No More Snaggle Tooth!

Sienna's front tooth has been really wiggly for a few weeks now, but she hasn't let us try to pull it out.  Where is Aunt Tracy when we need her?!?   Her permanent tooth was starting to come in behind it, too. It looks like her mouth is growing which is creating spaces to get ready for her adult teeth to grow in (unlike Isabella's which are so crowded!).  She could make herself look like a beaver by putting her two middle teeth over her bottom lip.



Before...

  With a bribe of a bowl of ice cream and a lot of negotiation, Sienna finally let Mike pull her tooth out last night.  She can be just a tiny bit dramatic sometimes! 

Good-bye, snaggle tooth!



So proud!!

Sienna's little baby teeth are so funny because she used to grind her top teeth on her bottom front teeth when she was little. Thankfully, she has outgrown that habit, so her permanent teeth should be fine. She wrote the Tooth Fairy a cute letter. We've learned in the past that the Tooth Fairy who visits our house is named Petunia and her favorite color is periwinkle. There are many Tooth Fairies because there are so many kids who lose teeth that it's too big of a job for one fairy. Petunina is friends with Santa and E.A. Sterbunny (the Easter Bunny). Sienna wondered where the Tooth Fairy lived and she left Sienna a note saying that she lives near some of the other Tooth Fairies: Lily, Rose, Dahlia, Chrysanthemum and Zinnia! Sienna has happy to find her note and $1 next to her bed this morning! (Actually, she told me that she woke up at 4:00 and read the note then because she was so excited.) Silly girl!

Little Entrepreneurs

The weather was so beautiful today that the kiddos decided to set up a lemonade stand.  They sold lemonade (regular and raspberry) and freshly baked chocolate chip cookies.  They surprisingly got more customers than I thought they would on a Friday afternoon of vacation week.

Tigger, Hope, Isabella & Sienna

A customer!



Dr. Elijah came to buy some cookies!



These look good!



Hanging out with Thomas.

 



  



 

Mystic Aquarium

After a quiet start to vacation week, we decided to head to the Mystic Aquarium today. Unfortunately, just about everyone in Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts had the same idea!!! We've never been there when it's been so crowded, but we made the most of our visit. First we went to the 4-D Spongebob show which the kiddos thought was pretty funny!After checking out a Titanic exhibit, we spent some time at the sting ray touch tank.
Then we watched the playful beluga whales. These two were nipping at eachother and giving us a bit of a show.The underwater viewing area is really cool! We explored the rocks and watched the California sea lion show. Sienna bravely held a crab in the smaller touch tank. Elijah just splashed his hands in the freezing water and watched the other children touch/hold the various creatures. Isabella showed me a sea star. It was a beautiful day to spend at the aquarium (and spread some dandelion seeds)!

MOMS Club Spring Party

Today we had our annual MOMS Club Spring Party. As always, the kiddos participated in an egg hunt. Here's Elijah with his friends, Alexander and Bennie.Since Isabella still has to take it easy, she was the designated face painter. She got pretty good at painting unicorns with colorful manes! She took her job very seriously!Elijah took a break from bike riding and drew with chalk with his friend, Anna. Somehow Elijah always manages to get covered in dirt from head to toe at this party. He went straight into the tub when we got home.Isabella helped to keep the little guys busy after her bigger friends left. Sienna is in the background on her bike. I didn't get any pictures of her because she was off playing or riding her bike the whole time!

Sienna's New 'Do

Sienna was long overdue for a haircut!! We also need to pull out that crazy loose tooth!!
Here's the new 'do!!
She finally has her "Sienna hair" back!! :)

Another Soccer Season Begins

Today was Opening Day for another soccer season for the girls. Mike is coaching Sienna's team this year, and he's the assistant coach for Isabella's team. Since he is away this weekend, I assisted our friend who is coaching both teams with Mike. It was fun to work with the girls, but I have a whole new appreciation for coaches. It's challenging to juggle the line-up and assure that all of the girls get equal playing time-especially when someone doesn't show up which alters the line-up. I'm happy to just be a soccer mom cheering from the sidelines most of the time!

Isabella's team has been dubbed the Tigers and Sienna's team is called the Cheetahs. As one of our friends pointed out, Sienna's team could be mistaken for the Cheaters (or Cheetahs-when said with a Boston accent). I don't think that Mike considered that when he came up with the name. I hadn't thought of it either, but that's funny!
Unfortunately, Elijah isn't old enough to play soccer yet, but that didn't stop him from wearing a uniform, too! Isabella dressed him in one of her old jerseys, gymnastics shorts, and black dress socks. He'll definitely be happy to play next year!

First Day of School!

