We're down to our last two days of summer vacation here... and Steve and I are working. We have no last hurrah, fun thing planned. But then we did our big doin's in April with the cruise and moving back to NY.

The boys have met their teachers and are excited to be going back. It's been quiet around here with very few kids their age in the immediate vicinity.

Holly starts preschool a week from today - she'd like it to have started 3 weeks ago :) to say she's ready is an understatement. She's chomping at the bit!!!

Our vacation account is growing. We've passed the $500 minimum so now we'll start to accrue interest. It'll do for now, but when we actually take the $$ out I'll probably look for a new bank to keep the account in. I'm not a fan of them charging me a fee just because I used the $$ for what it was intended.

We were invited to Florida with a friend in June '11 - which would avoid hotel charges. So I'm looking to see what the chances are of saving enough for the airfare and entertainment (tickets, food, etc). I think there's a darned good chance we'll make it!

Overall, we've spent the summer settling in. Most weekends we are here at the house instead of traveling all around. There have been showings of the house in MA and we've done some things in response to feedback. Most recently, we replaced all the carpeting, so it should show really nicely now. Now we cross our fingers!

We did manage to meet up with Holly's friend Tara at the Bronx Zoo a few weeks ago. the kids had a great time and were exhausted by the time we left.

The boys also started Karate in August and have been enjoying it. Kyle is really eating it up, and Ryan isn't complaining (he could try harder - but we're working on that).

From aug10

Holly is looking forward to starting dance lessons in the next few weeks.

From aug10

I'm looking forward to getting back into the school year routine.



Hope you all enjoyed your summer!

Hope Everyone had a fun Independence Day!
We spent the afternoon/evening with good friends of ours, relaxing, eating, just enjoying the company. The kids had a blast. They are way overtired and totally at each other today - so it's nice to look at the few pictures I took and remember that a day like yesterday is worth a bit of crabby kiddos today :)

From jul10

From jul10

From jul10

From jul10

So we sailed April 15th for 9 days. I cannot state loud enough how easy it is to only drive an hour to get to the port and not have to worry about any air fare. Especially when we're talking airfare for FIVE of us. The ship was just as great as we remembered, the cabin was heavenly and the service even more so.

Of course just before the cruise we moved. And while packing and stressing about moving and cruising the cat decided he needed to be on his deathbed. We've lost 3 of the 4 pets in the last year. It's been a really hard pet year in the Frisch household. So Sasquatch and I went back and forth to the vet a few times, including the day we were leaving MA. I though it was it, and I got there as prepared as I could be to lose my very last furbuddy - the forth in less than a year.

But the vet talked me out of that. I'm not ready she observed. But I didn't want to drag him on day to day just because *I'm* not ready. Oh and there's that little detail about the cruise - we'd be taking him to a brand new house and then leaving for 9 days. And it's a cruise, not something I can put off a day, or send Steve and the kids and join up with them later. Nope. We've got to make this as complicated as possible you see. Squish had not eaten anything in over a week. He'd lost 3 pounds.

So we added in prednisone and headed to NY. The morning we were sailing I spent finding the local vet and making sure they were around if needed. Miraculously, Squish started eating that morning. Seriously - after a week of nothing, he started eating the morning we sailed!! I left him in the very good hands of our neighbor and my Mom and off we went. I'll skip to the end here just to keep you all from hanging - he's fine. He ate the entire time we were gone. He's putting weight back on and is off the pred. I'm amazed, but oh so grateful that I didn't lose him. We just passed the 1 year mark from losing Sarek. So there's that :o)

The cruise. We parked, we boarded, we found our cabin. For 5 guests over 3 you must either book two cabins, or a suite. This time around we had a Grand Suite. There was plenty of room for us (though we found the drawers odd and hard to organize). And it was just amazing. Even more amazing? Concierge service :) We were spoiled rotten and we didn't take advantage of even half the bennies we could have.

We had 4 full days at sea and loved it. Kyle and Holly totally loved the kids program Ocean Adventure. Ryan tolerated it ;) We all spent a lot of time at the pool, both with and without kids. We sailed with Deanna and Mark who were kidless, and I think the only thing there we'd do different is maybe utilize the MyTime dining. The late seating is too late for our crew (though next time, maybe they'll be old enough that it won't be!) and main seating was too early for D&M. So we didn't dine together at dinner. But we did spend lots of time together otherwise.

