Full House

Sorry for the delay in posting a new message. It has been a very busy week, although most of the activities have been pretty normal, so not too much to write about. Plus, I've been very tired the past couple of days, since Cara is getting 2 new molars, and therefore not sleeping well at night.

Last Thursday Blair invited Cara and I over to celebrate Rosh Hashanah with her family. Blair had her father, sister and brother-in-law, as well as cousins there. It was really nice to be included, and the food was fabulous. I didn't try the gefilte fish (although the general comment was that it didn't taste anything like gefilte fish because Blair bought it from our upscale grocery store in town, rather than buying the stuff that comes in jars at the super market). But there was also matzoh ball soup, brisket, and salmon, and some fabulous kugel and rugelach. Cara was fairly pre-occupied with hanging out with the kids, so she didn't end up trying much. She ate a couple of bites of soup and matzoh ball, and then mainly ate her string cheese, and topped it off with a little frozen yogurt - nothing like a balanced diet. What was even better was that Matt and I got to go over the next night for leftovers!

This weekend Cara started her swim class. It was pretty much the same routine as last time - singing songs and splashing around for a half hour. Matt was in the pool with her, and I was watching outside (it was too dark to take pictures). But I went into the pool area for a minute, which was a mistake - even though I left right away, once Cara saw me she kept looking for me everywhere and not paying attention to class.

On Sunday, Kelsey, Morgan and Grant came over for a little playtime and pizza. We also got some very cute pictures of the 3 of them. Morgan was also very patient with Cara while they were picking the last of the blueberries off of the bushes by the deck. Cara kept pointing to the plants and "asking" Morgan to get the high up ones for her to eat. Good thing Morgan doesn't like blueberries herself, there weren't more than a dozen left anywhere on the bush.

Last night we had some more friends over - our neighbor down the street, and her 3 kids, Julia, Charlie and Sophie. Cara was fascinated with Sophie, who is only 4 months old. She wanted to rock her and touch her hands and feet. I think she was trying to figure out if she was real or just a doll.

Blair, Max and Bella also came over, and the 6 kids (minus sophie) had a great time chasing each other around. They took all of Cara's toys out onto the screened in porch, and the girls set up a "changing table" for the dolls, and the boys ran around playing dinosaur. It was chaos, but fun to watch, and Cara had a ball.

Grandma is coming on Wednesday night - so there should be some more fun pictures soon!

Little miss fix-its

It's amazing how fast two little girls can get into so much trouble... The other night we were over to Blair's house for dinner. Bella and Cara were playing with a doll stroller, racing it down the hallway. At some point the wheel broke off of the stroller - but no one seemed very upset by this, and the kids went on playing, running in and out of Bella's and Max's rooms. A short while later everything got quiet. When things get quiet with three kids in the house, you know something is brewing. A few minutes later, Max comes out to say "Bella is doing something very bad" - When I went to check, I found Cara and Bella in Blair's room, huddled over the broken stroller wheel, over which Bella was pouring an entire bottle of Elmer's glue. The wheel, and good portion of the rug and not to mention the two girls, were covered in glue. The girls looked up at my intrusion, and you could see they were so pleased... thinking "look! We're fixing it OURSELVES!!!" These two are T-R-O-U-B-L-E

Cara has started trying to say some new words. Today we were watching the Baby Einstein "Baby MacDonald" video, which is about life on a farm. Rather than trying to say the animal names, like a normal kid, Cara's trying to say "tractor" - it comes out like "tra-te" - and she says it everytime a tractor appears on screen. She likes the animals, but doesn't seem overy interested in trying to name them.

We've also been playing a game during her bath, where I put a little rubber duck on the edge of the tub and cover it with a cup. Then I say "abra-cadabra" and slide the duck out into my hand below - and show her the empty cup. This game never gets old, and Cara will play it in the tub until I make her get out. So tonight at dinner I gave her a little bowl of peas to eat, after she finished all the ones on her plate. She ate most of them, but when there were just a couple of peas left, she turned the bowl upside down and said "abbbra-ra" and lifted it up and laughed. Apparently she was trying to make her peas disappear by magic.

We were also delighted to have a quick visit from Uncle Evan today. Cara was thrilled when he came out to say hi while she was eating her breakfast.

Here, Evan is demonstrating his babysitting skills while I ran upstairs to do some laundry - apparently sinks work very well as makeshift play-pens. Evan is nothing if not resourceful. For her part, Cara was having a blast. I should have remembered Evan's philosophy about kids... "hey, babies pretty much take care of themselves."

ACK!

We are back from our week long trip to Nantucket. It was a great week, and the weather was perfect every day. We spent a lot of time at the beach, although we didn't go in the water much, since the water was pretty cold.

We left out house at 3:15am (yes, as in, the middle of the night) to drive to Hyannis to catch the 7:30am ferry to Nantucket. We were supposed to get up at 2:15, and leave by 3 - but Matt set the alarm wrong, and luckily I woke up at 2:54 in a panic. The idea was that Cara would sleep in the car on the way to the ferry... and she did... a little. But she was still awake for most of the trip, and then very tired for the 2 hour ferry ride. Matt and I took turns taking cat naps and chasing her all over the boat.

The car ferry (this is the first time we've taken it) takes 2 hours to get from Hyannis to Nantucket. By contrast, the hy-line high speed ferry takes just under and hour to do the same trip - but it's a passenger only ferry. There are 2 car ferries that service nantucket - "the nantucket" and "the eagle." We had the nantucket on the way out - and it was not in the best shape. The eagle was much nicer - we had that on the way back.

Still, we arrived on Nantucket by 9:45, and were at Mimi and Bapa's house 15 minutes later. Then Cara and I took a nice long nap.

Later that evening we did dinner on the beach - a Nantucket tradition. It was windy, but beautiful.

We had a lot of fun on the beach all week - and went to beaches all over the island, including one we could only get to by boat.

As we were always looking for things to keep the little miss occupied until naptime, on Thursday and Friday we rented bikes and went riding around town. Cara really seemed to like it!

When we went back on Friday, cara pointed to the helmets on the wall and made the sign language sign for "please" - so apparently she was eager to go again. Whenever we'd go down a hill, you could hear her saying "wheeee!!!" Definitely something we will do again.

We ended up leaving Saturday night instead of Sunday morning, since we were worried about the traffic. We took the 5:35 ferry, and were home by 11:30pm - not too bad really.

So, we're back home and already have a full week planned. Cara starts her swim class next weekend, and we're seeing a bunch of friends this week so there should be lots of events to write about!