Sunday, September 27, 2009

Slacking

I have been a slacker with the blog lately - I'm sorry! Henry is up to all sorts of amusing antics these days. Lots of singing, making up stories, pretend play, learning to stand on one leg, and general cuteness. He loves to "read" books to us now. I was very impressed to discover that he has all of "Busy Town" and "Cars and Trucks and Things that Go" memorized and can recite almost all of it. Those books are LONG (and this is a sign of how often he has us read them to him). He is also starting to learn the sounds that different letters make, which is fun. This morning he was playing with his alphabet puzzle and pulled out the D, M, and H then presented one to each of us pronouncing "D is for Daddy, M is for Mommy, and H is for Henry!" He also is impressing us with his geography knowledge. We put a map of the United States in his room and he can point out all the states he has been and where his various family members live.

His other impressive (and Boston based) knowledge is that he can now name all the trains, what street they go on, and what direction. For example, "We are on Comm Ave! That's the B Train going Outbound!". Way to go, Henry!

His new favorite toy is his lunchbox. Yes, his lunchbox. He carries it EVERYWHERE - usually pretending that it is a suitcase and he is boarding a plane:






And here is just a cute picture of him from the slide the other day:





The leaves are changing and it is getting colder - we are trying to squeeze as much playground time in as we can before the long winter sets in!

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

End of the Saga

Yes, and it was a saga. But, we are pleased to say the vast majority of the backyard work is DONE! To refresh your memory, here is the before:




And, after!





What is that you say? There was supposed to be a shed? A cute, cedar shingled shed complete with window, flower box, storage for the lawnmower and outdoor toys? Oh yes. Let's just say, now we know that in the future WE will be the ones to go to Town Hall and obtain necessary permits, not the landscaping company. Lesson learned on this one. The shed was started and nearing completion when we discovered that we actually cannot have a shed in our yard if it is within 6 feet of our neighbor's property line. We live in a city - this makes it basically impossible. So, bye bye shed. Hello.....empty area in the wall. The plan now is to replace the gravel (that was for the foundation of said shed) with blue stone and get a nicer grill to make it our barbecue area. Next summer. I am done with this for now.







As we can see, there is still some work to be done - we need more grass seed in some places while other areas need some serious weeding and mowing. Our new plants need to grow a bit (the trees - a Japanese Maple and a Juniper Nano will eventually get to be 6-8 feet tall). We also have the side yard:



We aren't planning on doing much - we want to leave a lot of grass for Henry - but next summer we may do some new plants and basically clean it up a bit.


We also had some work done on the front of the house. I don't have "before" picture, it was too horrifying. Basically picture large areas of mulch and weeds. Really not attractive.

The large area to the left of our driveway (once all mulch) was a dilemma. We didn't know what to do with it. The problem was two-fold: first, there is no water source (hose hook-up) in the front of the house, so anything requiring sod, plants, etc. would be a pain to maintain. Secondly, the Town of Brookline is a major, major pain about parking. If you aren't familiar with Brookline's insanity over parking, basically they don't care if you are a resident or not - no one is allowed to park on the street for more than 2 hours and there is absolutely no parking on the street between 2 AM and 4 AM (so, no overnight parking). You can imagine that this creates quite the quandary for residents. Off-street parking is a hot commodity. People usually rent spaces for $250-$300 a month, and having extra off street parking can easily add $20K - $50K to your house value.

To make a long story short, the area by our driveway is not permitted for parking (which we knew), and the Town was adamant that whatever we did to that space it had to be impossible for anyone to ever park there. So, we ended up doing this:




They put down pavers and a tree. It is a Dogwood tree, so once it gets bigger we should have some nice spring flowers. Whatever we did we had to have a tree in the middle or some type of 6 inch or higher wall around the whole area. We get it Brookline, we can't park there.

We also had sod added to the strips by the street. I wish I had before pictures, because it is a big improvement.



And now, back to Henry updates....

Sunday, September 13, 2009

Apple picking

Today we went on our first apple picking trip of the season to Honeypot Hill Farm in Stow. We went with Henry's friend Jake and both kids had a great time running around, picking (and eating) apples, and generally going crazy.







Henry got to meet the "mascot" of the orchard - also named Henry! After a few minutes of keeping his distance (but vigorously waving and yelling "hi bear!!!") he finally got the courage to run up closer to Henry the Bear.


Has anyone seen Henry?

Anyone??




Oh, there he is.

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

The Unbearable Cuteness of Henry

Some days I simply cannot stand the cuteness/sweetness of Henry. It is almost too much.





This is Henry playing "store" at the park. It consists of him at his "counter", piling wood chips on it and continually asking "Do you want some money??" and "Would you like a plastic bag with that?" The other day he had about 3 neighborhood kids enlisted and playing with him - hilarious to watch.



And this is from today picking him up at daycare. He and Jake were on the see-saw, and Henry fell off, which made Jake laugh. Henry being the complete ham that he is then began deliberately flinging himself off to make Jake laugh. I only caught the tail end of it, but this went on for quite a while:

Sunday, September 6, 2009

Birthday Bonanza

We have had picture perfect weather so far this holiday weekend - you can feel Fall coming, especially today. Apple picking is just around the corner!

Yesterday we went to the birthday party for Henry's friend Lila:





After playing inside for a while all the kids moved across the street to the park to play in the sprinklers (naturally I forgot Henry's bathing suit), enjoy some cake, and spend some time laughing with babies:





Yesterday afternoon we had a wonderful "2 year old moment" in Costco. During an attempt to have him do a time out in the corner of one of the aisles (due to a plethora of issues we need not get into now), he spent his entire 2 minutes yelling "I farted! I farted! Mama did you hear? I farted!" I am sure the other shoppers adored us.

Today we had another birthday party - this one for his friend Max. Joy of joys this party had a bounce house:


AND a giant ride-on excavator:



And of course, cake:



We are hoping the sugar rush ends before Christmas.

Oh, and if you were hoping to see photos of our completed yard, let's just say so were we!