1st Father's Day

When Mother's Day rolled around this spring, Mike asked me what I wanted to do for my first one. I suggested dinner out and hanging out with the boys. My expectations were pretty low. Several weeks ago, I posed the same question to Mike for Father's Day. He said he didn't know and would think about it. A couple of days later, he came up with pretty grand plans for the day - A visit to Rockport, Ma, beach time at Good Harbor Beach and dinner at The Village (a favorite family post beach spot from his childhood). So, it was going to be a packed day.

Plans were revised the night before, by Mike, to start with walking around the grounds of the Crane Estate in Ipswich, Ma which I had been interested in seeing. So, we got up, packed up for the day (not a small feat given the grand plans) and headed out.

The day was really hot and muggy so it's a good thing we had gotten there pretty early. Because even walking around that morning, the heat was strong. Also strong were the mosquitoes! I, being a mosquito magnet, got virtually eaten alive (luckily I took the brunt away from Dylan who didn't seem to get even one bite). To add to it, I didn't know how big the grounds were and only had flip flops so my doggies were starting to woof after walking around for a long while. Despite these minor inconveniences, we had a really fun time walking around the grounds.

Back of Castle Hill, Crane Estate

Dylan Enjoys Touching EverythingCool Statue

Estate and Casino

Crane's Beach

View of House From Beach Area (About 1/2 Mile)

Crawling Around The Grounds

The Boys!

After our hike around the estate, we headed to Rockport. Mike wanted to try out a seafood shack for lunch that he had read about. We parked in the middle of town and started to walk there not realizing that it was about 3 miles. Given the poor shoe choice for hiking around all day, I sent Mike back for the car about half way there and Dylan and I finished the walk. The timing was pretty good and Mike, Dylan and I all arrived about the same time.

We opted for a seat indoors since we'd been out in the sun plenty already. While we enjoyed some great seafood (and watermelon), Dylan entertained the diners around us....mostly elderly couples that just ate his hammy behavior up!

Mmmmmmmm, Watermelon!

After lunch, we headed back to town, shopped around a bit and then called it a day. We were getting into afternoon nap time and didn't want to risk having an unhappy first experience on the beach. So, we'll do that another time. We'd had enough of the heat and the sun anyway. We headed home, Dylan napped in the car, Mike napped when we got home and Dylan and I enjoyed watching the crazy afternoon storm we got. The rest of the day was spent being leisurely at home.

It was a full first Father's Day but Mike had a great time and we all had a memorable time together.

Inflatable Architecture

(Still behind on events....still playing catch up. Story of my life.)

Two weeks ago, I had the honor of attending the Common Boston kick off party that my cousin, Mary, was hosting. Common Boston was several days of events around the city highlighting architecture and design. I just popped the party by for an hour or so after Dylan went to bed, but I was so happy to be able to support Mary and her event. I also got to meet her long time boyfriend, Brandon, for the first time.

Brandon, Mary and Me

The theme of the party was monochromatic clothing and inflatable dressing rooms. That's right, I said inflatable dressing rooms. It was also in a very cool, modern space - The Artists For Humanity Epicenter. The effect of it all was very visually interesting. If you didn't have a monochromatic outfit, you could obtain one for a small donation and quickly change into it in the dressing rooms that Mary and Brandon had built. The inflatable dressing rooms came about from a course the two of them recently taught on inflatable architecture. Pretty cool\fun stuff. You can check out more info on this topic on Mary's blog.

Babies Galore

It seems I'm always a couple of weeks behind posting events here. Well, at least I get to (most of) them eventually! Today, we'll go back a couple of weekends to a great visit from out of town friends and an exciting baby shower.

My good friend, Ana Maria, came to Boston with her daughter, Elise, and we had the pleasure of hosting them. Normally, she stays with our friend Tamara but given there's a new baby in the house, she decided not to impose on them. That was great news to me...that meant I got to spend a lot more time with her than I usually do on her visits!

To start the weekend, folks gathered at our house on Friday to welcome the gals to town. We all checked out our new patio that had almost been completed that day (more on the yard renovation on posts to come), ordered in some grub and had a nice time together. Dylan and Elise had a lot of fun playing with each other....well mostly next to each other but they stayed entertained non the less.

Elise, Ana Maria and Tamara
Dylan Flying High!

