In The Pool

We had the opportunity to use the pool at the campground. It was hot in the sun and we were quick to jump right in. Todd had a chance to play water basketball with the guys and the girls and I got to visit with my sister and Jen. Edie and Sofia were with my mom and Moe at their camp taking a much needed nap. And yes this is my bathing suit, for the first time in a long time and it's NOT maternity I am in a bathing suit determined to be a confident role model for my girls.

Happy!

Happy Edie Baby

Foxglove

Blinded Sphinx Moth

We woke to find our screen door packed with Blinded Sphinx Moths. They are very docile in the morning, and wait for the morning sun to warm their wings. They are called blinded because when their wings are open the "eyes" on the hind wing lack a pupil.

These moths are part of the Hawkmoth Family and wing spans can reach up to 3 and 3/4 wide. The ones on my door easily filled the palm of my hand. The girls and I watched them for most of the morning until they all fluttered to life and flew off. I must be a bug geek, because I think I'm hooked on finding out what each and every moth on the side of the house was.

More pictures and stories to come. Say tuned...

Christmas Recap

Let me start by saying I did not have the time to bust out the camera. Since the kids were here, there, and everywhere.
Let me paint a picture for you. It was a sea of tents and camp chairs. The Piccolo's had a tent (4 in that one). Krys, Matt, Becca and Liz had theirs, Kerry and Fred and Darla (cute little pup) had a tent, actually more like a suite nice set up guys! Then we had our little villa of tents towards the back of the site. Actually I think we all took up about 6 sites. In the center was the fire ring (thankfully fires only after 5.) Surrounding that were camp chairs of every size, make and model. There were kiddie chairs, rockers, and a love seat. Hidden in the back behind the tented community was a jumping house, like you would see at carnivals. The kids...and Auntie Kerry had a blast.
From these pictures you can see the babies (Edie and Sofia) loved their Dora riding cars. Sofia your doing a great job walking! Ethan enjoyed playing with his cousins. Jen Nick and Trevor came up and added to the summer time fun. Aubrey and Reagan teamed up with squirting water toys to go after Ethan. He was a trooper, in the end everyone was soaked and belly laughing




Here is daredevil Sofia, testing the limits of her new ride. The kids had a blast. They were free range for most of the weekend with the freedom to explore and always be with in view. No-one wandered off, and everyone stuck close to camp. The twins went in a pool for the first time, again no fear, they loved it. They each took turns floating around with Daddy and I got a chance to visit with Dani and Jen. Mom you have those photos, cant wait to see them.
We returned to camp to dry off and fill our tummies with dinner.




Aubrey was very serious in this picture.
The kids all got special cars and other assorted goodies. They were the entertainment for most of the day and into the early evening. Thank you everyone for helping us with them. Utterly exhausted by the end of the night each tent settled down and the delightful sounds of sleep filled the clear night air. The weather was perfect and we had a great time. I told the twins stories of princesses and tall castles and (eventually) they drifted off to sleep. She opened one eye and asked if we sleeping under the stars.

Pops

She is so stinkin' cute! To keep cool we had pops...lots of pops today. She just loves them.

Playdate

Andy came over today for a playdate. Gosh it was so hot. We were outside in the water all day. They had a blast, running here and there, up the hill down the hill, in the pool out of the pool, catching grasshoppers and chasing a frog,phew I'm exhausted writing it imagine tagging along with them all day! Here is a great shot of the twins and Andy enjoying an icee pop. Everyone played really well together and Edie kept up with the 'big kids' too. Here they are lining up some peanuts for the chipmunks. They thought if they put them on the ground and stood right over them the chippy's would come and eat them. No luck. We came in for lunch and then the little buggers came out. Every now and then a brave one would dart across the drive and Edie would stand and point, and yell Haaaa Haaaaa (Her little way of saying hello).

Contact me

Here is my e-mail for those of you without a google account. You can write me at deefisch@comcast.net

Foxgloves

With all this hot weather and a good dose of cool water my flowers are starting to bloom. The Foxgloves are ready to burst open and feed the steady stream of butterflies that float around the house, I love the fact that they multiply fast and are deer resistant.
It seems like everything is taking a long time this year. The veggies all have flowers and I have a couple of teeny tiny hot peppers but no real crop yet. Thankfully the Farmers Market in town opens on the 13th and I'll be able to pick up some local fresh fruits and veggies. It'll be fun to take the girls, they'll enjoy it, and we'll have some great food for Christmas in July.

