An Apple a Day

The leaves are starting to change, there has been crisp cool air at night, school has begun and there are no longer life guards on duty at the beaches.  Fall is here and with a new season brings wonderful traditions.  Autumn wouldn't be complete in New England without a trip to an apple orchard to pick some apples.  Everyone's favorites are the Honey Crisp; we got some of those for eating and other delicious kinds for baking.  I can smell the apple crisp baking in the oven as we speak. 

 We traveled to Harvard, MA to Phil's U-pick farm; a small mom and pop type orchard with delicious apples and homemade cider.  We met up with some friends for a great time.  

Berke with one of his favorite pals, Charlotte; he gets super silly around her because she will laugh at all the things he does.

 Our adventure fell on the day of the UofU vs. BYU football game, so we showed our support in gear provided by Papa Taft all the way across the country.  Gotta love college football!

We left happy with a 1/2 bushel of apples and even some peaches.  We stopped at a nice shop to get some apple cider donuts on our way home. 

That's what friends are for...

Friends are starting to become a very important part of Berkeley's life; they are so important to him.  He is at a stage where he loves to go places with friends, share his toys and play with his pals.  He is always talking about his friends and asking who is coming with us when we go anywhere.

Berkeley has a pretty great group of friends; lucky for us their parents are all really amazing as well.  It is great to have so many supportive friends of our own who can help us with Berkeley and hopefully we can help them out as well.  

I hope Berkey can always remember his adorable friends when he was a little man.

Here he is chillin' at the zoo with his friends Ian and Caleb.

He misses his friend Eloise since she moved to Wisconsin.   They were great daycare buddies.

His little friend "Q" Quentin is the only friend who could inspire Berkeley to get dirty and not care.

Sweet Lily and Q

Charlotte, Jonas and B at Walden Pond

Hanging at the Park with Jonas, Soren, Gus, Charlotte, Owen and Penny

Isabelle and Berke candle pin bowling for the first time.

I dont' have a picture of his friend at the top of our street, Maddy, but she is also a favorite gal pal of Berkeys.  

Home, Home on the Range

I've been wanting to make home improvements for awhile now, but not knowing if we were moving or not, I really didn't want to take the effort.  Well, we are not moving, not for another year anyhow, so I decided the house needed a little makeover.  Nothing major, just something different.  Do you get bored with things in your house? 

Lets be honest, I do NOT have the gift for decorating.  I am in awe and often jealous of how good at this many of my friends are (Kate, Gloria, Bonnie, Aubrey).  I just don't have the gift.  I feel like I try hard and I do okay; I mean, I don't think my house looks bad and it is cute enough, but I really have to try to feel happy with the outcome.

When we bought our couches last year they came with these terrible brown pillows and I hate them.  I have a three year old however that LOVES them.  Not the design per say, but he loves fluffy soft things that he can roll around in.  These pillow are on the top 5 most played with items in the house.

 We've been looking for pillows to replace these brown beauties, but lets face it, pillows are EXPENSIVE!  The Pier One by our house is closing (I'm so sad), so we took the opportunity to find some pillows we liked at 30% off.  We wanted something bright, since the walls and the couches are so dark and this is what we came up with. 

 Any suggestions?  Do we like or not like? 

 I'm still not sure about it, but I do love the middle pillow a lot.  I'm all about things matching perfectly and would have preferred two pillows the same color, but Christian wanted to do this option.  

While at the Cape  this summer we came across this rug which I love, I thought it would be perfect for the bathroom.  I'm surprised at what a big difference a small change can make it a room.

 We also bought a new duvet cover for our bed and I'm quite pleased with it.  I love having a duvet, because it is so much cheaper to buy new covers than entirely new comforters.  It feels grown up and I think that is a good fit for us now that we are all done with school.

Overstock.com has a huge variety to chose from for a very reasonable price, why have I never shopped there before?

