v.2

No photos for this, just a post to remind me of this time. Hopefully I can read back on this post and remember how it was (meaning this phase is over and not continuing!) I went to Sienna’s open house last week. Parents were invited to sit in on their child’s class for a couple of hours. Me and Jessica were there, as well as Marta (Emily’s mom), Sammie (twin’s mom) and Joanna’s mom (I can’t remember her name!) After sitting in for 2 hours (and noting how very little Sienna participated although I was happy she raised her hand a lot during science!), I made sure I said good bye. In the back of my head I was wondering if she would get upset. I believe that when I went to the open house last year, she was ok and the year prior, when she was in Pre-K, she got sad. Fair enough, she was younger then. Since she didn’t get sad last year, I was hoping she grew out of that. No such luck. I find out from Emma that she cried for me. I didn’t say anything to Sienna until we were home and asked her if anything happened. She told me she was sad and cried and told the teacher she was sad that I left. Ok. I was a little sad that that happened but figured she will get over it. Still going on!! Argh! Sometimes she tells me she keeps thinking about the picture in her head of when I was waving good bye as I walked out the door and she would get sad. Sometimes Emma tells me. Now she is starting to cry at drop off in the morning. Not sure what is going on.

*Edited to add. A month later and crying at drop off is still going on. Mondays are the worst and usually gets better by the end of the week but not always. We even started trying to meet up with Emma in the morning. It doesn’t seem to make a difference. She is always fine at pick up after school. I think it might be that she is worried that something will happen to me and/or Yves while she is in school. She had mentioned months ago ( a couple of times) that she is afraid to grow old and die and that she doesn’t want me or Yves to grow up and die. Breaks my heart that a six year old would be thinking about that stuff. I bought the book, “What to do if you worry too much”. It seems to help a bit but she still cries in the morning. Still waiting for this phase to pass…

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We went on another hike! This time with our favorite family (now I worry that Sienna will find hiking with just me and Yves to be boring! LOL). My friend Ingrid, an avid hiker, suggested Sandy Hook, NJ because it opens up onto the beach. We met our friends there. It was really nice, although cold! I found lots of pretty rocks and there were lots of photo ops. The photos say a lot so there probably won’t be a lot of words.

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Yves was {half} joking about how we did not go to Waffle House once during our vacation in Florida. And vacation is the only time we can get to a Waffle House. So, always looking for a reason to go away, I suggested an overnight trip! The closest Waffle House is in Bethlehem, PA. The closest kid friendly thing to do by Bethlehem is the Crayola Factory (now called the Crayola Experience.) We had gone there a few years ago and had a good time but remember thinking it wasn’t something to go back to regularly as I can imagine some of the activities would get too repetitive. We decided to have a go at it and set off. It was a fun time and there were a few new things added since the last time we went.

Afterwards, we went to have pizza at Antonio’s Pizzeria, where reviewers on yelp claimed it was the most authentic NY style pizza in the area. Well, the other pizzeria’s must be terrible because this was nothing like NY style pizza! (Well, now that I have gone back to check out the link, realized that I confused this place’s review with another places! Oops! Oh well!)

We stayed at Hilton Garden Inn in Allentown. It was ok. The pool was really small (just like the other hotel we stayed at last time we went to Crayola, must be a Bethlehem thing!) but there was also a jacuzzi! And the hotel happens to be right next to the Waffle House! We ended up going to dinner next door as well, to Red Robin. We are not fans of chain restaurants (for the most part) but I remembered that their burgers were decent. Plus it was right next door! We decided to order potato skins for appetizers. Bad move, they were terrible! The burgers were really good tho!

After breakfast at Waffle House, of course! I was able to convince everyone to go check out the Steel Stacks in Bethlehem. Sienna had off on Monday for Veteran’s day and Yves had taken off so there was no rush to get home. It was a windy day so didn’t stay as long as we might have but Sienna was pretty good about it!

All in all, a very fun trip! I got to have some fun with the Canon 5D!

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So Sienna announced pretty early on that she wanted to be Bubbles (Powerpuff Girl) for Halloween. I attempted to make a wig for her out of yellow yarn. Evidence:

I didn’t like how it came out and knew she wouldn’t be able to keep it on so convinced her to be Buttercup instead. Much better!
This was just a tester for the outfit and the make up. I had planned to do a better make up job on Halloween. Turns out that on Halloween, she didn’t want me to do her eyes at all! Sad face! She was afraid her classmates would laugh at her. Double sad face! I did get to do her “bangs.” Her school has a Halloween parade every year but since it was a bit drizzly, they had it in the auditorium. Not as much fun but whatever!

Then off to Owl’s Head park for Halloween festivities!

Then trick or treating!

Then to cap the night off, we had dinner at Longbow Pub in Bay Ridge! Sienna made out pretty good with the candy!

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We inadvertently stumbled upon hiking when we went apple picking at Ochs Orchard in Warwick, NY. I had read on their website that there was an area to have a picnic lunch so I packed some food for our day. After having a fun time picking (the apples were delicious!!), we went down to the main store to get some apple cider and donuts. I asked the cashier where it was that we could picnic. She kind of gave me a funny look and said there were tables at the side of the building. Huh. Didn’t remember reading that there were actual tables. So we went and took a look. It was a lone picnic table on the side of the building in front of the parking lot! Uh, fumes! No thank you! I was baffled and I knew I read that there was a place to picnic so figured there must be a park nearby. After driving for about 20-30 minutes, we found Sterling Forest park. It’s a National park and not your typical regular neighborhood park. We were really hungry by that point so parked in a lot across from the visitor’s center. We sorta tailgated and then ate on a rock.

