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Wow, I can’t believe a whole week passed by so fast! Last Sunday, “Uncle Peeder” came for a visit and we had BBQ for lunch. Sienna LOVES playing with Uncle Peeder and he totally obliged her. Poor guy! Well, he claims he was having fun and was glad to spend time with her. I am selfishly thinking of recruiting him for a babysitter although Yves thinks it wouldn’t be cool to have him come all the way out there to watch Sienna. I guess I agree…hmph!

Uncle Peeder visits from Lisa on Vimeo.

Uncle Peeder rocks! from Lisa on Vimeo.

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Today was dreary and rainy but not last week! Picnic!

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Tuesday night I met up with Tammy and Joy for  a long overdue “band meeting.” Unfortunately, our ‘bassist’ Pete couldn’t be in attendance. I was in the mood for some BBQ and we decided on Wildwood BBQ near Union Square. Tammy and I sat at the bar while waiting for Joy. Since I couldn’t have my beloved wheat beer, I opted for a Maker’s Mark neat. On an empty stomach. Boy, I paid for that the next day. I actually told the bartender I must have been crazy to order it neat and she fixed it with some ice. I was feeling GROOVY! 😉

We had a very cool waitress serving us. Waitress! I am sorry! I know you told us your name but in my Maker’s Mark stupor, I forgot!

Anyway, she hooked us up with the pitmaster special. Wet ribs, dry ribs, beef brisket, pulled pork, chicken. YUM. Everything was awesome aside from the beef brisket, it was a bit dry. But no fear! We also ordered the Tuesday night special, Homemade Pastrami! AWESOME! Plus 2 appetizers- fried green tomatoes and cornbread so there wasn’t any shortage of food. We could not even finish it all! The shame! And yes, I cheated on my gluten free diet by eating the fried green tomatoes and cornbread but it wasn’t much so I am not going to feel guilty about it! Nope!

Oh Marky Mark, we used to be such close friends!

‘drummer’ and ‘guitarist’

Oh Hoegaarden, we used to be such good friends

Never before seen shrimp on top of a fried green tomato! No complaints here!

Who knew cornbread could taste so good? (Or maybe it’s been my lack of wheat talking!)

Awesome cool waitress!

Hello Pastrami!

Here is a close up so you can drool!

The pitmaster! We would have finished it if Pete was there!

Baked beans and creamed spinach sides.

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What a wonderful weekend! The weather was fabulous (ok, maybe it was a little too hot this weekend!) Potty training is proceeding and Sienna is doing so great! We are so proud of her. All of our outings this weekend were underwear only. Actually, she’s been wearing just underwear after only about a week! She still hasn’t done number 2 in the potty but I know that takes time. After a week of staying home or close to home, I was anxious to get back out into civilization…

Friday we had another picnic at Owl’s Head park with a bunch of mom’s and kids. Sienna got obsessed with these toy binoculars of Phoenix’s.

Saturday we went up to Norwalk, CT for a Cinco de Mayo lunch hosted by an old friend of Yves’ from Chicago.  They moved from Chicago last summer and have been trying to make plans to get together since but something always happened. It was nice to finally meet Selena, her husband Danny and 2 adorable kids, Gael and Sofia. There were several moms and dads with their kids there as well. They have a beautiful spacious house with a nice big backyard. Sienna had a ball. She especially loved riding the “four wheeler.” They also had a Dora pinata for the kids. Sienna got hold of the string that probably would have opened it all up but she didn’t have the strength to pull it off. After a fun time, Sienna announced that she wanted to stay there forever. HA!

Pull Sienna! Pull!

This older boy got the magic string

Got some goodies!

Gael

Sofia

Sienna kept saying she wanted to go into the ‘pool’ so Sunday was the day for it.

Yes, it was hot!

