Stamford Museum and Nature Center

Lots of trails, a lake, working farm, animals(even river otters!), awesome old mansion, picnic places and perhaps the best playground ever. If you are local, you most definitely should GO!

SMNC pt two

Alive.

Yes, we are indeed alive. And doing well, but the computer is in our room next to Liam's napping spot, so it just doesn't get turned on much.

I have some recent pics from our trip to the shore to share....

but first, updates.

Liam is doing great... sitting up,and just yesterday pulled himself forward onto his knees to reach a toy.... which means this weekend we'll be making the living room a bit more active-baby friendly just in case he decides to make a run (crawl) for it soon. He's started solids... and really loves avocado, banana and potato, but is also very stubborn and wants to do it all himself ;)

Aurora's doing great as well... happy, cheerful and sprightly as ever. Spending lots of time creating, both with paper and paints as well as whole imaginary worlds full of characters and friends. She's been playing 'school' a lot recently with her as the teacher. Fun for me to watch as this was one of my favorite games as a young child.

I've got a lot of knitting to share... eventually. And, 6months later, am starting to finally feel I've got a handle on what it means to have 2 children and all that that entails. Pete's doing well also. Spending lots of time in the lab (as he should be, I suppose) but really wonderful quality time with us when he's not :)

Okay... some pics!

And more at Flickr

First Stitches

Knit stitches that is. My baby, ahem, I mean big girl, has been asking to learn to knit for quite some time. I wanted to start with finger knitting like any sensible mama, but she insisted on using needles. So learning she is... and quite quickly, too. She needs a bit of help holding the two needles together while she wraps the yarn... but, otherwise, she's doing it by herself!

She says she's knitting a scarf for her Nee Nee. This yarn has some sweet memories for me. It is the organic cotton I used to teach my self to knit two summers ago. I made a garter stitch scarf for Rory. I think she's picking it up quicker than I did, though :0

chalk....

These are from a while ago... when I was taking a break from the blog, but I wanted to get them up here still, so I'd be sure to have captured the memory of them.

For about two weeks late in the summer, Aurora was all about the sidewalk chalk. She spent hours with it... It was quite the sidewalk, lol. What started out as just scribbles, soon turned into a closed circle shape- a big step in itself. Then one day she ran over exuberantly proclaiming that she "made a people like me! It has eyes!!!" I followed her over to where she was working to find this:

her very first person pictograph

While expressing my amazement, she set to work on another:
Then, a few days later started asking us to write the words for things she had drawn. As well as her name, again and again. One day, after Pete had written her name for her, she picked up the chalk and ...
The letter A's and people drawings have popped up elsewhere in her artwork, but never as many as those two weeks where her whole life was about the chalk.

I just love watching her developing art!

Silver Sands S.P.

First real day of the beach season for us. Love this state park in Milford, about half an hour from us.... anticipating many wonderful summer days spent here with friends and family. A large sand bar not far off the coast makes for very gentle, toddler friendly, shallow water play and during low tide, you can walk out along a sand bar to this really cool forested island. We've yet to try this yet, as it's a bit of a trek for Aurora, and we keep forgetting to bring the Ergo along with us so she doesn't have to walk it all. Maybe next time.