It's been a long time.

I haven't written an entry in so long, that I don't know where to begin! Soccer season is almost over-just a few more playoff games for each child. Danielle and Matthew leave for Sargent's Camp on Monday and I haven't even started to pack their stuff. I am in SO much trouble! I'll have to leave another update when things have calmed down!

Molly was lost, but now she's home!

What a night! Tony and Katie took Molly for a walk around the circle last night and when Molly spotted a rabbit, Katie was dragged to the ground. The beast took off into the woods behind the Quiry's house, but Tony couldn't leave Katie alone, so he went to find Danielle and Matt to bring Katie home. By the time he went back into the woods, the dog was long gone. Poor Katie felt terrible and was feeling like it was all her fault. She couldn't go to search for the dog, so she made a "Lost dog" poster. After hours of searching on foot and by car, we decided to call it a night. The mood in the house was very somber. Well, this morning at 7:30, Mr. Quiry rang the doorbell and told us he heard barking in the woods when he had his dog out. Tony, being the wonderful husband and Dad that he is, changed out of his work clothes and went in search of Molly. Twenty minutes later, he returned with scraped and bleeding arms, but he had the dog! The leash was caught around some branches and had to be cut loose. Do you think that dog looked one bit remorseful?? Absolutely not! Needless to say, the kids won't be holding the leash any time soon!

Sophia's first day of preschool.

Things went really well for Sophia today. We drove to school after the other kids got on the bus, walked inside, and put the backpack in the cubby. That was all I saw of Sophia until pickup time! At 11:20, I arrived back at school and the kids were playing on the playground. Sophia wouldn't leave and proceeded to cry. I guess she had a lot of fun!

The First Day of School!

Lizzy started 7th grade, Matt and Danielle 5th, Katie 1st, and Sophia went to the open house at preschool. They all seemed to have a good time and came home with lots of stories. Everything from "It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be." to "The bus driver yelled an awful lot.". The bottom line is "We made it through the summer"! Yeah!

Vacation week.

Things started off slowly in Jefferson due the fact the campers needed to recover a bit from their trip. On Wednesday, we went to Good Harbor Beach in Gloucester for the day. What a great time we had! The sand is really soft and the beach goes out for a long way without hitting deep water. The ocean was calm, so there wasn't a lot of playing in the waves, but the kids still had a lot of fun swimming and playing in the sand. We went shopping on Thursday and bought many things we didn't really need, but wanted anyway! Dinner at Barber's Crossing ended the day. Friday, Tony took Liz, Danielle and Matthew deep sea fishing. They left the house at 5:30am to get to the boat by 7:30 for the half-day trip. After fishing, they went to Rockport and looked around the art gallery and ate snacks. I received a phone call on their way home and asked if we were having fish for dinner. I was told to cook the chicken I had defrosted! It wasn't a good fishing day at all. Only 1 person on the entire boat caught a haddock that they could take home. The rest of the bunch ended up catching "dog fish" which look like sand sharks and have to be thrown back. Oh well, at least they tried!

The NH camping trip.

This was the first week of the summer that we didn't have lots of rain! Tony was on vacation all week and his time began with the NH camping trip. He and the 3 big kids came home on Monday pretty tired, but full of stories. It turns out our friends the Dionnes, decided to camp at Lost River too and ended up at the campsite right next to Tony's. Saturday the kids went fishing and hung out in preparation for the big hike. The actual hike up Mount Lafayette on Sunday was great! They started with a big diner breakfast and got to the trail head at 9:30. They reached the AMC hut (Greenleaf) at lunchtime and had their sandwiches and soup (followed by Skittles!). They continued the hike to the summit where it was really windy, but the view was incredible! By the time they hiked back down it was around 3:30, so they had a very busy and tiring day. Oh but there was a bit more drama to be had! When they retired to the tent Sunday night, all was calm for a little while. Then they heard rustling across the stream and splashing water followed by loud "snuffling" right outside the tent! Apparently a black bear came to visit and was looking for food right outside the tent near Matt's head! They tried to get pictures of the bear's footprints the next morning and if you look really hard, you can see the nail marks and paw prints. Scary stuff!

A weekend with Katie and Sophia.

Tony has taken Elizabeth, Danielle and Matthew to Lost River campground in NH for the weekend. They left on Friday and are scheduled to return on Monday, so that leaves Mom and the little girls on their own. We started off with dinner at Friendly's (always a big hit) and sleeping at a "campground" of our own in the girls' bedroom. They set up the campground on the floor (there's not 1 square inch of floor not covered by sleeping bags), but I got to sleep in Sophia's bed. You'd think that wouldn't be too bad, but we might as well have been outside in a tent with the amount of sleep I had! The frogs were unbelievably loud last night, the bed isn't too comfortable and Katie grinds her teeth. I think sleeping arrangements will be different tonight!

