Basement "Refresh"

Our garage is under our house, so we walk through the basement whenever we go anywhere.  It is a standard unfinished basement, bare concrete floor, walls, dark exposed ceiling...  We wanted to make it a more pleasant place to walk through, and maybe even linger in (especially when doing all that laundry that 2 little boys generate!).  A few months ago, I stumbled across an "inspiration room" online, and the project grew from there.  The inspiration room:

Source: theoldwhitecottageblog.com via Anne on Pinterest

We are a long way from that beautiful space, but we have started the hardest part, the painting.  So a few "before" pictures:

 One busted paint sprayer, 5 gallons of primer on the ceiling, 5 gallons of masonry sealer on the walls and many, many hours of labor by Michael, and we have the first coat of paint up.  I took a few pictures, and it just doesn't do it justice.  The lighting is terrible down there right now since we took everything down to paint.  We will be putting up new, prettier lighting, along with a shelving system from Ikea, and lots of pretty accessories to brighten things up.  Hopefully in a few weeks we will be done!

Concert on the Common

Each summer, Lynnfield has a series of concert on the common.  We missed them last year, but today we made it to the first one!  We got home early, packed the kids up in the wagon, a picnic dinner and off we went!  We met up with Nathan's friend Ben on the way, and lots of other friends once we got there.  It was the perfect night for the concert, warm and dry, with a beautiful sunset.  Both kids did great until the overtiredness hit, and then we had a nice walk home to calm every one down.

With all the fun, I forgot to take pictures of the actual band, maybe next week :)

Hanging out with Nathan's friend Ben and family.

Hat!

Nothing like summer, bare toes and grass!

Nathan and Ben enjoying their lollipops.

Alex sharing water with his friend Issac.

4th of July (and a few from the days before)

Nathan has a new favorite holiday, and he even made up a song to go with it!  "Happy 4th of July, happy 4th of July," is how it goes.  We attended the 4th of July festivities the next town over, since they have the biggest parade (and our town doesn't do anything until the following week).  He still has a love/hate relationship with fireworks (loves watching them on Youtube, hates hearing them at night), but I did too when I was 3 years old!  The parade was great, everything from fire trucks, tanks, vintage cars to politicians.  Nathan's favorite was a concept truck with doors that pivot up parallel to the truck, rather than out.  He talked about it for days!  Our friends who live along the parade route gave us tips and tricks on seeing the parade and hosted a great party.  Afterwards there is a concert and fireworks, we may aim to stay for that next year!

All dressed up for the 4th!

Nathan getting a good vantage of the parade.

Our friends showed us how to get front row seats, Nathan's friend Scotty in the bacground.

Attempted self-portrait.

Nathan with his flag that he got for making a $1 donation to the parade fund. 

Attempted family portrait.

The gathering on the lower common for the post-parade concert.  It was a beautiful day, and a perfect evening for the concert.  The fireworks were upstaged by a lightning storm though!

On our way home after a fun evening...

I am tacking on to this post a few pictures from the days before the 4th.  The boys and I went to a local sprinkler park, the first time for Alex.  Nathan wasn't so sure of this park last year, but couldn't get enough this year!  Alex had no problem getting in on the action though :) The next day we went raspberry picking at a local farm.  Tasty fruit, and a few fun activities too!

Alex cozying up to the water!

Nathan dancing around.

Nathan sharing the "fruits" of our labor.  "Alex, the dark red ones are ready to pick."

Checking out the cow train.  Nathan kept asking for it to "go", but I had to explain it needed a tractor to move.

Giant spiderweb to play on!

June Miscellany

Happy July 1st!  We have wrapped up June already (yikes!), and I thought I would just write a quick post of little things we did and just cute pictures of the boys.  Enjoy!

A quick photo of Alex on his actual 1st birthday opening cards and presents.  He is showing off his new skill of pointing here...

Hooray!  More tissue paper!

 Nathan continues to ride his balance bike almost daily.  This day we were on our way to a friend's house, and it was threatening rain, so Nathan threw on his rain boots and rain jacket, and off we went!  He loves to follow the "arrows", which trace the gas line in the street, left over from a construction project last year.

Alex talking and then his favorite word at the end "uh-oh!"

Nathan has been a great help setting the table lately.  I asked him to get some spoons and he discovered the serving spoons.  He insists on using the "big spoons" now!

Michael had mentioned some good parks in Newburyport, near a jobsite.  We decided to do a tour of them one Saturday morning.  The first one was a huge wooden playground, with all sorts of slides, tunnel, stairs.  Heaven for the boys!

Nathan and Alex chased each other through this tunnel over and over.

The second park was right on the ocean, in a nice wooded setting.  It has some large concrete play structures, shaped like a dinosaur skeleton, giant tree stump and a log.  And a zip line!

Hi Mom!

The dino was a challenging climb, but Nathan figured it out (you can see Alex way back by the tail).

 Nathan on the zip line!

After naptime, Nathan wanted to show Michael the "cows" (Richardson's Farm in Middleton, awesome ice cream).

They also have mini-golf, and Nathan insisted he wanted to try it for the first time.  The general rules eluded him, but he had a great time!

Alex did great fetching the balls for us at the end of each hole :)

Happy Father's Day!

So after all the birthday parties, we had a low key Father's Day.  Nathan and I made breakfast in bed for Michael.  We realized pretty quickly that food/drink in bed + 2 toddlers = big disaster.  So we moved it to the dining room table, and Michael was happy to share.

The day was spent just enjoying the weather, going for a walk/bike ride (for Nathan on his awesome new bike) around the neighborhood and just playing in the backyard.  In the afternoon we did go to Target for Nathan to pick out Matchbox cars for hitting a certain milestone on potty training, but that isn't a topic for a public blog :)

I hope everyone had a wonderful Father's Day!

Enjoying "breakfast in bed" at the dining room table.

Nathan on his new bike, awesome helmet and all!

Joint Family Birthday Party for Alex and Nathan

Being born only 12 days (and 2 years) apart, Nathan and Alex will be forever subjected to a joint family birthday party.  The weather wasn't quite as stellar as yesterday, but it was still perfect for the cousins to run crazy and have fun.

We ate lots of good food, and then sang happy birthday and Alex had his first cake!  Blue frosting, everywhere.  He liked it to say the least!

Playing with the big boy cousins.

Heidi and Jason hanging with the littlest guests, Alex and Tyler.

Bubbles!

So many bubbles from his new bubble machine!

Alex seemed quite unsure about the flood of bubbles.

"No, no Alex, bubbles are good, don't be scared!" (Yes, he wore the helmet around all afternoon)

Candle! (We learned our lesson with Nathan and made sure he couldn't reach it)

Nathan had a little help from his cousin to blow out the candles.

He kind of looked like a blue cat by the end of cake.

Mmmm...

Every last crumb.

Present time!

Alex figured out opening presents pretty quickly.

The whole gang, and Nathan playing with his new lightning ball.