The Little Things

It occurred to me last night that I'm not using the blog enough to record the "little things." Silly things the kids say, little memories, etc. One thing we never want to forget is the kids' minor obsession right now with small stuffed animals. It started well over a year ago when Ollie started carrying his little stuffed hedgehog with him everywhere he went. We thought he might never give it up, but one day, it wasn't Hedgehog anymore, it was Bakewell Fox. Then in rapid progression ,it was a tiny puppy, various birds, a duck, a few different kittens... the list goes on. No big animals, just little ones, about 4-5 inches long. His first *great* love was his (5th) birthday owl; Owl was never far from Ollie's side for over five straight weeks. A little kitten in Ollie's Christmas stocking then took center stage, but only for a short bit, when RED ROBIN showed up. A gift from our friends, the Weavers, Red Robin has had at least as long a run as Owl did... there have been times that Red Robin has flown the coop (gotten lost) but whenever he's found, he returns promptly to "first animal" status. For instance, after our trip to Florida this March, Ollie returned with Dolphin, whom he had been sleeping and playing with for many days. As soon as he set eyes on Red Robin again, down went Dolphin, and into his warm embrace went Red Robin. Ollie is tucked in every night with his special friend; he makes quite a production sometimes of tucking them in and demonstrating how they fall asleep together. I had to take this photo last night, of Ollie cradling Red Robin in his sleeping arms.
This has all been a bit jarring for me and Andy! "What if he's destined to be fickle," we worry! So much love poured onto one special "friend," only to have this friend abandoned when the next one comes along, or when fancy stikes?! But we have noticed that nearly every single animal comes *back* into favor at some point along the line, sometimes often! The main point is, he's showing such sweetness and attention to them, and that can't be a bad thing.
Like her big brother, and most likely because of Ollie's obsession, Maddie as well has had a great variety of special friends. She took Lamb with her to England last fall, and has also been very close to some bunnies, kitties, Owl, flamingos, and at least 3 diffferent Hello Kitties. We can't wait to see how the progression continues for them both - it's endlessly fascinating!

Happy Easter!!!

Easter in Maine - yippee! We started our holiday in the typical way -- taking down the Christmas tree that we'd left up since December. A live tree... and it still looked great!! Then we had several days of all of our favorite Maine things... morning walks to the harbor, playtime and meals with Grandma and Granddad (lobster! mussels! lamb!), ceremonial "first runs" on the zip-line (Ollie did the zipping), easter egg dying, a fantastic outdoor egg-hunt on Easter morning, a great 15 mile bike ride on the peninsula (Andy and Gillian), and Ollie's FIRST stab at cycling without his training wheels! He did great, going quite a long way each time before putting his foot down, and only falling gently once in a while. We had nice visits with Rich and Nicole and the kids, Don and Laurel, Anne and Tony. This year the Easter Bunny decided to go easy on the candy, and brought along a couple of stuffed toys and some other nice little things as well - the teeny tiny chicks in teeny tiny nests were a big hit! Granddaddy was SO pleased with his special Easter present - a stuffed playtypus - because "A platypus lays eggs; why can't it be the "Easter Playtypus" instead of the Easter Bunny??" You cn see his new friend tucked under his arm in the photo above. A happy, happy Easter - just couldn't have been nicer.

Lovely Maddie Turns THREE!!!!

