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Some Halloween themed crafts for swaps:

The cards were already die cut with the pumpkin and spider web. I enhanced with some rubber stamps and cut outs from my Silhouette machine.


the devil and zombie are from the book Creepy Cute Crochet

Finger puppet pattern from the Lion Brand website

From the Zombie Felties book

Count Truffula pattern from q.D.Patooties.

From a recent Stampin Up meetup. We also made a candy corn box that I forgot to take a photo of and I sent it in a swap!

I really like that frankenstein!
And last but not least, Sienna painting her magic wand for her princess costume!

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Warning! Giddy parent alert! Lots of kid photos! 😉

I couldn’t resist dedicating a whole post to Sienna’s Halloween costume. We had gotten the princess dress early last month and if it was up to Sienna, she would have worn it everyday since! I’m glad we nipped that in the bud early on or else she might not have been this excited to put on her whole get up. Even though it’s not Halloween yet, we had a birthday party on Sunday with a Halloween theme. This is the first time she had everything on, the dress, the crown, the gloves and her wand (which she painted using this kit!) She was sooo happy when she first put this on, it was such a joy to see! Needless to say, I kept snapping away! (And she kept posing! What can I say? She’s just like her mom!)

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We went to the Big E a couple of weekends ago. We took Sienna out of school on Friday and had big plans on meeting up with “Uncle Peeder” and Mike. Both parties even reserved a hotel room for the night! Well, Mother Nature had other plans for us. I forgot the name of the hurricane but they were predicting heavy rains, flooding and wind. It didn’t turn out as bad as they said but we opted not to do the fair on Friday but went Saturday instead. Saturday was a perfect sunny day. Unfortunately, because Mike had work Saturday night, they could not do the same. It was a bummer not being able to spend the day at the fair with them. I hope it will work out for next year.

Driving up to the fair on Friday morning took FOREVER! What would normally take about 3 hours, took 6! Lots of traffic and congestion (and not at the spots we thought there would be-smooth sailing on the Whitestone Bridge!) We weren’t in a rush but it was bizarre how we were stuck in traffic not very far from our house and it was so long that Sienna had to pee. We had no choice but to put a pull up on her and at first we had to coerce her to pee in the pull up! We felt so bad that we were reprogramming her. We stopped for lunch at a place called Sherwood Diner. Not bad, your standard diner fare. We got to City Place Inn at around 3:30, went into the pool for a bit, showered and headed to the mall in search of dinner. We ended up eating at Friendly’s. We got back to the hotel and was surprised to see Pete and Mike sitting outside! We finally get to meet Mike! Of course Sienna was delighted to see Uncle Peeder!

Anyway, the next morning we had breakfast at the hotel. We didn’t want anything fancy so we can save room for fair food. Honestly, there really isn’t that much to say about the fair. We got there early (9:30) and breezed right in. Got the yummy mini donuts, saw some animals, Sienna rode some rides, Sienna started getting cranky, we started getting cranky, we ate some lunch and pretty much left. That was in 3 hours. I know we weren’t going to spend all day at the fair because we had to drive home but I was hoping to squeeze at least another hour out of Sienna. Oh well. Sienna was pretty tired because I don’t think she slept very well in the hotel. She ended up climbing into our king size bed in the middle of the night and spent it mostly keeping Yves up while I snored away on my end of the bed.

Needless to say, Sienna enjoyed the mini donuts as much as Yves!

Her first ride. I don’t know if you could tell but she wanted to get off by the 3rd go around.

No drama on this ride

She seemed to enjoy the ferris wheel although she said she was scared even though we were all sitting together.

I know she doesn’t look it here but I think she liked riding the pony. She wanted to ride the elephant afterwards but it was vetoed (only because we told her to pick either the pony or the elephant to ride and not both!)

This pumpkin was over 1,000 lbs!

I had some fun fiddling with some photos and applying some retro actions and putting them in retro frames.

I also did some fake lomos.

I’ll post some holga shots soon.

