HAPPY 2nd BIRTHDAY MILES!!!!!!

So yes, it is a month late, but better late than never!  Miles had a wonderful 2nd birthday, thank you to everyone who was a part of his special day/week!

We celebrated his birthday with family the weekend before his birthday, I decided I was going to try to make a fun cake for his birthday.  I have to say that for my first "fancy" cake, I did pretty well.  Here are my supplies, yellow cake, chocolate and vanilla frosting, and construction vehicles.

I did half vanilla and half chocolate because Dylan isn't a fan of chocolate, but Miles sure is!  Here is layer one.

Here is the top layer, half chocolate for dirt, half green for grass, and a grey strip for a road.

 
I took a fork and (for lack of a better/professional term) picked at the frosting to create grass.

Then came the trucks and crushed up Oreos for rocks.  I was pretty happy with the outcome, as was my most important critic....Miles.

A little cuteness for you!

Miles with his cousin Megan, funny how smitten he is with older girls!

See what I mean!

This was Miles FAVORITE present, Thanks to help from some friends, we were able to get Miles a train table for his birthday, it has been a big hit and continues to be so.  We look forward to adding some more fun stuff to it!

Okay, so here is the finished product of the cake.  I do love it!

Wouldn't you know it, Miles figured out how to blow out a candle after his birthday....oh well maybe next year!

Despite the look on his face, he did really like his cake, especially the frosting!

Then Miles was able to end the day driving the vehicles back into the yard, probably his favorite part of his day!

Here is my toddler September 15th 2011.  We went to dinner with Gramma and Papi at the Windjammer for Miles' birthday and brought cupcakes with us to enjoy.  He had a wonderful birthday and is an amazing 2 year old boy.  We are looking forward watching him grow this next year!

Jenny xxoo

The end of our Summer days.....

Well, as I said before we were quite busy and had a lot of fun this summer.  Miles enjoyed a lot of time playing in this little pool at my parent's house.  

At one point this summer we decided to break out the sprinkler.  Miles thought it was really fun!  He kept yelling, "It's raining!" and would then run away from the water.  It always amazes me how something so simple can be so thrilling for children.  I remember being a child and LOVING running through the sprinkler on those hot summer days!

Without any older kids around Miles didn't know what to do with the sprinkler, not to mention the possible intimidation when it shoots up to 15' high!  We decided to turn it down some and then Mooma helped Miles jump over the water.  He was pretty excited about that too!  

We met up with our friends Amy and Ava at the Snow Farm Vineyard (where Dylan and I were married) to see Tammy Fletcher and have some yummy food, good company, and delicious wine!  We had a great time.  Miles loved playing with Ava, he certainly does get smitten with a lot of the little girls he meets!

We had some nice family time up in Alburgh, it isn't often that we get to spend time with all of the "kids".  We had a very nice time and wish we could see everyone a little more often.  Miles spent a lot of time outside and had a great time!

Here is a little family picture of everyone.  It is tricky to coordinate everyone, but we are glad to have this photo in our collection.

And last, but never least, our other child.  He was sleeping on the bed in this position when I had to fold some laundry.  I just didn't have the heart to move him....  

So in a very brief nutshell that was our summer.  We had a great summer and we are sad to see it end.  Although, I am looking forward to the rest of this year, be for warned there will be a few more posts before the end of the year!  I still have one more post up my sleeve, a pretty big occasion is coming up this week....we celebrated a little this weekend.  I will share those photos and video with you next weekend!  Hope all is well with all of you out there!  

Jenny xxoo

Summer fun! (Part 1)

We have been very busy this summer, and luckily we have had some wonderful weather...well, minus Irene stopping by.  This is my first "teacher" summer, by which I mean that I didn't work too much this summer.  I did do some tutoring for a child and I truly enjoyed it.  This fall I am doing some substitute teaching.  Even though I was fortunate enough to have some time off this summer I did happen to stay good and busy.  I'll have to take a picture, but one household project I have been wanting to do for a while is/was painting the cabinets.  I finally/almost finished that project!  I am so thrilled with the way they turned out (I still have a small section to do).  Now it seems so strange for it to be going into mid-September and I am not working in a classroom with 20 different children!  Yet, I still seem to have so much to do, so I am thankful to have some extra time to do it.  In fact I have read more books this summer than I have read in years!

As usual I have a pictorial story of our summer for you.  I will be breaking it up into two parts and I will hopefully be adding some video (that I know I promised the last time I blogged).  As usual during the week of July 4th we went up to camp a couple times to see family.  I have to admit I wasn't doing a great job staying on top of the camera though so I don't have as many pictures as I would like that are of anything other than Miles.  Miles was thrilled with the lake and the time he spent there.  I think that he threw rocks into the lake for at least 3 hours!

It seems like he was in awe of the size of the lake, he spent the better part of the morning calling it a pool before he was finally convinced it is actually called a lake.

He had fun having Aunt Jamie picking up rocks for him and then turning to the water and throwing them in.  If he had the words, the next day, he probably would have told me his arms were sore!

So cute!

We decided to buy our family a pass to Shelburne Farms and we have made good use out of it this summer!  Here are some photos of our first trip.  Miles has enjoyed "chasing" the chickens around.  They say your aren't supposed to chase the chickens around, but how do you explain that to an (almost) two year old?

