A lovely weekend in Vermont

We had a great time in Vermont this weekend. The weather was warm (high 80s on Sat, high 60s on Sun). We actually got out of the house on time Saturday morning (at 8 AM) and made it to the book sale by 10:15. It's really not that far of a drive, but add in a stop to get gas, a stop for donuts, a stop for cash, and two potty breaks for Sophie, and you can see what happened!

The book sale was wonderful, and we will definitely be attending this in the future! A high school gym and cafeteria FILLED with tables full of used books. The most expensive thing we bought was $4. I think most of the books were probably a dollar or two. We picked up a few nice books about Chinese culture and some Chinese fairy tales. I grabbed a few cookbooks and a few novels to read. Oh, and a biography of Mao, which I've wanted to read for a while.

At the booksale, we met up with the J family, who traveled to China with us to meet their daughter H. We went out for a nice Mexican lunch with them...here's H and Sophie in the parking lot afterward. They were quite friendly with each other!


After checking into the hotel, we took a little cruise over to Woodstock and Quechee VT. We drove a little further, trying to give Sophie some naptime in the car. Here are some shots from the town green in Woodstock:

We grabbed dinner in Woodstock at a lovely place called Bentley's, but there was no air conditioning and we were stuffed in a corner with no breeze. Ugh. Good food, though. Later that evening, we went to the pool. Sophie LOVED the water and didn't want to get out, despite her chattering teeth.

The next morning, we grabbed some breakfast at the hotel and then went to the King Arthur Bake Shop. It was cookie week (oh darn!), so the girls got to decorate cookies with food coloring markers. Then, we had to have a little snack from their bakery of course! I came out a little poorer (had to have one of those silly bumblebee cake pans), but quite happy with my purchases! And it's so much fun to just browse in that store!

Finally, we went to the Montshire Museum in Hanover NH (home of Dartmouth - the girls' future alma mater - HA!). Sophie had fun moving these panels around to change the path of the rolling golf balls:

EJ had fun making crazy photos with this mirror:

Sophie thought the stuffed moose should talk, like the one at the Bugaboo Creek Steakhouse!

And turning the gears was fun too!

EJ is on school vacation this week. This morning, we took Sophie to the allergist and confirmed that yes, she is allergic to peanuts after all. And cashews. And cats. More on that later. Ugh.

Yeah! Spring has sprung

After a particularly cold Easter Day, it warmed up nicely for this weekend. It was a very busy week for us, mostly because we were all still feeling sick. I think I've finally kicked it.

Sophie has been happy to get out on the swing after school each day. It's a good way of distracting her from her after-school snack, and she's eaten much better dinners! She sleeps good in good weather too, because they get to play outside, which really poops her out!



The girls and I took a day off on Saturday and went for a playdate with some other moms from our adoption agency in the area. We had such a fun time playing with Julianne and Joseph! Many thanks to Julianne's mom for hosting us!

We also had a chance to stop at the LLBean outlet. Gosh, we love that store. This weekend, they were taking an additional 50% off the kids stuff, which was helpful since EJ and I cleaned out her drawers and closet the other night and discovered that most of last year's summer wardrobe doesn't even come close to fitting her this year. We grabbed up a whole bunch of nice LLBean T-shirts for $3 and $4 each. What a deal!

While we were out, K spent the day doing yardwork and cleaning off the porch. We're having a bit of work done over the next few weeks - pressure cleaning the house and scrubbing/sanding/re-finishing the ceiling in the porch, so it needed to be hosed down first. It looks nice. Now, we just have to find some free time to do some mulching, but I don't know when...the next few weekends are booked!

EJ and I also went to see the Hannah Montana movie. Not as bad as I expected, so that was good.

Tomorrow is Patriot's Day in Massachusetts, so I have the day off. K and the girls have work and school, so my friend DB and I are headed to the outlets in Kittery, Maine for a little retail therapy...just trying to help out the economy, you know?

And finally, Miss Sophie would like everyone to know that she has conquered the potty thing. She's only wearing PullUps at night, and even those have been dry, so when we run out of them, they're gone! Woo hoo!

Happy Easter!

Alright, so I'm going to work my way backward through the last few days since I'm too lazy to reorder the photos I just uploaded. It's been a LONG week with Miss Sophie sick. I came down with it Thursday afternoon and then it hit K around 1 AM on Saturday. EJ has been mostly immune, with just a stuffy nose to show for it.

We did feel well enough to get out for a little while this weekend. After church this morning, we went to my cousin's for brunch. Here are some shots of the girls there in their Easter outfits:

The day started around 6:45 with an egg hunt. We left out a dozen pink eggs for Sophie and a dozen purple ones for EJ. The Easter Bunny fills them and hides them, along with the baskets. Sophie found her basket under the desk in the family room. It had puzzles in it!

She really got into the egg hunt this year.

EJ's basket had piano music for High School Musical 3 and Jonas Brothers, a Jonas Brothers book, the soundtrack to the new Hannah Montana movie, and a paper quilling kit. And candy, of course!

Her basket was well out of reach on top of the cabinet in the family room:

K usually bakes cinnamon rolls for Easter morning. Here he is, hard at work on Friday night:

And the finished product:

On Saturday morning, while K was home couch-ridden with the fever, I took the girls to the Easter Bunny Breakfast at EJ's school. Sophie LOVED the big bunny and hopped right onto his lap!

While K was baking cinnamon rolls, we colored eggs. Sophie had fun with that this year too. When we were all done, she said "Mama, we need more eggs!"

Two years ago today...

