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Today was Sienna’s birthday party to celebrate her 3rd year here! The weather couldn’t have been worse (well, I suppose it could have been snow!) with rain and wind. Actually the rain wasn’t too bad, it’s the ferocious winds! I had a couple of cancellations but those who showed up had a good time! I’m really grateful to those that were able to make it. Sienna had a ball! I was up at 6 am (with the help of Sienna) to make shredded BBQ chicken in the crockpot, baked macaroni and cheese, devil’s food cupcakes and vanilla frosting (I made banana cupcakes and 2 different frostings last night) and zucchini’s with goat cheese (Allen helped big time with those!). I was in a bit of a frenzy during the party so I didn’t get the best photos. Hopefully Yves got some good video. I set up a game called “pin the party hat on Sienna” which I’m sure you can guess what that is all about. I blew up a photo of Sienna eating cake from her 2nd birthday. I also had prizes for everyone. It was probably unnecessary to do the game since all the kids had a perfectly fun time just playing with Sienna’s toys! I guess I’ll just remember the game for when she is older.

Frosting choices are strawberry meringue buttercream, vanilla and chocolate sour cream. (the photo of the dog is Crusher and is part of a swap I’m doing!)

the kid’s table

Sienna couldn’t wait to get at the cupcakes! I don’t know why Emma has the pear! LOL

Allen and Leah

Allen says something funny

Playing in the living room (you should have seen Sienna’s room!)

Opening Uncle Peeder’s present!

Opening Phoenix, Geneva and Layne’s present (Phoenix made that card herself!!)

Checking out the present from Emma, Leah, Jana and Allen!

A froggie bank from Phoenix, Geneva and Layne!

The girls playing on the bed

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Yves officially became a citizen today!! He took his test last month in Garden City and passed (with flying colors!) and his swearing in was today at Cadman Plaza. We had to be there at 8:30 in the morning. We left the house at 7 because of the transferring we have to do on the train (the Manhattan bound side is closed for construction) plus things always take a bit longer to do with a toddler in tow! Well, it was a good time to leave because we got there around 8 ish. Yves had to go into a room with the other people being sworn in to fill out some forms. Sienna and I went upstairs to the cafeteria to wait. There was a TV in there showing the room that Yves was waiting in. After they fill out their forms, they are allowed to come up to the cafeteria to hang out with us until the judge comes. We all had to go back to the room at 10. Sienna was relatively good considering her lack of freedom. She kept asking where Daddy was and wanted to go find him. The wait wasn’t too bad. The judge came in at 10:30, made a speech and Yves got his certificate by 10:50. Yay! We let Sienna run around in the park across the street and then went in search for some lunch. Yves wanted Indian but the restaurant wasn’t open yet so we just went to a diner called Grand Canyon on Montague Street. Typical diner fare and nothing spectacular but we were hungry. We were back home by 1. What an exciting morning!

The happy citizen!

Switching to the USA hat!

Yay! Sienna gets to run!

That’s not our train!

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Pete and I made it back to Shopsin’s (at the beginning of February) in record time! Our last visit was sometime in November. I really enjoyed our picks this time vs. the last time. I ordered an ATW sandwich (never bothered asking what that means) which consists of pulled pork, onions, cheddar and bacon! MMMMMMMMM!!! I was surprised by all the bacon in the sandwich and I really thought I wouldn’t be able to eat it all (but I did!) Pete was surprised that I did since I made such a commotion about all the bacon. I told him that it’s because I’m a fat fuck! He also asked if that was going to be the name of this blog post but I didn’t have the nerve. HA! Plus you just can’t let a good pig go to waste! Pete ordered the famous Mac N Cheese pancakes! At long last! Hearing about the MnC pancakes is what brought me to Shopsin’s in the first place but I was never in the mood for them. They were quite savory and tasty! Not as decadent as I thought it would be as they don’t overdue the MnC.

My after…hey! There’s bread and lettuce still there!

Is that a whole pancake Pete leaves?? Gasp! There are starving children in this world! LOL

We made our usual stop at Economy Candy and I was in the mood for a cakey treat so we went to Sugar Sweet Sunshine where I brought home some cupcakes for everyone. I got 2 pistachios (by far their best cupcake!), a spicy pumpkin and oooooohhhh a peppermint chocolate!!! When I got home, which one does Sienna pick? MY peppermint chocolate one! Of course I am happy to share with her and gave her less than half of it. She ate all the frosting and about half of the cake. We usually don’t give her something that sweet so late in the day (it was about 4:30 maybe?) and yeah, we paid for that later. She was jumping off the wall that night!

I think Yves was explaining that he had the superior cupcake!

All cupcaked out!

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SNOW!

So indeed the weather people were right again and we got hit with about 14 inches of snow last Friday. Actually, the snow started Thursday night but it was slushy snow so it was quite a mess. Then it turned into real snow. They were calling it a snowacane because of the high winds but it didn’t seem that bad. We woke up and it was still snowing. This is how it looked at 7 am!

That’s the snow hanging over from the roof! 7 am folks!

Unfortunately, Yves had to go into work so it was just me, Sienna and my dad to play in the snow. We got our butts in gear and headed out at 9:30.

