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If you keep up with Yves’ blog, you already know we went to the Staten Island Children’s Museum in September. Here are a couple of more photos. We were underwhelmed when we first got there but then realized that there were lots of rooms with different things in them so it was fun. Afterwards, we went to lunch down the road (the name  of the restaurant escapes me) and ate outside. The food wasn’t the greatest but it was nice to be able to eat outside. Yves was nice enough to let me go to Joann’s craft store about a 5 minute drive away after lunch.

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A couple of weeks ago was the September mixer. Since I really enjoyed Common Ground at the August mixer, I decided to go back there but this time for Wednesday night trivia! I was able to rally Peter to meet me for dinner beforehand (he doesn’t normally come to the mixers).

The plantains

The cheesy balls

The Arepas

Close up of our favorite

Pete getting ready to chomp!

We went to Caracas Arepa Bar in the East Village. YUM YUM YUM! We got 2 appetizers and a sort of sampler arepa plate to share. We got yoyos (fried sweet plantain balls stuffed with white cheese) and Tostones Mochimeros (Fried Green Plantains topped with Mojito Mayo, a squeeze of lemon and white cheese) for the apps. And we opted for the La Popular combination platter: La de Pabellón (shredded beef, black beans, white salty cheese and sweet plantains), La Reina Pepiada (chunky chicken and avocado mix salad) and La Mulata (grilled white cheese with jalapeños, sautéed red peppers, fried sweet plantains and black beans). The La Mulata was both of our favorite and it was fun to see Pete shout out a Whoo! when he got to the jalapeños. The Reina Pepiada was our 2nd favorite and the de Pabellón was our least favorite (a bit too sweet). We were too stuffed to get any of their desserts and tried to think of somewhere for some ice cream when we ran into Alison and Josh going to the mixer. We decided to just start drinking and head to the bar.

Josh, Nuno and Ali thinking up answers

Pete stayed for a drink and left before trivia. Guess what? We won trivia night!! Wooohooo!! Now, I can’t take any credit whatsoever for the win. I might have known about 5 answers to the 60 questions asked. Unfortunately our team was named Monkey Karate Ninjas (I think Josh picked this one and I was already feeling the beer and did not argue! HA!) and there were some really entertaining team names. I think most credit goes to Jonathan. We won a $50 gift certificate to Common Ground and will probably use it for the November mixer. The mix I made I had Sienna in mind as I called it We Can Count! Below is the tracklist.

Starts With One    Shiny Toy Guns
Two Times    The Blakes
3 Strange Days    School of Fish
Four-Eyed Girl    Rhett Miller
The First Five Times    Stars
Six Barrel Shotgun    Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
Seven Nation Army    The White Stripes
Crazy Eights    Tapes N Tapes
Step On My Old Size Nines    Stereophonics
10    M.I.A.
The 11th Hour    Rancid
Twelve    Jurassic 5
Thirteen    Big Star
Fourteen    ¡Forward, Russia!
15 Steps    Radiohead
Sixteen, Maybe Less    Calexico / Iron & Wine
Seventeen Dirty Magazines    Modern Skirts
18 and Life    Skid Row
19    Paul Hardcastle
Twenty On My Way    Arthur Lee & Love

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It’s been awhile since we met up with friends for dim sum. We finally went on the 19th and went to our usual place, Golden Unicorn. In attendance, besides me, Yves and Sienna, were Pete, Joy, Aaron, JW and his new girl Kate. Everything was yummy and of course, there is always something that comes after we are stuffed and pay the check. This time it was peking duck! Darn it! (Side note, Aaron’s wife Drena is expecting their first baby, a boy in January! Woohoo!!) There was a newbie to dim sum, JW’s girlfriend Kate and she was willing to try everything and anything. Of course, we got chicken feet and she said she liked it (although she only ate one! LOL)
Sienna was pretty good the whole time. Yves went into work afterwards and I took the train home with Joy. We decided to drive to the Avenue U N line stop since they were doing all kinds of construction on the Q line and thought it would be easier to just avoid that whole line. After Joy got off at her stop, I was trying to concentrate on getting off the right stop since my mind can wander and I wasn’t familiar with that particular line. Well, we were at one station with the doors open when all of a sudden the conductor was sort of yelling over the loudspeaker. Something about an emergency and if there was one, please say so. I thought oh great, what is going on? It turns out that my mischievous Sienna was pushing the button that allows you to talk to the conductor in case of an emergency. Oops! That’s what I get for not paying attention! HA!

