happy mother's day... in sweden...

so, on the actual US mother's day. i was sick. to my stomach. ugh.

caleb and i had plans to hang out in boston together. we had a babysitter lined up. but then i was sick. so i cancelled. quite anti-climatic and not what i was expecting for my "first" mother's day.

so we rescheduled our date in the city. we rescheduled it this past sunday. i know, everyone leaves the city for memorial day. except us. we went into the city. and it happened to be mother's day in sweden. fitting, eh?

well, i didn't end up capturing any pictures IN boston. i wanted to get sandwiches at some small sandwich shop and walk boston taking pictures but i didn't know that's what i wanted to do (more on that in a minute). we ended up having lunch at stephanie's on newbury. have you heard of the place? it's yummy. i had french toast. caleb had a cobb salad. we sat outdoors. we people watched. we talked about architecture and church. we talked a little bit about being parents. then i realized i wished we hadn't eaten at stephanie's on newbury. not for any other reason than i wanted to walk boston w/caleb, my camera and some sandwiches and snap shots of life happening on a sunday afternoon. now i know. so next time we won't eat at a fancy newbury street restaurant. we'll find a hole-in-the-wall sandwich shop somewhere in back bay, north end or somewhere else. we'll bring our cameras. we'll eat our sandwiches on a bench in a park and snap pictures of life as we see it. that's our next date. hopefully before caleb leaves for india.

ok, well, i promise. that wasn't complaining about mother's day. caleb and i had a date. it was beautiful weather in a beautiful city. sam was with my friend sam having a grand old time in a grand old city. life is good.

after boston, we drove to ipswich. we used to live there. i LOVE ipswich. i miss it. i miss my crane's beach sticker. i miss russell orchards being 5 minutes from our place. i miss walking to the train to go to boston. i miss walking to the library, to the bank, to the market. i miss the neck (those of you who know ipswich, know the neck). i miss our walks along the ipswich river. i miss bradley palmer being close. heck, i sometimes even miss the long windy drive down 1A.

anyway, we went to strawberry hill in ipswich. with sam. we had fun. walking. taking pictures. carrying sam. showing sam strawberry hill:

hanging from trees

chewing grass

 

sitting on rocks.

note: sam representing caleb's alma mater thanks kim :)

 he loved it all.

 

we ended the day with ice-cream at downriver in essex.

as you can see, sam loved the spoons. and maybe there was a hint of ice-cream on the spoon.
overall, a fabulous day with my fabulous husband and happy-go-lucky little boy.

i'm a mom.
more on that later...
on that note, some more pictures.

timed shot w/our camera sitting on a rock

crawling around on strawberry hill

walking back sam gets a plane ride through the grass

Can I have a cookie?

So before "alpine" was born I had all kinds of "ideas" on the way he should be raised...
Key word: HAD
One of those ideas was no sugar until he turns one.
Well today on my lunch break I was feeding Sam egg yolk & asparagus (I promise he likes it) and I reached for an M&M cookie. Well, as I reached for it - so did Sam!
As if to say, "mooooommmmm! Why do you get the yummy cookie and I get veggies & eggs?" then he proceeded to stare longingly at my cookie. (note: he does eat well, he pretty much gobbles up everything I give him)
So I caved and gave him the cookie and wished him "happy eight months" and told him not to expect this as regular treatment.




Baby sam, I'm glad you are alive. You brighten my life. Your eyes are full of wonder. Today as you crawled on the porch outside just staring at the rain, I caught a glimpse of the world through your eight month old lens. Thank you for your giggles, your smiles, your conversations, your sense of adventure and for teaching me to approach life from a different point of view.

Sam eating the cookie on camera...
Ps- I took a huge bite BEFORE I gave it to him and much to Sam's dismay I took the cookie away from him after the video.

an adventure for sam

One of sam's favorite places is the playground.
He loves:
1) the swings
2) the slide
3) the wood chips on the ground
4) the steering wheel - as pictured below :)




Sam is such an adventurer. The moment we step out of our door he perks up as if to say: "We are going somewhere. Our adventure begins. Hooray for new explorations outside our house."

