Holiday market fun

This past weekend we went to the Boston holiday market.  This is the first year our city has organized such a thing and we've been meaning to go for weeks.  Sadly a series of colds and the weather interfered.  This past Sunday, however, we finally ventured out.

The kids loved looking at the ice skaters and eating pretzels!

We then met up with Alice, Max and Elliot for a short time.  It was very windy, so we found a small hut that presumably hosted an elderly elf earlier in the day, but provided us with a place to chat and take pictures.

Happy holidays everyone!

Long live Penguin and Fish!!

You've seen them before in - last year's Halloween, Purim, and school costume day.  Here they are one last time (probably).

Last night we went trick on treating on one of the closed special streets in our town.

It was, as in year's past, total delightful chaos. (We were joined by Elliot the dragon.)

 

The kids were definitely bouncing off the walls by the time we got home, but we managed to calm everyone down and put them to bed.  It was a lovely evening.

Stroller free train ride!

Careful readers of this blog may remember that Sadie took her first stroller free ride to school right before she turned 15 months.  We couldn't quite orchestrate that for Lev with our schedule, but we definitely thought it was time to try out some stroller free transit with him.  So this weekend, we took the kids to run some errands and left the stroller at home.

Lev did a great job walking and holding hands.

And had a good time looking around the train from his new vantage point.

There's no denying it - we now have 2 full blown little kids (and no babies!) living in our house.

Photo of the time

Yesterday was the first day of early voting in Massachusetts. Sadie's been really into the Daniel Tiger episode about voting so this seemed like the perfect opportunity to do our civic duty with plenty of time to answer questions.

With that out of the way, and the weather being grey and rainy, we headed to a toy store to play with their train set.  We were joined by Elliot and the 3 kids had a great time!

Weekend summary

This weekend (and yes, I'm going to pretend that we've been blogging this whole time and this is a regular ole update) we had some lovely outings despite the rain and cold.

On Saturday we went to the Head of the Charles (an annual rowing competition) since Sadie has been really interested in boats. We met up with Alice, Max and Eliot and enjoyed stomping around in the mud.

Then on Sunday we explored a playground we hadn't been to since Lev was a newborn.  The kids got a lot of energy out by chasing a each other (what a change!).  Here they are in a moment of relative stillness.

And finally, we ended Sunday with bath time, where Sadie got to wear her new (bigger!) bathrobe and Lev got Sadie's old one.  Here are some adorably clean children:

Happy fall everyone!

Lev walks to the close Starbucks

No stroller!

Boat ride!

Lately Sadie's been asking to go on a boat and this weekend we thought we'd oblige.  We set out on Saturday morning to the harbor.  While Lev had his morning nap in the stroller, Sadie enjoyed looking at the beautiful seals outside the New England Aquarium.

Then all of us got on the MBTA ferryboat to Charlestown. Since this is a city run service, we thought it was the best way to take our first boat ride with the kids because it was cheap ($7 for the family) and short (10 minutes each way).

We took the ride there, walked around for 30 minutes, and took the ferry right back.  It was a lovely way to see airplanes take off and land, and all different kinds of boats, and watch the birds.

Between the boat rides, the kids ran around the dock area of Charlestown.

We had such a good time that I think we'll be ready to venture out for a longer ride soon!

Playground adventures

As is fitting, we've been spending lots of our summer in playgrounds all around the Boston area. Last weekend, we went to the excellent playground on Cambridge Common.

Lev enjoyed the climbing structure while Sadie had a blast with all the water and sand.

This weekend, we met up with Matti and Mark for breakfast and then went to a different playground near by. The kids had a good time being active with our friends.

And here is a bonus video of Lev showing off his newly acquired walking confidence!

Costume Day at School

It was costume day at school - luckily the kids' costumes from last year still fit!

Lev at 1 year

Here is a short video of Lev as he is now - the giggles, the smiles, the hi's... he is one tiny ball of charm!