We have rules. Obviously we have always had rules in our home, but they are now spelled out and posted in the time out area. Everyone is expected to follow the rules. If you are sent to time out you need to read the rules and figure out which one you broke and tell me what it is before you are allowed to return to normal activities (Max can't read but always picks number 5 which is usually correct). If you are planning to come visit, please review the rules and be on your toes, the boys are quick to correct anyone who may slip up and not say please or thank you. 

The past week has been quite uneventful. At least nothing that is worthy of a lengthy blog. Here are just a few highlights:

* Russell is able to read several Dr. Seuss, and other books, by himself. He is to spend 30 minutes reading aloud each day, usually to Max as I am preparing lunch, and it is paying off. He loves to read and Max loves to listen to him. 

* R.C. went to NYC for the first time with his class. 

* Max is able to leave the house in real underpants and not have an accident!!!! Diapers are only needed at night and if we are going to be out of the house for the entire day. But even then, he keeps them dry and clean!! I am one happy mom!!!

* We went through 5 gallons of milk last week. (What!?)

* I found a great park and walking trail for the boys and I.

* I have grown fond of my TINY "pantry kitchen". At 6:00pm it is beautiful with my window of prisms filling it with rainbows. 

* The noise from all the people outside no longer bothers me. I wonder what is going on if it gets too quiet. The noise is comforting. 

* Russell has found that Seinfeld is not only good for a laugh, but for building houses.

*It takes approximately 2 hours, one adult, and 2 young boys to use every lego in the house to build one crazy looking lego house. 

I will leave you with a few pictures of the boys. That may be all some of you are looking for. I (and you) know who you are.

Last weekend we spent some time downtown. R.C. took us to his studio space and we took the boys to The Nature Lab where they were able to see hundreds of stuffed animals, insects, skeletons, and even some insects and fossils that were around when dinosaurs were living. A perfect place for a kindergarten field trip.

The highlight for R.C. was the skateboard demo that was taking place just a few blocks from his studio. There is a skate shop R.C. has found that is owned, and run, by a famous skate boarder, Donnie Barley. Donnie had set this demo up and hundreds of kids came out to show their tricks. All I saw was complete chaos! Kids rolling around everywhere. Some had good tricks, some had no idea what they were doing. I was expecting to hear screams of pain when kids fell, and an ambulance on standby. People did fall, but you could tell they expected that, and didn't worry about a bump or scrape. There was also always some other kid helping the fallen get back on their feet. Russell and Maxwell were completely intrigued in what was going on. Russell even spotted a little boy, who looked his age, out there skating with the big kids.

Finally R.C. spotted him. Donny Barley was a few yards away, skating gracefully through the crowd. A shy smile came across R.C.'s face, much like a little girl might do when spotting Miley Cyrus in a Starbucks. We stayed to watch as long as we could but had to get going before our parking time expired. 

We finished off the night by watching WaterFire. This time we were able to get a bench so close to the water that we had to hold the boys tight for fear they might fall in. It was "the best seat in the house" as far as we were concerned. R.C. stayed downtown to work late in the studio while I brought the boys back home to get to bed. So far Providence is being good to us. 

This little 24 square foot patch of sod is called (by the city of Providence) a park. This park is conveniently located at the end of a graveled parking lot with a busy street, a sidewalks width away, on two sides. Webster defines a park as :  a large public green area in a town, used for recreation : a walk around the park. 

Yes, this is a green area, in a town, but what recreation could you do here? A game of baseball? no. Frisbee? no. One person could sunbathe, but if anyone else tried you would be too close for comfort. I guess if you haven't seen grass in 10 months or more, a quick walk across this in your bare feet might do you some good.  All I hope is that no person gets asked out on a date to go for "a walk around the park". This would be the shortest date known to man.

We held off as long as we possibly could. With Providence having the most Dunkin Donuts per capita, it was hard to see temptation around EVERY corner and not buy a dozen to take home and gorge ourselves on. We told the boys we would get these for the first day of school as a treat, but the first day (week) came and went without anyone wanting to go down the street to pick some up. Yesterday morning R.C. woke up early and set off to buy the first dozen to surprise the boys (I was quite excited for the "surprise" as well. I made coffee a little faster knowing I would have a delicious doughnut to go with it instead of cold cereal).

