Silly Hat Day

Wednesday was Silly Hat Day at school for Colton. Tuesday after work I watched the boys over at Heidi's so I thought what better to fill our afternoon with than a little arts and crafts. So we all made silly hats that they could decorate and design however they wanted. I have to say it kept them quite busy and entertained so my strategy worked. Colton's had robots, a house, a baseball and the Great Wall of China (I think that was a tribute to my cousin Paul who is currently living in China). Riley's was all sports and a monkey hanging on the tree, along with some funky hair. Brayden wouldn't pose for a picture (what's new?) but we cut out eyes for him and it became a superhero mask which he loved and was running around the house. The mask worked great until he couldn't quite see out of it anymore and Superman ran into the kitchen chair and busted his forehead....ooops.

Scrub a dub dub two kids in a tub...

Colton is a big-kid-shower kind of kid now a days but, he will take any opportunity he can to roll in a dirt pile if it means he can take a tub with his buddy Brayden. They play cars or spiderman for hours in there when we let them. When I say he rolls in dirt I am not joking by the way. We wash his coats weekly because of the abuse, the holes in the knees of the pants are countless and the dirt that gets embedded in his face almost makes me not want a kiss (I will still take one though...dirt and all).

Chicken Marsala...

The Wallbanger and I decided to have a joint birthday party dinner this year. Since we both love chicken marsala it was a no brainer to have Corey cook and I thought it would be nice to go over to his and Zach's place so I didn't have to worry about cleaning and entertaining (I mean it was my bday dinner right?). The whole family was there, dinner was out of this world and the homemade death by chocolate with reece cup fudge frosting cake Heidi made for dessert put us over the edge (what can I say I LOVE chocolate and adding reeces to anything makes me happy). Leighton showed up in her usual diva way. Can you handle the sunglasses? This other picture is of me pretending to be Wally. The black wig, the Marvin the Martian bday balloon (yes, we continue to rip on him because his first tattoo was of Marvin the Martian...oh the regrets of that one but it has provided us years of entertainment). All I was missing was my iphone and Gucci loafers and I would have nailed the part.

Thanks to my family for a wonderful dinner celebration!

End of Season 1...

Hockey is officially over. It actually ended a few weeks ago but the coach had been able to get some free ice time so those that could make it, kept on practicing! Sunday was the last game of the season and so the parents had a chance to get on the ice to take a few pictures of the kids. I can't believe we have spent every Friday night and Sunday morning at an ice skating rink since the end of November! Crazy how time flies when you really enjoy something...I can honestly say we got the biggest kick out of watching the kids play and seeing Colton learn so much from his coaches and peers, at this age they are absolutely adorable. The highlight for me though was yesterday the Coach sent an email out to all the parents (there were about 75 kids who played...so there were a lot of people on this email), just saying what a great season it was and how the kids really learned so much, hope to see you all again on the ice...you get the picture. Well the last part of the email I had to share and pasted below.

I hope your kids had as much fun as I did this year. I have to say, this was probably the best time I've had coaching any sport at any level. I loved going to the rink just to see the smiles on the kids faces every time their skates touched the ice. If USA Hockey is looking to shoot a promotional video they should follow Colton Manorek around on the ice with a video camera and run it on their website 24-7. That kid smiled and laughed every minute of every practice. It was AWESOME!! I don't think anyone had more fun then he did.

Colton may not have been the fastest or scored the most goals but he made me really proud! He didn't mention any other kid but Colton so I was sort of blown away that he would stick out like that. Lesson here is smile more because I think people do notice. :)

If I caught a leprechaun...

This is what came home in Colton's folder last night. He thinks those little bastards are stealing all the gold! So what if he is stealing the gold from the leprechaun and should be locked up too. I think I pissed my pants.

Last night we also saw some major road rage on our way to the gym....it was actually quite scary. Long story short this young pregnant women was out of her car yelling at another women really for no reason and they were throwing f-bombs all over. The music could not be turned up loud enough for the kids to ignore the scene. After they drove away and we started driving I said "those women were being very bad and using very inappropriate language, I am sorry". Colton said "yeah mom she used the f-word a lot and no one wants to marry a girl who talks like that". Really though...pissed my pants again.

Carlos Bakery...