Maybe it's in his blood... His mom & dad's "first date" was snowboarding. After that our "dates" consisted of hiking, rock climbing, biking, picture dates (grabbing our cameras & going to a park to take pictures), rollerblading, walks, and eating dessert at the cheesecake factory... Maybe someday I'll type our "love story". For now we'll talk about my other love - Sam.



Ready for yet another adventure... Fishing with grandpa!

weekend celebration

squeezin mamma

mmm... beets are yummy & messy!

eating my toes... tasty

playing in a box w/grandma

peek-a-boo!

 I have not uploaded photos from this weekend, above are a few randoms from the past month...

We drove to Connecticut to celebrate Caleb's grandparent's 60th wedding anniversary. What an incredible story. They married when Henry was 21 and Lucille was 18. Our son Samuel's middle name is Henry after his grandfather and great-grandfather. It was an intimate family celebration at Caleb's uncle's house, and the house deserves a blog post in itself. It was built in 1750 and holds so much history. We got a tour of the "compound". The home was once where Yale students had class when the British invaded New Haven Harbor. If only the walls could talk.
Back to the celebration - Caleb's aunts, uncles, cousins, parents, siblings, nieces and nephew were there for the celebration. We had dinner & dessert together and just had fun hanging out. Caleb's family hasn't seen much of Sam so he was passed from aunt, to uncle, to cousin, and back. Sam was a happy and smiley baby the whole day, until the end when he passed out in Caleb's arms.
It was great to be able to celebrate 60 years as a married couple. That's a feat seldom found these days.
Maybe I can get a few pictures up later.

Sunday we visited Calvary Christian Church, Caleb's former employer. Sam was in such a good mood and enjoyed meeting Caleb's former coworkers and parishioners. Hopefully we can visit again.

Today Sam and I went for a walk with some of my friends, Heather & Robin and with Sam's friends, Owen & Judah. Sam loves his stroller and talked away as we walked around the neighborhood. At the end of the walk I let Sam play on the playground. His favorite part was the swing and sitting in the wood-chips!! He's so fast, as soon as I put him down, he puts his fist to the ground, picks up wood-chips, sticks, leaves, dirt and puts it in his mouth... it was hard to capture on camera b/c I was worried he would choke since most of those items were of choking sizes. Oh well.

Tomorrow we head out on an adventure - Western Mass to stay with my sister-in-law for the night, Malvern, PA to visit with a college friend who had a baby girl one month after Sam was born, Washington DC to visit Shannon and Behr another college friend and her baby boy, Hershey, PA to visit Sadie - we miss her, she just moved from the North Shore, Wyomissing, PA to visit family friends, and then to the Cape to work and finally back home to Hamilton. It's going to be an eventful, whirlwind trip, but I'm looking forward to vacation after a busy work season.

This evening Caleb was working, so I made some baby food for Sam, yeah, exciting I know...
I found a recipe in a magazine, tried it one time and Sam LOVES it. It's called fruit soup.

FRUIT SOUP
approximately 1 ice-cube tray
1 ripe banana
strawberries (maybe 1-2 cupes)
pineapple (1/8-1/4 of cut up pineapple)
1/2 cup water

Put all ingredients into a pot and cook on medium high for 5-6 minutes or until all fruit is soft.
Strain fruit over a bowl, keeping the juice. Pour the fruit into a blender or food processor and add some of the juice. Add as much or little juice as you want. Pour the fruit puree into an ice-cube tray and freeze. Serve 1 or 2 cubes after a meal.
*If you have left over "juice" you can mix it with rice cereal for a delish treat. Sam loved it. Sorry I don't have any pictures of the process...

and a few obligatory pics :)

hanging out on Grandpa's reindeer skin

ooooohh... the mirror is fun!

hi Sam!

kissing the mirror.

