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11 years ago today, I got married to Yves in Las Vegas. Gosh, we look so young! I can’t believe it’s been 11 years! Anyway, I had wanted to celebrate with a date night to the movies and dinner. Last year we went to Morton’s but they have since closed that location and we heard that other locations weren’t as friendly. Well, we ended up not doing anything and I sit here now just happy that my little girl is well.

Last Wednesday, Sienna took a fall at the playground. She climbed up the side of the stairs (not very tall, about 4 feet), turned to jump off but instead tripped and fell right on her head! I was standing pretty close to her so I got to her pretty fast. It didn’t look too bad, just some scrapes, no oozing or anything but I’m sure it hurt a lot regardless. Once I got her home, she sat in my lap as I tried to comfort her. After a bit, she stopped crying and seemed to calm down and was starting to fall asleep. Crying could really wear you out! So somewhere in the back of my head I wondered about concussions. I have never been through anything like this so I didn’t know the symptoms but I (erroneously) thought that you shouldn’t let them fall asleep. So to keep her awake, I tried to bribe her with a popsicle (which she turned down! Gasp!) but she managed to agree to watch a show. While she did that, I quickly went on the computer to check on concussion symptoms. About midway through her show, she told me she felt like she felt like she wanted to throw up! Whoa! That’s one of the concussion symptoms! I quickly called her doctor, told him what happened and told him she fell on the side of her head. Which wasn’t true, she actually fell on the side of her forehead, which is what I meant to say but that didn’t come out. So he told me to take her to the emergency room just to make sure.

After freaking Yves out on the phone and him practically running home from the Kings Highway subway stop, off to the hospital we went. It took 2 hours from start to finish, she didn’t need a cat scan and the attending doctor made me feel very confident that she was ok. So at about 2 am, she woke us up to tell us her head hurt so I told her to come into bed with us. She was very warm. She ended up throwing up a few hours later so I kept her home from school on Thursday. To make a long story short, she went back to school on Friday (she was acting energetic and goofy that morning) but then felt feverish after school. I felt like she was generally ok because she didn’t want to go home and besides from a slight lack of energy, seemed to be herself. She still had a fever on Saturday so we took her to the doctor just to be sure. She just caught a virus and today was the first day she woke up without a headache and has been acting her goofy little self all day! But now I’m sick!! After we came back from the doctor, I really started feeling run down and feverish. I slept off the fever and now am just congested and a slight cough. I need to get over this fast because I have a date with Morrissey on Wednesday! Plus we need to reschedule our anniversary celebration!

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Yves’ Aunt Natalie did a mini East Coast tour and we were one of the stops! She spent last weekend with us and we did a mix of tourist and hipster things! Saturday we went back to Coney Island (we were just there the weekend before) and convinced Aunt Natalie to ride the Wonder Wheel with us. I can never get enough of that ride! She even agreed to go on the moving car (not that we really gave her a choice!) Before that ride, Sienna took her on her favorite roller coaster, the Sea Serpent. We took a little walk along the boardwalk and enjoyed the weather. It was much cooler than the last time.

On the Sea Serpent!

Wonder Wheel!

Walking along the Boardwalk

I felt like I was in The Birds!

On Sunday, we went to Smorgasburg in Dumbo. On Saturdays it’s in Williamsburg and I’ve been wanting to check it out for awhile. It’s basically a bunch of food vendors. They opened one up on Sundays a couple of weekends ago and took the opportunity to check it out! Aunt Natalie’s son, David, met us there. Lots of yummy food! I took photos of everything I ate but didn’t get Sienna’s fried shrimp (so good!), Yves’ schnitzel sandwich and lamb burger nor our drinks of fuji apple lemonade, cranberry lychee tea (like bubble tea but with lychee jelly on the bottom) and Sienna’s citrus watermelon slush.
Spicy Tuna taco from Takumi Taco
Stroopwafels from The Good Batch (the very reason I got interested in going!)
Duck and Pork Belly Steamed Buns from Bite Size Kitchen 
Maple Bacon on a stick. This was David’s, I didn’t eat it. From Landhaus
Goat Milk Ice Cream from King Leche Cremes. Aunt Nat’s chili chocolate on left and my caramelized onion on the right. Yes, I said caramelized onion! A bit too savory for my taste and I didn’t finish it, even after making everyone take a bite out of it. I should have tried the dill pickle one!
Sienna was loving this!
Sienna was either trying to wink or the sun was in her eyes! LOL

