Hang Loose!

Little Charlie kahuna caught some totally awesome rippers in Mont (that's Vermont dude). It was like super rad riding the waves on the big board old school style. Sister Maeve was kickin' it by the pool "spa style" in her crib. Like totally awesome dude!









After riding a few tubes Charlie Kahuna did some freestyle laps in the pool, all by her little rad self
.


Little Kahuna Charlie!

Sleeping in

Friday
9:11pm: Maeve lays on dads chest as he gently pats her bum until she falls asleep.
Saturday
3:06am: Maeve stirs in bed next in between mom and dad. Dad is awake but doesn't know how to operate the bottle warmer so mom gets up. Dad meanwhile changes her diaper, half asleep, in the dark without getting pee or poop on himself, Maeve, or the bed. A success. Feeds Maeve her bottle.
3:25am: Maeve falls asleep on dads chest. He carefully moves her off so he doesn't roll over on her.
5:00am Dad awakes to the sounds of Charlotte's bird machine in her crib. He looks up at her video monitor and sees she is still laying in the crib. Goes back to sleep.
5:58am Maeve begins to stir. Dad looks up at the video monitor and sees Charlotte is no longer in her crib. He gets out of bed. He finds Charlotte sitting on the floor at the gate in front of her door playing quietly with toys. They are both up for the day.


Saturdays should be the one day of the week you can sleep in a little. Not until noon or 1pm, but maybe 8am? maybe 7am? Getting up at 6am is just silly, especially after waking up at 3am and again at 5am.

So everyone keeps asking how hard it is with two children. At least from dads perspective, its not any harder than having one. Its much easier than he expected. Everyone tried to prepare him by saying, ohhh, two kids means double the work and stress. As for stress? None. We have already gone through most of it with Charlotte. We don't worry about every little sound. About if she is sleeping on her back or stomach. If she drank enough milk. Or if her diaper was changed every hour. There is just less to stress about.

It is harder to get things done because you only have two hands. It would be nice if we had four. Its hard to hold an infant and urinate at the same time while a two year old is trying to flush the toilet on you. Its hard to put an infant down to sleep and then hold her sister back from poking her in the eyes while she is sleeping, all the time yelling, "SISTER AWAKE??". Its just hard to tend to two children at the same time. But we couldn't imagine Charlotte not having a sister to play with. She has been so great with her little sister. And we now know what a baby who sleeps well, eats well, and sleeps well is like. :) It makes us very happy. KNOCK ON WOOD!

Maeve turned 8 weeks old on Friday. Its hard to believe two months have already flown by. In celebration, here are some shots of Maeve getting a bath tonight.

Big and Small

These kids love each other. We know the fights, arguments about who stole whose dress, boys, toys, poking and prodding each other, teasing, calling names, pulling hair, and stealing each others makeup is inevitable. But right now they love each other.








Here is a precursor to Charlotte hitting her teens. She looks way too grown up for dad. She even has the teenage, "Im too cool for smiling" look.




Yes Maeve, it makes dad feel the same way when he thinks about his daughters growing up to be teenagers.

Dad was allowed to "check out" of the house on reprieve for a couple of days to do his best impression of a bad ass biker. I don't think he fooled anyone, but he certainly had fun. He loaded his bike up with everything he needed to camp out for the night, then hit the open road for the two hour ride up to the lakes. The weather was perfect and stayed that way on the ride there, the whole time there, and even his ride home. However 20 minutes after arriving home on Sunday the sky opened up and unleashed its fury. He was so happy he left when he did. Riding in the cold rain is no fun.



Laconia:



Charlotte enjoyed the rain that suddenly appeared when dad came home. She even liked the flashes of lightning and claps of thunder. Hopefully she will never pick up the fear of thunderstorms that torment so many kids. She splashed and frolicked in the puddles while dad watched from the dry safety of the front porch. Crazy kid.





Maeve also enjoyed splashing in the water. However it was the water of her bath and as you can see from her picture with wet hair, she really didn't enjoy it.

Where's the Beef?

Well 135lbs of it is now at our house. We purchased an organic cow from Daniels Farm in town. OK, only 1/4 of the cow. They raised it, took care of it, surely named it, then had it slaughtered for us. After a few weeks of "aging the meat" it was ready for us to pick up. We all went to the farm last night to get the boxes of individually shrink wrapped steaks, ground beef, ribs, etc. All 135lbs of it. That's a whole lot of organic beef!

Not to let the beef steal the show, we have also purchased into a local farm co-operative for our organic vegetables. Every week for 16 weeks we will be receiving a bushel of assorted vegetables; a root vegetable, salad, fresh herbs, and even flowers from Middle Branch Farm. We are excited to start trying some new vegetables and look forward to less trips to the grocery store!