Sophia is Three!

August 11th marked Sophia's third birthday and we celebrated with the Terranova Family over dinner and cake (or "pake" as Sophia calls it. We've fixed that speech problem :) ). She received cute outfits, bath paints, new school shoes, various kitchen appliances, and a Stuff-a-Friend teddy bear. Overall, she really seemed to enjoy the day. The potty-training on the other hand, has come to a total stand still. It doesn't matter that she said she'd try again when she was 3. She is still refusing to even attempt using the potty and is very happy to put a new diaper on. Hopefully she'll change her tune when preschool starts in a few weeks and all the other kids are using the bathroom. We can hope, right??

Six Flags

It looked to be a fun day at Six Flags, since we had the kids' free tickets from the Davis Hill reading club and Tony's leftover company outing tickets and coupons. We arrived at the park in time for lunch and then proceeded to wait in the ride lines. We all went on the Carousel to start the day off. Sophia's face lit up as soon as we started to move. That alone made the entire day worthwhile! The big kids and Tony went on the "Thunderbolt" rollercoaster and a few other wild rides. Katie had no desire to go on ANY rides at all, but she was content to watch the others. The game area was lots of fun because everyone won a prize! They through darts and shot water pistols and tried to walk up the rope ladder. It was great fun until the sky opened up and drenched us all!

Sleepover at the grandparents' house...

Another week has passed in a relatively uneventful way! The cousins from Delaware decided to spend an extra week with Grammie and Grampa in Melrose, so we invited them over on Friday. Tony and Grampa took the 7 big kids to Wachusett Mountain for a hike while Grammie, Sophia and I stayed home and rested. We were surprised to hear that Grampa hiked up the trail with the kids instead of driving to the top with the water and snacks. Tony also had to remind Grampa NOT to jog down the mountain road for fear of his getting injured. When they returned, the kids took a swim and had dinner before heading back to Melrose. It turned out they wanted our kids to spend the night with them, so Tony and I took them over yesterday afternoon and came home with only Sophia. On the way back, we stopped at Jordan's Furniture and looked at bedroom and living room sets. No purchases were made, but we decided that when we get a new mattress, it will be KING sized! Sophia really enjoyed the musical water show and the acrobatic school. She did ask where Katie and the kids were because I think she missed them. It was VERY quiet here last night at dinner. Tony and Sophia have gone to get the troops and they may stop off at the North End for some sweet treats. We'll see!

Girl Scout Camp...

I picked Elizabeth and Danielle up from Camp Green Eyrie in Harvard yesterday afternoon with much apprehension! We have had a week of miserably wet weather with lots of thunder and lightning since we dropped them off on Sunday. Danielle was signed up for "Spa Week" and we figured it wouldn't matter much if it was raining. You can paint your nails anywhere! Liz, however, was in "Sail and Sun". We didn't figure she'd have much of either this week. Actually, Tony was so concerned that he called camp on Wednesday to check in and see if we should come get the girls. He was reassured that the girls were having lots of fun and they'd make it through the week. Well fast-forward to yesterday at 3:00(which, by the way, was the most beautiful, sunny day of the week). I pulled into the camp and all the gear was already piled up and ready to go. After I checked them out, the counselors brought the girls to the parking lot, and they were really HAPPY! What a great time they had! They entire trip home was spent singing the various camp fire songs they had learned and talking about the wonderful counselors and CITs. There was a little complaining about tent mates, but overall they had fun and have asked to go back next summer. Yeah!

What a week it's been!

So we all dropped Matthew off at the Giamatti Little League Center in Bristol, CT on Sunday the 13th. He confidently took his stuff to the Red Sox dorm and settled in quickly. That was the last we heard from him until the mail came on Wednesday. We received a 3 sentence letter that basically said he was having fun! Pick up was Friday at 10:00am, so we loaded back into the van for the 2 hour drive. It was about 95 degrees in the shade and 90% humidity, but the kids played a 6 inning game to demonstrate some of the skills they learned during the week. Matt laid down a BEAUTIFUL bunt during one of his at-bats. (see photo)

The most obvious sign that Matt enjoyed himself was the fact that he had NO voice all weekend! When we got home around 2:30 we scrambled to clean the house because the visitors from Delaware were due around 4:00! It was wonderful to see the Frerichs and spend some time with them before the big 70th birthday party for Barb on Saturday. Most of the clan managed to gather on Saturday around 2:00 to surprise her. The attendees were: The Jefferson DiLoretos, the Frerichs, Leslie, Ralph, Rob, Rachel and Terry, Nick and Gabriella (from the NY DiLoretos), and of course Nick and Barb.

