Thursday, December 4, 2008

halloween


Here is two of our cute trick or treater's. Elsie was blue's clues. She loved trick or treating. She walked the whole night and would not let me carry her treat bag for fear I might help myself (smart girl)...
The paper sack puppet is John. He won a prize at work for his costume and was the hit of trick or treating.

Thomas' Birthday

Ok sorry that it is side ways. I can't get the computer to rotate it and I am to tired to keep trying........ I am very behind in my blogging lately I am sorry so I will try to catch up all up... By the way sorry you have to hear me sing.

This is Thomas' Birthday. Can you believe he is 13... Anyway I choose the video of the "cake because I have to share with you how smart I am.. Instead of a cake Thomas wanted apple crisp so I made it. Now normally when I make a cake I pull it out of the oven, let it cool down, then frost and put the candles in it. This not being a cake and I didn't have to frost it I didn't think about the cooling down part. So I pulled it out of the oven and just stuck the candles in it to hurry and finish it off so I could move on to the next thing. Candles we learned melt in hot apple crisp.... So a while later I happen to notice that only the tops of the candles were left and all the wax was in the apple crisp. Well we figured we would live if we ate wax so we lit the tiny top candles and sang to Thomas. Now if you look at the crisp closely you will see that more than the 13 candles are burning. Since the candles were so short the oats in the crisp started on fire. So we had slightly burned wax apple crisp for his birthday.

For his birthday we gave him one very small gift. This is his first experience with only one gift. Normally he gets 2 or 3 but with age the expense of the gift goes up so the quanity goes down. He got an ipod and has loved it every day since!

Saturday, November 15, 2008

Quick update

Ok so no picture today... I just thought I would let you know that we are all still alive, barely. The last couple of weeks have been filled with laundry, dishes, homework, piano, scouts, etc. etc. etc. You know the drill. Anyway, I am still enjoying my living room. I want to get the kitchen painted by Thanksgiving but I need a little bit of help from John before I can get to it. I also need to carve out some time. Last time I just dropped the ball on everything else I am doing and painted but catching back up has been pretty difficult so I will probably wait till next weekend and try to get it done. Motherhood is exhausting...

Thursday, October 30, 2008

Living room


Here is what the living room looked like before John went to California and Utah last week.
Posted by Picasa

and now it looks like this......


What a busy week that was!! I was up late every night and my body just hurt (I'm still recovering) but it was worth it. Of course John doesn't love the colors (pumpkin cream and windham cream) but I knew that he wouldn't but he was very happy he didn't have to do the work. Thomas really got into it. He was a very good helper on the Friday and Saturday. Actually on Saturday when we were cleaning up and decorating he took over. We both waited up till 1:00 am for John to get home to surprise him. Benjamin was really good at keeping the dishes cleaned up for me (after the mac n cheese type of dinners). Grace even painted the window seat. All the kids really liked the extra candy and TV time. There is still some touch up and clean up to do I think I will get to that on Saturday but this week I am really trying to catch up on all the things I didn't do last week like laundry, bills etc.

Posted by Picasa

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Apple anyone?

We went apple picking yesterday.. We do this every year at a orchard in Cornish Maine. There are a lot of orchards around (probably at least 20 within an hour of our home). Apple picking is a big thing around here and most families try to get out and schools do field trips. Anyway, we have lots of fun and we picked almost 3 full bushels this year so it is time to start drying and freezing them. Thomas found the biggest apple this year it is always a thrill to beat dad in the biggest apple contest. We all ate our fill of apples while walking through the orchard. This is the one of the best places to get apples because the trees are loaded all the way to the ground. We don't have to pick anyone up to reach Elsie could pick all she wanted to. The weather was perfect and we even go a few cute family pictures. After we were finished we stopped and bought vanilla ice cream and made apple dumplings the minute we got home. The girls were especially thrilled because they got to stay up past their bedtime to eat the apple dumplings. Oh Baby were they good.


Posted by Picasa
I gave up on the slide show.. I had a lot of really fun pictures of us at the fair to share with you but it's not going to happen today so I will just share these three. I think I need John's password. We had a lot of fun at the fair. Fryburg is about an hour north/west of our house. It is very near the Maine/New Hampshire boarder. It is the biggest fair in Maine (Maine has a lot of fairs). Grace talked about riding the "colorful horses that go around" the whole way there so we made sure she got to. Funny thing is those were the only horses she would go near. She is obsessed with everything horse except the real thing. She wouldn't even go near the "little horse" in the bottom pictures. Elsie and Ben loved all the animals but Elsie was especially in love with those baby chicks. Ben would have bought them all if he had the money and a place to keep them. We ate some good fattening fair food, and the weather was perfect!
Posted by Picasa
It is definately autumn here!! This was our house a few days ago. The weather has been perfect. We still haven't had a freeze and we have been in the 60's everyday here lately. I know it must end and winter will come but, I love autumn.

