Day 93: Apple Picking

We went to an apple orchard one day last week after school. Jacob was so excited to go apple picking; we go at least once every fall. We were admittedly going a little early in the season, but this year's crop isn't a great one and isn't going to last a very long time. So there were only one kind we could pick on that particular day. And the pickings were slim. We had to get creative and climb the trees in order to get any apples.

Zach was with us this year, and he's the one who actually started the climbing method. Jacob followed his lead. Click on the picture to see Zach in the tree...

Day 92: Free-Range Bunny

This is Reggie, sitting outside of the backyard rabbit pen that we use for them. We've mostly had him living upstairs, as opposed to the basement where the other bunnies live. Because of this, and because he has such a mellow personality, he does really well around the dogs, and likewise, the dogs pretty much ignore him, other than an occasional sniff from Mango. So we used to let him run around the deck during the day and he would always stay there, enjoying the fresh air and company.

The dogs just recently spent 2 1/2 weeks away from our house (1 while we were at Camp, and the rest of the time being housed at my mom's while the floors were being worked on) so I think Reggie noticed the difference and got a little more daring. One day, all of a sudden, he went down the deck stairs and explored the backyard. He loved it, and ever since, the first thing he does when we let him out is hop down the stairs to explore.

Maybe we should be concerned with large birds preying on him, but we've never really had a problem with that. Even though the dogs are good around Reggie, they are still dogs and we know that they might see him running fast out of the corner of their eye and instinct might take over, so we're being careful about letting them out together. Other than having to be careful, it's been really fun having a backyard bunny.

Day 91: Fall Ball

Jacob is playing Fall Ball this year. He had the regular season in the spring, which was his second year, and this is just a short season, about six weeks long. Anyway, Nate is also playing Fall Ball, but this is his first team baseball. The boys ended up on different teams, but happened to be playing each other in the season-opening game. They also both happened to get #1 (mostly because they're on the tiny side and needed the small size). We thought it was funny that Nate (a Red Sox fan) ended up on the navy team, and Jacob (a Yankees fan) ended up on the red team, opposite of what they would have preferred.

We tried to orchestrate this photo with the two of them backs to the camera, yet with their faces toward each other, scowling as if they weren't really good friends. But they couldn't figure out how to turn their heads without turning their bodies, and then also remembering to scowl was difficult. Still, pretty cute pictures.

Day 90: Protective Gear

This is Jacob (in case you couldn't tell) during the sanding of the floors. What a mess that was and thank God it's over! Zach's dad came up a couple days to help out. Thank you again to him. We're slowly cleaning things up and moving furniture back in. Today we got our living room back into shape, but slightly rearranged. We almost switched the dining room and the living room, but ended up not doing so. And thank you to our moms for helping out with that process!

When we first moved in to our house we had a newborn and things we in a lot more disorder than they are now. I've always sort of felt because Jacob entered the world into a house of chaos, that the chaos naturally spilled over into the way we were with him. I feel like he didn't have a lot of routine and that's carried over into the rest of our years with him. I'm hoping that the disorder of the past few weeks (which coincided with him starting school) won't mark the rest of his school career. I'm hoping I can calm down soon and get to a point with the house where I feel like it's done and then concentrate on all the things I've volunteered to do for his school.

Day 89: Candy Bribe

At Joey's third birthday party the kids got goody bags (sorry Jen, but the noise-makers never saw the light of day) and this candy necklace was one of the goodies. I don't know how Sabine knew what that thing was, because it was my intention to give hers to Jacob, but when she saw it in the bag she went right for it. I couldn't pry it out of her mouth for anything.

The candy necklaces came with us for the car ride to Camp, but I never needed them. Then they came back home with us and it wasn't until the very last bit of the ride that I had to break out the bribe. Sabine had been crying to get out of her carseat for 10 minutes and nothing would calm her down. As a last resort, I presented the coveted candy necklace and she was game.

After we got home I thought the excitement of seeing Daddy would be enough to make her forget the candy necklace, but it was not to be. Only after 20 minutes of being home did we succeed in getting it away. Here she is staring me down as I tried to take it away on the front steps.

Day 88: Happy Birthday Mallory!

(Picture to come)

Day 87: My Mom and Her Kids

It's not often my siblings and I are in one place and we don't think of killing each other, or maybe that's just me? But here we are, photo proof that we were at Camp together and everyone made it out alive. We're even smiling! And touching each other. It was just one night that my brother was there with us, but my sister and I spent a record five nights in one place. I made everyone sit for this picture for my mom because I know that having us all the there and getting along meant the world to her. Could it be that maybe we're not kids anymore, that maybe we've grown up?

