Getting into small-town holiday spirit!

Happy December 1st! This is our first holiday season living in Boulder and we are really getting into it this year. The weather is cold, although there's only a little bit of snow left here and there from the snowfall at Thanksgiving. We have our lights up and the neighborhood is starting to sparkle at night, we are decorating, and planning get-togethers with friends. Today I took Logan and Zach to a little holiday bazaar organized by a friend of mine, and Logan sat on Santa's lap. I was thrilled to hear Santa take the time to ask Logan what he wanted for Christmas and ask him if he'd been a good boy this year - last Christmas I had been really disappointed by an experience in a mall in LA, where the emphasis was on getting a picture to sell, kids were herded through like cattle and Santa was decidedly uninterested in children! (incidentally today Zach didn't want anything to do with St. Nick, but wanted a candy cane. After trying to convince Zach to sit with Santa to get the candy, Logan sweetly and spontaneously offered to split his with Zach.)

This evening we had a very special experience - we attended the "Lights of December" Parade in downtown Boulder. Now being from LA, I think of parades as something you have to camp out two days ahead of time for in order to get a good viewing spot. The last parade I actually attended in person was probably at Disneyland, and those are also always very crowded. But this parade was such a delightful little slice of hometown hominess- we arrived about 5 minutes before the start, parked two block away in the nearest parking garage (which was free that night) and were surprised to find we were almost the first people at our chosen location, although over the course of the parade the streets did fill up just comfortably. It was freezing (literally) outside so we were glad we'd bundled up - the kids were each wearing four layers and I had Max in the Moby wrap snuggled up against me.

The parade lasted about an hour, with marching bands from the two high schools, floats in the form of decorated trailers pulled by pickup trucks, boy scout and girls scout troops, people walking their dogs, and lots of fire trucks from our local company and our mountain companies. School children and firefighters handed out candy to the kids along the parade route. And of course the finale was a float carrying Santa (full robes, real beard and all) and Mrs. Claus. Logan had been telling me earlier in the day that he thought the Santa at the bazaar was probably someone dressed up, and tonight he turned to me and said "The Santa at the parade was the REAL Santa." I think I agree with him! It's tough to put in words why the parade was so special, but Jason and I both got teary eyed when it was over, seeing how much fun everyone was having and how homey and unpretentious the whole event felt.

So like I said it's been cold, and we've been learning about all of the cold weather gear available for kids these days. Who knew they made woolen hats and socks for infants (thank goodness we had one for Max tonight!) and that you could buy them made out of "SmartWool," which is soft, non-scratchy and washable. We also have a couple of carseat buntings, which are like little fleecy sacks that have holes for the carseat straps to fit through. Here's a picture of Max in one, looking adorably confused at being completely immobilized.

Besides the weather, which we're always talking about, another thing we're working on in our lives is a fascination Logan has with "collecting." This interest started in the last month or two of my pregnancy, and at first he wanted to keep every rock, pine cone and stick we came across outside. It would go something like - he'd pick up a pine cone, and suddenly get upset, asking me how he was going to remember that particular item. I figured it was a sublimated reaction to the uncertainty surrounding Max's arrival, so we let him build up a collection that filled a paper grocery bag. When we got to that point, I suggested we make a few fall/winter decorations out of some of his collection and "put the rest back in nature" and that seemed to quiet the obsession. But now he's moved on to clipping comics, specifically Garfield, Sherman's Lagoon and Mutts. After watching clipped comics pile up in drifts around the house, I gave him a three-ring binder and some paper on which to paste the clips. To us, a three-ring binder is a mundane, everyday item, but to Logan it was a whole new world. I gave him a set of tabbed dividers and a pocket divider and showed him how to organize his clips...he must have spent two hours pasting, arranging, playing with the rings, and learning how to use the tabs to "jump" around the book without having to turn pages one by one.

Happy Holidays, and Summer Re-Cap

(Note to our readers: Remember you can click on any picture to enlarge it.)

