road trip #1

We had a short but very eventful trip to Boston last weekend. We had the Chanukah party, a party for Miriam/Gram's birthday, and a veritable blizzard. Here are some shots.


Cousins building "Snow Town" (I'm not sure what Snow Town had to recommend it besides a tunnel).


Eighty years old and loving it! (I actually made her say that when I took the picture. Oh, what my relatives put up with.)


"Too cute not to pick up," says one person in this picture. "Look, I have three teeth," says the other.

Next stop, Christmas in Virginia.

royalty

Behold Abe, the king of winter, upon his icy throne. Every year Ithaca has a display of ice sculptures on the Commons, and often the weather doesn't quite cooperate--things start melting instantly or it's too cold to even walk around and look at them. This was a good day, and the throne was intact, but some of the other sculptures, including the ice slide, had melted a bit too much for our tastes (and safety standards).

kindergarten homework

and another one

Look what Oscar can do! This was about my tenth attempt to catch it on video (which explains Sam's question). Luring him with a slice of pizza finally did the trick. The first thing he did with his new skill (after getting the pizza) was to crawl to a big box of duplo legos and start throwing them one by one across the room. I guess he's been waiting months to do it.

my dancing bear

Just a couple of tricks Oscar has added to his CV.

T-giving

We had a great Thanksgiving, we really did! We went to Amherst, celebrated with Aaron's family, also had my brother and a good friend visiting there, hiked, ate out, played Wii, snuck out to a movie, etc. Sadly, you'll have to take my word for it, since I neglected to take my camera out of its bag the entire weekend. But in the spirit of Thanksgiving, here's a poem Abe performed at his preschool Harvest Brunch.

and before that

Sam turned six! When I first had Sam, the limit of my imagination for my children was age three. Then it became age five. Now I guess I'm just going to have to get used to bigger and bigger kids (kids who might be taller than me in a couple of years, for example). We had a family party and then later a friend party. He wanted a chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting decorated with Reese's, and then a lemon cake with vanilla frosting decorated with mini M&M's. I'm getting tired just remembering last week's baking activities. There was also the school celebration...blueberry corn muffins. I might wait until Abe's birthday to bake again. Yeah, right.

the new news

I'm giving up trying to post in order. I just get too behind that way. The most recent new news here is that Sam lost a tooth! I remember exactly where I was when I felt that little tooth popping through his baby gums for the first time (in the car driving to Fenway Park when he was seven and a half months old), and now it's out. Weird. The tooth fairy brought $1 (less than many I've heard, but still a lot more than the dime(?!) I got as a kindergartener).

so behind

Let's see. Someone had a big birthday in our family, and it wasn't me. Doesn't he look about 21? It hardly seems fair. Happy Birthday!!

autumn is for

leaf jumping!! Enthusiastic Sam, athletic Samuel from next door, and happy (and tentative) Abe. Everybody loves it!

the whole gang

Our Halloween gang gathered again this year to try to get at least a little real food into the kids before hitting the streets for candy collecting. Sam as Shaggy, Max as a robot, Lucy as a skeleton, Isaac as a bat, Ezri as a bee, Abe as a cowboy, and Jasper (not seen here) as a bear.

You may remember

the last time Abe was a cowboy for Halloween. Three years later, he reveled in his cowboyness, and galloped along on his horse ("Horsey Horse Horse") for blocks at a time. I considered wrangling Oscar into the suit for a photo op but decided against it.

Oscar gets discovered

by the kindergarten girls. They insisted on calling him Sam Junior.

overnight

These pajamas used to fit. Like very recently. What with the growing and the loose tooth and the reading and the approaching birthday, I feel like I can't keep up!

quick windy trip (say that five times fast)

Last weekend Oscar and I made a quick trip to Chicago, taking along Zach and visiting family and friends.



The lovely Evans ladies of the house.



The lovely Evans gentleman of the house (with his young guest).



The littlest cousins.



Outstanding brunch at Lucky Platter in Evanston with Meg, Emily, and Zach (who ate a full brunch platter and still managed to get his best time ever in a 5K just a couple of hours later).

Oscar claps!!

Turns out it's just as exciting the third time around. Maybe even more exciting, since there's a bigger audience.

see ya summer

We kept up with our annual tradition of eating a banana split to say goodbye to summer (even though it's technically been over for a few weeks, we had to wait to be safe). Rebecca and Austin came with us, and we considered getting three banana splits but were happy we just got two. We thwarted Oscar's efforts to stick his hand in the ice cream at every turn, so he had to make do with baby puffs and the wipes package. Maybe next year we'll need three.

Mama, Mama take my picture!

Abe showing off his sushi book before taking it for show and tell (and he really does love sushi. Following in your steps, Nathaniel).

And the kids playing/wrestling. Even Oscar tries to get in on the action.

the namesake

I made a quick trip to New Haven on the way home from Boston (well, not really on the way home, but sort-of) earlier in the week, and Oscar and Abe and I had the chance to go see our former landlords, Abe and Zoia. That's right, Big Abe and Little Abe. They warmed right up to each other, even though they hadn't seen each other since Little Abe was a baby. They were sweet as usual and force fed Abe cookies and chocolate truffles. They almost fed Oscar a truffle when I wasn't looking. And Big Abe, a lifelong dental technician (he made false teeth in the basement of our house), admired the kids' teeth (all of Little Abe's and Oscar's one).

for the die hard fans

Mom, that's you! Here is a video of Sam's kindergarten class performing "Tony Chestnut" (that's Toe-Knee-Chest-Nut) for the whole school this morning. He's the tall kid on the left wearing a striped polo shirt.

Oscar reads and demonstrates the hazards of only being able to move in one direction.

Plus a bonus view of the new rug in Sam and Abe's room.

our new addition

first day of school

First day of kindergarten. First day of preschool. Hey, where did everybody go?

321

Who does this baby look like?

I can't figure it out exactly.

and some more

Before we went to Cape Cod, we went to Paris. It was such a quick trip that it hardly deserves its own entry (48 hours maximum), but it was Paris, so there you go. We went to the Pere Lachaise Cemetery, the Louvre, to several eating establishments, etc. We wanted to eat at Chez Oscar, but the workers were on strike.

working backwards

The last part of our trip was going to Cape Cod. We always have a great time with the Gabors at the Cape, and this summer was no different. The weather was so nice that we almost got sick of the beach. Almost.