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Went to the aquarium a couple of weeks ago with Heather and her daughters Caitlyn and Hailey and Shirley with her son Daniel. It was a pretty warm day. After the aquarium, Shirley and Daniel went with us to Nathan’s and then me and Sienna went to the little amusement park next to Luna park (I think it’s Deno’s Park?).

There are a lot of photos of Sienna and Caitlyn, can’t help it, they look so cute together!

Holding hands

Stingray

Shark!

So many fishes!

Look at that fish!

Surprisingly Sienna wasn’t that into the penguins!

I caught Heather’s flash on this (purposely) so that’s why it looks a little funky
The girls posing and being silly in front of the fish

I love that I caught the light rays in this shot

I wasn’t lying! Shirley and Daniel were there too!

He’ll be a ladykiller when he’s older!

Here’s a video if Sienna dancing at Nathan’s after lunch. I swear, I don’t know where she learned these moves from!

Nathan’s Dance from Lisa on Vimeo.

I told Sienna she could pick 2 rides and the first one she picked was the roller coaster! She is my daughter after all! The first 2 go arounds she was having a blast laughing and screaming. By the 3rd and last go around, she was ready to get off. I could tell she was saying stop around the 3rd turn. Good thing it only went around 3 times or it would have surely ended with Sienna crying.

She’s ready!

I know it’s blurry, I was just snapping away!

Almost over!

I was surprised she picked the merry go around for the 2nd ride but I suppose after the craziness of the roller coaster, she wanted something more calm? (Of course after the merry go around, she wanted to go on the tilt a whirl!)

And I couldn’t resist taking yet another photo of the wonder wheel. I applied a lomo effect on it. I promised Sienna we would come back another time to ride it.

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We joined the Wildlife Conservation Society and went to the Bronx Zoo a couple of weeks ago. We didn’t even do the whole zoo and we were completely exhausted at the end of the day! Sienna fell asleep on the way home for just 40 minutes and her energy level went back up when we got home (ah, to be young!) We haven’t been to the zoo in about 6 years and I was a tad disappointed because I feel like we didn’t get as close a view as last time (see here and here) or maybe because I haven’t been taking photos as much I lost my touch!

I think these are gazelles but I can’t be sure!

“Melvin” (we were on the lookout for the Madagascar Movie animals)

I love the look she has here at the turtles

“King Julien”,”Maurice” and “Mort”

Climbing up the rope web

I think Sienna’s favorite part was the petting zoo!

She was having a conversation with the alpaca!

This chicken in the tree cracked me up!

Sienna big ears

When I tried to show Sienna this cool porcupine, she replied “We don’t have time to look at that”

I love the contrast of the bird with it’s neutral surroundings!

We saw these elephants on the Asia Monorail ride, something we saved for last because I thought it would be nice and relaxing while seeing a bunch of animals. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to see much.

I saved the bug carousel photo for last because I’ve been playing around with some vintage photo filters and picture frames.

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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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The last weekend of July turned out to be beautiful. The weather was not too hot and we had a break in humidity so we were able to enjoy the fresh air. We started out the weekend by having a picnic at Owl’s Head Park. The first picnic we’ve had since Geneva and co. left for Maine. We tried to get a band started and brought a bunch of instruments to the park. I’m sure you can imagine how well that went with toddlers! I posted the “band” photos up on Facebook, if you are not on FB, you can still see them here. This is a shot of Sienna doing a ballerina twirl with a skirt borrowed from Mikaela.

Saturday we headed out to Siam Orchid for dinner. It was really cute that Sienna wanted to bring her camera, just like her mom and dad! We took a little walk before heading over to dinner. Besides the boats in the marina and some swans in the water, there really isn’t much to see. I couldn’t decide which photo I liked best so I am posting both.

Here is Sienna calling after the swans:

Yves with gorilla on his shoulders:

And on to dinner! Funny how Sienna loves satay but claims to not like peanut butter (satay is usually marinated with some peanut butter and soy sauce, among other things). One steak skewer escaped before I was able to snap this photo!

It seems as if Sienna is saying, you’re coming into my mouth steak satay!

I forgot the name of my dish but it was basically chicken with mixed veggies:

Yves’ Pad Thai:

And we even got dessert! Coconut custard!

Everything was yummy!

