Fun At the Farm

At the last minute, I decided to take all the kids to Davis Farmland Monday. The kids had fun, me... not so much. It was a lot of work to take 4 kids!! I don't know how the heck big families can go anywhere and have fun. The kids were all on good behavior too (thank God!).


It was all clean fun until we came upon a "paint your own face" station. Hunter and Owen sat down and went right to work on their own masterpieces. Hunter created a colorful cow on her face. She's not known for her speed. If I had let her sit there all day, I'm pretty sure she would have covered her entire face. Owen made a pile of mud on his cheek. He took the brown crayon and colored a pretty good chunk. Daniel stood around for a while debating what he wanted to do. He wanted to look like Spiderman but he didn't know where to start and kept asking me to do it. I said no a few times but eventually caved in figuring what the heck, he's a kid, right? :)



















Here's the crew before we came home... Notice whose face is totally clean??? I figured until she can ask for it, why bother. LOL I know my sisters will pay me back in the coming years.....

Party Girl!!

This past weekend, Charlotte had 2 birthday parties in 2 days!! Her friend Jessica turned 2 and had her party at the Little Gym on Saturday. It was a lot of fun. For being so young, these kids could climb like monkeys! :)

The birthday girl

Charlotte on the balance beam.

Charlotte takes her cake VERY serious. She loves all of it. As you can see, she has a system... She starts with the frosting then makes her way through the cake part. She looks VERY messy but she managed to keep the floor under her surprisingly clean! :)

C A K E !!!!!

Cake, day 2... Owen's birthday party... Looks like day 1. LOL

The three muskateers

Random pictures from Owen's party. Seriously, how cute are these kids???

Provincetown (Great trip, loooong post) :)

We just got home from a 4 day mini-vacation to Provincetown. Overall, it was a great trip. We decided to board Lainey near us so we could pick her up and take her to the beach if we wanted. Since the kennel closed at 5:00 Thursday, Charlotte, Lainey and I left around lunchtime. Stephe worked, then drove down to meet us late Thursday night. Charlotte and I dropped Lainey at the kennel then went exploring. After 3 hours in the car, she wasn't too happy to keep driving so I found a little playground for her to stretch her legs and have some fun. We left the park and saw what looked like a neat little trail on the side of the road. There were 8-10 other cars parked along the side of the road so I pulled out the stroller to check it out. I noticed a lot of shoes and even some bikes along the side of the trail and thought it was kind of funny but it didn't click as to why they were there. About 300 yards in, the nice dirt, wooded path turned into beach sand making it a LOT harder to push Charlotte. Then, not only was it beach sand but there was a steep hill. I still kept going figuring if I could just get to the top, I'd have a cool view of something. About 1/2 way up, a family was walking down and I asked what was out there. They said, oh, it's BEAUTIFUL! If you get to the top of this dune then go over another dune, it's the most spectacular beach. I thought cool. Charlotte will love to play in the sand and see the water. Well, after stopping to talk, I couldn't even budge the stroller. They laughed and said they'd been walking from the beach for 29 minutes. Needless to say, we turned around and went back to the car. I never even got to see the view!

The next day, we took Charlotte to a beach called Head of the Meadow. The park ranger told us there were decent waves and at low tide, they have over 300 seals come on to the beach to sun themselves. We happened to be there for high tide and never got to see the seals but the beach was still so pretty. I was excited for Charlotte to play in the waves. We couldn't even get set up before Charlotte was heading for the water. So I have no pictures of her in the waves. She was LOVING them too. Until after about 10 minutes of laughing and screaming, a wave came out of nowhere and kind of knocked her down a little. She didn't go under, I was ready and caught her, but she wasn't expecting it. That was it for Charlotte and the waves. She was perfectly happy to sit and play in the sand with a bucket of water. :)

That night Stephe and I decided to take Charlotte back to that playground for a little while. It was our way to beat the system while Charlotte got to have fun. Parking in Provincetown is tough, all the lots are a minimum of $10 and there really isn't much street parking. Well, that playground has some spots along the side of the road with signs posted that say playground parking only from 8am-6pm. We timed it so we'd finish up at the playground right around 6 and just walk downtown from there. Worked like a charm!! The playground was really nice, it had 2 climbing structures, one small and one big. I was amazed at Charlotte. She climbed up the big slide all by herself. It was so tall that I couldn't really reach the very top. Here's a picture of her climbing up then sliding down.















After playing for a while, we went to meet Grandma Sue and Grandpa Dick for a nice dinner at a restaurant with outside seating. Then walked around Commercial St. What an interesting area. It has really cute restaurants and galleries but the best part was the people watching. Here are a couple pictures of what we saw. A man in a bikini doing a hula hoop. He was actually really funny. If we didn't have Charlotte, we probably would have gone to his show.

