Nate Turns 5 and Gets Guinea Pig

On Oct 26th, Nate officially turned 5. And for his birthday we adopted a guinea pig named Eliza.

He had been asking for a hamster for MANY months. We told him when he turned 5 he could get one (hoping he'd forget). He didn't... Instead of a hamster we adopted Eliza from his cousin who had one too many animals.

We made her a large cage. She runs laps each morning & evening. It's like an exercise routine. She also begs for lettuce everytime she hears the rustling of a plastic bag. And she can be quite vocal. Her favorite foods are apples, pears, lettuce & Timothy hay.

Enough with introductions... meet Eliza...




Then came the party. Can't have a party without a party hat!

Pop (Craig's dad) has a birthday just a few days after Nate. They celebrated together.


This is Nate's official annual birthday portrait in the leaves. I think Craig was running backwards for this shot :).

Now Andrew has way too many facial exrpessions to post, so here are a few from playing in the leaves.

My personal favorite...

New Hampshire trip 2008

The snow is flying and here I am posting shots from our summer trip to New Hampshire. Pretend it's July for a few moments...

On our drive up we stopped at a rest area in Pennsylvania. There was some sort of moth emergence happening and they were all over the trees. We did close-up inspections of the event.

We arrived at the cottage late that night, so it was straight to bed for all. But EARLY the next morning the boys hit the beach in front of the cottage. I'm talking sunrise.

Our daily activities can be summed up thus - swim, play in sand, fish, eat, sleep, repeat... and occasionally care for an injured dragonfly.

Not so nice brotherly love...

Nice brotherly love...

And my sweet little baby - who is 3!
One day we took a trip to York Beach, Maine. We always stop at Nubble Light for a climb on the big rocks.

Then we ventured to the cold Maine waters at York Beach. Imagine 55 deg water. And sand that sticks like clay - would you be smiling like this?
Andrew decided to wave chase rather than dive and dunk.

Our newest activity this year was fishing. Nate has become a master at side casting. And Andrew is catching onto it fast (note the pun).

We caught a bunch if little perch and one trout. Then Nate hooked a 4+ lb bass! We don't have a picture of it because the fishing line snapped as we were pulling him up to shore... But the boys can now tell you their 1st real fish story!Nate is fish spotting.
And that's what we did on our summer trip this year.

Family self-portrait

OK - so this family portrait was taken awhile ago... late spring actually. I finally got it framed and hung on our wall at home, so I thought it would be appropriate to "frame" it online too.

See Baxter. See Baxter run. See boys. See boys chase Baxter. Laugh.

Here is a series of the boys with their Auntie Karen's dog, Baxter. Imagine continuous laughter. Then moments of tired silence followed by continuous laughter.

See Baxter. See Baxter run! See boys. See boys chase Baxter. Showdown with Baxter.
Baxter wins... again! Oh maaaaan!
Baxter at rest. Boys at rest.
Boys being boys - Nate gazing up at an airplane.
Nate IS an airplane :)
Andrew has quite a form for throwing a ball. Can you guess which way the ball went? ... left.

Dinner & cutting grass

This is a series of photos Craig took at the dinner table the other day. Andrew has a myriad of expressions & positions while eating. This is only HALF of the photos from the series...





He is into mowing "with" me now. He will ride his tractor as long as I ride mine. Which means I don't get too much actual mowing done. But hey, how many years will I be able to say my son "liked" to mow?

Outta the way, I got grass to mow!