Sneak Peek

Due to poor shooting and lighting conditions we will be staging Halloween pictures tomorrow night, but here's a little sample. Enjoy! (P.S. As soon as Maya saw Grammy in her costume she said "YOUR HANNAH MONTANA!" I laughed my butt off.)

Last trip to the Aquarium

Shortly after returning to Boston I realized our Aquarium passes would be expiring shortly and we still had 4 IMax movie passes to use. Lucky for us the kids had an early release day and we loaded up the trusty mini van and headed out. We had a blast (even though we were only allowed in the aquarium for about 30 minutes, and during the entire time aquarium officials were herding us towards the door). We did make it to our movie on time and we all enjoyed learning about undersea creatures. I'm just glad we realized the passes were about to expire BEFORE they actually did expire. It doesn't always work out that way.


One of the big benefits to living in the big city is all the fun things to do and see. We love it.

Mormon Fire Drill!

So we were running late for church yesterday, about 10-15 minutes late, and when we arrived, we all rushed into the hallway/waiting area because the chapel doors were closed as they were passing the sacrament. Well, we had just caught our breathes and were waiting for the bread to get to us, when a piercing loud screeching began wailing from the wall right behind where we were sitting. I turned around and saw a 2 year old hand quickly release the alarm lever and shoot to cover his ears as he began to bawl and realize that the screeching that was emiting from the pandora's box on the wall he had just opened because of him. Yes, once again, Bennett has pulled the fire alarm during church. This time however, he didn't just wait until all the meetings were over and everyone was already on their way out, no, this time, he waited for the quietest moment possible, and let everyone know that the Elmers were in the building. The entire church population began to spill out of the Stake Center, yes, two wards worth, and I ran to tell the bishop, (whom I've never met), that it was my son who pulled the alarm and that it was a false alarm. He smiled and said that the bishopric had just been talking about the ward's emergency evacuation plan and how his brother had pulled the alarm when they were kids. I felt bad when I saw the older members of the ward shuffling out of the chapel assisted by their walkers and the entire ward standing outside in the cold and slightly sprinkling weather, but, luckily as the bishopric pointed out, at least we gave them an opportunity to put their emergency plan into action. After the firemen cleared the building, the meeting resumed and wouldn't you know it, it was the day they had received our records in the ward and read our family's name and we weren't there to be recognized, but after the sacrament was over, the 2nd counselor stood up and re-announced our arrival and welcomed us. When we're late, we really like to make it known. Thanks Bennett.
PS. I just checked, this happened exactly a year ago, spooky right?

Cranberry Festival

We enjoyed our second Cranberry Festival (although it wasn't as fun without Grammy and Poppy there). Some of the best things were the Owl show (Maya had her little hand raised almost the entire time, she was in heaven), The huge sand pile (Casey burried each of the kids up to their necks and pretty much everyone got at least a little sand in their mouths), The cranberry harvest tour, and the free samples of Crasins (the pomegranate juice ones are delicious).

We asked a stranger to take our family picture this year and it was somewhat less than perfect, but it'll have to do. Last year Grammy took our picture and Casey liked it so much he used it as our Christmas card. We'll have to think of something else for this years Christmas cards. Oh, as a side note, it's not required to wear red, we just decided last year it'd be fun to all dress as cranberries, and we continued the tradition this year too (I took the festivities a little further by wearing a "Cranberry" hat). I know, we're nerdy!


Porter wanted to take a turn carrying Miles around on his back. He lasted about 3 minutes, but it sure was cute. I love that kid (all those kids).

Cape Cod

After visiting the Cranberry Festival we decided to go spend the last remaining hours of daylight at Cape Cod. We struggled to find a beach area, and eventually asked a random stranger in the grocery store parking lot. She was kind enough to take us to her personal neighborhood private beach and inform us that "they never check for parking stickers", so we gratefully invaded. We found all kinds of interesting items such as dead crabs, and this huge dead fish that the sea gulls were dining on before we scared them all off. I figure it's only fair that we scared them seeing as the crabs scared the bejesus out of Bennett (I just looked up the term bejesus "The original term was "scared the Bee Jesus out of me". Bee Jesus is like regular Jesus, only for bees. Having him in you is bad, because then he stings you from the inside. Bee Jesus is known to be frightened by loud, sudden sounds."). I could hardly put him down the rest of the time we were there, he kept scanning the sand and saying "Something is going to bite my toes off". Porter and Maya had a blast, they love everything about the beach, the waves, the gross smelling ocean creatures, shell hunting, sand drawing, etc. EVERYTHING.



It was a pretty chilly day and we were all a little cold by the time the sun went down, so we headed over to the nearest McDonalds to warm our hands up with some french fries and ice cream (i know, but when did the cold keep ANYONE from eating ice cream?)

Potty Humor

Bennett is really into potty humor. We've had to ban the words "Fart" and "Poop" and new words are being banned daily. The other night I was laying in bed with him and trying to teach him his birthday, so I would say "Bennett your birthday is November 2" then I'd ask him "When's your birthday?" and he'd say something silly like "November bed" or "November Book" naming different objects in his room rather than the date. I kept trying until he answered with "November Pee". I said "Bennett that's a potty word we don't say that" and he answered by saying "I said Pee like the letter". One word Manipulative!
Another time I was on the phone with Sarah and we were on speaker phone when she told one of her kids "We don't like potty words" Bennett perked up from his playing and said proudly "I like potty words, POOP". What am I going to do with this kid?

School Kids

Guess who started school this year? Yep, Porter and Maya. They both LOVE it so much, it's almost hard to believe they are my children. I cried about going to school well into my middle school years. These two love everything about school. They are less than enthusiastic about staying home on the weekends, and on Sunday night they ask "Mom, do we have school tomorrow?" I say "Yes." and then they say "YESSSSSSS" (while pumping their fists with glee). They seem to be doing really well and enjoy doing anything school related. Porter is more than happy to sit down and read a book with me, complete practice math worksheets, or write page after page of word lists (I guess his new teacher is more motivational than his old teacher was). After the first day of school we asked Maya if her teacher was like the "Trunchbull" (the evil principal from Matilda) she said "No", then we asked "Is she like Mrs. Honey" (Matilda's nice sweet teacher) she said "No, she's kind of in between". Although I miss them terribly while they are gone it's great to know they are having a great time. It's shaping up to be a wonderful year.

Playing Catch Up

Last swimming of the season at Nana and Grampy's pool. We sure love that swimming pool. Even though it's too cold to swim we wish we were there now.

And we love Dad who's always willing to get wet and throw people around.
Miles got his first hair cut. He went from a cute little fluffy headed sweetie pie...

to a coarse thick haired little munchkin. Sometimes I miss that baby hair a lot, but I guess it was time.

The other night Casey randomly suggested we dip pretzels, so...

Yep, Bennett decided to dump the entire bottle of sprinkles on them. Yummy!


Chocolate brings out the crazy in all of us.

Does it get much better than this? Oh, it could be better if there were no clean up afterward. My feet had weird little speck on them the rest of the night from stepping on sprinkles.

Miles found a box of Bisquick the other day and, through an amazing display of licking and smearing, managed to plaster his entire face. He earned a bath for him and his grateful brother, unfortunately he was so eager to hop in the tub he wouldn't let me get a picture (well I got one, but it's so stinkin' blurry). They both love tub time. And with that I think my blog is actually caught up except for the pictures from this weekend when we went to the CRANBERRY festival and CAPE COD. Post to follow shortly.