Girls' Weekend

"Mommy, do I get to go to the Camporee?"

"LUCY! Stop at the top of the hill!" I shrieked, barely pausing to listen to Ellie's question.  "What?"

It was dusk on a Friday afternoon in mid-January, the end of another long week. Like we do every other Friday, Leo, Harry, Lucy and I load into the van to drive the three minutes to Ellie's school to pick her up from her Girl Scout meeting which concludes just before dinner time.

Lucy barely paused at the top of said hill, then took off through the dark parking lot (Awesome!), meanwhile Harry was at the bottom of the hill, kicking at some grass and taking his own sweet time to join the rest of his siblings at the car. In other words, just a typical moment in my life.

I actually knew about the "Camporee." It was a weekend trip planned for the following weekend, two nights at a YMCA camp in northwestern New Jersey. All the Girl Scouts in Ellie's Girl Scout troupe were invited but each girl needed a parent chaperone. Ellie had asked about it for two years and I somehow put it off. Even though I feel strongly about doing things one-on-one with our kids whenever possible, a whole weekend away with one seemed complicated.

"I don't know, we'll see," I mumbled, between pleads with Harry to get into the car and Lucy to scoot into her carseat so I could buckle her in. Inwardly I was cursing the Girl Scouts for publicizing the trip, wishing it could be something that only parents knew about so that if we couldn't take our girls, they couldn't be disappointed. But silly me, third grade girls talk to each other. They're not little kids anymore.

Later when I brought it up with Erin to see what she thought (secretly hoping she'd poo poo it and Id be off the hook), she practically (lovingly) pushed me out the door. "GO," she implored me. "It will be good for you and it will be great for Ellie."

So go, we did.


Fairview Lake, Newton, New Jersey


Ellie was just SLIGHTLY excited about her top bunk (and her new purple sleeping bag).

We left home shortly after sunset and arrived in time for hot chocolate, cookies and swap making in the dining hall. Soon after we retired to our cabins (bunkbeds!) that we shared with two other moms and their daughters. I had one of the worst night's sleep of my life (and believe me, there's a lot of competition for that), between the street lamp that shined in my eyes all night and the plywood-plush mattress. But no matter-I was heartened by the fact that four year olds would not be rousing me before sunrise in the morning and I had no responsibilities for the next day, other than chaperoning Ellie to various Girl Scout activities. WIN.


Candle making was favorite (yes, the let the moms do it too). It was dip, dip, dip, dip. Super relaxing. Super zen. Totally what I needed.

They kept the girls perfectly busy. I say "perfectly" in that there was plenty of down time but also great activities for them. They spent a morning learning about letter boxing.


They survived the Frozen Swamp Tour.


Ellie and the biggest marshmallow of her life. True love.

Perhaps MY favorite part of the weekend was the dining hall. Can I tell you how sweet it was to walk into a room where all the food had been prepared by others and would be cleaned up by others? I didn't realize how much brain space is taken up by meals for the kids until I had a weekend off from cooking and cleaning up. If I'm not making meals or cleaning up after them I'm thinking about what I'm going to make and when I'm going to make it. Always watching the clock. And believe me, I am no gourmet--I'm not even talking about elaborate cooking here folks. I'm talking pasta. Baked chicken. Some cut up fruit. It was SO nice to sit back and let someone else take the reins for the weekend.

Saturday afternoon the girls rehearsed a little performance for the evening's talent show and the moms congregated in a room with couches and coffee and we just relaxed and talked. Bliss. I seriously could have just stared at a wall and been perfectly content. The adult conversation was just an added bonus.


That evening after dinner (followed by brownies, a sundae bar AND s'mores--see above for Biggest Marshmallow--the girls performed their song (there were Girl Scout troupes in attendance from all over the state). Yup, a lodge full of giggling, shrieking elementary and middle school girls. It was as loud (and adorable) as it looks.

In the morning, following brunch and prior to departure, the girls had a list of activities to choose from.


"What was your favorite part of Camporee?" One of the counselors asked Ellie on Saturday night. "It hasn't happened yet," Ellie answered quietly. She had her heart set on archery.


Rock climbing was also highly anticipated.

Before it was time to pack up the car, Ellie and I took some time to explore the camp one more time, just the two of us. I made a conscious effort to say "YES!" as much as I could all weekend. "Can I have another brownie? Can we go check out the creek? Can we make one more candle?" Yes! Sure! Why not?!  With four kids and four personalities and four different sets of needs it can be SO hard to please everyone all the time--not hard actually, impossible. I find myself constantly feeling like I'm not only being pulled in many directions and endlessly disappointing someone. I've come to accept this, but it sure is nice to be able to just say YES to a request without thinking about how it's going to affect another kid or if I'll need to get four of something and well, you get the picture. (Of course, saying yes ALL the time wouldn't be a good way to be but it's just fine for one weekend if you ask me).






