"Gatorade! Water up ahead! I love helping at my dad's aid station for the NJ State Marathon in Long Branch each year! This year, it was wicked hot. Lots of people drinking lots of water. We even ran out of cups! Some year, I'm going to run it."- Trenton
"Mom, can we have a picnic lunch? I promise to keep my food on the table so that the ants don't get it."- Trenton "(I make no such promises.)"- Oliver
"Hello Elmo sprinkler! It's been quite awhile since I've seen you! This is the first time you've seen me as a four year old. Watch out! I'm fast and I love to spin you in circles!"-- Trenton
"(Dude, Elmo, why are you spinning like that? And why is water coming out of you? And doesn't he realize that it is colder than he thinks? I'll stay right her with my towel and Sun Chip, thankyouverymuch.)"- Oliver
Surely all of you avid readers of this blog remember me mentioning coming into the city for the Tribeca Film Festival? No? No worries ;) I'm sure you have better things to do.
Trenton, however, DID remember it. So it is a darn good thing that the weather was nice (even a bit too hot at 90 degrees) and we were able to come in for the day. The festival itself was AWESOME. Just about everything had a movie or popcorn theme. We enjoyed traditional buttered, cheddar, and chocolate drizzled popcorn. The kids did, too. Lots of freebies. We walked away with DVDs, photographs, organic lollipops, and sweatbands. Oh, and this 3D PHOTO! If you had the 3D glasses, you'd be able to see T's tongue sticking out. A very, very nice touch! Brayden's Montessori preschool was conducting a fundraiser-- Hop for Hope. The kids enjoyed popping bubble wrap and weaving through mazes.
Now THIS maze was built entirely out of cardboard boxes provided by the moving company Moishe's. Too cool. A bit scary, though, as I couldn't see him and there were a dozen kids in it! With the Road Runner. Barron and Ollie definitely needed naps and to get out of the sun for awhile. After grabbing lunch and having some 'rest time', we headed back out to Greenwich St. to see other parts of the festival.
Above, a real Chinese dragon! The boys liked hearing the drums, but we didn't get close enough to really see the men in costume. Below, we did get to see the Pirate's Booty Pirate! Free eye patch ROCKS! Yeah, so, we saw Johnny Depp. Kinda. But we did see Liev Schreiber, his wife Naomi Watts, and their two kids. Poor guy was having to argue with paparazzi as his one-year-old cried in his arms. I'm hoping they got to do SOMETHING without getting pestered, as the kids surely would have loved all there was to do there.
OK this was cool. I don't remember the name of the company that sponsored it, but essentially, it was an imaginative playground concept. All the pieces were made of hard, lightweight foam. And the kids LOVED it. My little man. He's started to get a little attitude... Doesn't like it when I tell him "No". Even hit me in the face a few times for doing so! Have to begin laying down the line with him... time-outs usually come into play around this age...
Barron's looking for a way out. Trenton and Brayden running through the streets on the way home. Brayden is so city-smart: he tells his mom to stop and look as they approach any driveway or roadway. Trenton had to follow his lead on this day.
Home before dinnertime, with two tired kids. Thanks for the fun time!
Hey! Where have you been? Oh yeah! It's the end of the semester. I bet you were spending every available minute completing two student studies, two electronic portfolios, an assessment evaluation, and lesson plans, right? OK. I'll cut you some slack then for not blogging for a few weeks.
(Thanks.)
And yes, it has been a great two weeks. Be happy that I took pictures to document it all! *** I can remember when Trenton was a baby, and we'd find him hiding out in a nook somewhere, reading books or pulling them off of the shelf. Just like his big brother, Oliver knows which way to hold the book, how to turn the pages, and responds to the illustrations he 'reads' with his own little language. Man do I love early literacy! Above, he's reading Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? Great clip of the author, Bill Martin Jr., reading it here.
The weather's been getting nicer here... Took the kids to Avon after dinner one night last week. Above, Trenton searches successfully for sand crabs along the rocks. He must have found close to 80 crabs, no joke. It was hard to pry him away and get him to come home. But the wind was picking up, and Ollie didn't like it at all...
Pick me up, Momma!
I've been seeing a lot of him at this angle lately... suffice it to say, we're going through a bit of an attachment phase. Can't blame him, especially with all his allergies this season.
Had to capture this fantastic chalk drawing that Jim did below:
Nice weekend, with Jon visiting. Basketball and time at the beach... all before Memorial Day!
Jim and I headed up to Park Ridge to visit with the TCNJ gals at Kim and Al's house... we ditched the kids at the Georges' in Paramus (thanks, Carolyn and Dino!) and had the whole afternoon to ourselves. Which was good, as I needed my lil' Bobby fix! He's getting big, that's for sure. Below, here he is with his mommy, Kim.
We had a fantastic dinner and dessert and great conversation. I love getting together with the girls and discussing books, movies, music, and school stuff. We had to leave before the board games began (torture!), but it was the best bet to get home at a reasonable time with the kids.
Trenton ended up going to the doctors the following day. Pink eye! (Yes, Ollie had it last week). Then on Monday, he was in absolute pain. I took him back to the doctors to find that he had a raging ear infection and a 102.3 fever. Thankfully, the medication is very effective.
The weather is supposed to be in the upper 70s tomorrow and Friday, then in the 80s this weekend. Our plan is to head to the city for the Tribeca Film Festival Family Street Fair... if you're interested, check out the map of all the cool things to do here. We're excited!
