Easter eggs = Messy fun

Early this week the weather was less than stellar and since we are out of town for the Easter weekend, I decided a fun Easter project was a good idea. Noah has entered the age of being interested and excited about craft-type projects, unfortunately, as I have discovered, he still has a ways to go in terms of the manual dexterity and patience. We had fun though and that was the hoped for goal.

We dyed Easter eggs together, and while I would have liked to have poked the hole in each end and blown the gross egg-y middle out to leave just shells, I knew those delicate shells didn't stand a chance with Noah around, so I hard-boiled them to preserve sanity. Overall, Noah had a blast and was really good about the whole project. He was extra patient as Mommy prepared all of the supplies, and was very curious to figure out just exactly what we would be doing with this fun wire thingy.


He helped to dip some of the eggs in the dye. He needed a bit of help to make sure that the egg wasn't dropped too violently and that the dye didn't end up all over the dining room, but he was actually quite good at accepting the help this time (which isn't always the case).


After we dyed a few, we figured out that you could also sponge the colors onto the eggs directly and make bolder colors, so we let know have a go at that part. His hands were completely dyed a variety of Easter egg colors for the rest of the day, but by the end of his bath, the colors had faded away!


Look Mommy, see my making pretty egg!


I should have taken a picture of the final product. Once all of the eggs dried, I put them in a glass bowl on the table for a decoration. Noah is very proud of our project and I think some more craft-types of projects are in our future. Hopefully I can find some that leave a little less colorful of a residue, but it all turned out well in the end!

Do you think he'll steal the show?

Next month we are off on a road trip...a terrifyingly long drive down to Charlotte, NC with a small person in tow. As if the long drive isn't enough, there will also be a lovely Greek Orthodox wedding ceremony that Mr. Man will hopefully not completely disrupt with his normally adorable toddler antics (that unfortunately weren't designed for the inside of a church building). To say that I am experiencing anxiety over all of these upcoming events is a major understatement, but I have at least found some solace in the upcoming trip, in the shopping of course! I purposely never buy Noah really nice clothes, generally since we have nothing to wear them to, and then I don't need to worry about him ruining them if we just don't own them. Until now, it had been a needless expense. Unfortunately, even if I try to go casual with Noah's wardrobe, you just can't pull off jeans and a t-shirt at an evening wedding.

I am debating on the rehearsal dinner outfit a bit. We have a white button down with a cute little black and gray tie and a green sweater vest with khakis and Noah sized boat shoes. The part I am debating is the shirt and tie bit. The sweater vest came with nice short-sleeved white crew neck shirt. The question is, can we get away with the sweater vest and white t-shirt deal with the khaki's for a nice rehearsal dinner? For some reason, the white button down and tie just aren't doing if for me with this outfit.

(Pardon the grumpy puss face, apparently I need to have a girl next time around so I can play barbie with her. Noah lost his patience with me after only half an outfit and that was with his current favorite movie on in the background).

Thankfully, sticking the "pacier" in there tend to fix a lot of evils in life. In his defense, we had spent the better part of the day shopping and out and about, so he was allowed a bit of crankiness.

Here are the shoes incidentally. He was done with the pictures of his face, but was very insistent that Tim take pictures of his boat shoes!

The outfit for the wedding is set! There were great sales at the mall since it is so close to Easter and we found an adorable shirt and tie set in a great mint blue and the pants are black with a gray pin stripe! He is too cute in them, I am just hoping he doesn't figure out that the tie is a clip on and spend the evening whipping it off! Such a little man in this outfit, it almost seems wrong. I still see him as my baby and to see him in an outfit that Tim would most certainly wear is just too much.

Is it spring already?

I am a bit out of order in my posting, but at least I am getting around to putting something up here for a change. In the Boston area we had a great weekend for weather. Saturday was nice, beautiful sunny and in the mid-50s. Since Tim had spent extra time at work this week taking care of the semi-annual inventory mess, he had a rare Saturday off. We decided to get out and enjoy the weather and headed to the Castle Island/Fort Independence area of the Harborwalk. There is a great walking path where Noah got to try out his tricycle that Santa brought him. We got to watch the planes take off from Logan. Since its such a busy airport, there certainly was no shortage of take offs happening. We saw a tug boat and a police boat, and a certain small person was very impressed.

There was also plenty of space to run and jump.

And of course what is an outing without a little vrooming of some cars?

Around the area there were a couple of playgrounds. Noah met a turtle and promptly poked it in the eyeball with a stick (so sweet, no?).

There was climbing and running and yelling in the talkie tube to Daddy.

And while he looks suspicious here, we had a great day outdoors after months of cold winter weather and it did everyone some good!