Waiting for the train

Where’s my plate?

One of Sienna’s faves, sticky rice in a bamboo leaf

Chicken feet!

who needs chopsticks?

Checking out Aaron’s G10

Kate, JW, Yves and Sienna!

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On the 12th we had another Toddler Take Over BBQ, this one to celebrate Sylvie’s 1st birthday. The weather didn’t turn out so well with overcast and some drizzling but that didn’t stop the party goers! It wasn’t pouring, at least, so we just stayed in the garage and under the umbrella when it was drizzling. The kids did not seem to mind. I did not take as many photos as I would have liked. Sometimes you just forget when you are hosting. Everyone had a great time! We had lots of food leftover (although none of the Turkish sausage Jane and Akon brought over to grill-it was DELICIOUS!), yummy cupcakes that Starr baked (vanilla cake with butterscotch glaze and frosting), my version of thin mint cookies, Turkish baklavah (which is better than the Greek version!) and pinata fun! The pinata was from Nico’s birthday party that never got used because it rained that day too!

Sylvie likes Sienna’s cup!

They are happy eating chips!

People always end up standing!

Yves and Brian manning the grill

Alesandro and Phoenix at the sandbox

Starr, Geneva and Sui

Playing with a little puddle

We sang Happy Birthday and the kids just want their cupcakes!

Sylvie did a pretty good job!

Here is a funny coincidence! I had given Starr a bunch of Sienna’s old clothes for Sylvie. Sienna wore the same dress for her 1st birthday party as Sylvie! It wasn’t planned at all. Here is a comparison photo:

There were also a couple of kids that I did not get good photos of so just to document their presence, there was also 3 year old Gaby (Alesandro’s sister) and 3 year old Izgi ( daughter to Jane and Akon, who brought that delicious sausage). And Kerri came later with Rory and new baby Tyge. I don’t have any photos from the pinata. All the kids got a chance to hit at it (unsuccesfully) and even some adults. We ended up basically ripping it open.

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Yesterday was our first class at the Little Gym for the Fall/Winter semester. Sienna always enjoys running around and swinging and jumping. And she did just that during this class. Unfortunately the class did not tire her out as I had hoped and I feel like naptime is going to start to fade away soon. She had a less than 2 hour nap! Perhaps it is just a fluke! Anyway, I can’t believe that I did not get a chance to post about the show week from the Little Gym Spring semester back in June. Thought I would post about it now. Show week is the last class of the semester and all parents and grandparents and any other family members are invited to come and the kids show off what they learned the previous 19 weeks. Both my parents came. Let this also serve as a reminder to myself to not let my mother come to the Winter semester show week. She was a royal pain in the butt. She kept hovering over Sienna and did not want her to do the majority of the activites (the rolling for example) meanwhile she had been doing it the whole semester. Grrr. Downright annoying! Anyway, here are some photos and a video of the event!

Under the parachute

Swinging

Jumping with Grandpa

Grandma always close by

Attempting a group photo!

Little Gym Show Week from Lisa on Vimeo.

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I had lunch with Pete last week and we went to our semi-regular favorite place, Shopsin‘s. I’m really disappointed that I forgot my camera as we had some yummy stuff! I’m still writing about it tho so I won’t forget! My quest to try something different each time is still in effect.

This time, I got Luke’s lunch I. That’s bbq pork, chili cheese fries on ciabatta and I got mild so Pete could try some. It was DELICIOUS! Of course I absolutely love bbq pork and they didn’t put a lot of chili cheese fries on top so it wasn’t overwhelming. Pete got a big bird sandwich, which I can’t find on the menu but it is basically a fried chicken sandwich. And I took the liberty to order us dessert, ebelskivers with banana. I only first heard about it from a new Food Network show “The Best Thing I Ever Ate” (a very dangerous show to watch!) as one of the chef’s named this as his favorite fried food at Shopsin’s. So of course, I had to get it! Do I have to tell you? Ok, it was YUMMY!!

