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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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Last month I went to see the band Pulp at Radio City with my friend Pete and his friend Jess. Last time I saw them was the last time they were in New York City. That was 1998 at Hammerstein Ballroom!! Pete and Jess were at that show too but I didn’t know them. Anyway, the show was FANTASTIC!! Mr. Jarvis Cocker was a great host, said funny things, sang great songs, danced and flailed around. Sigh. I may not go to as many concerts as I used to but if the ones I do go to have this kind of quality, then I’m happy. I didn’t take many photos so I’m just documenting my ticket and the big PULP in lights on the stage.

The view from the 2nd mezzanine. Here is the set list:
Do You Remember the First Time?
Monday Morning
Razzmatazz
Pencil Skirt
Something Changed
Disco 2000
Sorted for E’s & Wizz
F.E.E.L.I.N.G.C.A.L.L.E.D.L.O.V.E.
I Spy
Babies
(snippet of Richard Berry’s “Louie Louie”)
Underwear
This Is Hardcore
Sunrise
Bar Italia
Common People
Encore:
Like a Friend
Bad Cover Version
Mis-Shapes

On to see Florence and the Machines at the same venue tonight! Woohoo!

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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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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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Today is my darling sweetheart’s birthday. I can’t believe she is 5! I took this photo of her on Saturday, when we had a party for her at Kid’s World and it was a great time! Her whole class was invited and of course, her other friends she knows aside from school. There were 19 kids! More photos of her party weekend to come.

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Yves’ cousin, Samy, and his wife Sabine came for a visit last week from France. They live in Brittany, by the sea. This was Sabine’s first time in New York and they did all the usual touristy things. I met them for the first time on Wednesday. My dad came over to watch Sienna and I met everyone at the restaurant, Da Andrea. It was a wonderful time! The food was delicious and the 2 bottles of wine were devine! Sorry I don’t have any photos of the food but I do remember that I got the tower of grilled vegetables with goat cheese for appetizer, the squid ink taglioni with fresh clams for entreé and chocolate gelato for dessert. Samy and Sabine are such good people and it was very easy to talk with them. They sent us off with loads of crepés for Yves and a huge box of macarons for me! And a cute outfit for Sienna. So generous! They were leaving Saturday night so we invited them over our place so they could meet Sienna. We took them to Brooklyn Bridge Park. It was a super windy day, up to 60 mph! But sunny! We had lunch at Bubby’s, where I had one of the best sandwiches I had in a long time (THE PILGRIM – roasted turkey, cranberries, stuffing and cream cheese on housemade sourdough bread)! We walked around a bit but probably not as much as we could have because of the wind. Then, before heading back to the house, we swung by Coney Island just to show them. I felt it was colder by then so it was a super quick trip. Back at the house, we had coffee and cocoa and the banana bread I made that morning. Yves drove them to the airport with promises of visiting them in France soon. They will be back in August with their son and entourage so we will be seeing them again in no time. Sienna enjoyed their company as well and said to me that it was very nice that they came.

MMMMM macarons! NOM NOM NOM. They are all gone now.

Group shot!

By my favorite bridge

Sienna’s point of view! (I should have given her a camera for the day!)

Sienna and Sabine running

On the wall

Squinty by Coney Island

We sent them off with some gifts of our own. We bought a Brooklyn t-shirt for Simon and a notepad with a colorful Manhattan skyline on the cover as well as a couple of handmade items. I made Sabine an S pendant and a set of NY coasters from my photos.

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Lots of Halloween fun over the weekend! First off, last Friday, we met Starr and Sylvie at the library in Bay Ridge for a special Halloween storytime and craft. I was afraid to let Sienna wear her Thor costume too much in fear of ruining it so Starr was nice enough to bring something from her stash.

I think it’s hysterical that Robin is taller than Batman! They look cute regardless!


They made paper plate ghosts (which was one of the crafts I had set up for the kids for Shirley’s party Saturday!)

And speaking of Shirley’s party, it happened on the day we got a freak snowstorm! Thankfully, we didn’t have far to go. I set up a craft table for the kids with pom poms and pipe cleaners, markers and crayons, glue and tape, etc. I made pasta salad and apple cupcakes with chocolate buttercream and apple cider cupcakes with apple cider cream cheese frosting with fancy Halloween themed cupcake wrappers that I made with my Silhouette SD. AND I FORGOT MY CAMERA!! Boo hoo! So no photos from the party from me! Anyway, the apple cupcakes were good but I didn’t get a chance to try the apple cider cupcakes! And the craft table was big hit with the kids! Even the boys wanted in on it!

On Halloween, Sienna’s class had a party and the parents were invited to come during the last hour. We got to see a little bit of what they do during school.

Her class sitting on the rug. There are 18 kids in her class.

Eating goodies from the party

Dancing and Sienna turns and smiles at me (awwww!)

Sienna and her 2 best buds!

This is why Sienna loves this song:

Later on that day, we went trick or treating with Emma and Leah, like we did last year. I forgot to take a photo of all 3 of them posed together tho! Darn! Where is my brain?

Just like last year, Emma and Leah were ready to go home after about an hour but Sienna kept wanting to ring more doorbells! LOL! That’s funny because she didn’t even eat all the candy she had gotten from last year! I guess she just likes to get free stuff like her mom! HA!

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Just a quick post to wish everyone a happy and safe Halloween! More to come later! We’re off to go fight crime! (photo by Shirley!)

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Last month, on September 29, I woke up at the insane hour of 5:30 to attend a taping of the new ABC show, The Chew. It was Rosh Hashanah so Sienna was off from school so I had my dad sleep over the night before since I had to leave so early! The Chew is a talk show centering around food with 5 co-hosts. It replaces the long running, now canceled All My Children so it already has that running against it. I have a friend who hopes the new show will be canceled so they could bring back AMC. I think she ignored me when I said even if they cancel The Chew, they aren’t going to bring back AMC, at least on tv! Anyway, the taping was at 7:30 allllll the way up by Lincoln Center. I went with Brenda, who told me about the tickets, and Joy. I won’t lie to you, I was hoping for some good swag or at least some good food to taste! Got neither (unless you consider a Mickey Mouse apron good swag!)

A self portrait

The taping was really like any other show taping. There’s a comedian there to get you in a good mood and to tell you when to clap. Paula Deen was on the show and although she is not my favorite chef, it was fun to see her. She really is like how she is on TV! Very personable. They did actual cooking on the show and it was such torture to smell all the goodness! The taping ended around 10:30 and there were seats available for the 2nd taping (there are 2 tapings on Thursdays). No way! We are going to go eat! I am actually surprised Brenda was able to keep her eyes open, having come home at 1 am the night before. No sympathy as she was at the Radiohead show at Roseland!

My bad photo of Paula Deen

Brenda dealing with work issues

All done!

I had wrote in my Facebook status that I was going to the taping and my friend told me to say hello to Clinton Kelly. She is good friends with him and they went to high school together. I actually had the chance as he was in the audience talking with someone. Nice guy! Michael Symon also seemed like a personable guy as I noticed he was chatting with several audience members. The others, well, they really didn’t even turn our way. Not a criticism, just an observation! And as a coincidence, Yves had videotaped Carla Hall the day before as she was a former Girl Scout!

Now, on to lunch! We decided to go to Shopsin’s! It’s been so long.

I ordered poutine (exact name on their menu, I don’t remember!) MMMMMMM!

Brenda got a pancake sandwich with bacon and eggs. They don’t skimp on bacon!

I think Joy got some sort of baked potato with fresh ricotta?

Of course, I had to stop off at Economy Candy! All in all a nice day!

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