safekeeping

Excuse the sappiness, but how fabulous is this kid in the morning?

Another busy weekend for the Freidobels! On Thursday, Aunties Allison and Lizzie arrived for a reunion with  Lillie.  Then on Friday, a whole bunch more family came over to shower affection and attention on the little miss.

Aunt Rochelle’s face was found fascinating.

As was Grandpa Ken’s camera.

Cousin Justin did an excellent job holding the wee lass.

Poor Lillie is teething. We can feel her very first tooth under the gum in front, so her poor puppy got chewed on quite a bit. His ears appear to be particularly delicious.

Lovely ladies!

Then on Saturday we took a road trip up to Ogunquit, Maine. In addition to enjoying lobster rolls for lunch, we had an excellent walk along the Marginal Way.

Lillie really liked Maine.

But she is starting to get a little tired of always wearing her hat -

By the way, the garden is going gangbusters. We have so far enjoyed two delicious tomatoes, many spicy radishes, and lots of fresh herbs.  I harvested some chard just this morning – which I think I will cook up tomorrow night for dinner, AND we have our very first little squashling getting bigger every day! (By which I mean there is a squash literally growing on a plant,  not Lillie, but  I guess it works for her too!)

Lillie was 5 months old on Sunday. Can you believe it?

We had a big weekend of celebrating.

On Saturday, she visited her 5th New England state – Rhode Island!

If any of you  ever find yourself in Newport, RI, in need of a gift for a little girl, I highly highly recommend the Groovy Gator on North Thames St.  I haven’t seen such clothes since my own childhood.

Then on Sunday, the Long Island branch of the family came for a visit on their way up to NH.

Cousins Cousins Cousins!

They brought a lovely ice cream cake!

AND then… on Monday… Lillie got her first solid food -

Guess what? Mikey likes it!

We visited Connecticut this past weekend.  As you can see, Lillie had a ball! As did we, for that matter.

Did you know the New York Times publishes the Declaration of Independence on the Fourth of July?  It does.  And it is pretty darn good.

Lillie was impressed.

We went for a walk in the dunes.

Then we had a picnic at Town Landing in Provincetown. I very much enjoyed the Waldorf Salad.

Miss Elly sang “New York New York” and so Mom and Papa danced.

Jason and Lillie swayed.

We all watched the sunset.  And then we tried to put Lillie to bed in her Dome.

That didn’t work.  So then we all watched the fireworks.

Which were awesome.  Here’s to the pursuit of happiness, y’all!

On Wednesday, I awoke to a poster in the kitchen reading “It is Your Birthday.”  We have been watching an awful lot of The Office, because it cracked me up no end.

It was a most excellent 31st birthday.  Many many lovely good wishes arrived,  including balloons for my garden (thanks Mom and Papa), a birthday cake made of flowers  (from ever thoughtful Mrs. Carlisle), and a very silly photograph (Yay Dad and Carolyn).

Here are the balloons (very much enjoyed by Lil), the cake and prezzies, and the photograph:

Jen and Lara also came over for dinner, and we had steak and chimichurri sauce (made from herbs from the garden) and summer squash and radish salad.

Oh yes, and chocolate cake.

After which we hula-hooped and sang.

All in all, a very happy day!

One of our goals for the house this year was to get the vegetable garden going.  Other things, however, kept distracting us.  SO, as a special birthday present,  T. Mother arrived with gardening clogs and expertise at the ready.

Jason and Mom and I built the beds out of pine boards,  and then I laid many months worth of newspaper along the bottom.  For good luck we added one of our paper wedding cranes to the bottom of each bed.  Jason went up to Portsmouth, NH to pick up our new rain barrel, so Mom and I started moving the 3 cubic yards of loam/compost mix ourselves.

This was some serious earth-moving – but two hours later we were done!

Lillie was very helpful.

After completely coating ourselves in dirt, we retreated to a nearby pond while Jason set-up the rain barrel.

