Happy Thanksgiving!

We were lucky enough to host an international Thanksgiving crowd this year. Brockton, Queens, Brooklyn and Trinidad were all at the table. We deep fried our bird and didn't burn the house down which was very exciting. And extremely delicious! I think we'll be frying up some smaller fowl when Grandma Carola comes to town this weekend.

Before:

After:

Ivy will eat ANYTHING and declared a love of brussels sprouts. Actually, she wouldn't eat pumpkin pie. But she'll eat anything else.  Here she is with some sprouts and her cousin, Rylee.

More cousins.

Gran Leah and a speedy boy.

And here's some fun from the local Hot Spot Tot Lot.

Urban gardening, digging in the dirt with sticks.

Things get exciting when we bring the skateboard. Creston has always been a fan and Ivy has recently come around. Check out the form on the Lea-Simons twins! Helmets aren't necessary quite yet, but we're getting there. They're picking up speed.

Ivy launched Creston

And then they opted for a very restful, bellydown style of skateboarding. I think they would have stayed like this for hours, rolling around the park.

It was a great, extra long weekend for the whole family. Beautiful weather and much relaxation. We hope you all had some of the same!

Halloweening 2011

Is this the last year that we'll be able to pick our kids' costumes for them? Probably. Our little salt and pepper shakers looked pretty cute at home. 

But after braving the freak snowstorm to get to the Brooklyn Children's Museum's Halloween special event, we ditched the well-designed cardboard portion of the costume and went with the basics. Still pretty stinkin' cute. Wonder what they'll want to be next year? If we were to guess according to their current loves, Creston would be a tractor and Ivy a grape. Only time will tell.

Some photos of our Long Haul Farm visit rose to the surface, so we'll take you back in time a bit here.

We definitely like to read.

And try on as many shoes as possible.

See ya!

Playgrounds and Farm Fields

Papa drove two babies and one large dog up to Brockton at the end of September while Mama stayed in Brooklyn for her first solo night since Creston and Ivy came home from the hospital. Mama joined them a day later, but in the meantime Brockton had quite a good playground to offer.

Curbstop. Sammy on lookout.

Cousin Rylee completes the trio.

Then, the following weekend, we tried our hand at tent camping at our friends' Long Haul Farm. It was a work weekend with 30+ people from far and wide moving huge rocks, clearing brush, prepping garlic beds and pressing apples. Creston and Ivy were good at eating hard boiled eggs and way too many apples.  Their hard labor years are still to come.  Wishing we had more pictures of this adventure, it was pretty special. We didn't get much sleep, but we'd like to try camping again!

Oh, September

We'll be honest. September has been a little rough. Back-to-school month has meant long hours at work for Mama, and that means long hours on the homefront for Papa. Mix that with a nasty case of hives for Ivy (a fever can cause hives?) and bronchitis for Mama and, well, we'd seen better days. But things are on the up and up and it seems like ever since Creston and Ivy turned 18 months old a few days ago, they're gaining speech like crazy. It's loud around here.

There were definitely a few bright spots in September, so we'll get to those now.  We drove up to VT over Labor day for Grandpa Syd's retirement party.  It was a really nice evening, with lots of people attending from so many phases of his life. The hors d'oeuvres were at toddler eyeball height and Creston enjoyed passing them out to all of the guests whether they wanted 20 cherries or not. Here he is in a mellower moment with dear ol' Chip.

And splashing around in the beer and wine bucket.

Ivy can eat about 7 slices of watermelon, apparently.

 And then we went to Grandma Carola's for a night. It's always nice and relaxing there.

Here we are in a random park in CT on the way home. The most interesting thing about this park was how many dads were smoking while supervising their children. 

Back at home, baby doll strollers are the new "it" toy. Sometimes used as battering rams, sometimes used for doing laps with stuffed animals, always used at top speed.

This is what Creston looks like when he says, "PLEASE!"

Ivy spent a whole grocery shopping trip holding onto this one brussels sprout.

Observe the look of disbelief on Ivy's face as Creston tries to share with her.

Hopefully it won't take over a month for us to check in again. Bye-Bye!