The NH Children's Museum

Our first day of NH fun was spent at the NH Children's Museum in Dover.  MiniM.E. was a little too young for most of the exhibits, but she had a great time anyway.  Bonus: there was a fantastic toy store across the street!

"What's that noise?"

"Oh, the musical wall, of course!"

with Auntie Jen

pat-pat-a-pat

MiniM.E. is definitely smaller than a dinosaur

what's in there?

MiniM.E.'s favorite part of the museum, window clings.  A must make for the fall.

Back to NH

Last week we were in NH again.  We took lots of day trips and Bob came over on Wednesday night so we could share some summer fun with him too!

a nap on the way there

 Just hanging around the house:

air guitar!

being silly

loving the cat's window seat

in the big girl swing

Happy Thanksgiving!

I might be a Christmas-aholic.  Every year on the day I put away the Christmas decorations and turn off the Christmas music, I start counting down until Christmas again.  This year is especially exciting because the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas is so long!

I was so excited this morning that I jumped out of bed, turned on the Christmas music, and put up all our decorations after I dragged myself out of bed at 6:30, made some coffee, and finally felt human again, I was actually pretty excited to go Black Friday shopping even though that nasty cold snuck back up on me and I'm not feeling tip-top.  Fortunately, the Christmas season is pushing any phlemy-sniffly-icky feelings out and replacing them with sniffly-warm-happy-winter feelings (sort of).

This year, my Christmas shopping is almost done (online... which I never imagined would be as fun as going to actual stores... until I had a one-year-old an the thought of Christmas shopping with her in tow made me shudder), so I will fill my Christmas season baking, card-sending, and wrapping.  Amongst other things like visiting NYC, picking out a tree, and attending holiday festivities.

My type-A personality loves making lists around the holiday season, and as a heads up to my loyal readers, blog posting will probably make the list, though might be considerably lower than, say, watching Elf or eating cookie dough.  SO.... hang in there, posts might be few and far between, but you're probably busy with your own lists anyway...

We've already been busy the past week or so...

We went to NH because after all the busy-ness before the holidays, I needed a little break.

Then, this week, Bob has been home hanging with us and having Mommy-fantasy-camp.  (Which is actually nothing like my normal days, especially since MiniM.E. has been napping like a champ- she might be a little under the weather too- and we've just been doing fun things and skipping the not so fun things like laundry and grocery shopping.)

There's the occasional melt-down that comes from changing up our schedule

Really, we've been having fun and keeping busy...

petting the kitties

watching the squirrels

looking out the window

playing with toys

going for wagon rides

climbing at the park

sliding at the park

just being cute (actually, refusing a jacket)

stroller walks at the Spa Park

carrying monkeys around

and playing precariously on benches

And yesterday we went to our friends' house for Thanksgiving dinner.  It was nice that even if we weren't celebrating with our actual family, we had our "second family" to spend the holiday with.

bringing our mess of toys to another house

examining the wine cork after smelling it

watching football

...after dinner, MiniM.E. was pretty much done...

and almost fell asleep on the floor

This weekend we're kicking off Christmas with our 2nd annual trip to NYC.  And I thought going to New York with a two-month old was challenging... this is a whole new ball game!

I'm just hoping she doesn't cry so much this year that Santa refuses to hold her...

An Autumn Visit to NH

Two weeks ago Bob took a long weekend and we drove to NH to do some leaf peeping and enjoy autumn-like activities.  The leaf peeping went really well on the drive over and we got to see some really nice foliage.  We planned some great activities, and fortunately the weather held out a little bit because for the most part it was pretty rainy.

I'm just a tad late in posting about it because my baby girl turned one yesterday and it was a pretty big deal.  Two weeks of bawling preparing for my baby to become a toddler... but more about that later.

I really want to share all the cute photos of MiniM.E., but it takes a lot of time and effort to be witty, funny and informative in my posts, so for the sake of time, this and the next few posts will be light on text, heavy on photos.  Thanks for understanding!

My favorite part of going home is just relaxing... seeing my family and having an extra pair or two of hands to help out with MiniM.E.

We really enjoyed playing outside this trip...

Playing in the leaves

Calling the Kitty

Running through the leaves

Helping rake

NOT liking being in the leaves

Being rescued

Swinging with Mommy

All by herself!

In the treehouse with Daddy

Down the slide!

Wheelbarrow ride with Mommy (who broke it)

 And seeing MiniM.E.'s boyfriend, H.

And with H. (after it got fixed!)