Chase-Salerno Family Events

This week, we welcomed four new hermit crabs into their new crabitat: Racecar 7, Soccer, Spotty, and Krabs. We picked them up this weekend, and three of them moved around a lot before settling in, the fourth (Racecar 7) hasn’t done much and lost a claw this morning. We’ve been reading up like crazy on what to do, and like everything, there’s plenty of conflicting advice to sort through.

It reminds me of when we brought Declan home from the hospital, and the next day he got hiccups. I went out of my mind trying to figure out how to help this infant whose hiccups sounded bigger than he was, while Mike looked on and said, aw, he looks fine. It’s like that with the crabs. I sat in front of the tank for a long time this morning waiting for Mike to come back home and offer ideas as to how to best help Racecar 7. Mike dipped him in some freshwater and saltwater, and the crab moved around, but now he’s staying put again.

The others are all either partially or entirely buried in the sand, apparently “destressing” after the move from the pet store and wherever they came from before that. Anyway, it’s kind of a low-key adjustment period as we learn more about crabs (like the fact that hermits are nocturnal) and they get used to their new home. Two of them have painted shells (Racecar 7 has a black and white checkered flag and a number 7 on him; Soccer is painted like a soccer ball) and two have natural shells. Declan’s pretty frustrated that they could change shells on him, but maybe they’ll hold onto them for a while.

Maintaining the proper temperature and humidity levels is a little challenging. Hermit crabs breathe with gills, so they are land creatures but need a warm, moist environment to breathe properly. We’ve been feeding them hermit crab food, but I don’t know if they’ve eaten any yet. I’m looking forward to feeding them other stuff and adding cool elements to their crabitat over time. But for now, we’re just hoping they get used to things and start moving around again soon!

Here’s a shot of D helping Mike to prepare the crabitat for our new crabby friends. I’d show you a shot of the actual crabs, but they’re all hidden either inside the log or under the sand. : )

We were so happy to meet up with Olin for a short playdate this week. He’s been sick for weeks and is finally feeling better!

Here’s a shot of D at Lego class. It was a five-week series which ended on Thursday.

Quinny didn’t nap during Lego class like she normally does, and she had fun doing Legos, too!

Here she is in the playroom while Declan finished class.

We went out for a short geocache jaunt on Sunday afternoon at at nearby park. Here’s D leading the way with the GPS.

Bingo! We found the treasure!

This was literally one of the fullest, most wonderfully abundant weeks of my life. Every day held something unique and special, so I included extra pix.

Monday, Declan and I went ice-skating with buddies Callie and Abby. Turned out D outgrew his skates (on the hunt for more!) and had to rent this time, and they only had single-blades in his size. No problem! He is starting to get the hang of it and had loads of fun – we can’t wait to visit the rink again soon!

Tuesday, I met up with two friends from Linton High School, Lisa Wells and Karen (Schaefer) Bunch. Lisa lives in Denmark with her husband Finn and was visiting the US for 10 days, so we all got together for dinner. It was a wonderful, nurturing, amazing evening. I considered each of them friends back in school, but we weren’t especially close. Our mini-reunion transcended all of that – it felt like a new beginning as we bonded in a new, deep way.

Wednesday, I found out that my business made the front page of a local weekly newspaper, Ulster County Press (no pix here, but two in the article!). They did a story about my Wyld Acres “Food Bank Barter” program, which is an opportunity for my clients to “pay” in food next month, all of which will be donated to local food banks. The program is already inspiring other businesses to do the same! Neat way to celebrate WA’s one-year anniversary! Also on Wednesday, Mike and I got to hear Dave Barry (humor columnist) speak at SUNY New Paltz. We laughed so hard, my face hurt at the end of the talk. Have I told you lately how much I love living here??!!

Thursday, Declan and I spent the day in New York City taking in Cirque De Soleil’s “Wintuk” performance at Madison Square Garden. It was INCREDIBLE!! We got discount tickets through a homeschool group buy and had unbelievable seats just a few rows away from the front. Declan was riveted the entire time watching how-did-they-do-that?! feats across the stage, and we were the last to leave as he frolicked in the paper snowflakes that dazzled the audience at the end. Meanwhile, Quinny enjoyed her extended one-on-one visit at Gemma and Papa’s house.

Friday, we left for a weekend away in Connecticut while Mike got certified as an NRA pistol instructor. Saturday, the kids and I took in Mystic Seaport, which was a blast! Sunday, we spent the day at the fabulous Children’s Museum in Niantic. Then after Mike finished class, we completed our first Geocache search with our new GPS unit.

Things are pretty back-to-normal from here on out. : )

D teaches himself to ice skate on single-blades!

E’s mini-reunion-meet-up, LHS class of ’87

D and his good buddy wearing matching Cirque hats at the performance.

Pure delight with the paper snowstorm finale!

“Penny Madness” is what Declan called this fun activity at the Children’s Museum.

Daddy and Declan checking out the GPS coordinates for our first Geocache find!

Taking in the seaside sights at “Hole In The Wall” Beach walkway.