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Our CSA is over in November and I haven’t really written about it. It started in June and I was a little overwhelmed in the beginning. I got better at it but there were still a few things that ended up in the garbage because I waited too long to use it or didn’t know what to do with it. Some pluses are that we discovered a like for swiss chard, mustard greens and leafy greens of that nature (and that they taste extra delicious when you saute them with turkey bacon!) Also Yves also discovered that he likes pesto!

We also got a fruit share and got some really yummy peaches, apples and pears. There was some fruit that was a letdown such as the watermelon. It wasn’t very sweet and it had seeds (I got spoiled eating the seedless!) But that’s from a different farm.

Anyhow, we were invited to visit the farm at the end of September. It took a little over 2 hours to get there, it was up by Warwick, NY. We got brunch with fresh squeezed orange juice (totally wasted on Sienna because she doesn’t like the pulp.) The french toast was a little disappointing as the crust of the bread was really hard. The omelet was better but I could have eaten 3 of them and the potatoes were cold. 🙁 The “tour” consisted of a girl telling us the history of the farm and allowing us to pick some stuff. Sienna and I picked a couple of edible flowers and I tried to find some basil but the season was pretty much over for that.

We were disappointed with the trip but at the same time, it was interesting to see the farm where our vegetables come from.


Cool city girl waiting for her country breakfast

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Nine years ago today I married Yves, a wonderful man who is very supportive and honest and loving. We traveled to Las Vegas, our plan from the very start since I really wasn’t interested in a big, fancy wedding. Things went pretty well considering it was a month after 9/11 (I still don’t believe that my fake bouquet was because there were no fresh flowers because of 9/11!). The friends and family we invited all came and even some that weren’t invited. HA. My friend Brenda got married the night before us but they got divorced a few years later. Marriage isn’t always easy but I’m happy to say ours is going great! I love you honey! Here’s to many more years!

We treated ourselves in stayed in the Bellagio.

We had a banquet a month later.

Can you guess where we went on our honeymoon?

Sorry for the quality of some of these photos. Some are scans of prints and some are digitals with an early form of digital camera. Hey, it was 2001!

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We took Sienna to see the circus over Labor Day weekend earlier this month. They have a special show at Coney Island. I debated about going for ethical reasons but after reading Water for Elephants, I was really in the mood for the circus. (Incidentally, PBS will be broadcasting a documentary on the Big Apple Circus in November that I am really excited to see!) Plus I wanted to give Sienna the opportunity to at least experience the circus while she is still young enough to enjoy it. Well, that was a laugh! She fell asleep after the first 45 minutes! Granted it started right at her nap time (when she was still taking naps!) and she was a bit sick with a cough. Poor thing.

First, we missed the meeting of the animals before the show. Me and Yves were so bummed! That was what we were looking forward to! Good thing we didn’t mention it to Sienna. So we let Sienna ride the bouncy slides that they had in the tent. There was also the bouncy house but she liked the slide better. It was unlimited sliding for $5. She got our money’s worth. Honestly, she could have done that the whole day and forget the circus and she would still be happy. Sometimes it’s just the simple things that make her so happy.

We didn’t know what to expect at this venue but we didn’t realize how small and close we were going to be to the ring. Of course, in hindsight, it only makes sense that there is just one ring (as opposed to 3 at Madison Square Garden.) There were about 3 clowns there with 2 being the more traditional type and the 3rd being a modern day one (no clown makeup.) I guess he was for the older kids because Sienna took more to the traditional clowns (which they didn’t really showcase as much as the modern one! Another bummer!)

We treated her big time with sugar and got her some cotton candy that came with a wizard hat. Needless to say she loved the cotton candy! Who’d thought she would fall asleep with all that sugar in her but she did! Right before the cat lady came out!

We woke her up after intermission when the lions came out. Honestly, it was kind of a snore.

Maybe I’m too old for the circus or maybe because Sienna fell asleep but I was disappointed in the circus. But my favorite by far were the elephants. I think I can watch them all day.