We didn't get to take advantage of in room babysitting - they didn't have any available to us. So Steve and I alternated nights hanging out with D&M. But honestly? We were TIRED! At least 1/2 the nights we were in bed right after the kids were!

In Bermuda we went on a train tour and learned all kinds of great stuff about the islands. And we visited the glass shop again where we got a glass animal for each of the kids, and I picked up a Christmas ornament for each of them also. Always nice to have our little vacation reminders on our tree.

In Nassau, Bahamas we hit the Pirates of Nassau. It was OK, but I was glad it was only $12. The best port we stopped in was Coco Cay. Royal Carribean's private beach island. We tendered early and spent 1/2 the day there. The kids were pretty much in the water the entire time. The day was sunny and perfect, and the water beautiful and clear. I wouldn't mind a few days just at that one island!

From cruise

I owe a bunch of posts here I think. We're in the new house, the boys are enjoying school, the cruise was fabulous...

I'll get here soon and give some good updates :) In the meantime, a few pics...

From cruise

From cruise

From cruise

From cruise

So with just 4 weeks to go until the REALLY big day, the house has started to look like we are moving.

Steve and I have had a '2 year plan' for about 5 years now. We talked about moving back home and it seemed that about 2 years out was where it always seemed to be. Over the winter we fell over across the most perfect housing arrangement. It allows us to move out of our existing house without paying two mortgages, but only requiring a single move when we buy it later. It's big enough. It's located in the right place. It's in great condition. It could be a little further off the road, or in a more 'neighborhoody' kind of place, but we really like the charm of where it is. It's even fenced in.

Both Steve and I have had conversations at work, and this is really happening. Next week we are bringing down a truckload of stuff. We're going to spend Easter down at the 'New House'. We're leaving here on the 14th after school. On the 15th we'll sail on the cruise that we've had booked for almost 2 years, and then when we come back we will officially be in the new house.

It's exciting and scarey. We've been away now for 11 years. But we're really going home. We'll be just 10 minutes from Nanna and Poppy. We'll be within day trip distance of a wide variety of Steve's relatives. Deanna is just 40 minutes. Paul just about an hour. It's time.

The boys are getting excited - until they remember that it means leaving here. They are sad to be leaving behind their friends here, but I'm working with some of those parents to figure out a plan. Can they come visit us over the summer? The boys would love that.

So we're working hard at a big purge - there's a dumpster in the driveway and we're being heavy handed with what goes into it. And we're packing, packing, packing.

Wish us luck!!!
(and if you have any packing paper, could you drop it by?? :-) )

The main thing on my mind these days is Pampered Chef National Conference. I fly out to Chicago on Wednesday - leaving Steve to tend the three kiddies on his own until Saturday night. Conference is just amazing. When I went in '04 I came back so very motivated to move mountains! I came back having learned things that apply to my day job as well as to my own business.

I love working with The Pampered Chef. I do well when I get out and do shows for people. I love the products, and I love interacting around FOOD :-). But I'm not so very good at following up and getting the shows on my calendar. I'm working on that. It's easy for me to point to things (I have three kids, I work FT, etc) that interfere with this part of my business, but the fact is that it's just something I'm not very good at. Knowing that, I can take steps to correct it :-) but I need to choose to do so.

At any rate, just one more regular work day stands between me and that airplane. I'm a teensy bit excited!


... in other news...

Nothing yet from Ry's sleep study - but I really don't expect anything before the end of this week at the earliest.

Holly has done a phenominal job with potty training. Really, we put undies on her and she was there. She had an accident or two that first week - but she was all about the potty. She still is! She loves the potty. She sits on it and sings "Holly loves the potty, so do you!" Actually, she's singing about most things she does this day. "This is my friend kitty, I love my friend kitty" " I am in your room. I am in your room" and so on. Life is a song, and she is going to sing it!

Kyle is loving having our pool up - even though there hasn't been much sun to warm up the water. The last two or three days have been nice and we keep kicking them outside to enjoy it. Tomorrow the boys are going to a waterslide park for the day with their summer camp. This is one of their favorite field trips. Maybe Kyle will remember to ask about the towel he left there 2 weeks ago!!

