Mark is 2!

November 20th was Mark's 2nd birthday. I still can't believe my baby is two! We started with a visit to Santa, hence the Christmas-y outfits on the kids. Time with Santa was apparently not on Mark's birthday wish-list. But after that trauma, he very much enjoyed all his balloons, presents and cake. (P.S. He had his 2-year appointment shortly after his birthday. He's 35.5 inches tall and 33 pounds, both 90th percentile-ish.)

And here is a video where Mark almost sets himself on fire. He's fine, just a little melted wax on his face. We're good parents...really.

Family time!

Back in November we went away for the weekend to see Doug's brother's family in PA and then on to Binghamton to see more of Doug's extended family. (We thought we'd be escaping the disaster that was our kitchen remodel, but it turns out it hadn't even started yet...but that's a whole other post!)

The kids and I spent a lovely couple of days with Elizabeth, Bella, and Jack. The kids all had a great time playing and eating together. Then Doug joined us Friday night and we all went to Binghamton in the morning. The first stop was Grandpa Ray's house.  Miraculously, I was able to get this shot of him with all the kids and no tears. I was stunned.

We had a great time catching up with lots of family and look forward to seeing them again in the winter.

Natural History Museum

At the beginning of November, our friend Kelly was visiting NYC. We were able to see her on Saturday by meeting her at the Museum of Natural History in Manhattan. There are no pictures of the great start of the day which was tipping the double stroller over in the middle of a cross walk: picture both kids completely upside-down and not able to be seen under the tipped stroller and screaming. Luckily, the only real injury sustained was to Gianna's front tooth. The tooth is now gray, but the dentist says there is no damage to the tooth, so losing the tooth in a few years will cure that problem. Anyway, where was I. Yes, the museum. It was very cool. The kids loved the dinosaurs and we were thrilled to see our friend!

Merry Halloween!

Like much of the east coast, our Halloween began with a weekend of snow! Gianna wanted to go out and play when the first flake fell, we managed to hold her off a bit, but she loved it! Mark needs more gear before we'll let him out, but he didn't seem to mind staying inside.

Gianna got to dress up for her school parade and party. She was very excited to be Sleeping Beauty. It was so cute to see all the little 4-year-olds dressed up. They almost froze to death, but they were smiling anyway!

After the parade, we went inside for the kids to sing us some songs. It was adorable. Poor little girl next to Gianna had a little stage fright. Gianna on the other hand was really into it. Cracked me up!


Then in the evening we went trick-or-treating in our friends' neighborhood. The people in this photo had the right idea: fire pit, pizza, beer and giving candy from lawn chairs instead of answering the door every 30 seconds. This, by the way, is the best picture I have of Mark the dragon. He wore his costume several times in October, but on the day it mattered most, this was the best dragon he could be. He loved trick-or-treating though. He knew all his lines and really grasped the "get candy" part. 

Gianna and Olivia, the queen. They had a great time together. 

The girls were all business. 

Remember the Alamo

So earlier this year, Doug opted to fly coach instead of first class (for work) back from Europe. For the "trouble" it was for him to slum it like the rest of us, Continental gave him $1000 travel voucher. So we decided to go somewhere as a little getaway: San Antonio, TX. And we couldn't be happier with our decision. We LOVED it! As soon as we got there we gorged ourselves on Mexican food, which was delicious. Then after a nap (our flight was early), we headed to the Alamo (a very short walk from our hotel).

Then we headed to dinner on the Riverwalk. This was our view. The weather was pretty warm during the day, but by dinner time there were cool breezes and zero humidity, it was beautiful!

After dinner, we took a river boat cruise in the dark in a boat like this. They tell you about all the sights. I'd love to see it at Christmas time. Every tree along the river was in the process of getting completely covered in lights. 

We headed away from the Riverwalk the next day. Our first stop was the San Fernando cathedral. It's very beautiful and holds the remains of Davy Crockett and other Alamo defenders. Although, upon researching this fact just now, apparently, there is some question about the validity of this claim.

We went back to the Riverwalk in the afternoon after a morning in the markets. There are lots of nice waterfalls like this one. 

Doug climbed to the top of a tower built for Hemisfair in 1968. I thought this picture he got of St. Joseph's church was pretty cool. It's surrounded by a shopping mall. Too funny.

Anyway, we had a wonderful time. It was so nice to relax and spend some quality time together. And we couldn't be more grateful to Grandma and Grandpa spending the weekend with the kids, who apparently did very well without us!

Empire State Building

A few weeks ago we decided to make a trip into the city to go up the Empire State Building since Gianna has developed a real interest in skyscrapers. She was so excited to go. Unfortunately, the excitement diminished with every minute spent in line waiting to go up! Once we got to the top (as long as they weren't on the windy side of the building), the kids enjoyed the view. It was a gorgeous day, so the view was spectacular. But I have to admit, it was a lot of effort for fairly minimal payoff! If you plan on going and think a stroller might be more of a pain than a help, think again. That stroller saved us a LOT of time in line! All in all, I'm glad we went and Doug and I rewarded our efforts with sandwiches from Fiore's in Hoboken on the way home, that was totally worth it!

This was after we got back down to the bottom. Gianna was over it. 

And here they are back at home being cute, sharing a chair. They sat here together for a whole TV show. Adorable. 

Visit from Nonna and Pop-pop

Nonna and Pop-pop came to visit on what happened to be my 32nd birthday and Pop-pop helped Doug with re-making planters in the backyard. Somehow neither of these events got documented at all. Probably because gardening is boring in pictures, come to think of it, so are 32nd birthdays! Nevertheless, it was a lovely day. I slept in, Doug make a yummy lobster soup dinner, and we had ice cream cake for dessert. (I'm usually a cake/icing fiend, but after the unicorn cake adventure that was Gianna's birthday, just 10 days before, I was kinda over the whole cake thing!) I did manage to document the most important parts of the weekend which were Nonna and Pop-pop spending fun times with our kids. Here's Pop-pop relaxing with his "buzzards" as he calls them, and as they call him right back :)

Here's Mark getting ready to make bird feeders with Nonna. 

Gianna loves this activity!

Mark just liked being close to the action.