Happy December 31st!

Wishing everyone a fantastic end to 2011 and sending all best wishes for a healthy, joyous year ahead!! Christmas pictures soon to follow.

Let the merriment begin!

The Frolic

Our debut this year at New Haven's Frolic (7-year-olds and up and their parents) event...As a 7-year-old this year, Hugo was eligible this year to attend. It was a fun, festive evening with friends, food, music and dancing. Just gotta work on his reluctance to dance with Mommy in public...if not a dance, at least a kiss? I didn't get too far with either. He promises to dance the Virginia Reel next year with us!












Some pre-Christmas fun

Happy Thanksgiving

Wishing everyone, family and friends, a very happy Thanksgiving! We hope you enjoyed a nice holiday and feasted well.

The gap that will soon be replaced by an incoming big girl tooth!


With German family friend Lisa who joined us for the holiday

Thanksgiving Eve

On evening walk:

Daddy: "Tomorrow morning, guys, we're off to the squash courts, nice and early- we'll have breakfast at the club and play some squash."

Hugo: "What??!! I thought Thanksgiving was all about freedom and fun. Not enslavement on the squash court!!"

in utero

En route to school, Peanut asked me to tell me about her birth (which we've done often) and about herself as a baby and about how I wore pink, carried pink, thought pink, screamed pink, prayed pink on the day of my 16 week ultrasound to find out if I were having a second baby boy or a first baby girl...the whole pink thing really gives her a laugh plus she delights in hearing about her mother's dancing, prancing and running up to strangers in the hospital, subway, grocery, just about wherever, to share the good news. So this morning I started out pre-birth and told her all about how I knew when she was sleeping and when she was awake since her kicks let me know. She looked up at me, and said: "Did it hurt, Mama, when I kicked? If it did, I am so so sorry."

First one gone

Little bunny lost her first tooth this morning. Came into our room this morning, grinning from ear to ear. I asked her if she'd swallowed it during the night, and she said that it was in her bed. Sure enough, the cute tiny whiter than white tooth (so beautifully far from my coffee-stained yellow chompers) was lying there on her sheet. She was most proud to show her teachers and classmates and is all set for tooth fairy action tonight.

Oatmeal and other good ideas

Just found an age-old post-it note (not the greatest way of keeping track of life i am slowly figuring out) where I had said to Hugo that he needed to have at least 2 days of oatmeal (meaning that 2x per week, that'd be the plan). I had just left off the 'per week' part, and so his response to me was: "Okay, when I'm 89 and when I'm 92."

Also, this morning, warm in bed, before school ripped him away from me, we were talking about all sorts to things, and somehow got onto the topic of "good ideas." He turned to me, after a few moments, and said: "You, Mama, you were a really good idea of Ama and Boppa's." (those are my parents) My boy. My boy.

Childhood

This morning, a day off from school, I had finished making the pancakes and asked Hugo to help me get the table set for breakfast. He reached into the drawer with melamine kids' plates; I told him the larger porcelain plates would probably be a better option for the pancakes. He responds: "But, Mama, these remind me of childhood."

Election Day

Big election here in town today. Lots of anticipation. Some really negative flyers have been clogging our mailboxes; the latest included some commentary about an opponent's support of tea party politics. Hugo has decided that he's absolutely positively in favor of one candidate, and it's not the one "who supports tea parties." He cites repeatedly all of the untruths from the flyers, believing them to be true (why shouldn't he, he's 7) and maintains, when I told him that many of those words about the opponent were just desperate lies about the opponent in an attempt at re-election: "Desperate lies, huh? I seriously doubt it, Mama." Said with total conviction. Plus he thinks his unfavored looks like a werewolf. How could he possibly be an effective leader?

HP and QE

It threatened to be a snowy, messy Halloween....but was perfect in the end. Our Queen Elizabeth and Harry Potter have come away from four straight days of festivities with a ton of fun memories and, I fear, more cavities that I care to have dealt with. Here's a little peek at the fun.

Now We Are Six

...lots to catch up on, most notably Peanut's 6th birthday and birthday party. Here are a few shots of her actual day and then subsequent celebration.

Daddy knew that this Hello Kitty lip gloss,nail polish, gosh knows what else cosmetic kit which,to me, is a rash and a half waiting to happen, would make her smile more than a pony would....and he was right!


Checking out the organic, all-natural, hypo-allergenic offerings with her brother




A sliding lip gloss. This takes the cake.




The Princess Party- on a beautiful, sunny, Indian summer 65 degree day



















Happy Birthday, Angel!!!
...lastly, sometimes you just hear the darndest things in the darndest places. In this case it was Target; at checkout, seeing all of the birthday supplies, our cashier asked Portia if it were her birthday and how old she was. She then proceeded to recite A.A Milne's Now We are Six, and in a very poetic voice at that:

When I was One,
I had just begun.
When I was Two,
I was nearly new.
When I was Three
I was hardly me.
When I was Four,
I was not much more.
When I was Five,
I was just alive.
But now I am Six,
I'm as clever as clever,
So I think I'll be six now for ever and ever.

IF ONLY.