Good Eats

I didn't cook for Thanksgiving and I didn't make a turkey for my birthday either - so last night I was up late listening to Sonoma County radio on the computer & cooking my lil fool heart out. Nothing was done till past bed time so we put it all in the fridge and broke it out to be our leftover lunch today....

Roast Turkey, Garlic Mashed Potatoes, Sweet Potatoes in a maple sauce, sauted brussel sprouts with a touch of roast garlic, Fresh Cranberries with Satsuma Tangerine, Cornbread & sausage stuffing and a nice gravy heavy on the chicken stock (thanks to Jenny & Aunt Virginia).


Best of all -

watching him eat the drumstick!!!

About to topple the snowper

Played with Dan, Farah & Dori at Whole Foods park for a couple of minutes today (after some CRAZY 24th of December shopping...) Uncle Dan worked with the kids to make this snow person (lady according to Farah, man according to the boy - hmmm) and not five minutes after the cousins left to go home & nap my boy was knocking the whole thing down. Like a block tower or train tracks - the point of building is the opportunity for destruction that it offers!!

Snow Play

Okay so our October photos of an almost non-existant snowfall may have been a bit premature. Now that we are on the verge of the ginormous christian holiday we have received an honest to goodness smackdown of snow. Luckily its a light & fluffy coating that was easy enough to shovel through and PERFECT for playing in...

So without further ado - I give you a boy, his dog & the first good snowfall of the season

(Making tracks in the Big Kid playground at Hoyt Field)

Catch me momma - catch me

A tail waggin' good time!!!

Happy Holidays....

Just a little solstice note to let our family & friends know that we are thinking of you with love at this time of year. We have shared a lovely Chanukah with all of our East Coast Family & have been lucky to have Emily working nights which means that we get full weekends with her.

The snow has been coming down in bucketfuls and that's given us some shoveling fun. Thankfully we haven't had to travel any further than WholePaychex so we have been able to stay warm & toasty as we try out some new recipes.

I can't believe that the year is nearly coming to a close - it does seem as if it has flown by.

hungry

Never again should a people starve in a world of plenty

I noticed this statue in Cambridge Common for the first time today after the boy & I were playing --- seems an appropriate sentiment for the season.

For more info go to http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WM7QZN_Irish_Famine_Monument_Cambridge_MA

What a difference a week makes

Here are a couple of shots that we took on Dec. 3rd


Me and the boy playing at Cambridge Common after his morning at nursery school ----




and look its a different kind of biker .... Note the blue skys, the smiles and the short-sleeve shirt with no coat on....


and a week later at the same playground - still sunny but remnants of snow on the ground.

Snow

Birthday Full Moon over River St.

As R. and I walked home from Birthday Adventure Day we stopped to look over our shoulders to see the full moon bathed in sunset rays - this doesn't really do it justice it was crazy awesome.

Nothing says Happy Birthday....

Quite like chocolate sprinkle chocolate donuts for lunch....




... Or ....




half naked college boys rollerblading on the "T"

Our Thanksgiving

This is a shot of Quincy House at Harvard - You can't really see it, but there is a very, very nice penthouse apartment on the top floor (behind the trees) which is where we got to spend our Thanksgiving.


Note the fabulous place setting candy decorations - oreo cookies, reese's and candy corn - I think the boy thought he'd died and gone to some type of Martha Stewart candy heaven... He also thought that ALL the little turkeys were for him...

and here he is jumping on the furniture after eating his fill

Honestly it was quite a lovely thanksgiving with some of the best food that I have had & the apartment was very nice with incredible views of Cambridge & Boston. Also the house mascot is a penguin & the boy is now very attached to the 4 foot stuffed penguin that he played with all night!!

Demolition !

Jeff invited El Destructo upstairs to have a hand at the demolition thats been going on in their kitchen. The work he is doing is amazing by the way - the top floor is looking amazing with a laundry room & a new bathroom - rain shower head & claw foot tub included. The lower floor is in the midst of transformation.


Em, Mikey & Jeff in the newly framed kitchen doorway.


El Destructo with his goggles on ripping down some plaster in the kitchen.

Garden Nursery Pajama Day Fun

Monito's nursery school likes to hold a pajama day for the kids before the holiday weekends. Today was our first one. I had been looking forward to this since last year when Em & I visited the school it was PJ day & I thought it looked like so much fun. Really - what's cuter than a bunch of 3 year olds running amok in their footsies?

The teachers & the parent teacher also wear PJ's to school for the day & the classroom is transformed for "night time" with lots of caves (big boxes), sleeping bags, flashlights and other fun stuff.