Aunt Natalie went up to Connecticut to stay with a friend for a few days but I saw her one final time before she left! On Wednesday, we went to Red Rooster up in Harlem. Her friend’s reggae band was playing there. And I literally almost bumped into Marcus Samuellson!! We were actually downstairs at Ginny’s, the supper club so while the band played, we sat and ate. I kinda liked that! We got the 5 spiced spare ribs (yum!), jerk veal tongue steamed buns (mmm) as apps and I got the catfish and grits entree. The band was fun!

I remembered to take a photo after I finished! The 3rd rib was on David’s plate!
Catfish!
The band! (I forgot the name!)

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My first post on the updated WordPress! (Means nothing to you but wanted to document the fact for myself!)

Anyhow, last Saturday we went to Coney Island to celebrate the anniversary of Syvlie’s birthday! She turned 4! We met them at Deno’s, the section of rides for the kids. They had lots of fun riding boats, spinning on dragons, a roller coaster, monster trucks, fighter jets and “hot air” balloons. After that we rode on the Wonder Wheel, played skee ball and had a beer on the boardwalk. All the kids rode back with us in the car to Starr and Brian’s house for dinner and cupcakes. Good times!

Sienna’s already learned how to cat call from a car! LOL

Starr bought these and I scanned them in. Look at my roller coaster fiend! And poor Sylvie!

I love this capture!

 Heading to the Wonder Wheel!

Starr didn’t want to go in the moving car so Brian kept her company.

Girls in the front!
Boys in the back!
The Boys checking out the beach
Do you see the bird on the dog?

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Yesterday was Sienna’s first day of Kindergarten! I can’t believe it!

I saw a popular thing around the internet with people taking photos of their kid’s first day and a sign of their grade. I had Sienna write the K and hold it up for me when we were leaving the house.
Her friend, Emma, is in class K102 with Miss Cregg as well so I’m glad she knows someone. There are about 3 other kids from her PreK class in there as well. The first day was only until 11:30 and they got served lunch before leaving. Sienna said she ate the roasted chicken, rice and chocolate milk. There will be days I’m going to pack her lunch as some of the menu items don’t really sound so healthy (uh, mozzarella sticks for lunch??).

Waiting in the auditorium with Emma

I took 2 photos like this, this one is the better of the 2.

The teacher had the kids draw a picture of them and whoever took them to school this morning. Then we would write a note on the drawing for them to see when they are feeling sad or scared in class. Looks like that boy in the red shirt is already tired!

Here’s Sienna’s drawing and my note. She loves when I sing that song to her so I thought it would be nice to write that on her drawing.

Today is the first full day of school!! I hope she is doing ok.

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Yves had to go to a GS conference in Chicago in July for a week, leaving the day before MY BIRTHDAY! So, instead of wallowing at home without him, I decided to drive up to Maine to hang out with Geneva and her girls. Remember we went to visit them last year during Hurricane Irene. I was hesitant at first for a couple of reasons.
1. Driving all that way by myself. Got spoiled being the navigator and seeking out restaurants to stop at and hotels with pools, on the go with my Ipad. Not a fan of fast food so stopping at the rest stops to eat wasn’t appealing.
2. Sienna had been driving me nuts the past few months with her attitude, whininess and defiance. Typical 5 year old stuff and still pale in comparison to some others of her age range but again, got spoiled by her usual easy going spirit of her younger years.

Well, finally just decided to go for it and I’m so glad I did. The drive to and from Maine were very pleasant and we both got along very well. I even rented a movie that I downloaded onto my Ipad just in case it was needed. It was not! (And hence, I let it expire as I wasn’t aware it did so after 30 days!) I broke up each trip into 2 days because really, what was the rush? And Sienna loves staying in a hotel with a pool. Plus, she had a real good time having a constant companion to play with between Phoenix and Lennox!