My flower boxes are gorgeous on the front of the house, my bookend trees still a little bare (not deer resistant!) Does anyone have any good deer resistant bright flowers they could recommend?

The Sand Box

Todd built the girls a wonderful 8x8 sandbox this weekend. The girls have been in it as much as possible, caking themselves in the shimmery camel colored sand.
You know what I've been noticing lately? The girls are moving in unison. They mirror each others body language and movements. Here are some good example of how they move alike.
They are frateral and look different but when they are dressd the same and thier hair is done the same from the back I can't even tell the difference sometimes, even more so now since they'e been so in synch. They have always said the same things at the same time and have the same tone to their voice.
Aubrey walked before Reagan, and Reagan talked before Aubrey, but fluidity and movement at this point are parallel. Their thought processes are different. At the end of the day they are thier own unique person.

So Happy...

So Sad...

The girls were showing me their sad faces when I told them we had go inside. Isn't Aubrey's bottom lip a killer. Reagan was trying to be sad, but she kept smiling!

Dre's boo-boo

Edie was very interested in Andrea's crutches.

Reagan wanted to be held and be able to touch the new purple cast, and Aubrey was very concerned at the who, what, where, why and how of it. I hope we were a good dose of entertainment.

Everybody Wave

Ahhhh, another gorgeous day at the lake. We had some great company.
Chad and Dre came out to join us. Andrea you are such a trooper! Not seen in this picture is your gorgeous purple cast encased in the suctioned tarp blue aqua leg :) You had the kids crawling all over you all day and you kept smiling! I must admit I thought someone was going to hurt your leg somehow, thankfully you went as un-re injured as possible, Phew.
We had all found our way down to the water. Edie has no fear! It scares me! She went walking right into the water as everyone drifted away from shore. Edie and I splashed around on the shore and then headed up the house when she began to shiver. I wrapped her up in some cozy towels and we sat in the sun warming her up as she enjoyed a bottle of warm milk. We watched everyone swim and float and I got to snap some pretty good shots of everyone.

Hair Pretties

Edie's new look. Love It! Reagan was about this age when she ate and passed a hair pretty (a tiny baby barrette). Edie, is (like I've said before) in the oral fixation phase of growing, this just means she likes to everything in her mouth. We are not talking just one little clip, she shovels them all in. Therefore we are taking a break from the little hair pretties and using some stylish head bands until she is less prone to eat everything.

Carnival

In the center of town there is a traveling carnival with a few rides, a fun house and some kiddy games. They were also offering up a menu of lemonade, fried dough and sausages. So we had to go! I unfortunately did not bring my camera.
The twins had a blast going down the big slide atop a burlap bag, taking turns going with mommy and daddy. They rode the carousel 4 times. They bounced in a big tiger shaped jumper. Reagan unfortunately got stepped on so that was the end of that. And lastly I got kicked off of a ride because I was to 'grown up'. So you had be under fifty four inches tall, I wanted to make sure the girls were safe. It was a red glittery fire engine with three rows. So I buckled myself into the third row until the attendant saw me and shook his head at me and gave me a thumb pointed in the direction of the exit gate. My girls went on their first ride with out mom or dad. They were brave as was I.

The Lake House

Everyone was in line for some Spiderman fruit snacks.

Here are all the kids quiet and in one spot enjoying their snacks. A picture like this is hard to come by. I have a hard time getting three of them to sit still never mind six!

Edie was allowed to have her pipe (pacifier) at the beach. She is still in the infant development stage of oral fixation, this means EVERYTHING goes in her mouth, and yes that includes large hand fulls and shovel fulls of beach sand. Therefore, Edie was allowed to have her pipe at the beach so she didn't eat the sand.

'Mommy I'm having so much fun.'

Reagan had made this comment to me more than once while we were at the beach. She enjoyed looking for shells, snails and crabs. It was beautiful to see them enjoying this.
Aubrey loved jumping the waves and splashing around in the cool water. Being the social butterfly she is she skipped her way over to all the little kids in the tide pools and the boys and girls building sand castles. She tried to start up conversations and handed out hugs.

