Thanksgiving, 2011, big day for a little guy...

I had hoped to make a bigger post out of this, but time has gotten away from me and it is already 2012.

This past Thanksgiving Ethan past a big mile stone and had his first sleep over without his mama and papa.  We drove to nana's house in Center Barnstead for some of her famously good turkey and then Jody and I left and Ethan spent the night with nana and pappy.  

Jody and considered it a date and we went to see the 4th Twilight movie and had a great time.  We also had a WONDERFUL breakfast the next day and Lou's and then I drove out to pick Ethan up in Concord nana (in her new blue Honda CRV).

Everyone had a great time and I was happy that Ethan got to a more intimate part of the canvas of his nana's daily life.  I grew up 100 ft from my grandmother's house and I saw her almost everyday.  Being far from family is something tugs deeply on my heart and to see nana be such a big part of Ethan's life brings me great joy.

More Favorite Books

The Little Rabbit books by Harry Horse
Mayday Mayday, Firefighter A-Z, and Hot Shots by Chris Demarest
Wacky Wednesday by Dr. Seuss
DinoTrux by Chris Gall
Animals Home Alone by Loes Riphagen (this book is SO FUN)
The Little Mouse, the Red Ripe Strawberry and the Big Hungry Bear
Wendel's Workshop by Chris Riddell
House in the Night by Susan Marie Swanson
Three Pebbles and a Song by Eileen Spinelli
Tuesday and The Three Pigs by David Wiesner
Merry Christmas, Big Hungry Bear! by Don and Audrey Wood
Press Here by Herve Tullet

First Real Snow - Winter 2011

11/28/10 - Last night and this morning was the first snow fall of this winter (enh... there was the inch or two on Halloween, but that was fall). We could all feel it coming, but it was still a surprise to look out this morning and see what looked like an inch or so of wet snow. We have had freezes and frosts already (and it has been raining a lot lately) but up until last night, there hadn't been any snow.

And, as luck would have it, we had just gotten our snow tires on the day before... through some impromptu craziness in Concord.

Looking out our front door in Sachem Village

...ditto...

Little Gardener...

If I had actually kept up on this blog this summer, there would have been many blog posts about the little garden that Ethan and I tended. It was all in a series of pots in our front yard, but it was our pride and joy and we spent many an hour tending to it. In addition to actually tending the garden, Ethan spent a lot of time pretending to plant, and grow various things. In this series below, he is inspired by some work we were doing with our tomato seedlings and decides to plant and water some of his own pretend plants.

It all began with transplanting some of our first seedlings....

(Bye bye) Red Room

For the last two and a half years or so, Ethan has been attending day care at the Child Care Center in Norwich at least one day a week. He started out in the nursery (which we all loved), moved up to the Red Room, and just a month ago, he moved into the Yellow Room. The Yellow room is more like a pre-school setting with formal circle time and the like. Regardless, we will all miss Carol and the Red Room immensely. Though I am sure Ethan will enjoy his time in the Yellow Room, I think it will be quite difficult to top the amazing times he had in the Red Room with Carol.

This is Carol, the mastermind of the Red Room and all of its wonderful, ever-changing wonderfulness

This is an attempt of a picture of Ethan and Carol together... as is often the case Ethan is a bit shy and hard to get to pose.  He is full of energy in this picture as he always is.

These are some pictures from on of the last big adventures that took place in the Red Room.. CAMPING. (Pictures courtesy of Carol)

Ethan is panning for gold (which we still play with often)...

... Fishing...

... Eating gold fish...

... playing with pine needles...

... Fishing again...

... Eating a snack...

... listening to a story...

... And finally roasting marshmallows.

I think that balloon is gonna land here... (runs and gets camera)

Jody had come home a bit early from her rotation at the hospital and met Ethan and I in the dining room.  She said "Did you guys see what is out side?"  We were both intrigued and said "no" with a smile of excitement.  We went outside to the field behind our house and saw a brightly-colored hot air balloon not that far in the distance.  I watched it grow bigger and bigger quite quickly.  Jody looked at me and asked if I thought it was going to land here.  I said "yep" and began running into our house to grab the camera.

The landing of the hot air balloon in Sachem field was a public event is the oldest sense of that word.  Many people just walked out of their yards and playgrounds and made an impromptu procession to the touchdown site.

As an added bit of fun, the balloon touched down RIGHT in the middle of the end of a middle school soccer practice, so one of the people who were helping tear down the balloon spent the entire time making sure middle school soccer cleats did not trample holes in the some-odd thousand dollar balloon fabric.

Also, if you will notice, Ethan was so excited about the event that he didn't even have time to get some underwear or pants on.  It was freezing, but hey, there was a BALLOON landing in our back yard.

Our Little Garden

Ethan and I spent much of our summer tending to our little garden (read: a series of potted plants in our front yard). Below is a progression of photos from the beginning of summer to the end of fall.

Ethan and I potting the first set of seedling in flats.

Ethan helping me do some transplanting after we got the seedlings to take to the outdoor sun.

Once transplanted, the plants spent most of the summer out in our front lawn arranged like this.

After getting the plants in the right sized pots, they really grew quite well.

Our first tomato... we didn't have a great harvest (there were certainly more tomatoes than this one) but we enjoyed what we did grow very much.

Our bounty of green peppers (brought in right before the first frost, which was quite early this year)

Pots washed and stacked, as they dry to be put away for next year.