Coconut and Tierney Girl

While in Massachusetts last month, I spent the majority of my trip staying at my sister's house. Mallory and Doug are kind enough to let me set up my life in their basement guest room each time I go back to Pittsfield to visit. This is particularly awesome for me because... well, for one thing I love their home. But more importantly, staying with them means I get to see TONS of my nephew, Cohen (Coconut), and my niece, Tierney (Tierney Girl).

In the last six months or so, it occurred to me that my iPod Touch is equipped with FaceTime. With that realization came lots of messages to Mallory with requests to FT with Cohen (4 ½) and Tierney (2 ½). So that's become a great tool for me in being able to see more of my little buddies while I am living across the country from them. However, hanging out with them and playing with them in person is, like, waaaaaay better!

For the first couple days that I was in Pittsfield, Mallory was dog-sitting for a friend who owned a tiny puppy... named Bailey. (Why the crap are so many dogs named Bailey??) Cohen adored the itty bitty little dog, and kept enthusiastically asking us, "Isn't she so cute?" Here he is cuddling Bailey - and I promise he's doing it much more gently than it looks:

.  best friends for two days  .

One day during my visit, Doug and I took a walk with Cohen and Tierney along with Doug's brother-in-law Todd and Todd's three little boys. It's surprising how slowly a walk can go when there are five kids with you who are all younger than 5 years old! #LessonsInAdulthood. Below, Tierney is posing with a crab apple that she found along the road. We'd initially walked past the apple and were in fact about fifteen feet beyond it when Tierney stopped in her tracks, thought for a moment and then said, "I think I saw something back there." So cute.

Here's some cute "getting ready for bed" action:

.  tierney hugging daddy  .

Cohen and I have matching tees - I designed them myself:

.  it says, "who broke the shampoo?!"  .
.  no, i won't tell you what that means  .

I call this picture "Toddlers Eating Berries": 

Here are brother and sister snuggled together watching some afternoon television... 

I told them to smile for me... they didn't look at me, but at least they smiled:

.  cheeeeese  .

Babies do things like this:

Amusing themselves while waiting for dinner:

Sidebar, while playing with the kids at Mal's I remembered how fun scooters are. I did quite a bit of racing around their driveway on a Razor scooter while staying there. #DontSleepOnScootin.

One day we also went on an exciting ride through the woods on Doug's Cushman. The Cushman is kind of like a golf cart-sized pickup truck. So it has a little bed in the back that us passengers could sit in while Doug steered from a mower-style seat up front. Cohen and Tierney take rides on this thing all the time so they are seasoned veterans. They know just where to hold on and they stay seated the whole time.

It was exhilarating riding along in the back of the Cushman, over hills, through the woods on narrow worn paths, across stream beds, till we eventually came right up into my parent's backyard. So for Cohen and Tierney, it really was "Over the river and through the woods, to Grandmother's house we go."

Here's a little map of where we went, in case you're curious what the heck I'm talking about:

.  mallory/doug's house is the start point on the right  .
.  my parents' house is the end point on the left  .
.  note the woods  .

So basically taking the ride on the Cushman was one of the best decisions I made the entire time I was in Pittsfield. It was especially cute to see how much Cohen/Tierney love riding on it too. So fun! I wish I'd taken video of it! #RetrospectIsABitch.

One night Cohen and I went to the theater with my mother to see a kid-filled production of Peter Pan. We only managed to get a couple of dreadful photos before the show started... poor quality, but proof that we were at the (historic) Colonial Theater that night. Cohen was taking good care of his ticket:

.  cohen and his grammy  .

My mom took this picture of Cohen and me just moments before the lights in the theater went out and the show was beginning, so there was no time for a re-shoot:

.  blurry buds  .

It's awesome to be able to chat and hang out with the kids while I'm home. I love being around for their nighttime routine - when they get ready for bed, read stories, sing their bedtime songs, and fight with their mom and dad about not wanting to go to bed quite yet... ;)

.  those curls!!!  .

The last night that I was home, we had a cookout at my parents' house. My dad made steak, sauteed zucchini/squash, and corn on the cob, which was all delicious.  The kids really like corn on the cob - and especially love using those tiny little cob-shaped spears that you can stick into the ends of the corn as handles. Before dinner that night, Tierney performed a song for us on the toy keyboard/microphone in my parents' living room:

I have video of that too but it takes too long to upload things to YouTube, so you will have to use your imagination about what adorable little things were coming out of her mouth. Look at her itty bitty Crocs!!

Thanks for letting me show off my adorable nephew and niece. I'm in the  middle of a "Late 20s Life and Job Crisis/Nervous Breakdown" so reminiscing about my time spent with these little munchkins is a much-needed pick-me-up.

Do you have nieces or nephews that you live far away from? What's your favorite way to stay in touch and miss as little "important stuff" as possible?

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