We began the week celebrating Gemma’s and Grandma’s (upcoming) birthdays. Before he even knew their birthdays were coming up, D decided he wanted to make birdhouses for each of them. Just because. He and Mike sawed, nailed, and sanded two beautiful birdie abodes, wrapped them up, and presented them proudly. During the visit, Grandpa got up close and personal with one of our chickens. Like (grand)father, like (grand)son!

I’m finally at the point where I don’t weep every time I think about President-elect Obama’s recent historic victory. Now I just cry when I hear *other* people talk about him. Can’t wait until Inauguration Day! For most of our babysitters, it was their first time voting. I’ve never felt more inspired, hopeful, accountable, and…Fired Up! Ready To Go!

D puts the finishing touches on the birdhouses.

Erica features her very first homemade apple pies during the birthday celebrations.

Grandpa and a chicken. (Maybe he can squeeze an egg out of it – the hens *still* aren’t laying…)

Declan and a chicken. (Different day. Just pointing out that it’s funny they both do this.)

Mike and the kids made a visit to Gemma and Papa’s house while I had clients this weekend. During lunch, Quinn ate most of Papa’s plate (which had the same food as Quinn’s), and he fed her ice cream for dessert. Here she is, making a face with Papa, probably saying “Hey – more ice cream!!”

This was the best Halloween ever! Declan is old enough to anticipate the celebration of Halloween, he isn’t overwhelmed by the New Paltz Halloween crowds or wacky costumes, and he has the stamina to do plenty of trick-or-treating! Quinn had a great time too, especially way up high on Daddy’s shoulders, bending down to pick up her treats at each house.

We began Halloween day in honor of Frankenstein, by hosting a homeschooling “Take Apart Day” gathering. It was an opportunity for kids to come over and unscrew and take apart various donated appliances, including phones, VCR’s, and printers. I’d read about this idea on a homeschooling mailing list and I decided to try it. It was an absolute blast!! As each layer of the appliance was revealed, it was so exciting to dig in and get to the next layer, checking out circuit boards, wires, motors, etc., etc. In a couple of our appliances, we could actually see the source of their “brokenness” such as the stash of DVD’s we discovered stuffed into one of the VCR’s.

After Take Apart Day ended, we went to Gemma and Papa’s house with flowers and well-wishes to help celebrate her birthday. Happy Birthday, Gemma!

From there, we headed to gymnastics, followed by some Rosendale trick-or-treating. With the evening still young, we returned to New Paltz for even more trick-or-treating along with lots of great costumes and music. It was all wonderful. Can’t wait until next year!

Our two trick-or-treaters: D as Red Power Ranger, Q as frog (same as D when he was 2 yrs.)

Here’s D, age 2 (few months younger than Q in this shot)…

…and Q (2.5 yrs.)

Take Apart Day 2008!

Quinn in Sal’s lap taking apart a phone.

Happy Birthday Gemma!

We were disappointed to reschedule our trip to Cape May this week, but it gave us lots of time for more Legos, playdates, and Halloween fun! Feel better soon, Gemma!

Lego class

Schedules make it impossible to have social night every week like we used to, but we managed to do it on Saturday. Here’s a shot of Quinn, Norah, Luca, and Declan on a mission to make the biggest Play-Doh ball in America!

Luca loved giving Quinn tractor rides.

Boo! The kids had a blast trick-or-treating in the dorms at SUNY New Paltz.

Go! Go! Power Rangers!

Holding Daddy’s hand at the Halloween parade while pretending to be a cat who likes to fetch.

Vote!

This week….our goldfish died, we’re not sure what happened there. Snail is still alive. Every couple of days we’re sure it’s dead because it’s just lying on the bottom, then the next day it’s fine. “Think I’m dead once, shame on me….think I’m dead twice, shame on you!”

Declan began a Lego class at our friend’s house, which was loads of fun. The theme is “transportation troubles” and the kids like assembling the various vehicles, etc. By the way, D is actually a size *6* so forget what I said last week about size 5. Size 5 was SO last week.

On Sunday, we hosted our first neighborhood gathering of families with young children, “DuBois Road Buddies.” I’ve sniffed out all of these families on our road, around ten of us, and invited them over for a seasonal craft, snack, playtime, and regular meet and greet. The weather was beautiful, and the families that came seemed to have a good time. I host so many different groups of people, it finally occurred to me to create something around the kids who live right on our own street!

I’m taking the kids to Cape May for a few days this week to meet up with Gemma and Papa down there.

D and Liv using the pole-picker to reach the apples at the top of our tree. All told, we got around 250 pounds of amazing organic Cortland apples from our tree. We picked every single one! libertyviewfarm.biz

Q gets cozy with the baby goats at the farm!

Painting gourds with Liv.

Something we’ve been doing a lot of lately – making cider!

This girl loves to sing and dance!

Sometimes I think the hardest part of doing this blog is coming up with the titles. Anyway, off we go.

