BI Summer Adventure...

This summer we haven't been able to do too many adventures and I doubt we'll have too many more before I can't travel because of pregnancy, but we did go to Block Island for 10 days which was a blast with our fabulous and generous friends the Smocks. I finally uploaded the photos so I can post. Is that totally lame? Our computer was not turning on so I just didn't post things because I didn't have any photos. We had fabulous weather out on the Block even though the two days we spent in New York City were pouring down rain. Oh, and we also just got a ticket in the mail from running a red light in the Big Apple from a street camera. I guess they're not content with their apple so they have to take a bite out of our apple too.

Anyway, we spent Father's Day with Justin's dad and a long lost friend with her daughter and triplets. We took all five kidlets out on the pond in an inflatable boat and had a grand time trying to keep them all from falling in. Henry actually did fall in about 30 seconds before we were going to leave for church on the day we went home in a brand new outfit. I come to expect these sort of catastrophies in my life. I shouldn't expect anything other than that, you know?


We spend a wonderful 6 days out at Block Island with the best weather possible. It was sunny and warm every single day and thunderstorms rolled in every night giving us spectacular shows and cooling us off even more. We spend lazy days sleeping in and made sure to keep up all our traditions of virgin mojitos on the widow's walk at sunset, clamming and then eating the clams for dinner, eating our yearly ceremonial lobster dinner as well, hiking, catching fiddler crabs and finding sea stars(no longer called starfish I've been told). We also added some more traditions like a campfire on the beach where we roasted hotdogs and marshmallows, snorkled (where I had a serious fight with a crab and won), and then we ditched the puzzle for the second year in a row. We only do it when it's not good weather and we've lucked out the past two years with warm sunny days.

Henry, Nate and Buddy Gabe(what Henry calls him) really had a blast together playing in the ocean, on the beach, and exploring the rocks and ponds. Henry was pretty afraid of the water this year and I hope he gets over it soon. I think it's just the coldness factor and the waves are kind of scarey for him. One day he was having a tough time after he got soaked and the wind chilled him (after he also got pinched by a fiddler crab) that I ended up having to wrap him up in a towel and sing him "Frosty the Snowman" until he fell asleep.
Hen is also a huge Italian food fan and will eat just about anything. He was devouring our "linguine alle vongole", or linguine with clams, that has hot pepper flakes in the sauce and every time he would suck the linguine up then ends flipped up and sprayed spicy sauce in his eyes. He would start to scream and then we'd wash his eyes out and it was back to slurping and spraying again. There he was, with tears in his red irritated eyes and running nose from the spice and he was still trying to drink up the last of the broth. We eventually told him to close his eyes and eat his dinner and that seemed to help. Poor little guy! He's such a good eater.

We ended up going to NYC for church on Sunday, then meeting up with my sweet sorella Emilie and her family for lunch in The City before heading home. It was one of the most relaxing and satisfying trips we have taken in a long time and I couldn't tell you how much Justin and I needed to relax for a while. Thank Heaven for vacations...and Henry!

Potty Power

Henry is starting potty training, but it's not going as smoothly as I had expected. For the past few months Henry has been really interested in going potty on his potty chair...when he's naked. If I strip him down he'll go potty all day long in his potty chair. He gets to put stickers on his chart and eat a gummy bear each time. However, when I suggest that he put underwear on or even a pull-up, he screams, "noooooooo! I want my eneflant diaper! Ahhhhhhhhh." When he has his diaper on he doesn't think about going potty, so I don't know what to do. Something tells me that I should just wait to potty train him until he's three, but that's in the middle of the winter and I just don't think I could keep him naked all the time when it's so cold outside and I really would like him to be on his way to being potty trained by the end of the fall. Anyone have any suggestions? I don't think I've been so unprepared for something since before Henry was born. With my track record, you'd think I would have read 10 books about potty training before attempting this, but I'm feeling lazy lately. I'm checking out ASL DVDs though so I can learn more sign language. I want to use it on a daily basis so "baby sister" can get the same or better opportunity as Hen. I also don't want to have Signing Time on the TV every day because it's honestly driving me nuts. I can't stand hearing that woman sing any longer! I hope to be semi-fluent soon and then I'll use it to start teaching Henry Italian. I can't wait until he can speak Italian! Italian children have the sweetest little voices.