v.2

I know I mentioned that Sienna’s social calendar is better than mine and I don’t mind! I’m very happy that she has activities with kids her age or thereabouts. That being said, she’s been very busy this last month and I’m going to break it up into 2 parts. Part 1 is the 2 birthday parties she’s been to in December.
Birthday girl Samantha

Sienna Slides

Sienna concentrates on crafts

Sienna and Emma

Daniel’s showing off his balls

Leah showing her lady side

Daniel’s birthday!

Sienna getting her faced painted!

Sienna and the 2 Emma’s

Her hands painted too!

Balloon animals too

Balloon Animal Chase

Look who showed up! An attempt at a group photo:

Sienna and Emma with Minnie, Sienna was so happy!

Blow out the candles!

Pull!

Grab!

This video is a tad long but if you stick with it, you’ll catch Sienna looking up Minnie’s skirt near the end! She also kissed the back of Minnie’s leg (??) but I didn’t catch that on video! Can’t wait to show this to a future boyfriend! HA!

Mickey and Minnie do the Chicken Dance from Lisa on Vimeo.

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We rang out 2010 with a big feast and welcomed 2011 with a big feast!

My friends Jana and Allen invited us over for a 5 course dinner on New Year’s Eve. It was nice to get together without the kids around (they are the parents of Emma and Leah seen here) I haven’t eaten that late or stayed up past midnight in awhile! Allen did all the cooking and he did a great job. I do regret not taking a photo of our wonderful hosts but hey, here’s the food (priorities!)

1st course!

I believe Allen might have said these were veal meatballs but honestly, I wasn’t listening to him because I was so hungry. LOL
2nd course!

Because of Allen, I now add sliced almonds and avocados to our salad! MMMM
3rd course!

I think this speaks for itself!
4th course!

Juicy, tender pork! MMMMM
Dessert!

I’m sure the brownie on the left is great on it’s own but totally got overshadowed by the awesome apple cake on the right!
I also forgot to take a photo of the sparkling wine we brought over to toast in the new year. Allen and Jana don’t drink so it was fun to see Jana get a little tipsy after a few sips. We should have opened the wine earlier! LOL

My dad stayed over to watch Sienna (although there wasn’t any watching since he came over when she went to bed) so we took him and my mom to dim sum on New Year’s day. We usually go to East Harbor for dim sum but decided to check out Bamboo Garden for a change (we’ve been there before but not in awhile.) It’s not as good as East Harbor but they have some different things that East Harbor doesn’t have. I was pleasantly surprised that they serve Shanghai soup dumplings! MMMM! I’ve been craving them since the big blizzard put the kabosh on our Chinatown soup dumpling outing! The meat part of the dumpling tasted good but sadly there was no soup in the soup dumpling! (I still ate like 6 of them!)

soup dumpling

Veggie dumping (the skin was too thick and chewy)

Sienna’s favorite, Shumai

Taro Dumpling

Har Gow aka shrimp dumplings

I’m not sure what this is really called but I call it chow fun rolls. I’ve only seen it here and it’s quite tasty. I think we got this twice!

Dumpling soup, it was just eh but it’s something I don’t usually see so I wanted to try it.

The bill. $37 for 4 and a half people. Pretty good! There was more we ate that I didn’t take photos of. After a certain point, I just forgot and just stuffed myself!

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Friday Sienna’s school had a breakfast with Santa event and the parents were allowed to go (it was a paid event). Breakfast included a bagel, fruit cup, coffee/tea and juice. You get a photo with Santa and a small gift. It was nice enough. Sienna cried when I had to leave as the event ended at 10:30 and she had until 11:25 for school to finish. I had a nice time hanging out with the other parents!

Sienna with Megan

Sienna with Alexis

Eli, Costas and their mom Antoinette

Emily and Olivia with Sienna and Megan

Sarah with her mom and little sis Sam

Sienna with Dariny

Santa is in the building! When I asked Sienna if she wanted to go over and see Santa, she said she wanted to get a bagel instead!

Sienna ate almost the whole bagel!

I was a little disappointed that the “photographer” was using what looked to be a point and shoot camera to take the photos. I wonder how it will come out.

dancing!

Waiting to head back upstairs

Sienna and Natalie

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I totally thought I posted these photos but alas, I did not! It’s from October when we visited the Bronx Zoo’s Boo at the zoo and met up with Tammy, Mark and Baby Zack (we probably should stop calling him that but Sienna calls him that and it sounds so cute!). It was so nice to get some one on one time with them!

They put these pumpkins in a lot of the animal displays for Halloween. I thought it was funny and in my mind, made up a story of how the turtles were freaking out over this big orange thing in their home.

I missed the kiss but Tammy sent me the photo (at the top of the post) that Mark caught. So cute!!

