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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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We joined the Wildlife Conservation Society and went to the Bronx Zoo a couple of weeks ago. We didn’t even do the whole zoo and we were completely exhausted at the end of the day! Sienna fell asleep on the way home for just 40 minutes and her energy level went back up when we got home (ah, to be young!) We haven’t been to the zoo in about 6 years and I was a tad disappointed because I feel like we didn’t get as close a view as last time (see here and here) or maybe because I haven’t been taking photos as much I lost my touch!

I think these are gazelles but I can’t be sure!

“Melvin” (we were on the lookout for the Madagascar Movie animals)

I love the look she has here at the turtles

“King Julien”,”Maurice” and “Mort”

Climbing up the rope web

I think Sienna’s favorite part was the petting zoo!

She was having a conversation with the alpaca!

This chicken in the tree cracked me up!

Sienna big ears

When I tried to show Sienna this cool porcupine, she replied “We don’t have time to look at that”

I love the contrast of the bird with it’s neutral surroundings!

We saw these elephants on the Asia Monorail ride, something we saved for last because I thought it would be nice and relaxing while seeing a bunch of animals. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to see much. 🙁

I saved the bug carousel photo for last because I’ve been playing around with some vintage photo filters and picture frames.

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Wow, I can’t believe a whole week passed by so fast! Last Sunday, “Uncle Peeder” came for a visit and we had BBQ for lunch. Sienna LOVES playing with Uncle Peeder and he totally obliged her. Poor guy! Well, he claims he was having fun and was glad to spend time with her. I am selfishly thinking of recruiting him for a babysitter although Yves thinks it wouldn’t be cool to have him come all the way out there to watch Sienna. I guess I agree…hmph!

Uncle Peeder visits from Lisa on Vimeo.

Uncle Peeder rocks! from Lisa on Vimeo.

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Today was dreary and rainy but not last week! Picnic!

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What a wonderful weekend! The weather was fabulous (ok, maybe it was a little too hot this weekend!) Potty training is proceeding and Sienna is doing so great! We are so proud of her. All of our outings this weekend were underwear only. Actually, she’s been wearing just underwear after only about a week! She still hasn’t done number 2 in the potty but I know that takes time. After a week of staying home or close to home, I was anxious to get back out into civilization…

Friday we had another picnic at Owl’s Head park with a bunch of mom’s and kids. Sienna got obsessed with these toy binoculars of Phoenix’s.

Saturday we went up to Norwalk, CT for a Cinco de Mayo lunch hosted by an old friend of Yves’ from Chicago.  They moved from Chicago last summer and have been trying to make plans to get together since but something always happened. It was nice to finally meet Selena, her husband Danny and 2 adorable kids, Gael and Sofia. There were several moms and dads with their kids there as well. They have a beautiful spacious house with a nice big backyard. Sienna had a ball. She especially loved riding the “four wheeler.” They also had a Dora pinata for the kids. Sienna got hold of the string that probably would have opened it all up but she didn’t have the strength to pull it off. After a fun time, Sienna announced that she wanted to stay there forever. HA!

Pull Sienna! Pull!

This older boy got the magic string

Got some goodies!

Gael

Sofia

Sienna kept saying she wanted to go into the ‘pool’ so Sunday was the day for it.

Yes, it was hot!

Sienna took the opportunity to wash her car. LOL

Hot dog number 1

and hot dogs numbers 2 thru 4. LOL

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A couple of weeks ago, before my gluten free quest, we had the luck of having lunch with two of our good friends on two separate days. Yves was finally able to join Pete and I on a weekday lunch outing! Since we can no longer count on Lento’s as our go to thin crust pizza place, we tried Vezzo’s which I’m sure is related somehow to Gruppo’s, which me and Yves have gone to before. We ordered a pizza with carmelized onions, homemade meatballs and olives. It was quite tasty but the olives were a bit salty. The menu said black olives but kalamata olives were on the pizza. It was still good!

The day after, we had lunch with Joy and went to a panini place I’ve been wanting to try, Press 195. I like my steak and avocado sandwich and the frites and the dessert (nutella and banana press with ice cream) we got but I don’t think it was as awesome as I was lead to believe by some reviews I read. But I believe a lot of the reviews were for their Queens location. They did a good job with the kid plates by including sliced apples, which Sienna ate all of! Plue, there are over 40 sandwich combinations! I’m glad I got to check it out!

The frites were ok

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I just wanted to show how my second go around went using the ColorArtz. My first go around can be found here. Before I start, I want to follow up on the ones I made. I haven’t worn them yet but decided to throw 2 of the 3 shirts into the wash. Please note that I purposely washed them right side out. If you know anything about doing laundry, you know that if you want to keep the coloring or a decal on a front of the shirt intact, it’s to turn it inside out. Anyway, they did quite a bit of fading! I don’t think I have to tell you which one was the pre-washed shirt!

So for this turn, I found this blog post of a woman that made her daughter a Peep’s appliqued shirt/dress for Easter. She included the template for it and I promptly downloaded it. For the life of me, I can’t find that blog post!! Big apology for the woman that made this available! If you happen to be reading this, please let me know who you are!

