Can you tell how to get to...

I'm not one of those people who really mind winter. I like the snow, the cold isn't that bad, and in general I like the change in seasons. What I don't like about winter though, is the fact that it gets dark here at 4:30. Recently I've been noticing that it seems like everyone has a GPS unit in their car. The pic above was actually taken while we were at a stop light, and I just had to get a shot so everyone knew what I was talking about.

I'm dumbfounded by the amount of people who have GPS systems in their car. Driving around at night it seems like literally everyone has one. All the time. I mean, who are all these people that don't know where they are going? Have we all just entirely forgotten where things are and we'd be absolutely paralyzed without our GPS systems?

Thanksgiving part - III

Shake, rattle and roll! Annie loves to dance. Black Friday. Karen and I both had to work, but were able to get out early and meet up for lunch. We all had a great late lunch at the Union Oyster House. The weather outside was pretty dismal - cold and rainy. So after a short walk we ended up at this other place for a drink before we headed back. Since we had Annie, we wanted a place that was somewhat dead so that she could tear around and not bother anyone. We found the perfect place with a sweet corner booth, and an area behind it that Annie could play in.

The waitstaff was super accomodating, and it helped that Annie made friends with all of them!

Thanksgiving part - II

Thanksgiving day! You couldn't ask for a better day. The sun was shining and the air was brisk. After a breakfast of toast, poached eggs, coffee and tea, we all headed out for a walk. We walked from our apt to the Charlestown Monument. Which felt like it was totally uphill from us... but great exercise in preparation of the massive amounts of food that would be consumed in a few short hours.

Once we made it to the Monument, we let Annie out of her stroller and she took off! She ran from one place to the next, chased after people with dogs, and wandered up next to every kid she saw. She is very social, I don't know where she gets it from. Karen and I often joke how unfriendly we are... and we're not doing it on purpose, but I think living in a city hardens you a bit. You don't talk to strangers, most times you don't even make eye contact with them. We don't know our neighbors, and we've lived in our condo for the past 5 yrs... I know, pathetic. But another fringe benefit of having kids is that they don't care who someone is.

One of Annie's favorite things to do is say hi to strangers, and if they are not paying attention to her, watch out, because she will not stop until they acknowledge her. Much to her parents chagrin. During Annie's exercise, there was an incident. As she was running down the sidewalk chasing a little boy, she took a tumble and scratched her face. When I picked her up there was blood running down the tip of her nose. A superficial scratch, but traumatic none the least. Was it bad that (after I saw she was alright of course), the first thing that ran through my mind was from the Brady Bunch. It was the episode when Greg hit Marcia in the nose with a football and she was all, "Now I'll never be a teen model." I know parents aren't supposed to laugh at times like this, but sometimes you can't help it!

Finally, it was time for the ma marsin event. We headed up to the Kattmans in Marblehead. We were so excited not to be travelling for once! We had a great time, and Addie - freshman at Alabama, made a surprise appearance! We had no idea the feast that was in store for us... Karen and Joan made two sides to take, roasted corn with mint and the classic, mashed potatoes. The Kattmans had the turkey, natch, sweet potatoes w/ marshmallows, cornbread stuffing w/ sausage, green bean casserole, two kinds of cranberry sauce... the list goes on and on! Everything was awesome... awesome. My mouth is watering again just writing about this.

And then, if all of that food wasn't enough, we had apple pie a la mode and key lime cheesecake. Wowser. So good. After that meal we came home, but Annie to bed, and then followed her shortly.

A Drummy Thanksgiving - part I

Thanksgiving was great! Since I haven't updated in a while and I have a bunch of photos I'm breaking this into a few posts. Although there are no photos for this post...