After a bowl of raisin bran, the boys were able to sink their teeth into soft dough and chocolate. They would not mind starting each day this way. 

Today was the start of school for Russell. He was so excited to get things started! For the past few days I had been getting things prepared. It could not have come soon enough for Russell. He would ask daily if it was the day school was starting. I would kindly tell him, "no, not today", but he kept asking (over and over and over again!!). I am happy he is so excited. Maxwell also became interested in school after hearing Russell talk about it so much (and after a trip to Staples where we picked up new crayons and stickers for school time use only). 

First day of school picture. Max really is smiling in the picture. He has a new smile where he thinks he needs to squint his eyes and show his teeth. He looks quite scary, but if you could hear him, he was giggling. 

We started the day out with a recap of name writing. He has had this down for quite sometime, but he is figuring out how to keep it on a line and use lower case letters. This happiness you see on his face is real. He kept the same attitude all day long and even wondered why we had to stop when the "school day" was over. I believe he would be happy doing worksheets and reading all day long! Please let this attitude remain until he is through college!

You may be wondering where Max was during this time. He was right with us working on drawing nice circles and straight lines, listening to stories and painting along side Russell. He was very happy to join the activities and learn some new things also. 

It has only been one day and I am already so happy that we chose to home school. This is such a fun way to spend my day and I love being the one to teach my kids new things. The boys are both so excited to learn they make it fun and easy!

We finally went to the beach yesterday! A great time was had by all. Russell and Max don't quite fathom how big the ocean is, but they found it very interesting to think about all the sea life that shares the same water they were playing in. We tried to keep them thinking about sharing the water with whales, dolphins, sea turtles, and other "friendly" marine life, but all they wanted to think/talk about were the sharks. 

The water was chilly at first, but after playing in it awhile it felt nice. We watched people attempt to surf, saw 2 men carrying buckets of freshly caught clams to their truck, and enjoyed the sun (maybe a bit too much?). We look forward to spending more lazy days being beach bums. Although this week kicks off the start of school for R.C.. I am also starting Russell this week, so our lazy days may be over just when they got started. 

I'm sure very few of you will care, but we finally found some dining room chairs! This is a relief as R.C. and I were sharing a board that we laid over a box for the past weeks. We only have six chairs, so if you are planning to come visit please only come in twos. If you have a family larger than 2 we recommend bringing your own chairs. Only kidding! Come one, come all!!  

Also you will notice our shelf which R.C. built for our computer. It's great having a husband who is, not only able, but also willing, to build most anything we can think up. He is quite handy to have around. 
What better way to break in our new chairs than with a rousing game of Candyland with some popcorn. 

We heard the tell-tale music coming from a few blocks away. The excitement was almost too much for the boys as they both got the "ok" from mom (the most difficult "ok" to get)  and ran for the door forgetting their money. They quickly ran back, picked it up and shot down the steps. They wanted to run down the street and meet him, but they learned that if you wait at the sidewalk with a goofy grin and an "I need ice cream" look in your eye, he will stop right at your door step. The ice cream man came and Russell and Max were the first in line! 

Last night we observed a weekend event that takes place during the summer months call WaterFire.  We set off to walk downtown from our apartment, which ended up not being a bad walk at all. The boys were thrilled to push the pedestrian button at all the intersections. Several times they each pushed the button 3 times and still wanted to do it more. We arrived at the canal area to find a swarm of people and vendors. We had heard that there was always a good crowd, but this was larger than we expected. We walked until we found a prime spot at the top of one of the bridges and decided to wait there for the fire to begin. We were able to watch gondolas going up and down while we waited. 

When the sun had set a small boat came down the canal with a woman sitting on the front with fire on the tips of her fingers. She was dancing around and soon began to light each of the 100 braziers. 

We walked around a bit after the lighting until Russell announced he had to go to the bathroom. We frantically walked to the nearest building that might possibly have a restroom and were in luck. After a quick stop we decided to call it a night and head home. We still had a long walk ahead of us which is mainly uphill. The final hill is a very hard one to walk up and by the time we got in our door we were all ready to collapse, but opted to have a bowl of chocolate ice cream instead. 