So why the change to organic local food? Call it New Hampshire small town paranoia (dad seems like he is one step away from joining the local militia), but we are tired of the reports of people getting sick from meat and vegetables purchased at the grocery stores. Mad cow in the beef, salmonella in the nations tomatoes and spinach supplies, it just seems to be getting worse rather than better. Dad is also thinking ahead that food costs are going to skyrocket with today's fuel prices and flooding in the midwest. Yes it costs a little more for organic, but it's local, its fresh, and it doesn't need to be trucked across the country to make it to my dinner table.

Rambo and Smiley

...the last time we saw Rambo she was imprisioned at the enemy POW camp. Stuck behind bars for hours with no Cheddar Bunny snacks she was starving. The conditions were terrible the guard was watching her every move. When Rambo saw her chance, she sprung into action and broke free. Busting through the guard and running as fast as she could. Wow, that was close.
"I will get you next time Rambo!" yelled the guard.


Meanwhile, back at headquarters, Marvelous Maeve was practicing her smiling. She is getting pretty good at giving us gums.

Welcome to the New Blog!

We hope you like it! We are looking forward to lots of new posts of both Charlotte and Maeve and all of our crazy adventures.

Charlotte is now scaling her crib daily. Its time to move to a big girls bed! This morning mom and dad awoke to hearing her screaming. When we went to check on her the screaming was coming from downstairs. There Charlotte was, banana in hand screaming because she couldn't open it. How she got the banana from on top of the counter is still a mystery.

Maeve slept like a rock last night from 10pm to 3:30 am. As of 7:30am this morning she is still sleeping! She is growing into herself and is constantly trying to talk to us. She can't talk only coos, but she flairs her nostrils as she is trying to talk (coo) to us. Too cute.

Humpty Dumpty

...Sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty played with Charlotte and had a ball.
All the kings horses
and all the kings men
couldnt get Charlotte to leave Storyland with them.


It was a battle to get Charlotte to leave Storyland. After five hours of going on the rides and playing you would think she would be done. Nope.
Rule number 63 of parenting...Leaving an Amusement Park with a toddler is much harder than entering one.

Storyland, nestled in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, is a toddlers dream! All kids can ride virtually all of the rides (Charlotte was technically 1 inch too short for the rollercoaster, but dad blew past the guard) so you really dont have to worry about a dissapointed child who cant get on. If you are really worried, just pick your child up and carry them. They cant measure your childs height when she is in your arms! HAAA!

Mom went on the rides that spin, like the teacups. Spinning makes dad sick.


Dad went on the rides that have height and speed, like the rollercoasters. Heights make mom sick.



Charlotte of course went on all of them. She loved the rollercoasters and kept asking to go on it over and over. The nice thing was despite the perfect weather, and the packed parking lots, the park had virtually no lines. Very important since we all know how much toddlers love being patient in line. Oh and kids under 3 are free. Adults were just $20 each. Beverages and snacks in the park? CHEAP. This is not Disney, it's Storyland! $3.50 for a giant snow cone. $3.50 for a tall glass of fresh squeezed lemonade. $1.50 for bottled water. Face painting FREE.



Charlotte did such a good job getting her face painted. She even told the girl she wanted a butterfly. What color she asked? Charlottes reply...Brown. Nice Charlotte. We denied that request and had her color it purple instead.


We all had a blast at the park. What about poor forgotten Maeve you ask? Well she loved it too. She was so excited to go that by the time we got there she was worn out from the excitement. She slept. Slept some more. Ate...scrap that...slept. And slept again. She even rode on a few rides with mom. Ahhh, we love a sleeping Maeve.




Highlight of the park for Charlotte...meeting Cinderella. I think Disney owns the rights to the Cinderella name so I think they just call her "princess". She looked 15 but to Charlotte she was Cinderella. Hey, much better than spending $78 to get into Disney only to see Cinderella from 100 yards away mobbed with screaming kids eating $15 snowcones and drinking $4 bottles of water as you walk past all the rides your kids cant ride on because they are too short only to wait in line for 2 hours in the florida heat to get on Its A Small World. I'll take Storyland over Disney any day of the week.


Rule number 43 of parenthood...If your children are good at the amusement park, they will be horrible on the ride home. . Maeve woke up in the car. Charlotte after not pooping all day, finally had to go. Maeve cried. Charlotte cried. It was the first time mom and dad were in the car and had two crying children. Needless to say we didnt like it. Maeve had a blow out. Charlotte was constipated. Then Charlotte finally went and Maeve had to eat. Mom and dad started laughing at the comedy happening in the back seat of the car.

We will just say we made it home, it wasnt pretty, we surely broke some child safety laws by changing a toddlers poopy diaper while driving 70 mph and breastfeeding on the Kancamagus Highway at 2,855 feet. We are parents. Thats what we do. We improvise.


How much do you think dad spent on the stupid "shoot the water in the clowns face" to win a stuffed animal contest?

Actually he only spent $3. That is a RECORD!


And finally. $450 for a Phil and Teds dual stroller, fully accessorized. Did Charlotte want to ride in it? Of course not, she would rather ride in the rickety ghetto strollers for FREE.