more cousin fun

The pictures I shared from Essex were only from the first two days.  We sure packed a lot into a short period of time.  Here are the next two days, in no particular order, I'm afraid.

 Grandma's iPad was, without a doubt, the most sought after activity.  Here, at least, Kyalo and Caroline are sharing.  Notice Caroline's arm around K? They're pals for life, I'm sure.

A visit to Nick's was a MUST. Adam actually went there at about 10:30 PM the night he arrived, and we went after church on Sunday as a family. Nothing says, "Happy Father's Day!" like rare roast beef, french fries, and onion rings.

Grandma took the big kids to the beach while Kyalo (and I) napped. Campion was most definitely prepared. I think they spent the time catching crabs (fishing? crabbing? who knows)

I wanted to be sure to get lots of family photos (portraits) so here are the kids, dressed up for Saturday Mass.

Caroline's not particularly a fan of picture taking

Grandma and Grandpa got in the mix

 with five kids in the picture, this is about as good as it gets

besides, how gorgeous do those boys look?

 Adam with Kyalo, Abby, Jack

see? Caroline is always a trouble maker!

and yes, I was really there.

please note Campion's Pirate scowl, or whatever that is!

They left Monday night and I ended up staying until Friday. I do love it back in Essex. And with such perfect weather, it was hard to turn down. Besides, I would have returned to a husband totally immersed in books, so I figured I might as well stay where I was wanted.  :)

Essex invasion

Kyalo and I are up in Essex, having left Dexter at home to prepare for a big project and three exams this week.  Seemed like a good idea to vacate the premises, and it was perfectly timed with my brother, Adam's, visit to Essex with his four oldest kids.  So while Dexter was hitting the books, we were keeping ourselves busy.

Baseball games - the boys gave up two All Star games in their Little League teams, which feels like a big deal to us.

Kyalo and Caroline (5 1/2) 

this was just moments after our long car ride.  Caroline kept Kyalo very busy the whole weekend.

Catching toads in the frog pond. . .

Water fights

Pool time

Campion - 9

Legos

reading

Badminton

 Abby's serve

and even Grandpa - with a gimpy leg - got in the mix

I love this action shot

Watching the Red Sox (and the US Open, and the Bruins, and the NBA finals.  Whew)

wagon rides

ice cream

yum

sharing - and sometimes fighting over - Grandma's iPad

morning jammies

:cousin love:

Abby (13) Jack (10) Kyalo (2) Caroline (5 1/2) Campion (9)

To say that Kyalo had a good time would be a major understatement. He got out of the car (note - driving four+ hours by myself with Kyalo in construction and/or summer weekend traffic = no fun) and hit the ground running. I'm not sure I saw him til Monday afternoon when everyone left.  I'm so glad he had this time to get reacquainted with these cousins before we go back out to California in August.  I'm sad that they live so far away, and that we see them so rarely.   This was a really special time for all of us, I think.  Filled with wonderful childhood memories.  It was simple, and fairly slow paced, but to me it was magical.

Oh, and let me leave you with this.  On Friday while I was basically parked in traffic in Connecticut, they were exploring Boston - the North End, Paul Revere's house (he was a dentist - did you know?), The Boston Children's Museum, etc.  My brother grabbed this shot of everyone on the "Make Way for Ducklings" ducks in the Boston Public Garden.  Priceless.

possibly the best photo, ever. 

EVER

26 months

Last week, Kyalo hit 26 months, but I only today managed to get a few photos of him.  It is a littler harder to stay motivated to stay on top of these photos, but I know I'll be glad to have them to look back on, even if they are a week late!

something about this photo (the way he's standing? his expression?) makes him seem so old to me.  What do you think?

Some things about Kyalo. . . 

- He loves blueberries.  I think If I'd let him, he'd eat an entire pint in one sitting.

- He loves bath time ("bathss" as he calls it), especially when there are bubbles. Dexter is generally in charge of bath time, so this is a special time for them.  

- His talking seems to improve all the time, though he's still just saying one or two words at a time.  Some new additions, "Sit" (bossy little guy!), "Ey-eye-yen" ("Ellen," possibly the cutest thing I've ever heard, and now he says it all the time.  Sweet little name for his BFF), and plenty more I can't really think of at the moment.  It is nice to be able to communicate with him more.

