getting the morning paper

Ben loves to ride up to the end of the driveway to get the morning paper for Grammy & Grampy. Spencer follows along- he pushes his truck to the end of the tar, tells it he'll be "back" and takes off walking, following his big brother. I usually tuck the paper into Ben's jacket in the winter, but it's been warm enough now that he's not wearing a jacket & I tuck the paper right into the back of his pants. Little Brother wants to do everything Big Brother does, so I take out a section and tuck it into Spencer's pants as well. Spencer isn't as good at delivering the paper to Grammy & Grampy, but he sure loves carrying it like a big boy.

Boys and Their Toys

Tractor, bikes, four-wheeler, motorcycle.
The Jewett boys really, really, really like this 70 degree weather in Maine right now!
Ben and Jay are heading to Florida today with Grammy Simpson, and Spencer and I are staying back here with Grampy Simpson... I'll be curious to compare weather notes when they get home. I'm not complaining- it's wonderful having the windows open and the snow melting before my eyes- it's just strange...
As you can tell from the photos, the boys aren't complaining about the warm weather.

Is it Spring??

Happy St. Patty's

My favorite Irish beer and my manicure for the Irish holiday...

Bottling Beer w/Pops

We made a nut brown this time-- it looked & smelled good! We'll have to wait a bit to taste it, but hopefully it's a good one. :)
Happy St. Paddy's Day, all!

March 1st snowstorm

The boys in today's snow storm. We were lucky enough to have Daddy home today, since his class was cancelled. And we finally got outside this afternoon for some sledding, snow angels, and rides on the four-wheeler and tractor. Good times at the Jewett's house!

Onions

It's hard to believe how much plants can grow in just a couple of weeks. Here are our onion plants that the boys planted on the 9th. Luckily, we've had lots of sunshine and I've been able to get the plants in lots of sun. It's been really fun to watch them grow. Let's hope Gilbert the cat doesn't eat the seedlings like he's done to our tomato plants in the past!

Happy Second Birthday, Spencer!

Today is Spencer's second birthday! We celebrated yesterday with family- Nana & Pops Dwyer, Grammy & Grampy Simpson, and Uncle Matty and family. The cousins enjoyed running around and hitting each other with balloons, while Spencer's favorite activity was riding his new 4-wheeler (called a "BROOM")... This 4-wheeler is very well loved: it was given kisses before bed, it got its teeth brushed at bedtime, and it earned an all-out, fall-down, kicking and screaming tantrum when it was taken away for the evening. We had one very sad little boy when he and the 4-wheeler needed to be separated in order for Spencer to go to bed. It took a while to fall asleep, but he was ever-so-happy to see the 4-wheeler this morning. And now, when he walks away from it, he points & waves at it and says, "back" (as in, I'll be back!)... A boy and his toys...

The boys at age 2

Spencer right before his second birthday, a few days ago...
And Ben right before his second birthday, August 2008...

Ben is the summer baby and Spencer the winter baby-- in fact, they are exactly six months apart in birthdays. We celebrated Spencer's second birthday (and Ben's 5 1/2 birthday) yesterday with family...

Time to start thinking about the garden!

This year we're going to try and plant onions in the garden, so here are the boys getting the potting soil mix ready for planting the seeds. Ben had a great time using his hands to mix the water into the soil... Spencer was more apprehensive about doing that, but enjoyed using chopsticks to mix the soil.

Spencer didn't want to take a nap yesterday, so I took the boys outside to play. After a few minutes on the 4-wheeler, I realized that Spencer was really quiet, so I looked down and he was snoozing!!!

Boys

Spencer really enjoys eating snow (wonder where he saw that??!)... He would be outside all the time if it were up to him. He is practicing all sorts of new words, and will attempt to repeat just about every word that comes out of our mouths. He's also climbing out of his crib... almost. He successfully got out one time, but now he simply climbs up on the side and yells "down! down!" until someone rescues him... Luckily he hasn't fallen yet, and I see a big boy bed in his near future.
Ben competed in his second karate tournament last weekend and participated in four events: flag sparring, sumo, fight sparring, and forms. He's pictured here with his trophy he won for getting FIRST place in the fight sparring category!! Guess all his karate work with Daddy paid off. He's very proud of his trophy, as he should be...

