Church Chicken

On Sunday St Stephen's Church had it's annual fund-raiser of marinated and grilled "Church Chicken". It is one of the most wonderful marinated chicken recipes we know (the recipe is secret). Jack had some for lunch and as he munched, he kept saying to us "I like chicken".

Jack was playing in his sand pit and his knees got dirty. Had to take a photo, it was such a good sight.

Let's Try That Again

Last night was ASA's Annual Dinner - Forever Farmland Supper and I had to work late. Dick took care of Jack, taking him through his evening routine and putting him to bed (something I always do). Everything went well.

This morning Dick lifted Jack out of his crib and he didn't understand what Jack was saying. Jack became upset and even when I hugged him he was inconsolable. Jack went back into his bedroom, motioned to Dick to put him back in his crib. He lay down and asked for "Mummy". So, this time I went into his room and lifted him from his crib. He was back to his usual, chirpy self.

We started his day over just the way he wanted.

If only we could all do that when necessary.

Painting

This is really how the day ended. Jack was so focused on his painting. The 4th photo really shows his "zoning".

It started with a walk down the road, briefly onto the boardwalk, through the cemetery and back home to find Grandma Susie's Kia Soul in the driveway. She was dropping off freshly cut lilac blossoms.

Asparagus, Fiddleheads and Ham

T'is the time of year again for Fiddleheads. We had a friend who knew a landowner who had Ostrich Ferms growing wild so I was able to harvest them from the wild in the last few years.

But our friend moved to Texas and so this year I had to buy ours from the supermarket.

It has been a learning curve for me. A number of years ago I was hiking with John in the Battlefield (yes, where the Brits were defeated) and I came across a field full of Fiddleheads. John joined in to harvest the heads. When we got home I diligently cleaned and boiled them and sauteed them in butter and garlic aferwards. We were excited.

Yuck! They tasted like earwax and we spat them out. Now I pay more attention. They were not Ostrich Ferm Fiddleheads, but some other fern. I do recall they were hairier than I remembered. Luckily I am not so adventurous with mushrooms!

* simmered in a skillet in water for 6 minutes (pictured) and tossed with olive oil and Dijon mustard = delicious

Lip Moisturizer

This past winter I applied lip moisturizer to Jack's lips a few times and he quickly learned to do it himself. But I had to laugh at the weekend when I walked into our bedroom and caught Jack happily (for a few seconds only) applying Dick's stick deodorant to his lips.

Mother's Day

It is Mother's Day today. Dick and Jack gave me wonderful cards this morning and 2 Elephant Ear bulbs. The plants are huge and add a wonderful tropical aspect to any landscape. This image shows how big they can get (I found the image on google).

In a few hours Mum, Kelly and I are going to The Clark Museum. We will be back early afternoon. I hope to get a number of photos to add to this post.

Easter Sunday

Many thanks to "Gramma Sue" for the Easter basket for Jack. He was so excited and he kept saying "I like choc-lat". He had 5 mini chocolate bunnies before we took him out for a walk. Needlesstosay he ran all the way down the road and back.

More photos to follow.....

New Wheels for Grandma

Mum traded in her Toyota Tundra for a Kia Soul. This isn't a picture of her actual car, but it's the same colour. Nice, isn't it? She now gets 30 miles to the gallon. Which is pretty good when a gallon is now over $4!

Wot? There's no static on this slide!

We took Jack to the school playground where they have a climbing frame, slides and swings. He was wearing fleece leggings which created static on the slides.

Pillowcases

A friend gave me a sewing machine he came across in his garage. It's a straight-stitching 1960's Montgomery Ward. The rubber belt and power cable were so "dozed" they had to be replaced (Dick replaced the power cable and I replaced the belt, finding one online). It's a sweet machine and since I have not used a sewing machine since "Domestic Science" class* when I was 15 - I needed some skill-building projects. So that's why I have made a few pillowcases.

I found a wonderful tutorial on YouTube on "seamless" pillowcases. The last image demonstrates this.

The first pillow is a travel sized one I use for Jack, the second is mine (note to self: adjust right seam for a better fit) and the third seemed too bright a month ago when I finished it (I wanted to call is "Florida") but now that it is finally Spring, it will fit right in with the season.

* Our final project was a blouse and I was the last to complete mine because I had become the sewing-machine-troubleshooter. Whenever anyone had an issue - I would assist them (makes me wonder what the teacher was doing).

The other part of bathtime

The other part of bath time is Diego's involvement with "his" tap.

Diego is not even a year old and his is a big cat. He likes to be with us at every opportunity and is into everything we do. He seems fearless about a lot of things that most cats dislike - the hairdryer, the vacuum, people who come to visit he has never met before. He is a pretty cool cat.

A Bath With A Difference

Jack outgrew his baby bath and I had problems locating a well designed bigger one so, inspired by the French who have been known to bathe their babies in bucket-like baths, I became creative. Jack loves it. He is able to straighten his legs and enjoys the deeper water up to his armpits.

Green

Mr Green Eyes. They have definitely changed color. They were gray for a long time.

Lots of Walks

We had so many walks with Jackson - I lost count.

Jackson & Diego Love To Play

I am preparing lunch in the kitchen while Jack sings to me and Jackson and Diego play quietly together in the living room.


I cannot remember having such a great weekend. We were outside walking Jackson at every opportunity. Jack was climbing the snow banks and demonstrating his newly learned* skill of making snow angels - lying down in the middle of the snowless road to do so. I told Dick "those are Irish Snow Angels".

Plus our great friends Chad and Deb dropped by this afternoon on their way back from Vermont. It was a brief visit. We always want more exposure. Makes us wish they lived closer than Ithaca.