Day 86: The Sand Dunes

That's what Jacob likes to call this place that we walk to from Camp. I don't really know what it is other than a giant pit off of the railroad tracks. I used to think it was a landfill when I was younger. We visited there a few times this trip, as it was a nice retreat from the crowd at Camp. Jacob built and elaborate system of houses for the mice to use when winter hits.

This day's photo was a toss-up between the sand dunes and the walk to the sand dunes. In the linked photo Sabine is walking Ginger (and by the way that's not a pacifier in her mouth, it's a teether for her molars) and it wasn't long after that when Ginger took off, dragging Sabine behind he just like in the cartoons. I'd been warning Sabine to let go if Ginger went too fast, but she didn't listen.

By the way, this photo is late again, still because of the hardwood floors, but they're done now and just drying. It will be a couple days before we can put furniture back on them, and then Zach still has to take on the new walls.

Day 85: To Be Fair

Since I posted that really bad picture of my sister, I felt like I should post a good one to be fair. This photo was taken not at our lake, but over at the 'swimming lake', and adjacent one that we sometimes go to. I took the photo earlier in the week, you know, before my sister was inebriated, because she wanted one of herself and Marisa in their matching bathing suits. It took an awful lot to get Marisa to make a normal face, and check out those abs on her!!

Day 84: There She Goes!

Even though this isn't a really great photo, it's still going to become a family classic. Right after my brother hit the ball that was the one a bunch of us headed out in three different boats to collect as many balls as we could. There's a significant sand bar in the middle of the lake, due to it being man-made so several of the balls we actually within reaching distance.

The ball my sister was reaching for, however, was not in reaching distance. So she just kept leaning further and further to her left in order to reach the ball, until the kayak tipped right over. You can see from this photo that she did, in fact, have success in getting the ball. I also love (in the photo I linked to) that look on my brother's face as he's laughing his ass off because that's what we do in my family, especially when it comes to my sister.

Also, I'll link to this photo because I think maybe it's the one my brother has been asking for?

PS - this post is a day late because we have no internet at the house right now, the hardwood floor project is still going on.

Day 83: That's the One

Another picture from Camp...there will probably be at least a few more since it's my favorite place on Earth. This is my brother's immediate reaction to the ball he just hit as it landed on the island (just above his head in the picture), which is what he was aiming for.

For some reason I just really like this photo, maybe it's the composition. I like Jacob and Marisa in the foreground, standing in the kayaks, pretending to be paddling somewhere. And I like how they frame my brother. It just happened that way, I hadn't even been standing there a minute before. I think I snapped the picture as I was walking toward the lake.

Anyway, the photo nicely captures the energy of my family, and since it's one I wasn't even trying for, it makes it all the better.

Day 82: Her Ball

While in Cape May, we took Jacob to the arcade. At the end of the week he cashed in his tickets for some prizes. For Sabine he got this ball. For himself he got the same thing, only the bigger version and in blue. Who could have guessed that it would become the new object of Sabine's affection? She can't be without it. When she's looking for it, she'll either say, "my Bah?" or call it "green bah".

In this picture, we were playing outside at Camp just after my brother had arrived on Sunday afternoon and I figured it was about time I take a picture of Sabine with her green ball. So I said, "Sabine, let me see your ball." Little did I know she would turn around like that with a coy look on her face and hold the ball so tenderly to show it off. The instant I snapped the picture I knew it would be a classic Sabine photo. Everyone seems to agree that this is the award-winning photo from the week at Camp. Unless, of course, you count the picture (to come) of my sister falling out of the boat in the middle of the lake, but we're talking composition here, not hilarity.

Day 81: The Bathing Eagle

This is the juvenile eagle whom I think I wrote about earlier in the summer. We saw him (I'm just guessing at the him thing) out many times on this visit up to Camp. On this day I was alone at Camp with Jamie and my two kids. We watched the eagle just sitting out there on this stump for the longest time. He'd go off the stump onto the sandbar in a few inches of water and roll around taking a bath, then back onto the stump to dry off.

After a while I couldn't stand not getting closer so I hopped in the canoe barefoot and paddled closer, but not really in that direction. The wind and current, however, carried me right to the eagle and before I knew it I was too close for my own comfort and the fact that the eagle was not flying away freaked me out. By the time I decided I needed to head back, the wind had gotten much stronger, as it tends to do in the middle of the lake and the rain started pouring down. The only choice I had was to go with the wind and the current (of the river that flows through the lake) and wait it out on the opposite side of the lake. I was camped out for at least half an hour on someone's dock, and then it was at least another half an hour of hard, meaningless paddling back home before I finally got the right idea and sat in the middle of the canoe to get back.