Our Maddie Boo is three years old already! She's become pretty feisty in these last few months, quite determined to do things on her own and never, ever particularly willing to let me brush her tangled hair! She's also super duper chatty, sometimes stringing words together to create long, stream-of-consciousness sentences that seem to have no beginning, middle, or end -- she's just enjoying the journey. While we were in Florida a few weeks ago, Maddie FINISHED her potty training, and for the first time ever, she was able to wear her beloved Peppa Pig undies (a gift from her cousins in England). She amused everyone the whole week, dashing into the room to announce gleefully, "I had a poo!!!!" at which point we all cheered and shouted our congratulations. So much happiness.
On the morning of her birthday, Maddie came downstairs to lots of balloons and presents - from us, grandparents in Maine and England, and her cousins in England as well. We had a webcam with Grandma Carole during the festivities, who looked on cheerfully as Maddie tore into one present after another. When her last present came out - her first bicycle!! - she seemed pleased, though it wasn't the rousing excitement that mommy and daddy had been hoping for! :-) After breakfast, we got to work with cake decorating and getting ready for the party.
Maddie decided on a Hello Kitty theme for her party this year, though usually the theme doesn't extend far beyond the cake... but the cake is sooo important!! We did find some fabulous Hello Kitty balloons, plates, and napkins, and also gave each guest a cute little stuffed Hello Kitty as their party favor. In attendance were Ollie and Ryan and all of Maddie's best little buddies -- Madelyn, Addie, Addie (no, not a typo!), Logan, Emily, Campbell and Duncan. We all had loads of fun, and Maddie still talks about her Hello Kitty birthday, to anyone who will listen!

And the Beach.......

We did spend a lot of time at our cool rental house with the nice little pool outside, but we ALSO got to the local beach a few times - and what a beach it was!!!! Lovely soft sand, the ocassional palm tree for shade (!), and water that seemed to be just the right temperature and oh, so inviting.

Maddie and Ollie and I spent loads of time splashing around; I honestly didn't want to come out of the water. Maddie was extra sassy in her new Hello Kitty bathing suit. I may prefer Maine, even with its freezing cold ocean, but ohhhh it's lovely to visit the Keys!!

The Big Day!

You would think, from all this fun, that we'd come to Florida just to relax, but NO! Thank you, Aidan, for having a Bar Mitzvah! He had clearly worked so hard in preparation for it (along with his mom, Jessica, of course!!) - but I got the feeling that Aidan had really come to enjoy the process of learning the Torah and all that went with it.

The entire ceremony went without a hitch... except that Maddie and Ollie were unusually fussy and fidgety and I finally had to leave the ceremony with them and miss a big chunk of it.  Grrrr!!  Aidan was fantastic throughout, and we were all soooo glad to be a part of it!!  The reception afterwards was lovely.  Kind of bummed you can't have a Bar Mitzvah every year, Aidan!!

More Fun in Florida

We all have so many great memories from this trip to Florida! We had a resident iquana that was spotted right on the riverside behind our house several times, and we were all quite entranced with him! And of course, we can't forget our trip to the dolphin center - oh, that was a hot day! I remember Ollie moaning about the heat, rather than just enjoying the dolphins, one of his favorite animals!

There were lots of leisurely mornings (lots of time for piling

on top of Grandma!), a fantastic bagel brunch featuring dad's home-smoked salmon all the way from Maine, a few strolls around town (when we could take the heat), lots of chats with Marianne and Arthur, a quick trip to Key West, and plenty of neat restaurants. Oh, and of course we all enjoyed bits of fresh coconut straight from the shell, and the lovely juice from inside... Ollie drank it from a wine glass!

Sunny Fun

When Ollie woke up in the morning, he literally couldn't wait to get into the pool... so at 8:30 in the morning, in he jumped! It was warm outside,

maybe 75 degrees, but shady and breezy, and the pool isn't heated, so it was pretty invigorating! Maddie of course wanted to go in as well, and she just laughed and laughed; she loves standing at the edge and holding someone's hand and jumping in. I found a great lifejacket for her, which I'm so grateful for since it really keeps her UP! We all enjoyed the pool every single day; I love this shot of Uncle Ian launching Ollie into the water! Later in the morning we took a big trip to the nearby grocery store and got

loads of supplies for the week, including oranges, pineapple, fresh coconuts, melon, apples, pomegranate, and some "Marathon Bread" that has plantains and raisins in it! We went out to lunch with Aidan and Jess to a fantastic place on the water called Burdine's, which has crazy-yummy french fries! After that it was back home for an afternoon of fun in the pool, scrabble, and a yummy bbq chicken dinner. Maddie caught up a bit on her sleep and had a 2.5 hour nap!