It is so exciting to walk to the farmers market and a have a huge selection of fresh items. Fruits, vegetables, breads, cheeses, herbs, baked goods. The most exciting for me was the seafood. Lobster, clams, oysters, and fish. They looked and smelled great. Not sketchy like you might be envisioning. I know when I think of a man selling seafood from his truck I don't get a nice picture. But now I will think differently after seeing this.  We came home with bags full of cucumbers, onions, a rainbow of different tomatoes, radishes, apples and basil. The one thing we wanted so very badly, but could not stomach the price....sweet corn. When we were in Wisconsin we bought a dozen for $2.00 from kids along side the road. Today grown men wanted $7.00 for a dozen!! We will stick to our frozen bag of corn. 

Slowly boxes are disappearing from our rooms. Things are being put away and it is feeling like home. We are comfortable walking almost anywhere now, have found a great park which even has a story time in the afternoon, have made friends with the neighbor kids and have meet some of the adults on the street. The people on our street are very nice but NOISY!! That is what I have to get used to the most. The noise. I want to pull my hair out most evenings when the older kids get to talking outside our living room windows. Last night we listened to them as they were trying to master a trick on a bike. One kid was doing the riding and the others were cheering him on and screaming with joy when he finally did it right (over and over and over again!). It was entertaining to listen to and RC and I did find ourselves glancing at each other and laughing from time to time, but I look forward to quiet, bitterly cold winter nights when no one is interested in leaving the comfort of their own home. 

Our trip East was quite uneventful. This is a good thing when you are traveling with 2 small kids. We started our trip in Wisconsin and with the help of some gifts from grandparents the boys were excited to get in the car and start driving. They were each given several "presents" to keep them occupied in the car and it worked!

We made it to Toledo, Ohio with no problems and no huge emotional meltdowns. We made it to our hotel and crashed on a king size bed for all 4 of us. The boys slept great it seemed. As far as R.C. and I go, well, we could have done without little feet kicking us in the stomach and throat all night long. Yes...I did say feet kicking the throat. Not a good feeling to wake up to in the middle of the night. 

We were up and on the road by 7:30 am the next day. We were all quite excited since we were staying in Niagara Falls and would get to spend a good part of the day outside of the car. We arrived at our hotel around 2:30 pm and found that a trolly could pick us up outside our hotel and take us right to the falls. GREAT! Russell and Maxwell were both impressed at the amount of water and how noisy the rushing water is. Max especially enjoyed mimicking the water sound and chasing seagulls. Russell was certain that a brontosaurus could drink all that water in one day. 

After several hours of walking we stopped for a quick ice cream treat. The boys enjoyed their ice cream cone, but I think R.C. enjoyed his the most. 

When we woke up in the morning we were on the road to Albany, NY to visit family and spend the night. We had a very nice cookout and were able to meet several family members we had not met before. This was by far the best sleep we had on the entire trip. The next morning we would be on our last leg to our new home. 

We only had to drive 3 1/2 hours that day and arrived in Providence, Rhode Island around lunch time. The boys were thrilled to see their toys and books again. They had a delicious peanut butter and jelly sandwich on their bedroom floor while we tried to unpack the car. 

An assortment of pictures that recap a good summer before heading East. 

It was a stressful summer with planning a move, packing, saying goodbye, weeding as many of our possessions out of our collection as possible to make the move "lighter",  and trying to organize for the year ahead. We tried to keep things "normal" for the boys so they wouldn't get too scared, so they had a stress free summer. Lucky boys!  For weeks we had no real "home". RC and Melissa were on the East coast trying to find an apartment, Russell and Max were in Wisconsin and our belongings were in New York. We then found an apartment and moved our things in. Then our situation changed to the four of us in Wisconsin and our belongings in Rhode Island.  It is a relief to finally be united with our things and our boys. Although everyone is missed very much! 

The adventures begin!! This might not be the most exciting blog you have ever read, but I assure you there will be cute little boy pictures. 

Join us on our adventure!!