Salem

We went back to Salem yesterday, but this time we met Nana and Grandpa plus our friends Nicole, Jacob and Eliana.

Grandpa and Malcolm had fun building birds at the Peabody Essex Museum.

Doesn't Jacob look cute as a witch?

big box

When this big box came the other day, Jane wanted to pretend it was a car. Malcolm wanted to pretend it was a crib, and he was a baby. This sums up my kids' personalities perfectly!

painting the deck

We recently had our deck painted/stained and the kids loved watching the painters. I got brushes and water out the other day thinking they'd paint pictures, but they wanted to imitate the painters and cover the entire surface. They worked very hard on this!

Eddie didn't seem to notice all the activity.

Here's what the deck looked like before.

4-H fair

This was sheep grooming, I think?

The little car on the big car was so cute!

another fun outing

I'm trying to get to a few more fun places before Jane starts school. We won't have a large chunk of time to go anywhere too far away starting next week. We went to the Ecotarium last week on a nice day. The kids ate a snack on this huge rock they call "daddy."

The game exhibit was still there, and that was a lot of fun.

The mist outside was new!

This giant nest with eggs was new, too. I think the nest used to be more like a climbing structure that was falling apart. I like what they did with it!

The otters are always fun to visit!

back to Walden

Malcolm specifically asked to go to Walden Pond because he loved it so much last time. He was all ready to leave the house at 8am, when it was 65 degrees out. So I said that we could leave soon if they were willing to walk around the pond first, and they were.

Here's the site of Thoreau's cabin.

A few commuter trains went by, and several breakdown trains!

When we swam, some ducks came over to us!

I like how Jane arranged her towel.

Here's the replica cabin with the actual furniture from Thoreau's cabin.

When I got home I looked up how far our walk around the pond was, and it was 1.7 miles! I can't believe they walked that far without much complaining!

craft time

My friend Jael mentioned she had just bought new playdoh for her twins, so I decided to get some for my kids. Malcolm was very excited to use it! Jane was making a "quilt" with different shapes of felt and yarn.

Beantown

We met our friends Amy, Brian and Rhys at the Public Garden last week. We ate a picnic lunch and then we went back to Georgetown Cupcake on Newbury Street for dessert.

Rhys didn't seem to mind that he was too young for a cupcake!

Canobie Lake Park

This was kind of silly timing being one week after the fair, but Dad's work had a picnic at Canobie so we had to go. The price was great and lunch was included, and it was much healthier than the normal park food.

The kids were terrified of the ferris wheel but after a few minutes they liked it. Then they enjoyed so many other rides afterwards!

Look at poor Malcolm's tears!

How fun to drive their own car!

Lunchtime!

The chair lift was fun. I couldn't believe they were scared of the ferris wheel but not this. It seemed much scarier to me!

They had tiny, little kid-sized bumper cars. They were adorable!

We took a boat ride on the lake.

busy day

Last Friday we did a lot of fun stuff. First we went to Garden in the Woods with our friends Duncan and Cassidy. Jane had fun completing the scavenger hunt.

Here's a baby salamander.

The kids checked out different animals under microscopes.

This is a rock that someone made into a stegosaurus!

Afterwards we went to the farm to pick up our vegetables. We visited the chickens first.

We picked cherry tomatoes. It was fun! Over the next few days I think Jane ate most of these! We're also growing them at home and she eats them all before we get a chance to use them for recipes.

On the way home we spontaneously decided to visit the wildlife refuge and ride bikes!

We saw a lot of frogs.

I think both kids actually slept well that night!