Boston

Here are the pictures from our weekend in Boston with my mom. I'll try to keep the descriptions brief, since I know that most of you just look at the pictures anyway ;)

We left River Vale on Friday afternoon at 2:30 and arrived in Boston around 6:30 pm. We were greeted at the hotel by my mom who was sporting her new "do"! After loosing all her hair during chemo, she finally has hair again! The wig is terribly uncomfortable, so she opted to go without all weekend. John and I both thought she looked great ~ très chic!

We unloaded our bags, then went out to dinner at a nearby Southwestern restaurant called the Cottonwood Cafe.
On Saturday, we went to the Museum of Science Boston ... what a great place for kids, and adults too! Reagan loved seeing the different animals and was able to name most of them. Here she is staring at the big moose.
Here's Nana holding Avery, checking out the many machines (a cool section that showed how different gadgets worked)

We paid an extra $4 per person (on top of the $21 entrance fee) to go into the Butterfly Exhibit. This was a greenhouse at the top of the museum where they have all different kinds of butterflys flying around a lush garden. Apparently, they keep the thermostat at 80 degrees, but when the sun shines in through the windows, it immediately raises the temperature. Let me tell you, it felt like Florida in the summertime with intense humidity! It didn't help that the high in Boston that day was only 35 degrees, so we were all dressed in sweaters.
Butterflies drinking nectar
Even though Reagan was dripping with sweat, she did not want to leave the butterfly exhibit. She also refused to take off her sweater! I finally made her leave because I couldn't take the heat anymore, but then she begged me to go back inside. I told her we'd go again if she took off her sweater, so she did. I don't know if you can see it in this pictures (above), but Reagan's entire face was covered in little beads of perspiration. She was so hot, but she didn't care.
After the butterfly exhibit, we had some lunch, then went to another wing of the museum where the children's Discovery Center was located. This area was fun for kids Reagan's age and focused on toys/activities for learning. In the picture above, Reagan is completing a puzzle in front of Nana.
This was probably the highlight of Reagan's day ... playing at the water table! There were small plastic fish for the kids to catch and they all had a wonderful time. The museum provided these great smocks so the kids wouldn't get wet.

Nana and Reagan, playing in the water
Reagan and Papa playing in the water. Trying to get Reagan to leave the water table was one of the worst parts of the day ... she was having way too much fun!
These stairs played music everytime one was stepped on ... I realize this picture doesn't even show Reagan's face, but I had to post one of the only pictures taken of me during the entire weekend! I'm so bummed: I didn't even get a picture of my mom and me together!

On Saturday night, John put the kids to bed in our hotel room, while my mom and I went out to dinner and then hung out talking in her hotel room. It was so nice to catch up with her, since I hadn't seen her since Thanksgiving.
Here's a picture of Avery on Sunday morning.
Avery and Reagan in matching shirts

We checked out of our hotel and headed to the Prudential Center for lunch. I took these pictures of the girls at Cheesecake factory. As you can probably guess, the above picture shows Reagan saying, "Cheeeeeeese!"

Avery loves to chomp on her fingers
Avery and Reagan at Cheesecake Factory

After lunch, we went back to the car in the parking garage, ready to jump in and drive back to NJ. There was a car who had parked SO close to us, that Reagan couldn't even fit between the cars! We don't even understand how the person got out of his/her door. So John had to pull out the car in order to get Reagan into her car seat. At that point, he noticed one of the tires was a little low. He immediately found a large metal object (similar to a nail) that had implaled the tire. Since it was still mostly inflated, we were still able to drive on it, since it would have been a bigger pain to put the donut on the car and then drive around with that on. Luckily, we found a service station rather quickly and the guy there said he'd fix it for $20. What luck! Here it was, 4:00 on a Sunday afternoon and we found someone to fix our tire!!!! Yea!!

We got out of the car and sat on this chair while the tire was being fixed. It wasn't until I stood up to leave that I realized we were right around the corner from Fenway Park.

We were on the road by 4:30 and home by 8:30. It was a really fun trip ... Boston is a beautiful city and it was so nice to be there sharing it with my mom!

P.S. Thank you to Patricia for watching Dawson and to Lizzie for watching Verdell!

Weekend in Boston with Nana

My sweet mother went to Boston last Wednesday for a convention. When I told John she was going to be there over the weekend, he immediately suggested that we drive up and spend some time with her. So we did and had a fabulous weekend! This post is just a teaser ... I'll download all my pictures tomorrow and write more about our fun road trip, including the flat tire :)

Flashcards

When Reagan's cousin Joaquin came over with a toy that was a set of flashcards, Reagan had some serious 'toy envy.' So when I saw the same toy at Buy Buy Baby, I thought it would be a perfect addition to her Easter basket. Each card has a letter or number on one side, then a picture on the other side. The name of the object is written in both English and Spanish, so it's a great way for Reagan to expand her vocabulary.