This time I put on like 5 layers of pants on Sienna. She lasted a lot longer in the snow than last time.

Sienna making a half a snow angel!

sittin’

I think this was Sienna’s best snow angel to date!

Sienna wants to help shovel the snow too.

The overhang from the outside!

Snowacane 2010 from Lisa on Vimeo.

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My SAHM friends and I have been talking about going to dim sum and we finally decided to do it 2 Fridays ago. I asked my parents to come so they can better translate and tell us about the dishes. There seems to be less English speaking in Brooklyn’s Chinatown than there is in Manhattan’s Chinatown, or so it seems in my mind. We met at East Harbor Restaurant at 11:30. There was 10 of us. It wasn’t too crowded. We got the standard stuff we usually get and a couple of different things. Everyone was more than willing to try everything…except the chicken feet. It was the very last dish and I actually wouldn’t have ordered it except my parents misunderstood and ordered it when they saw it. I was joking that I hadn’t seen the chicken feet and that I usually try to make the newbies eat it (I actually don’t mind it, it’s all about the sauce baby!). It was actually really tasty as it just came right out of the kitchen. The kids all liked looking at the fish tank. Everyone had a good time!

Poor chicken feet! No one wants to suck on them…except me!

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Chinese (Lunar) New Year fell on the 14th of February this year, aka Valentine’s day. We didn’t do much celebrating for Valentine’s day and I’m ok with that. I don’t know, I guess as I get older, it’s not a big deal to me. Yves is a great husband every day of the year (some days are better than others, of course! LOL) and I guess if you have a hard time showing affection, Valentine’s day is an easy way to show it. Yves doesn’t have that problem! I also think it is way too commercialized but I won’t get into that. It is, however, the anniversary of when Yves asked me to marry him! We didn’t celebrate that either but I did help Sienna pick out a card and a small box of candy. Normally, I would help her make a card but we were in the store and I found this card where you can record a greeting. I thought Yves would love to have a recording of Sienna saying something. He can bring it to work! So Friday I rehearsed with Sienna and helped record her saying “Happy Valentines Day, I love you Daddy.” It worked out well but she spilled the beans as soon as Yves came home. She kept repeating the phrase to him and I kept telling her to shush and we have to wait until Sunday. LOL

Anyway, this post is about Chinese New Year! It’s really hard to get a photo of my mother smiling. I had to tell her to smile! So I’m glad I got this photo, which is why I put it up top there. My family’s tradition is that we celebrate with a big dinner on the eve of the New Year (I don’t know any other Asian families that do that!) and then on the actual day, have lunch together. Here are some of the dishes.

Fried Rice (made for Yves)

Vermicelli with dried shrimp (one of my favorites and it only comes out during New Year)

Yves favorite (as well as Sienna’s!), chinese sausage and roast pork (sorry for the bad photo)

Turnips (not a favorite)

Chinese Broccoli

Abalone, another favorite of mine that only comes out once a year. My mother likes to tell me how expensive it is. Last year it was about $30 for a 12 oz can. Not sure how much it went up this year.

Traditional chicken

My view of the table. See that bowl of rice there on the far end? That’s for my brother Kenny. LOL. He always has a place setting even though he is never here for Chinese New Year. Made rational by some weird superstition of my mother’s.
Here is the dishes on the actual day, pretty much the same.

Offerings for the Buddha

The Buddha blessing station (aka fire hazard according to Yves)

More chinese sausage and roast pork!

MMMM! My favorite and apparently has become a Sienna favorite! Shrimp chips! My dad bought these on a whim because he saw them at the chinese bakery. It’s a rare treat as I only eat these at banquets.

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Last Saturday there was a big snowstorm a coming! It was expected to be at least 6 inches, if not more. I don’t know about other areas but we only got a measly 3 inches, if that! It was quite windy so there was snow drifts. Yves was disappointed he couldn’t take out the snow blower. He’ll get another chance tomorrow as they say a real blizzard is coming! At least 12 inches! We’ll see! Anyway, Sienna “helped” Yves do some shoveling, we all walked Skippy and played just a bit in the snow. Sienna doesn’t have a snowsuit anymore (I can’t find the one she wore last year so I must have given it away!) so she got cold pretty fast. Then we went inside and all had hot cocoa. We tried to get Sienna to take a nap but she didn’t want to, nor has she for the past couple of days. Sigh. Yves changed her crib into a toddler bed the Saturday before so I suppose she is enjoying the freedom of going in and out of her bed. (Although she did take a nap on Sunday after a fun playtime at the indoor playground in Park Slope).

This is how Sienna “helps” her dad shovel snow. HA!

She did a real great job walking Skippy! Only dropped his leash a couple of times.

I was trying to get her to go all the way on the snow but I suppose it was probably a good thing she didn’t.

One of her snow Angels.

She gobbled down her cocoa and wanted some marshmallows on the table (even tho there were some in her mug)

A close up of her cocoa mouth!

You can see another video of Sienna walking Skippy on my flickr page here

Snow Angels from Lisa on Vimeo.