A Day At The Beach

We took another adventure on Daddy's vacation. A trip to the beach. We went up to Wells ME. We were familiar with the area and it was a perfect day. Again we were packed and on the road by 8am. We parked, changed 3 very excited little ones into swimsuits and poured on the sunscreen. As you can see Todd was getting a workout. He had Edie on his back (22lbs.) and the twins in the buggy (24lbs. each) with all the chairs, toys and essentials tucked underneath. It was a short walk from the area where we parked to the beach.

How do you build a sandcastle with three toddlers?
Answer: you don't.
It's simply fill the bucket, tip it over and 'stomp' on it. The three (four) of them loved doing this.

Of course there is that familiar smell of the beach, kind of marshy old seaweed smell that lingers in the air. Aubrey was quick to make her super sniffer statement, 'mama, I smell someting'. Once there, the twins ran right into the ocean and Edie was quick to follow. It was her first trip and the twins second trip to the beach. The water was about 60 degrees, and we found a quiet little spot with a quick exit. We were by some tide pools and everyone got to explore or find a cool place to sit as the tide came in. I kept commenting how beautiful the day was.

Success

We packed the night before, and woke at 6am. We were on the road by 7:45am.

We had a successful adventure at Story Land. It took us two and half hours to drive up through the White Mountains, what a gorgeous day full of sunshine and cool air. They girls kept saying look at the mountains Mama, aren't they pretty. Edie (who sits in the middle would say ooooh wow.
Reagan chatted the WHOLE time up in the car asking lots of questions, singing, and telling stories. Her sisters slept. She had a mini meltdown at the main gate. Totally understandable, I felt a bit overwhelmed. We entered through this brightly colored crooked little house with crooked doors and windows, with LOTS of people, commotion and noise. Once inside and out of the buggy she was fine.

On the way home Aubrey was the one who stayed awake, and chatted ALL the way down to Concord. Eventually the three of them slept at the same time.

Round trip was 222 miles. The kids did great. We did great! The twins walked all day. They had fantastic behavior and we had loud clapping in the car at the end of our adventure to celebrate the good listening and staying with Mom and Dad. They didn't run off, and stuck close to us, asking ALOT of questions! Here are some pictures of our adventure, the highlights...

We found our way to Cinderella's castle. NO-ONE but Mommy shook her hand. They did take a picture.

Aubrey was a little excited. We wound our way through the park, surprisingly it wasn't to packed, we strolled around and took our time watching the train and finding it all sunshine and smiles as the girls saw and experienced things for the first time. It was beautiful.

Here they are exploring the inside of a giant pumpkin. We checked out a couple of the rides we thought the twins would be able to do. But they went a little faster than I felt comfortable putting a two year old on. They didn't ask to go on them, but enjoyed watching them. There were lots of storybook tales they could interact with and we were thrilled to experience this as a family.

Again, the twins trying to fight their way out of a small space at the same time:)

Edie had a good time too, she enjoyed riding around on Mommy's back all day. Enjoying cool sips of water and tart lemonade. (She weighs 22lbs by the way!) We tried putting her in the stroller a couple of times but she wasn't comfortable with it. She wanted to do what her sisters were doing any time she was 'out' of any type of restraining contraption. She and I would hang out in the shade and take our shoes off feeling the grass under our toes and the sun on our faces while Todd and the twins would explore.


This attraction is called Professor Bigglesteps Loopy Lab.
It was this dome and inside were all these vacuums and blowers. You would feed balls into boxes, tubes, tunnels and funnels, and they would shoot out all over the inside of the dome raining down on everyone. It was a Styrofoam shower of blue, green and pink. There were handheld shooters on the second level. It was absolute mayhem and all three of them loved it. Belly laughing and giggling.

Edie just stood in the middle and squealed. Reagan sat in one spot feeding one machine and watching where the ball would blow out. Aubrey was running all over just delirious from the chaos.
Here is Reagan sitting still amid the chaos.

The ride home we had to stop three times to adjust, get snacks and drinks. The kids ate a great dinner and went to bed early, as did we. We felt success and it felt good to know we can finally go places and have a great time.

The web site said to plan 6 hours for the visit. We made it four hours, not to bad!! Well worth the drive and the memories.
Where to next?, you ask. Well Todd is on vacation this week, we are going to set up a schedule of adventures that include the beach, the lake, a hike, mini golf, and maybe a few other fun family adventures.

Stay tuned....

Before

After