Haircuts

So haircuts have been a kind of traumatic experience for us since the day Alan could scream.  He is absolutely terrified of them.  We've tried both buzzer and scissors, with terror resulting from each.   He shakes and screams, but since the buzzer is faster, Scott usually does that as quickly as he can, while I hold him.  It's just a traumatic necessary evil that we tend to put off.

However, after aforementioned tick incident, we decided it was best to break down and give a summer haircut.  Alan went first and started screaming the moment we mentioned the word.  He did do a little better this time, though, as he wasn't convulsing during the haircut and calmed down the moment we turned off the buzzer.

Enter James.  Calm James.  He smiles and laughs as Scott and Alan distract him and doesn't mind a bit as I snip his hair.  We'll see how he handles it when he knows what is going on. :) But the whole time Alan was just telling him, "Wow, James!  You're doing such a good job!"  It was hilarious.  Then Alan decided he wanted a scissor haircut right then.  We'll see how he feels about it next time.

I thought this picture was a good representation of our boys and their current temperaments.  :)  And we love them both.

Memorial Day Fun

Ok so in addition to all of the work we got done when my family was here, we had a little bit of fun too.  Here are some pics from their visit.

Alan got a little worm sprinkler toy as a moving away gift from one of his friends and was very eager to put it to use.

James was content to just sit and smile at first.

Until he became a little more interested

And a little more brave

And finally decided that he liked sprinklers too

And then he was once again content to sit and smile, as long as he was in the water.

Looks like this will be our new splash park.

Evan was delighted to have a little game of baseball.

We had just beautiful weather and it was a perfect afternoon

James loved playing peek-a-boo with Grandma

And giving lots of smooches to Grandma

We loved having Aunt Meg to play with the boys.  We will miss her when she goes to school!

Memorial Day BBQ

If you don't watch him, he'll eat the whole bag.  I wonder who he gets it from?

And just because I couldn't resist, I had to put up a few pictures that Megan took this weekend as well.  They were just too cute. And she edits them, and they turn out much better.

Getting Settled...

Well, we've been out of commission on the blogging front for a little while as we've been busy getting settled into our new home.  We had a whirlwind first week, which I wanted to recap, just so that we would remember it for years to come.  Here is a list of lessons learned:

• For some reason, it always seems to take forever to get the internet connected and working correctly, and you still have to pay someone to come out, even if your husband is a computer science internet security research guy.  
• Washers are more difficult to find on craigslist than we thought.  You use (or want to use) washing machines a lot when unpacking.  Thankfully Home Depot delivers.
• It is best to mount baby gates.  We bought one that would work mounted or unmounted, and had intended to mount it, but hadn't gotten around to it when we had a tumble down the stairs.  And no, it wasn't the 10 month old.  It was the almost 3 year old who thought he could either climb over or plow through the thing and took the gate with him down the half flight of stairs.  No injuries, and I don't think he'll try it again.  But the gate is now mounted, regardless.
• Don't have inside doors with keyed locks.  Especially when you don't have a key to the lock.  And when you buy a replacement doorknob, install it as soon as you get home.  Don't wait 12 hours like we did, or, in that amount of time, your son may lock the door to your room and close the door with no one in it, and you will have to call a locksmith.  And that is just not fun.
• Know where the nearest pediatric emergency room is.  Yes, I know this sounds like Alan, but it was James.  He had a fever which sent him into a seizure and completely freaked me out. When the doctor's office put me on hold twice, I called 911, and the paramedics came.  He was conscious again by the time they got there and they informed me that it is common in young kids to have seizures from fevers.  We still went to the ER to get him checked out, and thankfully he is fine.  Just keep your kids on ibuprofen, tylenol, or both.
• Turns out, we live in the woods.  Not like the middle of nowhere, where I grew up, but woodsy all the same.  We've met lots of fun creatures in our yard.  A wild turkey, groundhog that lives under our shed, tons of frogs.  Alan even had a tick attached to his head one night.  Successfully removed, and no worries, but we are constantly checking now.  And may get some spray.
• Wait to mow your grass until it is soooo long that the 12 year old kids down the street come and offer to mow it for you to welcome you to the neighborhood.  Great way to meet neighbors and get your lawn partially mowed.  (had to call it quits for baseball)  Turns out we have a kind of big yard.  And we put off buying a lawn mower because we couldn't decide on whether to get a riding mower or a push mower.  When the 12 year olds came over with the push mower, it helped sway us that way and we've decided on the push mower to start.  Yeah, it will take a while to mow the grass, but we figure it will be good exercise.  Luckily we had a great group of helpers this week.
• Have family come visit and put them to work!  My family came up for Memorial Day weekend and got sooooo much done.  They mowed the grass, trimmed bushes, planted flowers, cleaned bathrooms, cleaned our rental home, unpacked, assembled new shelves, took down old shelves, organized, moved freezer, and mounted tv and gate.  We are miles ahead of where we would have been. 

