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A Birthday Party

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G is the hardest kid to buy things for, or do something special for, because we have no idea what he likes. His Christmas list is still whatever his sibling gets. He plays with what everyone else plays with. And the only thing he really, really wants is baa baas. We’ve already done a sheep birthday party, though, and wanted to do something new and fun. So since G couldn’t decide, we said we’d plan something fun and he trusted us.

First up was a class birthday party! We picked a date well over a week before his birthday to try and keep it away from Christmas a bit. And believe it or not, it was the first class party of the school year. We went with the same movie theater we did E’s kindergarten birthday at - this gave G the ability to get something a sibling had, but also it does work really well for class parties and it was pretty easy because we knew what to expect (a must for something so close to the holidays).

The kids played games, watched Paw Patrol, and ate food nonstop. G picked out his own birthday outfit which included a yellow Belle dress, reindeer antlers and a superhero cape. His friends he most wanted to show up came, and overall I think everyone had a wonderful day.

On his actual birthday, there was no school (but there was daycare!), so we met up with friends and brought him to a trampoline park. We baked a cake that was yellow and rainbow, and gave him a box of baa baas and a baa baa blanket that he liked way better than the actual toys we got for him.

I think it was a success. Happy birthday G!

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SIX

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You always are completely and uniquely you, and will never go along with something just because everyone else does (which I will be more thankful for as you get older). For now that means refusing to take a birthday picture until you’re ready, not wanting a birthday theme, and doing things completely your own way (down to picking your outfit head to toe for your birthday party).

You are sweet and hesitant but also bold and demanding. You spend a lot of time worrying about life and friends and things, but you won’t tell many people or let just anyone see that. You put on a big and brave act and entertain everyone in the room. The loudest, the silliest, the least likely to do anything without a fight.

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Happy Halloween!

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Just keep trick or treating… just keep trick or treating…

Is there anything better than a group costume? As you might have noticed from F’s birthday, she’s a bit obsessed with fishies and the Finding Nemo/Dory movies. So it didn’t take much to convince the rest of the family that we should dress up as characters from the movies.

There was no question that F gets Dory, the blue fish. I love my fuzzy nemo costume and am going to need to find a way to make this my costume every year. If you haven’t seen Finding Dory, you might not know E’s character Hank. Tom is Bruce the shark, and Gideon is either Squirt or Crush (one of the turtles).

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Kick off Fall

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I think it’s finally starting to feel like fall here. The leaves have been changing and falling for a while, and pumpkins have been out, but when everyone’s still wearing shorts, it’s hard to get in the mood. But finally we looked at the calendar and said it was time. Saturday was our town’s 2nd annual fall fest. We’re still trying to get the hang of it, and always leave feeling like we were a bit confused and not sure we made the most of the day. We ate some food that was not as great as we were expecting, and tried the bounce houses but found them too crowded and aggressive, and waited in a line for far too long for a train ride (that at least everyone said was fun!) We saw a lot of people that we knew, but the whole thing was so crowded and frenzied, that it felt hard to actually hold a conversation. We rushed by booths and were constantly trying to get to one place or another.

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September Brings Changes

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It’s back to school season!

I’m not going to lie, this back to school period was hard. The calendar was very full, even without the fun celebrations for a birthday and vacation. We had three children starting school on three different days, and each had an orientation day and back to school night on top of that. Two of the children were starting completely new schools, which only added to the stress.

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Three!

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You have been counting down to this day for MONTHS. Constantly asking when your day would come. When would you get your blue cake and have everyone sing Happy Birthday to F. And somehow it’s finally here. I’ve been calling you a two year old every day leading up to this, savoring these last bits when you’re still so little. Because in many ways you are so big.

Catching Up: Places Visited

Who knows if I would have blogged all these as they happened or not, but I’ll throw them all in a post now to prove to my children later that I am in fact, not the worst, and it’s not true that we never do anything fun.

January was pretty awful, though. I’ll give them that. I got covid from the dentist, we lost power for the longest period of time since buying the house, we attempted and then backed way off from potty training, and it was announced that return to office was ramping up.

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Catching Up: Celebrating the Parents

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Life got busy as it does, and one of the things that disappeared around here was blog updates. There was also a period where I debated if I wanted to continue it, but I’ve decided that the benefits of tracking memories makes it worth it. You will see some changes - making things a bit more generic, for example, to keep some privacy while still documenting life.

So what did we miss in the last 6 months or so?

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Catching Up: The Eclipse

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When a once in a lifetime event happens, and it’s going to take place in your hometown, you go right? There was some talk about how to do it, especially since it was during the school week, and there were no hotels, airbnbs, etc available and sleeping all 5 of us at my parents house isn’t the easiest.

Tom’s low on vacation days, and and eclipse might be a lot for the younger ones, so it was decided I would take the first grader to VT. Even better, we decided to car pool with my bff and her first grader. We figured it was educational enough to pull them from school and make an event out of it.