Then, there were bubbles everywhere! Charlotte loved them. :)

Saturday was definitely the highlight of the trip. We went to the beach where Stephe's cousins were staying at the Race Point Lighthouse. It is by far the coolest beach I've ever seen. You have to have a 4WD vehicle to get there because you drive for a good mile or 2 through the sand dunes. The land is untouched out there and the scenery is really indescribable. My pictures certainly don't do it justice. You have to have your car inspected, have certain tools (a rope for towing, a piece of wood in case you get your wheel stuck, a shovel and a tire pressure gage). If your car passes, you have to watch a film strip on the rules and what to do if you get stuck in the sand. Our car did not pass. The first thing they checked was our spare tire which apparently is only a temporary so we weren't able to get a permit. It worked out fine though, we just parked at the visitor's center and hopped in with Dick & Sue. Stephe and Dick let the air out of the tires and off we went. Here are a couple picture of the drive.















We got on the beach around 11ish and stayed all day until probably 9 or 9:30 at night! Charlotte did great. Stephe was pretty proud of himself for getting Charlotte to fall asleep on him. I would have bet serious money that she would never fall asleep with so much going on. The nap wasn't long, maybe 20 minutes, but it must have been enough because she was very happy all day. She got to play with her cousins Grace, Jesse and Cassie. Grace is 3 and seemed to have a lot of fun playing with her. They kind of resemble each other, you can definitely tell they're related. I've been wondering where the heck the pin straight blond hair came from, turns out it must be a Landry trait. Grace had the same hair, only she's a little older so it was a little thicker.

Stephe's cousin Priscilla with her daughter Grace

Charlotte & Grace playing in the sand

Charlotte checking out the big hole Jesse dug

Stephe's cousin Laura taking Charlotte out on the kayak

Low tide

Daddy playing with Charlotte, the tide is starting to come in

Just chillin' having some cookies
Love this picture!
Even Lainey made a buddy

Charlotte having her first smore made by her big cousin Cassie

Here's the only shot I got of the sunset. I was actually just taking a picture of the kids making smores and it happened to be at sunset. You can also see the lighthouse in the background. Stephe's cousins have it rented for 2 weeks!!

We stopped off for a quick lunch on the way home. Here's Charlotte having her first fast food burger. She really seemed to like it but she was way more into the apples... She can't be my kid! :)


She just woke up as we pulled into the driveway. When she saw the house she got pretty excited. It made me feel good to see how happy she was to be home even while she was still groggy.

Wedding & Springsteen

Saturday afternoon, my cousin Pam got married. It was beautiful outdoor ceremony with a spectacular view of Mount Monadnock. When Uncle David was walking Pam down the isle, I went to snap a picture and my camera said low battery. :( So unless someone sends me a picture, you'll just have to take my word, she was beautiful bride (and Derek & Caleb were VERY handsome in their tuxes). I'm sure Pam had a few nervous thoughts about the weather since they were predicting severe thunderstorms in the afternoon. It's funny how things have a way of working out. We could hear little rumblings of thunder off in the distance during the ceremony but the rain held out until we were walking to the car. It was perfect.

Saturday night, Charlotte had an overnight at Gammy & Grampy's so Stephe and I could go see Springsteen at Gillette Stadium with the Dech family. We borrowed Krista's van so we could all fit in one car. I was SO glad we did that because, not only did it make the ride more fun, when we got there, parking was $40! Such a rip off. The tickets said show time was 7:30 but the band didn't get on stage until about 9:15-9:30ish. Bruce apologized at the end of the show and mentioned they were caught in severe thunderstorms. I have to say I believe that was the problem because shortly after we got to our seats, we (well, all of us but Stephe) were stuck in a downpour. There was no getting to cover since the whole place was trying to get inside. The thunder and lightening were a little scary since we were sitting by a giant metal light pole. Eventually we made our way to a little overhang but the damage was done. My hair was a rats nest and my clothes were completely drenched. It lasted only 10 or 15 minutes and when it passed, we made our way back down to our seats. About 2 minutes later, here comes Stephe, completely dry with a margarita and a smile!! So typical that he has that good luck of getting up for a drink about 1 minute before the rain started! LOL I have to say the concert was awesome, just an old fashion rock & roll show. I'm not a huge fan of his, although I definitely like him. Stephe and Kevin are though and have been since the 80's. The man has to be pushing 60 and still puts on such a high energy show. The whole stadium danced and sang for three straight hours! It was pretty neat to see his fan base too, a lot of parents taking their kids. I know I had fun watching Zac & Wendy at their first concert having a blast. They were really into it! They grew up listening to Kevin's music which of course includes lots of Springsteen. It made me think I can't wait to do this kind of stuff with Charlotte.