Sienna took the opportunity to wash her car. LOL

Hot dog number 1

and hot dogs numbers 2 thru 4. LOL

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A couple of weeks ago, before my gluten free quest, we had the luck of having lunch with two of our good friends on two separate days. Yves was finally able to join Pete and I on a weekday lunch outing! Since we can no longer count on Lento’s as our go to thin crust pizza place, we tried Vezzo’s which I’m sure is related somehow to Gruppo’s, which me and Yves have gone to before. We ordered a pizza with carmelized onions, homemade meatballs and olives. It was quite tasty but the olives were a bit salty. The menu said black olives but kalamata olives were on the pizza. It was still good!

The day after, we had lunch with Joy and went to a panini place I’ve been wanting to try, Press 195. I like my steak and avocado sandwich and the frites and the dessert (nutella and banana press with ice cream) we got but I don’t think it was as awesome as I was lead to believe by some reviews I read. But I believe a lot of the reviews were for their Queens location. They did a good job with the kid plates by including sliced apples, which Sienna ate all of! Plue, there are over 40 sandwich combinations! I’m glad I got to check it out!

The frites were ok

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So the last weekend in March was a bit chilly so we opted to go to the Staten Island Children’s Museum. Both Yves and Sienna really enjoy that one. We got there around 10:30 only to discover it was closed! They were having a special Easter event out on the front lawn so the museum was closed for that. The event starts at noon and we were told we should come back for that. Well, what a bummer! Sienna was really upset and even started crying. Poor thing! Since we’re not from the area we had no idea how to occupy our time in order to come back for the special event. We were a little upset about this closure, especially since we checked the website right before we left! So since the museum is on a cultural center (Snug Harbor), we walked around that area. Unfortunately Yves wasn’t really dressed for being outside but he toughed it out and we managed to pass an hour by. By the time we walked by the museum, it seems like they started the festivities even tho it was before noon so technically, we could have checked it out. But because we were kind of mad at the museum, we decided not to and just go to lento’s for lunch. Good news for me! Yves realized that their pizza is subpar to the Bay Ridge Lentos (and our own) that he declared we are not to go back there again! Yay! (I always thought it was subpar and I think Yves was still holding onto the memories of the BR Lentos.) Now we need to find another lunchtime place for our future visits to the Children’s museum. Anyone know of any??

Walking into the ‘scary jungle’


Sienna kept saying “Come here duck, I want to pet you.”

Yves kept saying “Come here duck, I want to pet you.”

This tree tunnel will look really pretty when the leaves come in.

A castle!

Hello? Anybody home?

Found a magic stick!

Found a stage!

Snug Harbor from Lisa on Vimeo.

I do want to say that I e-mailed the museum to suggest putting special events and notices on their visit us page. I had checked their calendar when we came back later that day to make sure it wasn’t something we missed. It did say there was a special event but it did not say the museum was closed! They were nice about it and even sent us 5 free passes for another visit.

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Last Thursday I attended Martha Stewart’s Stitchfest, an event to celebrate her latest craft book, Encyclopedia of Sewing and Fabric Crafts. I also have her first craft book, which honestly, I don’t look at much but I feel my craft library wouldn’t be complete without it. I met my friend, Rachel for a bite to eat at Chelsea Market. We went to the Green Table, a local, organic and sustainable food restaurant, but not before stopping in some cute dessert places! A lot has been added to the market since I’ve been there last (which was quite awhile ago.) We were quite drawn to the cute displays at Eleni’s (but not their prices!) and I got a (chocolate mint) brownie at Fat Witch, how could I resist? I foolishly only got something small to eat at dinner (meze platter and roasted butternut squash) thinking I would leave room for the hors d’oeurves at the event. Rachel got chicken pot pie, a smarter choice!

