v.2

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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Yes, I realize I am really behind in my posts and in wishing you all Happy Holidays. I hope you all enjoyed yourselves and got lots of great presents and spent time with the ones you love! I have the Jamaica vacation to write about as well as lots of swaps but wanted to start off with Christmas.

My parents came over on the Eve (as per tradition) and we all got our red envelopes. We gave my dad a OXO chopper and a melon slicer device. My mom got a calendar of Sienna photos. Sienna got a bunch of presents! She got some a new frog animal (she named Ribbit), wood blocks, a Winne the Pooh computer (which she promptly said that she was going to check her e-mail!), a vest jacket, fleece and sweatshirt with Tinklebell and some Tag books (she didn’t open the actual Tag device until Christmas morning since that was from us.) Then we went to eat at the East River restaurant in the Brooklyn Chinatown. It was all good!

Christmas morning Sienna woke up at 6:20 with excitement to open presents. They usually let me sleep a bit but Sienna came into the bedroom to wake me up! Well, how could I say no? Originally we were thinking of holding back some presents since Yves bought her a bunch of stuff and I bought her a bunch of stuff. We decided to just hold back one present (to save for her birthday) after spending 10 days with a certified brat of a toddler, it made us appreciate how well behaved Sienna is (for the most part anyway, she still is only 3 months shy of being 3!) And the fun begins! Yves got her a bunch of Melissa and Doug wooden toys. She got fake wood food, wood pots and pans and a set of instruments for her “band.” She also got the Tag Reader and another tag book from us as well as 3 more wooden puzzles and a tool set and bench from Santa. My brother sent her a Curious George write your own book set and from Jamaica, a ballerina wooden puzzle and some crocs. I gave Yves a diver’s watch, an F1 driving game, Boom Blox (2nd version) and sports set for the Wii. I also gave him the Christmas version of It’s Almost Sunny in Philadelphia. Yves spoiled me as well. I got the Hello Kitty sizzix that I wanted (for cutting fabric and felt! woohoo!) with a bunch of the dies. I also got a new pocket camera! Mine broke earlier this year and Yves was tired of me asking to borrow his (actually the one that broke was his too! He bought that one when Sienna was born to take quick shots of her!) We ended the fun by having a yummy breakfast of homemade buttermilk waffle and bacon. Later on we went to Starr’s house for a fun party that I will write about tomorrow!

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So I don’t want to leave the last post before vacation to be about pain. So here is something fun!

We went to the Kings Plaza Mall on Sunday. Yves dropped us off. He was supposed to come with us but when we went out to the car Sunday morning, the car wouldn’t start! The battery was dead! At first we couldn’t figure out why, we’ve only had the car for 7 months! Turns out the lights were left on! By Sienna! Sienna likes to sit in the front seat and “drive.” I usually let her but on Friday, we got back from our playdate later than usual so we were behind schedule. She had scooted into the front seat before I can stop her so since it was late, I just grabbed out of the seat. I only saw that she turned the wiper handle so I put that back. I didn’t notice she turned on the lights! I called my dad and he came and gave us a boost. Turns out that my dad saw the lights were on as they had stopped by on Friday just when we got home! He just assumed that they shut off by themselves. Argh! Yves was nervous to go to the mall and shut off the car and be stranded so he just dropped us off and drove back so the battery has a chance to recharge. Everything is fine now.

Waiting for Santa

Getting ready (I got yelled at for having my camera out)

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Saturday was Halloween and we went to the festival at Owl’s Head Park. It started at 2 so we opted not to give Sienna her nap. Of course she fell asleep right when we got there! She woke up when we tried to put her in her stroller and looked around and realized where she was and voila! She was awake!

I wanna ride dat!

The Maze ride

The short bouncy ride

Sliding down the maze ride

Got a ‘babboon’

I’m ambivalent about how the day went. Nobody’s fault but my own. I had delusions of grandeur. Last year she was sick so this was really her first Halloween (plus I think she would have been too young to really get it last year anyway). I was picturing her getting so into it. There were bouncy rides at the park and she went thru one and actually liked it! It was a maze and at the end you go down the slide. I was amazed because the last time a bouncy ride was involved was at Sesame Place and that didn’t go well. Ha, well I spoke too soon. She wanted to go on a jump up and down bouncy ride next and that didn’t last. At least she didn’t cry. Then there was the slide one that you could go on 2 times. She didn’t want to do the 2nd turn even though she said she liked it. It was really kind of an up and down day for me. I guess me and Sienna were both overwhelmed. We decided to enter the Fairytale Forest and encountered hunchback Minnie Mouse, Winnie the Fooh and “Kookie” Monster. LOL. I think you’ll know what I mean when you see the photos below. She really liked that and it made no difference to her that these fellows were a little ‘off.’ HA! Plus ske kept asking where Mickey was!