All in all, a fun first week.  Wait until you hear about our second week. :)

The Move

The move went fairly well.  We got practically the entire house packed up, boxed up, and ready on time.  Practically a miracle as Scott was gone the 3 1/2 days before the move.  But somehow we got it all done.  We rented a budget truck and had somewhat of an adventure getting it into our driveway in Waltham.  We had massive help from family, friends, missionaries, and other ward members old and new who helped with the whole process of babysitting, loading, and unloading.  Thank you everyone!!!  We couldn't have done it without you!

Homeowners

Well, it's official.  We closed on our house yesterday, so we are now homeowners.  Or home borrowers as Scott likes to remind us. :)  It has been a exciting, yet very busy process!  Overall the boys have been hugely cooperative and were excellent through all of our meetings, house showings, etc.  Perhaps largely because our excellent realtor brought her husband along to all of the house showings to babysit so that we could see the homes.  Major bonus!

We were looking for a 3-4 bedroom house on a non-busy street, with good sized yard.  And I think we got it. :)  Certainly not perfect, but it is much bigger than we've had, and will be a great house to grow into.  Mostly we're excited to be building some equity instead of throwing away rent each month. The house is in Billerica, which is a little further outside of Boston than we live now.  More north.  But it's not too bad of a commute to Scott's job in Lexington, and was one of the places with some more "affordable" housing in the area.

Here is a picture from the front of the house. It is a split entry, with a walk out basement.  I'm not gonna lie, I have made fun of split level homes my whole life.  Hated them.  But it turns out they're fairly practical, and I think it will work well for us!  Pride swallowed.  We love it.  It was built in 1983, which is pretty much brand spankin new for Boston.  I can't tell you how many homes built in the 1800's come up when you search! 

These next few pictures were taken from the online listing, so the previous owners stuff, etc, is in them.  

We love the lot!  We are at the end of a dead end street, so it is very quiet.  The property is .91 acres, and there is plenty of  open space and trees around the perimeter.  Alan will tell you that his favorite thing about the "blue house" is the woods.

There is a big family room downstairs, in addition to a big bedroom, some storage, bathroom and laundry. 

And here is the kitchen.  It is huge!  Tons more cabinets than you can even see in this picture.  Definitely a  plus!

The upstairs has this living room area, three bedrooms, and a bath.  You can also walk out from the kitchen onto a beautiful deck that goes into the backyard.

This is Sonia, our wonderful real estate agent after the closing.  She is seriously one of the nicest people.  Always brings gifts for the boys, etc.  At the closing, the seller's agent asked how we knew each other, because we were obviously more than just agent and client.  Haha.  I just told her, no, Sonia is just way too nice. :)

We stopped by for a minute yesterday evening after the home was officially ours.  The first thing on our to buy list: baby gates. :)

Alan immediately found a baseball that was left behind.  And a mud puddle.  And he threw the baseball in the mud.

That was before he just started throwing mud.  All as we were unpacking a couple things.

Yup, I think he feels right at home.

And so do we.  

We're excited.  Ask us in a year.  We might have a different story.  Now we just have to pack.... :(

Art in Bloom

Last Monday  for Family Home Evening, we went to the Museum of Fine Arts to their Art in Bloom exhibit.  Admission was free that night, and in addition to the regular artwork they had floral arrangements inspired by different paintings scattered around the museum.  It was quite an adventure to find parking and then find the museum after we did find parking. :)  But despite the time and temperment setbacks, we still had a great time and the boys were pretty good, all things considered.

Here is the MFA.  We now know what it looks like, and where it is, and will hopefully be able to find it next time.  Poor Michael and Sarah waited forever for us to get there.

So this picture is kind of dark, but the size is still impressive.

Gilbert Stewart's unfinished painting of George Washington.  There were so many classic pictures in the American History section.

Keeping entertained...

Here is an example of the floral artwork.  It is kind of hard to see, but the colors of the flowers in this arrangement mirror the fruit bowl in the painting.  Some were more abstract, but I could see the inspiration for this one.

Looking at a snowy view of the common

This was another one that was easy to see the resemblance between the inspiration and the flowers.

We only got to see a fraction of the museum, and will have to go back on another free night to check out more.

But I thought would also include some pictures of a previous Family Home Evening, in which we had our own version of art in bloom...

James's first attempt at popcorning proved pretty successful.

Alan now loves taking pictures.  He took this picture all by himself.  Not bad, huh?  (Believe me, they weren't all this good.  We had plenty to choose from:)

In addition to camera man, he was a pretty determined artist this year.

And quite proud as well.

Perhaps it was not quite tasteful enough to make it in the MFA,

but it was a lot more tasty. :)

Moral: Have Family Home Evening.  It's great. :)