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I just want to document this event before I forget. Today was Sienna’s 2.5 year wellness check up at the doctor’s this morning (8:15!). My dad usually comes with me mainly for support as I tend to hate going to the doctor’s with Sienna by myself. She is usually fine in the waiting room but once we head into the exam room, she usually starts getting scared and begins to cry a bit. Never mind once the doctor comes in! She used to not be as dramatic at the other doctor’s office and I always thought it was because the rooms were decorated for kids. These rooms are not. They are like stark hospital rooms, very medical and no kid’s decorations at all. So it surprised me immensely that Sienna DID NOT CRY AT ALL!! Even when the doctor gave her 2 shots. She even said she loved the doctor. Wow! And that was before he offered her lollipops! She did cry when they took blood from her in the other room but they did it really fast so it was over in a snap of a finger!

My baby is growing up! Sniff.

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Yesterday was our first class at the Little Gym for the Fall/Winter semester. Sienna always enjoys running around and swinging and jumping. And she did just that during this class. Unfortunately the class did not tire her out as I had hoped and I feel like naptime is going to start to fade away soon. She had a less than 2 hour nap! Perhaps it is just a fluke! Anyway, I can’t believe that I did not get a chance to post about the show week from the Little Gym Spring semester back in June. Thought I would post about it now. Show week is the last class of the semester and all parents and grandparents and any other family members are invited to come and the kids show off what they learned the previous 19 weeks. Both my parents came. Let this also serve as a reminder to myself to not let my mother come to the Winter semester show week. She was a royal pain in the butt. She kept hovering over Sienna and did not want her to do the majority of the activites (the rolling for example) meanwhile she had been doing it the whole semester. Grrr. Downright annoying! Anyway, here are some photos and a video of the event!

Under the parachute

Swinging

Jumping with Grandpa

Grandma always close by

Attempting a group photo!

Little Gym Show Week from Lisa on Vimeo.

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We have reached thin crust pizza success! Last week’s pizza was perfectly thin and crunchy and didn’t fluff up in the middle. Yves decided to use a little less dough and it worked out perfectly. We still had problems transferring the pizza so on Wednesday me and Sienna went to get a pizza peel at BB&B. That night’s pizza was equally delicious and the pizza peel did make it easier to transfer the pizza (no pics from last night’s dinner). Last week Sienna made a pizza in her little pan. We couldn’t find it last night so I just shared mine with her.

Why does Sienna have a goofy smile?

Because her mommy had a goofy smile!

Sienna next to her pizza (we actually put the toppings on for her!)

Yves next to his pizza

My pizza

Cooked!

Thinness galore!

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Sienna at her first movie probably picking her nose. ha!

So I wanted to write about this before I forget! I took Sienna to her first movie at the end of July. They offer free movies at the theatre by our house during the summer on Tuesdays and Wednesdays at 10 am. I thought it was perfect to escape the heat and humidity. We went to see the Curious George movie and it took all my strength to keep it a surprise for Sienna. She loves CG. The theatre was packed (not surprising) and it was a pretty pleasant experience given the fact that I haven’t gone to the movies in ages mostly because people suck at the movies (they talk too much or kick your chair or just make too much eating noise). Sienna really enjoyed herself! I was looking forward to free movies all summer!

