My Dad had solar panels installed on his garage. This past Thursday a dump truck AND a back hoe came to dig a ditch for the wires that stretch from the garage to the house. Alex was THRILLED. I can't imagine anything more entertaining for him, unless you put him on a jumbo jet filled with ice cream.

The dump truck arrived in the morning and dumped a load of dirt. Alex was speechless for about ten minutes after the event.


The big rig operator of Margaree (Alex calls him "THE MAN") let Alex sit in the dump truck and honk the horn. Alex is in love.


Then Alex helped scoop dirt into the front loader with his sand shovel. Alex was immediately hired as foreman for the project.


And began screaming with delight... and barking orders!


Unfortunately, I had to intervene and make Alex watch from the windw for awhile. That went over like a curfew on prom night. But the black flies were a force to be reckoned with during the construction, not to mention there being a four foot ditch outside and Alex is only three feet tall.

Greetings from St. Rose! I’ve taken a bunch of pictures in and around the house. I’ll probably add to this post, so feel free to check back for more!

The tongue! She's at it again!!!


Bathtime, the old fashioned way!


Summer breeze...


Happy in Canada!


The view from the front porch looking down to Mary's:


Checking on the cows across the street with Grandpa.


A light, summer read from Grandpa's library:

Look out David Hasselhoff, Alex is now patroling the beach at Whale Cove. Here he comes, off to answer the call of a lobster boat in distress!


Luckily, back-up arrives!


Because first Alex has to dig a hole!


And jump in and out the waves over one hundred times!!!


Thumbs up... all is good here! We are having gorgeous weather and a fantastic time!!!


Stay tuned for Iris to debut in the next episode of Baywatch: Chimney Corner Patrol.

It struck me today that vacations are entirely different now. We aren't chasing down authentic, adventurous, local cuisine. Instead give me a place with something the kids will eat. Preferably a place with lots of noise, high celings and fast service. We are no longer in the market for a room with a view, but a hotel with a pool. Night life... what is that???! There are no dinner cruises anymore...there is THEODORE THE TUGBOAT! He took us on a one hour tour of Halifax harbor:





Even though vacations with the kids are now entirely family friendly, they are more fun than ever. Especially when Theodore works his magic. Thanks Theodore! At first I thought the $60 was highway robbery but it was obviously worth every penny.

6-pack of beer to watch the Stanley Cup Final: $7

Two souvenir t-shirts for the kids: $14

Annoying my older brother: Priceless!!!



OK, I REALLY should be packing and not trying to irritate my brother...ON HIS BIRTHDAY!!!! Oh, but it's just so much fun! We can't wait for hockey night in Canada!!!!

Alex's first retrospective is now available online. Unless otherwise noted all works of art are 8x10, crayola marker on paper.

Prices available upon request. Financing options available.

Toxic Drool


Eine Kleine Kaupfschmerzen


Mac and Cheese in Flight


Crib Angst


Savage Onesie


The Artist, Himself:

I am now a PET OWNER. This is a big step for me.

We bought our aquarium last weekend and had to prep the water for a few days before we coud add fish. I've been working on a Thomas backdrop for the tank as it will get moved into Alex's room when we get back from Canada.

Today I took Alex and Iris to the pet store to pick up two tetra fish. Alex also wanted a kitten for the tank but I luckily talked him out of that idea. While our fish were getting bagged up we went to pick up some fish food. I asked Alex what he thought the fish would like to eat and he said, "CHOCOLATE CHIPS!" Hmmmmm.... let's see how long these fish last.

The guy helping us was obviously a fish whisperer and basically made me fill out adoption paperwork to walk away with two fish that totaled five bucks. He told me to feed the fish once a day. I asked if we could stick a ham sandwich in the tank when we go away for a long vacation and he did NOT find that funny. He calmly replied, NO, that if we were going away for more than two days, we had to get a fish sitter. Yes, A FISH SITTER. When I brought up using one of those dissolvable balls of fish food, he said it would pollute a tank of our size. Egads. This is commitment.

So I'm currently accepting resumes for a dependable, experienced fish sitter to pinch some food in our tank so we can get out of the house on occasion. Preferably non sushi lovers, please.

