For us, fall brings a lot of fun times including Claire’s birthday, playing in the leaves, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas Stroll, etc.  Not all of these events have happened yet, but we’ve tried to catalog those that have.  We hope you’re all doing well and that you enjoy our pictures!

Here are some shots from Claire’s 2nd birthday party (thanks to Audrey and Katie for coming to celebrate!), a copy of the picture we entered into the Gap Baby contest (Claire in her green sweater), fun in the leaf pile, and Halloween.

And finally, here are a couple pictures from Dan’s surprise 30th birthday party.  No, it wasn’t a costume party but Chris and I thought it would be fun to dress up anyway.  Our wives were THRILLED!  About 3 seconds after Dan arrive, I had an unfortunate accident due to my tight polyester pants.  Live long and prosper.

We’re running low on content these days, so Casey and I have decided to rededicate ourselves to the digital cataloging of Claire.  This is one of the most current videos we have, and it’s from four weeks ago!  During those four weeks her articulation has improved dramatically, so she can actually sing this song much clearer these days.

We miss you all, and can’t wait to see you over the holidays, which are right around the corner!

Last second addition (mostly for Grandpa Russ)…is a great video of Russ playing with Claire back in July. Enjoy!

I took the past week off from work to, well, work.  I spent five full days overhauling our back and front yards, a total of about 1900 square feet.  I started by screening 8 yards of rock-filled sub-soil that was left over from the patio installation.  Since Casey loved the way the pile looked as it sat adjacent to the patio for 3 months I was in no rush to move it.  When I finally convinced her to allow me to move the pile, it took me about 14 hours to shovel it and screen the dirt for rocks through a 15/16″ screen.  My next task was to till the soil and remove the debris.  I wasted a half day using a neighbor’s tiller that was older than me and was only saved the next day when another neighbor lent me his tiller that blew through the entire yard in 25 minutes.  Once complete, I moved 6 yards of 50/50 compost/loam (curiously pronounced “loom” here in New England) into the yard.  After leveling and rolling I planted a seed mixture of bluegrass, ryegrass, and fescue.  The most frustrating part of the project came at the end when I turned on the spigot to run my sprinkler “system” (a series of hose and four sprinklers) and nothing happened.  It turns out I don’t have enough water pressure to run one sprinkler let alone four.  So, I have to water by hand twice each day.  Such is life.

Today we woke up to a downpour.  I’m praying that the rivers of run off water didn’t carry away too much seed.  I had about 25 lawn bags full of sod/dirt/waste that I intentionally stored in the garage until today, trash pick up day.  Each bag probably weighed 50-75 pounds so if they got wet the bottoms would tear right out and I’d have a huge mess.  I moved the bags down to the end of the driveway (in the pouring rain) minutes before the collectors came.  They picked up one bag and, after deciding it was too much work, drove away.  I chased them down the road and asked why they gave up.  They told me that the bags weren’t meant for dirt (I told them it was sod) but that if they contained dirt they’d pick them up even though they weren’t “supposed to” (but not in the rain, apparently).  Despite my pleading they would not agree to take the bags.  It was only when I told them that I myself would throw the bags in the truck if they sat there for 90 seconds.  To this they agreed.  Gotta love the DPW.  Anyway, here are two pictures of the new “lawn”, pre-rain storm.

Casey started a new job this week, doing speech therapy in a local middle school on  Monday and Wednesday and in the high school on Friday.  She is super excited to get back to work on a part-time basis.  Consequently, Claire started day care this week.  So far, she loves going to “school”.  The center we chose is very close, has great facilities, and was recommended by our neighbors.  It’s not cheap, but the peace of mind that comes with knowing your kid is safe and in competent hands is certainly worth the extra coin.  After two days, Claire has two friends (Emma and Hayden) and one “owie” (over her eye, from running into the cabinet).  We think that the timing of day care is perfect, because to be honest, Claire is starting to rule the house.  She’s getting a bit bored at home and beginning to act very entitled to things like TV (Mickey Mouse and Elmo’s World), fishy crackers, and literally everything else (her favorite expression is, “that’s my ____”, insert any thing you can think of).