7 Week Old Elsa and Dad (Ross)

Elise and Dylan Having a Great Time On the Soon to be Folded out Couch

Elsa with Her Mom (Tamara)

On Saturday morning, Ana Maria and Elise left for the day and Dylan and I headed out to my friend Jennifer's baby shower. Jenn is due in August....with twins! Yep, she's going to have a boy and a girl. I seriously cannot even imagine how chaotic and wonderful her life will be when those babies come. I'm obviously no baby expert, but I will do what I can to help her out when that time comes. Given that she's just moved into my neighborhood, hopefully that will be a decent amount.

Dylan had an awesome time crawling all around the venue, flirting with all the ladies and eating practically my entire plate of food. It's funny, I used to dread baby showers and now I actually enjoy them. Maybe it's because all the gifts aren't so foreign and incomprehensible to me now or maybe because there's increasingly less time to spend with friends and any reason to get to see them is something to look forward to. In any case, even though I spent a good portion of the time running after Dylan, it was great to see the gals and I had a nice time.)

Jenn (Carrying Twins), Me and Dylan Saturday night, Ana Maria and Elise met us back at the house and we all had our traditional pizza and a movie night. Dylan and Elise continued to have a great time playing together. That night, we found out that laser pointers are not only entertaining to cats but entertaining to little tykes too!

Can You Get that Little Red Dot?

After a nice morning together on Sunday, Ana Maria and Elise packed up and went off to the airport to pick up the missing piece of the family, Theo. He was in town for business so they'd all be in a hotel together for the remainder of their stay in the area.

Monday night, we were able to see them one last time at a group dinner. This was Tamara and Ross's first venture to dinner with baby Elsa and, with so many young tots about, it was certainly going to be interesting. While I'm sure our surrounding diners didn't love us, the kids were mostly behaved and the parents all survived. But yes, it was a little bit crazy.

Elsa, Ross,Tamara,Elise,Ana Maria, Theo, Me, Mike and Dylan

Man, there were a lot of kids around that weekend. I suppose it's just a sign of what's to come. We're certainly not used to being surrounded by wee ones on friend gatherings, but we'll have to get used to it!

The Big Apple

While unpacking a bag of stuff we had packed for Father's Day (that post is to still to come), Mike set down an apple on a bench. Dylan swooped over, grabbed it and started to bite it. After some work, he broke through the skin and started nibbling away. Mike sent me this video of the event while I was at work. I couldn't believe my little baby was eating a big apple all by himself! The video is just too cute not to share.

First Apple

(Note - I didn't realize until after posting that the video on the lap top was not the abridged video I had received via email yesterday. Instead of taking 10 minutes to upload another video, you can either watch a minute and a half of edge of your seat apple eating or just watch a few seconds. If you don't watch it all, you won't be missing any spectacular ending!)

Hickory Hill Farm - Part 2

Last month, I posted about our fun visit to see our friends Jessica, Chris and Samuel at the Hickory Hill Farm open house. She just sent me a great group picture of us I wanted to share. Enjoy!

Sam, Chris, Jessica, Kara, Mike Dylan

Business In the Front, Party In The Back

That's right, I'm talking about the mullet. It's the hairstyle that we love to hate.....and my little baby has been sporting one! Not only did he have the mullet, but he also had wing dings - long, straggly hair that went over the tops of his ears and stuck out to the side.

Baby Mullet!

Now, since he's a baby, he obviously still looked really cute with that crazy hair and could have gotten away with it for longer. However, I've seen so many children with silly looking hair that was long and ungainly because their mother's didn't want to admit that their baby's was growing up and wouldn't cut it. I vowed long ago to not be that kind of mother. But, of course, I ended up being that person and waited probably longer than I should have to give Dylan another first....his first haircut.

In my defense, Mike and I have been talking about cutting it for a while. Over the last couple of weeks, we haven't had a good opportunity. Between Dylan being fussy with fever, then fussy because of not napping well and being super clingy with Mom on the weekends, plopping him down and putting scissors near his head just didn't happen. Speaking of which, putting sharp objects near a wiggly baby....nerve racking enough to put it off as long as you can!

Well, since a good opportunity never came up, we just had to do it when we had a couple of seconds. So, yesterday morning just before he went down for his nap, right before I went to work, we got a not so great pair of blunt scissors and I started hacking away the mullet!

Before

After

Sleepy Baby With Fresh Hair Cut Ready For a Nap

Now, I know I'm not going to win any hair styling awards, but considering it's the first time I've tried to cut anyone elses hair, and only taking basic attempts of trimming bangs on my own, it wasn't too bad of a job. Dylan wiggled and squirmed all the way through it, as we expected he would, and made sure not to make it an easy job. So, we'll have to trim a little more here and there as we can and hope it doesn't look too hacked up.

