Santa

This weekend was the annual Squadron Kids Christmas Party. The kids always love this, they get to bounce in the bounce house, crawl through the inflatable plane, eat yummy snacks, and of course get an early visit from Santa. It seems that every year at least one of my kids gets scared of Santa, but they are smart and never leave without their gift. Santa always seems to "know" what would be the perfect little gift. We enjoyed our day playing with the new toys.

Christmas Tree Time

One Tired Wolverine

Our Superhero's!

Crashed Computers

Do not ask me how I do it but I can crash a computer in record time! Both my desktop and laptop are down! I am using my hubby's computer but now he is a little scared to let me near it! Understandably so....... I am hoping that we are able to save my pictures! That is the down side to not have actual pictures and only downloading them! GRRRRR Oh well!

Blessed

This week we were very fortunate to be blessed with a new addition to the family. I am the proud aunt of another sweet little baby girl. My baby brother and his wife just welcomed their first child into the world. Of course I am going to say she is perfect but really she is. She is a spitting image of her daddy but has her Gammy's hair. Oh how I wish Gammy was here to hold her. She does have her Gammy's middle name and will hear funny stories about her Gammy as she grows. I could not be more amazed by my sister in law who went through 40 hrs of labor and 4 hrs of pushing and still looked amazing in the first pictures after birth. The strength that they have showed me is inspiring. Such a young couple with so much to give this sweet little girl. Welcome to the world Aalina! You are surrounded by love, hope, imagination, and laughter. I look forward to the day we meet.

Apple Picking

There is something about Maine, you can smell Fall in the air! We embraced this wonderful time of year and went Apple Picking! We have a great orchard about 10 minutes down the road. We enjoyed the picture perfect fall day and had a wonderful time. The boys picked a bag full of yummy apples, ran around, played in the pumpkins and looked for changing leaves. After we were all done at the orchard we headed to the "mall". It is a grassy area in downtown Brunswick where you can picnic in the spring, summer, and fall, or ice skate in the winter. For us it was wiffle ball time. Had a little South Family wiffle ball game. The boys might just have a future in baseball, but then again they come by loving baseball honestly. My grandfather William Vallely was a baseball fanatic, coach, mentor, and so much more. I am really enjoying this fall as it will be our last one in Maine.

School!!

Walking in

The 3rd Graders

The Kindergartners

Andrew and Mikey all ready to go

The boys before school

Where did the time go?

I looked at the calendar today and said YIKES! Summer is almost over and school is around the corner. Andrew will be in 3rd grade.... WHAT? When did that happen? Just the other day wasn't I pregnant with him and feeling him kick? Oh yeah that was 8 1/2 years ago. Now he is growing into his own. I hope that he gets a wonderful teacher this year. Mikey, well thinking of how he started his life and the fact that he will be going to Kindergarten gives me mixed emotions. I mean when he was born I really never thought of the day he would start school. Now he is getting ready for his first day of school. How lucky are we as parents that he is GOING TO SCHOOL! There were many times that he almost did not have the opportunity to go to school. I sit here thinking of how wonderful my boys are and how much they have taught me. I have grown so much just being their Mom. Lucky me!

Boston

What a wonderful anniversary weekend we just spent in Boston!! We headed down there last Friday and stayed until Sunday afternoon. I cannot wait to get back down there. We saw so much history. We were lucky enough to meet an old Master Chief who took the time to teach me how to do a monkey's fist. He explained a lot about different military knots and what they are used for. He even got us a private tour of the USS Cassin Young! Wow the history and story with that ship was breathtaking. It really will make you appreciate life! We did the Freedom Trail, saw Cheer's, enjoyed some amazing Italian food, toured the USS Constitution, and finished with a trip to the Aquarium. There was still so much we missed that we have to go back again!

A must see!!!

Went to see Mamma Mia with my friends last night and have never laughed so hard! Its a wonderfully fun movie! Makes you want to get up and dance right there!

4th of July Fun!

Mom just wants to have fun

So it's summer!! WOO HOO! I took the kids to the spray park on base and I personally had a great time. The boys had fun too. A good friends little girl was a little unsure of the water so I showed her how to have some fun and got a little wet doing so! We all really enjoyed it and will be back alot this summer.

Haircuts!!!

<------ Before

----------------> After

It's Official

School is out!!! Finally..... Andrew has been promoted to 3rd grade and Mikey is a Kindergartner! Andrew did really well all year and if his grade level had the honor roll he would be on it! Mikey is ready to start school tomorrow but I am willing to wait til September for that to happen. Now it's time to enjoy the summer together! Mike is currently gone and will miss a lot of fun but we keep him updated by pictures. We celebrated tonight with bowling! We had a few great friends there with us to mark the end of school and the beginning of SUMMER! I also got to hang with my little buddy Samie! She will start Kindergarten with Mikey!

Dinner Conversation

The other night we are sitting at the table eating dinner talking about our days when Mikey and Andrew have a conversation that will forever make me laugh. I really thought that we were teaching the kids right and showing them that to succeed in life that you have to work hard. So it went a little like this........

Mikey says, "When I grow up I am going to be a dad, and have a nice house."
Andrew responds, "When I grow up I am going to live at Mikey's house and be the uncle. I am going to sleep in one of the bedrooms."
We asked how that would work if Mikey had kids and they all had there own rooms.
Andrew said, "Well one of them would have to share with the other so I get my own room and if not then I will sleep on the floor."
Mikey then says, "I am not going to get a job because I will be a daddy."
We said that you have to have a job to support your children...
Mikey responded, "The bank has all the money I need!"

Fenway Park

After seeing the movie Fever Pitch I have become a "wanna be" Red Sox fan. If you have not seen the movie I suggest you watch it some rainy day. So being in the Boston area I found that you could take a tour of Fenway. So I packed everyone up and made a day of it. We drove down to Boston and had lunch. Then we started up Yawkey Way. Even though the ballpark has not even had opening day the ambiance was amazing. I could hear "Tessie" http://http//www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYAijiz7nZM singing in my head. We met up with our tour guide and she leaded us on a historic tour of the park. So much history! It is one of the oldest ball parks in the US. It opened just five days after the sinking of the Titanic. It currently has the oldest seats in baseball. They are these very small wooden seats. We got go inside the press box, the pavilion seats and the lower historic blue seats. The boys loved hearing all the stories of Fisks' pole, Peskys' pole, Ted Williams seat, the Green Monster and so much more. I think that I enjoyed it more than anyone! We really hope to get back there with the boys to actually see a game. For now we will go to the Portland Sea Dogs games, they are the farm team for the Red Sox. In all it was a great day and we cannot wait to do it again!!!

Our Easter

We had a wonderful time sunday! The boys woke up to see that the bunny left a little something for them. We had about 15 people over and made a Taco Bar. I know I know its Easter you should have Ham but when you are cooking for a lot of people then I think that you can cook whatever you want! Start new traditions!! The boys enjoyed an indoor egg hunt! There was still a lot of snow on the ground so we made it fun indoors. Mike and Logan were worn out later that day and both fell asleep on the couch! I love seeing that. Andrew, Mikey, and I played with the new board games the bunny left and watched a little tv. All in all we had a great Easter and now are enjoying Mike's 2 weeks off!!! WOO HOO!!! I am not excited at all that he is home! We are still trying to Potty Train Logan and forgot how tough little boys can be! We are going to try to have a little fun weather depending while he is off so stay tuned for more pictures and posts! Love to you all.