Hard to believe we've been here in Boulder for nine months now! It's been a busy summer and fall for us (as evidenced by our lack of blogging), but we've made it through Max's first seven weeks and it looks like we're finally settling into a routine around here. So documenting our adventures for posterity has moved back up on the priority list.

So where to begin? It looks like we tailed off with our posts in May - 6 months ago!!! Jason traveled a LOT this summer - seems he was out of town a few days almost every week. So I had my hands full chasing after Logan and Zach even as my belly was growing bigger and bigger. But as you can see from this photo, Jason did get to occasionally enjoy the perqs of working from home.

Around the house, we had our cedar shake roof replaced with asphalt composite shingles, which are much more practical and actually don't look as boring as we thought they would.

We took advantage of weekends as much as possible to explore the country around us, taking the boys to places like the Longmont Sunflower Farm where they could pet and feed animals and play to their hearts' content.

In June we headed to Alaska for a visit with Jason's folks...we spent the first half of our trip with Jason's mom but then unfortunately by the time we got back to Anchorage to visit Jason's dad the kids got sick and we ended up holed up in the hotel room for several days. Back at home we celebrated Zach's second birthday with some tasty chocolate cake!

In July my parents and my brother Scott and his family came out and we all celebrated my mom's birthday together. Summer was hot but we had fun with a very small patio vegetable garden that produced the most flavorful tomatoes we'd ever tasted, crisp cucumbers and delicious basil. Not bad for our first year.



We also had a play structure installed in the back yard for the kids. This and the garden were lifesavers for me as I got bigger and bigger and it was tough to take the two boys to parks and run around after them.









August brought us a visit from our friends the O'Briens - Liv and Logan were very happy to be together again and continued to plan their wedding. Logan has informed us that, when he grows up, he's going to fly to Los Angeles just long enough to get Liv, bring her back home here, marry her and live in our basement with their 12 children. I guess I would love for him to live with us forever...I guess...but 12 children?!?

The highlight for September, other than Logan starting another year at Jarrow Montessori School (now I understand why my mom always loved back-to-school time), was a drive up to the Scottish/Irish Highlands Festival in Estes Park, the largest such festival west of the Mississippi. Logan and Zach were both enthralled with the live cannons, but even more so with the trebuchet, which is something like a catapult. The one at the festival was 1/4 scale but threw a bowling ball about 300 yards...now we have a wee model one at home that can throw the little apples from our trees quite handily.

As September came to a close we welcomed a new niece, Genevieve Ella McAdara, into the family, and then all of our attention turned to the pending arrival of our new baby, due October 5. Convinced that he would arrive early, I fretted about how we would manage the logistics of caring for the boys during the actual birth. We had many generous offers of assistance from the friends we've made since we moved here, but luckily Jason's brother Andrew came out to visit at the very end of September, and stayed until Udayangani, our former nanny from LA, could come out to relieve him of duty. Maxwell Frederick Berkowitz arrived on his due date, October 5th, and quickly charmed me, Jason, Logan and Udayangani, although Zach decided to reserve his judgment (he is coming around, but not 100% on board yet).

Following Udayangani's visit, Grandma Diana came out to meet Max and spend some time with us. Here's a picture of her and Logan picking apples from our trees to make applesauce - she's great at finding fun and out-of-the-ordinary activities for the boys. The rest of October was a bit of a blur (a sleepless blur!), but we did have our first snow around the 21st (just 1/10th of an inch and it didn't stick) and the boys got to get out for trick-or-treating.




This past month we enjoyed watching Max grow and become a part of the family. My parents came out to meet him and celebrate Thanksgiving with us, and got a taste of our crazy weather...one day it was 78 degrees out, the next day it cooled down into the 40s and the next day we got 6-8 inches of snow (today it's almost gone now, and the temp was 66). Dad helped me hang Christmas lights and garlands, and we started getting out our decorations - yeah it's a little early but it's our first holiday season here and the snow makes us feel really in the spirit.

So I guess that catches us up! From here on out we're going to keep up the blog, probably on a weekly basis. We hope you'll leave comments, or drop us a line - we would love to hear from you!