Happy, silly kiddos running for the biggest rakes! Lol!

For the five years that Luke, Kyle, Eric, Aiden, and I lived in Monson we would all get together for lunch on Saturdays at my mom and dad’s house (well, except Luke and Chris who were both usually working).  Those Saturday lunches were some of the greatest times we all spent as a family and were able to watch Kyle, Eric, Aiden, Haley, and Emily grow up together and become very close cousins!  I loved Saturday lunches.  Especially with Luke working, it was always something to look forward to.  Even on the winter days when we were stuck inside, we had so much fun.  As the kids grew and played more independently, Linds and I really looked forward to grown up talk!    Saturday lunches are just all around a great memory – one of the best.

In fact, we used to get together when I was a little kid at my grandparent’s house, Ba and Bumpy Shorette for Saturday lunches.  I’m not sure if it was every Saturday, I’ll have to ask my mom, but I clearly remember sitting at my grandparent’s counter with the family around, even my Dad, who also worked Saturdays!  He would stop by to grab a quick sandwich because Ba and Bumpy were on his mail route!    I remember the sandwiches were so yummy with the Miracle Whip that Ba and Bumpy always had and the unsupervised access to the soda in their basement freezer was really cool! 

I hope that Kyle, Eric, Aiden, Haley, and Emily will have really great memories about Saturday lunches as I did as a kid and do now as a grown up.  The lunches kind of fizzled out when we moved out here to the Berkshires last year but they are back!  We are attempting to make so many more trips to Monson and we have revived the Saturday lunch ritual!

Here are some pictures from today’s wonderful afternoon:

Yay, rakes from Pa to make big piles of leaves to jump into...too bad it had to go and rain!

Dad and Ba

We miss these girls! Glad Saturday lunches are back....

Have a great weekend everyone!  I already can’t wait for next Saturday!

I am really not used to waking up at 5 a.m.  I do remember the days that the boys woke up that early when they were babies and toddlers and even now on special holidays where they just can’t stay asleep until it’s light out….like this past Christmas when Eric woke up at 3 am and cried in outrage for an hour when we told him, no way, go back to bed.  The whole house lost sleep that magical Christmas Eve.  Won’t he be surprised when Mommy and Daddy super-glue him to his bed for a special holiday memory this year?!

One other thought about being awake at 5 a.m.  I know that many, many people actually HAVE to wake up at that time or even earlier for their jobs, etc.  Or for some crazy reason like exercising….just kidding friends, you know who you are and you know you are slightly nuts.  I feel pretty grateful that we generally don’t have to arise from our beds until it is light out.  Kyle puts us close to the edge of that comfort zone now that he’s in middle school and needs to be on the bus by 7-ish.  But mostly, we are some happy campers, relaxing in bed as long as we possibly can.

And for the photo of the sick boy:

Aiden drinking the dreaded pedialyte......

Come to think of it, my kids have already missed way too much school.  It has not been a good start with all of the injuries and sicknesses!  The boys have been in school for 25 days and Kyle has missed 1, Eric has missed 6, and Aiden has missed 2…..not a good record so far.  We are hoping October will get better in the attendance department!

We did have a great past weekend!  Despite the kind of yucky, rainy, chilly weather, we found a few hours of sunshiny greatness to head over to the Harvest Festival at the Berkshire Botanical Gardens.  During the entire 2 minute walk to the Botanical Gardens, the boys exclaimed about how lucky we were to live so close and not have to pay and they schemed ways to earn money by charging people to park at our house next year.  Luke was very involved in this conversation.  My 4 entrepreneurs.

Here’s some of the fun we had:

We are so coolAiden "tossing" a pumpkin - watch out all bystanders!

I temporarily forgot that Eric was 10 days post concussion and while he was all cleared and basically in great health, I was still being a prophet of doom and without knowing it, still screamed out to Eric, “no running!”, “no jumping”, “don’t move so fast”, etc ALL the time, making the entire family roll their eyes and ignore most of the “commands”.  However, at the festival, I seemed to forget my worries temporarily and I let Eric jump in the bounce house!  Halfway through, I nearly had a heart attack right there near the lovely old man selling maple syrup and started screaming to Luke, “get him out of there, get him out!”  Luckily, Luke knows how to deal with that “part” of me and diffused the situation quietly and efficiently.  Go Luke.  However, the next morning, Eric woke up feeling like throwing up, with a headache and even a fever, missing day 6 of school.  Turned out to be a quick, strange no real reason virus, but let me tell you, I couldn’t resist an “I told you so!” to Luke and anyone else who cared to listen….curiously enough, only a few real good girlfriends who I text like mad to when stuff like that happens! 

More Harvest Festival photos and I’m off to help the boys with homework.  Sometimes, I secretly wish I had homework.  Now that I’m not in school, I crave an essay to write (hence the blog) or maybe a worksheet to ponder.  Oh, the wonderful life of a child! 

I will leave you today with a photo of our final harvest from our garden.  The 4 deer in the garden this morning made it clear that whatever remains belongs to them.

A few hours after Eric's facial encounter with the baseball

The first few days were the worst for Eric.  He had some pretty bad headaches that made him sick to his stomach and glued to the couch.  After about 3 days he started to feel better and he was suddenly a child possessed by the energy monster…we could not keep him still.  Even though it was highly recommended by the doctor.  Then on day 4 after the incident, he got another headache and back to the dr we went.  After an x-ray to confirm no broken bones, we were told to keep him still for at least a week, then to do a trial run day of letting him be normal.  If the headache returns, we are to return to the office.  PLEASE, don’t let the headache return!  Only 2 more days until he can run free and we can watch and hope for no headache!  His worry about missing gym and recess did not last long as he suddenly became somewhat center of attention and attended to very carefully by his wonderful teacher!  The school week was a breeze and I am finally starting to relax a little about it.  A little.  Only a little! 

