Truck Day

We really have one of the best libraries in the world. They plan lots of free activities for kids, and this week was truck day. Truck day is when Princeton city sends some of their large equipment to let kids climb and plan on. It sounded fun so my friend and I planned on going with our small herd of tiny humans.

So Mollie and I got Madeleine and baby X (the kid I nanny) ready. We ran for the bus where we met the rest of the herd and waited for 27 minutes for our late bus. Usually I don't complain about things like this, but it's important to the story. We jumped off the bus and power walked our strollers to the library. We missed the storytime but arrived there just as 100 knee-high toddlers rush out of the library. There were so many kids. We followed. Madeleine went straight to the trucks. She was pretty excited. 

Hey look a photo of me!

The first five minutes were great. Madeleine was excited. Baby X was happily asleep. We were taking pictures. All good. 

But then it all fell apart. Madeleine was able to climb up into one of these big trucks.

There were so many great things, like buttons that she wasn't suppose to push. 

She didn't push them. She stepped on them instead. 

In order to get the best thing ever - the steering wheel!

She wanted to stay there forever. This was wonderful! Only problem was there was a long line of impatient little people wanting to get a turn too. It didn't go well. She had already spent all of her patience up waiting for the bus. She was not going to wait in line and she was not going to share. So Mollie had to go fetch her.

The reason Mollie had to get her instead of me was Baby X had woken up. He was happily asleep with cute little dream sleep when other little children like Madeleine had discovered the steering wheel, but unlike Madeleine, they had discovered the horns - very, very loud horns that jerked poor little Baby X out of his happy milk drunk sleep. Tears were coming from Madeleine and Baby X so I feel like the photo summed up the end of the event. (The happy little guy next to her is one of our friends!)

The tears didn't stop unfortunately from either, so Mollie and I aborted the event that we spent over and hour going to. We walked through the library and then downtown Princeton. Baby X eventually was able to go back to sleep and we knew Madeleine had recovered when she started taking Sophie "window shopping." It was pretty funny. Downtown Princeton has beautiful window displays and Madeleine kept holding Sophie up to see.

Mollie and I were cracking up. Window shopping is a favorite past-time of mine, especially when I'm upset. (How can you be angry around beautiful things?) It amused us both that this was one of the habits of mine that she apparently is picking up.

We ended our outing with fig newtons. It didn't go at all according to plan, but hey...we had fun. 

New Clothes for Sophie

With Madeleine getting her canines in, life has been very dramatic. Tears, fits, violent outburst, the whole deal. So yesterday after poor Sophie was angrily thrown into an ice cream bowl (I wouldn't give Madeleine more) and then later yogurt, I decided Sophie needed more than one pair of clothes to wear and her hair washed. After Madeleine was asleep, Sophie and I stayed up late to work on some more wardrobe options.

We had bought some newborn outfits and then I refitted them for Sophie. 

Doesn't her hair look so nice and clean?

This morning when I was taking pictures, Matt was teasing me that I love Sophie as much as Madeleine does. After all, I can sew clothes for her and Madeleine can't. It was a lot of fun though, and I did enjoy make Sophie look cute in new clothes. I have always loved dolls, and so I let Madeleine get a new tiny Mooshka doll. She already has a larger soft doll, but this mini doll has been a big hit.

Do you have any favorite dolls or toys?

Strawberry fields forever

I love Turhune Orchards. It's a small family farm near Princeton. We only went a few times last year, but I had been planning on going back. When we found out that they were letting the public pick strawberries, my friend Rachel and I loaded up the kids and went to pick strawberries! (There are no pictures of her adorable kids because I forgot to ask her if I could put them up, but they are adorable and made the adventure so much more fun.) 

There aren't any photos of Madeleine picking strawberries. She's had plenty of practice of picking strawberries in our garden, so she knew that the red ones were good to eat. I spent most of the time trying to keep her from eating them and watching baby Austin, the little guy I nanny. She was so cute, every time she saw a big bush of strawberries she would start going "ooooo" which was like every minute since there were so many strawberries.

After we each got a green basket thing of strawberries, we went around looking at the animals and playing on the playgrounds.

Madeleine has grown quite a bit from last year!

I love this photo. Bike riding is serious stuff. No headband for this.

After we finished letting the kids run around in circles, we went in the store and bought a few things. I got some cookies and some wonderful apple butter. Rachel got homemade cider donuts that were incredible. I need to buy some of those next time we go. We ate our snacks and took the kids home to nap before they spent the rest of the afternoon playing outside. Well, that's not completely true.

I fell asleep the last few minutes of Madeleine's nap on accident and was woken up to strawberries being smeared on my face and arms. When I opened my eyes, the whole living room was bombed with half eaten strawberries. Madeleine woke me up so I could take off the green leaves of the strawberries so she could eat the rest. The couch and carpet were spotted with strawberry juice, along with the pillows, blankets, walls, and door. I jumped up and started cleaning it, while Madeleine sat and ate the rest of the strawberries on the steps. Thankfully everything came out, but next time I need to remember that when there is tempting strawberries to move them out of the reach of our little strawberry monster. 

Anyway this went perfectly with my goal to support more local people. It was wonderful and we are probably going again this week. 

Midnight Snack

Beach!

My lovely computer Matilda stopped reading my memory card for a week. I have no idea what happened, but suddenly she felt like reading it again! So I have lots of pictures to share. We've been going on plenty of adventures in the last week or so. We went to the beach twice, went to a farm, and of course lots of strawberry eating every single day. (We actually went to the farm to pick more strawberries.)

So for today, here our pictures from the "shore". I only brought my camera one of the two days. The other day I was too busy playing in the water to take pictures. It's a lovely temperature of 61 degrees.

Both times Madeleine thought that the water was way too cold. So she spent most of the time laying on the sand. She loved the sand. She laid on it.

Did the worm on it.

Found a rock pet.

Harassed seagulls

And buried Matt's hand after he got pounded on in the ocean.

After that we walked a bit, before getting ready to go.

And a flash back from last year...

Not much has changed huh?

And Matt even took a picture of me!

We bought a season pass the beach. We are aiming to go at least once a week for the rest of the summer. We are so excited. The drive isn't bad and the sun and wind is wonderful.

An Adventure for Sophie and Madeleine

This is Madeleine trying to climb a tree.

Mmm...something isn't working quite right.

Ah ha!

This is Sophie trying to climb a tree.

Maybe she just needs a boost... 

Oh look! Squirrel

Huh...so what was I doing? Licking Sophie?

Runs off to their next adventure.

!