Apple Picking

Over the weekend I took the younger two boys apple picking.  This year we decided to try a new orchard right in town that I had heard great things about.  The place is really cool, an older couple runs the orchard which is on a farm, and just perfect for the kids.  

They have wagons you can use in the orchards.  Evan decided he wanted to pull Nathan on the path to the orchards.  He told me he was "building his muscles".  Nathan LOVED getting a ride from his brother!  

 The trees in the orchard are perfect size for the kids to pick from, all very low with the cutest kid-sized apples.  Evan got a kick out of being able to pick and put them right in the bag with no help from me.

 There are lots of different varieties so we sampled a few types to decide which were our favorites that we wanted to bring home with us.  Poor Evan has three wiggly teeth (finally! he hasn't lost a single tooth yet, and he is coming up on 7 years old!) and this made it really hard to eat the apples.  He adopted this side bite technique that worked well enough.

 Nathan picked a few apples but he was more interested in eat the apples.  He wandered the fields with an apple in hand, munching away.

 It was a beautiful day, the orchard was so peaceful, the weather was perfect.  We enjoyed ourselves so much.  It was one of those days you just want to remember forever.

 My favorite picture of the day was this one of Nathan taking a giant bite out of his apple.

 The ride back with a bag full of delicious apples to take home!

 YUM.

Lately

I continue enjoying the days spent with Nathan while the boys are at school.  Nathan is such a great kid.  We have lots of fun doing even the most mundane of tasks together, like grocery shopping or cleaning.  But, Ive also been sneaking in some fun for the two of us.  

I have been tackling some serious projects around the house.  Lots of simplifying and de-cluttering going on in our home.  I've carried out over 15 bags of clothes and toys and stuff from the house.  Trying to reduce the general amount of things around and make for a more relaxing and clutter free environment for each of the boys in their rooms and in the playroom as well as in G and my space, which we have reclaimed as our own!!  It feels good to purge.  

I took Nathan, with a friend and her boys, to his first ever movie last week, we saw Toy Story in the theater.  Nathan LOVED it.  He sat through the whole movie mesmerized.  It was a really special experience for us to do together.  

Ive been taking Nathan weekly to meet up with a couple friends at a local indoor play space.  The kids get to run around and play no matter the weather outside, which is so great.  I love watching Nathan with friends his age, something he rarely got to enjoy before the Fall, because of his older brothers and schedules.  He does really well interacting with other kids.  You can tell his has older siblings that he interacts with all the time.  Its nice.  Evan was so, so, so shy at Nathan's age, he never wanted to interact or play with peers.  Its a refreshing change to not worry about whether he will enjoy himself with friends.  

 We have also been enjoying having my parents right down the street now.  They are in the process of fixing up the house and preparing it to move in.  The boys are in LOVE with the idea of having their Nana and Pa in walking distance from them.  Its so special to have them come off the bus excited to get their homework done so they can go and see their Nana and Pa and the progress on the house.  Justin has been helping with a couple projects even.  And both boys love playing in their big backyard and exploring new territory! Its going to be such a great thing when they finally move in permanently!

This is their new house, its less than 0.2 of a mile from our house, on the same street.  We walk to visit them!  A welcome change from the 40 minute drive they used to live from us!!!

Things have been really quiet around here for the older boys.  I decided we are taking a much simpler approach to our year.  Instead of running around here and there all hurried and out of breath, we are slowing down and enjoying a break.  We are abandoning the constant need to be doing something.  We are embracing the word "no" when it comes to commitments that will stress us out or cause us to juggle children and cars and schedules. Last year with Lego, gymnastics, cub scouts, baseball for two kids, karate for two kids, OT, PT, and play dates and always something else to do or somewhere else to be I was overwhelmed and very stressed out and the kids were too.   Whats more, the kids were rushing through their school work and reading after school so they could get to the next thing.  I felt that their education was being put on a back burner.  So, this year we have cut nearly everything out of our nights and weekends.  We are allowing the kids to be "bored" and have the chance to discover and play for themselves instead of constantly orchestrating fun for them.  At first I was worried the boys would feel "left out" of activities.  However, they have embraced this change with happiness without a single complaint.  No one has begged for sports or lessons or anything.  At night we have had time to read together and talk and snuggle and have leisurely baths and play board games and a million other things that I feel are so much more meaningful to our lives right now.  Our schedule is predictable and reliable which is something that benefits Evan greatly.  Everyone is getting to bed on time, which means no one is overly tired and cranky the next day, something that benefits mommy!

So, you will have to excuse the lack of photos and in its place you can come over and enjoy some time with our family!  We will be home!  And together!

Videos!

