Memorial Day

I hope I'm not being too repetitive as I've just posted all these on facebook. The kids and I got to venture up north to visit our friends and old neighbors in Ipswich, MA. I love any excuse to go up there. It is such a gorgeous, pleasant place and so different than our daily Cambridge atmosphere. I always hear about Crane Beach (in Ipswich) and today we finally got to check it out. It was awesome to have all these sand bars for the kids to play in. Here are some of my favorite people:

the little folks:

bigger folks (Noah reunited with two buddies from kindergarten):

Me with one of the kindest people I've ever met!:

Charlie and Presley have been quite a pair lately. They take turns with the baby stroller and they fight over our baby dolls. They hug and hit and dance. It's a roller coaster! Presley has been working on some writing at home and is so ready for kindergarten. I think she'll love being able to draw without having a toddler yank her paper away. Charlie is learning his colors and mainly can remember yellow ("neh-no"). I always gravitate to teaching them colors before letters and numbers. It's so my thing.

Pres is wearing the shades (she's such a doll!) that Charlie threw out the car window. I had to drive around the corner, find a place to park, and drag both kids down the street to salvage them! Ugh! Presley likes to show off things in front of Char and Charlie likes to grab those things away! A volatile combo! Charlie does however love to be the waiter at our house. He gets a popsicle and always asks for more to pass out to the other kids. Love it. He is also beckoning me with his little hand, saying c'mon, and he'll pat the spot next to where he is for me to sit there. Cute!

Wrapping up a great week

This week was great partly because it felt like summer had already begun here in Mass. We spent most of our days getting creative to cool off. Can you guess whose dirty feet these are?:

If you guessed Charlie, you are CORRECT! Yeah, my kids are barefoot all summer long. Gasp if you will.

Our neighborhood is such a treat to explore. Especially now that everything's in full bloom. Did you know that Julia Child lived a block away from us? Also across the street from her was the birth place of E.E. Cummings. A poet whose words I related to in my dramatic teen years.

We hit the beach early on. I had promised Noah a while back that I would pull him out of school the next time it was nice enough to go to the beach. That time was on Tuesday! Noah had fun, but said that it was 2% more fun than school. Hmm, I guess he likes school. :)

Charlie went from this^

to this:

Nate and Catharine came back to Boston with family so we went with them to Boston Common. We rode the swan boats and played at the park. That day was a SCORCHER!

Presley and Claire are buddies

Graduation Day

Presley had her graduation yesterday at an MIT housing lounge. We started off the festivities with something typical of Joy School. Helping in the kitchen. The kids helped our master cake making JS mom, Christine decorate our graduation cake.

Then the kids sang some of the main Joy School songs. It is great to see Pres up there participating. In the beginning she would just stare and not sing at all.

Checking out their beautiful cake

The commencement hat toss! Wahooo!

Charlie waiting excitedly for his lunch

Proud Momma with her gal!

Wrapping up spring

Have I mentioned that summer is my favorite time of year? I just love all the fruit and veggies that are in season, farmer's markets, warm weather- heat even, the beach (duh), sunlight early in the morning, having less layers to wear, windows down in the car, sunshine, park days, eating outside, fourth of july, birthdays, wedding memories, swimming, slower paces, being more likely to exercise, being okay with cereal for dinner cause it's just too hot to turn the oven on, eating popsicles (although that's a year round treat at my house), and you get the point. To celebrate my excitement that summer is just around the corner, I made a bbq meal with lots of summer fixins. For dessert I made this really good strawberry shortcake:

The end of the spring also means that Presley is all done with Joy School. Forever. I can't believe it. I remember Noah's first day of Joy School and Pres crying in the car because she wanted to go too (now that's Charlie). Here are some photo pages I printed out for the kids' little yearbooks:

Cute kiddos. You can see how much they changed from the fall to winter. So bittersweet. I am so excited for Pres to start kindergarten. We are already talking about how fun it will be for her to eat in the cafeteria, and play in the dress ups, and see lots of familiar friends from the park and church. So next year I'll take a break from Joy School and after that, I'd love to teach little Charleston Chew. We'll see where we are living by then!

My Peeps

Big news in the Plant house: Noah lost his first tooth!!! It happened at school just after eating some watermelon. The school nurse gave him a cute little case to put it in.

