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Before I post about Christmas, here are some photos from a little snow we got yesterday. It started around 10 am on Sunday and was still going when I went to bed around 11:30pm! This is how it looked when we woke up this morning and went outside.

It’s very windy so there are a lot of snow drifts. See how lucky that tan car across the street is? The wind blew the snow in a way that made a snow free moat around his car! Not so lucky for that black car on our side of the street!

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As much as I want to curl up in a ball and wallow in self pity from dealing with some health stuff, today is not the day for that (besides which, it really isn’t so bad, it could be worse!) I want to take this day to be grateful for all I do have and I am truly thankful. I am thankful for my family. My wonderful husband who is supportive and always there for me and who is a great father. My miracle, my daughter. What a joy to hear her singing or talking to herself in the morning as we are getting up from sleep. She truly is a joy and I have to remember that with the few times she does upset the applecart, they are so few and far between. For my parents. Although we have a difficult relationship most of the time, I am grateful they are alive and live close by. I am grateful for the little time they spend with Sienna. I am grateful for the roof over our heads, for the money that buys our food and for the opportunity to be able to stay home full time to take care of Sienna and do crafts in between. I hope I have these things to be grateful for for a long time to come.

And to keep this post from being all sappy, here are some photos I took at Sienna’s school. She had a Thanksgiving party and the parents were invited. There is also a cute video at the end of her singing and dancing to the Please and Thank You song.

Chowing down!

Sienna and Yves looking at something

Dancing with her teacher, Mrs. D.

The chicken dance with Julian

Saying cheese with Kostas

The last 3 photos were taken of photos posted on the wall from when they went pumpkin picking back in October. So cute!!

Please and Thank You from Lisa on Vimeo.

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Warning! Giddy parent alert! Lots of kid photos!

I couldn’t resist dedicating a whole post to Sienna’s Halloween costume. We had gotten the princess dress early last month and if it was up to Sienna, she would have worn it everyday since! I’m glad we nipped that in the bud early on or else she might not have been this excited to put on her whole get up. Even though it’s not Halloween yet, we had a birthday party on Sunday with a Halloween theme. This is the first time she had everything on, the dress, the crown, the gloves and her wand (which she painted using this kit!) She was sooo happy when she first put this on, it was such a joy to see! Needless to say, I kept snapping away! (And she kept posing! What can I say? She’s just like her mom!)

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Our CSA is over in November and I haven’t really written about it. It started in June and I was a little overwhelmed in the beginning. I got better at it but there were still a few things that ended up in the garbage because I waited too long to use it or didn’t know what to do with it. Some pluses are that we discovered a like for swiss chard, mustard greens and leafy greens of that nature (and that they taste extra delicious when you saute them with turkey bacon!) Also Yves also discovered that he likes pesto!

We also got a fruit share and got some really yummy peaches, apples and pears. There was some fruit that was a letdown such as the watermelon. It wasn’t very sweet and it had seeds (I got spoiled eating the seedless!) But that’s from a different farm.

Anyhow, we were invited to visit the farm at the end of September. It took a little over 2 hours to get there, it was up by Warwick, NY. We got brunch with fresh squeezed orange juice (totally wasted on Sienna because she doesn’t like the pulp.) The french toast was a little disappointing as the crust of the bread was really hard. The omelet was better but I could have eaten 3 of them and the potatoes were cold. The “tour” consisted of a girl telling us the history of the farm and allowing us to pick some stuff. Sienna and I picked a couple of edible flowers and I tried to find some basil but the season was pretty much over for that.

We were disappointed with the trip but at the same time, it was interesting to see the farm where our vegetables come from.


Cool city girl waiting for her country breakfast

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Sienna starts nursery school next Monday. I am sad and excited at the same time. Sad because this marks the true end to her carefree days for at least another 15 years. Ok, I suppose that’s being a bit dramatic, it’s not like I remember my years before school started. And I’m excited to start this new chapter in our lives and excited to see her grow and mature and come into her own. I’ll be a wreck tho, for sure. But just for the first few days. I hope! I thought I would post some photos from the last few weeks of August, mostly spent at the playground with her friends, some old and some new. She’s been really great lately as far as the social aspect goes. There was a point where she wasn’t playing with anyone, not even the kids she knows. For the last few weeks, she’s been playing with anyone and everyone! I hope it lasts!

Sharing her binoculars with Nico and I think Sylvie was sharing a snack with her.
Climbing

Smelling a sunflower from the CSA pickup

Nico impressing the ladies by saying he was going to make farty sounds with the balloon.

Emma and Sienna, yep, in the middle of a giant puddle

Yeah, in case you didn’t believe me!

Soaking wet

As soon as Leah saw me with my camera, she came over toward me and said CHEESE!

We finally met Lenny! Our friend Aaron’s baby. He’s a cutie!

Sienna gives Aaron a handshake

Playing “frisbee” with Yves at Sunset Park

Ella and Sienna marking up a tree (not really!)

Sienna agreed to lend her dress to Erin.

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Or are you just happy to see me?

HA! Sorry couldn’t help that! “Uncle Peeder” came over last weekend and we had a BBQ. Both Sienna and Skippy were very happy to see him. Poor Pete kept getting harassed by Sienna to play with her. We told her after he finishes eating so practically every 5 minutes she kept asking if he was done yet. Fortunately, Pete got a kick out of her harassment. That’s why we love him! They played with chalk  in the driveway and Skippy sat right on a drawing, hence the pink butt! Too funny!