A video of the three older boys at the beach riding some waves.  I love how much fun they were having together.

Nathan on the beach loading hermit crabs into his dump truck.  We found so many hermit crabs on the beach.  Over a hundred at least.  Nathan played happily with them in his truck taking them for rides, putting them back and taking new ones.  It was so cute to watch.

I took out the Halloween costume bin, in anticipation of the upcoming holiday.  Nathan had a blast dressing up as everything - his favorite was a knight!  So cute.

Every week since school started, Ive been doing something "special" with Nathan.  Last week I took Nathan to his first ever movie in a theatre.  We saw Toy Story.  Nathan sat through the entire thing.  It was such a fun and great experience with him.  I got this video of him as the movie started.  He looked so cute sitting there in his own chair.

I have been meeting up with one of our friends from our old neighborhood at a local indoor play space.  This place is fabulous, its a giant turf field with lots of balls and ride on toys and room for the kids to run and play!  Nathan spent alot of time this past week pretending to crash and fall off the ride on toys.  Quite funny.

Sweet Boy

Nathan has been asking for a baby doll for months now.  Ever since he fell in love with a dirty old rubber baby doll at a friend's cookout and wouldn't put the thing down the whole party.  He buried the doll in the sand box, pushed it in a baby stroller and ran through a sprinkler with the thing.  I was reluctant to give into his requests not because I care that my son plays with baby dolls.  Far from it, in fact, I love that my son my old enjoys the doll house from when I was a child.  I embrace gender ambiguity!  My hesitation was that his love for the doll would not last and Id be stuck with another toy on another shelf.  [Ive been working really hard since school started to cleanse our house of all those toys on shelves collecting dust.  Ive gotten rid of over 12 bags of clothes and toys in the last couple weeks.  It feels so good.]  So, Ive been holding off on the baby doll.

Until yesterday when I saw this cute rubber baby doll similar to the one he adored at my friend's house.  Today I gave it to him.  He is in love.  Nathan calls the doll a "him" even though its clearly in a pink and purple shirt and has a "vagina" which he identified correctly (high fives all around for correct anatomy lessons by moi).  The baby doll which has yet to be named, has gone to the grocery store with us, naked (he took the clothes off in the car on the way to the grocery store and demanded that the baby was "hot" and needed to be naked.  The naked baby sat on its head in the cart next to Nathan the whole grocery trip.  The baby doll came to the bus stop with us.  Nathan carried the doll by one foot upside down while holding a Popsicle in his other hand, eating away.  His brothers were, ahem, not impressed by the greeting of Nathan with a doll in his arms.  Baby doll even took a bath with Nathan tonight.  Nathan washed his eyes really well with LOTS of soap!  

Its endearing, and also very comical, to watch him with the baby doll.  He takes such care feeding it from a cup and wiping its mouth after it eats.  But then he bangs it around while he walks and drops it in the dirt in exchange for a truck outside.  Its just the right amount of sweetness and boy-ness.

I Want to Remember - This Weekend

I want to remember how beautiful the weather was.  Sunny and warm with a breeze.  The ocean was still warm enough for the boys to splash around in the surf.  The sand was hot from the sun.  The clouds were white and puffy and moved across the sky making ever changing pictures that G and I watched while Nathan slept on the blanket next to us and the boys waded in the tidal pools of Gray's Beach.  I couldn't have wished for more perfect weather for this trip.

I want to remember the joy.  So many giggles and squeals from the four boys as the rode the surf in at Sea Street Beach.  Screams of excitement as Andrew, Justin and Evan played with three baby bath toy boats for half an hour, throwing the boats in the surf and watching them wash back up on the shore.  The yells of happiness at Pirates Cove mini golf as they made their way around the 18 hole course.  Justin didnt want to complete one of the holes because it was a jump and he was afraid of losing his ball.  Andrew dumping a load of sand from his bathing suit only to discover a sand flea ALIVE inside!

I want to remember the feeling of peace.  Sitting in the sand watching the boys all play, explore and enjoy themselves so completely and independently it occurred to me how peaceful I felt.  I will miss the sound of the ocean until next summer.

I want to remember the discovery.  Finding our way to a new ice cream shop on foot through the Cape streets.  My boys catching over a hundred hermit crabs on the tidal pools.  Nathan holding them with no fear, pushing them around in his dump truck in the shallow waters. Evan scooping up minnows with his net, one after another, like he had been doing it his whole life.  He caught 12 fish!  Walking the long pier with Justin holding my hand, enjoying the beauty and peace of the ocean alone with him.  Counting the planks, losing count, going back, estimating over 1600 planks on the pier.

I want to remember it all because it was perhaps two of my favorite days not only this summer but always...