He is now constantly sleeping through the night!  I think it has been a month and a half or so!!! Of course, it probably took me three weeks to get back to sleeping well, but now...everyone's happy. And he usually sleeps til 7:30 or so. . .unless it is a Saturday, then he wakes up at 6:30.  We're also almost done with nursing.  There's just one little time I've got to drop and we'll be golden.  Still, this feels like big big progress.

I've just begun to occasionally allow him to watch, as he calls it, "news" (Curious George).  I don't feel great about it, but I DO feel great about all I can get accomplished while he's contained (no TV, so I put him in his high chair to watch on the computer).  :)  

Friday was a terrible, rainy day, and we couldn't go out.  I had Jenny and Ellen and my next door neighbor Raiza and her daughter Ari, come over for finger painting.

Ey-eye-yen and Kyalo

(no good pictures of Ari, sadly)

That filled the morning nicely, but unfortunately the rain was coming down pretty hard even after nap, so I needed to fill the afternoon....so I gave Kyalo some mixing bowls and some colored water to dump back and forth (and eventually on the floor).  This kept him going for about an hour, and I got dinner mostly sorted. 

music was playing, and he started to boogie

Lastly, Dexter had to bike to Church on Sunday so could be there early to run the projector.  Kyalo wants to be just like him some day!

big shoes to grow into

Lots of excitement this week! Kyalo and I drive up to MA on Friday to see my brother and his four oldest kids.  Since Dexter has three exams next week, I'll stick around up there til Wednesday to give Dexter a quiet house for studying.  Aren't I nice?  I'm not too excited about the 4+ hour trek alone. Last time I did that he was just 13 months, and slept the whole way. I don't think I'll be that lucky this time around.

zoo babies

On Saturday, we got together at the local zoo with our friends from Dexter's class.  Gabe (Seungah's husband) has dubbed the four students (Dexter, Seungah, Sirisha, Joel) the "Fantastic Four" which I think is catchy. Unfortunately only the terrific three were able to come as Sirisha and her family had other obligations.  We'll catch them next time.

It was a great day - though it started with a little hiccup: Joel locked his keys in the car! But that ended well - it was hot, but really, I think it was perfect.  Besides, the last time I went, way back in October, it felt so cold then.  Being hot was OK by me!  They had a new sea lion exhibit which was pretty cool, and Kyalo loved it because he could stand at the window and watch them swim by.

 every time they swam by he'd wave and say, "hi!"

and if they didn't come 'round fast enough he'd beckon with his hand and say, "come, come"

We kept things pretty low-key while we were there. It was hot, and there were three toddlers to contend with, of course.  We had a lovely picnic lunch in a shaded picnic area. I brought PB&J sandwiches, and Odalys brought pasta with crab. Score one for me. 

We did walk around a lot, seeing all the animals.  But my favorite pictures from the day are of our little group...

I love this shot so much. Rua is definitely a take-charge kinda girl!

I think Kyalo's OK with that

Kyalo's girlfriends: Rua 20 months, Sophia, turns 2 at the end of this month

{watch out, Lisa, (she's now almost 7 mo!) I don't know that Kyalo can wait for you forever}

Since it was so hot, they had sprinklers going all throughout the zoo so that people could run through them and cool off.  That was a BIG hit with these kids.

Kyalo would have been happy to stay there

We went into the "Outback Aviary" and got to feed some birds.  I had no idea that parakeets were native to Australia.  Thanks for sharing.  

Kyalo enjoyed feeding the bird - he also did a good job to keep still and just watch

Sophia liked it, too.

Tho, I think Joel liked it most of all!

There's a train ride you can opt to do which goes through some woods and along a body of water (I think it would have been cool if it went all around the zoo, but they didn't ask me. . .) and we did that a couple of times.  Anything to escape the heat!

here we all are on the train, taken by Gabe's phone, I think

most impressive of all about this pic?  In the way back (behind me) is a woman with her 15 DAY old baby!!!  She gets major props for not being at home with her feet up.

Lest you think we saw no animals, here's an eagle.  So stately! Regal!

And then, here's an end-of-the-day obligatory shot of everyone.

Seungah's family wins the prize for looking the most alive {and beautiful} at the end of a long, hot day.

Since June is going to be a crazy time of exams and assignments, I know we won't see these guys for  while.  But we're already talking about maybe doing an adults-only activity, and finding a babysitter (or two?) for the five children (Sirisha has two).  Whatever, and whenever, it is, I know I will love it!