Snow Day activity

Ben makes THE best chocolate chip cookies... He and I decided to make some yesterday when the weather cancelled school and made it pretty miserable to be outside. Spencer enjoyed several when he got up from his nap... (As a side note, we've spent two days in our pajamas...)

Winter

I went for a walk this morning. It was icy. Luckily only four cars/trucks passed me during the whole walk, and I was able to basically trudge down the middle of the road where it wasn't so slick. It was beautiful though, despite the "rain" falling from the trees, which was just little pieces of ice breaking off and falling down. The sound was really musical.
When I got back from my walk, all three boys were outside, and Jay took the four-wheeler (with plow) to the ice to see about clearing off our ice rink. It's slushy/wet/heavy/yuck, but once the top layer of stuff is removed, there's an inch or so of water on top-- if we could clear it off and have that water on top freeze, we'd have ourselves some slick ice-skating ice.

First Snowshoe Adventure of the Winter

Catching Air!

Ben and I bundled up and went outside on our snowshoes yesterday. It was snowing and absolutely beautiful... We did a loop- walking down through Sunset Pass on the lake, then back through the woods. Ben took a break to practice his karate on a few unsuspecting trees and bushes, but we kept moving to keep warm.

by the light of the spotlight

we were outside playing so long this afternoon, that it got dark. and the spotlight came on. we plowed, did some sledding, and Ben and I even got a ride behind the 4-wheeler. fun times. Welcome, snow!!!

THE BEAM

so I don't know why I can't get these photos in the correct order. But this is THE steel beam in our basement (some of you have seen my posts on facebook about this endeavor). The bottom photo is of he original, rusty thing... And, as you can see, the ceiling is unfinished. We're having insulation and drywall go up and when Jay and the drywaller started talking about "boxing the beam in" I shuddered--- I knew it could look GOOD. And, I don't know, I just like the beam. So Jay hooked me up with supplies and I scraped all the big chunks of flaky rust off, sanded the beam down, put on a coat of primer and one coat (so far) of the black paint. I think it's going to be fabulous and I'm pretty proud of my hard work (both sore AND proud). I'll wait to put the next (and hopefully final!) coat of paint on after the insulators come on Friday. Next week at this time, the basement will look so different!

riding a bike & ice skating the same day

January 11, 2012 is COLD, but mostly snow-less and so we were able to get outside and both ice skate on our rink as well as ride bikes & 4-wheeler. It seemed strange to hear Ben say, "I think I'll ride my bike" when we had bundled in layers to go on the ice first thing this morning (I promised & crossed my heart that we would try his 'new' ice skates right after breakfast). It's bound not to last, with a snow storm headed our way as I type this; a predicted 6-10 inches of snow. Good. It's about time...

p.s. I LOVE the orange balaklava over Ben's bike helmet-- it makes me smile.

Happy New Year!

A walk in through the woods yesterday turned into an impromptu development of an ice rink right in front of our house. It was a lot of fun to make & now we just have to find and dust off our ice skates. There's been talk of speakers and flood lights and all sorts of accoutrements for our new ice rink, but it'll be cool if we can just get out there and try it out (it got dark before we could try it out). I think 2012 is gonna be a great year!

The boys on Christmas

We've had such a fun weekend! We were at Sugarloaf for our Christmas with Grammy & Grampy Simpson and the Bronsons and had a really nice time on the mountain. The boys love to be up there as there's always a ton of people to play with...
We spent Christmas Eve and Christmas morning at our house enjoying a few presents and then brunch at Nana & Pops Dwyer's house with Matt, Jessica and the girls. It was fun chaos! Spencer is pictured above with his play kitchen from Nana and Pops, and Ben is pictured holding up two new Star Wars action figures. Smiles all day long-- no fighting and NO tears!!!!
Merry Christmas 2011!