Grandma and Grandpa Drummy came into town the day before Thanksgiving. That evening we went to our new favorite restaurant, the Highland Kitchen in Somerville.


http://www.highlandkitchen.com/
I love the atmosphere there. When you walk in, the bar is always crowded with people, the lights are low and intimate, and the music is slightly loud causing everyone to speak louder than normal. This place just has great energy, and awesome specials. The first time we went there, the special was venison stroganoff. It was awesome. And, on Monday nights they serve homemade fried chicken, with mashed potatoes, greens and a biscuit. Are you kidding? Luckily I have class Monday nights so we've only been once, but if I didn't I'm sure we'd be there almost every single Monday... and weigh alot.

We all had great dinners... Joan had quail, awesome. Larry had a steak, awesome. I had chicken, awesome. And I just forgot what Karen had, but I'm sure it too was awesome. Annie is another story... She's getting to that age where she's becoming less and less fun to take out. There, I said it! Now we love taking her out, and we'll continue to do so, but she's quite the little character. She also loves attention. I mentioned how a couple of weeks ago at breakfast she kept throwing things at this guy in the next table, well this night she kept shouting until these people at the next table would pay attention to her. Then she would laugh and smile, and throw stuff. Then they would try and get back to their dinner, and she would get their attention again. And then laugh and smile... Man, she is trouble...

After dinner we headed back to the apt and put Bananas to bed. The rest of us headed to bed shortly thereafter so we could rest up for the big day ahead...

Of diapers and wipes...

At my house, diapers can be a hot topic. Sounds exciting doesn't it? The talk usually boils down to two sides, 1) preference for one brand and 2) preference for something decent, but mainly preference for the price. I'm sure you can figure out who comes down on what side of this debate... What has recently entered into the discussion is also trying to be more conscious of the products we're using, and their effects on everything else. Add to this Karen and Annie being gone for the weekend a few weeks ago, and with way too much time on my hands... I set about trying to find some good deals that would not only satisfy me from a price consideration, Karen from a brand perspective and everyone from a 'are we doing what we can' perspective. Enter Amazon.

Oh Amazon... how I've loved you for finding me books to read, and introducing me to so many things that I didn't know existed until you suggested it. But Amazon also sells diapers and wipes, and anything else you can imagine. A friend of mine before had told me about buying diapers there, and so I figured I should give it a try. Most of the 'grocery' items Amazon sells you have to buy in bulk, which is fine because if there's something you don't want to run out of, it's diapers and wipes.

Normally we buy a value box of diapers from Costco for about $44. At Amazon, you can get the same box for about the same price, and they throw in free two-day shipping. But where you really save some cash, is if you 'subscribe' to the item, and have it delivered on a regular basis. If you do that, they will shave 15% off the price. Not too bad. With these cost savings, we were able to spring for the 7th Generation diapers and wipes. What's great about the 7th Gen diapers, is that they do not use chlorine to dye the wood pulp white during the making of their diapers. This is good because using chlorine releases chlorinated toxins during the pulp production process.

Costco doesn't sell 7th Generation diapers, so if we were to buy them somewhere else, they would cost about $52 for the same amount. With the 15% discount, we only paid $37, not too bad. And onto the wipes, we were even happier, because it's pretty hard to find wipes that do not contain alcohol. And when Annie has diaper rash, the alcohol in the wipes is brutal. But guess what wipes don't contain alcohol? That's right, 7th Generation. Picked those up from Amazon too, and same deal. Subscribe to the item and in addition to the free shipping you get 15% off, not too bad.

Now the wipes were pretty expensive relative to what we had been buying. Costco sells wipes under their brand name, and I'd say you get between 8 - 10 packages of 80 wipes/package, for about $20. That's cheap. Even with the discounts the 7th Generation wipes were still about $34 for 12 packs of 70 wipes. So, we saved some money and spent some more somewhere else... Sometimes a wash is the best you can do...

Karen and Annie take D.C.

Last weekend I was in class, so Karen and Annie set out to DC to visit her friend Stephanie. So since I wasn't there, and I'm writing this and not my "co-blogger," you'll just have to take my word for the way things went down.

