Strawberry season

A couple of weeks ago, we found an adorable local farm right up the road from us.  Not only do they have awesome ice cream, but they sell farm raised, grass-fed beef and a ton of local seasonal vegetables.  We hit them up on a Sunday for some strawberry picking.  The strawberries weren't huge, but they were by far the sweetest, best tasting berries I have ever had.  Noah had a great time picking, but even more fun eating of course!  If you look behind Noah in the first picture, you can see a glimpse of my enormous baby belly.  Its bigger now, but since I don't much like being pregnant or having my picture taken, this will have to suffice.  Happy summer and here's to fresh strawberry shortcake!

You play socca?

In an attempt to find Noah an outside activity where he could run and burn off some energy, I found an outdoor soccer program through the local YMCA.  It was the only activity that would allow 3 year olds to participate.  We have been talking up the soccer since we signed him up back in May.  It didn't start until the last week of June, so we thought we had done a good deal of prep work.  Unfortunately for us, all that talking up of soccer didn't mean a thing when it came time to actually go out on the field and play with the other kids and interact with the coach.  Now in the little dude's defense, the coach was clearly not used to 3 year olds in the least.  She never introduced herself, just started off telling them to line up and start dribbling the ball.  Noah didn't know what dribbling was (and neither did most of the other kids there either).  She, unlike the coach the next net over, didn't invite the parents to join in to break the ice, but instead set the little ones up to play a complicated set of rules that involved stealing other people's ball (which is going to go over really well on Day 1 with 3 year olds) and jumping jacks (again, something none of the kids were familiar with and she didn't explain).  Tim ended up having to go out on the field with Noah for half of the practice to get him to even consider participation, but once he finally did get over the initial shyness, the little man actually got into it.  He's by far the shyest little guy out there, but as a consolation, he certainly isn't the worst soccer player!  Let's hope on Friday when we go back, we have less of a "warm up" period and more play time for Noah.  Game 1 is on Monday!!!

My touching trucks!!!

So, since today was a sick day for the little dude and I was remarkably productive during the marathon nap, I figured I would take a bit of time this evening to try and play a bit of blog posting catch up. A couple of weekends ago there was a fundraising event for a nursery school I had never heard of in a small town about 40 miles outside of the city. Now, I realize thus far, this is bearing little relevance to our lives, but there is a connection, I promise.

This is Noah, you are familiar I am sure by now. I am sure you also are EXCEEDINGLY well aware that this child LOVES trucks. He is a man about his vehicles and he is nondiscriminatory I must say. If it has wheels and preferably makes LOTS of NOISE, then he is all about it. So back to Noah, did you know he liked trucks?????

Being his parents, we are well aware of this small fact. Noah LIKES trucks. He sings about how much he likes trucks, he lives for rides in the car so that he can scope out all of the different trucks on the road with us, his days revolve around when we can next take another walk so that he can visit the nearby construction sites, or see the trucks drive by. (I personally want to thank all of the sweet drivers of said trucks who have waved, beeped, or chatted with Noah as he drooled over your respective vehicle. Thank you for your patience and kindness, and for helping to make one little boys day over and over and over again).

Anyway, back to the 40 mile drive to support a nursery school we have never heard of (and still can't remember the name of even as I sit here typing). Their idea for a fundraiser was a beginning of summer festival complete with fried dough, a bouncy house, and a touch-a-truck event. I think Noah completely died and went to heaven!

He had a chance to sit in every.single.truck they had parked there. He waited in line patiently for his turn at each vehicle. He beeped every.single.horn he could get his hands on.

He sat in bucket loaders and admired the wheels

He looked extremely tiny in one of the largest front end loaders I have seen with my own eyes

But mostly, he was a two year old boy, marveling at the awesomeness of it all and loving every.single.minute!

Incidentally, after we came home, the event left such an impression on him that he said to me in his sweet little voice, "Mommy my see trucks, my touch trucks today, that was VERY nice!"

