More presents

Potter continues to unwrap...he got an Erector set that makes 4 different models.  This is a cousin to Legos, but you use metal and plastic pieces as well as a drill that they supply that is kid friendly.  If you have boys that love legos, this will be something to look into when they get older.  Potter also got, among other things, a book and his new favorite game that we played exhaustively on vacation, UNO!!  Even Molly knows how to play UNO to a degree.  It is all numbers and colors, very easy for even young children.  Then Potter is running off to go and start on the Erector set.

Potter's 8th birthday!!

Today Potter turns 8 years old!!  It is hard to believe that our lives as parents began just 8 short years ago.  Potter has grown into a handsome, smart, happy, loving soon-to-enter 3rd grade boy!!  Since Potter's party isn't until tomorrow, we'll post some family day birthday pictures today with more to come tomorrow.  We decided we didn't need cakes 2 days in a row, so yesterday Potter and I made his birthday cookie.  Remember the Cookie Factory that used to be in malls all over the place?  We used that idea and bought some sparkle gel to decorate.  I must say that it was quite successful (and tasty).   It is much larger than it appears here.  There is a family picture as I came into the family room this morning and then Potter in front of (a portion of) his gifts.  Let the paper ripping begin!!  Molly was quite anxious for him to open presents from her and Caleb.  And there is Caleb, trying to get at the Mad Libs!!

Mommy scores with doughnuts from the Cider Mill!!

Dave and I have a deal where I get up on Saturday with the kids, he gets up on Sunday with the kids.  We each have a morning to sleep in a bit.  Yesterday was the first day that the Cider Mill was open for doughnuts and cider, so at 7:45 am, we were there, making our purchase.  They had been looking forward to doughnuts all week, that I had been promising, and Mommy delivered!!!  We got powdered sugar and cinnamon sugar, both excellent choices!!  The Cider Mill is open until December (varying dates by year to year, depending on weather) so we have LOTS of time to make trips there.  This is way, way, way better than Dunkin' Donuts!!!!!!!

unlimited paper supply

I have finally solved the problem of having enough paper for the kids and their art projects.  A woman at the Family Resource Center, where I take Molly and Caleb to play once a week, turned me on to the fact that many printing companies will give away their end rolls of paper.  She was right!!  I went on Friday to a local printing company who gave me two end rolls of paper.  Now end rolls may not sound like that much, but this is enough to last us probably through the winter!!  And if not, they just give it away if you come to pick it up.  What a cool deal!!  I offered to pay them something, but they refused!!  Wow!!  So the first thing we did was to cut off huge sheets for each kid so that I could trace themselves and then they could provide the decoration.  It was such fun to see them.  In case you can't tell, Potter positioned himself so that it appears that he is jumping.  Caleb and Molly were just laying still, flat (well, Caleb wasn't so still) so that I could trace them.  They spent quite a long time coloring and adding embellishments to themselves.  I can see many hours of fun with these rolls of paper.   Check into it if your kids love art as much as ours!!!!

Painting!

Today was the first day that I was brave enough to let Caleb try his hand at painting.  Surprisingly, he did an excellent job and really got into, as you can tell.  Potter and Caleb painted together until Molly woke up from her nap, then Caleb and Molly painted a while.  They had fun, using just red, blue and yellow to make all the other colors.  There was one small incident where Caleb got blue paint in Molly's hair, but it all came out in the tub later on.  Caleb doesn't quite understand not to wave the paintbrush around wildly and he incorporates finger painting into the brush painting, but I heard that is how Picasso got his start too.  

CFJ - Summer garden

Today we met Mrs. Appel at the garden at CFJ to help her harvest some of the summer vegetables.  We have been several times to the garden before today's visit, always getting tons of fresh produce.  At the back of the garden, not yet quite in bloom, are the very tall sunflowers.  Molly is busily picking green beans, which the kids devour for lunch when we get home.  They've enjoyed these a couple of times.  Who'da thunk that if they picked the beans themselves, they would love eating them?  Go figure!!  Potter is standing in between some very tall sunflowers, so you can guess how tall they are.  Potter is about 4 feet tall right now.  Mrs. Appel then had the kids squat down in the garden right in front of all of the stuff that we picked today, which was a ton.  There were green beans, zucchini, yellow squash, cherry tomatoes, and regular sized tomatoes.  Potter is having a fun time with the giant zucchini that Mrs. Appel took home with her!!  