After we ate, we went and took a look in the visitor’s center. That’s how we discovered there was hiking! There was a big display inside of the park and different trails you can go on. This is the hike we ended up doing.


It was fun! Sienna wanted to do more but we were afraid if we did, she would get tired right in the middle of another hike. We didn’t want to deal with that! So we promised to come back the next weekend. And we did! We did a different hike, the Lakeville Ironworks Trail. We also did part of the Sterling Lake loop but that got a little boring. It was mostly flat ground, the beginning was anyway, as we didn’t finish it so don’t know if it got more exciting.

The last four photos was from the Sterling Lake loop.

Yves got all gung-ho about hiking and bought 2 hiking poles and a cooler backpack! We wanted to try it out so went again the next weekend! We decided to try Long Island and went to West Hills County park. It’s very close to White Post Farms, so about an hour out. We got spoiled with the other park where there were trail markers that showed the beginning. We couldn’t find where it started! We had to ask next door at the horse stables. Once we found our start, we headed out.


We didn’t finish the hike as we weren’t sure how long it was so after going about 1.5 hours in, we turned around. There was also a playground at the beginning to the trail so Sienna was excited for that.

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With the birth of her grandchild, Aunt Natalie planned a month long visit to help the new parents. She arrived early in October and stayed almost the whole month. Yves’ brother, JP, happened to visit for about a week during that time as well!
This was the perfect opportunity to check out the Tango show where David works, at Malbec House. We couldn’t take photos during the show but it was filled with wonderful live music and Tango dancing.

The strangest thing had happened when me and Sienna went to pick up Aunt Natalie for a 2 night stay at our house. It was near the end of her trip and Sienna knew that she was in town from the beginning. Obviously, Aunt Natalie had planned on staying the most with her son and daughter in law to help. She came to our house for 2 nights when Amy’s mom came to visit from Ireland. On the way to go pick her up, Sienna started getting upset that she wouldn’t get much of a visit with Aunt Natalie. Natalie and I were planning on seeing a play the next day and she knew that. She started crying and thinking that Aunt Natalie didn’t like her! Can you imagine?! I told her that I didn’t know she would be this upset about it and she said she didn’t know she would either. I am actually amazed that she realized she didn’t know she would be upset. Anyway, I told Aunt Natalie about this when we got to David and Amy’s, on the sly, of course. So she knew and planned on spending special quality time with her later that evening.

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Fall is my favorite time of year so we decided to go view some pretty foliage upstate and have a picnic. We had only been to Bear Mountain once before, a very long time ago when me and Yves first started dating. So, yeah, it’s been awhile! We made sandwiches and packed a lunch. They were also having Oktoberfest while we were there and thought it would be something fun to check out. It took about 1.5-2 hours to drive up there and we weren’t really sure which entrance to use. We ended up going into the parking area where they were catering to the Oktoberfest people. We didn’t know where else to go so found a picnic table to have our lunch. After we ate, we went exploring. We found a carousel!

After the carousel ride, we walked along the beautiful lake. The Oktoberfest was held along the lake. Lots of people holding big steins for their beer! There were also vendors selling stuff but we kept away from all of that. Too many people! While walking, we discovered that they had a zoo! And it was free!

We also came across another beautiful view!

We came across a statue of Walt Whitman, the other WW.

Sienna posing on a rock herself!

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The last weekend of September, we finally made it to Governor’s Island. It was the last weekend it was going to be open. It was a beautiful day! We just made the ferry from Pier 6 and took the 5 minute ride over to the island. We hadn’t been there since it first opened, before Sienna was born.

Smilebooth was there, a photobooth, so me and Sienna, the hams that we are, tried it out. I’m bummed that our photos cannot be seen online. For some reason, the date we were there is not online. So here is a screen capture of our hamminess.

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On September 25 at around 8pm, Yves gets a call from David saying that Amy has been having contractions all day! The baby’s due date was October 12th! So I rush over there to bring them to the Birthing Center, which is very close to our house. Get a text and photo the next morning at around 7:30. It’s a boy! Atlas Derrick John was born at 7:05 am. The procedures at the Birthing Center are different than at a hospital where you only stay about 5 (or7?) hours after giving birth. They were able to leave around 1pm. Amazing!! I picked them up and drove them home. I couldn’t believe Amy was up and moving so soon.

Aunt Natalie (Atlas’ grandma) wasn’t due to arrive until October 1st. I picked her up and brought her over there. She stayed with them for about 3 weeks to help out. I’ll have a more specific post about her visit later.

Because I got a letter home from Sienna’s school about someone having Chicken Pox, I wanted to wait 2 weeks (incubation period) to make sure she was ok. She was vaccinated for it but with the newborn, didn’t want to take a chance. Then she had a minor cold (mostly just stuffy nose) that I didn’t want to expose Atlas to so Sienna didn’t get to meet her cousin until almost a month after he was born.

Here is a bib and onesie I made for Atlas. I asked if he was named after the Greek God and they said it was partly that but also because they had traveled around the world a lot together. Plus they liked the sound of the name.

I look forward to watching Atlas grow and getting to know him more!

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Sienna’s best buddy outside of school is Sylvie and it was her 5th birthday. Her birthday is the day before Yves’. We celebrated with a BBQ and Hello Kitty ice cream cake at their house. Sienna also had her first sleep over at their house that night! Sylvie slept over our house a couple of weeks before and that was her first one too. Apparently, Sienna didn’t miss us at all!

Here we are singing! Password is secret.

Happy Birthday Sylvie from Lisa on Vimeo.

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