I Heart Amanda . . . and Boston

Amanda is my best friend from . . . forever. We've been joined at the hip since we were fourteen. I love her like a sister. We went to middle school, high school, and college together. It was a sad, mournful day when I moved away to Colorado Springs. I really could go on forever about our friendship . . . it's such a saga, I've even considered writing a book about it.

Amanda is now married to a wonderful man named Jonathan. They are living in Boston, where Amanda is getting a master's in social work at Boston College, and Jonathan is getting a law degree at Harvard. They were so kind to us during our stay. They even gave up their wonderful king-sized bed for me to share with Dottie and my mom. Elliot also got his own room while Amanda and Jonathan slept on the couch. They are my heroes.

This is going to be a long post, because we crammed a lot of things into three days. Let's start with pictures of Amanda and my pillow that I embroidered for her as an early birthday gift. Remember, I'm a novice.

The square before I sewed the pillow together:
Detail of the ribbed spider web I learned how to sew from watching a video on needleandthread.com:
Amanda with the final product!

We visited on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. On Friday morning, Amanda had class, so we traveled from Cambridge to Concord. We visited Louisa May Alcott's home, the authoress of Little Women. I didn't get to do the tour, because my children decided to act horrendous. Luckily, they refunded my money. Instead, we spent our time exploring the grounds, and I took several pictures because I didn't have much else to do.

Notice Elliot trying to break into the Alcott house.
Sitting in the garden:
Dottie had a good time climbing this tree:
Alcott's father was a famous transcendalist philosopher, and he would sit on this bench under the tree and wait for people to walk by so he could philosophize with them. Maybe Elliot's doing the same thing?

Dottie climbing on the front porch. The tour guide would probably be mad at us for desecrating the property. But what can you do when you have two crazy children?
This is the beautiful street where Amanda lives. Apparently, it is the same complex where Mitt Romney lived when he went to Harvard.
On Friday night, Amanda had a concert for her campus choir. It was quite the event! They sang with the Boston Pops and Bernadette Peters! My mom and I went while Amanda's sweet sister watched the kids. It was truly a memorable night. This is Amanda before the concert on the gorgeous Boston College campus.
Before the concert, we had the opportunity to tour Harvard with Jonathan. He took us to the library:
Someone built Winnie-the-Pooh's house in a tree on Harvard campus . . .
And this is Longfellow's house.
We spent a few hours on Friday and Saturday at this little park on Amanda's street. My kids sure had the wiggles on the trip, so the park was a godsend:

Saturday, we walked the freedom trail with Amanda, Jonathan's sister, Lizzie, and her husband and kids. The freedom trail is a walk you can take in Boston that traces Revolutionary War historically important places.

This is me and Amanda in front of the Old State House, where important discussions took place about taxation without representation, and outside its doors the Boston Massacre took place.

This is me and Amanda outside of Quincy Market, where we ate Boston clam chowder:This is me outside of Paul Revere's house, which is the oldest existing structure standing in Boston. The rest of this part of the city was burned, but this building survived.
This is my mom outside of the Old North Church. It's the oldest church in Boston, and it's where Paul Revere ran to light lanterns letting the citizens know the British troops were advancing.
This was a cute part of Boston that the trail went through, an Italian district. It was very European looking, and we had some delicious gelato and biscotti while we were there.

Kee-ko Kee-ko

I tried so hard to get a decent video of Elliot singing "Twinkle Twinkle" (he says Kee-ko Kee-ko). This is the best I got. He really does know the whole song . . . I'm doing this mostly so Joe can see our son's progress.

MMM. . . apples

Welcome to the private blog everyone! Thanks for letting me know you're still interested.

This weekend, it was rain-y. Therefore, my kids were going nuts, wanting to be outside. We did manage to make it outside to pick apples Saturday morning. I LOVE picking apples. It is a family tradition in the fall. I tried picking apples once in Colorado, but it just wasn't quite the same. The trees here are loaded, and the apples are big, delicious, and perfect. My kids loved it.

We also bought apple cider at the orchard. Later, we made apple crisp and apple sauce. Please, does anyone know if there are delicious apples in Texas?

