The gingers and I had an impromptu lunch at Mystic Drawbridge Ice Cream. Highly recommend. Apologies for the photo overload.

The kids are cute but the sandwich menu is the real star of this photo.

Lemon chocolate kiss is my go-to.

SPRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIING!

Sunday:

E models the latest in fashion: a ginger-shaped hat

BOOM! MOE’S!

Bubble rocket launcher in action

Monday:

He gets an A+ in relaxing

Special Monday treats: shopping alone, Sbux, and driving the new car

I don’t feel the need to explain my art to you

Tuesday:

I make the EXACT same face when anyone tries to wake me up in the morning

Yarn store visiting

Monkey see, monkey do

Wednesday:

Inside fishes first!

Bacon, tomato, caramelized onions, blue cheese, mozzarella on sourdough

Peek a boo at the Seaport

Thursday:

Hat

These cookies are full of LIES (and regular sandwich cookie cream, not taffy)

This one’s for sale and only 2 blocks away. Be my neighbor!!

Friday:

The queen on her throne

Feeding ducks

I have no idea what this is

Saturday:

Trendsetter

Bluff Point

Rainbow sprinkles = MIND BLOWN

Our spring-like weather looks like it’s here to stay but since this is New England I’m not taking anything for granted. We’ll be repeating this week with extra locations (zoo, beach, etc etc etc) thrown in for the next two months. More baths + later bedtimes are going to cut into my blog-writing time, but I’m OK with that. Sometimes it doesn’t hurt to remember we can live our lives even if I don’t write about every second of it online.

The place that has the sunflowers in the summer also does a corn maze and hay ride in the fall. I talked my friends into dragging their toddlers out into the cold evening for some ice cream (obviously the snack of choice when it’s 50 degrees out) and some fall fun and ended up having pretty much the best night I’ve had since having kids. Or at least right up until my friend Jessica lost her engagement ring in the GIANT CORN PIT. Her yellow gold engagement ring. (Spoiler alert: they found it!) But even sifting through a literally ton of corn kernels couldn’t ruin the rest of it.

Here’s the rest of it:

I totally forgot to get a steppin’ out picture until AFTER I’d been rolling around in the corn for an hour, so I am FILTHY with corn starch.

On Caroline: Head to toe hand-me-downs
Pumpkin hat seen in other photos hand-knit by me
(Although it’s really too small already. I’m making her another one & need to find someone with a small-headed baby for this one. Or at least a slightly younger baby. Do YOU have a 4 or 5 month old who needs a hat?)

On Me:
Fake fake Uggs – Walmart, at least 2 years ago and damn do I love them
Jeans – Old Navy
Shirt – Target
Hoodie – Target (half of a very sexy sweat suit set)
Necklace – Lisa Leonard swag from The Creative Connection last year

p.s. Every time I start to feel really good about the quality of my photos I end up lost in a Pinterest wormhole of truly gorgeous and professional pictures and realize I know NOTHING about photography. All the fancy lenses in the world aren’t going to make me a better photographer until I sit down and actually LEARN THE BASICS that my brain seems so reluctant to absorb. Plus even if I DID learn all the things, there’s a level of natural talent involved that I just don’t think I have.  My only consolation is that on a night like this one I was having too much fun participating to stop and set up every shot I wanted to capture. I’m just a MWAC (mom with a camera), and I’m mostly OK with that.

p.p.s. It also helps that E has finally gotten on board with playing assistant photographer, which is why I’m actually IN half of these shots. If only he understood how to take a more flattering photo of my double chin I’d be golden.

I tried to talk E into going down to SubFest – the big carnival thing on base – on Saturday night but then he reminded me that actually, we HATE things like that. No parking, crowds, the kind of trashy people who don’t say “excuse me” when they knock your funnel cake out of your hands and force me to yell “Were you raised in a barn?!” at them. In other news, I am approximately 85 years old. Get off my lawn.

So instead, we skipped dinner in exchange for a trip to Cows & Cones, an adorable little farm with delicious ice cream and lots of animals – the perfect toddler date night.

Baby Caroline says "Girl, what is wrong with your hair?!"

I swear her face made out of molding clay.

He liked looking at the cows from far away the best.

Animal picture credit goes to E, who is taking a photography class as an elective

Evan calls them "sheep-baa", with the word and the sound as one thing. I don't discourage it.

The cow says moo, the sheep says baaa! Three singing pigs say LA LA LA!

I may have taken 45 pictures of the different colored chickens. I'm a little obsessed.

I told her if she walked, she could have ice cream. She tried reeeeeally hard.

I don't even care what those horizontal stripes are doing to my hips - it's like wearing a well-ventelated nightgown in public. SO COMFY.

On Caroline:
America’s Sweetheart Onesie – Gymboree
Birdy print skirt – Uff Da Designs

On Little Evan:
Shirt – Hand me down
Shorts – Osh Kosh
Shoes – Converse
Toddlers are extremely hard to photograph when they don’t want to be photographed

On Mama:
Nursing Tank – Target
Dress – Old Navy
Fake Wayfarers – Target
Necklace – Allora Handmade
Flippy floppies – Ancient and ratty but I love them

And for the record, I had delicious watermelon sherbet (which I shared with the toddler) and E had a sundae with white chocolate raspberry ice cream, caramel sauce & whipped cream. He wins.