Appropriately enough, it is a former olive oil barrel, all the way from Greece.

The next day, we bought plants and seeds, and Lara arrived to help plant.  I had carefully drawn out a plan, which we mostly followed.

We planted collard greens, swiss chard, okra, four kinds of tomatoes (including Green Zebra, my favorite), several basil plants, parsley, chamomile, black Spanish radishes, Cherry Belle radishes, Purple Dragon Carrots, summer squash, arugula, Detroit Red beets , marigolds, blue flax, nicotiana, coreopsis, thyme, and a very special French lavender plant that matches one in Mom’s garden. Whew!

It was hard work, my friends.

But it is a most beautiful garden, and I am very grateful for it.

Many many thanks to Mom, Jason and Lara for all their help putting it in!

Whew. What a busy baby we have!

On Friday Auntie Boum met us in Maynard and we loaded up the car and drove down to the Bronx for Cousin Terry’s graduation.  After a brief appearance at his house, we retired to our quarters and the Lil’ Swimmer fell right to sleep after her story.

The next day we all got up bright and early, attired ourselves in our finest, and went to hear the President of Ireland, Mary MacAleese, deliver the commencement address.

Then we went to Rose Hill Gym and saw Terry graduate. The long day necessitated breaks for both Baby and us.

Many fabulous hats in the family.

After Terry’s name was called and his diploma duly awarded, we all retired to our various quarters and rested up before meeting in Manhattan for dinner.

The restaurant was just around the corner from the newly restored Lincoln Center fountain, so we stopped and visited.

Then we went to dinner, which was fabulous!

At the dinner, Lillie finally got to hang with the elusive man of the hour.

Then we drove home, via Connecticut and a quick visit with Grandpa Ken.

Jason very kindly shared the rose Aunt Ti gave him at Terry’s dinner. Lillie really liked it. A lot.

After her busy weekend, she slept through the night and most of Monday.  It’s nice to be a baby.

Jason won the lottery!

Unfortunately not the 40 million dollar one.  BUT – we did get free, very excellent seats to see the Red Sox play the Twins.

We had great fun explaining to her about Big Papi, the designated hitter who did hit a home run, and Jason explained RBI, and AB, and a whole bunch of other acronyms I’m only half sure what they mean.

Lillie was impressed.

Very impressed.

And thanks to Grandma Sharon for the cozy outfit that kept her nice and toasty and much admired, despite the slightly inclement weather.

We are aiming to hit all six states of New England by the time Lillie is 6 months old. So far we’ve done pretty well – Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut and this past weekend, Vermont, where we had a most excellent visit with Jess and Will.

First we went to the Farmer’s Market:

Jason once saw a man run through this very park nude, so after Lillie managed to stupendously mess herself, she also got to enjoy the park nude.

Then, as it was a little chillier than expected, and the store was having such a stupendous sale, we got her a little hat with a loggerhead turtle on it on Church Street:

She kicks it old school, yo.

The next day we enjoyed tea in the beautiful garden room at Jess and Will’s house:

Nana’s cashmere sweater came in very handy.

And then went for delicious breakfast crepes by Lake Champlain:

After which we went for Opening Day at the Shelburne Museum.  We got to celebrate all the lilacs in bloom, and see a miniature wooden circus parade, which featured the talents of Little All Right the Japanese Contortionist. Jason liked the monkeys riding on donkeys best, while I preferred the Wapiti.

Lillie didn’t love the circus, but she did really like climbing aboard the Ticonderoga, a steamship that ran up and down Lake Champlain in the early part of the last century.

She and Daddy got to assume the figurehead pose at the bow of the boat!

She didn’t as much like the sun in her face. Or being in the Bjorn the whole time.

After a stroll around the rest of the grounds, she and I took a break under the lilacs.

And then we headed home.

Lillie was so tired, she actually slept the whole 3 hours and 15 minutes. Let us hope she does as well next week, when we head to the Big Apple to celebrate Terry’s graduation!