We were playing with these yesterday and when I turned to the following picture, I asked, "what's this?"

She then replied, "it's an octapus."

Easter Sunday

Today turned out to be a very enjoyable Easter Sunday. We came downstairs and let the girls go through their Easter baskets ... we sat Avery in the Bumbo seat (no picture but I got it on video) and let her watch Reagan pull out everything from both baskets. Then we sent Reagan on her Easter egg hunt around the living room. It was so much fun to watch her have such an enjoyable time! And of course, she was in heaven with the candy ... her exact words were: "I LOVE candy! It makes me SOOOOO happy!" I swear that's a direct quote. We've created a monster when it comes to candy and it's time to put it all away and hope she forgets about its existence. Yeah, right!

Reagan finding Easter eggs

Proud Papa and his beautiful girls

Happy Avery

Avery and Reagan in their Easter dresses

Another meltdown because we took away her Easter eggs full of candy ... I love Avery's expression here!

This last picture of Reagan twirling was taken at Nayda and Pepin's house. We spent the afternoon/evening at the home of John's aunt and uncle. His cousins Maribel and Jose were there with their families and we all had a great time. The bad news is that I didn't realize the battery of my camera was in need of charging, so it died shortly after we arrived. It killed me that I couldn't take pictures while we were there, so I stole Maribel's camera and took a bunch with hers! Once she gets them to me, I'll be sure to post more from today, since we took a bunch of funny shots with a wig that showed up with Jose's daughter Lauren.

All in all, it was a great day. I hope everyone else had a wonderful Easter!

Apple Cake

I was putting away the groceries today and noticed that I had a few bags of apples in the fruit drawer (I need to make a point to check the fridge before going grocery shopping so I don't buy duplicates unneccessarily!). The perfect way to get rid of apples is to make Apple Cake! There is a website called Tastefully Simple. It used to sell a cake mix called Nana's Apple Cake. They have seasonal products, so it's not available right now, but I'm HOPING they bring it back eventually, since I'm addicted to it. All you do is add chopped-up apples and 2 eggs to the mix, then throw it in the oven. It's delish!

Anyway, Reagan was helping me make it tonight, since I figured it would be a nice thing to take to John's aunt Nayda's house tomorrow for Easter. The reason I pulled out the video camera tonight was because this was the first time Reagan didn't run from the kitchen when I pulled out the electric hand mixer! The loud noise of the mixer has always scared her and just the sight of it has sent her running. Yet tonight, I got it out and she didn't even flinch! I knew this day would eventually come, so I was happy that it finally did. Not only was she unafraid of the mixer, she was anxious to use it and help me. I was so proud of her :) Please disregard her messy hair, since I didn't comb it after her nap.

Breakfast with the Easter Bunny

So we got it right this week and Reagan got to see the Easter bunny! (if that doesn't make sense, read last week's post about the Easter bunny). At first, Reagan wanted me to sit with her, but then she allowed me to slide out of the picture. I'm bummed we couldn't get a good picture of the girls smiling, but I guess that's how it goes sometimes.

The Easter egg hunt was outside on the muddy grass and it was quite the adventure! It all happened so fast that I'm not sure Reagan understood what was going on. There weren't very many eggs and there were a lot of kids ... everytime we came close to an egg, someone else snagged it. I was holding Reagan's hand, pulling her as I ran. I think she was so overwhelmed by all the people and the chaos of it all that she stopped moving her feet ... next thing I knew, I was practically dragging her, doing a great job of dirtying her light pink capris! I did manage to direct her to a small pile of 4 eggs, so at least she didn't go home empty handed.

Reagan hunting for eggs

Papa, Avery and Reagan eating breakfast

Avery

When we got home, I figured I'd try to get a picture of them both smiling in their matching outfits. As you can see by the first picture, Reagan wasn't very excited about this idea. Actually, I took the pink bag out of her hands (the one with her 4 Easter eggs) and she had a meltdown. Girls can be so dramatic!

So while Reagan sat in time-out, I took these 3 pictures of Avery:

Reagan eventually calmed down and I got this picture:

Kids Kingdom

A new indoor play place called Kids Kingdom recently opened in Northvale (about 10 minutes from us). We tried it out a few weeks ago and then returned today with Nicole and her kids, Mia and Bennett. Reagan and Mia loved running around, climbing, sliding, jumping, and completely wearing themselves out! Nicole and I loved that it was brand new and *clean* ... it's also very affordable. They charge $6.50 per child, and all kids under 2 are free! It's nice to know I won't have to pay for Avery for 20 more months :)

Although this picture is a little blurry, I just love the expression on Reagan's face. She is so happy!