Somehow, Sienna convinced Pete to mimic her running down the driveway (those are bowling pins under their arms). I missed the going down the driveway but I caught the coming back up:

Yayayayayayayayaya from Lisa on Vimeo.

I made basil pesto pasta salad (basil fresh from our CSA!) and salsa (heirloom tomatoes fresh from our CSA!) and apple potato salad (apples fresh from our CSA! and potatoes from the supermarket). I used rice pasta for the salad and it did not do well cold. The pesto also did not have enough salt so it stunk all around (thankfully, it heated up well and Yves loved it and took it to lunch the whole week!) I also made some pickled cucumbers with kirby cukes we got from the CSA. They were a tad too vinegary but I thought it tasted well in the burger.

We went upstairs for the dessert portion. Pete bought donuts from our favorite donut shoppe and I also made a blueberry peach crisp and I asked Pete to bring ice cream as well.

Pete did well to wear Sienna out because she really did fall asleep on him! (Pete was pretending for the photo’s sake)

Nate met Pete at our house so they could walk to Williamsburg! It’s 10 miles and Pete is warming up for his 12 miles walk for the Jimmy Fund Walk he’s doing in a couple of weeks. So he had to leave Sienna sleeping on the sofa. We tried to wake her up to say goodbye but she just didn’t budge. Wouldn’t you know it, she woke up fully a few minutes after he left and when she learned he had gone, she was so sad, she cried!

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Ok, so I don’t usually post about blog candy but I have been ogling Doodle Factory’s rubber stamp designs for awhile now. Her designs are sold through the Starving Artist site. I just love her quirky designs and love the fact that they are cute but not in the traditional way. They just came out with 4 new sets of stamps, 3 of which are Doodle Factory and Halloween related and since I love Halloween, I couldn’t resist a chance to win! Here is one set, isn’t it awesome?

The point is to spread the word about the 4 new stamps sets. Please read the post on Starving Artist’s blog for your chance to win Doodle Factory’s ghoulies set! Plus that post shows some samples of the awesome cards you can make with the sets! Drool!

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Earlier this month, we went over to Erin and Mikaela’s for a dress up playdate. It was a real muggy day but I don’t even think the girls minded at all. Mikaela has lots of different outfits and jewelry to dress up with. It was really fun for Sienna especially since we don’t do dress up at home. I don’t think Sienna even noticed that we were at Geneva and Phoenix’s old apartment.

It really amazed me how much older Sienna looked while playing dress up! They also rented a real hokey and fun disco party dance video from the library. The girls enjoyed dancing to it while me and Erin cracked up (not sure how old it was but a very young looking Jamie Lee Curtis made a guest appearance).

Sienna really liked the first princess outfit. Mikaela dressed as Dorothy.

Erin made yummy cucumber sandwiches and antipasto for lunch!

Time for another outfit change for the dance party!

Waiting for dance instructions

Sienna liked this hat!

Mikaela gets in on the hat wearing!

And sharing necklaces too!

Water Bottle singing (it was actually an exercise video so MK was copying the moves!)

All tired from dancing, a super quick game of Candyland because Sienna was getting tired.

Mikaela was sad because it was time to end the playdate.

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Who knew under all that hair that Skippy was really a chihuahua? HA! I took him for a long overdue haircut yesterday and told the groomer to cut off as much as possible. It’s just been so hot here that poor Skippy is constantly panting. I don’t have a recent photo of Skippy with his long hair, which is probably best as I might get reported for animal abuse! I took him to the local groomer, a place I’m not totally crazy about (apparently it has been 2 years since I took him there!) because I don’t really like how they cut. But I spoke with the groomer and she was very friendly and seemed to generally care about her clients. I told her she could cut it all off, even the face. I wasn’t aware that they could cut off his whiskers! I think he looks super cute! We took him to the park afterwards and Sienna was so very responsible with him. She didn’t let go of his leash at all and didn’t even go play at the playground because she just wanted to stay with Skippy.
It’s hard to work with kids and animals! I couldn’t get them both to look at the camera at the same time. I tried again this morning:

Now if only I could get Neo to pose! HA!

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Sunday was my 41st birthday. Yikes. They say that once you have kids, it’s all about the kids. I don’t think that should be true. It should be mostly true but I don’t think you should forget about yourself either. I have always made a semi big deal about my birthday during my adult years (I always hated having a summer birthday during my childhood because no one was ever around for parties so I made up for it as I got older) although not as big a deal as some other people. A simple group dinner with some good friends always made me happy.

It’s true that my birthdays of the last 3 years have been pretty low key and I have learned to appreciate the little things. So this Sunday, I appreciate that I was able to sleep in (until 9 am!! Haven’t done that for awhile.) That my beautiful daughter and husband greeted me with birthday kisses in bed (and let me go back to sleep!) That Yves made me the cutest birthday card! That Yves made me breakfast! That Yves took Sienna to the playground even if it was the shortest trip ever. Sienna was excited to get back home and have birthday cake! HA! That my parents bought me ice cream cake for my birthday without a fuss (it’s their tradition to buy the birthday cake and it’s almost ALWAYS cake with fruit from the Chinese bakery and my mother is not a fan of ice cream cake.) And that I got a ton of birthday wishes on my Facebook page! Ok, so I know FB tells you the birthdays of your friends coming up but it was still nice to receive all the well wishes.

As Sienna gets older, I do plan on making a big deal about my birthday again. Definitely for the big 5-0. Oy. Let’s not think about that now…Maybe the big 4-5.

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