You see that massive pink cherry tree in the background there? That is the reason why I haven't had many good pictures to blog this week. That and the hundreds of other trees in bloom this month. The millions of pollen spores floating around outside. Making me close my windows on beautiful days, just so that the green dust doesn't settle all over their furniture and on the sheets. Blah. We've been battling with 'seasonal allergies' since the beginning of March. They've hit Oliver a lot harder than Trenton. Both kids have been on Zyrtec for about a month now. There's still sneezing, runny noses, blue marks around the eyes... at least the coughing has gotten better. But the fluid build-up is worse. I brought Oliver to the clinic on Monday evening, because puss was coming out of his eyes! Ended up having an ear infection, too. Doctor said it had to do with fluid from allergies. Great. The poor kid is so miserable. Add to that FOUR teeth. All four canines, top and bottom! That's the only time he gets a diaper rash... So we play inside a lot. And go to the gym. They've both gotten used to playing at Gold's Gym since Jim and I switched our membership from Retro to there in February. We like it so much better, even though the membership is three times as much (!) but the daycare price is included (ahh...) I think we're going to experiment with T's hair some more. I like to keep it well above his eyebrows, but I'm thinking of leaving it longer around his ears and sides of his face... the back is all kinds of strange looking. Maybe taking off some of the bottom... It is hard to get him to cooperate anymore. Bet the Leapster would distract him a bit, though. As of now, he's allowed to play it only when he has a good day at school. He really does like it and seems to be learning a lot of math concepts from the games we have.
Ollie freaked all of us out by sleeping until 7:00 this morning. Jim and I both checked to make sure he was still breathing. I don't remember the last time he slept so long... Zyrtec induced? Below, a pic from naptime. Look at those legs! That hair! Yes, we haven't totally given up the paci, although we were this close. But then the allergies got bad, and it was a good way to get him to smile... His absolute favorite thing is Elmo. He'll take the remote and point it at the T.V. and ask for "Elmo". He'll wake up from his nap saying "Elmo". At night, you'd better have the Elmo book ready to read to him. And God forbid his two Elmo t-shirts are in the wash...
I keep telling myself to enjoy every second I have with him in this baby stage. It was my ABSOLUTE favorite stage with Trenton-- from about 9 months to 2 years... so sweet, cuddly, short, chubby, innocent...
It's so funny that this was the first picture of the bunch on Easter morning... You try to get everything set up the night before and leave the camera in a place that is easily accessible. But then they wake up and race downstairs... Both boys saw the various eggs hidden around the house pretty quickly. But while we ran around watching Trenton, Oliver figured out that you could OPEN the eggs and that there was CHOCOLATE in them. He LOVES chocolate-- just like his momma... So is that a look of guilt? Or maybe he's wondering if it will be confiscated? He didn't seem to care that there were more eggs to find. He was fine with the one he had ;)
The look on T's face here is priceless, although the picture itself is overexposed.
Everything happens with a superhero stance, it seems. Trenton scores points for finding the most eggs, and getting me to think that I'm liking Easter morning more than Christmas day... Make sure to check out the videos of the kids finding their baskets. You can sense T's determination to find his basket after seeing what Ollie got in his. I actually think T forgot that there were baskets hidden-- he was so focused on the eggs!
The bunny was good to them. Major stash of books, toys, etc... All the candy was in the eggs. Oliver got a babydoll that is very similar to Trenton's baby Mike. T says that it is a girl, but I'm going to leave that up to Ollie to determine... Who am I to deny the little guy his first taste of Peeps?
I'm pretty sure this is the best picture of the bunch.
Or is it this one?
Definitely not this one.
Okay, at this point, just get us to church already...
Thanks, Jim, for attempting to get a great pic near the flowers. Unfortunately, the little people were not as cooperative as last year :( My parents came in the late morning, went to church with us, and then returned for lunch. Afterwards, they went off to visit my grandmother and put flowers on my grandfather's grave. The kids napped. Jim and I enjoyed the quiet for a bit. The afternoon was beautiful and we were able to spend a lot of it outside with the kids. Below, T holds the flowers that I planted today in front of the house.
"Thank you, Hop, for bringing me all those treats! I will show my gratitude by feeding you your favorite-- brown rocks!!!"
And then, I fed them all ;) We had ham, apricot glazed carrots, garlic asparagus, cornbread cake, and carrot basmani rice. And wine... new fav is a California red blend called Menage a Trois (tastes great and right in my price range). Dessert was assorted goodies from mom that were donated the next day to Jim's colleagues at work. I'm continuing my Lenten challenge of giving up chocolate... sorta... I've decided to see if I can limit myself to eating chocolate only on the weekends. It has been a rough week, on top of the already six weeks I've been doing this, but I'm interested to see if it makes any difference in the long term weight-wise. We'll see how long it lasts...
"Gatorade! Water up ahead! I love helping at my dad's aid station for the NJ State Marathon in Long Branch each year! This year, it was wicked hot. Lots of people drinking lots of water. We even ran out of cups! Some year, I'm going to run it."- Trenton
"Mom, can we have a picnic lunch? I promise to keep my food on the table so that the ants don't get it."- Trenton
"Hello Elmo sprinkler! It's been quite awhile since I've seen you! This is the first time you've seen me as a four year old. Watch out! I'm fast and I love to spin you in circles!"-- Trenton
"(Dude, Elmo, why are you spinning like that? And why is water coming out of you? And doesn't he realize that it is colder than he thinks? I'll stay right her with my towel and Sun Chip, thankyouverymuch.)"- Oliver