We also bought a new garbage can (didn't think you would want a picture), one that you step on it an it flips open!  SOOOO happy about this purchase.  For five years we have had one that I have hated!!!  It was always dirty and just a disaster; I finally had a breaking point this week and decided $50 for a garbage can was worth my happiness because cleanliness is next to Godliness after all.  

We've also picked up a few pieces of cheap art at local art festivals around town this summer. I love getting new art for the walls, it really perks things up.  I'm still figuring out how to hang things well (it really is an art), but so far so good.  

I feel that with these few changes things look much better and I am quite happy with the results. Ideally more space would be the perfect solution, but that isn't an option at this point, so we'll settle for a few changes to make things feel new.

Peaches for you, Peaches for me!

 Last month, Christian and Berkey had a father son outing with our friends, Rich and Jonas.  

They drove to Harvard, MA to do some peach and nectarine picking.  

Berkeley enjoyed the picking and goofing around with his cute little buddy, but is not about trying any of the deliousness that he picked (more for me)!

 I arrived home to this beautiful mountain of amazingness.  We made peach pie, peach cobbler and ate and ate and ate this fruit.  It was SO delicious.  I haven't had nectarines that have tasted that good in a long time.  

Side note: I made the peach cobbler and I just want to admit that I do not like baking when it is so time intensive.  It was so much work and took so much time; even though it tasted AMAZING, I'm just not sure baking is for me.  I rely on my husband way too much in the kitchen.

Sadly peaching picking is coming to an end; but fall is here which means apple picking is just around the corner.

"Mom, today I saw a peep show with Daddy!"

Clearly this was because he was at the Boston Children's Museum with his Dad and they have a "Peep and the Big Wide World" exhibit.  

What were you thinking?

It is starting to hit me that in one weeks time my husband will enter the world of full time worker.  I feel like I have waited so long for this day to come, and now it is right around the corner?  We are all excited about the changes are taking place, as well as a bit nervous.

We will now go to a two parent working household.  Sadly, Christian's days as full time stay at home Dad are quickly coming to an end. Luckily he will get to still be with his little boy a couple days during the week and we will still have our family weekend time together!

I just have to brag for a a blog post about what an AMAZING father Christian is.  

Not many dad's could pull off the stay home dad thing, it really isn't an easy task, but Christian makes it look easy.  Christian is such a fun dad, he is always taking Berkeley on adventures, making play dates for him and teaching him things in a creative way.  Christian is in touch with many of Berkey's friend's mothers so they can do play dates; he doesn't mind being the only dad in a group of mom's!  He has also found a few stay home dad friends at the parks and made friends that way.  Children are instantly drawn to him because he is so goofy and plays in their imaginary worlds.  He is always making Berkley and his friends laugh.  Berkeley is so lucky to have, "the cool dad."

Christian has been working with Berkeley on the alphabet, numbers, and music.  He has played endless games of Memory, Candy Land, and Car City with his little side kick.  Berkeley goes to the park at least once a week, the Science Museum at least 2-3 times a month, not to mention field trips to the ocean, peach picking, the Boston Children's Museum, the book store, and many libraries around town.  

I feel so honored to be married to a man who loves his son so much. I see what a big influence Christian is on Berkeley already with his love for music, his goofiness and the way he has taught B man to give compliments and tell his mommy he loves her.  It really is a beautiful thing. 

I'm so glad that Berkey is so close with his daddy and that they have the special bond that they do!  What a lucky kid!

Why do vacations go so quickly?

This summer we were hoping to make it to Utah, sadly with Christian's job prospects at the time being zero, we could not rationalize purchasing the cost of three plane tickets.  We decided that instead we would rent a cottage on Cape Cod for a week which was a little more than the cost of 1 plane ticket.  We planned to have a nice little family of three outing, but three weeks ago, my mom decided she and my dad wanted to join us for her 50th Birthday present.  