It's a busy summer - the way we like it. Next week the boys will be at Cub Scout camp for each of the 5 days. The week ends with a family bbq on Friday. Fun! And in August the boys and I will be going to a Spinners (baseball) game - then camping in the outfield for the night with pancakes for breakfast...

Hope you're enjoying your summer as well!

Wishing everyone a very Happy New Year...

From dec08

For lots of pictures from December you can browse our December Picassa album.

There is joy in my world.
I have been baking and loving the Christmas lights. The baking has been fun and theraputic. The boys have even joined in. Tomorrow I have the day off and I will be baking again - this time for Steve. Darling Steven will turn 40 tomorrow. 40!!! He's also taken the day off - but of course things happen. The day will be interrupted with a meeting at school. And I have to go back to the periodontist... but for the most part we can spend some quiet time together. Maybe watch a couple more episodes of Trueblood :o)

We had a nasty ice storm up in these parts last week. We were very lucky. It's strange how one area can be fine and then a mile away there are trees down all over the place! There are lots of folks in NH who won't have power back until late last week - they've been out since Friday morning. And that's only if the wires are still connected to the house. If the wires were knocked down then it will be weeks!!! Nasty, nasty stuff. Again - we're very lucky.

I have my cards ready to go, just have to address them and stick them in the mail - need stamps!

We went to Breakfast with Santa on Saturday before heading down to Grammie's for an overnite. Holly told me "no Santa" - and she meant it! We got another picture of her wailing on Santa's lap - and Ryan 3 feet away from him. Maybe next year she'll tolerate him ;o)

So we went down to RI to visit Grammie Sat/Sunday and had a very nice night. Her place there is just wonderful - right on the water.

Other than today, I have just Thursday for work, then I'm off through Jan 2 :-) I am so looking forward to the downtime. I have some odds and ends that I'll tie up, but otherwise I'm not working!!!

I also have all my shopping done!!! Woohoo! That includes gifts for 'Jay' - a little boy we 'adopted' for Christmas. I picked up a sweats set and flannel shirt, Thomas the Train sneakers, and a couple of toys for him. I'm also going to see if they'd be interested in some clothing from Ryan that's in good shape. Ryan's just grown out of Jay's size - so it's good timing.

We're spending Christmas at home this year. Then traveling down to my Mom's on the 26th. Hopefully, we'll get to spend time with friends that we don't get to see real often. And my parents haven't seen the kids in a while - Mom saw pictures of Holly from November and didn't recognize her!

Snowflake continues to act as a perfectly healthy cat completely unaware of the tumor that you can now see sticking out the side of his ribcage. He's slowed down a little, napping in the proximity of the kids more often... Sarek seems to be losing his sight a little. He's now waiting at night for Journey to go down the deck steps first - then he follows her. If she doesn't go, he just stands on the deck and barks. Poor thing. At least he has his buddy to help him. We have all 4 animals on special diet blends of food from the vet now. They are all old. We're just happy that they continue to seem comfortable without any specific interventions from us.

The boys are doing well at school. We continue to meet with the school to tweak the things we have in place to encourage them to perform well. And of course it's different for each of them! Kyle has started riding again and is really taking to it. It is so very good for him. Ryan has expressed an interest in riding as well, but wants to wait for the warm weather to come back - it's cold out there!!

That's where things are for the moment. Hope everyone is taking some time to slow down and enjoy the season!!!!

Things have been crazy and busy around here lately. I'm still trying to get Kyle back into horseback riding. That may actually start in December (which is next week!). The year has totally gotten away from us. I've been crazy busy at work - so much so that I have over 2 weeks of vacation left to take at the end of the year! It will be some much needed down time.

Proof that the year has gotten away with us - the things we normally have done, or at least started, by now are not. I've usually done a lot of Christmas shopping by now. Once I was even done before Thanksgiving. This year we've only just started. Though now that we're focused we're making quick progress there.

Thankfully I took care of Steve's birthday present wicked early - and gave it to him LOL. There was no reason to keep it, and he got a little bit of early celebration. I'll still have to do something with the kids, but at least the gift won't be some Christmas afterthought for him (his birthday is 12/17).