We ran into Geneva and Layne with Phoenix dressed up as a zombie bride and Starr with Nico as a firefighter and Sylvie as a little ladybug. Earlier we saw Liz with her dinosaurs Henry and Nora. Kerry was also therewith Rory as Spiderman. I’m sure there were lots of other people I knew there that we probably passed without noticing. We opted not to do trick or treating since I wasn’t sure how Sienna was going to hold up without her nap. We ended up having an early outside dinner at Yellow Hook Grille and I’m glad we did because it started to rain near the end of our dinner.

Sienna woke up crying for me at about ??? I don’t remember now. Oh,maybe 1:30 in the morning. I wasn’t surprised because of no nap and the excitement of the afternoon. (Although she did do this Thursday night but that night her nose was bleeding, a lot!) I tried to calm her and she tried to get me to sleep on the floor in her room (also a repeat of Thursday night). Another repeat is that she wanted to get up and out of bed. She eventually woke up around 6 and Yves got up. Later that day, she had a fever of 100.3. She seemed better after tylenol but then it went back up later that day and we ended up putting her to bed at 6:30 (which is technically 7:30 for her since we had daylight savings.)

She’s better today (cross fingers!) and she slept through the whole night last night (cross fingers again!)

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Time for some Halloween fun! First and foremost, I want to note that I indeed finish the skeleton stuffie I started at Etsy Labs earlier this month!

I opted to do the face features with fabric paint instead of black felt. I like him!
These are the handmade items I made for the Harajuku Girls Group Halloween Swap on swap-bot. I included other Halloween related items but didn’t take photos of those. The black cat and pumpkin keychain are made of felt and I got the pattern from a Japanese craft book I recently purchases. The black and orange towels were blank from Kohl’s and I embroidered matching cute skulls, an image I got from a Stampin’ Up catalog! I used Saral transfer paper for this, which worked out really well although I initially bought it to transfer images onto felt, which does not work so well!

Then last week Geneva and Phoenix came over to help carve the pumpkin we got from Lawrence Farms. I never carved a pumpkin before! Geneva was kind enough to do the initial cutting and gutting. She let me and Sienna carve out the face. We even roasted the seeds, also something I’ve never done before!

The Jack O’Lantern barely lasted a week (we kept it indoors). I read that if you put cinnamon powder inside and the cut rim, it would last longer. I don’t know if this is true but it gave the pumpkin a dark and dull look. It started rotting about 5 days after. I was going to put it outside on the patio but wanted to wait until closer to Halloween. Oh well. At least I know how to do it for next year!

I am also proud of myself for making part of Sienna’s Halloween costume and the accompanying piece for Yves to wear.  You’ll understand what I mean when you see it. I’ll post it after Halloween so I don’t ruin the surprise.

Yesterday I made chocolate covered peeps and chocolate covered pretzel rods with sprinkles. I’m not really a peeps person but I saw this idea at Jacques Torres being sold for $1.25! (I thought I saw it for $1.25 but then saw on someone’s blog that it was $2.25) So since someone sent me peeps in a swap, I wanted to try it out. Of course the ones from Jacques Torres probably tastes better because of the quality of chocolate (it better for that price!). I still haven’t tried it yet.  I’ll probably give it away at the Halloween festival tomorrow.

The ones at JT had eyes on them. I was going to put them on but realized I had the gel frosting so it would probably get all gooey in the bag.

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On the 10th we headed up north to Lawrence Farms to do some pumpkin picking upping and meet up with Tammy, Mark and Zack. It was a real nice farm with apple picking and lots of other veggies to pick. They even had a play village, fresh apple cider donuts and some goats, sheep and peacock. A pumpkin was picked and a few apples too. I didn’t pay attention to the pumpkin picking thinking that it was just going to rot like last year’s pumpkin. Now I wish I did as Geneva and Phoenix are coming over to help carve the pumpkin! Oh well. I wish we could have stayed longer at the farm but it was a bit windy and we didn’t dress appropriately (mind you, we did know it was going to be colder and brought sweaters but that wasn’t enough!). Afterwards we headed over to Tammy’s house for some delicious chili and Sienna played next to a bunch of other kids. It was a nice day.

Yves’ got 2 real cute videos on his post!

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So yes, Yves posted about going to this already on October 4 so here are some more photos. We’ve gone every year for the past 3 years, since Sienna has been born so it has become a sort of tradition. Unfortunately, we did not get to dance like we did last year but it was still fun.

Me and Sienna crafted a tissue paper flower at the Brooklyn Children’s Museum booth.

Sienna loves lollipops and one booth was giving out these DumDum lollipops (the same ones she gets at the doctor’s office) She cried until she was able to go ask for one.

Looking on the old buses was fun.

Back of the bus. I imagine it can get quite crowded back here.

Sienna eating her Mozzarepa like she did last year. Me and Yves found the empanadas we liked from when we tried them the year before last. (I thought it was funny to see how busy those cops in the back were!)

We ended up going to Barnes and Noble so I could use the bathroom and we bought 2 new Dr. Suess books for Sienna. She really likes (most of) them. We hopped back on the train afterwards. The time seemed so short but she ended up taking a nap when we got home. She was tired from all the excitement I guess. I’m kind of looking forward to when her naps end so we can spend longer amounts of time at places. I know I’m going to regret saying that though!

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