long, the boys also did a lot of this today:

Ethan and Adam could seemingly spend hours and hours just chasing each other around. The open layout on our first floor provides a perfect setting for their little game - they never have to stop and change directions, but can go round, and round, and round, and round, ad infinitum. We are starting to fully appreciate our downstairs playroom this year, as the boys seem old enough to play down there by themselves (at least for a little while, until we hear the inevitable "Mommy....something happened...". That "something" is never good.). But the basement is a great spot for the boys to run wild and get their wiggles out without banging into our furniture, shaking the whole house, and bursting our eardrums. And it gives Mommy and Daddy a much needed 5 minutes of peace to actually have a conversation without a certain someone saying "Stop talking! You guys are talking a lot." (said whenever the conversation does not involve this certain someone, or the topic does not interest this same someone). Of course, listening to the basement adventures from upstairs is always fun. It's a lot of "Now Adam, you go there and do this, and I will do this. No Adam, you aren't doing it correctly! You need to do this and then this. No, you are messing it up. Adam, you aren't listening to me! Mommy! Adam isn't listening and won't play my game!" Hmmm....I wonder where he got those genes from....?

Hiding from Mr. Bossman

Happy Friday! May all your weekends be dry and cozy.