Carousel, lunch and the playground

After going on the carousel with Aunt Laura in July, Caleb and the other kids were geared up for another ride on the carousel at the zoo.  We are so fortunate to have so many carousels that are free in our area.  Dave was outside waiting with the stroller, so I didn't want to get too far away from Caleb for a shot.  That is why Potter's head is not in the best position for a picture.  But don't they all look so cute, lined up on their ponies??  We then headed up to the picnic area to refuel the kids so that they could monkey around on the playground for a bit.  Caleb insisted that Potter take him down the curly slide and it seems that they were both happy about that.  Potter continues to be an excellent climber and makes it to the tops of all the playground equipment.  We had such a fun day together!!  

Family shot

Just a nice walk down the shady, cool part of the main drag of the zoo.

Monkeys, tigers, and another reindeer shot

One of our favorite animals is the golden tamarin monkeys.  There were three babies that were born over the winter, two twins and then a single.  They are so funny to watch, Caleb thought they were quite amusing.  In the bottom left corner next to Potter's head, you can barely make out a dark blob.  That is a two toed sloth who apparently gets along well with the monkeys as they share living quarters.  At one point, on of the monkeys went over and sat on his back.  The sloth never even moved!!  There are also two large tigers in our zoo.  The male was very anxious today, he kept pacing all around his enclosure and making loud moaning kitty noises.  The female was laying down asleep and mostly ignored him.  When we got around to the far side of the zoo, there was another good place to view the reindeer and luckily one of them found a piece of wood with something delicious in it, so we were able to get some good shots of him.  Hope they are bulking up for when Santa needs them to pull that sleigh!!

Reindeer!!

The zoo added three reindeer over the winter and this was our first time glimpsing them in person.  There is an observation room with huge windows that allow you to see the reindeer in one enclosure and some wolves in an adjacent enclosure.  I thought the reindeer were more worthy of blog space!!

Our family day - Binghamton zoo

Today was our family day, Dave took the day off from work and we decided to head over to the Ross Park Zoo in Binghamton.  If I remember correctly, it is the oldest continually operating zoo in the United States.  We had not been to the zoo since last summer, so this was something that the kids were very excited about doing.  It was a gorgeous day, very cool, a little overcast, so we were not baking in the sun!  When you first enter the zoo, the petting area is immediately in front of you, so of course we had to make that our first stop.  There were at least 10 goats, some adults, some kids (ha, pun intended) and they were very friendly, not aggressive, and very agreeable to Caleb giving them some very forceful 'pat pats' on their backs.  There are childrens slides, like the Little Tykes version, all in the goat area and they do like to play on them!!  Molly and Caleb got good laughs out of watching them jump and climb all over.  We unfortunately (or fortunately) didn't have any quarters to get food to feed the goats.  There were some other folks who did, and that is when the goat aggression began!!  They are very pushy and will go right up to the dispenser and eat the food out before you can get it in your hand.  That was when we decided to leave the petting area and move on to other sights.   

Blueberries galore!!

This afternoon, we went up to Apple Hills to pick blueberries.  This is something that we do every summer and it is always a big hit with the kids (and adults) as we all work out way through the orchard, putting just as many blueberries into ourselves as we do the buckets.  They must somehow work this into the price that you pay per pound, either that or they are really stupid not to!!  This year, Caleb was well aware of what was happening and although he did pick and put berries into the buckets, he was much happier picking and then popping them into his mouth!!  The older kids have a contest to see who can find the largest blueberry.   There were many huge ones this year.  And as I type this, there is a blueberry pie in the oven that must have at least 5 cups of blueberries in it.  Don't worry, it is a deep dish pan!!!  So Dave and I will be enjoying that in relatively short order!!  There will be picking for another month at least, we were told, so you should feel free to come and visit us in the coming few weeks and pick with us, as we will no doubt be doing once again!!

Caleb is 22 months

There aren't too many of these updates left, just 2 months following this posting.  Caleb continues to grow up at an amazing rate.  He is saying more and more words and is very close to talking, we think.  He is becoming more independent, extremely competent at following directions, and his self feeding is pretty much a done deal.  He is very agile using a spoon, not really spilling too much that he scoops up.   It is hard to believe that he isn't a baby anymore and that he will be starting preschool this fall.  It may be more difficult to say good-bye to the infant times than I thought it would!

Swimming across to the big rock!

This is the picture of Potter in the middle of the river.  

Payson Park - Georges Canal

We spent some time in the river (downriver of where Jeff and Andrew were flyfishing!!) playing in the water, throwing rocks.  It is a very pretty area with lots of trails that follow along the river with openings to access the water for fishing, swimming.  The water is MUCH warmer in the river than in the ocean, so it was tolerable for an adult to be in for longer than 30 seconds.  The kids really enjoyed being there, the river had a bit of a current to it, so they found that challenging.  Potter went to the center of the river and climbed onto a huge rock under the bridge.  We had just the right amount of time.  After playing in the water for a bit and then having a picnic lunch, the thunder and lightening came along so we split.  I think that is a park we will go back to again next summer.