See what I did there? In the title? A-MAZE-ing. Sorry about that, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

With several pick-your-own places within a couple miles of our house and a field of sunflowers the next town over we’ve never made the drive out to Lyman Orchards before last weekend. We planned to just go for the sunflowers but ended up having breakfast (giant apple cinnamon cream cheese bearclaw NOM NOM) and blueberry picking too. The kids loved the maze and would have stayed “lost” in it all day if we let them. And then Caroline ate her body weight in blueberries right off the bush. I would have felt bad about how many we didn’t pay for, except when we carried our GIANT pail of blueberries up to get weighed our total was $5. Best deal ever. We’re definitely going back for apples and pears – the views alone are worth the drive.

I actually had to DECREASE the color saturation on these pictures, because the flowers were so yellow and the sky was so blue it hurt my eyes. Real life, how can you be so gorgeous?!

Lyman Orchards offered free maze tickets to several Connecticut bloggers and I was lucky enough to score them for our family, but no compensation was received and we paid for our food and blueberries.  The sunflower maze runs until August 25th and I highly recommend it!

Every once in a while we get a day together as a family where we DON’T have anything planned but still manage to get ourselves out of the house and into the real world. It’s incredibly rare and easy to scare away if I start saying things like “Have you heard about this place in Maine?” or “I found out about this beach down I-95…” or “SHOPPING”. If I can balance my desire to do ALL THE THINGS with my hard-working husband’s desire to do NONE OF THE THINGS we get a unicorn day.  The trick is…this was all in town. We never went more than 3 miles from our house.

It’s amazing we’ve managed to find enough balance in the past 9 years to stay married. Nine years (and one day) and two gingers and more perfect days to come.

Warning: One bazillion photos to follow.

I love this life <3

We’re down to mere weeks before Mineola elementary schools starts and it’s hard to believe. On the one hand, YAY SCHOOL! Our town offers public pre-k , so Evan will be going 5 mornings a week. On a bus. Apparently typical four year olds are better at public transportation than I am, since I barely managed to catch the bus in high school, let alone pre-K. On the other hand, 5 days a week is a lot of school. And it never really goes back – it gets worse. Next year he’ll have full day kindergarten, followed by 12 YEARS of school at least 180 days a year. It almost makes me want to keep Caroline home instead of sending her back to preschool.

Almost. But not really, since going to doctor’s appointments alone is an indulgence I can’t live without anymore. Although I haven’t officially registered her at all, so I hope there’s a spot at her current program. File that under Things I Always Forget To Take Care Of In A Timely Manner, although that file might be kind of full since Find Out When Evan’s Classroom Orientation Is, Buy School Uniforms, Get A Copy Of The School Supply List, and Update Both Kids’ Health Forms are already in there.

I learned a lot of lessons in the last year at preschool: Never underestimate a child’s talent for getting paint on the ONE outfit you like best. Putting a note in a backpack does not mean the teacher will get it, ever. And label everything. LABEL. EVERYTHING.

Last year I relied on my shoddy memory and the availability of a Sharpie to label all the kids’ stuff. We lost a lot of cups. I also got a lot of “Just a reminder! Smiley Face!” notes home when I forgot, and nothing makes me feel worse than Smiley Face! notes from the teachers. Might as well write “Failing As A Mother! Smiley Face!” on them.

This year, I’m getting a little help from Stuck on You. They have a huge selection of products you can personalize – not just labels, but pretty much anything you can imagine. They sent me a family starter pack (with 2 kids, everything gets shared) and it is faaaaantastic.

Shoe labels that stick in the heels – this picture was taken right after I stuck them in. I wasn’t 100% convinced they were going to stay but after a week of hard wear (including leaving them out in the rain) they still look exactly like that.

Mini/pencil labels on our sippies spotted out in the wild! This one has been through the dishwasher several times already.

Perfect for summer school lunches!

Iron in clothing labels. LOOOOOOOVE. Once I got the hang on it (stick a towel under the jacket/shirt so you can press down nice and hard) it took 5 minutes to knock out every fall coat and sweatshirt. BOOM.

These have been in for a week. Notice how you can still read them?! Amazing. PLUSALSO, they use non-toxic eco-friendly inks.

These are some well-labeled children right here: lunches, cups, folders, shoes, and sweatshirts.

If I was really smart, I’d order another set with my phone number on it and stick them on all Caroline’s favorite toys and dolls, so when she leaves them at the beach/aquarium/mall/playground/library there’s a chance we could get them back.

She likes that idea.

Sigh. This is what happens when I say “Make a cute face!” It has nothing to do with labels, except that I’m labeling her a weirdo.

The gingers say “What are you waiting for?! These labels are the coolest!”

To help you get ready for school, Stuck On You has two $20 gift certificates to give to my readers! Just leave a comment telling me what you’re doing to get ready for the school year to enter for a chance to win. And definitely go check out their site, they’ve got everything from place mats to puzzles. You’ll be stuck on them (ba-dum-ching!)

Disclaimer: Stuck On You gave me a family pack of labels so I could try them out. No other compensation was provided and I swear I really, really love these labels. One entry per family. Two winners will be chosen using Random.org on August 14th and contacted via email so please use a real one.