Mia and Reagan played so well together in the kitchen area "cooking."

Reagan resting at the bottom of the slide.

Mia in her rain boots ~ Bennett on the stairs


Click on this picture ~ Reagan on the slide

These last two pictures made me laugh ... if you click on the first one, you can see it bigger. Check out Reagan's expressive smile and then look at how her image is reflected in the top of the slide - I thought that was cool, so I thought I'd share. Anyway, this was a very steep slide that went incredibly fast, but Reagan had no fear!

Shopping Success

35 books for $30!!!!! No, I'm not lying. Nicole and I went to the Scholastic Book Fair Clearance Sale this morning, where every book was only $1. We had a coupon for $10 off if we spent $50, so we combined our purchases and each took a $5 discount. I'm still on a high from this amazing shopping experience!

Reaganisms

I just love hearing Reagan's language evolve and I thought I better write down some of the funny things she's been saying lately. A few weeks ago, I wrote about her phrase "all day long," but she's not using that one very much anymore. Right now, she's having difficulty with the use of the word "have." She's putting this word into almost every sentence, often in the place of "want." When she's in her high chair and she wants to get down, instead of saying "I want to get down," she says, "I have get down." Or she'll say, "I have wash hands," which is actually code for, "I want to play with the water in the kitchen sink, splashing lots of water on the floor and on myself." When it's time to go upstairs for bed and she wants to be carried, she'll say, "Mama have bring Reagan upstairs." I'm sure she'll figure it out soon and I'll miss all the unnecessary "have"s in her sentences.

Reagan has always been a really good snuggler, so John and I sometimes give into one of our guilty pleasures of letting Reagan sleep with us. We realize this isn't the best habit to get into, so we try to keep it to a minimum. When I was pregnant with Avery, I often took afternoon naps with Reagan (I was really tired and I also wanted to take advantage of my time with Reagan before Avery came along). Anyway, a few nights ago, John was really tired and he decided to go to bed early and let Reagan sleep with him. I went into the bedroom as they were getting settled into bed and Reagan said, "Sleep with Mama!" I told her she was going to sleep with Papa and that I couldn't sleep with her because I had "stuff to do." I went downstairs and took care of Avery while John read books to Reagan, then I went back upstairs to say 'goodnight.' John and I were talking about a few things and Reagan was starting to get annoyed, so she said, "Goodnight Mama, go do stuff." She clearly wanted Papa to herself and we couldn't help but laugh.

I took this picture of Reagan with my iPhone - I just love her big brown eyes!

Tonight, I got her bathed and ready for bed, but couldn't finish the bedtime routine of reading books because Avery needed to be fed. So John and I switched girls and he read books to Reagan and put her to bed in her crib. When we were switching, I told Reagan to come give me a hug and say 'goodnight' ... I was sitting on the floor and she ran as fast as she could to me, throwing her arms around me in a huge hug, almost knocking me over! I said, "Wow, that was a big monster hug!" I don't know why I used the word "monster," since we never use this word, but it just popped into my head for no reason and I couldn't think of anything else to describe her big forceful hug at that moment. She looked at me kind of confused and said, "I'm not monster. I'm Reagan." The way she said it had both John and me laughing.

The other word she's recently discovered is the dreaded "Why?"!!!! Seems rather early, right? I don't think she fully understands this word yet, so I think she's mimicking me when she uses it. If she makes a mess, or throws her food on the floor, or something like that, I sometimes say, "Why did you do that?" Now at random times, she'll hold up her hands and ask quizzically, "Why?" It's cute now, but I have a feeling this will be a favorite question in the near future and it will quickly get old.

Here are a few more phrases she says on a daily basis:

• That's not nice (she shakes her head and her finger)


• I don't like that (pronounced, "I don't yike that")


• So happy to see you


• Reagan's funny!


• Verdell looks pretty! (he recently went to the groomer!)
  

That's all the "Reaganisms" for now, but I'm sure I'll have more to add soon!

And here are two pictures of Reagan playing in my make-up on St. Patrick's Day ... she made her cheeks quite rosy with my blush!

Here, she was begging me to open this so she could powder her nose. If she only knew how lucky she is to have her flawless skin and long, dark eyelashes! She's the last person on earth who needs to wear make-up ... I just hope I can convince her of this when she's a teenager :)