A fall tradition

After getting rained out of our scheduled apple picking adventure last weekend (which Memere & Pepere B. had driven down for incidentally), we ended up with an absolutely beautiful day to go outside and play for the afternoon. We have been having a rough weekend schedule-wise with Noah. For some reason, Mr. Man decided to sleep until almost 9:30am on Saturday morning. Now, that would sound heavenly normally, but with a toddler on a schedule that is working for everyone, a 9:30am wake up just throws off everything. He had a bit of a fever when I got him up, only 100.2, and I remained hopeful that I would be able to get him down for a nap before we had plans to hit the outlets for a few hours. No such luck! He stayed awake until we finally got him strapped into the car seat and pulled out of the driveway for Wrentham at almost 4pm. There were a few ugly moments just before dinner, but for the most part he was a good boy and we accomplished what we had set out for. We got him to bed late last night and it was no surprise when he slept in again this morning, until 8:45. Add in a serious "I'm trying to annoy Mommy off the brink of sanity attitude this morning" along with another day of no napping until we headed out the driveway, and you have some seriously stressed out people! We chanced it and headed off to the apple orchards, we visited Tougas Family Farm in Northboro again this year since it was such a hit last year. Our gamble paid off this time and when we arrived after an hour and a half nap in the car for the little dude, we had a very excited and happy little man on our hands. He was fascinated by the tractor rides and all about the idea of "pick apples!" They take you for a ride around the orchards when you first arrive. Noah was all about it, saying "tractor, Mommy ride, tractor, Daddy ride, tractor, MY ride!!!" You could tell though it was a bit scary and big for him. He sat on my lap clutching my arms tightly around him. He was having tons of fun, but wanted to make sure Mommy & Daddy were close by...too cute! Once the tractor ride dropped us off in the picking rows of the orchard, we were off. Noah wanted to carry the bag.

Those bags fill up quickly when you have huge McIntosh and Cortland apples going in. Noah helped to fill up the bag, and was more than willing to come over and retrieve any that you had gotten down off the tree for him. The last 3 apples were for us to sample. Noah thoroughly enjoyed his and toted it around the rest of the farm. He got he hang of biting in right away even though we hadn't ever given him a whole apple to munch on.

As you might expect, Noah preferred the apples that were at his height, which were pretty much the ones on the ground. We had to keep an eye out on him to make sure none of the "yucky" ones were making their way into the take-home bag.

After all of the picking, Noah found his way over to the pumpkin patch. He has been talking about "punkins" all week after discovering them at the grocery store. We tried to get the classic baby in a pumpkin patch fall picture, but someone had other ideas of running amok and toting his apple with him. We never did get a good one, here is as close as we could get! :)

The farm also had animals to feed and visit. Noah wasn't so much on board with checking out the goats or the pigs, but he was infatuated by the chickens. These were some fancy chickens they had, not your run of the mill barnyard bird, they had frilly feathers going on. Noah kept walking up and down the fence laughing and checking them out. They weren't fancy enough to share his apple with though...thankfully for us!

We got a chance to sit on a real tractor, Noah seemed very impressed, but it didn't last long as about a minute after he got on, he was asking for "down, walk?" I think he was too impressed by the playground and all of the big kids running around.

He got a few minutes to check out the place, but the kids were really big, not well supervised, and a bit too rambunctious for a small dude to play safely. We ended the afternoon with some apple cider donuts, which Noah asked for more of for the first 20 minutes of the ride home. He has good taste that little man!

Penguins!!!

We have been having lots of fun over the last week or so.  Nana Lou went on vacation to her house in Florida and Tim and I decided to take some much needed time off to hang out with the wee man!  Last Friday the fun began with a trip to the Aquarium.  Noah is in love with the fish tank at home and is a huge fan of penguins, excitedly pointing out a picture whenever we come across one.  We figured the aquarium, with its huge fish tanks and the penguin exhibits.  We were right about the penguins, the wee man absolutely loved them!

Sadly, the rest of the aquarium, with all of the gorgeous fish, turtles, sharks, and jellyfish exhibits didn't really seem to impress the little dude much.  Instead, he spent much of the rest of the day doing this...

that would be him, pilfering items from the diaper bag and in general causing mischief.  Note to selves, wait a bit longer before spending that kind of money on a wee man activity!  Side note:  Tim and I really enjoyed the whole aquarium and we bought the little dude a fun fish book to reward him for his patience! :)