Monday morning we got up and decided we would have pizza for breakfast and pay a visit to the Cake Boss, Carlos Bakery, for some treats to bring home. Colton and I have watched this show plenty of times (we tend to watch all food related shows...man vs. food, best thing I ever ate...) and Nick had told us that the crumb cake was one of his favorites growing up so it was a must. When we had driven by earlier in the weekend the line to get into the store was down the street. Hoping that on a rainy Monday morning the line would be more tolerable, we went for it. Overall the whole experience took about 45 minutes from waiting in line to biting into our first sweet. We walked out with crumb cake, cannolis, cupcakes, lobster tails, almond bark, and one carrot cake cupcake that Colton insisted on. I thought all were really, really good except for the carrot cake. The lobster tails/cannoli were very similar to Mike's so it was hard to really compare because they are both good. The only really pro to the Carlo's lobster tails were that they are small, which is easier to eat, you get even bites of cream and shell and this leaves room for trying other things, the ones at Mike's are so big they actually resemble a real lobster (not a bad problem either but you end up throwing out half the cream). I think Mike's has the better plain cannoli though, Carlo's was good but a tad greasier with a cinnamon aftertaste (don't get me wrong they were good, in fact I liked the additional taste of cinnamon and the grease could be because they were so fresh). The cannoli was actually still good two days later and I think the way to go is to order the chocolate dipped one...crazy delish. Crumb cake...what can I say...if you like CRUMB than this cake is for you, I love crumb so I had this crumbly delight as my dinner last night..SOOO GOOD. The layer of crumb is bigger than Nick's head (that is big). Can't say enough good things about the cupcake too, went for the plain with chocolate frosting to keep it simple. Very moist cake and a fudgey frosting...totally my weakness. In all, some of the best desserts...we need to revisit every trip now. Today I am in detox...no more sweets! After the bakery we went across the street for pizza slices at Impostos where the white pie is my favorite....yummm...real italian pizza...how I love thee. After our breakfast/lunch we hit the road and Colton slept for 4 hours straight (perhaps a food coma). We also came back to a snowy Boston, didn't Mother Nature know it was the first day of Spring?!?!

Statue of Liberty & Ellis Island

When we planned this trip to Jersey we decided we would focus on one touristy thing. Since it is really easy to get to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island from where were staying (right on the waterfront between Hoboken and Liberty State Park) we decided it was a no brainer. I had actually never been to either so this was a big old check off my "to do" list. We took the ferry over and hit Ellis Island first, where we think we found some of my ancestors, but definitely need to go back equipped with more information to really figure it out. The kids sat through the entire 45 min movie of how immigrants came over and what the island was about. Colton sort of got it but kept saying at the end "so they were really old and died from sitting in those seats for so long"...ha...it was a actually a great history lesson for the kids even if they did ask a thousand questions. We walked in every room and checked it all out. It was a warm, sunny day so we could sit outside on the top deck of the ferry making our arrival to Lady Liberty extra special. On the island we were able to walk to the observation pedestal which is a little over 150 stairs. To climb to the crown you have to reserve tickets a good 4-6 months in advance so next time we visit in a few years we will be better prepared. We spent a few hours just playing around and taking our time checking things out and walking around. After the sightseeing we went back to the hotel to freshen up and head into NYC for dinner to meet one of Phil's friends. We went to this little italian place called Lil' Frankies which was delish! When I asked Colton at bedtime what his favorite part of the day was he told me "the hotdog on the boat and the cab ride in the city cause they had a tv and drove fast". I think Brayden enjoyed the day the most though, he LOVES boats, statues, subways and cabs, he also has that NYC attitude...we may have a future New Yorker on our hands, he just sort of fit in. :)

New Jersey here we come...

Saturday we headed to New Jersey for Nick's cousin, Scott's 40th surprise birthday party. Heidi and the family decided to join us and turn the trip into a mini-vacation. The party was at Nick's aunt's bar, Bobby Dee's in Jersey City. It is this little Irish townie bar that has a juke box, arcade games, pool and most important beer! The kids had such a great time picking out songs and playing the video games (hours of photo hunt is sort of educational? who cares...kept them busy and gave me time to enjoy the night...also good practice for college years). There were lots of food/drinks and his aunt even made monkey goodie bags for all the kids. We took a mini-van taxi from our hotel to the bar which the kids thought was super cool. Since the hotel pool closed at 11 I went back around 10 so we could take a quick swim and relax in the hot tub with the kiddos. Aidan came with us also so the boys could hangout a little bit longer. Such a fun night, Happy Birthday Scottie!

Colton and Riley.

We all wore these disguises when Scottie came into the bar!

Nick and Adam

Amanda was Braydens BFF after he found out she like Thomas the Train too!

Julie sneaking in on the picture. :)

The boys playing their arcade games.

Scottie, Colton and Riley

Me and my boys hanging by the juke box.

They requested every Aerosmith song there was.

Me and my baby...must he make those faces every time?!?!

Heidi and Gracie

35...yike-a-roos...