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My friend Pete trekked out to our house this past Sunday for a visit. Sienna hadn’t seen him since summer and was super excited to see him! Thankfully we were smart enough to not tell her too early in the day that he was coming because once we did, she kept looking out the window and saying “Where’s Uncle Peeder? Where is he? I don’t see him!” He arrived for lunch where we were having cold cut sandwiches and I actually made a potato soup, a relatively easy recipe I cut out from the newspaper last week (minus the celery and added extra potatoes not on purpose). I also made these parmesan cream crackers (they were good but the middle parts were more doughy and needed to be baked slightly longer). And Pete presented us with some awesome donuts from our neighborhood shoppe.

Sienna took her nap and we were able to play some Boom Blox 2 on the Wii. Pete brought the Wii Fit Plus with him. That was a lot of fun and am considering getting it. Time to dust off that Wii Fit board! Sienna woke up while we were playing on the board. Since there were multi player options, we were taking turns doing stuff on the board and Sienna wanted to join in. It was funny watching her on the board! We all kind of worked up a sweat on the games we were playing so Yves took the opportunity to put on football. Sienna happily played with Pete; doing puzzles, dancing in her room and having stories read to her.

And I want to thank Pete for wearing her out. She didn’t give us any trouble going to sleep that night! She recently started this (hopefully short lived!) trend where she doesn’t want to go to bed. I knew that was bound to happen sooner or later (I was hoping for later!). We would do our usual routine, read her stories and she would climb into bed (she’ll climb in but won’t climb out.) Not more than 5 minutes later she is crying. As soon as we walk in there, she stops crying and informs us in her sheepish voice, “I don’t wanna go to sleep.” She is even started to tell us that the back of her mouth is hurting (we are beginning to think this is a ploy to get tylenol drops, which she loves!) Anyway, we don’t take her out or anything but try to reason with her and have her lay down and go to bed. We walk out of the room. 5 minutes later the show starts again! Monday night it happened for about the 4th time maybe in a week. By the 3rd outburst, we ignored her and she finally fell asleep. Argh! I wish Uncle Peeder could come over every night until this phase is over! (noted to add: it didn’t happen last night! Woohoo! Cross fingers that it’s over!)

Sienna’s turn on the Wii Fit board

Pete showing us the marching game

Puzzles!

(I know this one is blurry but I like how I caught Pete’s butt sticking out and Sienna in mid twirl while they were dancing!)

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The first weekend of 2010 was brutally cold (actually so was the 2nd weekend but finally some relief this weekend with a expected balmy temp of the mid 40’s). So we went back to the Staten Island Children’s Museum. The first time we went was back in October of ‘09. It was Yves’ idea to go this time and he was even thinking of becoming a member. I don’t know who has more fun, Yves or Sienna!

For lunch, we opted to head on over to Lento’s, a thin crust pizza place that we loved in Bay Ridge (which closed in 2006). While I never thought the Staten Island location compared, it was better than going down the road for lunch as we did last time. Plus it made Yves so happy! We ordered mozzarella sticks, a salad for me and the pizza with half black olives/pepperoni and half cheese. Sienna enjoyed it was well!

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Since my parents do Christmas presents on the Eve, we didn’t have much planned for the rest of Christmas Day after opening our own presents. I was delighted that Starr invited us over along with Geneva, Layne and Phoenix. I always get so bummed out right after opening presents. So much preparation and excitement and hub bub for the one big day and then bam, all done. Of course it’s fun to play with all the goodies you got but I still get a little sad when it’s all over. So I was happy to prolong it just a little bit with a party at Starr’s house! Woohoo! I made pumpkin cupcakes with cream cheese frosting, my now “famous” homemade thin mints, macaroni and cheese and some pretzles with chocolate kisses and M&M’s on top and homemade chocolate lollipops.

We played a fun game while we were there. Everyone gets a sticker on their back with the name of a celebrity that made the news that year. We have to guess who we are by asking yes or no questions to everyone else. It was so much fun! I was Michael Jackson and I was suprised at how long it took me to guess him! Yves was Bernie Madoff and he was the last to guess. So a bit later we did the White Elephant. Everyone brings a gift and one person picks a gift and opens it. Then the next person on the list can either take away your gift or opt to open a new gift. I goofed by only bringing one gift from me and Yves. The kids each got a gift but got to keep the ones they opened! I ended up getting scratch off lottery tickets (no winners, boo!) and Yves got coffee mugs and dish towel/mitt because Geneva was nice enough to be the one short changed a gift. The big prize was the Blue Mountain coffee I gave as a gift. Geneva opened it and it got taken by Starr. LOL. Brian made pulled pork sandwiches with homemade BBQ sauce, collard greens, butternut squash and slaw. Geneva brought over a wonderful green salad with cranberries and walnuts in it. It was really a fun time!

Layne, Yves, Geneva and Starr

Sylvie and a messy cookie

Sienna didn’t do too badly with the chocolate!

Sienna got a platypus for her White Elephant gift, which she promptly called a duck.

Nico watching excitedly as his dad Brian opens his gift (2 frames and M&M’s)

Phoenix got our puzzles!

The kids flocked around Yves a lot that night!

Starr and Sylvie

Some great peeps!

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