* we didn't teach him this, so we are curious as to who did. Hopefully it was not Grandma Susie.

Jackson Snippet

Jackson loves to sit on the back of the sofa and watch the world go by....until it's the mailvan and then he goes nuts. Luckily I didn't record that.

Dog-Sitting This Weekend

This weekend we are going to dog-sit "Jackson", a Havanese. This isn't him but I thought I would post this now before it gets hectic. I will endeavor to take a few photos of Jack with Jackson.

I imagine Diego will be scarce. Also, there is a high possibility Jackson and Jack will exhaust one another (and us).

Singing toy

Grandma Susie gave Jack this singing toy and she loved it so much she had to go out and buy one for herself.

Maybe we should borrow Grandma's and have them do a duet.

We got a bit of snow. We have been making paths for Jack with our snow-blower. Here is Dick working on one right now.

At the weekends we take Jack sledding down the hill from The Monument. It turns out a lot of parents take their kids there to sled and it is wonderful. I will take photo of the hill with the Monument in the background, so you can appreciate it too.

Diego (7 month old cat) has developed a bad habit in the past few days. Last night I heard an odd noise from the bathroom and I was able to catch him in the act but today he got away with it.

He is acting like butter would not melt in his mouth. Cheeky monkey.

A Day With John

We had a GREAT day yesterday.

It all started with us getting 6-8" of snow overnight. This was on top of the 6" we got over the weekend. John's school had a "snow day" and was closed. My appointment with a client was canceled because they live way out in the countryside and there was the possibility it could take me an hour each way to get to there (the snow plows don't often get to the country roads). Mum took the train with a friend to New York City for the day. So we took John out for lunch to Panera's on a few shopping errands and to the bookstore before we took him to his Doctor's appointment. Even though the roads had been plowed and I utilized my one-button-push into all wheel drive, it was still pretty slippery and the 4Runner slid a few times. We even took John with us to pick Jack up from daycare. Which was good because it was John who connected us with Sharon in the first place (he married Sharon's brother and sister-in-law). We then took John home for a short while. We had to get Jack fed, bathed and to bed before John came back for dinner at 7:00pm.

It was dinner* and a movie. We were particularly interested in the movie because it has been filmed in Saratoga Springs and Troy. However, it was so slow-paced we gave up watching it within 15 minutes.

* venison sauteed in butter served with sides of mashed sweet potatoes and cauliflower cheese.

p.s. I took this photo of John in August 2010.

If The Glove Fits

I wanted to post this snippet on the last posting, not that it really matters because I have a lot to add and snippets are good

Jack lying on the floor to look at his Lego barn was a new thing (and much appreciated) because he was consumed with it for hours (also a new thing). He was also consumed with his Thomas the Tank Engine train set (and we will get video of that soon).

I was able to give Dick a number of great gifts but this one did not fit (so sorry Dick) but I did have another pair as stand by which did fit.

So You Wanted More....

Apparently 25 seconds of video posted last time is just not enough. So here is a little more. There is lots and snippets of it really make me laugh so I will do my best to post a few of them.

Some More of Christmas

We tend to go for the cheaper, slightly imperfect “Charlie Brown” trees (with the compromised side facing the wall and decorated – you hardly notice). We bought our tree very early this year - A few days after Thanksgiving. John happened to see it on my car, parked in our driveway shortly after we brought it home. He was so excited about it that he phoned me and asked me if we had decorations for it. I said we had, they were hand me downs and were pretty tatty and tired. John explained that Mum was going to put up their short, vertical imitation tree (which could not hold many decorations) so he had many to give to us. That very evening he came to visit with 3 large boxes of decorations. But we waited a while before we “trimmed” the tree.

For the first few weeks we merely had the tree decorated with lights. We wanted the kitten and Jack to become accustomed to it and therefore be less likely to touch it. 2 weeks before Christmas we started to put the decorations on it. Jack helped us. We let him handle all but the glass decorations. Some of the items were amazing – biplanes, miniature bird feeders, a wooden “referee” moose with a string between it’s legs (when pulled it’s limbs went up), a gingerbread man, some of the colorful glass balls looked like their packaging had never been opened. The tree was transformed into something magnificent! We were so excited about it we invited Mum, John, Campbell and Kelly over for drinks to oogle at our tree. Needlesstosay there was not much looking at the tree due to Jack becoming highly animated with his new audience and us (later) playing our new DVD of Shaun The Sheep. It was a short and sweet gathering.

One evening a few days later I got a call from Mum “Just what kind of boxes did John bring you?” she uttered an expletive deletive when I answered. “Those are my decorations and I have been collecting them over the last 20 years!” I apologized and told Mum she could have them back…”but could we just appreciate them for one more evening?” “We will only give you a little grief when you take them back and we might even let Jack watch you taking them off the tree”.

Mum insisted we keep them and she trimmed her skinny imitation tree with lights only.

When we took our tree down last week we carefully repacked and returned all Mum's beautiful ornaments.


These photos demonstrate just how much Diego loves Jack. They are as thick as thieves when they play together. Diego loves to be involved in everything.

Christmas Choo Choo

This is a special post because is it "Grandma Sue's" birthday today and she sent us this cute Christmas decoration a number of weeks ago and she wanted to see it up and working.

Happy Birthday Sue! Thank you for this cute Choo Choo!

Jack's 1st Professional Haircut

Shelly, our hairdresser in the village is a master of first haircuts. Poor Jack's quivering lips only lasted a minute and he ended up quite enjoying it. Shelly did a great job.