Beantown

We left early on Friday morning to head to Boston. Nothing to eventful until we hit the Delaware and Jersey boarder where we took a wrong turn and drove in circles and paid tolls twice to figure out where we went wrong. A navigator, I am not. Finally get on the Jersey turnpike and head to NYC. Aileen loved seeing the New York skyline, I was pretty impressed myself. Then we hit the New York traffic. After 2 panic attacks, 3 near accidents, and a want for 4 margarita's we got out of there in one piece. We made it to Boston in 13 hours. The kids did great. The best $200 we ever spent was on DVD players for the car. Get to the hotel and my dad informs us that we are heading to my uncle's in 15 minutes. Not what we had in mind because that was another 40 minutes in the car. But we went and we had a good time and Aiden enjoyed terrorizing a new house and Aileen and Lauren had a blast playing with Pete's step daughter Ali. Got back to the hotel and we all fell asleep hard. Got up the nest morning and headed to Marblehead where my Grandparents used to live and we would spend summers. My family got to see our old house, the cemetery Stewart and I played in and the school I used to go to. We went down to the pier, had lunch at Maddies (a family institution, every James has worked there at one point or another and my cousins work there now while attending college), went to the lighthouse, then headed to my uncle's for my Dad's party. There was a lot of beer, a lot of people, a ton of food, and more laughter and jokes then should be allowed. I learned things about my dad and uncles as teenagers that is maybe best left unknown (something about a magic bus). We left the party and Stewart took the girls swimming at the hotel pool. Again we crashed hard. Sunday we got up and loaded the truck up again. By this point Aiden was done with the whole get in the truck thing. So the 10 hours home sucked. Aiden whined and fussed (Fletcher did too) the whole way home. We had a great time and really enjoyed seeing everyone again. My godmother held Aiden for a good 2 hours and he loved that, then she stole Fletcher so I was really grateful to have some time with everyone without worrying about what Aiden was into. We are supposed to do it again in November.

Party girls

Today we had a party for Aileen's 10th birthday. 8 girls all dressed to the nines for Aileen's tea party. She choose the whole tea party theme. The made a photo album, played bingo, and acting like 10 year old girls. She cleaned up in the Hello Kitty department. Her absolute favorite gift was a gift from Daddy. It is a Build a Bear Hello Kitty. It says I love you and we got her an outfit for it and Deanna got her jammies for the Kitty. She has not let that thing go since Will gave it to her. I believe the sun rises and sets on him more then it did previously. LOL Here are some pictures of the day.

Also are some pictures of Aiden with his best friend!

My bad

Oops, it has been almost a month since I posted. Life has gotten more hectic, not less so. The girls have started school, Will worked the biggest air show on the eastern seaboard, I broke a finger, and Will got pneumonia. It has been an adventure. Let me go person by person here. Youngest to oldest.

Fletcher - aka Widget. Fletcher has slept thru the night for a week now. By thru the night I mean 11 pm to 5 or 6 am. I am in love with my son! He is cooing and smiling so much more now. He makes faces at daddy (there is picture proof, see). He goes in for his 2 month well baby check tomorrow.

Aiden - aka Bug, Devil, Lucifer (you get the hint). Aiden had his 18 month check up today. He is 24 pounds and 32.5 inches. The doc gave me crap because by there standards he is under weight. Well if you were into trouble 24/7, you would burn all of your calories too. Here is more photo proof. I was cleaning the laundry room, tuned around and found him IN the dryer. Got him out and he proceeded to drink the dogs water, like the dog. He is keeping me on my toes to say the least. We moved him into a toddler bed last night and he is doing great! He points to body parts when he asked (really fascinated with his penis though, the girls were never like this).

Lauren - aka Fairy girl. Lauren is loving school. She is in first grade now and doing great. Not really much to tell about her except she has a pirate tooth *her word* (a silver crown).

Aileen - Aka Bean. She is in fourth grade now and still in the gifted program. On the SOL tests she missed 2 questions ON THE WHOLE TEST!!!!! She surprises me and scares me too. We went to the orthodontist today and it looks like braces will be on before the end of the year. She has 2 of her 4 12 year molars. The ortho told her she is the only kid he has ever seen get her teeth so quickly.

Will - he got to work the Oceana air show this weekend. He loved it the first 2 days (he drove a bus for 13 hours) and was miserable the last. He got pneumonia (we have no clue how that happened) and well they haven't kept him on the same schedule for more then 34 hours. So he is miserable.

Me - With Will working the weekend, I got a bug up my butt and redid the boys room and painted the toddler bed. On the way up the stairs, I slammed the bed into the wall and broke a finger. Ain't I special.