I'm not convinced she was totally surprised, but we did the best we could! The rain held off for most of the day and we had tons of fun in the pool.

Sunday afternoon Tony took Matthew to Six Flags for his company outing and I dropped Elizabeth and Danielle off for a week of Girl Scout camp. We'll see how that went on Friday!

Here are this week's events. There were a couple of play dates (Liz to Meredith's and Katie to Hilary's) early in the week. We went to lunch with Tony on Wednesday (Bauhini Chinese Buffet) to celebrate the wonderful report card grades the children brought home. Matt, Danielle and Liz got haircuts. Sophia picked out "big girl" underpants (Princesses) that we'll try out on Monday. Laura came over with her kids to swim and brought clothes for Sophia and Sal's pizza for dinner. Yeah! Today we'll bring Matt to the eye doctor's for a check up. I'm putting together Matt's supplies for baseball camp. I can't believe we're bringing him to Connecticut on Sunday and leaving him until Friday afternoon. How can he possibly be old enough for overnight camp?? Where has the time gone?

Nana and Grampa's visit...

Well the folks from Florida arrived on Wednesday around supper time and left Saturday afternoon to spend time at Paul's. What a lot of fun we all had! Grampa helped Tony finish the deck stairs and install the ice/water dispenser on the refrigerator. Nana treated us to the movies (Wall-E), the Dollar Store and McDonalds. Our friend, Orapin, came over on Thursday night to enjoy the Rutland fireworks with Tony and the kids. Nana had a sleepover at her friend Lisa's and Grampa went to bed early. On Friday, the Fourth, we had a nice dinner of lobster and steak tips with Paul, Christina, Katelyn, and Christine. I'm not sure what I was thinking (obviously I wasn't!) because I failed to take ANY pictures. I guess I was just enjoying the visit too much!

The weekend.

What an enjoyable weekend we had! I did the usual, boring things on Saturday (such as grocery shopping and Target) while Tony worked on fixing the back stairs. The kids found activities to occupy themselves and stayed out of trouble for the most part. I feel like we're turning a corner as far as letting the big kids play outside. Since this neighborhood is pretty isolated, we've let the kids go off and play down the street and ride their bikes around the circle. It's starting to become more like it was when I was little (although they will never be allowed to leave at 8am and come home for lunch without me knowing where they are!). There are SO many kids in this neighborhood, that it'd be nice to see them playing in the street together.
Yesterday, we went to Melrose to visit Tony's parents. Nick's 72nd birthday was Thursday so we celebrated with pasta and cake! Tony and Nick went over to Leslie's to help remove some shelves in the basement and when they returned, Grampa got brave and offered to take the kids to the park-alone! I guess it went well. Tony went to help round them up when the skies darkened and stormy weather approached.
Today begins our first full week home on vacation. Yeah! Nana and Grampa arrive for a visit on Wednesday and we're all very excited. More on that later!

We've made it!

Well this my second attempt at posting, so we'll see if things go more smoothly this time...

The kids have been out of school for 4 days and we're all still alive! I think it helped that they put together a schedule to plan our day. Here it is (all events are subject to approval; i.e. depending on Mom's mood-all bets may be off!).
Everyone up and breakfast done by 9:00 (this is primarily for Lizzy's benefit! Everyone else has long since finished their breakfast and most are ready for a snack.)
9-10 "Cleaning" time: The kids can straighten up their rooms and then they help with household chores.
10-12 "Outside" time: So far, this has been the big kids sitting outside reading books while the little ones play on the swing set. Not sure how this will evolve.
12-12:30 "Lunch" time
12:30-1 "Quiet" time: Basically we're all hoping to settle Sophia down for a nap, so the rest of us can go to...
1-3 "Pool" time: As long as the weather cooperates, we're OK. So far, Sophia has napped 2 of the 3 afternoons, so the other kids have been able to swim. Now I'm not opposed to letting Sophia swim too, but she's a daredevil and I'd have to get wet! I don't enjoy the pool until the weather is in the 90s and the water is about 80 degrees. Needless to say, in June that's not the case here!
3-4:30 "TV/Video" time: The kids have NO problem with this.
4:30 Start dinner preparations: The kids have been great at helping with this too. They seem to enjoy making salad, peeling vegetables, and setting the table.
Daddy gets home around 6 and that's when we eat. The kids are good about cleaning up after.
I'm pretty much done by this time because the kids don't want much to do with me by this point. Of course during the day, the kids have been responsible for taking the dog out and playing with her. All in all, so far, so good!