weekend away and back

I'm back from my weekend with the girls in Hoboken. We had a wonderful time, catching up on all our news, eating, drinking and laughing. It is such a good feeling to reconnect. It was a beautiful weekend in New York. Here is a photo from Hoboken looking across to Manhattan.On Saturday night we all got ready - see photo below - and then Carrie met us at the PATH. We went to Pipa for dinner then a show at the Spiegeltent at South Street Seaport. Jackie made our reservations, Jenn was our host and we all had a great time. More photos to come in another post. Although it is good to be away and have some time with friends it is great to be home and see the boys and Grant. We went to a new restaurant in Reston Town Center for dinner tonight. There are so many new places opening in Reston it is turning into a bit more of a "town center" - perhaps the suburbs are getting more liveable!

Mummy's Office

A some of you may know for a busy mum with two kids Miranda is pretty responsive to both email and updating this blog. The reason for this is that she has turned the kitchen into her home office so she can cook dinner, update the blog and surf the web all at the same time.

To help enable this the boys decided to surprise her this weekend with a new laptop stand to replace the Post-it pad she previously used to prop up her laptop.

Welcome home mummy and thanks for the Internet recipes.

Lunch in the Park

After Cameron's swimming class we spent some time at the park and had a picnic. It was a beautiful day and the boys looked very cute in their little dugout.

Boys Weekend II

Cameron's new favorite sport is now bowling. I took the boys bowling Friday afternoon and since then every time I ask them what they want to do Cameron's immediate answer is bowling. To be fair he was actually pretty good and scored 121 on the first game. He became less interested in the second where Jamie scored 123. As you probably guessed they do not actually bowl, rather they lift the bowling ball to a rail from which they push the bowling ball. But they don't know they difference and now they both think they are expert bowlers. Certainly they put me to shame.

weekend away

This is a photo of Washington Street in Hoboken. I'll have to try to take some pictures myself this weekend because I don't think this really shows how wonderful Hoboken can be. It is full of brownstones and interesting apartment buildings. I'm going to stay with my friends that I don't get to see very often since I moved down to Virginia. We have tickets for a show on Saturday night, dinner reservations at our favourite restaurant and plan to just hang out and chat the rest of the time - perfect! Jenn is kind enough to have all 7 of us staying in her apartment!

On the flip side - boys weekend! Grant is looking after the boys this weekend and they're really excited.

This is where I found the photo - http://kassady-nyc2006.buzznet.com/user/photos/?id=13067211

wednesday morning

Cameron watching something funny on tv.

Jamie practices his angry face - with a cowboy hat on, of course.

mirror, mirror off the wall

We have been in our house for almost 2 years and the first project I wanted to deal with when we moved in was the mirrored hallway. Well, it has taken a little longer than I'd like but finally today the mirrors came off the wall. No more visitors will be shocked by their reflections the moment they walk in our house.

This is the "before" picture with our hallway mirror wall.
And here is the "after" without offending mirrors - yeah!

puzzles

Puzzles are Jamie's favourite thing to do at the moment. Here he is with a trucks puzzle. It has 4 trucks and he likes to put them together, take them apart and start all over again. We also have fun with our alphabet puzzle - thanks Deb! - and a big fire engine puzzle - thanks Auntie Donna! I haven't brought out the big barn puzzle but I think we'll be doing that one this afternoon.

tagged

I was tagged by Christina to write 7 quirky things about myself.
Here we go:
* I'm always trying to be on time. This is difficult with two little boys who don't have any concept of time. We're often 15 mins early or 30 mins late.
* If I have something important that I don't want to lose then I put it in a "safe" place. I'm always forgetting where the safe places are because they change. I tend to lose important things a lot.
* I have 2 children but 4 strollers. I told Cameron this morning that we were going to sell our BOB stroller and he cried real tears. I have a son who clearly understands his mummy. I don't really want to sell it but it doesn't make sense to keep it since we never use it.
* I'm cooking during the week using Six O'clock Scramble. My friend Deb, Christina's sister, introduced me to this wonderful service. Even though I am vegetarian I made salmon for the first time last week and chicken this week. I think once a week is enough for a non-veggie dish. No, I didn't eat it but Grant was happy!
* I save lots of things. I tend to have a big clear out once in a while but I am quite sentimental about things. I'm a money saver too. Although I enjoy a good splurge I have always been a saver and worried about not being able to pay the rent or bail myself out of a difficult situation. I need rainy day money to feel secure.
* I can't have my eyebrows waxed. I had it done again last year just to test and my eyes swelled up like big tomatoes and stayed that way for about a week. It is not worth it. I am happy with my eyebrows just the way they are.
*I don't know seven other people with blogs to tag.

letter and number of the week

Now we are into full swing at preschool the boys are learning their letters, numbers and colours with an "of the week" theme. This week Jamie is doing the number 2 and the colour red. Cameron is doing the letter E. You can guess who made what above! Jamie is always so proud of the artwork that he makes at school. I think Cameron's class gets lots of teacher help with their projects!

In Cameron's class they have a show and tell on Thursday and Friday where the kids have to take into school an object that starts with the letter of the week. They have to talk about the object and what they know about it. This is our homework every week! Tomorrow Cameron is taking in "Elmer the Elephant" book. I think Deb gave it to Jamie but both boys enjoy the story so I thought it was a good bet. I'll let you know what happens tomorrow.