Around Town

Berkeley went to his first movie in the theater this week. We took him to see Cars 2 with his favorite car, Lightening McQueen. He did pretty well as long as he could stand up and as long as I was shoveling dried blueberries in his mouth to keep him from talking. I will say he did pretty well; we made through the entire show. However, I will mention he didn't do well enough for me to take him to another movie for a good while.
Overall I LOVED the movie, almost better than the 1st if you asked me. There was a lot of great humor and a lot more action. The star of the show was Tow Mater this time around and he definitely stole the show. I recommend it to all who loved the original.

Sunday afternoon the rain finally stopped and we headed downtown for a picnic at the Boston Common and to walk around the Boston Public Garden. It was the perfect day with my beautiful boys and our good friends, RyRy, Nicole and little Eloise.

I just love spending time with this little guy; he is always making me laugh and smile.

Berke saw the carousel and wouldn't leave me alone until he rode the horsey. The things we do for our kids.

Christian has a new hobby; identifying trees as we walk around the neighborhood is his new past time. We had a lot of fun trying to figure out some of the trees in the Common. Many of the trees in the Public Garden were already identified so that made things much easier for us.

Me and my pal Nicole who is a new mommy to adorable to little Eloise. I am so lucky to have such a wonderful gal pal.

Look at these amazing flowers they had at the Public Gardens! I am in love with these beauties; aren't they amazing?

These are the weekends I love. Beautiful family, friends and nature.
Doesn't get any better than that.

Family, it's about time

Dad's Day

Berkey and I feel pretty lucky around these parts; we just happen to have the cream of crop when it comes to the bestest Daddy in the land.

We love you Christian; thanks for taking such good care of us and for always making us laugh!

My amazing friend Rani took these photos of Berkeley for Father's Day.
Berkeley wants to be just like his Daddy when he grows up, hipster and all.

Happy Father's Day!!!

Out N About

We're a big fan of parades, but not such a big fan of clowns.
We attended the Bunker Hill Day Parade this past weekend. It is in Charlestown (where the movie The Town was filmed), and the people there are called "townies:" they have the BEST Boston accents. They truly are a special group. People lined the streets; beer and food were found in the hands of all who came out to watch. It really was quite the event. My co-worker invited me to her party, as the parade goes right in front of her house. Berke and I attended and had quite the enjoyable time; B man loved all the bands and seeing all the "cool drums." There were many colonial themed bands/groups, I just love looking at all the period clothing.

The Polish Band stood out due to their bright colored costumes; they had a lot of great energy.

Berke was happy as a clam until the clown band walked down the street; Berke turned to me in horror, buried his head in my chest and started sobbing. Occasionally he would look over his shoulder to make sure the clowns were not coming to "get him." Always interesting to me to see how fears in children are not always learned.

Christian has the summer "off." He has been SUPER Stay at Home Dad! He has been making sure he and Berke have an activity to do every day. He has joined our church's toddler group on Mondays, where he is the only dad. He also goes to "Mom's play group" on Wednesdays. I think it is pretty adorable that he goes to these activities with what we are calling his "lady friends." I know it can be awkward for him, but he does it because he knows it is good for Berke to learn and interact with other children. What a lucky kid our little Berkeley Boy is to have such a cool dad. Christian has also been taking a lot of trips to the park, the Science Museum and the Children's Museum. They are always busy having fun; lucky boys.

This week for Mom's group they went strawberry picking. Berke told me all about feeding the goat some grass when I got home, apparently the high light of the trip for him. I was happy to have a bucket full of fresh strawberries in the fridge when I got home. They will surely taste fabulous on our angel food cake this evening!

ALS and MS Walk for Living

ALS & MS Residences at the Leonard Florence Center for Living from Steve Saling on Vimeo.

I hope you will take the time to watch this short video. The Leonard Florence Center for the Living is part of the Organization I work for. I have the privilege of going into this wonderful building to work with people on Hospice regularly; it really is an amazing place. I will be participating in the ALS/MS walk this September to help these individuals have a better quality of life. These two diseases are terrible and extremely debilitating. I have had a friend whose father in law died from ALS and a friend who is currently struggling with MS. These diseases could happen to any of us. I hate people who ask for money and fund raise, but I am gonna go ahead and ask for your donation as I really believe in this cause.

I see Steve, Bonnie and the crew often around the Leonard Florence Center and they are able to live a quality life in a wonderful environment with amazing support.

If you are willing and/or able to donate, even $5, please click on the link below. You can search for my name and make a donation on-line. I really appreciate your support.

https://walkforliving.dojiggy.com/pledge

Old Orchard Beach

This weekend I decided I needed a "break from myself" with my crazy planning and trying to do too much, thus stressing myself out. I decided I needed a trip to Maine, which is my favorite New England state to visit. We were originally going to go to Ogunquit, ME, but heard about an amazing deal on a hotel in Old Orchard Beach last minute and changed our plans.
We left Friday night and got in around 10:30 p.m. Berke remembered we were going to the beach and was demanding to go to the beach right then. He lost that battle, but did wake up nice and early so we could be out on the beach by 8:30 a.m.
Old Orchard Beach is BEAUTIFUL! It is by far my favorite beach. It is great for running, playing Frisbee, walking your dogs, etc. It is a very clean beach with great sand and no rocks. It was not exactly beach weather but we made the most of it and pretended it was. Berkeley LOVES the beach and the ocean.

