Sick week, happy weekend

You already know that Oliver finished out last week sick.

He started out this past week seemingly feeling better ...

... but still had a rough enough day Monday that they called to let us know about his acting out of character.

Then on Tuesday daycare called again -- this time about Madeline.  Despite behaving like a well child, Madeline turned out to have a fever.  She was sent home and had to be out Wednesday too.

On Wednesday, I kept both kids home.  The day was rainy and even involved some impressive thunder and lightening.  So we stayed in and watched Frozen.  Twice.

Madeline played nicely for part of the day ...

... but later her fever returned, and with it came some crankiness.

Another day with a fever meant another day home from daycare Thursday.  This time, Summer wrangled the kids.  Like me, she got help from Frozen.

She also gave the kids healthy snacks ...

... and, since Madeline proved to be feeling better, they did a project too!

After gathering rocks in the yard, Summer and Madeline washed the rocks, cooked them in the oven, and then colored on them with crayons.  The result was lovely:

On Friday, everyone was well again.

Saturday morning, we went to the farmers market.  On the way home, we stopped by the Save the Bay center to look for seals.  As usual, we didn't find any.  We did spot this nice-looking snail, though.

Madeline liked the snail.

In fact, she really liked it.

Then Saturday afternoon, we spent some time at the library and came away with quite a haul.

Later, Oliver helped with the dishes.

Madeline helped too.

For dinner, I cooked up a bunch of good stuff we got at the farmers market: littleneck clams, chorizo, kale, and olive bread to soak up the briny broth.  Yum!  We think these might have been Oliver's first clams.

We spent most of today at Ilan's house.

Oliver has been working hard to stand in short spells recently.  This afternoon, Summer finally got a shot of it.  You can see how seriously Oliver takes his work.

All in all, after a week full of sickness, we had a nice weekend.

We even polished it off with another farmers market meal -- skate wings crusted with Old Bay-seasoned bread crumbs -- yum again!

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Bonus:  Here's a video of Oliver doing assisted walking with the cart we gave Madeline for her first birthday!


And here's Madeline singing two verses of "Do you want to build a snowman?" from Frozen. The video was shot with cinematographical assistance from Petey the cat.

38 months, 8 months, Breakheart Pond, all that sunshine

Last Monday, Madeline turned 38 months old.

She's grown a lot since this!

Then on Thursday, Oliver turned 8 months old.  Sadly, we missed his picture that day and took this set Friday.  First, sibling love:

Then, our little eight month old Beetle.  (Here, by the way, is his sister at eight months.)

On Saturday, we met up with Ilan et al. for a hike around Breakheart Pond.  (I could tell it was going to be a fun excursion when we found a flattened and mummified frog in the parking lot at the pond.)

The kids did a great job walking, even when weighed down with rocks they'd collected.

We saw a snake!

And then stopped for a snack.

Ilan was kind enough to share his roll with Madeline, in this lovely picture that Tamar took.

The day was beautiful, as was the location.

Once we'd completed the loop, the kiddos were still full of energy.  They collected sticks and pine cones to drop over the upstream edge of a bridge over Breakheart Brook and watch emerge from the downstream side.

Afterward, we had lunch at the Middle of Nowhere Diner, where the younger generation continued to display considerable energy while the elder generation were mostly very hungry.

Today was Easter, which of course meant that the Easter Bunny visited!

Madeline was very excited by this.  Oliver was unfortunately sick but still in pretty high spirits.

While Oliver napped later, we dyed eggs.

Madeline snacked on one that had cracked during the dying process.

The eggs turned out quite nicely!

After some ibuprofen and a long afternoon nap, Oliver was more like his usual self, as you can see in this picture that is adorable even though it depicts Madeline being a bit naughty.

For dinner I fired up the grill while the others lounged on a blanket on the grass (well, in truth Madeline doesn't generally lounge -- she ran around doing various things that she deemed very important, like baking a cake from dirt).

After dinner, Madeline was asking for bedtime by quarter to seven, and then at bedtime asked to skip songs because she was very sleepy.  Must be all that sunshine.

First really beautiful weekend of the year!

Yesterday, once again, we made pancakes.

Madeline decided to try a daredevil routine on the stairs as Oliver looked on admiringly.

We went to the farmers market and, from there, met up with Sarah, Alexis, Holden, and Petra, as well as Madeline and Holden's classmate Skylar.  The kids collected pinecones and otherwise played happily while the babies enjoyed the nice weather.

Afterward, back at home, we spent most of the rest of the day outside too.  Oliver seemed confused by the nice weather.

Madeline admired the bugs and worms -- this worm in particular.

I figured we might actually get in some tricycle riding if I just took the trike out of the shed without saying anything about it.  Sure enough...

(And she even managed not to run over Oliver!)  After Madeline was done with the tricycle, we inflated her basketball and tried to inflate my old football, which unfortunately seems to have a leak.

Then Oliver enjoyed the basketball, while Madeline moved her bug chair into her "house" in the hedge and carried on in the dirt there.

Then today, we decided to go to the beach.  On the drive to south county, Oliver napped while Madeline rested and adorably held his hand.

Once we got to East Beach in Charlestown, our first order of business was a picnic lunch.

Then came other typical beach activities: hunting for rocks and shells ...

... and dried seaweed ...

... getting wet sand to build sand castles ...

... building, decorating, and destroying sand castles ...

... and playing with giant, brightly colored shovels.

Oliver loved the beach.

Especially once the weather warmed up.

Madeline did too.

And despite the clouds, it really was a lovely day.

The beach tuckered the kiddos out.

But after ice cream ...

... it was back to business as usual.