I just LOVE this little boy!!

sam and the glass

so i told caleb i was against the sippy cup. no real reason, i just thought it was silly to use a sippy cup and i didn't want a bunch of plastic cups taking over our cabinets. i told him we would start sam with a regular cup.  and so i gave him a coke glass, which he found amusing... and dropped on the floor. i let him explore further... which you'll see in the pictures. ridiculous i know.

these make me smile.

thanks caleb for documenting :)

love you. and sam.

giving him water in his "coke" glass

a little love for baby sam

love how his mouth looks like the Joker!

mom, oops. i dropped it. can we get it? pretty please?

sam goes after the glass...

getting closer

he got it.

dad, dad, i got the glass!

but woops, it's stuck...

who? me?

ok, i've lost interest in the glass... let's move on to the highchair!

hi dad! do you have to document EVERYTHING?

ok. well, i guess i'll look happy.

mmm... tasty high chair.

it's beginning to look a lot like christmas...

and we have our tree...

sam joined us cutting down the tree...

i have yet to upload the pics, so the picture of the tree must suffice.

and i LOVE the instagram app on my iphone.

it's HOW i got this gorgeous picture!

sam has two "first" ornaments - a picture frame and a tomte (sitting at the top of the tree with a white beard)

Happy 30th Anniversary

Mom & Dad

30 years

what a milestone



Dad & Sam w/the ducks; John Hancock Tower; Mormor, Mom, Sara & Sam; Dad & Sam in Boston Common; Mom, Dad & Sam; Mom & Sam; a view of Boston; Mom & Dad

 THIRTY years ago today my parents were newly-weds.

 they have been such an inspiration and role model to me - both as a child and now as an adult.

let me share a little bit about my parents and how they met. please note: this is the cliff notes version. :)

my dad spent his junior year of college in sweden as an exchange student. he met my mom in one of his classes. they became friends (my mom had recently returned from studying in the states and wanted to keep up her english, so she befriended the american lad). they spent a lot of time together at school, hanging out, playing sports, and enjoying sweden. my mom invited him home to her family and he was able to experience the swedish culture even more. they backpacked europe together and then worked for one summer in sweden. my dad came back to the states and realized he met the woman of his dreams. he decided to go to sweden over christmas break of his senior year and ask my mom to marry him. when over there, he did propose and my mom said yes. they decided to get married the following year. my dad came back to the states and graduated college, my mom came to the states in july and they were married in october. there's much more to the story, but we don't have time today...

it's hard work to get everyone happy and looking at the camera

sam's at least not crying here...

a few memories...

growing up my parents would exercise by running together in the mornings and then we would take family walks around the neighborhood in the evenings.

sunday was family day - we would go to church, come home, have a big family dinner and hang out together: go for a walk, go to the beach, go biking or swimming, watch football, play games, relax, watch movies, basically spend time together. growing up, i didn't think it was anything special, but as i got older, i began to appreciate our sunday family day.

my parents made sure we ate together every night at 6pm. of course sports, school activities, work and other events interferred occasionally, but we could always count on dinner at 6pm. we would let mom know in advance if we weren't going to be home for dinner. "mom, i won't be home for dinner, but can you save me some?" was a request in response to missing dinner. friends would joke about eating dinner at the macdonald's house - apparently it was something akin to a comedy act, maybe it still is...

these days, family dinner is farther and fewer between, i'm married living away from home, one brother is out and about doing his thing, the next brother is gallavanting around the world and the youngest is in college in florida... needless to say, looking forward to christmas when EVERYONE will be together (my world travelling brother comes in a few days before christmas)

i have digressed from the original topic...

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY to my wonderful fabulous kind loving caring parents!!!!

you worked hard to take care of us kids AND keep your marriage in tact. there is something to be said about spending 30 years with the same person. thank you for being you, for being great role models, for supporting us, for loving jesus, for providing us with memories for many many years. i love you both and can only pray caleb and i will be able to have a similar partnership in marriage as you have.

sam hanging w/Grandpa and the baby duck

sam enjoying a sunday in boston

a crowd was gathering to see the little baby on the baby duck :)

yesterday we celebrated my parents anniversary at Toscano in Boston. it came highly recommended and we weren't disappointed. my mom and dad, mormor, grandmother, uncle tim, caleb, sam and i were all there. my dad had a great time showing sam around boston. (earlier in the week, sam spent time w/my mom and mormor - more on that later - so sam spent most of the day in my dad's arms)

mom and sam

she loves her grandson

dad and his grandson sam