Pretty excited about the name of the camp gift shop.



Finding hearts in the natural environment is a family favorite. The Camporee did not disappoint.




Camporee selfie!!


If you're wondering how the others fared in our absence, well they were more than fine (see above for a pic that Erin texted me over the weekend). I came home to seven loads of clean laundry (thanks Sweetie!) and fresh baked cookies. I think it's safe to say I could got the easier end of the stick with the One Kid Weekend.



Next year I will not change the subject when Ellie asks me about the Camporee. I'll mark it on the calendar, and we'll be there. I'm looking forward to it already.

Summer Tease

Friday I felt downright victorious because we played outside without coats (poor Harry, such a creature of habit--he can't figure out what's going on when he doesn't need a coat--as soon as he hears "play outside" he runs to the mudroom, grabs his little navy blue down jacket off the hook and commands me, "Put my coat on!"). Lucy is no better--she insisted on wearing her Flipeez hat on today's neighborhood walk (high temperature: 79 degrees).




A rock, a trowel and a fairy skirt. She has a PLAN.

Then this weekend happened.


It was 82 degrees. Wait. WHAT?


Tomorrow it's supposed to rain. Not snow. So we're good.

When Life Gives You Fourteen Degrees, You Give it Felt Valentines in January

It continues to be ridiculously cold (I know, January) and it continues to be my least favorite time of year (Christmas is still over!). And so to that I say: Valentine's Crafts.



Ellie and I started working on this little ditty on Saturday afternoon while the twins napped. And here's some funny info which speaks volumes: I bought the materials for this "garland"…LAST YEAR. Along with a glue gun. Which I finally took out of its package this weekend. Hey, better late than never, right? Yes, I've long dreamed (for a whole year, apparently) of creating a little Valentine's Day garland (you can make garlands for pretty much any holiday-I'm already planning my Halloween version).



We worked furiously while they slept, in an attempt to get as much finished in the absence of the twin-nadoes precious darlings. I knew as soon as they woke it would be Game Over. We accomplished a lot, I'd say about 3/4 of the garland was complete before Lucy woke up.

When she came downstairs she was wide eyed at the craftapalooza. She announced, "I want to paint!"

Well, OK then.


Lucy, you're such a great artist, I told told her. "No I'm not!" she protested. "I'm Lucy!"

There was a time when I would have felt itchy to have so many projects going at once (shortly after Lucy started painting, she asked for lunch, so at one point I was simultaneously making a cheese sandwich, slicing berries and glue gunning burlap cord and felt hearts). The kitchen: Oh it was quite a sight. I guess I'm just much more accustomed to chaos than I used to be (Gee! I wonder why!). It still makes feel a little nuts, but I know in the back of my mind that everything is washable and everything has a place (eventually) and everything will get cleaned up.


Harry woke up a little later and joined our "salon."


He may have been a bit more interested in the paint water than the actual painting (don't worry, he took a drink when it was clean, before he'd dipped his brush).

Ellie alternated between decorating felt hearts for the garland and painting with watercolors. At one point I took a break from felt heart glue gunning and worked on some water colors too. This is so much harder than it looks, I mentioned to Ellie, who was working quietly beside me (It's been a while since I've used water colors).


"Not for me," Ellie replied. "I'm a natural."

By the way, about that working furiously? A funny thing happened. We were able to finish the garland after the twins woke up. This might sound silly, but I have to say that completing this did a lot for my confidence. I love being creative. I miss doing stuff like this. Yes, things have been pretty hectic for the last few years (Hi Harry and Lucy!). Dare I say we are seeing a glimmer of the future? A future in which creative projects can be completed at a time that doesn't involve nap time? A future in which it's not just the big kids participating, but the little ones too? I mean, don't get me wrong. There was still a toddler pulling on my leg the whole time I finished that last quarter of the garland and I'm sure at least two people were shouting MOMMY! and asking for a snack. But we finished the garland! We finished it! And I swear I didn't ignore the children. Too much.



Perhaps best viewed in darkened room, while squinting. But we had fun.




Felt, buttons, rick rack, ribbon, pom poms and sequins.

More. Is more.

Merry and Bright

The tree is up.

Please ignore the Giant Gaping Hole in the middle of the tree. We had a slight light malfunction. Don't ask. I'm just pretty proud that it's still standing and still holding most of the ornaments that were placed on it Saturday afternoon. Might we be exiting the stage of destruction? I have only once uttered the words "Harrystoptouchingthelights," (though to be fair, I have had to demand that he not stand on the end table and grab ornaments). Yeah, maybe we're not quite finished with the stage of destruction after all.