We were super excited to get to see some more family this summer!  We rented an adorable cottage in Dennisport just 3/10 of a mile from the beach.  The ocean temperature was so awesome this year; it was warm and lovely to swim in.  We had such a nice visit with my parents and a great time exploring the Cape. 

Grandma and Grandpa watched Berkeley while we had a nice date; we rode a nice 26 miles on our bikes.  We stopped at Seymour Pond on our bike back and had a nice swim to cool us off.  I love biking but don't feel like I get to do it enough, which is probably why I am no good at it.  I just prefer running or swimming more. 

This was the first time both of my parents swam in the ocean.  It was fun to plan around in the ocean with them and share their experience.

Every day that we visited the beach, Berkeley made Grandpa or Dad dig him a hole.  Once he was in his hole he would ask everyone to go get water from the ocean and fill up the hole.  This process was relentless.

Christian and my Dad went on a deep sea fishing excursion; they brought home some yummy black sea bass which we grilled that night.  My dad even caught this cute little shark, but let him go.

Dad and Berkeley had fun flying the CARS 2 kite on the beach

Berke finally overcame his fear of the waves and came out into the ocean with me.

We went out for ice cream one night; it ended up being by a putt putt coarse (not uncommon for the Cape), so we decided to play 18 holes.  I won!!  Berke was a crazy man experiencing a sugar high from his ice cream, and we all had a fun time.

Berke's last hole at Skaket Beach; there was already water inside so that was a super BONUS!

Berkeley was so tired from the sun and running around at the beach that he sat in my arms and was asleep in 5 seconds, snoring and everything.

One of my favorite Cape towns is Chatham.  We had fun seeing the lighthouse there, shopping and having a delicious lunch.

We also took a ferry to Martha's Vineyard for the day.  

The Edgartown lighthouse is one of my favorite spots. 

This was the adorable cottage we stayed in.  It was wonderful to get up and run along the ocean front most mornings, something I could seriously get used to!!

We also went whale watching! Whales are so big, beautiful and graceful.

Our cute little family; love these boys so much!

On our way home, we stopped in Plymouth to see the Mayflower II and the famous rock.

Berkeley absolutely adored his grandma and grandpa; he was thrilled to get so much extra attention and love.  He was very sad to see them go:(

I was so happy that my parents got to share this experience with us.  It was wonderful to have a week off of work and be surrounded by family and nature.

Hot! Hot! Hot!

This was a week of extreme humidity and heat, which in turns means lots of sweating.  

Julia has a gift of visiting me during these extreme heat waves or during terrible winter storms.  I was so happy when a sudden work trip to NYC popped up for Julia and she came out a few days early to spend some time with me!

There is no better way to beat the heat than staying inside, but that is for the weak of heart.  So we headed to the beach to get sunburned, sweaty and sandy. We visited Cranes Beach in Ipswich for the day. This kid loves to play in the sand, but hates that it sticks to his hands.  

We picked up Wendy who was also visiting from Seattle on business; she may be moving to Boston soon, so I did my best to talk her into it.   

 We had fun attending a Red Sox Game!

Gotta love a night with the BFFs!

 Berke was great at cheering for the Red Sox this year and now tells me they are his favorite team! The chocolate ice cream in the 8th inning really helped push him through with a happy energetic attitude until we arrived home at midnight.  He was a real champ!  

Have I mentioned how much I love this kid lately?

 Look at this adorable couple!  Yep, you do hear wedding bells.  They have been engaged just over a week now and I couldn't be happier for them.  Congrats!

 Berke has the BEST Aunties; since he was asking a million questions about the foam finger (he asks a million questions about everything these days, yes we are in that stage) it meant that Aunt Stefy had to buy him one.  He was soooo happy about his foam finger, he used it to cheer, play fun games and use as various musical instruments.  

 It was a great night at Fenway...until the 9th inning when the Red Sox gave up there lead and decided to play like idiots, but over all a great night.

The visit was much to short, and I already miss Julia.  So happy I got to see her however!