Monday morning at the park

It was another beautiful day today, so we decided to get out and about again. Tim was working late and didn't have to be into work until 2pm, so the 3 of us went for a walk to one of the local parks. I have a tendency to walk longer distances to go to nicer parks, which has its pros and cons. We go less often because it is larger time investment and a greater amount of energy invested to get there physically. Also, since this is the Boston area, there are typically no places to park around the playground that don't require a permit (which we don't have since we park both cars off street in our driveway), so where ever we go, we have to walk. There is a park about a 2 minute walk from our house, but for a number of reasons it is less than ideal (sand all over the ground=mess, graffiti everywhere=disrespectful environment modeled for Noah, less attentive parents=Noah getting run over by the bigger kids, etc.). In any case, we choose to walk and enjoy the nicer playgrounds a further distance away (usually about a mile or a little over).

One of my recent favorites is a very newly remodeled playground with a little kids play structure, a bigger kids play structure, a spray park area (for the much warmer weather), swings, a picnic area, a basketball court, and lots of enclosed space to run around. Tim and I took Noah for a walk up there this morning and let him burn off some steam!

As I said, cutest part around (that I know of, of course). Noah was loving it, three days in a row of being outside and running around...can't get much better than that.

We wised up and brought him a ball to play with this time. Inevitably, some child has brought a toy with them that Noah spends the entire time envying. This time we had a couple of kids trying to get a piece of Noah's toy, he was the happiest little person out there! We spent a lot of time kicking and throwing.

It wasn't until a hoard of mom's showed up and started taking the place over that things were less fun. It must have been a regular play date or something since they all seemed to know each other. A couple of less-than-desirable comments about working mothers were made (among other things) and that was enough for me to be ready to head home. I find it amazing that judgments can fly that easily when these women clearly didn't know the situations of the other parents on the playground not associated with there group. Hey, I'm just saying, if you are going to name your children Dash, Clover, and Atticus, should you really be casting judgmental stones????

The weather stank, so we camped in the living room

I haven't been posting much over the last few weeks because not much is on my mind besides thoughts relating to the job market. Things are really stressful, we don't know where we will be living in 6 months, I don't know if I will actually get an offer for a tenure-track job, Tim doesn't know where he will be working, and absolute worst is we don't know if we will still be sending Noah to see Nana Lou come the fall. I hate every minute of this and it is incredibly life encompassing right now. I wake up in the middle of the nights with knots in my stomach. I try and anticipate each day that it will be the day that I get a job offer. I check the updates on the positions religiously, if not obsessively and yet I still know nothing of consequence. I know a lot of schools I will not be working at in the fall, but I have yet to actually receive word of a school that is willing to hire me. I am reserving my judgments as to why that is the case. Tomorrow evening I fly out for my 8th on-campus interview and have received 0 job offers to date. Frustration does not do what I am feeling justice. And since I choose not to name schools at this stage of the game, it leaves me with little else to talk about here. So instead I am filling up the blog posts with adorable pictures of my little dude, who is one of the few brights spots in life lately!

A few weeks ago, the weather was terrible, cold and rainy, and completely depressing, so we hauled out Noah's tent and set it up in the living room for a week or so. He absolutely loved it. I set out quilts in there and he hauls in stuffed animals and pillows and we have little tent parties. I loved every minute of it (except the part where it takes up half of our living room!).

I have a feeling the pacifiers are on their way out. While Noah still has a serious love affair with them, and I have absolutely no problem with them at this point if they are used correctly, the pacifiers seem to be collecting a great deal of bite marks on them. He chews on them more than he sucks and so they have been staying mainly in his room for naps and bedtime. He will occasionally sneak one out though, and to tell you the truth, I think they are kind of adorable. Its the one small piece of baby that is left in him.

"Whatchu looking at peeps! This is my tent, you hear!"

Snack time was transported into the tent that afternoon. The residue of which is left on his face, along with the mischievous smirk.

Oh and while we were camping in the living room, Noah also finally figured out how to make himself his own block towers and he is very proud of himself!

Look what we taught Noah to do

Look what we taught Noah to do this weekend! Its about time that he starts cleaning up his own messes don't you think? I will say his technique leaves quite a bit of popcorn left on the floor, but he definitely gets an "A" for effort!


P.S. Happy 32nd birthday DADDY!!! :) "Happy birday to Daddy!"

Hope floats, and I need all the buoyancy I can get

I was reading around some other blogs during lunch today and came across a quote that fits absolutely perfectly for our lives right now. The post was talking about something completely different, about a marriage ending and her need to keep her daughter's baby things in order to keep hope alive that there might be another little person around someday. At the end of the post she closes by saying that she is keeping the old baby things because "hope floats and I need more buoyancy right now." I don't remember the last time someone else's words struck such a chord in me. I wish I could have summarized my innermost thoughts in such an eloquent and simple way. Since I can't seem to be very articulate right now, I will leave the eloquence to others and borrow the perfectness of that statement. If hope really does float, then here's hoping I can get some buoyancy too. Buoyancy from the hope that a job offer will surface, the hope that if an offer does come, that Tim will be able to find a new position that gives him fulfillment, the hope that we will finally be able to buy a house, the hope that where ever we end up, we find a place to spread roots, continue to grow our family, and finally feel like we are home. Since I have done about all of the worrying and stressing I can do at this point, let's go with the hope, the blind and powerful idea that hope floats and it is just about ready to bring us to the surface.