11 Months

Such a big month for someone who's getting to be such a big boy! Throughout the month, I track on my iPhone all of Dylan's new events and accomplishments. I am absolutely amazed at how long the list is this month. Lots of things to report. So, let's do it!

Just a couple of days after his 10 month birthday, Dylan became an official "cruiser." After seeing some foot movement while holding onto furniture, he quickly advanced to circling around the coffee table again and again. Now, that boy is standing and cruising all over the place. He also transfers from one piece of furniture to another with ease. Mom and Dad have been great helps with helping him walk. He smiles from ear to ear while we hold his hands and he walks all over the house. A few times, he's taken some steps while only holding on with one hand. One of his favorite activities while we are assisting his walking is kicking the ball around. He's also balanced while standing on his own for a couple of seconds. I'm not sure he'll be walking in the next couple of days but it's definitely imminent!

We celebrated my first Mother's Day and the appearance of Dylan's 4th tooth the same day. He's making good use of those teeth and has learned how to bite off pieces of food. Not a picky eater in the least, he tries anything we give him. Though, he has definitely developed more preferences and will be "done" with certain foods and want to eat something else. Still, his favorite thing to eat is whatever we're eating.

Dylan is more and more vocal everyday. In this last month, we've had a lot of fun playing "Indian Chief" (or should I say "Native American Chief" to be more pc?). He'll "ahhhh" and pat his mouth, or ahhh while we pat his mouth and then he will grin while we ahhh and he pats our mouths. This has been a great tool to keep him happy and entertained in the car. He's also added some new consonants to his babbling - T's and R's. We've also noticed him mimicking our noises a lot more. Whether sound effects (vroom of a toy car) or words, he's trying to make those sounds too. No official first word yet, but he's definitely becoming more and more proficient in his vocal attempts.

Pointing is a lot of fun. Dylan loves to point at things to show them to us. It's become a fun game to name whatever he points at. "Light" is the most common object he shows us and he smiles when we say "light" as if the bulb has come on over his head and he understands what we're saying to him. He's also learning to be "gentle" with the cats. That often takes the form of his pointing finger very carefully approaching their fur. Very cute!

Dylan's been waving aimlessly for some time but he really gets the concept now and has a fun time waving "hi" and "bye" to us and (sometimes) others. He's not one to perform on command and it's rare that he shows off his mad waving skills to others. When I leave in the morning, not only do we wave "bye" but we blow kisses to each other. He thinks this is really funny. Right now, it's just bringing his hand to his mouth and back out....still working on getting that kiss into his palm.

The stairs are a daily fun activity. Since going upstairs is a breeze, he's now working on perfecting his skills going downstairs. Dylan's great about reaching out and taking our hand when he needs help but he's really been doing it by himself more and more in the last week. This weekend, he even got down off the couch solo! So independent!

When he was just a little sprout, he would kick around to music when we held him up and he really enjoyed dancing around the house in our arms. In this last week, we've caught him initiating his own dancing. One of his toys plays the alphabet song and he started bouncing up and down when it came on. Also, during one of the rare occurrences that he actually watched the TV for a couple of minutes (normally doesn't keep his attention at all), he started bouncing around to one of the commercial jingles. I guess we'll start to see some more musical preferences with this new development.

Dylan - 11 Months Old!

(Note - we have officially moved milestone pictures out of the crib. Our first photo shoot attempt in the crib was met with crying because it was not nap time!)

The next time I write a post about a new month, my baby will be a year old! It's been so amazing watching him grow and develop. So much has happened so quickly and we're very exciting to see what other firsts he'll accomplish before his first birthday!

Big Dig

The real Big Dig in Boston finally finished up a few years ago. However, there's a new big dig going on....in our back yard.

The mountain we previously called our back yard is getting terraced so that we actually have a usable space. We're also having our side yard fenced in and graded. Work started Tuesday and they're still digging up dirt and boulders. We didn't know how much of our yard was ledge (aka rock) so the digging part has been pretty exciting....a big mystery of what we would find. So far so good. Hopefully it will be done to have a great family cookout to celebrate Dylan's first birthday party. Here's what I came home to yesterday.

Once all is said and done, I'll post some before and after pictures. I can already tell, the transformation is going to be amazing!