On the way up, stopped in Manchester, CT for gas and since it was lunchtime, ate at a Friendly’s (who doesn’t want ice cream too?) And by luck, there was a shopping center across the way with Michael’s AND Joann’s fabric! Wooohooo! I researched the night before for a midway point and stayed at a Holiday Inn in Seabrook, NH. Investigated some dinner options online and decided on Galley Hatch Restaurant, where I had the best clam chowder ever!! I also had their shrimp and scallop pizza on gluten free crust! It was pretty good!

Chunky, creamy clam chowder!

While in Maine, we got to go to the Children’s Museum in Bangor. It’s actually called Maine Discovery Museum and it was really very nice! Sienna would have stayed longer if she could!

Goodnight Moon Room

Charlotte’s Web pig

On my actual birthday, Geneva took the girls for the day and told me to go enjoy myself. I spent about 2 hours browsing a store called Marden’s, sorta like the closeout store Amazing Savings but bigger! Then I went to Bar Harbor, a cute little waterfront area with little shops and restaurants. Very touristy but still cute. I had a lobster roll for lunch and treated myself to 4 scoops of ice cream from Mount Desert, the very same store President Obama went to! I got Mexican choc, choc raspberry, chili choc and Maine sea salt caramel. The Mexican chocolate was my favorite!

Some other highlights!

lobster!

Layne teaches Sienna how to light a match so she could light a smoke bomb firecracker!

Sparklers at night

Hiking!


Reaching the end of the hike (1.3 miles)

Swimming in a lake

Going to an Estate Sale (Geneva almost bought this doll house)

2 girls in 2 buckets (that’s Lennox on the left!)

Jumping, jumping and more jumping!

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At the end of May, we took Sienna out of school for 3 days and headed down to DisneyWorld for 7 days. It was actually Yves’ idea to take her as I was willing to wait a couple more years! I booked a package via Jetblue and stayed at the Sheraton Vistana Villages, a condo/timeshare place. I wanted to get a place with a kitchen and separate bedroom and as long as you don’t answer the phone, you don’t get hassled about joining the timeshare. The place was really big! Had 3 pools and the one by our building had a slide and a pirate ship. Lots of fun.

We got a 3 day park pass so the first day we went to the Magic Kingdom. HOT! It was in the 90’s. Via my former boss, we signed up for a site called touringplans.com. It tells you how many people are going to be at the park on any given day. They also have plans on which rides to go on and in what order. We followed a plan somewhat in the beginning. And they were spot on when it said to go to Space Mountain first. Sienna LOVED that ride! As soon as it stopped, she asked if we could go on again! We did a few other rides and then met the newest “Princess” Merida from the movie Brave and learned some archery.

but the heat really took a toll on us. Everyone wanted to leave before it was even noon!! I rallied everyone to continue and convinced everyone that lunch would revitalize us. It did for a bit but not for long. I parked everyone in the shade, hoping it would help. I was just not ready to leave! Not at the price we paid for admission! It turns out that the spot we sat at was along the parade route. I convinced myself that if we at least stayed until the parade, I would feel fulfilled. Ok! Only an hour wait! It turned into an hour and a half but we had a good shady spot at least!

Sienna tired of waiting for the parade to start!

It starts!

The Beast! Sienna’s favorite princess is Belle from Beauty and the Beast but Belle was facing the other side.
The 2nd day we went to Magic Kindgom started out well but then it started to pour by late morning. We were prepared with ponchos and had rented out a stroller (SO much easier to get around with one!!). She got to meet Jasmine and Aladdin as well as the White Rabbit.

The 3rd day we went to Animal Kingdom and I really enjoyed that park even tho there was more rain and by late afternoon, still didn’t really let up. They had the BEST roller coaster called Exhibition Everest that even goes backwards! Sienna really loved that one and we went on twice!

This rhino was scratching his nose with the truck we were in during the safari ride
And we met Goofy and Daisy

Sienna even won a giant dragon playing one of the games!

We also visited some family friend’s of Yves, The Simmons.

Dinner at Carrabas with Auntie Margo and Uncle Denis.

All in all, a very nice family vacation!

