Summer Happenings

From the picture below, you'd think we had air conditioning and that our house was cool and relaxing. The reality is that our house has been VERY hot lately due to the scorching temps. Dan and I are being stubborn though because we could put in our huge kitchen AC unit, but we hate losing our only real window in the kitchen. Plus when it runs, it's so loud you can't have a conversation over it, and the kichen becomes freezing while the rest of the house stays hot. Oh well, the good thing is that this is NH and (usually) hot spells don't last long. Good thing we're not in South Bend, where I'm told it was 106 last week!

 One day last week Sebastien decided to do every puzzle he had. Here he is working on them. He has such concentration!

 Dan's cousin Pete was visiting from CO last weekend. Here are the Masse kids with their cousins Pete and Kristin.

 Second cousins: Sebastien Abby, and Genevieve

 Sebastien is 2 weeks into his Celtic dance class. He's taking it with his best girl friend, Bella and they are the stars (in my biased opinion) of the class!

 Cooling off at the Dracut splash pad.

Shaw Farm Ice Cream Festival

Farm animals, mascots and free ice cream! Does it get any better?

Shaw Farm in Dracut, MA had their annual ice cream festival this morning. The kids met up with the Richard girls and had a good time. They petted the donkey, saw the cows in the dairy barn, and participated in some fun activities.

 Here they are milking a "cow."

 Posing with the mascot

 In the dairy barn

 Genevieve was so brave getting her face painted.

 "Look! A cow on my face!"

Ice cream eating contest! Each kid was given a pound of ice cream! Sebastien made a decent dent in his bowl during the allotted 3 minutes. Genevieve started nibbling on hers before the contest started and one boy protested. We assured him not to worry because she wouldn't win.

 The big kids going at it! 

VIDEO: Go Kids Go!

"Call Me, Maybe"

Showing off his skills to pop music...

A Mix of Summer

So I haven't been posting as frequently as in the past because...I GOT AN iPHONE! It's been all-consuming and I have been neglecting many a duty, but alas, I am finally adjusting and getting back to normal. I will say this, though: I love it!

We had a couple weeks of rain which made for some long indoor days with the kids. Two weekends ago it rained both Saturday and Sunday too. On this day, pictured below, puzzles were very popular.

 Last weekend, we went to Luke's 4th birthday party at a bouncy house place. Here all of the kids with birthday boy Luke front and center. Genevieve is on the far right and Sebastien in the center of  the back row.

 Genevieve was asked (or more like pulled) to the dance floor by a persistant 4 year old boy. I guess this was her first dance with a boy! She was hesitant at first, then smiled for a couple minutes, then broke it off.

 And of course, there were beach days...

 These were taken outside the restaurant after the beach...

 More recently we've been graced with nicer weather. Here's one of Genevieve at the park:

 Sebastien had his last mini-sports class today. Here is is "at bat" for kick ball. He insisted on stopping the ball with his hand, and then kicking it.

 Running to first base.

 Approaching second base.

 And here's Genevieve - REALLY wanting to play with the big kids. Next year, baby girl, next year.

What a Pickle!

While we were out enjoying a bike ride on Friday afternoon, we were met and followed home by a neighbor's cat named Pickle. Now I'm not a cat lover, but I do really like this Pickle. We started off on the wrong foot, however, a few years back when Gwynnie was a shy puppy. Pickle used to follow me and Gwynnie on our walks, causing Gwynnie to whimper and jump into my arms. I was not a fan of Pickle then. But on Friday, she followed us home and spent the entire afternoon and evening playing with the kids. I don't think I've ever seen Sebastien & Genevieve happier. Pickle followed us wherever we went in the yard, humored the kids by playing their games, and jumped up into the "tree house" with them. He even waited outside under a bush while the kids ate dinner. We played outside with Pickle again after dinner and poor Pickle waited long after we went inside for the night, hoping we'd come back out. As soon as I came downstairs after putting the kids to bed, Pickle went home...as if that was his plan.

I snapped some pictures with my phone, which apparently has a smudge on it too. This is the best I could get:

Memorial Day Weekend

We went back to the beach on Sunday - only this time we found the beach we wanted to go to last weekend: North Hampton Beach in NH. It really was quite perfect, although maybe 3 degrees - no more, no less - too chilly. We played on the beach, ate lunch on the beach (thanks to the seafood shack across the street) and then went for a naptime drive up the coast and took backroads to look at all of the old houses while Sebastien slept. Genevieve was too busy reading and singing to be bothered with napping, apparently. We ended up at a park in Portsmouth (well, New Castle to be exact) then we were on our way to another side-of-the-road seafood shack before heading home. It was a spectacular day.

 Monday morning we went to our town's parade. The kids seemed to enjoy it, but boy do I miss parades from when I was a kid in South Bend. I remember that the parades lasted for at least an hour and I'd come home with a baseball hat full of candy. Why does no one throw candy here? Do they still throw candy in South Bend? Who knows. There's probably some childhood obesity reason behind it...sigh. Anyway, I digress. After seeing the boy scouts, girl scouts, and middle school bands, we headed home for another lazy day of lounging in our backyard until heading to Dracut for dinner. If only every weekend could be 3 days long and this great!

Lovin the Lawn

On Saturday of our Memorial Day weekend, we spent most of the day outside in beautiful weather. We busted out the good old sprinkler and baby pool and I was pleasantly surprised that Sebastien loved to play in the water. I guess I always knew that this day would come (hooray!) but after 3 summers of him hating water, I was beginning to get discouraged. I can't wait now to take them to the splash pads in our area.

 Long after Genevieve had had enough and I brought her inside, Sebastien was still out there playing in the water. This picture was taken from inside.

 Dan had the ever-pleasant job of cutting the lawn on Saturday. You may remember that after last year we had no lawn left from the summer drought of 2010. Dan replanted our front lawn with a drought-hardy mix of clover, special grass, and some other stuff. This year, the clover is blooming, so our entire yard has pretty white flowers....not to mention a zillion honey bees and bumble bees.

 This was the lawn after only ONE WEEK! It grows so fast.

 A honeybee doing his thing.