35 is just that much closer to the dreaded 40...but I guess it isn't so bad...I didn't wake up with any extra wrinkles or gray hairs...just the same amount I went to sleep with! It was a warm sunny day in Boston so after work I picked up the boys and took them to my house to play outside. We played a good hour of street hockey and at least an hour of basketball. Colton looked like a drunk sailor he was so tired. Heidi and I made some black n' tans in honor of Saint Patrick's Day and just sat and watched the boys play. For dinner we met Wally, Alicia, Leighton and my mom at Derby to hit Chipoltes (that's what any good Irish bloat with a first name Kelley, born on St. Paddys day would do) and Pinkberry for dessert. Miss Leighton was the cutest little leprechaun I ever saw. It was a really nice night and I hope to be lucky enough to do it all over again next year. Cheers to another year!

Where's the guac?

Love her.

Yeah he made a hat out of his tortilla chip bag and wore it to Pinkberry to show his friends.

All my kids!

Team Green...

Uncle Phil picks Colton up from school everyday which is great because the boys play and run off some of their energy. The downside is that their neighborhood is filled with boys and they are almost always playing baseball or football and when I show up to get Colton, he never wants to leave his buddies. In honor of Saint Patrick's Day every kid was wearing a green shirt so here is team Celtics, they were actually playing touch football but who cares. The little boy you don't recognize is Riley's neighbor Ty. I will have a get a picture or video of them playing "boot camp" this is when I sit in a lounge chair and bark orders at them like "give me 10 jumping jacks, ok now 10 more, make em pushups...FASTER". They love it and we are guaranteed an early bedtime those days.

Star of the Week

Here is a look at the Star of the Week poster Colton and I worked on for school. Basically we had to decorate a poster board with pictures and some facts about Colton and his life. He was so excited for this project and told me the poster board had to be really big so he could put lots of pictures. I started off interviewing him which he thought was really cool because we pretended we didn't know each other and that I was a reporter for the newspaper. I asked him at the end if there was anything else he wanted his friends at school to know about him and he said "oh sure...tell them I like to dance at weddings". Well random for sure, but an important detail clearly to a 4 year old! It was so fun to go through pictures of him over the last couple years and we glue sticked them all in place (took an entire glue stick to do the whole job). He also drew a few pictures. The one in the upper right is of him, Daddy, Riley and Brayden playing basketball with a waterslide above them that I am apparently invisibly riding in so I can kill the caterpillar at the end of the slide...wow. I think the poster was a hit because when Nick dropped Colton off at school the kids were all asking him about his poster and pictures and one of the moms told him she liked to dance at weddings too. :)

Working on his artwork.

The finished product!

The snow is melting...

Finally, Mother Nature has heard our prayers. The snow is melted and the sun actually came out this past weekend! Heidi and I took the boys to see the movie, Gnomeo and Juliet. It was pretty cute, good enough that no one talked during the movie and they sat in their seats the whole time, even while doped up on popcorn with M&M's. After the movie we took advantage of the beautiful weather and hit the playground at the library for a good hour or so. I even took a few rides down the slide!

Colton's First Hockey Tournament

Holy cow...my kid is old enough to be in a tournament?!?! I am getting old people.

We are nearing the end of Colton's first hockey season so what better way to sum it all up than with a Bruins hockey tournament. The tournament was basically for cross ice teams to test their skills against each other in a fun Bruins sponsored event. Cross ice hockey is when kids learn to play hockey by splitting the rink up into three sections, have teams of 3 on 3 or 5 on 5 without goalies and don't keep score. This is suppose to encourage more puck handling and scoring. Colton doesn't score much but he loves it when his team does and he has this really loud cheering voice (no idea where he gets that from) that he uses the entire time (on ice and off) to cheer his team on. Since this tournament was put on by the Bruins their mascot, Blades, was there to skate with the teams and present them with their medals. There were also some ex-Bruins players skating around and the kids got really cool goody bags filled with...you guessed it...Bruins stuff. Each team played 3 half hour games and no score was kept (Colton thinks he won every game but the reality is not so much). Of course the entourage came by to cheer our favorite little skater on. He would skate as fast as he could by us with the biggest grin, waving his stick and totally oblivious to the puck that would fly right by him...priceless.

Cousins cheering him on!

Colton's biggest fans. :)

Kids get to meet Blades.

Go Team Ryder!!!

All the teams were named after a Bruins player.

He is standing between his two partners in crime, Kendra and Maverick.

Coach Steve is rallying up the team!

Check it out...his first medal!

Napping with Nana

Colton has been lucky enough to spend the last couple Fridays home with Nana. They play games, do crafts and when I walked in from work I realized they also take naps!

Beauty and the Beast

Our friend Manami played the Wardrobe in Quincy High's rendition of Beauty and the Beast. She was sooo good, nailed the character perfectly. She was so good that even a random women in our gym class recognized Manami from the show and told her Hollywood was calling! Colton really liked the show and seeing Manami in her costume made him belly laugh.