And of course, we rounded out our visit at Economy Candy! 😉

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The mixer was a couple of weeks ago on the 18th. We had it at Common Ground, a really nice loungy feel bar in the East Village. I liked it so much, we are having the September mixer there on trivia night on a Wednesday! And Robyn is pregnant! Woohoo!! She’s due December 30th.

For my mix this month I did a tribute to John Hughes as he passed away earlier this month. I hunted for a bunch of quotes from his movies and was really happy with the way the mix turned out. I did so much work on the actual mix that I got lazy to do the cover so here is just a screen shot of the playlist:

I have the mix uploaded so if you are interested in downloading it, leave me a comment and I’ll send you the link and password.

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For those that don’t know, I was quite an avid rubber stamper in the early 90’s while I was in college. I had a huge collection of stamps and pads and cardstock. I was always stamping cards or sending mail art making something with stamps. I even attended a few stamp conventions in CA and OH! I didn’t stamp as much once I started working and getting more involved with graphic design on the computer. Then eventually fell out of it and sold a huge part of my collection (not all of it!). I got back into it again once I was home and pregnant and looking for some mail to fill my days. And then of course, once Sienna came and was more active and demanding of my time (like in the last year), I didn’t stamp as much. Then I came across this Stampin’ Up meetup group in Bay Ridge run by Heather. Woohoo! My old ‘hood! I signed up and attended the first meetup on the 16th to do some cards. We did 3 designs and made 5 cards of each. It was fun to start stamping again and actually setting aside time to do it. Since the class was at 10:30, Yves was kind enough to take Sienna to the playground in the area. I thought I would have been down by noon but I was just getting started! I told Yves to take Sienna home and I would find my own way. Here is what I did that day!

A kid friendly card

A feminine card

And the masculine. This design was easy to alter and change up whereas the other 2 were pretty straight forward.

And look at this storage unit she has!!!! DROOL!

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Etsy labs has a free craft night every Monday night at their location in downtown Brooklyn. I don’t go as much as I want to go. They are moving to a new location in Dumbo so for the month of August their craft night was being held at the Museum of Art and Design on Thursdays. I’ve gone to 2 so far. Their first one was crochet jewelry. I made these crochet earrings I dubbed fat and skinny:

This was before I put the earring wires on. I also made a boutineare but I haven’t taken a photo of it. The place was mad crowded and I met a couple of very nice girls while there. I was really excited about going to the next week. It was T-shirt reconstruction and it was being held by Megan Nicolay of Generation-T fame! Woohoo! I have her book and am ashamed to say that I never got around to cutting up any shirts. I had every intention to but you know how it goes. She totally rocks! She was very friendly, funny and articulate and did the demo very well. If I was an uber craft geek, I would have had my photo taken with her! She has a 2nd book out (which I might have to get!) and she demo’d 2 shirts from that book. The first one I did.

Megan demo-ing

This design

Before (front)

After (back)

And I wore it the next day!

I probably won’t be going to the 3rd one. They haven’t announced what it was going to be plus I am already going out twice this week and I feel bad to leave Yves a 3rd night. Hopefully the last one will be good too.

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Although we said we would go to the beach more often because of it’s close proximity, time certainly flies and we didn’t find ourselves there again until a little over a month after our first visit! We went 2 weekends ago on the 8th and we would have gone this past weekend if it weren’t for other commitments. We really had a great time, more so than the first! Sienna wasn’t as obsessed with going in the water every 5 minutes and she actually played quite awhile in the sand. Her and Yves even took a walk along the beach. It’s such perfect timing as we get there by 9:30 and leave by 11:30 when most of the people are coming in. We get a spot right by the entrance so it’s easy in and easy out! This time we picked a different spot and found the showers. That was a lot better!

I was intrigued by this tiny little mussel!

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