On Turning One

I can hardly believe it – I’m about to turn one!  Last August we celebrated my cousin Caleb’s first birthday at his home in DE and also in NY.  He looks so excited with anticipation, don’t you think?

 

And it’s no wonder – look at that awesome cupcake he got!

I can’t wait for my turn!

At the NY party Caleb got all dressed up and showed us he wanted to be a journalist or something.  I bet the first thing he writes about is that giant birthday cake he got!  My big brother (a.k.a., “THING 1”) made a cameo in the cake shot.  Can you spot him?

 

We got Caleb this awesome Little Einsteins riding toy.  If this is what it’s like to turn one, I’m all for it!

As usual, time spent with family includes lots of chill time entertaining one another.  Here I am turning it on for my Jiu Ma while she talks and sings to me.

A Photo-Retrospective Amid Snowfall

Well, we’ve had our first real snowfall of the season and again it seems like a good time to reflect on the warmer days of summer.  This is going to be a huge photo retrospective so let your eyes enjoy the images of warm summer fun – especially if there’s snow on the ground outside where you are.

At the sprinkler park – always a good time with my buddies!

A great day at Nippo Lake – so much fun I only have one picture!

Story Land New Hampshire – two days of awesome adventure!

Beach, Barn Animals, Blueberries, and Buddies

Now that it’s kind of cold out, it seems like a great time to look back to the warmer days of summer!

Jaden and I took a quick trip out to the Cochituate State Park in August.  Look how warm and sunny it was!

I was joined by a couple of buddies, Daniel and Sarah Elizabeth.  We’re total beach bums.

Our mommies are so great to go through all this effort to get us some fresh air and sunshine, but it looks like they’re having a pretty good time, too.  Oh, and there’s my silly big brother.  Hi Jaden!

Later that same week we did some blueberry picking at a farm.  I don’t have any blueberry pictures, but here’s Jaden checking out the farm animals in the barn.

And here are the wonderful super mommies that took us out for an exciting time that day.  -edit- Mommy tells me this picture is completely out of context and the caption is totally wrong.  But I think it’s a cute one anyhow, so I’m going to leave it here.

Afterward we had a little picnic with more of our friends.  It was a long, fun day.  Just look how tired Jaden was!

The next day Uncle Mike, Uncle Kris, Auntie Donna, Grace Marie, and Evelina came to visit.  Here Uncle Mike and I are having a funny face staring contest.

Meanwhile, Jaden is sharing his freshly picked blueberry with the girls.  -edit- Mommy says those are some kind of grapes, not the blueberries Jaden picked.  It’s okay, just don’t tell the girls and hopefully they’ll still be very impressed!

Sprinklers, Castles, and the Border Cafe

So much to get caught up on!  Pictures are worth 1,000 words each, so I’ll use them to save myself some typing.  ‘= )  Mommy took me and Jaden to a sprinkler park several times through the summer.  Our first visit was in early August when we finally started to get some nice summer weather around here.

It’s so nice to go places with my family, even tho I can’t run around and be crazy myself just yet.

Jaden and John had a great time with buckets, water, and probably some things they shouldn’t have been doing..

Here they are being really silly!  Jaden tried to escape, but it looks like John has a pretty good throwing arm.

Next summer I’ll be as big as these guys and I bet my big brother will show me how to have a great time, too.

A couple days later we went to Castle Island with more friends.  Boy, those tubes look like fun!

Some day I’ll have big boy friends, too.

But in the meanwhile I really like being cuddly with my Auntie Amy!  What are Jaden and Uncle Erick looking at?  Big boys are so silly.

Fire!

The other day, Daddy went out and bought the coolest thing ever..  a fire pit!  It’s not as cool as Papa’s, which is built right into the ground with big rocks, but it still does the trick.  I kept asking Daddy why we couldn’t use our rocks to build a nice fire pit, but he said our rocks weren’t big enough.  I think this is a nice compromise.

To show my appreciation I helped out in tending to our very first fire.

Once I had it going pretty good we all sat around and enjoyed ourselves, ate some dinner, and when it got dark..

..we roasted marshmallows and made s’mores, of course!

Gala Fireworks

Wow, this post is very late in coming, but the fireworks video will make you feel like it was totally worth waiting for.  Trust me.

 

On July 3rd Needham hosted its Gala Fireworks in celebration of Independence Day.  We showed up early and nabbed some great seats with Uncle Berhan, Auntie Karen, and Karynna.  I had to pass the time somehow so I blew lots of bubbles and tried to pop as many as I could.