The following week was Mr. Bean’s Holiday. I like Mr. Bean. I thought maybe Sienna would too but wasn’t sure. She was super cranky that day so opted not to go as I didn’t want to deal with her in case she didn’t like the movie. The week after that was Wallace & Gromit. I know she isn’t familiar with these characters but thought she would like them. I was a little surprised that the theatre wasn’t packed at all. More empty seats than full ones. Hmmm. Once the movie started and the credits rolled, I thought ‘uh oh!’ It was the Curse of the Were-Rabbit (although I’m not sure now if they do have other movies). I looked over at Sienna but she didn’t seem scared. Whew. Maybe I am overreacting. About 30-40 minutes into the movie, I really had to use the bathroom. I asked Sienna to go to the bathroom with me and she willingly went. Once outside the theatre, as we are walking toward the bathroom, I hear gasping and look down to see Sienna starting to cry! I asked her what was the matter and she mumbled something about the man and the dog and nenna wanna go to the car! The man and the dog meaning Wallace & Gromit. I tried to calm her down and in the meantime figure out what to do while I went to the bathroom. Should I continue with the movie to show her that it ended happily? Or do I risk giving her nightmares later that night? I opted to leave because I did not want to have to deal with nightmares! As I was walking out, another mom was coming out of that theatre with her 2 kids. Apparently the scene right after we left was the one where they show the giant were-rabbit. The mom told me her daughter (who is 3!) screamed out “I wanna go HOME!” Her other daughter was just 18 months so didn’t really know what was going on. Good thing we left when we did!

So the following week was Clifford. I figured that was safe! A big red dog! Friendly and nice! Nothing scary about that, right? Well, I have come to realize that Sienna is still a tad too young for movies. She was taking everything in the movie way too seriously! There was a small sad part, she was crying. There was a part where a cow was walking a tightrope and looking like she would fall, she was yelling ‘cow gonna fall! cow gonna fall!’ All excited. We made it to the end of the movie but not without more drama in between. She cried afterwards because she wanted to see it again.On the way home, all she kept saying was ‘big red dog’, want,’big red dog.’ Sigh…she has a few Clifford books handed down from Eli and Maia and has now started asking for them on a regular basis. She even picked out a Clifford book at the library all by herself! And didn’t want to let it go. Huh. I’m exhausted! 😉

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Hurricane Bill thwarted our beach plans (they closed the beaches due to rough riptides) but we had a nice weekend regardless! Friday afternoon the skies opened up and it rained pretty heavily. It didn’t last too long. Saturday there was a threat of rain and it did rain for a little bit but it wasn’t too bad. Yves took Sienna to play in the back while I baked banana cupcakes with a whipped peanut butter frosting. Then I ran over to the market so Yves can grill up some burgers. I laughed out loud when I came back to discover Sienna was totally carefree (see photo for specifics)! The pool and sprinkler was out and they were wet and running around and having a great time. Yves finally turned out a batch of burgers he was very happy with.

The frosting tasted a lot better later on in the day and the next day.

Sunday I made bacon chocolate chip pancakes (thanks for the mix Brenda!) and Sienna even helped. At first Yves wasn’t interested in trying it but then he did and we all liked them. Sienna even asked for more (although I made hers without the bacon chocolate). Then we went down to Park Slope so I could take my film into get developed at Accurate Photo. Yves and Sienna went to the playground by the Stone House while I waited by the photo store to be opened. I waited. And waited. And waited. Then gave up. Turns out they were closed when we drove by at 1pm! I usually go on Saturdays but thought they were open on Sundays as well. So disappointed! Anyway, we had lunch at Perch cafe. The food is good but service is slow as molasses! It also totally annoys me when a table that orders after us gets their food before us! Clearly the waitress does not have kids  and doesn’t understand the urgency of keeping the visit as short as possible.
Sienna got mac and cheese

My turkey bacon club

Tired of playing tea party, Yves talked her into playing blocks instead!

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Just this week Sienna has gotten into having tea parties (thanks to Yves, isn’t that funny?) Here are some recent photos from one the other morning.

As you can see, she is seriously lacking in some tea party food. The 2 cupcakes with the sprinkles on the right came from the tenants who gave Sienna their daughter’s old play house with oven, sink and washer. The cupcake with the strawberry on top was from a swap and the cake behind it I just made from a softies kit from Chronicle Books. I just got into felt and had ordered a bunch of felt last week. After this tea party phenomenon started, I ordered a bunch of felt food patterns off Etsy from Gulf Coast Cottage. I made a petit four for her last night and plan to make a bunch more things!

