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!

Welcome to August in New England, where the weather cools down juuuuust enough to make life bearable, the days are still super long, and the kids can SENSE that I’m shipping them off to school soon so they start demanding the playground every day.

Sunday:

When you take gymnastics, every wall is a balance beam

The King of All Wild Things demands a rumpus.

Admiring herself in the table reflection. Vanity, thy name is Caroline.

Monday:

HI PIRANHAS! I LOVE YOU! YOU SO SPARKLY!

Want to see him wait patiently? Promise him grilled cheese.

Swinger

Tuesday:

I walked to the grocery store. The halfway point is the hospital where both kids were born.

MORE SWINGING!

Photographer (and model) in training

Wednesday:

Evan decorated her hair during a cat nap

Appropriate scooter attire

Creepy ass princess takes a bath

Thursday:

When you don’t have a photography studio, you improvise. Thank God for sliding glass doors.

Scooter pro already

Photography assistant for my evening maternity shoot

Friday:

She found the shirt she liked and wouldn’t even LOOK at anything else.

I got beat at Princess Chutes and Ladders by a 2 year old. It hurts.

Uh oh, I hear sirens…

Saturday:

TINY PRE-K SCHOOL UNIFORMS I CAN’T EVEN.

Photo editing while the kids watch a surprisingly not terrible fake Pixar movie about sea turtles.

Terribly grainy drive thru photo of the kids attempting the clapping part of the Cups song.

E’s hours are still killing him, but we managed to fit in some family time today, which was super fun. He even put up a curtain rod we’ve been meaning to put up for seven years. Maybe in another seven years we’ll fix the shower door that’s been broken since we moved in!  No, probably not. That clothes pin keeps it closed pretty well.

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

Our Seaport membership lapsed last month, even though I’ve been planning to renew since March. I even went into the office to do it, but got distracted by the free lemonade and coffee and keeping my children from destroying the antique furniture.

I’ve been thinking maybe I’ll just wait until next summer to renew, since they close for part of the winter anyway. But we drove past last week and Evan started shouting “I WANT TO SEE MY BOATS! I LOVE BOATS! I NEED THE BOATS!” and Caroline cried. I told them we were going to get ice cream and they still insisted they wanted BOATS instead. (I threw in the playground and they acquiesced, but only because I promised the Seaport another day.)  Then I found these in June’s photo file when I was transferring it over to the external storage. I don’t think I can miss the rest of the summer and fall at the Seaport.

Besides, Chowder Days are in October and only crazy people who hate deliciousness miss Chowder Days.

p.s. We left Evan’s hat on Long Island earlier this summer. I really need to get it back.

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.