And on to the event. I’m not sure what I was expecting but I was a tad disappointed in it. Of course it was laid out beautifully, all the stations were organized well and it was very helpful to see some of the projects in the book up close (especially after having looked through the book last night). There were people showing some crafts at the stations, a make and take for the tomato pin cushion project from the book and lots of demonstrations of sewing machines. We got there shortly after 6 and the make and take line was already super long! We ended up not getting on it in time but did wait to get a free monogrammed tea towel (I got S for Sienna). The people coming out with the hors d’oeurves were hard to find and they came out with such tiny platters that the food was gone pretty quickly (I resisted the urge to lunge at them when I saw them! LOL) We did get this tasty green milkshake that I think was black pepper and I want to say….avocado? I forgot. Anyway, I think I was expecting to at least learn some little crafty tidbits. I don’t know why! As true about everything with Martha is that it all looks perfect, too perfect! We did enter a bunch of free drawings to win different types of sewing machines. I don’t think I won because I haven’t heard anything. The price of admission did get us a cool goody bag. It includes the book, a bunch of MSLO magazines (anyone want my extra Everyday Food issue?), a bunch of thread and needles, coupons and Martha’s brand of precision cut scissors. In the end I am still glad I went. You can see a goofy photo of me and Rachel ‘posing’ with Martha over at Rachel’s blog.

Hibiscus Lemonade

Stamping on fabric demo

I love this applique on the bedspread but I know me, this project is too daunting for me! But maybe the pillowcases!
Rachel is sewing!

Getting the S tea towel made

Using shells is a cute idea!

Goodie bag swag

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Yesterday was Easter Sunday and a beautiful 70 degrees. It’s too bad Sienna had a fever in the morning and threw up twice in the afternoon! My poor baby! ;-( She is better today, thankfully! Friday was the 2nd annual Easter Egg hunt that Starr so graciously organized again. It was a big difference weather wise than last year! And Sienna was pretty good with getting a decent amount of eggs unlike last year!

She’s ready to fill her basket!

On the hunt! She shared her find with Sylvie.

Look at all that she got!

Nico’s loot

Phoenix shows off some bling she got in one of her eggs!

Nico raiding his eggs!

Sienna was asking Nico if she could sit next to him. His only concern was his candy! LOL

Izky shows off a cool dinosaur head egg!

Chocolate face!

Carter stops by and is wearing the shirt I made him!

Sienna’s getting pretty good riding the scooter (Izky’s)

Pizza afterwards. She didn’t get any on her shirt!! Which, btw, is a Peeps shirt I made for her that I will blog about soon!

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Last Sunday was another beautiful day (this past weekend was quite the opposite!) and we spent part of it in Williamsburg. We were meeting Pete, Nate and Mari at Raymund’s and stopped by the playground beforehand. McCarren Park has a nice playground! 2 sets of swings, a bunch of slides and at least 3 different structures to climb. We picked up Joy before we headed out there. Sienna had fun playing with Joy.

Now on to Raymund’s! YUM!

Mari’s borscht

Pete eats white borscht (with a plop of mashed potatoes, ahem!)

Potato Pancakes MMMM!

Apple fritters! MMMM

Joy points to her big pile of goulash (on a pile of potato pancake!), which was pretty good. I might have to deviate from my usual pierogi order next time.

My pierogies!

Yves eats his kielbasa plate

Sienna enjoys some of Yves’ kielbasa and potato pancakes

Sienna and doggie

Pete laughs at Sienna’s rendition of Mana mana (from the Muppets)

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Wednesday I had what I thought would be my final dentist appointment (which turns out to be my second to last). He was putting in my permanent cap for that unexpected root canal I had back in December. He only used temporary cement to test out the cap before I have to go back in and get permanent cement. Anyway, since my parents are in Denver, I didn’t have anyone to watch Sienna so we decided to drop her off at her daddy’s work for a couple of hours. She was really excited about it. My appointment was at 10:15 and we left at 7:30 just to be sure because of the extra train transferring. Everyone at Yves’ work loved her! They gave her all sorts of presents (dolls, balls, backpacks!) and Crusher even came along! Yves had work to do so when I got back from the dentist, we had to go to lunch without him. We got home a little before 2 and Sienna willingly took her nap! Such excitement for the day!

On the way!

On the way home

Train cuteness

Train talking

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