Today the girls headed back to school after a fun-filled summer that went by way too quickly. For some reason, I'm having a hard time sending them off to school this year. Maybe it's because our baby, Elijah, is heading to preschool for the first time. I love my time with them and it's going by so quickly. How is it possible that Isabella is starting third grade and Sienna is starting first? An article titled Bittersweet Song of September by Beverly Beckham on Boston.com sums up my feelings exactly. Click here to read it.
Isabella is ready to have her hair and nails done before school.Now it's Sienna's turn!The three amigos.School girlsReady with their over-loaded backpacks!Isabella, the third grader!Sienna, the first grader!Unfortunately, it was a little rainy this morning.Hope and Isabella wait for the bus.Sienna, Luke, John & IsabellaAlmost the whole gang. We manage to fill up the bus with the kids from our neighborhood.John, Sarah, Hope & IsabellaThird graders (9 out of 11 in our neighborhood)
First graders (6 out of 9 from our neighborhood)And they're off!A happy first grader coming off the bus. When I asked Sienna how she liked first grade, she said, "I love it!!" She has a sweet first grade teacher who is so warm and soft spoken but has been at the school for a long time and has a lot of tricks up her sleeve. I know that Sienna will have a great year!Isabella has had a great start to the year, too! After open house last night, she said, "I think Miss A---- is going to be my favorite teacher!" I'm so happy that she loves her teacher and seems to have a nice class. She's looking forward to doing projects throughout the year and participating in the Science Fair in March. Their desks are separated into four clusters and each one represents a "house" from Hogwarts in the Harry Potter books. Isabella is starting out as a Slytherin!

Sienna's Second Lost Tooth!

Sienna lost her second tooth today just in time for the start of first grade tomorrow! After the tooth was hanging on by a string for a few days, Sienna finally let me pull it out this afternoon (after Isabella offered her a dollar if she let me pull it out).Sienna let me pull out her first tooth back on June 22nd, just days before she finished Kindergarten.We did the whole dental floss trick, and it worked like a charm! So Sienna started and ended the summer with a lost tooth!

The Aftermath of Irene

We knew that we would be affected by Hurricane Irene in some way, but we didn't expect to lose power for 57 hours. By the time the storm hit us on Sunday morning, it was downgraded to a tropical storm, but we got some rain and a lot of wind. We lost power by 10 AM on Sunday and didn't get it back until 7 PM tonight (Tuesday). We spent lots of time doing puzzles and playing outside with our neighbors. Once the storm passed, the weather was beautiful, so it was nice to sleep with our windows open. We lost a big oak tree in our yard, but it was nowhere near our house, thankfully! Mike, Uncle Jeff and Elijah assessed the situation. Jeff and Tracy were in town to drop our nephew, Trevor, off at Brown University. Trevor waited out the storm in his dorm room with some food rations from the cafeteria, but he never lost power. Elijah was ready to help with the clean up with his goggles and handsaw. Safety first! The top half of this huge pine tree in our neighbor's yard came down and blocked the entire street. Three of our neighbors chopped it up during the storm in order to clear the road.Our friends/neighbors around the corner were not so lucky. Two huge oak trees literally uprooted and landed in their backyard. The trees smashed through the middle of their swingset, landed on their deck stairs, damaged their gutter and siding and broke a window. The force of the tree also turned on the faucet in their backyard so their hose was running for several hours.They were out of town during the storm, and this is what was left of their swingset when they got home.It's hard to see, but this is a side view of the root ball of the two trees. Isabella surveyed the scene.There were many limbs and trees down all over town which caused widespread power outages. We had an ice cream party in our neighbor's garage on Sunday night since we didn't want all of our melting ice cream to go to waste! That would have been a shame! Of course, we had to keep some of the beverages from getting warm, too!Our neighbor broke out some glow necklaces/bracelets and sparklers!We ended the night with a walk through our pitch black neighborhood with flashlights and lanterns. Since we ran out of warm water by Sunday afternoon, Mike let the kids squirt him with the hose so he could take an outdoor shower yesterday. He's nuts! Luckily, some of our MOMS Club friends had power the whole time, so I was able to salvage all of the chicken, beef, meatballs, chicken nuggets and pierogies from our freezer and take them to a friend's house. We ate as much of our refrigerated food as we could and even had eggs, quesadillas, frozen pizza and pierogies on the grill (in addition to burgers and chicken). A good thing about losing most of the contents of our fridge was that I was able to clean it really well before I restock it (and retrieve our frozen items). Mike's company lost power for several days, too, so he was home to ride out the power outage with us. We survived Hurricane (or Tropical Storm) Irene, had some fun with our neighbors, got some use out of our chainsaw (in our yard and our neighbor's), reconfirmed that we have great MOMS Club friends who can help us out in a pinch, and did lots of puzzles (over and over)! The girls also invented a new game where they race around the house on rolling chairs. Who needs electricity?!?