Blowing and popping bubbles oneself turned out to be a lot harder than I thought.

It was also lots of fun to just chase one another around on the synthetic turf.

As it got dark, we lit up our flexible glow sticks that Uncle Berhan bought for us.  He’s so nice, unlike Daddy who blinded me with the camera flash.  I had a great time spinning the glow stick while waiting for the main attraction to begin.

Lots of well-deserved oohs and ahhs!

So high in the sky!

And beautiful!

The big finale!

Fireworks just don’t seem complete without some great American music.  Here’s the John Philip Sousa band playing The Stars and Stripes Forever from 1906.  I hope you can enjoy it almost as much as I did!  God bless America.

What a Six-Week-Old Does on Vacation

Most people probably don’t know, so I figured I’d let you all in on the answer to..  What does a six-week-old does on vacation?

Be held..  a lot.

Get some sun – got to keep up the Vitamin D level!

Supervise.

Enjoy some music and entertainment.

Commune with nature.

Exercise.

Blow lots and lots of tiny bubbles.

Kayaking

Probably the coolest thing we did here in Schroon lake at Nana and Papa’s house was to go out on the lake in Kayaks!  We went twice, but only took pictures on our first outing.

Here we are just starting out.  Daddy is teaching me the basics.

It wasn’t long before we were off and cruising out on the lake.

And it wasn’t long before Daddy had me rowing him all around the place.  Boy that was quick!  I think he planned this all along, but I didn’t mind.

We rowed out into the middle of the narrows together to check out the shallow water and the buoys.

Papa checked out all the neighborhood beaches to see how things were shaping up around the lake shore.

I transferred over to Mommy’s kayak and just for fun we chased after Papa pretending to crash into him and splash him.  We let him go, because we’re so nice.

Mommy and I enjoyed the beautiful scenery and the setting sun together.  It was such a nice time.

Mommy put me to work, too, and I practically rowed her all the way back to shore.  That just proves how much I love her!

Once we all got back I helped Papa and Daddy bring the all the kayaks back to our generous neighbors who loaned them to us for the week.

I basically carried most of the weight myself.

Evening Shenanigans

In the evenings we always seem to come up with fun things to do, especially when the weather is really nice.  A couple of times Jaden and Papa put together a nice fire in the back yard.

First they would crumple up paper and throw it into the fire pit.

Then they’d throw on some split pine for kindling.

And finally some split logs.

Look at this blaze!

Papa and Jaden are very proud of their nice fire.

As for me, I was kind of tired.  But don’t get me wrong, I was very impressed with their fire making skills.  I just find myself sleeping a lot.

It’s not all work, work, work, tho.  We spent some time just chilling together watching the fire grow.

I got some great quality time with Mommy!

And I always get lots of brotherly cuddle time.

And lots of sleep.  Did I mention that already?

Nana and Papa have an impressive garden.

They pick fresh vegetables from it nearly every night for us.  Jaden loves it, but I have a while to go before I can enjoy these fine foods.

After dinner we go back down to the fire to roast marshmallows.

Jaden loves these with chocolate and graham crackers.

In fact, it looks like everybody really likes these little sandwiches of warm, gooey, chocolately, crunchy, grahamy, uhmm.. messy goodness.

Oh yeah – messy, indeed.  Maybe next year I can get in the action.

But for now I’m happy to be adored by my Nana and Papa.

Some day I’ll be big like my brother Jaden, and they’ll put me in charge of the goodies, surround me with mosquito repelling candles, and give me a nice cushy chair.

But until then, I will observe and learn as much as I can from the pro’s like my big brother.

Bubbles!

I’ve been playing so hard here that I often need a good scrub-down at the end of the day and there’s no better place for that than in my Papa’s jacuzzi!

I was quickly overrun by bubbles I had to find some way to manage them all.  Even this big cup wasn’t enough to contain them all, and they seemed to just keep on coming.

Look!  I’m nearly drowning in bubbles.

And my chicken – who is an excellent swimmer, by the way – needed to be rescued several times.

We grew bubble hair together.  What fun!

Daddy asked if he could jump in, but I told him there was no room – clearly!  Take a look.  Where would he fit?

After an hour or so, it was time to clean up the tub and the tile.  That was even more fun, to be honest, but don’t tell anyone that.