Dodging bullets.

    I guess it's a good thing our moving plans came to a full stop. Schoharie county did not fair so well in hurricane Irene. We have friends who live in the area and have shared gruesome tales. One of the houses we looked at was in the flood. We actually looked at that house twice. The other was on the hill but the land was wet when we saw it in April. After the hurricane I have a feeling the downstairs was a mess.

     We on the other hand got off light. Our basement is unfinished and the water runs through it in heavy rain. We actually had less then we get every spring when the snow melts. Joe was thrilled with the waterfall,(the small seasonal stream that runs through the orchard is "Joe's waterfall".) He stood on the back deck several times a day to watch. Rory liked it once it stopped raining and he could walk over to look at it. The animals were all in the paddock with access to the barn. I tried to lock the chickens in but they kept slipping out so I gave up. They obviously did not care about the rain. Benjamin the rabbit was in his hutch until Sunday morning when I decided to put him in his winter abode, an area off the tack room that is about 5x10 ft. I haven't told him he has to go back to his hutch next week when the chicks get here. We lost only one tree, a nice sized maple out in our back pasture. I was very sad to find it Monday when I was checking the fence line with the boys. That in and of itself was hilarious. I have Joe running from puddle to puddle to stomp in them and Rory struggling to get through the field, some of the grass was as tall as he is. At one point he ripped his hand out of mine and turned around to go back to the house. Poor little guy couldn't see where the house was though so he was forced to return to his cruel mother.
          
All in all we came out nicely but I have to go.
                                                        
Love Nikki

                                          

Happy Solstice

   House hunting happened, we found a place we loved in Carlisle(Cobleskill). Then I found out they only have one occupational therapist in Schoharie county and limited speech therapist for Rory. So much for the new house with more space. I guess we are going to have to become minimalists. I have already started going through the stuff and made two trips to the thrift store.

     The cute little stallion from across the street came to visit Miss Lucy so we could have a baby horse next spring. Unfortunately Miss Lucy was not so impressed with Himself and she pushed the gate off the hinges and let him in with Dancer who decided he was all that. I guess we will just have a shorter pony then what I expected. Joe is thrilled. He thinks the little stallion is the perfect size. He goes over to the fence every afternoon to have a quick talk with Shorty and scratch his ears.

     Joe is finishing school this week and has his graduation ceremony. He will  be going to a new preschool this summer and fall. We are very excited. I have decided to put Rory in starting in December. Rory was so upset this morning that he could not go with Joe.

    Ed is working at Siena College this summer. He loves it. He is really enjoying putting into practice the things he learned during the winter.

     I will snap some pictures of the boys this afternoon and get them posted tonight.

          Love you all Nikki and the boys

So........

Yes the ball dropped again. Oh well you all still love me right? Winter is finally ending, I hope. We can see most of the yard and the pastures are slowly but surely getting better. Joe makes a daily forage over to the orchard to look at "Joe's waterfall" Please note we are talking about a very small stream of run off water from the neighbors pastures. He then proceeds to pick up snow and through it into the stream until his hand gets cold. We then go check on his rabbit Benjamin (Rosie went into the light - No I haven't quite explained that to him yet).

After feeding Ben carrots we head into the coop to look for eggs and throw the horses some hay after we tell the cows whether they are good or bad. I'm not sure what he uses to measure the cow's behavior but it varies from day to day. I just say they are messy.

Well Ed and I have been talking and we are going to look at a house on Monday. We adore this house but right now it may not be the best place for us so we have decided to be open minded and consider other possibilities. Who knows at this point in this market.    


I will try to get some pics off the camera tomorrow and up load them.

Love you all Nikki

Oh Christmas Tree !!!

I don't think we made it into December before Joe started asking when we were going to get a Christmas tree. You all know the size of our house. Even with the changes we are still cozy, so the tree always has to come after Joe's party.

The following Friday (since I work on the weekends) we bundled up the boys. Loaded them into to van. Daddy got in his truck (no room for tree in van with boys) and we trundled off to Medusa (5 minutes down the road from our place) to Wright's Tree Farm. We have been cutting our trees there since the year Joe was born. Wow, that was a crazy Christmas, hormone driven crazy new mom, I made Ed cut a tree down the weekend before the holiday because I found out Joe was coming home and my addled brain insisted that we had to have a tree for his first Christmas.

Oops I digress...