My rear end is really aggravating me. It is ugly, uninviting and in desperate need of some tender loving care. Not to mention, it's just plain difficult to navigate. Josh struggles to get his bike in and out of it on a daily basis. In parts there are weeds overtaking it. It needs a power washing desperately. We even had to seal part of it with plywood because it was leaking hot air all winter long. When people walk by, I just want to hide it. In fact, I'm seriously embarrassed to post a picture of it.


Most of our neighbors have unattractive rears as well, but some have managed to spruce up their rear estate quite nicely. Josh and I are starting to pipe dream about how we can fix up our backside to make it more user-friendly for the whole family, and even for guests who want to visit too.

Now introducing our working plan for our rear end:

Please note I left off some of the bells and whistles in this artistic rendering. The deck needs some stairs off the back, we'd love to put in an herb garden as well as a green roof, and clearly the kegorator has to go somewhere.

I probably should be packing, and not posting. Actually, I should really not be posting or packing, but trying to figure out what that weird smell is in our fridge. Oh well. It'll have to wait. I'm excited!!

In 240 hours (not that I'm counting or anything), I'll be heading to the quaint island of Cape Breton with Alex, Iris and yes, Curious George. Needless to say, I am really excited to visit with family there. I'm also thrilled to spend an extended amount of time with the kids on the beach. A cold, maritime beach but a BEACH nonetheless. And I think Iris might actually start eating solids if we introduce her to some real Canadian poutine. Sure I'm a little nervous about what I'm going to do without Trader Joe's Vanana yogurt and the jumperoo. Not to mention JOSH. Although he will be thankfully joining us towards the end of our adventure.

I'm not sure how easy it will be for me to post while I'm gone. Anyone who knows Cape Breton is going to laugh freakishly when you hear that I googled to see if there were any Wi-Fi spots in Margaree or the five surrounding burroughs: Margaree Forks, Northeast Margaree, Southwest Margaree, Downtown Margaree, and Uptown Margaree. This was pretty much the exact result of my google search: "HA HA HA HA HA HA HA."

Look out Canada, here we come!!!

I couldn't choose just one! Hope you enjoy these new shots of Iris!

I built Alex a fort made out of sticks this morning. Here he is about to walk into it...


Inside is a really cool maze that he had a blast running through and playing hide and seek in....


OK, I'll admit it. I didn't really build this fort. Patrick Dougherty did.

Who is kidding, if I built a fort the inside would look more like this:

A friend of mine gave us this water table last week as her kids had outgrown it. It's actually a water/sand table, but I'm not brave enough to mix the two so I just fill the sand side with sudsy water. Endless fun, sans mud. I cleared off part of the front porch to make room for it and it has quickly become Alex's favorite toy. He plays out there in the morning while I sip my coffee and listen to the birds chirp. It has therefore become my favorite toy too.

This morning instead of sipping my coffee I snapped some pictures...


He starts out innocently enough. I can't even get him to look at the camera he is so occupied...


Looking cute while scheming his next move...


There he GOES! That's my boy!!!!!!!! Coffee time is over...

It struck me yesterday afternoon that I have it easy.

Sure, people tell me I have my hands full. And I literally do most of the time. When I drag the kids on an errand to the bank or post office I get a lot of "Oh. My. God. Better-you-than-me" looks. Although you realize that people are generally nice when you have your hands full with a toddler and infant in tow. Men hold doors. People actually stop so you can cross the street. The last time we went to the bank, the teller offered a fussy Alex a pretzel, and when I said "OK, just one Alex," I was dumb-founded when she opened HER LUNCH.

I won't disagree that sometimes I feel like my genetic code is most closely linked to that of a mule. In fact I've started thinking of my body in terms of Metro New York City real estate. My hands are high-end... Central Park West. My shoulders are up there too... Park Slope. My ear lobes... well, if engineered properly they could have some value down the road. Jersey City.

But yesterday a light clicked on in my head. Iris was on the floor... she easily rolled herself over... picked her head up and did the breast stroke kick really fast a couple of times... and MOVED. She didn't move far... maybe an inch. Regardless, Alex noticed and squealed, "IRIS CRAWLING!"

All of a sudden it dawned on me. She is going to actually start moving around. Then I will have two little kids... moving in two different directions... all at the same time. So, I'm off to go sip my coffee and relax on the couch for a minute because it just dawned on me that relatively soon I'm TOTALLY SCREWED.