1. Toast – Quinny made her own toast this week, then buttered it all by herself. Awesome! And none of it ended up in the fish tank! ; )
As an update to our snail saga, the snail is still alive but we had to move it out of the goldfish bowl since Goldie kept nipping at it. Poor thing.
2. Friends – We had buddy Cianan over this week and had lots of fun playing, baking apple crisp, and making lip balm from one of those cool http://www.creativityforkids.com/ kits. I love getting to know my friends’ kids, and having known many of them since they were infants, I feel privileged to witness them growing and changing, as they learn to walk, talk, and lose first teeth! Having them over for long playdates is a great way for us to spend the day.
3. Halloween Party – We had a great time hosting a Halloween Party this weekend, and the weather was gorgeous! Some of my friends ribbed me about it being too early in the month for coming up with costumes for the kids, but everyone was in the Halloween spirit anyway.
We had tons of play-doh and tools/accessories, a juicer for the kids to make fresh homemade cider, yummy snacks, including the popular Mummy Thumbs (“Pigs In A Blanket” any other time of year!), and Mike got the huge harness/swing up and running for the kids.

I also set up some gross things for them to touch: Eyes of Newt (2 peeled grapes); Monster Egg (kiwi fruit); Witch’s Hair (cold molded spaghetti); and Ghostly Guts (purple, red, and blue jello mixed together). Declan really wanted us to offer this in concept, but it seems our group was a little young for this. The kids don’t like to be blindfolded yet, and they don’t want to stick their hands in a box where they can’t see the contents. So it was all very intentional, I talked to kids individually as they came over to see what it all was. I had open boxes with the contents visible, with a little sign on top of each one. I showed a kid the gross thing, told them what it was, they’d look at it and say something like, “That’s just spaghetti.” I said, “I know, but close your eyes and feel it now!” and they all thought it was disgusting. Perfect! 🙂

Q makes breakfast for herself.

Declan and Ci prep for making apple crisp.

The Michelin Girl improvises a costume during the Halloween party.

D makes his bat craft fly away!

This year I decided to be a wood fairy.

And Mike is a lumberjack, complete with axe (he didn’t carry it around during the party, but it’s all painted and the edge is taped, looks great!), ostensibly to cut down my fairy tree. He’s going “method” this week and not shaving, so he’ll have some beard to complete the look for the Halloween party we’re attending next weekend. Here he’s standing with D (a Power Ranger) in the harness for the big tree swing.

Just took a look at the holding tank with our deceased water critters in it awaiting burial, and we discovered that THE SNAIL WAS ATTACHED TO THE SIDE OF THE GLASS! Snail-y is alive!! Now Goldy-the-Goldfish’s roommate. Of course Goldy is the FREE fish D got at one of the baseball games he attended this summer, so s/he should live forever! ; )

BTW, pix were edited into the bike-riding post if you want to check them out.

Yippee! So exciting! Declan got better and better at stabilizing and eventually rode his bike all around the circle of our driveway. He’d asked about trying it a few weeks ago, then last week he and Mike practiced a couple of evenings, and today he got it! Papa happened to be here and got to see him ride, and we sent Mike a picture via phone to hold him over until he got home from work to see it himself! Amazing! I screamed and hugged D so hard after his first lap, and he was like, “M-o-mmmmmm….”

Also amazing – Quinn dumped three entire containers of fish food in our tank, and when I saw what had happened, she was so proud of herself, “Mommy, the fish are eating!!” What a good helper! : )

I thought a celebration was in order for our big day and made a chocolate mayonnaise cake for all of us, complete with lots of candles to blow out. Check back tomorrow for pix of all of this – I’ll edit them in.

HERE ARE THE PIX —

D and I gave it a valiant effort, but we woke up to bad news anyway – RIP our three fish and snail.

Setting up our celebration cake.

Blowing out the candles. Just because. : )

D is excited that he was able to teach himself how to snap this week, and on both hands! Hooray!

Quinn and I closed out our gluten/casein-free diet last Friday and had pizza and Freihofer chocolate chip cookies for the first time in months! (Reflections on that in my KitchenOrTheEgg.com blog.) It’s nice to be back to our normal meal choices, but I am also glad to be more aware about our family’s preferred foods and snack/tendencies and to use a wider variety of grains/less dairy in our routine.

I took Quinn for a haircut at my friend’s house, who is a stylist with a salon in her home. Quinn screamed, struggled, and pushed away whenever Stephanie got near her, so it was a no-go. But Declan seemed interested and curious. Turns out Declan agreed to a trim for his dead ends, then after it was finished, he asked for her to make it shorter. Eventually, over a course of four haircuts, he declared it “finished” and now has a cute shag that he’s happy with.

Finally, my annual update for folks who have been asking, Q is a size 4T, size 8.5-9 shoes, and Declan is a size 5-6 now, size 1 shoe. She loves all things Dora, Diego, Max & Ruby, Play-Doh, anything alphabet-related, cats, dogs, bunnies, and chocolate milk. D loves all things related to building/constructing, superheroes, gymnastics, and creating stuff in our kitchen, from bubble gum to volcanoes.

Quinn surprised us with an impromptu performance after dinner.

D loves to make pancakes/burgers/Krabby Patties. His favorite part is the flipping.

Mum’s the word!
Gemma clipped some mums for Quinn from her garden. Some of them actually survived toddler-grip and made it home to our kitchen table!

Taking a hayride at Country Charm Farm, right on our road!