We had a blast running in and out of the tide, building stuff in the sand, playing Frisbee and taking awesome jumping pictures. These are the best ones we got on film.

I know, you are impressed with our skills.
Around 11:30 Berke man CRASHED! He napped for 3 hours and then we decided it was a bit to chilly to go back to the beach, so we headed to the carnival. There Berkeley rode his first rides (which he still talks about every day), he loved riding on the truck and the Harley the most. He asks us everyday if we can go to the park and ride the Harley. He's gonna have to wait until we get to Utah so he can ride his Grandpa's real Harley.

During the whale ride, every time he saw us, he would say, "I want to get out." But then he got off and talked all about riding the whale. I guess he had fun.

After that we headed to the Pier to check things out, and then walked around the cute town. We enjoyed some delicious pizza and goods from the candy store. Berke devoured his first candy necklace.

That night Berke slept for a few hours but then was awake at 3:30 a.m. demanding to either watch Mickey Mouse Clubhouse or go to the beach. Yep, he never went back to sleep. Needless to say, we were kinda tired. We gave in at 6 a.m. and put on Mickey and headed back to the beach around 9 to play in the sand one last time. The kid was rolling around, digging and having the time of his life.

I highly recommend taking a little get away to Old Orchard Beach to all my New England Friends. It is only 1 hour and 45 minutes away from Boston. It is really fun for kids and has an amazing beach that is 7 miles long.

My baby is all grown up

Berkeley at a glance 2 years 5 months:

Berkeley is growing up so fast and I am LOVING this stage of development. He is learning so many things; his vocabulary grows everyday. My favorite thing is his adorable voice and how he says so many cute things.

Berkeley's current obsessions: Mickey Mouse Club House, Elmo, Lightning McQueen, going to Charlotte's back yard, going to the park, going to Q's house, going to RyRy's house, riding his bike, drumming on everything, dancing, and his blankie.

Berkeley transitioned to a toddler bed 3 weeks ago. He has always loved his crib and loved to sleep (we are VERY lucky that way). He wasn't climbing out of his crib at all or even trying, but we felt that with all the traveling we will be doing this summer he needed to be ready to sleep in a big boy bed. He is just too big for a pack-and-play at this point. I was worried about the transition as he is kind of a crazy sleeper. He fell out of the bed 3 times the first night (onto soft pillows) and has only fallen out 2 times since. He is getting used to sleeping on a pillow and staying in his bed. It is pretty funny that he doesn't get out of his bed when he wakes up from naps or in the morning until we come and get him. He just stays in bed and chats with himself; how adorable is that? We feel pretty happy that the transition went so well.


Some of Berkeley's cutest sayings these days:
"Night Night, Sleep Tight"
To his little friend Lina, "Come on Sweetie" (then he grabs her hand and walks to the other room)
Berke calls me "ACI" about 90% of the time rather than Mommy. I am learning to accept it cause it is pretty cute. Especially on Mother's Day when he says, "Happy Mother's Day Aci!"
He has also taken the phrase "Happy Mother's Day" as something you say to everyone when you are leaving. It is awesome. (If you could hear how cute it sounds, it would melt your heart.)
He loves to watch Mickey Mouse Club House, which we have been renting from the local library. He loves to say, "O Toodles" and he knows all the characters in the show. He always asks to go to Minnie's house.
Yesterday he shouted, "Hey Guys, what you doing?"
At the Somerville Parade he got a card of one of the Shriner Clowns. He always asks for his clown card and says, "Oh, the clown sad mommy." He is learning about different emotions.
Berke is learning his colors and has green, blue, red, pink, white, and orange. He continues to call yellow "juice" no matter how many times we correct him.
Every morning we get him dressed and he looks at his shirt and says, "Oh cute shirt!" The other day he was messing with my hair before I went to work and told me "Cute hair, Aci!"
We explained to him that there was a baby in our friend Nicole's tummy. A few days later he came up to me and pointed to my boob and said, "What's that Aci, a baby?" Surprise we are having twins!


Things Berke is learning lately:
He has been working on his colors
He continues to learn about all sorts of cars, trucks and machines
He knows about 18 of the 26 letters of the alphabet, we continue to work on those
He loves to have us sing to him, he is constantly asking us to sing him different songs; he asks for the Elmo song, the Choo Choo song, spider song, the nie nie song.
Berkey recently learned how to jump and is always doing it, he has incorporated it into his dancing routine now which usually leads to him laying on the floor, which leads to either break dancing or him acting like a frog.
He is learning the difference between all the balls and loves the soccer and basketball the most. He loves to play with balls right now. Footballs are the most difficult for him to figure out.

The obsession with his "Bankie" continues to drive us a little crazy; he has to take it with him everywhere, have it at all meal times, and all sleeping times. The thing gets drug around everywhere and is always needing a "Bath."


I have decided Berkeley has a little bit of OCD; he is a particular kid in that he doesn't like mess (pretty sure he got this from his grandma). He refuses to feed himself with a spoon because it is too messy; he hates to have anything on his face. He also hates to have messy hands and is always wiping them off on anything he can find if they are dirty. He cant stand to have cupboards open and will shut them if he finds one open. If a corner of a rug is turned up, he will fix it. If he sees trash on the floor then he picks it up and puts it in the "yucky."

We sure do love our little 2 year old, minus his fabulous temper tantrums.