Dottie was definitely in a posing mood that day . . .

I like to call the next few pictures "Renaissance Dottie" because she's posing like a girl in a Renaissance painting.

This is Elliot when we first came to the apple orchard. He was saying, "Ball? Ball?" continuously.

Grandma and Dottie. Let's be honest . . . Grandma picked most of the apples herself while the kids ran a muck.

It was very wet from the previous night's rain. Elliot kept on falling on the wet grass, so by the time we left, he was soaking. Both kids had a bath when we got home.

Elliot "picked" these two apples off of the ground and carried them around. They weren't very savory looking. I guess I should mention that he kept putting his mouth on them . . . oops. My bad.

Painting with Puddin'

As you may know, I'm trying to get a little more creative with my parenting, particularly Dottie. I use this website, sugardoodle.net, to help me with songs for Primary. This is an excellent source for anything church-related, if you need help. I discovered they have a section on how to beat boredom for your kids. I've heard of this idea before, but the website reminded me. Take vanilla pudding, dye it a variety of colors, and voila! You have edible fingerpaint. My kids loved it. Elliot mostly ate it, but Dottie painted the sky, the grass, and the sun with her "paints."

Dottie Ballerina!

I again apologize for there being no chronological order to these photos. I got a new camera, though! I'm pretty happy about that.

Dottie started dance lessons this week! Like school, I'm not able to get a lot of details out of her, but I'm pretty sure she likes it. She told me she wants to go to dance every day. As you'll see in the photos, Dottie is a natural. As soon as she got in her little outfit, she started posing in what she thinks are ballet positions.
Sorry about the flash. We were in a bathroom.

Italian Festival

The weekend past, we went down to Scranton (home of The Office, if you watch that show) for an Italian Festival. It was mostly food, but that is what I really care about anyway. Let's face it, I'm a piggy. We ate superb pizza, gelato, and cannolis. Happy? Yes. Dottie was also pleased to discover a jumpy castle. I think we know how much she loves those things.

Cue The Office theme music . . .
Dottie in the jumpy castle.

What's the deal? Both of them are looking down.

That's a better picture. It was a surprisingly hot day, so the kids enjoyed wading in this fountain.

I'm a Sew-er!

Note that I'm a sew-er, not a sewer. I sew; I don't keep underground waste. For Relief Society, our church's women organization, we were asked to make a square representing ourselves for a joint effort quilt. Interestingly enough, I was the one put in charge of this project. I'm not much of a sew-er, but my mom sure is. So, I organized get togethers for the women to work on embroidering their squares, and tried to help if I could (which wasn't much help, believe me).

Now if you know anything about me, you'll know that I did not get the crafty gene. My mom is great at sewing, my sisters are very meticulous people, and it seems I have been surrounded by women who scrapbook my whole life. I really don't do any of these things. So I really surprised myself this week when I made it my goal to finish this square. I actually enjoyed it! In fact, I was just going to make a book without any decoration for my quilt square. But the more I did it, the more confident I got, and the more I elaborated my little design.

Now if you are a good embroiderer, please don't look closely. You will see many flaws. But for a first time effort for a sworn noncrafter, I think I did okay.

Slumber Party!

Well, she made it! After a hard effort, Dottie got 10 marbles. I can't say that there was a dramatic transformation in her behavior with the slumber party bribe. But, I do think it made a difference. She had a reason for being good to her brother besides me just saying: "Be nice to your brother and he'll be nice to you."

We went to the store and picked out whatever treats she desired. We got pretzels, 7 up, cherry ice cream, and kissables. Then, we put on a Disney CD and had ourselves a party. I've never seen such a happy little girl. I must say that once she knew she had one marble to go, she really did pour on the kindness to Elliot. We're going to have another go with the marbles. This time, we're going to watch "Hercules." Ever since she saw it at Aunt Mary's house last summer, she's been obsessed with that movie.

Right before bedtime, Elliot was pretending to go to sleep on this pillow, and Dottie was gently rubbing his back. She really wanted that last marble.

We made a float with the soda and ice cream. Grandma's helping, because Dottie is a messy eater.

The snacks . . .


Dottie's kissable sandwiches . . .
MMM!