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Today is Yves birthday! He doesn’t make as big a deal about it as I do for my birthday but I wanted to surprise him by making him carrot cake cupcakes. He LOVES carrot cake! I used this recipe from simply recipes here and they came out delicious! (I didn’t have cardamom so instead used extra cinnamon and added nutmeg and cloves and also used pistachios instead of walnuts).

Sienna licked the cream cheese frosting, took a few bites of the cupcake and was done as she is not a fan of carrot cupcakes. BUT! I also did make these pear cream cheese muffins with the 2 riping pears left from our CSA pickup last week. They are also delicious! She ate a bit more of that but she still wanted to lick more frosting off the other cupcakes! LOL

We also celebrated with my parents last weekend (my mother has this strange superstition that you can’t celebrate a birthday after your birthday. See me rolling my eyes?) I bought strawberry cheesecake from Jean Danet in Bay Ridge and we also went out for dim sum.

Yes, you need 3 images of the strawberry cheesecake! 🙂

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Today was Sienna’s first day of school. It was only for an hour. The teacher (Mrs. D.) has 18 kids in her class but for the first 2 days, she divides them up into 2 groups. Sienna was in the 2nd group. She showed some resistance and said she was scared but we managed to get her into the classroom without too much fruckus. She cried. I did not!! (Very proud of and surprised at myself) I was surprised when the teacher said I could stay in the classroom for a little bit, especially since she mentioned numerous times that we were to leave right away. She knew Sienna was going to take a little extra work plus she had a child in the first session that cried the whole time. I was pretty sure Sienna would not cry the whole time but I guess the teacher did not want to take that chance. The teacher had me stay for 45 minutes!! I honestly did not think that was necessary but whatever. Of course Sienna cried when I left but I saw the teacher picked her up. I came back 15 minutes later and was told she stopped when I left! SEE! I know she will be fine and it will take a little bit. I know because she did venture away from me several times to play. Tomorrow is another hour day and then starting Wednesday will be the whole 3 hours. Wish me luck!

EDIT TO ADD: 2nd day of school, no sign of tears whatsoever! That was FAST!

Here is Sienna posing with her flame backpack!

On the way across to school!

Tears inside 🙁

Venturing away!

In preparation for school, last night Sienna helped me make some new hair clips for her to wear to school. When I say she helped, that really means she kept herself busy with the extra hair doodads while I made the clips!

Here’s what I made, sorry the photo isn’t the best

I was rushing taking the photo because she wanted to put the clips in her hair! All of them!

Last night we also started a new tradition! Family game night! Me and Sienna had bought 2 board games. First we played Yahtzee Jr. with Mickey Mouse Clubhouse characters and then Chutes and Ladders (Yves was excited to play this one!)

Sienna won both games! 🙂

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Sienna starts nursery school next Monday. I am sad and excited at the same time. Sad because this marks the true end to her carefree days for at least another 15 years. Ok, I suppose that’s being a bit dramatic, it’s not like I remember my years before school started. And I’m excited to start this new chapter in our lives and excited to see her grow and mature and come into her own. I’ll be a wreck tho, for sure. But just for the first few days. I hope! I thought I would post some photos from the last few weeks of August, mostly spent at the playground with her friends, some old and some new. She’s been really great lately as far as the social aspect goes. There was a point where she wasn’t playing with anyone, not even the kids she knows. For the last few weeks, she’s been playing with anyone and everyone! I hope it lasts!

Sharing her binoculars with Nico and I think Sylvie was sharing a snack with her.
Climbing

Smelling a sunflower from the CSA pickup

Nico impressing the ladies by saying he was going to make farty sounds with the balloon.

Emma and Sienna, yep, in the middle of a giant puddle

Yeah, in case you didn’t believe me!

Soaking wet

As soon as Leah saw me with my camera, she came over toward me and said CHEESE!

We finally met Lenny! Our friend Aaron’s baby. He’s a cutie!

Sienna gives Aaron a handshake

Playing “frisbee” with Yves at Sunset Park

Ella and Sienna marking up a tree (not really!)

Sienna agreed to lend her dress to Erin.

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