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On July 7th, we had a band meeting with all the members! Woot! It’s hard to get everyone together. We went to Stand. I was craving a root beer float and they had that, along with lots of other goodies. We started off with some fried pickles in tempura batter. Quite yummy! I really liked the dipping sauce too. I opted to get the grilled shrimp po boy. I liked that it was grilled and the chipotle mayonnaise was delish but I hesitate to call it a po boy when it is served on a brioche bun. Pete got the mushroom beef burger and Tammy and Joy both got the bacon and egg cheeseburger. We also got sweet potato fries and onion rings to share. Their homemade beverages were awesome! We all ended up getting the fresh blackberry soda. I’d go back just for that! I got my root beer float that I was craving (and wolfed down as pointed out by Pete! ha!) Pete tried the ricotta pistachio shake (MMM! and I don’t see it on their online menu) and Tammy and Joy shared the cola float. Fun times. Hope to do it more often!

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I joined a Minion swap that was sponsored by Universal Pictures to promote the release of their latest film, Despicable Me (came out Friday, the 9th). They sent out a blow up minion to all the participants and all you had to do was take it around and take photos of it (like the Flat Stanley project and a similar Where in the World is Crusher swap I did). I was surprised at the nice quality of the minion and that it was weighted. We named ours Larry. First we did some shopping. Sienna was nice enough to lend Larry one of her hats.

Then it was time for lunch!

Now every time Sienna sees a commercial or an ad for the movie, she gets all excited and says Look! Larry! ha!

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Our dear friend Geneva and her family have made the move up to Maine. Starr and I threw a send off party for her and to also welcome their new addition, Lennox Ava. We threw the party on the 13th of June and I had posted the photos on flickr here. I baked some cheesecake cupcakes (with a gluten free ginger snap bottom!) and flourless chocolate cake (no one seemed to notice/mind the couple of pats of butter that did not mix in well). There was other delicious food there too. I made Geneva a collage and Brooklyn shirts for the whole family (I will show them in another post). Here are some shots of what I tried to do for the cake (due to the condensation, it melted into the cake, which you can see here). I cut out the letters with my Sizzix machine. Sienna helped me too.

I just drove Geneva, Phoenix and Lenni to the airport last night. They stayed with us for a few nights. Layne and a friend had loaded up a truck and drove up to Maine on the 30th and they had to vacate the apartment. We were happy to have them here and Sienna and Phoenix had such fun together. Most nights they stayed in the basement but Friday night we had a slumber party. The girls watched Alice in Wonderland (the original) and the adults later watched Up in the Air. Here are some photos from the stay:

Let Loose!

Watching Alice in Wonderland

Storytime

We also had one last picnic all together Friday afternoon.

The cool hat gang (if Sienna was wearing one of my shirts, it would have been the cool shirt gang!)

I made chocolate banana cupcakes that could use more banana flavor (altho I did not make the banana chocolate frosting, which probably would have made it better)

I forgot what we asked Nico but his answer was Nooooooooooo!

Hugs

Ride home from the park

Me Me First! from Lisa on Vimeo.

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We finally got a chance to meet Stella at Eric and Robyn’s BBQ on Memorial Day Monday. Robyn gave birth to her back in January! She is such a cutie!

Sasha, who is 8, loves to read and was excited to read Green Eggs and Ham to Sienna

Eric, the grill master

Sienna was so happy when it was cupcake time!

We didn’t get a chance to try the ribs!

Sienna sang in the car on the way home. This is what happens when you have a late lunch, no nap and a chocolate cupcake!

Sienna singing in the car from Lisa on Vimeo.

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We spent the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden. The rose garden was absolutely beautiful and Sienna was worn out by the end. The warm weather helped with that!

I love this shot!

She’s starting to pose now. There was absolutely nothing she was reaching for!

Such a great tree

The Rose Garden

We found our way to the Rose Garden at the end of our visit, unfortunately! So Sienna was tired.

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Almost all caught up on my posts! Saturday of Memorial Day weekend, we invited the kiddies over for some burgers and dogs. The adults also had Soujuk (not sure if I spelled that right!), a turkish sausage that another guest had brought over during a BBQ last year. So yummy! They had a blast filling up the sandbox with water and the pool with sand. LOL. I made 2 different kinds of cupcakes and 2 different frostings. A banana cupcake and a chocolate cupcake and half had chocolate buttercream frosting and the other had chocolate banana frosting. A note to myself, the banana cupcake was a bit dense while the chocolate one was very light. Both frostings were yummy! Geneva made some awesome baked beans (with meat, beans, bacon and brown sugar! Geneva! I need the recipe!!) And Starr made our favorite, cole slaw!

Sienna thinks Layne is so cute! LOL



The kids were very busy!


Sienna and Phoenix were fascinated with Sylvie’s boo boo!

Eventually Sienna fell asleep in Yves’ lap

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