Noah is playing t-ball right now and loving it! I wanted to put Pres in but, she backed out last minute. She opted for an hour and a half of making friends at the playground while dad and Noah toss the ball around. I think Noah is at the age where he's getting it more and more. Those days of playing kickball helped him figure out base running. It's fun for Josh and I to coach him and watch him improve. I remember in high school, our coach would spend a whole week teaching us how to slide. Noah does it naturally on a daily basis...on concrete! (This is when he plays kickball after school). Here are the boys out back playing catch:

Charlie, the little tag along.

Working on keeping that glove turned over. He got it!

I've decided I LOVE bandanas on kids. Especially girls. I saw a little baby girl at the park the other day with a bandana on her head to shield baldy from the sun and thought it was utterly adorable. We had a stay home day all day yesterday so Pres let me try one out on her. Love my little model!

Mother Terese (no a)

I hope everyone had a great Mother's Day. I felt so spoiled. Josh was calling the whole weekend "Ode to mom" weekend. I felt very appreciated. :) I never really knew what I was in for being a mom. I didn't like babysitting as a teen so I was a little nervous about motherhood. It's so interesting how things just fall into place and those instincts kick in when you become a mom, though. I have lots to learn and it's quite a journey!

I was going through our photo booth pictures on the computer and thought I'd share some with ya. This is the main way I get my photo taken. Charlie is constantly begging to take pictures at the computer so we have lots! I love how you can see the progression of our messy dining room table.

Here is Charlie and I this morning. Fresh out of bed.

I love being mom.

I'm so grateful to have had my own loving mom in for the 21 years I had her. I miss her dearly, but she left me with so much. The memories of all she did for me and how hard she worked to make life as happy as possible in our circumstances taught me so much.

Love to my momma-in law TK and my step momma, Ruth. You guys are so wonderful.

Google: little boy haircut

I have every intention of blogging at least twice a week. Time flies so fast and I fall behind! Last week I got the wild idea that the boys needed haircuts. Of course Charlie being the youngest made him the guinea pig. I love googling things so I thought I'd google "little boy haircut". Wha-la! I found just the help I needed. Check out the results:

I moved on to Noah's hair and chickened out. It was so much thicker. I trimmed it up then we headed to Super Cuts.

Right now Charlie is saying "Ta-Da!" and "no way!" and "that one!" He is calling all of Presley's Barbies, "Ella". I think it's because Pres plays Barbies with her friend, Ella all the time. Charlie also has two distinct favorite books:

I think it has to do with his interest in babies. He loves pointing out the babies' eyes, feet, hair, etc. Awww I love this stage!

the dust has settled

I feel like I am finally getting things back in order. Last week we had the worst stomach bug traveling through the family. It hit me like a truck! I could not get out of bed all evening. Luckily Josh came to the rescue and took care of everything while I hid under my covers. It hit Presley first, then me, then Noah. I now thoroughly appreciate good health.

We had Joy School here also and have been darting all over Cambridge on the weekends for t-ball, b-day parties, photo sessions, church functions, etc. The temperature has been almost 90 degrees with humidity to add to the craziness. I realized that humidity makes a stinky thing stink more. For example the diaper trash can and dirty dish rags, EW! Then the last couple of days it has been gorgeous. 80 degrees with the most beautiful haze-free skies. I hate haze!

Here is where we live! I love life so much more when summer is approaching!

Joy School at our house! My college Art Teaching Professors would DIE if they saw me teaching kids to make necklaces out of pasta!! Hey, I am learning how much kids need stuff like this for fine motor skills. They loved it. I am so impressed with their little attention spans during projects like this.

Charlie LOVES having Joy School at our house. I can't believe I am finishing up my fourth year of doing this. I never thought I'd do something like this. I was so skeptical at first. Now I am seeing what a great thing it has been for my kiddos.

This little guy has been keeping me on my toes! He is climbing up the gigantic play structure at Noah's school. Most kids don't do that till they're three. Charlie's not even two! I have caught him a couple of times by the arm as he dives off the six foot drop. Then he loves to throw toys and sweep papers off tables. The little terror. He has started to say lots of new words like cereal and pizza. "Sir all" and "pee ah". Those are the main staples of his diet. I just want to feed it to him to get him to say "pee ah" again and again. It's the cutest!

Long post. Sorry. Had to make up for lost time. I'm going now!

Oh yeah, when you get a second, check out my photo blog. It's oozing with CUTE!