We went to Long Island to visit one of my very favorite people and her two boys. For someone I met on the internet, she sure doesn’t seem like a crazy person. Unless you mean crazy-awesome. Her whole family is crazy-awesome, in fact, including an awesome boyfriend who read approximately one zillion bedtime stories to the kids.

We went to celebrate JD turning four with a super hero birthday party Kim threw together entirely on her own while also working full time. I mean, my parties ARE my full time job when I’m planning, and they still don’t go as smoothly as her’s. She’s basically Superwoman (which made the theme even more appropriate).

Party Photos:

Then on Sunday we had a super leisurely day that involved Evan taking a nap in the stroller (!!!!!!) and me buying $17 worth of pickles. And also strawberries. And also a giant bread ring stuffed with pepperoni. And that was just the farmer’s market in the morning.

I’ve gone to visit Kim on Long Island a few times now, and every time I drove through the North Fork from the ferry I thought “Man, this place is GORGEOUS. One day I’m going to come back and just drive around.” Since Kim and the boys had plans in the afternoon the kids and I left around 2, which gave us plenty of time for just driving around. Thanks to some directions from Kim’s mom and some really good luck (plus ignoring my GPS’s insistence I stay on the main road) we found plenty to occupy ourselves. A farm stand with fresh snap peas, blueberries AND a playground is basically their idea of heaven.

Twins! Even when they’re eating.

Apologies for all the blueberry pictures, they were so gorgeous.

And then we caught a 6 pm ferry home. It was a super fantastic weekend. I love summer.

Sunday:

Buying myself a few extra minutes to sleep in on Mother’s Day.

Crazy joy riding kids

Cheesy cheeses

Monday:

There’s a snake (and a ginger) in my bed!

Thinking deep, piratey thoughts.

Brutus would sleep in here all night if I let him.

Tuesday:

And then my uterus started crying

Evan is skeptical of the safety of these extremely sketching swings

Get outta my way, tiny ginger COMING THOUGH!

Wednesday:

I think they do better push-ups than I do.

Oh look, basically my entire childhood on a table.

Reading to dolly

Thursday:

I think she found her summer job

How does your garlic grow? BIG. SO BIG.

Yep, definitely putting her to work on the farm.

Friday:

She just realized her shoes are adorable.

Some days it’s hard to believe this is real life.

They tricked the deli lady into giving them way too much cheese

Saturday:

Emergency response gingers, to the rescue!

Evan was surprisingly good at the hula hoop. Caroline tried really hard.

Best birthday party ever? I THINK SO.

SO MUCH SUNSHINE this past week. I need to buy some more sunscreen immediately. Or maybe I need a super cool hat so I fit in with my kids. Right now I’m hoping I FINALLY managed to tire them out past a 6 am wake-up call, but I’m not holding my breath and plan to go to sleep right now. Soon. Probably. Maybe after to more glasses of wine.

There isn’t exactly a shortage of scenic, fall-like locations in Connecticut, but sometimes you gotta escape to the Island. Rhode Island, that is. (Sidebar: trying explaining to a 3 year old why a place is called Rhode Island when a) it’s not an island and b) you don’t actually know WHY it’s called Rhode Island is hard). The Ocean State is pretty scenic too, especially if you’re a toddler who likes giant slides and goats. Then I highly recommend Clark Farms.

I’m taking a break-out session through Clickin Moms called Photographing Your Everyday and it’s sort of amazing. I was secretly hoping that just by READING really good advice on the internet my photography would somehow improve instantly. Oddly enough, it didn’t quite work like that and it’s going to take a lot of hands-on practice before I get better. But going into the day the intention of telling a story and a plan for how to do it definitely made a difference in my shooting.

Since we spent three full hours at the farm, it was kind of a long story.

Thanks to our friend Merin & her girls for inviting us and playing so nicely, even if the goats didn’t. I hope your kids crashed as hard as mine did last night, and you finally get to enjoy 9 hours of sleep.

We had a super busy day planned for Sunday so of course both of my children went completely insane. Caroline woke at 3 am all HAI GUISE I’M HERE LET’S PARTY. We took turns trying to get her back to sleep for two hours, until I gave up and brought her downstairs so I could at least watch TV while she boogied. We were on our second Law & Order rerun when I watched her nod off to sleep sitting on the floor and fall right over onto her head. I’m not gonna lie, I laughed pretty hard. I blame the exhaustion and also the hilarious look on her face.

Luckily, she forgave me and we took a little couch nap before we had to head out to our friend Thomas’s 3rd birthday party.

Unluckily, Little Evan took one look at the karate studio where the party was being held and ran away shouting “NO THANK YOU MAMA NO THANK YOU”. I eventually coaxed him into the room where he stood in a corner fake sobbing (he is TERRIBLE at fake sobbing, which is how I know it is fake) until the instructors got out a giant box of balls and encouraged the kids to throw them at each other. Apparently that’s just too much fun to pass up.

In the mean time, I gave up on trying to keep Caroline in my lap and let her enjoy the party in her own 10 month old way.

I LOVE YOU BABY IN THE MIRROR

Probably not what this guy signed up for when he agreed to work at the party

I can't stop laughing at this face

Pizza makes all his nervousness disappear

Oh! And! Because our attendance was sort of a last minute decision I was scrambling for a 3rd birthday gift. After having awesome success with the glow stick bath tub thing on Saturday night (here’s the whole scoop: turn down the lights and give your kid glow sticks to play with in the tub) I came up with this:

All found at Target in the $1 section or in the baby shampoo aisle. No risk of giving the birthday boy a toy he already has or a piece of junk that breaks after 5 minutes, and hey, every kid takes baths!

After the party we ran home for a quick nap, threw my gnocchi casserole in the oven and headed over to our CSA for an end-of-season potluck.

Evan was obsessed with the apple cider.

Caroline was obsessed with our cups of wine.

Trying to blow out the fire

It was a super fun, super busy, super exhausting, super long day but I can’t really complain. Having too many friends is the kind of problem everyone ought to have.