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After school yesterday, me and Sienna hopped on the train to go meet Yves for lunch and a tree. I usually take the tree at Rockefeller Center for granted, only going if I happen to be in the neighborhood (I missed it last year entirely!). I thought Sienna would enjoy seeing it. First we took a look at the holiday windows at Lord and Taylor (maybe we’ll check out Macy’s next week.)

There weren’t any ice skaters when we got to Rockefeller Center because the zomboni was out preparing the ice. That was kind of a bummer since the skaters add to the atmosphere.

Family portrait take 1

Take 2! Got it!

Her posing cracked me up!

We also put up our tree the day after Thanksgiving. Pretty early for us but it was fun to get into the festive spirit now that Sienna is really getting into the holidays. She told Yves that she loves Christmas! Who can blame her? I even joined in on the decorating of the tree! (I’m usually off doing something else)

All done! Now it’s Santa’s turn!

Here is a video of Sienna “singing” a Christmas Medley. LOL

Christmas Medley from Lisa on Vimeo.

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Sienna had 2 birthday parties last month! She had so much going on with Halloween and the birthday parties that her social calendar was a lot better than mine! The first was Hailey’s 1st birthday and since that was Halloween theme, Sienna dressed in her full Princess costume as I had posted here.

Sienna is playing with Caitlin, Hailey’s older sister

I couldn’t resist this shot!

Sienna shows us her Princess twirl!

Jana with Leah

Emma shows off her crafty creations

A cute photo of Emma and Sienna!

Someone is really enjoying their cupcake!

The birthday girl, Hailey! With her mom Heather.

Cake!

The 2nd party was for her classmates, twins Olivia and Emily, held at the Party Gym. We went to open play there a long time ago! Sienna had a lot of fun.

That blur is Sienna with her classmate, Alexis

Playing with another classmate, Dariny

Sienna gets a tattoo

Pizza time! Sitting next to Alexis

They played lots of games. There are the birthday girls next to Sienna, wearing princess dresses

They got to take home these balloons. Here is another classmate, Megan.

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My grandmother on my mother’s side passed away last night. She had been in the hospital for a couple of weeks after she fell in a restaurant. She had broken her leg and went into the hospital to get it operated on. I’m not clear on the details but I think when they gave her pain meds, she never woke up from it. She was 92. I was not very close with her, even though she lived in Queens. I did not grow up with her around. When I was younger, my mother stopped talking to her and we never saw her (reason still not told to me.) My last memory of her when I was younger was getting a baby doll from her for Christmas. I can’t even remember how old I was. My mother reconciled with her about 9 years ago but I still did not see her much, along with my 2 aunts and uncle and cousins. Nevertheless, I can go on and on about my family or lack of. We did meet up for dim sum back in August and my Aunt sent me some photos she took of us. Here’s the best one!

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A couple of weeks ago, before I got deathly sick (cue dramatic hand to forehead!), I met up with Pete for lunch. I was in the mood for a sandwich type and somehow found Num Pang, a Cambodian Sandwich shop. One word, YUM! Very similiar to Banh Mi, the Vietnamese sandwich except about half the size! (I joked that the Cambodians must not eat much.) We opted to get 2 different sandwiches and share them. I got the pork belly and Pete got the mackerel and we both got blood orange lemonade to drink. I can’t wait to go back!!
My pork belly sandwich

Pete’s mackerel

Alternating between the 2 sandwiches

Pete eats

Num Pang decor

I left Pete after lunch since he had to go back to work. My next mission was Macarons! I don’t know why I didn’t realize this before and why it didn’t come out in my research but it’s gluten free!! This french pastry uses almond flour. Good to know when I go back to eating (mostly) gluten free. I have only eaten a macaron once before, at Almondines in Dumbo when I went to Etsy labs. I’ve decided that will be a regular stop before Etsy labs from now on (their macarons are only $1.25 and just as yummy) I read that Madeleine Patisserie was one of the best places to go for this (at $2.50 each, a special treat indeed)

I brought home chocolate, strawberry, caramel, pistachio with blueberry, cassis, orange with white chocolate and I can’t remember the last one right now! They were all delicious and they last a few days in my house.

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Yves and I have both been sick this week so I didn’t have much energy to do the follow up about Halloween until today!

I took Sienna out trick or treating with our friend Jana, Allen and their girls Emma and Leah. It was the first time Sienna went trick or treating. We didn’t go last year because we went to the Halloween festival at Owl’s Head Park. She got the knack of it really quick! She would ring the bell, step back from the door and wait. Sometimes I had to remind the girls to say trick or treat but at least they said a lot of thank yous on their own. Sienna would zoom to the next house and be at the door before Emma and Leah barely left the last house! That cracked me up. She realized that ‘hey, I ring people’s doorbell and they give me candy! How awesome is that?!’ I was half expecting her to ask to go trick or treating the next day but she didn’t. Guess she understood that it’s a one time thing.

I let her pick whatever she wanted from her stash and she picked pretzels as the first thing!

Check out her goods!

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