Our neighbor Courtney works at the Farm in the summer and held a chicken for Miles so he could get nice and close to it.  He thought that was pretty special.

Miles LOVED the big cow, Belle.  He kept wanting to go back and a look at the cow.  It was very sweet.

Love my boy!

Miles ate his first corn on the cob and he loves it!  It is so funny, he will eat just about every kernel off of the cob, but if I give him corn that isn't on the cob he won't eat it....oh the eating habits of a toddler!

How can you resist this face?

One of Miles' favorite things to do is spend time with his Aunt Jamie.  She started a game of rolling down the hill, guess who wanted to quit first?  If you guessed Miles you would be wrong!  Maybe she'll think twice about what she tries to get Miles to do.

Miles enjoyed a lot of swimming this summer, he has become very brave jumping into the water and going under.  Dylan said this pool was pretty cold, I don't think that Miles cared one little bit!

Miles and Daddy...  

Can you tell that these two are related?

We went to a few concerts in the park this summer, one was in Williston, a Beatles cover band.  We had a great time.  Miles even got to hang out with one of his friends from his old school.  They were so excited when airplanes kept flying over head.

Well as I told you, this was just the beginning of our summer!  Stay tuned for part two!!!!!!  

Jenny xxoo

The Past 5 months.....

Okay, so yes it has been a long time, but we either haven't done much to report, or it just hasn't been a priority for me to tend to the blog.  Either way it has been on my mind for some time now and I am going to do my best to bring you up to speed on the last few months of our lives.  Miles is so big now and seems to be a full-on toddler.  It was almost over night.  One day I looked at him and just realized how big and grown-up he is.  He is talking up a storm and has so many new words everyday!  It just melts my heart when I drop him off at school and he says, "Bye-bye mommy!"  We are working really hard on "I love you" he may have said it a couple times, but if he did it sure sounds a lot like, "where are you?".  "I get you" is also VERY cute!  So here it is, my latest post, a little pictoral blog of some of the things we were up to over the last few months.....enjoy!

Miles loved the snow and sledding this year, the smallest hill was so fun, this little hill is at my parents house.

When my sister was younger she used to wear these toe socks.  One Wednesday she found them in the basement and put them on Miles.  Doesn't it look like he has little monster feet!  So cute!

We found this little wagon in a consignment store for 4 bucks, Miles loves it, he tries to sit in it.  As soon as he gets in he says, "Weeee!"  I don't know if you can tell by the size, but it isn't quite big enough for him, he sure does try though.

Need I say more?

My dad turned 61 this year and we thought we (mom, Jamie, Jerritt, and us) would get him something he would never get himself...he loves it! (It's and iPad if your having a hard time)

Lil' blue eyes.....

We decided to try out the ECHO center one day.  Miles ran around that place yelling "What's dat!" He loved it.  We have been back a couple times since.  

They have a little play area for kiddos with a boat, a slide, and a little peek-a-boo turtle tank, you can poke your head up into the tank to get a different view.  

The poor little guy tuckered himself right out.  I went to check on him during his epic 2 1/2 hour nap (he usually naps around 1 1/2 - 2 hours) and this is how I found him.

Just a little update on the budding friendship.  Bronson had become much more tolerant of Miles, until he had to have knee surgery and then he became grumpy and sensitive.  I think it will pass when we are able to get into our old routine.  We are hoping he is going to be back to his old self by June.

For those of you that didn't get to see pictures of the crazy snow storm we got, here is one, I think at once we got about 3 feet of snow....we already had a bunch.  In this picture Dylan is digging a place for Bronson to go out a do his business.

Such cute mud boots!

Doesn't he look so cute in the sweater my Meme made for him!  Blue just like his eyes!  I was so excited when it fit him so nicely.  It is a very beautiful sweater!  Thank you Meme!

In early April Miles and I went down to the Waterfront with my dad.  Here's a little view of what it looked like down there at the time.  It is now unrecognizable, covered in drift wood with no access to the boathouse due to the high water.

Miles was having a great time!

Going for a little swing with Grampy

Chasing a pigeon....

And here we are, caught up to just two weeks ago.  In Colchester there is an event every year around the same time.  It is called "Touch a Truck".  They bring vehicles of all kinds to the high school parking lot and for the first hour kids get to run around and hang out in whatever they want.  It is a "quiet" time, not horns or sirens.  The second hours kids can blow the horns and make the sirens go.  Miles had a blast.  Here he is in a little (and I mean little) helicopter.

Later that same day, Dylan graduated with his associates from VTC.  He will be going back in the fall to continue on for his bachelors.  We are all very excited and proud of him.

Miles has begun a new adventure.  He is a child who LOVES to be outside and now that it is getting nicer out, and hopefully will stop raining sooner than later, we are able to get him out for bike rides.  Dylan went and bought him a little helmet, we had a buggy from Ronda and Dean.  He really likes to ride around in it, and doesn't he look darn cute in his helmet!

So, that's all for now, I will do my best to update the blog a little more frequently.  And come back soon, I am going to try to put together a little video for you so you can see the little man in action.  Hope all is well with you!  

Jenny xxoo