It was worth it though to get this cool picture. In a couple of the pictures when I was actually closer than this you can see that the eagle is tagged on one leg, which for some reason makes up hopeful about the eagle population, like someone is looking out for them.

Day 80: School's In

Jacob started school today. It's the day I've been dreading for a long time. He was so happy and excited, and I know he's going to do fine. It's me I'm worried about. I'm so sad without him, the house is too quiet, and every time Sabine asks for him I have to tell her that he's at school - which feels to me like the 'S' word. Also, I feel like my big dream of homeschooling him is over, like all that planning I did was for nothing. We're just like every other family now.

I cried all day yesterday - when he was getting his Chicken Pox shot, when we were talking about what he wanted in his lunch, when we were tucking him in. In the middle of the night, when we got up this morning, I cried. And then again when we were dropping him off, and on my walk home from the school with Sabine. And each time someone called on the phone to check in and see how I was.

But now it is time to go pick up my baby and I am so excited! I am going to get there early and sit in the parking lot juts waiting.

Day 79: For Jenny

We got back home last night from a week at Camp. The kids and I left the house in order for Zach to take on the huge project of redoing our hardwood floors. Needless to say, because he's a perfectionist, Zach turned the project into something way bigger than originally planned. He tore down all this wood paneling we had in one room, and put up sheet rock in it's place. So now he still needs to tape and spackle, sand that down, and then paint. The floor boards have all been rewoven so that they face the same direction, and some odd-looking patch boards that Zach had put in a few years back were taken out. So for that project he still needs to sand the floors down and do three coats of poly (24 hours in between each) on the wood. And now we're back home. All the furnishings of the house are crammed into half the space we're used to, and pretty soon we're not going to be able to walk on the floors because they'll be in various stages of drying. Yikes!

But that's not what this picture is about. This picture is Sabine on my mom's lap at Camp with my Uncle Bill (who is practicing very hard for his about-to-become-a-grandfather status). Jenny gave this book to Sabine, and it is her favorite book right now. She was rapt when Uncle Bill was reading it to her that night, and I thought jenny would like to see this photo because Uncle Bill is her father.

Day 78: The After Picture

.Because I'm running out of pictures to post, here's the after picture. I'd taken the before pictures, told the lady that I would need a lock of the hair and then stayed glued to the whole process. And in the end, the hairdresser had to scrape together little bits of hair to put in an envelope, and when she put the hair in the palm of my hand, I looked down at it and said, "Boy, I feel pretty silly now."

Day 77: Two Bits

Shave and a hair cut, 2 bits. I think in that case 2 bits applies to the amount of money? I'm not sure, but my grandfather used to always sing that to us. But literally, that was it, just two tiny bits of hair. I got Sabine's hair cut for the first time the other day. I wasn't crazy about having it done, but the ends were all snarly and she was starting to not like getting her hair brushed anymore. Jacob was getting his school hair cut so I thought it would bring some meaning to Beanie's first haircut if she had hers done the same time as him.

Sabine sat through the whole thing and did just fine. She's always enjoyed being groomed like that. The after picture doesn't really look any different because it was just a shred of hair.

Day 76: Homecoming Harvest

The first thing we did when we got home was check the garden. Even though Zach and I had each told a couple of our friends to come by and take whatever was ready while we were away, there was still a plethora or veggies. This is what we picked the morning after we arrived home (because it was dark when we pulled in the driveway).

Day 75: Leaving for Home

Before we left on Friday, with everyone gathered nearby, we took the opportunity for some group photos. Here's the one of us I like. Click on the photo for some more, which will bring you to my flickr page.

Day 74: Buried Treasure

I think this was our first day at the beach. We did the obligatory sand burying and I gave Jacob a shirt under his head to be comfortable, as well as the hat over his face to block the sun. The Yankees would be proud?

Day 73: Mini Lifeguards

Actually, Cousin Jenny, I already had this photo in line to be the photo of the day for today, so good call! I pre-set the Cape May photos to publish one day at a time. This was one of my absolute favorites. There was one night where Jacob and I snuck off and watched the sunset on the beach. Didn't have my camera with me that night, so I said we had to get back there for sunset one more time.

We were all there this time, and Zach sat the kids up on the lifeguard chair. A beach vehicle started to come along and Jacob joked with Sabine that they were coming to get her for sitting on the chair. She got so freaked out and wanted to come down. That was a nice night on the beach,
we watched some dolphins far out in the ocean playing around. I wish we'd gone to the beach more at night instead of during the day when it was hot and crowded.