Speaking of Steven ... he's hitting a milestone this year! 4 decades is a pretty long time! I'll have to make an extra special cake for him I think. We did manage to get away for a weekend without the kids - to celebrate both his and our friend Mark's birthdays. It's been so long since we've done something without the kids. It was SO nice to just do what we wanted without worrying about their schedule or if they'll eat the food... the kids stayed with 'Ms Beth' - and had a blast. She has an 8 year old boy, and the boys all played and romped and had fun. Ryan told his afterschool teacher on Monday that he had a great time and Mommy needs to go away more often :o)

Besides shopping, I haven't gotten my act together on our Christmas cards. I've made them the last several years, and while I have the stamp set I want to use, I have yet to settle on a design. AND I haven't even started our Christmas letter.

We're having a nice, quiet Thanksgiving, with Steve's Mom joining us. I'm excited to get to cook a real meal again. So I had a fun time sitting down on Saturday and planning out my menu.

Kyle's orthodontic work has been going splendidly. His upper jaw expansion is complete. He'll keep the pendex in place for another 4 - 6 months, but the Dr couldn't be happier with the progress that was made. In 6 weeks we go back and Ky will have brackets put on his 4 upper-front teeth and he'll work on straightening them. He can't go to full braces until he has lost all his baby teeth... so that's a year or so out (thankfully!). We had Ryan in for a quick consult - yes he has an bite problem (it's off center) - but he's only lost 3 teeth. Unless something happens that forces us to act sooner (like with Kyle) we'll not do anything there for a few years.

Holly is finally talking up a storm. She's still behind, but at her 6 month re-evaluation for EI she tested out. That's good! And it's not so good :( - her therapist had some other things she wanted to continue working on. Now she only has about 45 days to complete it. So I'm sure we'll be left with lots of instructions for keeping Holly improving. Most of the work stems around making her say things and try new words. She's now comfortable to attempt almost any word I ask her to and she's using a ton of words on her own now.

So much of the same around here - I hope everyone is healthy and able to have a peaceful Thanksgiving with family or friends (or both!).

Alright. I'm going to tie myself to the keyboard and not leave until I get a real post up!

Actually this should be fairly easy :)

This weekend was OctoberFest here in town. Steve went to visit friends for the weekend (left around noon on Friday) and I had the three with me at home. Friday night we made personal pizzas :) though Kyle didn't want to put any effort into. Ryan is ALL ABOUT cooking lately though and eats up (ha! no pun intended!) any opportunity to do so. So we had yummy pizzas Friday night. Tucked Holly in and called Daddy to say good night.

Ryan had a real conversation with him - and then resorted to telling knock knock jokes :o) but hey - he didn't push the phone away. This is improvement.

Saturday I got everyone up and dressed and we headed downtown for the 'Fest. We stuck Holly in her stroller and brought the Cub Scout gear so that we could do some candy selling while out. They were SO not into it - but we managed to sell ONE bar. Good thing we'd already done our part around the neighborhood!!! After 'selling' candy we hit the bounce houses. And the boys spent a few rounds on the obstacle course. As Ry came down the sliding part he was 'singing' (more like humming but singing the notes 'da da') the theme to Indiana Jones. Funny stuff.

After burning off some energy we got hot dogs all around and some fries. Holly ate the whole thing - AND the bun! I broke pieces off so she didn't have to hold the whole unweildly thing, so she had 4 mini-dogs :). Then we got the obligatory ice cream. Which I shared with Holly.

We did more walking, played some Town Trivia - both boys won prizes. They watched Animal Adventures... skunk, hedgehog, bearded dragon (Ky volunteered to be a 'rock' for this one), tarantula, corn snake, ferret, chinchilla, boa constrictor, and an alligator - Fun!

On our way out for the day we stopped at a vendor selling carved boxes. Kyle fell in love with a small pyramid and Ryan picked out a box to act as 'baby giraffey's bed'.

We went home and vegged for the rest of the afternoon (holly took a nice long nap too!).