We had a busy morning. So little time and so many rocks to skip!

I took the kids over to Valley Green in Fairmount Park. It's only a couple of miles from our house and as it's warming up now I anticipate spending a lot of time exploring over there. For a city park, it's really amazing as it serves a diverse population well. It offers fly-fishing, mountain-biking, walking, and.... rock tossing! I thought I'd try to teach Alex how to skip rocks but nearly pulled my arm out of the socket trying. It's amazing how as you get older, even doing something simple... like reaching deep into the chest freezer, can make you walk cockeyed for a week.

He had a blast anyway! I've decided you only need one of the following to ensure Alex has a good time: rocks, farm animals, a fire engine, puddles, Miki, dirt, Thomas the train or Goldfish crackers. Considering we had three of the above (rocks, dirt and what Alex would call a sizable puddle) it was a recipe for success.



Watch out, I'm going to chuck a BIG ONE!


Uggghhh... Alex. Picking that one up will put me in the hospital!!! Let's leave that one for when your Daddy comes...


Bumped into another stay-at-home Mom and her two kiddies...


Iris... fussy as usual :-)

The other night I sat down with Josh and mentioned the fact that I'm hoping to redesign the way we eat. He definitely gave me a weird look, like... "oh *bleep*... only five years into marriage and she's going to ask me to give up my Ball Park frank for a tofu pop." Well, sort of... but not really. And it turns out that after talking about it for awhile, Josh is as game for the changes as I am.

Last year we joined a CSA (Community Based Agriculture) Program through the Hospital of U Penn (Josh's employer) where, for a flat, up-front fee, we got a box of produce each week from June through November. All fresh-picked. All locally grown. No packaging. No preservatives. Fantastic.

We're hoping to join the CSA again this year but after doing some reading, I've been wanting to make more drastic changes to our eating. Over the last five years I've become a lot more proactive about reducing my carbon footprint in general. I am seriously freaked about the longevity of the planet and truly hope to leave our kids a beautiful world with polar ice caps and lakes that aren't littered with twinkie wrappers. I use canvas grocery bags, when I worked downtown Josh and I both rode our bikes 7 miles round-trip every day to work (Josh still does), we compost, I frequently buy and sell through Craigslist, I am the library's biggest fan, and we recycle.

However, I know that I am also contributing to the pillaging of the planet by the way we eat. Unlike when I lived in Italy, here we don't have to eat according to the seasons. In Italy, I'm pretty sure I shed tears at the end of fig season because I knew I wouldn't find another fresh fig post-November. However, at my local Super Fresh I can get peaches from Argentina and apples from New Zealand to last me through the winter. For cheap. Yet at an extraordinary cost to the environment in fossil fuel.

I want to eat locally grown. I want to eat seasonally. I don't want my lettuce flown in on a jet from China. I don't want high fructose corn syrup pumped into all my food. Check it out if you haven't already... it's in items as random as ketchup and bread. I don't want the pork the kids eat (or me for that matter) to come from pigs pumped full of antibiotics because they live in such tightly confined, sickening environments. I mean, where is the news story on how the swine flu came to pass? I'd love to see the Smithfield farm where it supposedly originated.

So, here begins our reformation. We are in the process of joining Weavers Way, a neighborhood food co-op that sells tons of local food (milk, eggs, produce, meat). We simply pay $30 for the year to become members and Josh and I have to work a total of 12 hours per year in the store or on the farm. It's definitely pricier to shop there than at the local grocery store, especially as I've been a big generic brand shopper in the past. While I plan to still pick up a few things at regular stores, for the most part I'm going to refine our menu so that we are eating meat less frequently (we usually have it every night for dinner and now I think we'll probably indulge only 3-4 nights a week) and therefore we can afford to eat more local, better food overall.

Change is good!

Alex loves to play with Jack, a little boy his age that lives a couple doors down from us. Today Jack, Alex, Iris, and another little buddy, Leo, all took their first trip to Longwood Gardens. It was a beautiful day for it! The kids lasted FIVE HOURS there and considering it takes an hour just to get there, it was a real marathon day! It was unanimous that the Mom's were exhausted by the end!!!

Snapdragons, tulips, and columbine in full bloom... OH MY!


