Happy Halloween

Mum and John's neighbors, Tom and Barbara invited us over for dinner before we went off trick or treating and spook-getti was on the menu! Delicious!

Here is Nora before she became a Harvest Fairy....

And here they are - Superman Jack, Volcano Charlie and Harvest Fairy Nora.

Swimming

It cannot get any better than this! I have been teaching Jack to swim in Mrs Cunningham's (neighbor) pool.

Poking Around In The Garden

 

This is Mum's garden, full of flowers. Soon after Jack inspects a poppy and moves on to look at other flowers, a green leafy plant brushes his arm and alarms him a little. He thought it had stung him but it hadn't.

Morel Mushrooms

Chris from work happened to mention he had some morel mushrooms coming up in his backyard  and the chipmonks were getting to them before anyone or anything else. But he managed to save a number of them for me.

And I am ever so grateful. We had them sauteed with butter, scallions, eggs and spinach. Delicious.

Thank you!

Wilton Wildlife Preserve

We love visiting this place. We visit it at least once a week.

Sunday was the first time we were able to get there on time to see a train pass by. It was a passenger train and had about six carriages.

Jack holds his ears in anticipation for the train passing

Jack thought it was the best thing ever! The Blue Lupine plants have already started flowering so it will not be long before we see Karner Blue Butterflies.

Michael and Lizzie's place

After visiting Wilton Wildlife Preserve we visited Michael in his and Lizzie's house in Shushan. 

It is such a beautiful house.

John brought takeout from Panda's Chinese restaurant and we had a wonderful "first dinner gathering".

It's a charming house and when we were there the sunlight was low and it was stunning inside.

The only thing missing was Lizzie!

Lizzie is coming over in December.

6 Months

Uncle Michael arrived yesterday. He flew in from Australia.

He is closing on a house in Shushan soon.

Michael has many interests but his passion is watch mending.

Mum and John had a few broken watches lined up for his attention - poor guy had not even unpacked his miniature tool kit.

Best Pals

I took this some time ago. No one was still so it is blurred.  I did not have the heart to delete it.

Diego wants to be involved in everything Jack does until Jack wants Diego to be involved and then Diego runs away and Jack cries with frustration.

They love one another.

Potty Success!

In the last few weeks we have been focusing on transitioning Jack to the potty. 

Quite some time ago Mollie mailed us a very sophisticated built-in potty seat like the one on the left.  Jack sat on it a few times but he really did not take to it. So we had to back off for a while.

Recently we wanted to have another go so I discussed it with Sharon, his daycare provider, and we had a plan.

Last weekend Dick and Jack went off to K-Mart to buy some big boy briefs. They found a particularly colorful pack of six. We were ready to try again. Sharon tried Jack on a  smaller potty and he was more receptive.

On Tuesday he pooped on the potty and when Dick brought Jack home, we seemed to convene in the driveway because it was shortly after I returned from work.  I made a big fuss - I bounced up and down. Jack thought it was hilarious and he said "again" (and I bounced again, 6 separate sets).

These photos are not of our situation, they have been "borrowed".

Food For Thought

This morning I was preparing a dish to share with colleagues at one of my jobs.

It was a special occasion (the details of which I cannot disclose) and our visitor to the office brought in an electric grill and cooked burgers from scratch. Colleagues brought in a beet salad (with feta cheese, olives and arugula) and a coleslaw salad (with a horse radish dressing). I made scalloped potatoes.

Considering no one person had coordinated it, lunch was fantastic.

It was a very moving experience in a gastronomical and emotional way.

And as a parent, I have become so aware that sharing meal times together is important on so many different levels.

Language Skills

Jack's grasp of language really astounds me. He just turned three last month.

Today he was delving into Pringles (crisps, pictured right) and picking them out, inspecting them and returning them.

I took one and he commented that it was "broken". And no sooner had I said "Jack you cannot be looking for a perfect one" he found one and he said "Perfect".

