Thankful

Thanksgiving rocked. Really. We actually had time to RELAX in Vermont, and cooked, ate, cooked some more, ate some more...you get the picture.

There was early morning chilling by the fire...

Checking out the new lift at Mt. Snow with Mémé...

A snowy walk with Dad...

And fireworks at the Mountain with Grandpa.

Plus we got to hang out with our Uncle Jeremy, and Brian and I even got to see the new Muppet Movie! Which I adored. Completely and utterly. We were so thankful for the extended weekend, and just had the best time. These holidays are off to a fantastic start.

Garland

Tomorrow, we leave to spend Thanksgiving with my dad and Kathy in Vermont. When we return, it will officially be "the holidays." So I feel justified decorating a little early. Yay! Holidays!

Happy Holidays

It's official. The holidays are here. And I, for one, am completely and totally stoked. Bring on the turkey, the stuffing, the latkes, the donuts, the pizelles, the dreidels and christmas tree stands. Bring the decorations, caroling, and the salvation army bell ringers. Bring sappy commercials, spiced wine, hot chocolate, the menorah, SNOW, and twinkly lights. Bring my annual switch to the Kinks' "Father Christmas" for my ring tone. Bring family, and friends, and friends that are family. I love this time of year.

Perusing a holiday catalog in our bed sheet "fort."

Fall in New York

Fall in New York will never rival fall in Vermont, but the little tree by our stoop is doing its best.

Checking Out the Camera

Gabe's getting real close to crawling. This both thrills and terrifies me.

Chapeaux

We got the best package in the mail yesterday. Hats made by our friend, Sarah! She's obviously ridiculously talented, and I now officially have the cutest kids in Brooklyn. Thank you, Sarah!

Wowza

Just absolutely floored that we are a week away from Thanksgiving and that means the Holidays are here and that Gabe is going to be 9 months old soon and OH MY SWEET LORD where has this year gone?

Sunday Afternoon Little Man

Spaghetti, Anyone?

Gift Paper Photo Mats

I've been totally inspired by my new-found love of Pinterest. Seriously, check it out. It's brilliant idea-candy. It's not a huge project or anything, but I spruced up our photo mats with some pretty gift paper. I think it turned out well for very little cash/time/effort. My kind of project.

Tooth(s)

Not one, but TWO little teeth have arrived. Gabe will be crunching and munching before we know it.

A Note to Myself About Expectations

Dear Self, and assorted Family and Strangers,

I had an amazing time at the marathon party on Sunday. But it was almost ruined by my own head and expectations. I spent a crazy amount of time cooking a ton of food the day before the party, and while it was certainly appreciated by our friends, the stress of getting it all done came close to killing me. Lesson learned: you have two children, and are chronically sleep deprived. You can no longer accomplish everything you could do before Ellie and Gabe. Or rather, you can, but it may not be fun.

I tend to hold myself to impossibly high standards and really need to lighten up. So, in the future, when planning parties (or even life in general) figure out what's really important and focus on that. In this case: donuts. The cider donuts rock my world, and it wouldn't be the marathon party without them. But all the rest of brunch could be ordered in, or potlucked, or some other solution. And I would have had much less pre-party stress. And as long at there are donuts, I don't think anyone else would mind.

Lesson learned. And hopefully remembered.

3 Spectacular Days

The marathon was here! The marathon was here!

We held our annual marathon-marathon party on Sunday and it was a total blast. There were cider donuts and whiskey-spiked coffee, cheering the runners, and yummy brunch. There were good friends, adorable babies, and homemade jalapeno poppers. The weather was beyond great and we really did up the day right - including beers by the fire after the babes were fast asleep. Thanks so much to everyone who schlepped to Brooklyn to celebrate with us. I totally failed at taking pictures since I was having way too much fun.

Bri took the next day off work to recover from the marathon hosting. Since the weather was insanely gorgeous again (that seems to be the theme of this post) we played outside and successfully ate lunch out as a family. Then we let the kids sleep in the stroller while we napped in the sun. My favorite part of the day was throwing the kids in childcare at the Y for an hour and getting my butt kicked in ping-pong. My husband's got a mean serve and a killer spin.

Finally, yesterday the weather was still spring-like, so the kids and I picnicked in the park. I let them sleep in the stroller again (bad mommy) and took myself out for lunch. The kids stayed sleeping and let me have a cheeseburger and glass of wine all by myself. My perfect angels. Seriously, does it get any better than that?

Long story short? We're on a run of some good days. Gabe has been smiling up a storm, and Ellie seems to be giving some of her whining a break. I don't know what we're doing right, but I hope we keep doing it.

Fall Crown

I don't know if it's going to last until Sunday (Sarah's suggestion to wax the leaves is a good one), but still...CROWN! Yay!

Leaves

Inspired by our friend Sarah (check out her blog!), Ellie and I enjoyed this gorgeous day collecting a bunch of leaves in Prospect Park. El had a grand old time taping them to her piece of paper. Seriously, the girl LOVES tape. I worked on creating her leaf-crown during nap time. Hopefully it will work and El can be the Queen of Fall at our marathon party on Sunday.

Reading Olivia

...she even wears herself out.

8 Months

Happy Eight Months, my sweet boy.

Halloween

So, true to expectations, I completely dropped the ball on the Halloween costume thing. Kids, I promise next year you'll have meticulously detailed, hand-made creations. Yeah right. Ellie wouldn't even put on her tutu, and it was too cold for her tiara, so instead of "fairy princess" she was "toddler with wings." Proud parenting moment.

Despite the lack of real costumes, we had a lovely evening. Ellie really got into the handing out candy part. Other than a few people she deemed too scary for treats she tried to give everyone walking on our block a candy bar. No costume? No kids? No treat bag? No problem!

After the stream of cute kids wound down to a trickle we headed up the street to the 7th Avenue Parade. And oh man that was some craziness. My two favorite parts? The toddler dressed as Pat Kiernan doing "In the Papers," and the fact that Uncle Andre showed up with a flask. Good man.