Anyhow, we get to the farm Rory has a horrible cold so we keep him bundled near the car. Ed and Rory wait while Joe and I go tromping out to look at trees. So here's the thing, I told Joe he was going to get to pick the tree out. Not help, not look, not vote, but pick. We're walking along and he seems more interested in knocking snow off stuff as I am considering trees. I keep asking him what about this one and how about that one...what do you think of this one ? He takes one look at each of my candidates and says "No mom". "Alright" my slightly cold brain and even colder toes say and we walk on. We break through to a small opening were several trees have been cut and Joe walks to the next tree in line and says "This tree moms". (He sometimes calls me moms, who knows?) Anyhow, I size the tree up and even with my spatial issues I have a feeling this tree is too huge for my living room. I tell Joe it's nice but lets keep looking. Joe says "No mom this tree" I try to explain it's kind of big. his response, "Big tree for the big room." I can see I am not going to win that point so I try another trick: "What if you like the next tree better ?", and I start to walk on. At this point Joe plants his feet solidly and begins to scream "No this is Joe's tree. Joe wants this tree. Put the ribbon on this tree." We had a blue ribbon to tie on the tree so Ed could identify our choice. Score for Joe, moms puts the ribbon on the tree.

We walked back to the van and I explained where Ed could find the tree, smiled and explained if he changed trees Joe would probably never forgive us. So out he went to retrieve the monster. Back he came dragging it along with daggers in his eyes aimed my way for telling a four year old he could pick out our tree. All in all we guess it was a 9 or 10 feet tall. When we got home we fed the crew and prepared the tree stand.

Guess what happens to a tree stand for a 5-6 foot tree, when you pop a 9 footer in it ? Yeah it breaks. Mom and Joe head for Lowes to get a new tree stand. I might have gone a little overboard on the new one (It has a lifetime guarantee). Luckily while we were there it dawns on me that I might need a few more tree lights as well. I call Ed to ask him how many feet around he thinks the tree is at the base so I can estimate how many strings. He misunderstands and gives me the diameter, 8ft, not the circumference. Back home we go to decorate the giant tree. So the first string of lights is 16 feet long and barely makes it around the base of our tree.

Anyhow...

Who would of ever thought that the skill of tether ball from many years ago on the play ground would ever come in handy later in life? I had those lights swinging once I got up to the top of the tree. Ed was out of the room for about 10 minutes doing laundry and putting Joe to bed. When he came back down he demanded to know how a "hobbit" like myself had manged to get the lights that high up in the tree with no ladder ?

(Insert wife's smug smile here).

The ornaments were mostly put on by myself. Joe and Rory's version of decorating this year was to grab the shatter proof balls and lob them at the tree. If they stuck they would cheer ferociously. It was very cute. Once decorated I have to admit Joe picked out a perfect tree. Symmetrically it is perfect. Granted it takes up 1/4 of my living room, but it is beautiful.

Good tree Joe !

Love you all, Nikki

P.S. In the beginning my tree was decorated perfectly. Ornaments all spaced nicely nothing the same next to each other, I will admit I get a bit crazy about the ornaments and it takes me few days to get them perfect(We all have to have one crazy thing in our lives right ?) So by the time I took the tree down there were no ornaments from the floor to about three feet high.

Thanks Rory, good boy.

Must catch up...

Rory's idea of a party.

One very excited birthday boy.

Buzz Lightyear to the rescue.

Eagerly awaiting his guests.

I am so far behind but December was such a busy month and too much goes on to skip or try to hit it with one blog so bear with me while I backtrack....

Joe's birthday party was the 4th. I was ambitious and invited a lot of people, a little over 30, knowing that because of the time of year not everyone would be able to make it. I figured this way we would have enough guests that conversation would be lively because anyone who has watched Joe open presents knows that it takes a while. Well we had quite the fun day, only one family could not make it. We were all quite cozy and enjoyed the good company. I was very happy that so many could make it. I hardly ever get out to see anyone so it was nice to see everyone at once.

Rory was a little stressed by the crowd but I fed him his sandwich (my sandwich) and he fell asleep. He was out for almost the entire party. Joe spent what felt like forever opening presents. He takes one small piece of the paper at a time so some of the other kids jumped in to help him. He didn't seem to mind but had no intention of changing his method of opening. Our biggest problem came in that he wanted to stop and play with each toy after it was opened. He was almost even more stressed by having to open more presents. All in all he had a wonderful day and he really loved having the other kids to play with. Rory was not quite as interactive as Joe would like him to be, so any opportunity to play with other kids thrilled him, especially if it was a wild ruckus. Next year I am going to attempt activities and games. Wish me luck...oh wait... maybe you should save those wishes for the poor kids.

Love you all Nikki

Happy Halloween

So it was cold and I was tired and this is the only picture I got of Joe actually trick or treating. Oops.

Rory sleeps through yet another year of trick or treating. Oh well better luck next year.

Have I mentioned how difficult it is to get pictures of two boys ?

Yet another try...

So this was actually last week but I thought it was super cute how Joe had to show Rory what the flash light could do.