Love and Maple Syrup Go Together

March is Maple Syrup season. The warmer days and cold nights make it prime weather for tapping the maple trees to extract the sugary, delicious goodness. There is only about a 2-3 week window that the trees are able to be tapped. Since we now live in New England, I figured this was one of the things that we had to go do.  (Yes, this post is about 5 weeks late!)

We drove about an hour to a small town that was holding its annual "Maple Fest". There were several sugar houses there, and more maple syrup flavored foods than I have ever heard of.
theSaevas do love real maple syrup-none of that Aunt Jemima stuff at our house-so we were game to try it all.  Maple Syrup snow cones, cotton candy, hard candy, ice cream, hot dogs, kettle corn, and of course just straight spoonfuls were all on the menu. Along with a tummy ache.

The trees all have these buckets nailed to them to collect the sap.



















Oh, and maple syrup on vanilla ice cream is delicious. Try it...you'll like it.

Happy Easter

Easter was unseasonably warm here.  From what I understand, it is not uncommon to have snow on Easter here,  so this Texan was very thankful to be blessed with a beautiful day.

Kate is glad that she doesn't have a sister, because I would always dress them in matching outfits. I have to make due with what I can muster up in boy-girl sets. Danny tells me this will stop when Michael turns 3, so we don't end up with a Von Saeva family.

Cutting Michael out of this photo was not intentional. At least I don't think so.

Kate and Cowboy Dexter





We went to an Easter Egg Hunt at a neighbor's house, and they have a menagerie of animals. One of them is a 3 legged Great Dane. He was very interested in what was hidden in those eggs.

Day at the Museum

Yesterday was an unseasonal warm day, so we decided to take advantage of it by heading into the City.

We thought the kids would enjoy the Natural History Museum, so off we went.

I don't know who enjoyed it more, us or the kids.  Michael was so enthralled by the elephants that we could not even get him to turn around. Kate loved the exhibits on the Native Americans. She asked so many questions about their clothing, the housing, the animals they used, and the food they ate. I love that she is at the age of such wide open exploration and learning.

We ended the day at Central Park letting the kids run off some steam and share their goldfish crackers with this little guy.

These Squirrels are out of Nuts

Ready for spring, we are. Sadly, I think we have a few more snowstorms yet until we get there.

I'm daydreaming about my garden to get me through these last cold days. What are you guys planting in yours?

He was born a traveling man

Halfway to terminal 2 at ORD, michael discovers that indeed, napping on the flight would have been prudent.

he just stopped walking, lay down and tried to doze off. In the middle of the walkway at one of the worlds busiest airports.

Some people call him the space cowboy

What happens when your 2 year old gets into his grandmas makeup.

Kate said he looks like the joker.

I'm trying out a new app that will allow me to post from my phone. Hopefully it will enable me to update much more often!!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

2010

No lame excuses about being busy or anything else. Moving on.

Christmas was incredible. New Year's was a blast, and both kids stayed up until midnight. (!).
2010 is off to a terrific start, and I've seen more snow in the last 2 weeks than I've ever seen in my life.

A few photos from Christmas.
Christmas Eve with their matching PJs. Can you tell they are excited.

Family Christmas Eve photo, in case you forgot what we all look like:

And look at the vistors we had Christmas morning. Kate was very concerned that they were part of Santa's crew and had escaped, thus rendering the rest of the world Santa-less. There were 8 of them, playing reindeer games out in the woods behind our house.