Frustration!!

I have spent half the afternoon (time I should have been doing other things) trying to upload a slideshow of our time at the fair. I have patiently been working with Picasa. However blogger doesn't seem to want me to... Any help or suggestions are welcome.

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

stain update

Just a quick update on the crayon stains. I went to Walmart and I have no idea what Borax is or where to buy it. They didn't have it on their laundry isle. Any ideas? So I did get some oxyclean and some more stain remover this time I tried spray and wash duel action it looked good. I also got some tide to go. I put a whole bottle of tide to go on one shirt (yes that is how bad the stains are) then I put a lot of spray and wash on the other 2 shirts. I washed the 3 shirts in regular detergent and oxyclean. I just got them out of the washer and there is no change...... I guess I can wear my shirt under other shirts but other than that I think they are ruined...

Thursday, October 2, 2008

Raspberries in October


Can you believe we still haven't had a freeze yet!?! This is the second picking of raspberries I have picked this week.... Of course they only last for minutes with Elsie around but she is happy.. I do grab a few before I let her at them.
John is in DC right now so we are running crazy without him. We went to the fair on Monday and I was going to take a few minutes to try and do a slideshow of our fair experience but I think Elsie is awake. I am in the room right under her bedroom and I can hear her chucking her books out of bed. She likes to take a few to bed with her to read until she falls asleep.

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Advice

I am looking for some advice. I washed and dried a load of laundry the other day and when I went to get it out of the drier I realized someone (Elsie) had a yellow, pink, and purple crayon in her pocket.... I put stain remover on and washed again but no change. Some of the clothes look ok with a few little specks of color on them but there are 3 shirts that are ruined if I can't get the crayon out. Any ideas?

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Elsie's new birthday toy... She is now "two-a". She had a fun birthday. We celebrated on Sunday because Saturday was a very busy day. We had cake and ice cream (pink of course, luckly pink is strawberry and is actually quite good). She was already to blow out the candles. She learned a lot from Grace's birthday. She got a book, a dress, socks and this aqua doodle. She really likes drawing on everything so we thought this might keep our stuff safe if she had a mat to draw on. She is really growing fast and is very cute!! We love her so much.

Ben Soccer

Ben made the save!! They didn't win the game but Ben did a really good job as goalie and then later assisted in the one goal his team got!! Way to go Ben.

Friday, September 19, 2008

Terrible two's


So do you see this sweet innocent little girl who will turn 2 on Saturday? Well she did an all out kicking and screaming two year old tantrum yesterday..... No holding back. We took Grace to school a little late because she had a Dr apt. When we got to the school Grace's class was in the library so I went to her class to help her put her backpack in then I was going to take her to the library. Elsie on the other hand decided she wanted to stay and play in the class room. So I had to pick her up kicking and screaming and carry her all the way down the long hall (Grace's class is of course the last one in the hall so we had to pass at least 10 others to come back to the library), get Grace to the library, and go out to the car. This still didn't slow her down. Then I had to force her into her car seat (that little body is surprisingly very strong) . I bet it took me at least 5 minutes to get her clicked in. Then as we drove away (tantrum still going) she wiggled out of the top part of the car seat so I had to pull over and physically force her back in. Luckly the short ride home calmed her down but WOW. I wasn't ready for that one.

Thomas Soccer



Yesterday (9/18) was Thomas' first soccer game for Gorham Middle school. His team beat Windham 5-0. Thomas did a great job in the game.

Saturday, September 13, 2008

Here is Grace playing on one of the Kindergarten soccer teams. There are many. She has natural born talent. Notice how she stays right with the ball as long as it is by her feet and other kids are not taking it. Once the ball leaves her foot it is up to someone else to kick it!

Friday, September 12, 2008

Big 5


Grace's 5th birthday... She has been waiting for this for a whole year..... She is the youngest in her primary class and it just kills her that everyone else had their birthday but not her. Now I am sure she will start planning for number 6. There is just no keeping up with her. We also had a party with her friends. Two hours with 8 4 & 5 year olds is enough to put me in the loony bin. Wow, we had a whirl win of fun.

Elsie

Here's Elsie... She may not be starting school but she will not be overlooked on the big day.

Benjamin


Here's the big 5th grader... Ready to go with a smile on his face... They may complain about school but I know they love it.

Thomas



Thomas' first day of 7th grade.. It can't possibly be old enough to have a 7th grader. I guess that's what happens when you get married at the age of 10.....
The big first day of kindergarten..YEAH!! Grace was so ready I thought she would burst. On the first day we got to go with her. Yes Elsie is big into body art. I worry about that one.

Welcome


Welcome to my blog...
I have been planning on doing this for a long time but just haven't... Same old excusses. NO TIME. Oh well that's not going to change soon and I don't want you all to miss out on all our Maine fun (ok maybe I just want to make you all jealous so you'll come visit soon). So here we are The Maine Bradshaw's!