Sunday came and we had to venture out fairly early (for a sunday). We were at the good old KMart by 10:00 - we needed to pick up a gift for a party Ky was going to at 12:30. I also grabbed some Tinkerbell undies for Holly and some diaper pins. Holly has become very interested in everyone's undies - even came out wearing a pair of Ry's so I thought she might want some of her own. We're not anywhere near officially potty training - still in the potty 'friendly' mode. Occassionally she sits on it, and even less frequently she's successful there. But she's very willing to go and sit when I ask her to. The undies go her excited. She sat on the potty and I let her wear them. Fearful of accidents I had her go back to the potty after about 7 minutes. After sitting she declared 'all done' and handed me the undies back LOL!

The pins are to keep her zipped up at night. Now that we're getting colder weather she's into zip up sleepers at night. And yesterday when I came up to get her she was naked! So we'll go back to what we did with the boys - slip a diaper pin through the top of the zipper to keep it up.

Oh! While in line at the Big K - I noticed their display of pools at the exit. They had this one for just $42.50 - so I snatched it up! Now we have a replacement pool for next summer :)

We dropped Ky off for the party and then me and the smaller two headed off for groceries. Holly took a VERY long nap and I got some cleaning and reading done. Ran out to get Ky from the party and then got dinner in the oven. Steve came home a little before dinner was ready - yay!

We found a new series of books to start reading with the boys - The Secrets of Droon. We're 4 chapters into the first one now. Looks interesting - and very much similar to the Magic Treehouse series.

That's enough for now. It's Monday and we're back at work. Have a great week!

So in looking for the 'before' picture below, I flipped through a bunch of pics we had taken while house hunting. At the time Ryan was just 2 and Kyle was 3 1/2...




Awwwww!

I spent most of the day yesterday painting. The painting in the new room is now done :o) We need a floor and we can move in!

In between rounds of painting, I checked email. And one of them was an inquiry by a manufacturer on a video I had posted of Ryan on YouTube. Seems they are looking into making a new commercial and wanted to check to see if I might OK the use of small pieces of this video. Hmm - doesn't sound like they are going to compensate us for anything, but it'd still be pretty neat! I'll know more on that next week.

At the end of the day, the boys and I had appointments at the chiropractor. I was greeted with "did you get my message?" - Me: dumb look... "no?" - Dr C - "you won the grill?"
I won the grill?
You won the grill!
Oh.

OK so I could have been more excited, I was absorbing the information. AND we already have a nice grill. This one is just a tiny bit nicer - it has a griddle for cooking breakfast! So I took it - it's hanging out in the back of the Durango at the moment. But now we have to find a loving family for the 'old' grill (which is still fairly new!). Maybe I'll post it on Craig's list.

So we won a grill! Isn't that cool?

It's summertime!

Last week Steve and I alternated working from home since the boys were home. By Friday they were SO DONE with each other. Lots of annoying whining, they apparently lost the ability to share and neither wanted to play what the other wanted, but they both insisted they needed to play with their brother. The further into the week, the higher the amount of parental intervention that was required.

Monday morning came and I was SO happy to drop them off at the summer program! They had a great day and were both exhausted (nice!). Ky did come home with a nasty headache which caused him to throw up :-( poor guy. But he was fully recovered by bedtime. I'm pretty sure that's the first bad headache he's gotten since he's started chiropractic treatment in January.

Holly's vocabulary is zoom, zoom, zooming. And just in time for her to meet her new speech therapist this Friday ;o). She's saying 'Ry Ry' and Mama, and in the last few days has added 'off' - as in take my diaper off, take this shirt off, I want to be off of you, turn the light off. Lots of uses that 'off' has! We got her pictures back, and this round I will actually keep.

Uncle Paul came up last weekend and he and Steve finished getting the wallboard up in the 'new' room. I've started spackling and taping. It's looking like a room finally! I'm starting to get excited now - it looks like we may finish some time this year ;o)

At work, both products are shipping this week. Yay! It will be nice to experience some less stressful time over the next few weeks. It will pick back up again for sure, but it will be nice to have some down time.

We also sent away for our catepillars some time ago - they grew and grew and built their little chrysalis's and we moved them to the pavillion where they eventually emerged - all 10! On Sunday we set them free:






And Holly playing with the water bowl:

A number of years ago today (the exact number shall not be named), the woman who birthed me was born.

Happy Birthday Mom!