Peek-a-Boo

Eats, Shoots and Leaves

I have heard, often actually that you are able to eat dandelions... mostly people say you can eat the greens like a salad. But here is recipe that allows you to eat the fun flower part. I will put it here and hope that someone stumbles across it and makes them and lets me know how they actually are.
I have no dandelions. In fact I made a startling discovery today that I actually have no grass in my front patch. I have moss, feet and feet of moss covering the area I would like to someday be a 'yard'. For some reason this morning during nap time, instead of folding laundry, mopping floors, changing beds, or (insert other mundane household chore of choice here) I decided to garden. This urge has only come over me one other time. That's didn't go so well.
See, some people (my mother) are gifted gardeners. and some; like me are not. I am in good company with my upstairs neighbor who I share the 'yard' with. She decorated the front 'bed' with plastic plants. Sadly I am coming to accept that this is my fate as a gardener as well. I did however manage to kill three uninvited trees that were growing tall enough to cover the plastic foliage, and take out the pieces of concrete that have lived in the 'garden' since they cut a hole in my wall over a year ago.
And wait - I took out all the dead plantlike life that constituted most of the 'life' in the garden.
I am marking it as a success :)

A Note about Aunts

Ok as I mentioned we filled about 4 cards this past weekend taking pictures so you couldn't have possibly thought that you were done seeing some of the highlights....
We learned a lot about Aunts:

Aunts like to be woken early, and loudly
and with a camera in their face

They like hanging out, eating good food, reading book and swings.


Mostly we learned that Aunts and Uncles love us!

And we love them too!

A Year in a Moment

This is not pictures of the zoo, sorry. The sisters have them all really so haunt their blogs to see those soon.

Last week was Nick's first birthday. It seems hard to imagine that he was ever not able to communicate with us, not able to walk, not able to really even see us. He's grown and changed so much over the last year, and since we do not plan on any more babies any time soon every first has been bittersweet because it might be our last 'first' ever.

So since everyone was here, we made cupcakes and took a ton of pictures of him smashing his cake, and just celebrated the heck out of his first birthday!

He got really into the 'smash cake' using hands and feet :) He ate very little of it but enjoyed very much that he was 'allowed' to make such a mess.

Like all good 'big' sisters, Claire was less than thrilled that someone else was getting all the new toys and all the attention. In the end she helped blow out the candles.
And mommy and daddy helped take the pictures.

Our little family finally feels complete. We have made it through some rough times and we have come out a little bruised but all together and that's what matters. We know now that even if the road gets rough we can handle it. 'Cause if I was reminded of anything from being together with my sisters this weekend it is that family is forever and family is no matter what.

We celebrate Claire's 3rd birthday in about three months, I can't wait to celebrate her too and the many great things she has achieved and the wonderful things she has brought to our little family.

Clear your Camera Cards...

Stasi and Micah are HERE!!

Their arrival was much awaited and anticipated and we are enjoying them immensely. They arrived without a hitch on Friday evening.

They brought cookies, and a camera that takes amazing pictures.

SO... we may have filled three camera cards in two days :)

It is just good to be together. Did I mention that Ami is here too?! We were also excited to see her and spend time with her outside of wedding world :) It's been way to long since the sisters were able to hug all together.
We have already been to the aquarium, and the park, the boardwalk, and the cyclone in Coney Island. We walked by the bay and had water balloons too.

Life is good here in NY. Lots of laughter and hugs. I'll miss them when they move on to the their next stop in Altoona today. But we have one more big destination planned before they go... The Zoo! it will be Micah's first zoo ever.

We cleared the camera cards and we are ready to go.

Happy Birthday!

Happy Belated Birthday to both my little munchkin and my country!

We spent the 4th in RI - poolside. And since it reached triple digits in NYC we were thankful to be there every moment. Claire perfected her swimming abilities and by the end she was scooting around the pool in just her 'swimmies'.

We were glad to be in RI also because they are allowed to set off fireworks! Mostly they were all the same shooting sparks into the sky and sometimes there would be some different colors or noises, but they were all pretty much the same.... Claire liked them though. Nick fell asleep during the 'show'.

Overall it was good to go and as I sit here typing this up, the kids are 'breakfasting' next to me and Claire; seeing the pictures of the pool says 'Mommy, I don't want to be home'... I kinda feel the same way.