Got to love her!

Well I forgot to share this story last week. But it's definately one worth sharing, we had a good laugh. Last Tuesday we had to make a family quilt piece for daycare so we decided to make hand prints with paint, which Alison loves doing. So I was just finishing it by putting our names on it and Alison was insistent on holding the paint bottle so I figured she wouldn't be able to open it and let her hold it. Well I was wrong, as I turned back to finish the quilt piece and Eddie went down into the basement to do laundry. She sat on the floor behind me and started saying "open, open" and I just kept telling her, "no, that doesn't open" with out looking. After the second time she said open and about 20 seconds after I gave her the bottle, I turned to her to say no again and she had the top off and was pouring black paint all over her and the floor. Little did I know she was saying open because she had indeed opened the bottle. Unscrewed the top right off. What a mess! But how could I get mad at her, she told me she opened it. Got to love her!

Another weekend in VT

We went to Vermont again this weekend. We decided to go up on Saturday morning and got there just in time for breakfast. After breakfast we helped Jimmie and Jamie do some Syrup filtering and packaging. Alison helped bring the bottles from one end of the kitchen to the other. She loves to help and had a great time. After we packaged about 18 gallons of syrup we went out to start to boil. It got a little stressful at the beginning because the sap was frozen but after they got it thawed things went a little smoother.






















We ended up making about two gallons of syrup that day. Alison had a great time playing in the mud again this weekend and we got to see Phil and Matthew as well. Later that night we got to hangout with Eddie's friend James and his son Corey. James is in the Navy and they live in CA, so we haven't seen them in a while. So that was nice to catch up with him this weekend.






















Sunday we went up into the Sugar bush with Eddie, Jimmie, Eric and Vig to add more taps and run some lines. Alison started off in the backpack but she quickly wanted to get out and walk on her own or be held by me. She only lasted a little bit up in the woods before it was lunch time and she wanted to go back to the house and see Aunt Jamie. After lunch we headed back to Maine. It was a fast but fun weekend.

Introducing Nadine Leann Pustulka!

Here she is! 7lbs. 11.75oz. , 20"long.
Congratulations Bec and Russell, another cutie!

Nadine Leann Pustulka has arrived

Congratulations to the Pustulka family on the birth of their little girl Nadine. All I know so far is that everyone is doing ok and that she weighs 7lbs. 11.75oz.

Good Luck to the Pustulka's

Just wanted to wish Rebecca and Russell good luck. They will be having their Little Girl tomorrow morning. We'll be thinking of you

Easter weekend in VT

This past weekend we went to Vermont with the hopes that the sap would run (for maple syrup), and to spend some time with our family and friends. The sap didn't end up running much so we didn't get to boil, but we still had fun. On Saturday we went up to Fred Tefft's land (This was Eddies shop teacher in high school and a friend of the Smith family) to do some snow shoeing, it was a pretty fast trip to the top of his hill and back because it was really windy and cold, but the view was great.

After that we went up into Jimmie's (Eddie's brother) sugar bush to do some maintenance on the sap lines. We took Alison up in her sled, which she enjoyed only if we where moving, otherwise she wanted to walk on her own and copy what Eddie, Jimmie and Eric where doing, as you will see in one of the pictures, Eddie and Jimmie were stomping on the snow to unbury the sap lines and Alison joined right in and copyed them, it was really cute.










After naptime we went outside again and Alison had a lot of fun playing in the puddles and mud in her boots.






















After a day outside Jamie made a super spaghetti dinner which Alison absolutely loved as you can tell from her pictures. She has also started to do this really funny "smile" when you bring out the camera and tell her to smile.











The next day was Easter and we had an Easter egg hunt with the kids (Matthew, Brianna, and Alison). They had a lot of fun searching for the eggs.























It was a great trip over all even though we didn't get to make any syrup. Maybe next weekend.

Watch her grow

Well we finally decided to set a blog. I think it will be a fun way to keep everyone up to date with what's going on in Smithboro. Alison is changing so much everyday and since most of you live far away you don't get to see her as much so this will be a great place to see what we have been up to and watch her grow. I'll try to update it as much as possible.