This year the kids also were "going on a bear hunt" for PJ day ---
Here is the monkey & one of his classmates making bears with teacher Rachel (easy name to remember huh)



showing off his bear (that he carried around with him ALL day according to the teachers)

The classroom also has a cool loft space that the kids have transformed into a FIRETRUCK
this year - complete with hoses, helmets and the steering wheels that used to be in the outside play yard...



put this all together and you get.....

A couple of Pajama clad fire fighters!!!!!

Pajama Day

This is how he looked coming home from PJ day at school today. I love the footsie pajamas tucked into the rain boots and the rain jacket. He is holding the bear that he made for the "bear hunt" that his class went on.

Candy Land

After picking up recycled paper for nursery school, and then going to the final Farmers Market of the season with Jen, Dashielle and Daphne the boy & I stopped into 1369 Coffee House for a warm up for me & enjoyed a game or two of CandyLand. I am enjoying how each place we play this game the game board is slightly different - I may need to google all the different versions to satisfy my curiosity. The boy has been enjoying it since our SF visit when Jesse passed down his old copy of the game. At first Monito was excited for whoever was finishing first, but now he is beginning to want to win. He is also learning how to cheat a little bit too - if he pulls a card he doesn't like he slides it under the game board and pulls another one.

Post Adventure Day treats

After hanging out in Em's office the monkey & I headed down to Flour to enjoy a nice cuppa & a yummy treat - they make a WONDERFUL chocolate chip cookie -

He also enjoyed coloring a few pictures on some of the cafe fliers and in my calendar - isn't the B&W feature on my phone cool?

Adventure Day - BMC

Em has been telling the lil monkey about the construction that is going on "right outside my window" at her work... and has been asking us when we want to come down & see. So that was our destination on this weeks adventure day.

It's a pretty easy ride on the #1 bus & we passed lots of big buildings & construction on the way. As we got close to the hospital we were amused by the "antics" of the various junkies on their way to BMC - something that always gives me a bit more sympathy for Em since these are often her patients.

Then we got to meet up with Mommy & see the building - my photo's don't really do it justice but there is a massive construction project outside her office & the cool part is that they have a GIANT tower crane inside the center of the new building - which no one we talked to yet knows how they get out of there...

The boy happily sat in Em's office window (ps the office for the residents is something that just happend this year - and by office we pretty much mean a closet sized space shared by 16 - but hey it does have a DOOR!!) & ate his snacks and marveled at the crane.

Mud Boy

We started the day by exploring the mud puddles left from yesterdays rain on the Baseball field in Hoyt. There was one good, deep & dirty puddle left. He made the most of it - soaking boots, pants and even some of his shirt.

He Looooves his rain boots & He Loves getting dirty

After a change of clothes & a meal we were back outside with Kath & Gabe until Unka Adam got here & enticed us inside with promises of a yummy BBQ dinner from the Red Bones.

In here somewhere there is a longer post about when good boys go berzerk -- a combo of missing the grandparents after a weekend with them & no food stuff except chocolate.

Grandparent Visit for Dori's Birthday Weekend

Dori turned one this weekend & the grandparents & cousins came to town!!! Which means a couple of the Boys' favorite things - Hotel Rooms & swimming pools.

sadly it also means flu shots....

Here he is giving a shot to Grandma Nancy - she took it very well!!!

SkyScraper 1,2,3 ....

Adventure day this week was a trip to downtown Boston to do a return visit to the Boston Public Library and to take a harder look at some of the SkyScrapers of our skyline. The plan was maybe going to include a trip up the elevator at the Prudential Bldng. but the weather was funky so we ended up sticking to the ground on this trip.

He has become really interested in the tall buildings - singing about sky scrapers, building them out of blocks, asking us to draw them... etc. And it was really apparent to me that he's even more nutso about them than last time we were downtown - I thought that he would fall over from craning his neck to look up at the big glass skyscraper.


what you are missing in the photo is his animated babbling and the occasional jumping up and down with excitement.

This is the view he had:



I, on the other hand love the buildings placement....

and the reflection of the old church in its modern facade.

Tortoise & Hare

riding the tortoise at Copley Square, and


bringing the bunny some carrots from the farmers market.

Police search for Harvard Square bank robber - Cambridge, Massachusetts - Cambridge Chronicle

Police search for Harvard Square bank robber - Cambridge, Massachusetts - Cambridge Chronicle

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Its got to be hard to find a 20 year old white guy in Red Sox gear in Harvard Sq at lunchtime... but this does explain why the red line train was backed back into the station and searched car by car by a bunch of police when we were heading home from preschool.

More fall foliage fun

Gabe, Jack & our boy get busy at the Amigos school playground.

R the Builder

We went to the swedish store of furniture & meatballs to purchase a new shelf system for the boys room.

and the best part is he got to help put it together with Mommy -


They both pulled out their powertools & had it put together in no time...