Me and the kids!


Alex and Jack splashing in the Kids Water Garden...


They got SOAKED! Luckily it's warm out now...


There's an IRIS, too! The prettiest specimen in the whole place...


Jack and Sarah at the fountains...


Checking out the bonsai tree display!


Leo and Amy in the orchid room...


They have four awesome tree houses at Longwood. Here is Alex coming out of one... time to go home!!!

Well, there was no place in the baby book for this "incident" so I thought I'd make it a blog post. Good thing I had my camera on hand to document.

The scene of the crime was the grocery store. I usually have my hands full, and cart full, when I'm there alone with the kids. I've seriously almost taken out some of the displays with this cart, the thing is so incredibly monstrous. That, by the way, really cracks Alex up. He yells KABOOM, which only draws MORE attention to us. Ha ha, like we need that!!!

Sometimes when I think I have my life totally under control and start to pipe dream about maybe... just maybe... someday having three kids... I envision the inevitable trip to the grocery store. Uggggh. I mean, seriously, is navigating the grocery store even possible with three? I don't see how, as I already make a total scene with two.

Anyway, as I was loading food onto the conveyor belt at the register I heard a suspicious crinkling. I wouldn't have thought twice about it until Alex got gutsy and went for the Altoid stash and dropped a tin on the floor. CAUGHT IN THE ACT.


He had about twenty Baby Ruth bars loaded into his little escape car! Super Fresh decided not to press charges, despite the photographic evidence, as he has an otherwise clean rap sheet. Ha ha. All joking aside, I did explain to Alex that he had to put all 22 Baby Ruth bars back... that we don't take things with us that we don't pay for. Although he wasn't too pleased about that, he honked his fake horn, put his shades back on and waved happily to the store clerk on the way out. So, there we go... parenthood can throw you big surprises... I never knew, when I woke up this morning, that I'd be taking on the eighth commandment today!

IRIS! For her shocking debut in "How About Dem Nasty Apples."


OK, I don't remember introducing solids being this difficult with Alex. Clearly, Iris HATES food. So far we have tried rice cereal. Hates that. Pears. Hates those. And apples. Obviously, hates those too. I notified the pediatrician last week about the difficulty with getting Iris to eat solids and the pediatrician said not to worry, that solids shouldn't be a main source of calories right now. A main source of calories??!! I would be dumbfounded if Iris has swallowed a half calorie to date. She ends up wearing all the calories and she has gotten really good at kicking or batting a fully loaded spoon right out of my hand in protest. And she has mastered the "ziplock lips." Once she does that, I couldn't pry them open with a crow bar if I tried. Well, I guess I don't get the Academy Award for Best Director today. Hey, there's always tomorrow when "How About Dem Prunes" makes its debut.

The nature of Josh's job will likely always involve conferences. So far the locations haven't been terribly exotic: Orlando, Palm Springs twice (in mid-June though when it's 120 degrees), New Orleans (post Katrina) and Tai Pei (not my favorite Asian city although this definitely beats Orlando). I did accompany Josh to one conference in Boulder, Colorado circa 1 B.A. (1 year before Alex). That was a lot of fun, especially as I had never been to Rocky Mountain National Park before and we took a day at the end of the conference for the side trip.

Anyway, Josh recently dropped a bomb when he told me that this fall he will be attending a week-long conference in... get this... VOLTERRA, ITALY. A medieval town in the heart of Tuscany. Just thinking about it makes me weep tears of vintage Chianti. There aren't many places on earth I'd rather revisit, especially with Josh!

This morning when I was talking to a mom friend of mine at a play group I mentioned that I'm considering trying to go but am worried that I might still be nursing Iris, and that the kids are still so little for me to, you know... flee the country altogether. She wrinkled her face up and said, "Sarah. Sarah. Sarah. You really need to try to get there... for yourself. For me. For all of momkind, for God sakes."

So there we have it: Operation Project Volterra is in effect.

Here are a few pictures I took of Iris this afternoon.






OK, I admit, the last picture isn't actually Iris... not yet anyway. She sticks her tongue out constantly, especially when she's happy. This weird habit started in Michigan (aka Detroit Rock City) so I can't figure out if she picked this up from Uncle Greg or Gene Simmons.