Can you believe that it was two years ago today that we got The Call from our adoption agency and saw photos of our adorable Sophie for the very first time?!?! It's funny, because it seems like it can't possibly be two years already. On the other hand, I feel like I've known her forever!

Here's a photo from today - she's sick again, but you'd never know it from the pic. She has a nasty cold/lung thing going on again that we hope doesn't turn into pneumonia. We go back to the dr. in the morning.

Here's a shot from last year - look how much she's grown!

And here are the photos that we first saw two years ago.

Ah, such fond memories!

Easter photos!

Today, I picked up the Easter portraits of the girls and was very pleased with the results. Sophie is getting the hang of this modeling thing and was much more cooperative this time! Rather than get in their fancy Easter dresses, they wore jeans and their Easter sweaters. And they each have a Longaberger Easter basket. EJ keeps commenting that she really likes Sophie's basket better than hers and she wants to swap, but I've explained that the baskets are from the year that they each spent their first Easter with us and swapping is not an option!

Parting is such sweet sorrow...

Sigh. We've been together for so long. Eighteen years, from my best estimate. We've been through the utility room off the carport in the Florida apartment. And then to the new house we built in Florida. You got loaded onto the moving truck when we moved to New England, and you tolerated a year in a cold and lonely storage unit while we rented our already-equipped apartment in MA before buying the house in NH. For the past 12 years, you've been tucked away quietly in your own little corner of the house. Through two toddlers. And I know they've abused you, causing you to work overtime. Eight loads a week sometimes! And yet you never complained.

But you have been giving me little signs over the last few months. Sometimes just an ounce or so of water on the floor. Sometimes more. Especially when we put you under stress. This winter has been stressful. More heavy jeans and sweatshirts than usual, with four of us in the house now. The puddles have been a little bigger. I'm afraid to leave you alone with a full load of laundry, for fear of turning the laundry room into an indoor pool.

And so, it is time to say goodbye. This weekend, I went out and decided you are being replaced by this slick new guy. He costs twice as much as you did 18 years ago and probably won't last half as long. But he's slick. He requires his own special detergent (although less of it they say). He's incredibly vain, demanding $200 more to come in a hot red color and another $200 to come on a plastic pedestal with a drawer in it. I was tempted, but I resisted. I'm a frugal person. So, he will be in standard white and K will build a platform for him. I'm not sure why he needs all those buttons on the front. Aren't there only two decisions to make - water temperature, and size of load?

Goodbye, dear Frigidaire top-loading washer. It's been good knowing you. Your last full day is Tuesday. Perhaps one more load of dishtowels to remember me by?

Update

It's been kind of a busy week around here. Last weekend, K decided to do Potty Training in a Day (following the book of a similar name). It went well, but not so great that we felt confident dropping her off at daycare on Monday with just big girl panties! So, we sent her off to school with "Special School Panties" (aka Pull-Ups), and she did pretty good - keeping the pull-ups dry each day. The teacher was even brave enough to have her just do the panties one afternoon and she did fine. Perhaps tomorrow will be the first day without pull-ups at school.

On Monday, EJ had First Communion class in prep for the big event, coming up in mid-May. This past week, they made their own communion wafers.

Thursday evening was the 4th Grade Multicultural Musical at EJ's school. It was fantastic! The kids work so hard for months studying their different countries, learning songs and dances, and making all the artwork for the backdrops. E's class represented Italy (she was a little bummed she didn't get to do China, but I reminded her that there are lots of interesting places in the world!). She was a dancer, played a song on the piano, and was the New Hampshire reporter for the video (part of her video production project). She did a great job!

I really like the giant Mona Lisa that her class created. Mr. T, their art teacher, divided the painting into a giant square grid, and each kid painted their reproduction of the original grid.


Sophie liked the backdrops for China - she even stood in front of the Great Wall in one of them!


Here's EJ's class in Italy. She's in the front way holding a blue scarf.


I bought the girls new spring coats - the beautiful one I bought EJ last year was practically up to her elbows she's grown so much! So, she has a nice new green plaid trench coat, and Sophie has this cute little number with matching hat:

Miss S, who works at daycare, was home this week for Spring Break, so we took advantage of her babysitting services and had a night out last night. It's restaurant week in Boston, but we couldn't decide where to go, so we thought we'd just go wander around. Then, my friend L at work mentioned that Movin' Out (theater show based on Billy Joel's music) was in town. On a whim, I went online Thursday night and bought great seats in the front row of the mezzanine. It was fantastic! I LOVE Billy Joel, and the music was very true to his recordings. This show is all dancing (choreographed by Twyla Tharp), very little spoken dialog, and non-stop music by a band that is elevated on a platform above the stage rather than hidden in the pit. The guy who played the piano was Matthew Friedman, and he was amazing. There was a great story about him in the Boston Herald on Friday, which mentioned that he actually played the piano at Billy Joel's wedding a few years ago! He even did justice to the Prelude of Angry Young Man, in which he was seriously channeling Billy Joel. During the curtain calls, he donned his shades and did New York State of Mind. And knowing how to win the hearts of the audience, he put on a Red Sox cap and changed the words to Boston Red Sox State of Mind! Only two more weeks until opening day. I am bumming...Billy Joel and Elton John will be in Boston this summer, but during our summer vacation in Nova Scotia. Argh. I haven't seen him in concert in years, but I'll have to wait a while longer. And I haven't broken the news to EJ yet, but the Jonas Brothers will be in Boston that week too!

We took the girls for Easter portraits yesterday, so I'll have those back in a week or so to show you.