I’m working on transferring videos to the computer, but until then, here are some pictures from the last 8 weeks or so.

Strawberry picking in July

Claire in our neighbor’s pool

Gordon family visits

Claire “nakey” in her chair

Yes, our little girl can count and say her ABCs (sort of).  This is probably my favorite video of Claire so far…she is just so cute!  Since Google decided that it no longer allowed video upload, I’ve decided to try YouTube (owned by Google).  It seems that there may be a limit to the number of individual users that can view the video, so if any of our many fans are being blocked, please let me know and I will seek remedies.  For those of you that can view, you can view the video in full screen by clicking on the “picture in picture” box in the lower right hand part of the video screen, between the “speaker” box and the “triangle” box.   To exit full screen, simply press “escape” on your keyboard.  Let me know how the video works…because I have more to post!

Incidentally, I feel compelled to link to my favorite song right now.  It’s from a Cambridge, MA band called Passion Pit, and the song is called “Little Secrets.”  Enjoy, or don’t.

Here is Claire acting smarter than a 22-month old for her daddy…

I really do have lots of excuses for not blogging.  For one thing, we’ve been in Nantucket, Duanesburg, Boston, Londonderry, and other places visiting family and friends quite often over the past few months.  Additionally, we’ve had guests stay with us.  And another thing, you try installing 100+ feet of fence and a 300 square foot patio by yourself!  Speaking of the yard, here is a picture of the “finished” product.  Obviously I have lots more work to do removing the huge dirt pile (just visible on the left), leveling the ground, and putting in a lawn (in September), but I think we’re making progress.

Now, on to the family…rather than caption each one, I’ll just say that these are from recent visits with the Vincent family.

Recent visit from Brittany and Quincy – unfortunately for us, Brittany and Tim are moving to Charlotte today.  We will miss them tons

I’ve got videos around here somewhere that I will get uploaded soon.  Claire is talking a lot these days, making tons of two and even three word phrases, so I want to post videos of her chatting.  Thanks for reading!

We’ve been pretty busy around here lately with visitors and house projects.  We’ve been fortunate to see both of our families in the last few weeks…it was great!  Here are some pictures of our recent happenings.

Easter with the Gordons, including our new dining room furniture.

A couple pictures of our tree pruning – this doesn’t come close to representing the amount of work we had done.  We had a ton of branches removed and we now have lots more sunlight!

I started installing the fence today and got the front picket finished.  I love the way it looks, except for one post that’s too tall because I didn’t plumb it.  Oh well.  The funniest part of the day was when Claire started “helping.”  She did this all on her own!

Grandma Annie was nice enough to recognize Claire’s love of Elmo that she sent a soft, squishy package just for Claire to open!  Since Grandma couldn’t be here to see Claire open it, I took a video instead.

In her 17 months Claire has had numerous favorite toys, but to date, Elmo is by far her most passionate crush.  You can witness some of this passion in the clip below.  Casey checked out Elmo in Grouchlandfrom the library and Claire demands to watch it at least once each day.  She also has figurines of Elmo and Grover (pronounced “Ogkha”) that she plays with often.

Happy Valentine’s Day to all you lovers out there!  As Casey and I were driving around today, it really sunk in that we lived in a beach community.  So, we decided to cook lobsters for our Valentine’s Day dinner.  Ironically, due to the cold temperatures in New England over the past week, the local lobster pound had to import lobsters from Canada.  Nevertheless, they were delicious!  Enjoy pictures from our drive and our dinner.

Boston, from Great Hill Park, less than 1 mile from our house

Our Lobster dinner

Yet another video of Claire playing! She’s growing into her farm and now plays with it often. And of course, she loves her big dog pillow!