Here are a few more pictures of Eric – mostly with our cat, Rex, who was great comfort to Eric when he wasn’t feeling so great.

Eric and Rex, just relaxing

Starting to feel better but still stuck on the couch....with Rex!

I can’t wait for the end of the weekend and to see Eric running and playing and to not have to yell out, “No running, Eric!”

Anyway, August was awesome!  The boys spent so much time with the Corbett’s while Missy watched all the kids and I worked at Tune Street.  I don’t have many pictures of the fun times they spent together but I do have some of the garden that we all started in June and worked on together throughout the summer.

This was taken in August before the sunflowers began to bloom!  We planted so many veggies and were able to harvest many tomatoes, zuchini, yellow squash, cucumbers, basil, corn, green peppers, hot peppers, butternut squash, and lettuce!  It was so much fun to watch our garden grow.  We’ll definitely do another one next summer and now we know much more about what grows best and that we should put plastic down to prevent so many weeds!!!  :)

The boys had a blast the week of August 15th when they were able to spend some time with Luke’s parents, Joanne and Marc, at their home on the Cape in Brewster.  They had SO much fun!!!!  Luke and I missed them like crazy but also enjoyed the rare peace and quiet!

It really just seemed like the fun never ended for the boys this summer.  They spent so much time with their friends, enjoyed the warm weather, loved trips to the lake, saw a Red Sox game and a few Colonials games and enjoyed every moment we spent with our family and friends.

One of the highlights of the summer was the weekend of July 22, 23, and 24th when my family came to spend the weekend.  Mom and Dad arrived on Friday, July 22 and we spent the day shopping at Tom’s Toy’s in downtown GB.  Eric and Aiden were using the gift cards that Grammy and Pa had given them to Tom’s Toys!  It was very exciting for the boys to show my parents around.  :)   We all had a great time, despite the 100 degree weather we were having!  The hottest weekend of the summer and we had a houseful.  This prompted us to buy a few extra air conditoners to make the family comfortable and cool!

Lindsey and the girls arrived on Friday evening.  The kids quickly realized that their favorite way to stay cool was to go to the lake!  I think over the 48 hrs that my family was there, we made about 6 trips to the lake…..and that was not enough if you ask Kyle, Eric, Aiden, Haley and Emily!  They had so much fun and I got some great pics!

I guess I will start by giving an update on our summer, which is sadly over!  The boys started school on September 1st but it just doesn’t feel like fall yet!  A few more weeks of summer left!  Kyle started 6th grade this year.  It’s impossible to believe that he is so grown up.  He still seems like my baby, but it’s obvious that he isn’t…….

Not too thrilled to be having his photo taken at 7 am!

Eric started 4th grade and I just can’t stop thinking that he too will be at the middle school next year!  We will hang onto every moment of his last year of elementary school!  Aiden started 1st grade and was definitely the most eager of the three to start school in general.  Can you tell by his grin?

All smiles!

I guess he's trying to be cool, with only a smirk for me!

School is great.  They love their teachers and have friends to catch up with after a really fun summer!

Speaking of summer, let’s see if I can do a quick recap:

The boys had their last days of 5th, 3rd, and Kindergarten on July 21 and by the 24th, we were off on our first outing of the summer: a long weekend at the Cape to visit Luke’s parents in Brewster.  It was a great weekend, a very relaxing weekend, with Marc and Joanne, Paul, Alex, Tyler, and Kaylee, and Katie and Will!  The boys took bike rides with Papa, we all spent some lazy afternoons at the lake watching the kids swim and build sandcastles.  We bbq’d and played croquet.  Overall, it was a great start to the summer vacation!

I think we all had fun at the lake!!!                                               Tyler and Aiden building a sandcastle!
The boys (and I) were so lucky that my friend, Missy, agreed to watch Kyle, Eric, and Aiden 2-3 times a week throughout the summer while I worked.  Missy came down every week with Isabella, Isaac, and Ian to hang out with the kids and they had a blast.  Now that summer is over, they miss each other terribly!  It’s a good thing we only live 25 minutes from them!

The last day of summer with the Corbett’s! The boys also spent two weeks at Camp Eden Hill at the Berkshire Country Day School.  They had so much fun and are begging to go back for 3 or 4 weeks next summer.  Sounds like a plan since Missy will be a little bit busier with their newest addition the family, arriving around Thanksgiving time – a daughter!  :)

Of course we celebrated many birthdays this summer since our entire family seems to have been born between June and August!  We started out with Luke and Haley on June 17th.  Mom and Isabella were celebrated on June 18th!

This year the boys wanted sleepover birthday parties.  We started with Eric’s.  On July 19th, Eric had a sleepover bday party with a few close friends and had so much fun and slept very little!  :)

Very soon after, on July 29th, Aiden had a fun birthday party during the day (no sleepover this time) with a bunch of friends, some water balloons, cake, presents, and a treasure hunt!

Aiden turns 7!

Kyle couldn’t wait until his birthday (aug 25) for a party so we started things a little early.  On August 5th, Luke took Kyle and Aiden and Kyle’s friend Jared to watch the Colonials in Pittsfield, followed by a sleepover at our house much later!

I’m not staying in chronological order here, but that’s okay!  We had a fun Tune Street picnic here at the end of July to say good bye to one of our employees, Robert, who left with his family to move to Texas.  Once again, the kids had fun with the water slide and some water balloons.  Water balloons are always a hit in the summer!

the kids having a blast at the Tune Street Picnic

Okay, let’s call this summer part 1 and I will update with summer part 2 soon!