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Although we said we would go to the beach more often because of it’s close proximity, time certainly flies and we didn’t find ourselves there again until a little over a month after our first visit! We went 2 weekends ago on the 8th and we would have gone this past weekend if it weren’t for other commitments. We really had a great time, more so than the first! Sienna wasn’t as obsessed with going in the water every 5 minutes and she actually played quite awhile in the sand. Her and Yves even took a walk along the beach. It’s such perfect timing as we get there by 9:30 and leave by 11:30 when most of the people are coming in. We get a spot right by the entrance so it’s easy in and easy out! This time we picked a different spot and found the showers. That was a lot better!

I was intrigued by this tiny little mussel!

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Saturday we went to the NY Aquarium in what seems to be our yearly trip. She seemed to be a little more into the fishes and other sea life there than last year. We were pretty much done with the place in an hour and a half, opted to forgo the shows and get lunch at Nathan’s. We got home in time for Sienna to take her regular afternoon nap and later that afternoon, we filled the blow up pool with some nice cold water and had some of Yves’ yummy burgers on the grill for dinner.

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We were invited up to Tammy and Mark’s house for a BBQ on July 4th. Since we had gone up there already, the drive wasn’t so bad. Their house is perfect for entertaining and there was plenty of food and good people. I love any excuse to bake and tried 2 new recipes for me: ‘real’ strawberry cupcakes and strawberry lemonade cupcakes using the frosting from the 2nd cupcake recipe for both (of which I had trouble). Both were really good and got lots of praise despite the look of the frosting (which tasted good but didn’t look anything like the photo posted on that blog).

Tammy and Zack and friends. No shortage of babies and kids at this BBQ!

Grilling!

Alison, the tattoo artist!

Sienna’s new Donald Duck tat

My new tat to match the other one!

Quiet swing time

Sienna playing ball with a baby. She loves babies!

Tammy going around giving samples of bacon ice cream. You can see that Yves isn’t that excited to try it but he did and liked it!

Got cupcake frosting?

The cupcakes:

See how blah my frosting looked?

Filling for the Strawberry Lemonade cupcakes. This is the first time I had less than what the recipe said I would (I usually have more, way more!)

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On the 11th of this month I turned 40. I can’t believe it. I don’t think I really mind turning 40 probably because I don’t look 40 (fingers crossed!). Time just seems to be going so fast. And I always feel like I still have so much I want to do and see and make. It was hard to decide what to do for my big day since it landed on a Saturday. Yves organized a birthday BBQ for me but we had that the following weekend. I decided I wanted to get a pork sandwich for lunch from Porchetta. It’s a little tiny place in the East Village that my friend Brenda told me about. We had tried to go there one night before a mixer but it only has 6 seats and it was raining. I managed to get a couple of bites from a sandwich she brought to another mixer. It was delicious. I wanted a whole one for myself. I actually forgot about the place until a couple of weeks ago when I saw a post on one of the foodie blogs I read who had recently gone there. Then I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Then I figured it was a good place to go while Sienna was home with my parents. And that was that.

It was really good although I did find the skin a bit on the chewy side. I like my pork skin crispy.

Potatoes with burnt ends

PORK!

Yves enjoyed the sandwich but he didn’t think it was worth the price. I might have to agree with him on that. We went back home to have cake that my parents bought for me. They buy me a cake every year and this year I managed to talk them out of going to the chinese bakery. (Not that I dislike chinese bakery cake but they order from one every year) I managed to convince them to go to Jean Danet Bakery (after an attempt to get them to go to Ivy Bakery failed-they thought $35 for a cake was too much which I would usually agree with them but come on, this is my 40th! Anyway, I digress…)

The cake was a chocolate cake with strawberries and chocolate pudding. They were very generous with the strawberries! The cake was delicious! So good that I forgot to take a photo of a slice.

Yves got me a mega stand mixer, the Cuisinart 5.5 quart in brushed steel, for my birthday. It’s fabulous! Sienna bought me an orange case for my Ipod touch! Thanks guys!

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