John, Jack and I went for a hike on Sunday at Lock 5 and Jack looked ahead, saw the trail went up a step hill and he said "That is the largest hill I have ever seen".

Pre-Made Meals

Mollie and Sue filled our freezer with their home made frozen meals. And we are most grateful.

I just wish I was able to take photos of them before they were consumed. They were/are delicious!

The Sisters Visit

Dick's sisters paid us a visit recently. Sue and Mollie were staying in a motel in Saratoga so they went there first to drop off their things and then around 4:30pm they came to our house. Our daycare closed early at 3pm so it worked out really well. I was working in 50 miles away until 5pm and so I got to experience the rush hour all the way home in snowy conditions and got home close to 6:30pm. Around 6:00pm Dick called me to tell me Mollie was treating us the a Chinese takeout. Around 6:15pm I got a call from Mollie's cell phone  "Hello, hello, hello, I cannot hear anyone or anything, I am hanging up". I thought it was a butt call but it happened again, and again. About 4 times. So I thought we were all in a bad cell.

Shortly after cresting the hill at the monument I saw a car situated sideways on Burgoyne. It's nose was in the ditch outside our neighbor's house, so the car was parallel with Monument Drive.

It was Sue and Mollie. No one was hurt and the car looked undamaged. Mollie had already walked back to our house to let Dick know "there will be a slight delay in picking up the take out" she told him before she returned to Sue.

Apparently they had misjudged as they left our driveway and had fallen into the ditch quite soon after reversing. Sue thought she could drive the car out and kept going (in the ditch) but another car came up the hill so she had to break and that's when the back end swung around and ended up on the street.

There was a very happy ending. The newly elected Town (of Saratoga) Supervisor, Don Ormsby, just happened to have finished snow plowing the town offices and came across the sisters, so he parked his large truck with emergency-kind flashing lights below the "scene", I picked up the takeout and we all (except for Don who was adamant about staying in his warm truck) went inside to eat while we waited a short time for the tow truck to pull the car out. Jack was in his element with it all.

Here's a photo I borrowed from the internet which demonstrates the angle. Imagine snow, a smaller ditch and a slightly smaller, more modern car and two laughing sisters.

AAA pulled the car out of the ditch quite easily. A happy ending.

Baby Fish

We have a few new baby fish in the aquarium and I am not sure who the parents are.

I have not had time to photograph them (so I borrowed this photo from the web).

This particular one looks like a juvenile guppy. Ours are similar in color - golden with huge eyes.

Hopefully they grow to maturity and then we will be able to identify them properly.

Helium Balloon

Kelly brought helium balloons for Jack's birthday last Saturday. Four regular ones and a red foil one which had "You're 3 Today" on it.

It outlasted the others and on Friday as I was trying to get Jack off to daycare in a timely manner, I suggested he take it with him. I told him a few times "Don't let go of it when we are outside because it will fly away and we will not see it again" - he said "Ok. I will not let go of it Mummy". No sooner had we stepped outside, Jack let go of it and I was not able to catch it as it flew up and over our house. Jack's facial expression was one of muted glee (he did not want me to see he was quite excited about it). I told him to say goodbye to it (thinking that gesture would make he feel bad about it - but not at all).

As it crested the roof it dipped a little so I asked Jack to follow me around to the front of the house. As the wind blew it across the lawn, the (warm) balloon was reaching ambient temperature, cooling down and sinking. I was able to catch it. And I put it back in the house.

Our science lesson for the day was "Cold Air Sinks".

Happy Birthday Jack and Patrick!

Jack and Patrick celebrated their birthdays in Schuylerville and Bishops Stortford, respectively.

Jack was not the only one to love his icecream birthday cake (thank you Campbell and Kelly for that!). Hopefully we get to skype with Dad, etc. in Ireland today.

When I get a chance, I will upload more photos.

Trying Out Everything

Jack got into my mascara the other evening before his bath.

We are so relieved he did not damage his beautiful eyes.