Shortly after I snapped the above photo, Ellie asked if we could snuggle on the couch and drink hot chocolate and then could I tell her about "Christmases long ago?"

You really can't make this stuff up (This, by the way, I've decided should be our family motto and I want it as my epitaph).

I think it's fair to see we are all feeling the spirit. When we told the kids a few days before the weekend that we'd be getting the Christmas tree, Ellie began her usual countdown of "Today is four days until we get the tree!" and then "Today is three days…" Saturday morning around 6:30 a.m. I found the words "Get it" ominously scrawled on the dry erase board in the kitchen, next to a drawing of a, you guessed it, a Christmas tree.

Saturday morning we took the kids to a gingerbread house making party at Ellie's old preschool.

Candy apparently makes Lucy itchy.


And hungry. Look at her. So sly! She couldn't quite believe her good luck. Unlimited Fruity Pebbles? For real?

Toddlers making gingerbread houses. Oy. Talk about herding cats. I was impressed with Lucy actually. She has quite the attention span for crafts. Or maybe she just likes sweets. Let it be known Saturday was the day she discovered chocolate covered marshmallow snowmen. She's a fan.


And if making gingerbread houses wasn't enough, Saturday afternoon while the babies napped, the big kids and I ventured out in the cold to the Frelinghuysen Arboretum to see the Gingerbread Wonderland.


Everyone was feeling especially lovey-dovey that day. I promise I didn't even have to pay Leo to snap this shot-he voluntarily threw his little arm around Ellie.


"Take my picture Mommy!"


And for the piece de resistance, Grandma Jerry's Christmas dresses arrived on Saturday afternoon. Well. Two little girls could not have been happier. They put the dresses on immediately and twirled all over the house. "I want someone who isn't in my family to see me," Ellie squealed. Lucy demanded to wear hers to Costco the next morning.

Who was I to say no?

The "Punky" Patch (and Apple Picking)

I like to call this one, What Happens When You Say "Let Me Take A Picture," to four small children. This one will definitely go in the scrapbook. Certainly the mantel. By the way, Lucy's back intentionally to me? That sums her up right there. That is Lucy to a T.

We waited until late in the season to go apple and pumpkin picking this year (yes, we were the crazy people who went to the pumpkin patch the weekend before Halloween but guess what? Turns out it's not so crowded at 9 a.m. on a Sunday).

We waited, partly because I like to go when it's cold(er)--(hot apple cider, hot cider donuts, are you sensing a theme?) and partly because I may have been procrastinating. But I KNEW the kids would have so much fun, it would be worth all the energy it takes to take all four of them to any wide open space. We just had to go.

And if there was ever any doubt on my part, I had to remember this: a few weekends ago Ellie and I were at Home Depot and she was all excited about the garden center's "pumpkin patch" (poor kid). When she asked to get a pumpkin and I mentioned we'd be going to an actual pumpkin patch in a few weeks, well, you'd have thought I just told her we were going to Disney World. You can say what you want about our kids but I just love the fact that they are really pretty easy to please.

So last weekend Erin and I drank about nineteen cups of coffee (each) and took the kids to our favorite Pumpkinpatchapplepickingfarm.

If, for no other reason than, Harry + hay ride? That was a sight I needed to see. As Leo says, "It will blow his brain!"

Harry, on said hayride. Safe to say, brain = blown = very happy guy.

(By the way, the last time we went to this farm, the twins looked like this):


September, 2011

I think Harry had more fun this year. I know I did (although breastfeeding infants in an apple orchard IS my idea of a good time--really missed that this year--said No One Ever).


Off and running, on the hunt for apples.






Another moment when I think I had the gall to suggest a picture. Lucy's all "See ya, Mommy."


It must be pretty weird to be two years old and to see something you eat almost every day, growing on a tree. Harry (and his eyelashes) seemed to think so.

Moving on to Paradise.

I mean, the pumpkin (or as Lucy calls it, the "punky") patch. Seriously, doesn't this look like something out of Grandma Moses?


Leo and Ellie had a fight over who got to show Harry the tractor.


These girls are excellent wagon haulers.

Clearly they need jobs.

The key to having a good time in the stage we're in is low expectations.

Mine were definitely surpassed this year on ye old punky patch/apple picking trip. Plus, we returned home with all four children. So I call that a win. And did I mention there were cider donuts? And they were hot? Mmmmm.

Brunch and the Loudest, Littlest One

We took the kids into the city to meet some friends for brunch this weekend. It's been a few months since we've done this and every time we go, it gets a little easier. And of course, a little more ridiculous.

