Boston

Last month I went on a trip to Boston! I haven't been away from my kids since I was pregnant with Wesley (except one night in Colorado when Brian and I went to Estes Park for our 10 year anniversary while my mom kept the kids). I don't like leaving my family very much, but I had a great time. I went with my mom and John to watch my sister compete in the WNBF Bodybuilding Competition. My mom and John flew into Milwaukee and Sullivan and I drove there and we flew to Boston all together! Sully was a champ and did awesome (he did have the full attention of three people, so how could he not be happy?)

We were only there from late Thursday - early Sunday, but we packed a lot in! Friday morning we went to Salem, which is a place I've always wanted to go. The history of the witch trials fascinates me. I wish we could have spent a whole day there!

This was some super yummy tomato basil soup I had there. Mmmmm.

                                                 

After the morning and lunch at Salem we drove to Concord and went to Sleepy Hollow cemetery. It had all kinds of hills and a swampy forest area behind it. Sufficiently creepy for this famous cemetery! We saw the graves of Henry David Thoreau, Louisa May Alcott and Ralph Waldo Emerson. It was a really old cemetery and had graves for Civil War veterans and tombstones so old you couldn't read anything on them. I think cemeteries are pretty neat, especially old ones.

We went to take a tour of Louisa May Alcott's home, but they had closed 15 minutes before we arrived. I was sad about that, but still glad we were able to see it. Sophie has read Little Women quite a few times so she thought this was neat.

We made a quick stop at Walden Pond right before it closed as well!

Sullivan slept pretty well by  me in the Hotel. Sweet baby.

Friday night we went out to eat with Emily, Paul and Emily's friend Stacy who was there helping her. After being on a very strict diet for weeks we got to watch my sister eat a steak and baked potato with butter! Very exciting stuff. Saturday morning was the competition. We watched the pre-judging show at 9am and it was pretty awesome. The dedication and commitment you need to have to do this is pretty amazing!

Here she is in the morning at pre-judging (in the maroon).

We had to be back by 4:30 for the results show so we walked like crazy and saw all that we could between the shows. We stopped at Quincy Market and there was a huge farmer's market and they were selling raspberries for super cheap, we bought 6 packages and a bunch of Honeycrisp apples. So yummy. Then we walked along the Freedom Trail and saw all that we could.

Below is the site of the Boston Massacre. Boston really is a beautiful place! We stopped at Paul Revere's home, the old North Church, Mike's Pastry and a few other spots I can't remember now... I guess I'll have to go back one day!

It was really weird traveling with just Sullivan! I didn't have to worry about 4 other little people to keep track of! It was a very strange feeling.

The results show was exciting to watch. My sister got first place in the middle weight division and then competed for the overall title. The light weight champion ended up winning that (apparently because her waist measurement was more symmetrical to her other measurements, they get pretty nit picky about that when choosing the winners), but obviously we were still pretty excited and proud of my sister. She's in the turquoise here.

After the show we went out for pizza to celebrate. It was pretty late and Sullivan had been so very good up until then, but at the restaurant he'd had it and was not happy. He cried and cried until I almost went back to the hotel, but then I put him in his car seat with my white noise app and he finally fell asleep. Poor baby!

Sunday morning we had to say good-bye to Naunie and Grandpa. Sully and I flew from Boston to Minnesota and then to Milwaukee and then drove home from there. We got home about 7pm. Kind of a long day but he was so very good! And my mom and John have some good friends in Milwaukee, Connie and Bruce, who were kind enough to let me leave our car at their house and pick us up from the airport. What a great trip!

Four Months.

How has four months passed so quickly? This cutie gets sweeter by the day. He's so happy and he loves rolling all over the place, sitting in the baby saucer, bath time, looking at Scooter, when any of us talk baby talk to him, being tickled, spitting and drooling all over and watching a baby movie on Netflix or the phone (yep, he already loves the screen....) Oh, how we love our Sully McNully.

Sutter's Ridge & poor Wesley

 On a gorgeous fall day we went out to Sutter's Ridge farm and had a fabulous time in the beginning.

 Wesley really wanted a green pumpkin since green his his favorite color!

 Nora wanted the biggest pumpkin she could find. Our rule was everyone had to carry their own and she could barely carry hers.

We did the apple sling shot, which was pretty fun. After this we went to the apple orchard and had just picked about 7 pounds of apples when Wesley was running through the orchard and ran into a wire that was fencing off some trees. It sliced his tongue, cut and bruised his gums and knocked four teeth loose! Wesley freaks out over a hangnail so this was pretty intense. He didn't want to show us and he was bleeding a lot so we hurried and left. It stopped bleeding in the car on the way home so that was a good sign. I was pretty worried about it, but Brian wasn't. I knew that the doctor doesn't do anything for tongues/gums unless it won't stop bleeding and was really severe (I did text my friend who is a doctor just to make sure!) So we took him home and gave him some medicine. He slept pretty bad because every time he swallowed it hurt his tongue. I took him to the dentist a few days later because I noticed his top tooth had shifted a bit. They did x-rays and said his teeth may turn gray but the roots were okay. Now it's been almost a month and his tongue is still not fully healed. There's a piece of it that he keeps accidentally biting so we'll see how long it takes to get better. Poor boy!

 The only time I could get a good look was when he was sleeping. This shows a bit how his gums were bruised and torn. I never got a good picture of his tongue though.

He was such a good boy at the dentist!

Blessing Day

Sullivan was blessed by Brian on October 12th. Because of how crazy busy Sundays are I didn't get any great pictures of us as a family. Darn! It was a wonderful blessing! A friend in our ward wrote it down for us and that was so nice because with Miles and Wesley sitting by me I didn't hear some of it. I love baby blessings. So thankful for our sweet Sully.

The fab 5

These 5 keep life pretty exciting! Being a mom is really the best thing ever. And the hardest thing ever. But I feel so very blessed to be a mom to these great kids. I truly love it.

Sophie continues to be a bookworm and is really enjoying Middle School so far. She's looking forward to basketball starting next month!

Nora filled up a "good behavior" chart she'd been working on since the epic meltdown on her baptism day last summer. Her reward was going to Build-A-Bear. She was quite excited about this. And even though it's only been a few months I can honestly say she's been handling her emotions pretty well these days. Part of that is probably that she's growing up more, but we'll also attribute it to the chart :)

This boys' smiles light up our home.

Wesley has been taking his "homework" quite seriously. It's pretty cute. I haven't signed him up for real pre-school or anything, so he and I do some worksheets every day.

And here is Miles playing basketball with our imaginary basketball hoop! Ha! Funny thing is I looked on Craigslist all summer to buy one to put up but never found a good one. Hopefully in the Spring!