One of the best parts of summer is the constant parade of farmer’s markets in our area. If I put a little effort into it, I bet I could go to at least one a day (and two on most days). Unfortunately, just because food is fresh and local and organic and free-range doesn’t make it calorie-free. Which is totally, totally unfair. If I’m going to make an effort to eat natural, real food the payoff should be automatically fitting into my jeans. Why doesn’t science work like that?

The kids love the farmer’s market(s), although I’m sure that has more to do with the fact that the majority of the vendors we visit sell things like kettle corn and maple cotton candy. (Getting any ideas why my jeans don’t fit?) Plus our favorite – the Bozrah one on Friday nights – is like an automatic playdate. We always run into people we know, the vendors are all super nice, and there are tons of free samples. There’s a whole corner of cheese merchants, which might be Caroline’s idea of heaven. Who knew my 2 year old would go nuts for a fresh chevre with herbs de provence?  Last week there was a barrel train pulled by ponies. PONY. TRAIN. It was almost too much, and I don’t mean for the kids. I might have actually squeed over the ponies.

There are a lot of disadvantages to living in a state we don’t technically have any connection to. We are not from here. We don’t have any family here. We’re transplants and no matter how many of my children are born here or how long I live here I will never actually think of myself as being “from Connecticut”. I don’t feel the same deep obsession and connection to this place that I did when I first set foot in Charleston during a college visit. But after 8 years in New England and 7 in this town, I do love it.

We live in Connecticut. It’s the only home my children know. It’s become a huge part of our daily family affirmations: “I’m Evan and you’re Mommy and sister is Caroline and we live in Norwich!” They can both tell me exactly how far down the road to school the town ends and are always asking if we’re back in Norwich yet any time we drive more than a few blocks.

I think home is a confusing thing when you’re little – you know your house is home, but what’s outside that? Your yard? Your street? Your town? Your county? I tried to explain America to Evan yesterday because he wanted to know why there were so many Captain America flags. (He called the American flag the “Captain America flag”, because obviously identifying superheros correctly is a more important skill to teach your children than real facts). I told him we lived in a town, in a state, in a country called America and sometimes people live in other towns in other states in other countries. He was fine with states, but didn’t like the idea of something bigger. I told him his Aunt Carolyn used to live in France, which is a country across the ocean. He said “I would be sad if I live in France.” I told him he didn’t have to move to France and could stay with me forever and I really truly meant it.

Although I’m sure if he knew he could have baguettes for dinner every day in France he’d get over it.

This was his dinner request. A whole loaf of bread. He ate more than half.

We got Mango Tango

Buying it his own self.

Not our pizza, although my kids ate half of it.

When I went to Boston a couple weeks ago for the Red Sox family focus group thing, one of the ideas we bloggers had was an earlier, kid-friendly game. Activities for the kids, cheap food, and maybe a big sign that says “WARNING: CHILDREN’S SECTION” so no one gave us dirty looks when our kid talked through the whole thing. It turns out that’s already an event, called Futures at Fenway, and the team generously offered us tickets so we could attend. I wasn’t sure we’d last the whole 9 innings and I was pretty sure I’d spend most of my time walking around with a very bored 2-year-old and I wouldn’t see much of the game, but I love love love Fenway so we made plans to go anyway.

It turns out my children LIKE baseball. OK, maybe they mostly like popcorn and peanuts and giant sodas ($7.50 plus free refills! Best deal ever!) and getting to sit in my lap. But that translated into watching the whole 8 1/2 innings (We won!) from our seats. I didn’t even have to resort to letting them watch Disney Jr on my phone. It was a good game too – it wasn’t the Red Sox, but the Sea Dogs, their affiliate team. That means these guys are still hoping to get noticed by the major leagues and so they try really, really hard. They run even if it looks like an easy out at first, they FLING themselves across the field for diving catches, they strike out instead of always taking the walk. It was exciting! It was tons of fun! It was a long day for a 2.5 year old and there might have been a tiiiiiiny bit of whining and crying but it was one of the best family days we’ve ever had. I felt relaxed almost the whole time – and when was the last time I said that about a summer afternoon at a crowded public event with two small children?

I was going to write a whole paragraph about how sports – even just a vague awareness that your grandfather really loved golf, explained you ball data and made you watch it on TV in the summers when you were visiting – can mean a lot to a kid. But there seems to be a lot of dust in here and my eyes are, uh, watering quite a bit, so I’ll just say I hope Evan and Caroline have great memories of our visits to Fenway and that we can make it a summer tradition.

p.s. The event had a TON of stuff that was kid friendly – the zoo and the aquarium had animals there, Kidz Bop did a concert after the game and a meet-and-greet, the players signed autographs, a bounce house – plus the concessions were half priced. We enjoyed the eating and the bounce house, but the kids did so great in our seats we didn’t really NEED all the distractions. I would highly recommend it for families.

Disclaimer: The PR team for the Red Sox left us tickets at will-call so we could attend. No other compensation was provided. Tickets for the event started at just $5, so trust me when I say they didn’t pay for me to talk about the event.