So I decided to do the airbrushing instead of applique. I set up the template and printed it out on freezer paper and cut them out. In my supplies, I found this giant clipboard that I’m not sure where I got it and for what reason but I thought it was perfect for this project. This way I can be looking straight at the shirt instead of down on the shirt.

I was really good this time at masking the surrounding area!

As you can see, I had some trouble printing on the freezer paper because it was too curly but then used the scrap anyway. After taking this shot, I decided to tape a little bit more in between the peeps on the top. You can see exactly where in the final shot!

I did several coats because I wasn’t sure how well the yellow would show up on the pink. I also attempted to do some shading on the bottom. I think it came out cute! I used dimensional fabric paint for the eyes. I was debating writing “My Peeps” on the front but ended up not doing it. You can really see the areas that were open from not being taped down or from the tape not being secure. You really have to tape around the whole area to get it perfect!

So when I washed this shirt, I did turn it inside out and I did not notice any fading. This could also be because I sprayed several coats. That’s good to know! Sienna wore this on Good Friday for the Easter Egg Hunt. Here is another outtake, she has started to give me the sad face whenever I take a photo of her (she’d be all smiley seconds before!)

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So the last weekend in March was a bit chilly so we opted to go to the Staten Island Children’s Museum. Both Yves and Sienna really enjoy that one. We got there around 10:30 only to discover it was closed! They were having a special Easter event out on the front lawn so the museum was closed for that. The event starts at noon and we were told we should come back for that. Well, what a bummer! Sienna was really upset and even started crying. Poor thing! Since we’re not from the area we had no idea how to occupy our time in order to come back for the special event. We were a little upset about this closure, especially since we checked the website right before we left! So since the museum is on a cultural center (Snug Harbor), we walked around that area. Unfortunately Yves wasn’t really dressed for being outside but he toughed it out and we managed to pass an hour by. By the time we walked by the museum, it seems like they started the festivities even tho it was before noon so technically, we could have checked it out. But because we were kind of mad at the museum, we decided not to and just go to lento’s for lunch. Good news for me! Yves realized that their pizza is subpar to the Bay Ridge Lentos (and our own) that he declared we are not to go back there again! Yay! (I always thought it was subpar and I think Yves was still holding onto the memories of the BR Lentos.) Now we need to find another lunchtime place for our future visits to the Children’s museum. Anyone know of any??

Walking into the ‘scary jungle’


Sienna kept saying “Come here duck, I want to pet you.”

Yves kept saying “Come here duck, I want to pet you.”

This tree tunnel will look really pretty when the leaves come in.

A castle!

Hello? Anybody home?

Found a magic stick!

Found a stage!

Snug Harbor from Lisa on Vimeo.

I do want to say that I e-mailed the museum to suggest putting special events and notices on their visit us page. I had checked their calendar when we came back later that day to make sure it wasn’t something we missed. It did say there was a special event but it did not say the museum was closed! They were nice about it and even sent us 5 free passes for another visit.

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Yesterday was Easter Sunday and a beautiful 70 degrees. It’s too bad Sienna had a fever in the morning and threw up twice in the afternoon! My poor baby! ;-( She is better today, thankfully! Friday was the 2nd annual Easter Egg hunt that Starr so graciously organized again. It was a big difference weather wise than last year! And Sienna was pretty good with getting a decent amount of eggs unlike last year!

She’s ready to fill her basket!

On the hunt! She shared her find with Sylvie.

Look at all that she got!

Nico’s loot

Phoenix shows off some bling she got in one of her eggs!

Nico raiding his eggs!

Sienna was asking Nico if she could sit next to him. His only concern was his candy! LOL

Izky shows off a cool dinosaur head egg!

Chocolate face!

Carter stops by and is wearing the shirt I made him!

Sienna’s getting pretty good riding the scooter (Izky’s)

Pizza afterwards. She didn’t get any on her shirt!! Which, btw, is a Peeps shirt I made for her that I will blog about soon!

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Last Sunday was another beautiful day (this past weekend was quite the opposite!) and we spent part of it in Williamsburg. We were meeting Pete, Nate and Mari at Raymund’s and stopped by the playground beforehand. McCarren Park has a nice playground! 2 sets of swings, a bunch of slides and at least 3 different structures to climb. We picked up Joy before we headed out there. Sienna had fun playing with Joy.

Now on to Raymund’s! YUM!

Mari’s borscht

Pete eats white borscht (with a plop of mashed potatoes, ahem!)

Potato Pancakes MMMM!

Apple fritters! MMMM

Joy points to her big pile of goulash (on a pile of potato pancake!), which was pretty good. I might have to deviate from my usual pierogi order next time.

My pierogies!

Yves eats his kielbasa plate

Sienna enjoys some of Yves’ kielbasa and potato pancakes

Sienna and doggie

Pete laughs at Sienna’s rendition of Mana mana (from the Muppets)

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