Karen and Annie got there Friday night. Annie had somewhat of a meltdown in the terminal waiting for the flight, causing Karen to quickly pick her up off the floor and find the most remote part of the airport... Then after a banana Annie was all better and they had a nice flight to DC. Saturday they went out to breakfast, the first place they went was packed so they ended up at this French-organic place. Where everyone was super-snobby (and probably wearing berets, but I wasn't there). Then the three of them headed out to see the sights! Annie had a great walk along the reflecting pool. I've heard that Annie walked the whole way, but I don't know if I believe that. It is 2,029 feet long... Then they saw the Lincoln Memorial, and lots of other memorials.



Annie has two questions, 1) Can Sasha, Malia or Bo come out and play? And 2) Keep up the good work on health care! Ok, so really 1 question and 1 statement.

This is Annie out at (insert meal here). Actually looking very calm. I'm guessing either they just got there or the camera took about 50 pictures in a row and this was the one second where she wasn't doing anything. Annie has become quite the little handful when dining out. Two weekends ago we were out for breakfast, and there was this guy sitting at the table next to us, about two feet away. The entire meal Annie kept throwing things at this guy, who luckily had a great sense of humor and didn't mind the non-stop interruptions. Towards the end of the meal Karen and I are both getting embarrased, because everytime we look away she's tossing her toy, book, food, sippy cup... literally anything not bolted down was tossed at this guy and landed at his feet. And everytime he would nicely pick it up, say something funny to her, and then return to his meal.

Karen and Annie had a great trip, and I sure was glad when they came home!

Halloween photos

As promised, here are our Halloween photos! We had so much fun at the Korns... and as I mentioed earlier, Annie loved seeing all the other kids and their costumes. Annie is supposed to be a monkey, but I'm thinking in these photos she actually looks more like a bear. I'm not feeling very creative and don't really have too much else to share... so sorry for the lame post.

Quick weekend recap

We had a great weekend, and Annie had lots of fun on Halloween! We
were originally supposed to go to BF for Halloween, but our plans
changed, so instead we went to Hingham. Our friends Scott and Jen
live there and it was a lot of fun to see them and help hand out
candy. Especially since we don't get any trick or treaters at our
house. Surprisingly enough we also forgot our camera, but Scott took
some good shots I'll post when I get them.

This video should help tide you over in the mean time... And Annie
isn't wearing a shirt because right now it's very warm in our apt
because Karen is in the process of cooking a turkey with all the
fixings!

Annie likes hanging out on the floor... and the 'spite poop'

A few weeks ago we noticed Annie would all of a sudden just lay down on a rug, or the floor. We thought this was kind of weird. Then we learned that at daycare Annie had graduated from sleeping in a crib to sleeping on a mat (I'm not 100% on how going from a nice mattress to a mat on the floor is an upgrade, but I digress). Also, a few times at bed time when we go into Annie's room, she will walk right in, go to her crib, and then lay down on this shag rug that is in front of her crib with Elmo and get ready for bed! We then tell her that she doesn't have to sleep on the floor at home!

Now, you're probably wondering, what's the spite poop? The spite poop is a phrase that Karen and I have coined to describe what Annie frequently does when we put her down for a nap. We get everything ready, change her diaper, give her her pacifier, Elmo, the works - then put her down. Then about 10 - 15 minutes later we'll hear her either: a) playing in her crib, laughing and running around, or b) crying. And sure enough, 9 times out of 10, she has pooped. And when her diaper's dirty, she can't sleep, natch. So we call it the spite poop, because she has a real habit of doing this in the morning and afternoon before her naps. And this is regardless of whether she has already had a BM recently, I swear she can poop on demand. This morning she did the trifecta. She threw her pacifier and Elmo out of the crib, and she had a spite poop.

This is Annie's new trick. She can now pull herself up on the coffee table, and then stands! Karen sent me these pics while I was in class. That Annie, she sure is always into something! And she is also very fast at getting herself on top of the table... we're going to have to make sure everything is tied down now that we've got a climber on our hands! D'oh!