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Marine Park had an Easter Egg Hunt for the kids a week before Easter. I thought it would be fun to take Sienna. They did a pretty good job with organizing it. We ran into Emma and Leah with their grandparents and joined them on the line so that saved us from going to the back of the line. Each kid got a limit of 5 eggs to find. In each egg was a slip of paper with either small prize or medium prize written on it. You can only pick 1 prize to redeem so obviously if you had a medium prize, you would redeem that one. Well, all Sienna’s eggs had small prize in them but a kind dad gave us one of his medium prized eggs. I guess his kid found 2 eggs with medium prize. The majority of the medium prizes were candy and she picked chocolate covered marshmallow eggs. The small prizes were mostly paper stuff so I’m glad she didn’t get more of that junk! They had 2 bouncy slides and face painting. It was quite windy and we didn’t dress as warmly as we should have.

Running to ger the eggs

Sienna picked a heart
On Good Friday, I invited Sienna’s best buddies and their mom’s over for some Easter Egg dying in the “back yard.” I ordered pizza for lunch. It was a little bit chilly but the kids had fun.

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At the end of March, Sienna’s pre-school class put on a play called Getting Down With Mama Goose. Obviously about nursery rhymes. They have been practicing for months. Each rhyme was done by 4 kids, each kid doing a line, and then they all sang a song. Sienna’s was Wee Willy Winky, which I do not recall from when I was young but whatever! That rhyme was about sleeping so their costumes were pajamas and sleep hats. Vinny’s mom bought a sleep hat from the internet and I borrowed it to make one for Sienna. Then I ended up making 1 for the other 2 kids doing that rhyme. They came out really cute. Yves took off of work to come and my dad also came. My photos are not very good as the parents had to sit in the back rows since this was for an assembly. By the way, Sienna did GREAT, we are so proud of her! (not biased at all!) 🙂

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In February, we went to the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens with Peter. As I recall, it was a pleasant winter day. There wasn’t much blooming at that time yet but it was nice to spend some time outdoors. Sienna had the camera for a little bit and here are some of the photos she took. I’ll have to make a new watermark for her since she writes her name a little differently now!

I LOVE this self portrait!

Some goofy self portraits!


And here are some of mine. It’s been awhile since I’ve been out shooting just to shoot. It was fun!

I love how the petals look like butterfly wings!

I didn’t notice until editing the photo, but I love how the leaf on the lower right looks like an arrow pointing to the middle! Love these little surprises!

They were looking at Peter while he was taking their photo. I like how they aren’t looking at me.

This woodpecker was pecking away!

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As I mentioned in my last post, Sienna had a party weekend last weekend! Saturday was her party, the first official party we ever paid for! I figured 5 was a mini milestone so why not? The place we booked was very reasonable so I decided to invite her whole class. It was easier than covertly trying to invite just the people Sienna wanted. Then I crossed my fingers that not everyone in her class would be able to come. We ended up having 18 kids, some from her class and some of her buddies outside of school. Everyone had a great time!

Party Bags ready to go!

She took a disco nap about an hour before the party!

Playing “air hockey”

Caius told me to take a picture of him!

A blur in the ball pit

Leah gets a tattoo

Party Table

Dancing

Vinny spun her around so much, she got so dizzy and fell!

Blowing out the candles on the ice cream cake!

The loot! And this isn’t even all of it! She had already opened a Rapunzel and Flynn doll, a Barbie Ballerina doll and an X-men figurine! And this doesn’t show some clothes that she got. She made out very well!

This cake is from my parents. I had them come over on Sunday instead of her actual birthday since I was making cupcakes for her class. Might as well spread out all this cake she’s getting!

This picture is so adorable!

When my dad asked her what she wanted for her birthday, she told him Beyblade. My father asked me for confirmation since there were only boys on the box. She loved this game when she was at Nico’s and Sylvie’s house.

And this was Sienna at her school party on her actual birthday! I made the cupcakes and also bought munchkins. She threw up shortly after this photo! She said it was the white munchkin and not the chocolate one that made her throw up. I suspect it was from all these sweets she’s had the last few days. I don’t usually give her so much cake days in a row!

Sienna and her teacher! This photo is so cute too! My baby is growing up! Sniff sniff!
Here’s a video from the birthday party!

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