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A Dino Encounter

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It’s raining, it’s pouring, the dinosaurs were roaring?

Close enough.

We had a Saturday morning where all our plans were unexpectedly cancelled, but there was a dinosaur event in town… so obviously we checked it out. We walked into a room with some animatronic dinosaurs bouncing up and down and making noises. The kids spent a while trying to pet them and pretended to feed them, but much like trips to zoos with actual animals, they eventually got bored. Tom’s favorite exhibit was a little toddler that walked around roaring at everyone, but even that got old after a while.

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Fun on the 4th

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Our town puts on a carnival every 4th of July called fun on the 4th, although this year oddly enough it happened the last week of June. Besides being confusing, it meant we missed it while we were on vacation. So we went looking for our own fun during our long weekend. E told me that they didn’t mind, though, because vacation was way better.

We hung out with friends on the actual 4th and went to a parade in search of candy. The candy was a little stingy this year, but enough to keep the kids happy. What did not keep the kids happy were all the guns they shoot off in the parade - some right in front of us. Are those really necessary? I could definitely do without them.

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Return to Maine

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After 5 long years, we made our return to Maine!

It hadn’t felt like we’d been away that long, but the last time we were there G was just learning how to crawl. I guess the past few years disappeared somehow. (Okay I may have a few ideas how)

We rented a house in our favorite area and spent the whole week walking everywhere. E told us it was so much fun, and think about how much money we were saving on gas! Our kids even found a love of the beach this year and so we went every single day of our vacation. They dug in the sand, they splashed in the waves, and I think all 3 of them went under (either willingly or not).

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A Karate Party

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It’s funny how much can change in a year. Last year I said I wasn’t a fan of class parties, and this year they’re my favorite haha. Partly because they seem to be slipping away - I thought we’d have them through third or fourth grade. And maybe our class was an abnormally this year, but the parties were already splitting boys and girls, which obviously doesn’t work for us. We only had 2 invites to parties this year, and watching how sad it made E, and also seeing other parents stress about kids not showing up has moved my opinion towards one of, the more parties the better!

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Seven

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Happy 7th Birthday!

This has been such a big year of self discovery for you. You’ve learned to read well enough to learn to love it, and devour books - especially graphic novels. You also love math (and make everyone constantly quiz you) and learning animal facts too. You’ve also learned a lot about yourself and how you identify and what makes you happy. I’m always impressed in your confidence even when it’s not popular. And we are happy to be your always support and cheerleaders.

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December Wrap Up

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One more December post.

We really had so much fun this month. Both Tom and I were off for the entire week of Christmas and we were able to do so many fun things. Even the rest of the month was filled with activies ever weekend. Some I’ve already written about, but there were enough other things I just wanted to get down in a post.

First up, for the first time ever we attended our town’s tree lighting! I’m always a little confused as to what you’re supposed to do leading up to the event. I think the real answer is have more friends and spend your time chatting with them, but we just stood around and waited. It was worth it though, because when the trees lit up, it was one of the coolest things we’ve ever seen. All the towns around here light up every tree on the common, not just one tree, so it’s super pretty and dramatic.

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Disney on Ice!

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We did a thing!

I’m not sure if it was more for us or more for the kids (okay it was definitely more for us), but we decided to try out Disney on Ice. Hands down my favorite part of Christmas.

Disney magic is always wonderful and immediately made me tear up, but maybe part of it was also the privilege to bring my children such joy at a time when our world seems to falling apart - it was a nice break for sure. I’ve also learned that anytime you can show a child something completely new is pretty amazing. Watching them take in something they didn’t know existed is honestly one of my favorite parts of being a parent. It’s a little sad knowing that if we do this again, it might not be as amazing, but this time was worth it.

Santa!

We went to visit our Santa again this year. It’s our third year in a row at the same place with the same Santa and I hope it goes on forever. It’s a local family that does it, and a local restaurant donates the space. You get an appointment time and the room all to yourselves as you take as many pictures or just hang out. They accept donations which then go back into the community.

I was impressed by how into it E and G were this year. G ran right up and sat on Santa’s lap. Both of them loved posing for pictures and answering all of Santa’s questions. E told him that he wanted a transformer for Christmas, specifically bumblebee (which he then tried to deny on Christmas morning when he unwrapped that exact gift. Luckily we knew better and got him Bumblebee AND the Sky something one he also wanted). G told Santa he wanted the same thing as E, and promised they could share one toy hahahhahahhaha. Luckily we had also gotten G some transformers to unwrap too.

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A Baa Baa Birthday Party

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Somehow we managed to pull off a small celebration for G again, just days before Christmas. It’s such a hard thing - in the middle of getting ready for Christmas and wrapping presents and figuring all that out, we suddenly have to double decorate and make a cake and have him feel special.

For months he’d been asking for another train birthday cake, like he had for his birthday last year, but then suddenly with a month to go he asked if he could have a baa baa birthday again. I told him that surprisingly he’d actually never had a baa baa birthday before, at which point he demanded it.