Birthday Weekend

I had a great birthday weekend of time with family and visiting some of the New England sites. Jamie made a great birthday “cake” made from cake pops: cake mixed with icing and dipped in white chocolate.

For dinner we went to Bugaboo Creek Steak house where I had one of the best steaks I’ve had in years. It was great because they have animatronic animals that say things every once in a while which Eli loved. (It reminded me of Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy where the cow comes out and recommends portions of himself to the guests at the Restaurant at the end of the Universe.)

On Sunday we went to Newburyport for their Fall festival (though it was more of an art festival than fall festival) where we enjoyed walking around viewing overpriced “art”.

Elijah was a trooper as he chilled in his stroller the whole time. In the below picture we caught him a classic model pose.

Monday we played in the leaves…

 

 

and carved a pumpkin (in the shape of a truck in honor of Elijah’s passion in life)…

 

Saturday mornings at Essen

Most Saturday mornings find us up early, thanks to our little rooster!  We load Elijah into the stroller, or lately he climbs in himself and announces “wah” (walk, in case you’re not used to phonetic toddler talk!)  We head to downtown Manchester-by-the-sea to a beautiful little coffee shop called Essen for the most amazing coffee, fresh bagels, breakfast sandwiches, and pastries…

 

Everyone who works there knows Elijah by name, and he jumps up and down in the stroller when he sees them.  It’s fun to be regulars in a place, where they know your order!  Elijah sits in a highchair and waves at the people who come in, looks out the windows at the passing trains, and devours his bagel.

 

Though these were taken last Saturday, we are celebrating David’s birthday today, and enjoyed his birthday breakfast at Essen!    We’ll be having steak tonight!

   

After breakfast we walk down to the harbour and check out the boats and ducks.  There is a lady who comes nearly every day to feed the ducks, and some of them eat straight out of her hand! As a result, the ducks are very friendly.

 

The Manchester-by-the-sea police boat!

The train track. Elijah gets so excited when he sees a train coming.

We often walk up to the beach.  As the weather gets cooler, we take walks on the beach (no swimming any more!)  We were amazed to see the fog  and high waves of a storm coming.

developing sense of humour

I love watching Elijah’s sense of humour develop.  Today in the car he was yelling “cracker!” (well, according to my friend Stephanie he has a Boston accent.  He says “crackah!”) and laughing.  I handed him another cracker without looking back.  Right away he yelled “cracker!” and laughed again.  I turned around to see that he had stuck his cracker between his toes and was holding it there.  He thought it was hilarious, and I did, too.  I love watching what he finds funny.

beatboxing baby

Elijah likes to dance.  David sings him made-up hip-hop songs, and Elijah dances along (“All the babies in the house put your hands in the air, put your hands in the air…”)  And since Elijah loves noise, and loves making noise, a favorite is beatboxing with Daddy (you know, “verbal percussion” made by putting your hands in fists over your mouth…)

The other day we were on the Lexington Green when a car drove by, top down, rap music blaring.  Elijah turned and looked at the car, put his hands to his mouth in fists, and started bopping up and down, beat-boxing to the music.  David and I roared with laughter.

The woman beside me was talking on her phone and I heard her say, “I can’t remember what I was going to say.  A car drove by blaring music, and there’s this baby dancing to it.  It’s the cutest thing I’ve seen…”

I had to agree with her!

small group beach day

Enjoying the last warm days at the beach with our small group by having a picnic!

 

Swan Boats in the Boston Public Garden

We really love these “Make Way for Duckling” statues… Elijah now runs and “rides” them, bouncing up and down and yelling “quack quack!”  We park right next to them for church, which explains the abundance of pictures we have of them!

Walking through the Public Garden we saw that this was the last day of the Swan boats for the season, so we decided to take advantage and go for a ride.  I’d been several times, Elijah and I had been, but David had never ridden a swan boat.  We fixed that!  

Here’s our family portrait by the swan boats… and how fitting that I’m holding a Starbucks cup…  There’s one on nearly every corner.  They say you can pretty much have a continuous cup of coffee… that if you buy a cup of coffee and start walking in Boston’s downtown, by the time you finish it, there’ll be another coffee shop ready for you to buy your next!

 

One of our favorite views of Boston… We love the mix of architectures and nature.  It’s one of my favorite things about Boston.

 

Squinting in the sun and trying to get the perfect self-portrait… see we really are on the boats!

 

Elijah kept signing “boat,” “bird” and “water!”

Boston Pops on the Common

To celebrate their 125th anniversary, the Boston Pops gave a free concert on the Boston Common last Sunday.
They performed the favorites, including those by the previous conductor John Williams… you know… Star Wars… Harry Potter… A new song was a tribute to the Kennedy brothers, a very moving number with an actor reading some of their most inspiring quotations in a remarkable imitation of their voices.
 
It was packed!

Elijah loved the live music, of course, and danced and jumped.  He even was filmed for the evening news, though we didn’t catch it.
He’s still a little unstable on his feet, though!

He clutched his piece of bagel for most of the night, and he thinks he’s a hot shot now that he can drink without a sippy cup.

Conductor Keith Lockhart knows how to please this crowd… He pulled out his Red Sox jersey and the Pops performed favorites, like “Take Me Out to the Ballgame,” “Sweet Caroline” (sung at the 8th inning stretch of every game at Fenway Park) and the Dropkick Murphy’s “I’m Shipping up to Boston” (the 2004 World Series’ theme song… made famous by closer Jonathan Papelbon doing an Irish jig on the pitching mound when they won!)  

They ended the show with Stars and Stripes forever, and we all marched and danced our way out of the Commons just as it started to rain!

backwards words

My theory is that sometimes Elijah is repeating the sound he hears last, first, and so is flipping the word.  Maybe it's just for words that start with vowel sounds?  It’s pretty cute!

Exchange 1:

Elijah: Puh?  Puh?
Me: Up?
Elijah: (nodding with relief and a little laugh, arms reaching up): PUH!!

Exchange 2:

Me: Elijah!  See the doggie? What does the dog say?
Elijah: Fwuuh, fwuuh.
Me: Woof woof?
Elijah: (nodding and pointing at the dog) Fwuuh, fwuuh.

Apple Cider Donuts

After getting a taste (well more like a dozen tastes) of the apple cider donuts from a local farm we decided to pay them another visit. We enjoyed a few more donuts, a live local band that Eli danced to…

an old tractor that Eli enjoyed “driving”…

some farm animals such as ponies, pigs, goats, and chickens…

and an overall good time.

Store Name

Does anybody else think this is a humorous name for a tanning facility?