Here's Lucy giving her famous "thumbs up." She particularly enjoyed the house-made vanilla ice cream. She particularly did not enjoy staying in her high chair.

Serious vanilla ice cream FOCUS.



Speaking of Lucy. Oh, Lucy. She is exploding into quite the little character. Such a Big Personality in such a small little person. She talks non-stop. About anything and everything. And she is insistent. When she is ready to get down from her high chair: "I want down Mommy, I want down Mommy, I'm done Mommy, I'm all done Mommy, I'm done, I want to get down now Mommy"--all in a span of about 3.9 seconds.  She does not quit.

She's shockingly observant. The other day I was cleaning up after the seventeenth meal of the day and I muttered something about needing to sweep the kitchen floors. A minute later, who skips into the kitchen but a gleeful Lucy, dragging the broom and dust pan: "Here you go Mommy!"  Oh, she was proud. If she wasn't so incredibly HAPPY about everything, it might be more frustrating. But she just bounds through her little life with so much exuberance, that the mind numbing repetition is excused (it also helps to remember that she's, you know, two).

Before we left for brunch on Sunday morning, I stuffed a few trains and cars in my purse for Harry to play with during the meal and reached for something to occupy Lucy-realizing Lucy doesn't play with toys as much as she plays with other people. She is by far the most social creature I know.

She and Harry do play together more and more. As Harry's language is beginning to take off, I see little conversations between them. But she still, shall we say, dominates her big brother. One of her favorite games? Screaming as loud as she can, which almost always makes Harry cry. She does it during meals. She does it in the car. She does it in the wee hours of the morning as I race to get dressed before freeing them from their room. Yeah. The screaming has become a little bit of a problem. The other day in the car, Lucy actually made Leo cry. That's how loud and insistent she can be. She roars, really.

However. She is also unbelievably empathetic. She's the first to rush to your side if you bump your knee or fall off your bike. At night when we read books before bed and she folded up in my lap on the green shag carpet in the twins' room, she surveys my hands for scratches. "You OK, Mommy? You have a boo-boo?" And then she kisses my hand, squeezes it and tucks it under her tiny chin.

That is, when she deigns to call me Mommy. Somehow she got wind of my first name and, well, let's just say she's not afraid to use it.


Please pay no mind to the cameos by Spider-Man and the (almost always) topless six year old.


Don't be fooled by that innocent look.

October Afternoon

"I'm so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers."--L.M. Montgomery, in Anne of Green Gables

Life Amidst Royalty and Other Weekend Notes

"Lucy and I are playing queens," Ellie announced, bright and early on Saturday morning (note the tiny paint brush scepter in Ellie's hand) .

Oh! I answered. What will you do now that you're queens?

"Just, you know, rule," said Ellie.



A few hours later, the little queen pictured above awoke from a too short nap, positvely furious and inconsolable (don't be fooled by her angelic looks and the heavenly sunlight pouring down on her). This little queen can show quite a little tempter.

Ellie's response: "She's just a big piece of work!"

You have to give Ellie credit for trying. She really is so good with Harry and Lucy. She has an endless amount of patience (way more than I) and is so creative and constantly thinking of ways to amuse and distract the babies when they're out of sorts.

For example, when neither lunch nor milk would cheer Lucy up after her little post-nap tantrum, Ellie dug deep, knowing I'd promised we'd go outside to play and swim in the baby pool after lunch: "Hey Lucy,"said Ellie, "Want to go be ladies in the pool?"

Eventually, Lucy came around.


And later, there was the requisite post-swimming, group ice cream meeting.

I scored a great find at a garage sale this weekend. Of course as I was buying it ($5!) I thought to myself, Lucy and Harry are totally going to fight over this. I even said as much to the woman I bought it from who, coincidentally also had twins (and two older ones-yikes, what a nut!). She just smiled and waved me on.

You know what I think I love most about Harry and Lucy? How well they share. 

HAHAHAHAHAHA

Yes, that's Lucy falling backwards, feet first. Turns out Harry is toughening up a bit lately and working on his offense. He's apparently especially territorially when it comes to anything vehicle oriented.

That's better. Enjoying the new boat in PEACE.

The Circus Act Visits the Farm

"The early summer days on a farm are the happiest and fairest days of the year," wrote E. B. White in Charlotte's Web.










Harry, up close and personal with one of his idols.

Yes Harry! It's a REAL truck!




Always on the move. In this case, headed toward a Real! Live! Tractor! (Harry's mind=again, blown by all this real life machinery).

Mr. White, about those happy and fair days? I couldn't agree more.