our everyday

Quote of the day:
Sadie, singing: " I want to be a part of it, New York, New York."

...that's where I long to be,"as proclaimed by centipede in James and the Giant Peach. We hit the road and rolled into NYC for the day on Saturday. It was totally last minute and suggested by Nathan. I have been wanting to go in during the week with the girls to Central Park and meet Nathan for lunch or something but it has just been too cold and I not adventurous enough. We drove in and parked near Times Square in an attempt to be near Nathan's office, the Fila store and Toys'R'Us, which were our planned destinations.
First we made our way to the store where I proceeded to pick out some cool new gear. Then we went up and saw the office so Sadie could see where Daddy goes when he is at work. (Side note: Today in one of Sadie's many role playing moments she proclaimed that she was going to work and at work she was going to look at the computer for awhile and then come home.)
After that we went to Hamburger Heaven for some lunch. Nothing to exciting, just burge…

I guess I have not been out much lately because on our walk down the street today I noticed that an entire house was gone. All but the chimney bulldozed to the ground! Guess I need to get out more often. We stood and watched as the huge school bus yellow machine moved dirt around. It looked like some gargantuan prehistoric thing eating a delicious meal. I should have had the camera with me but my brain never thinks ahead. The daffodils are popping their little heads out of the ground and the big snow and freezing temps have not bothered them much. I can't wait ti see their sunny faces.

Today Emma waved and said bye to Sadie when she was going upstairs. So cute!
More cute stuff...when I turn down the light for bed time, she smiles and says "eh,eh". I am not sure what she is saying but she is so cute.

At nine months Emma picked up my cell phone and said Hi, which actually sounds like HA. I just started laughing, how can a nine month old recognize a cell phone and know what to do with it? (By the way, in the ten months that she has been experiencing cell phone usage, I have probably used it less than ten times in her presence.) So I guess her first word was Hi. I must also say that since then she has picked up anything that remotely resembles a phone and said hi. She also says ma-ma and da-da. And I think she has said bye in context as well. She was waving for awhile at whom ever would return a wave but now she is on to flirting across the restaurant with who ever will look her way.
Emmashiding.MPG

This week is winter vacation for Sadie at school so I get to think of things for us to do. I really hope it warms up enough to go the the play ground. Last Thursday it was in the sixties so we walked over to pick up Sadie from school. There was still a lot of snow around in piles from all the plowing or in the shadey spots. After school Sadie wanted to go on the playground but we were not allowed because of the snow on the ground. A couple boys who are in on of the four year old classes started throwing snowballs at each other and Sadie joined in. First they sort of ignored her, then they started throwing some at her and then she threw some back. She was getting hit by a few but then she hit one of the boys in the nose from close range but she was not throwing hard. The boy stopped and just looked at her while holding his nose. It was like he was wondering how he should react. I told Sadie to ask if he was ok, and then he started crying and ran off to his mom. Sadie continued to ask i…

For those of you who miss the every day activities around the breakfast/lunch/dinner table, here is a bit of Emma's favorite trick these days. She thinks it is quite funny and waits for your laugh back.



This is Sadie's Valentine chocolate lollipop. She really, really liked it because it was chocolate. She has entered the "question everything and then ask some more" phase. I have been inundated with inquires about how everything works, why everything is that way, and what every random person walking, driving, or running by is doing. Sometimes I just have to stop answering because it seems to be the only way to stop the interrogation.

At least once every day I am asked "Does Emma have ten teeth now? I guess once a baby has ten teeth she can eat carrots and other crunchy things.

There seems to be a million things I have wanted to post in the last few days but I never can remember half of them.

Emma thinks her tongue is really entertaining these days. She sticks it o…

Nathan's Post #3

At Sadie's bedtime tonight (also known as the "but daaaaaddy..." Chronicles), we set off on an adventure to Africa. This came completely--or with some help from: a) school, b) TV, or c) a book--from her own head. In other words, none of this was my idea, but I went along for the ride. She told me that we needed to go to Africa, and she proceeded to pack her Africa purse and put on her Africa sandals, Africa bathing suit and Africa hat. This all after I had already gotten her into her New Jersey pajamas. She then told me to read a book (to myself) while she wrote her Africa paper. She's been into mimicked handwriting lately, where she writes out long lines of "text" that is much like chicken scratch. It's very neat chicken scratch, though...left to right and top to bottom. Anyway, once she was done with the paper, she put it in her Africa purse, then we had to go downstairs to get MY bag (because I needed my own bag for the up…

For $5.99 I purchase a tiny basket of spring. Organic California strawberries. I thought twice about the price but decided it was all worth it and it was. Those little berries were fresh,sweet and delicious. I figured that I would not see too many chances for these out here. The weather must be nice and toasty out there to have these ready so early. I have also been picking up some organic California navel oranges and it is just like a ball of sunshine. It reminds me of all our wonderful citrus we had growing right outside our front door.
As you may have picked up in the last post, our winter has been relatively mild out here but it is exciting to see something more than apples, pears and bananas available in the store these days. Just a tease of what is to come with warmer weather.

Sadie and I have been baking from her new cookbook. I made the banana bread in muffin form (as pictured above). We also made the chocolate chip muffins as a treat for a night with dry pull-ups, yipee! Oh an…

Nathan's Post #2

I know, these were allegedly going to be monthly posts. After much public outcry (okay, one person asked), I have gotten back on the horse to contribute.

So, here in the NY Metro area we have just completed the 4th warmest January since 1870. Yes, that's a ranking of No. 4 out of 137 years. And one can only speculate how much more impressive that No. 4 ranking actually is, since 1870 was the first year daily temperatures were recorded in Central Park. January 2006 may have been the warmest here since year 0070, for all we know! We had 13 days in January with temps above 50 degrees...compare and contrast that to your own hometown.

Beyond the weather, my double life of the NYC rat race (someone with the experiences to know the difference recently told me that the mad rush to catch the New Jersey Transit express trains out of Manhattan are worse than the mad rush to catch the ferries in Beijing) and NJ deer-frolicking tranquility remains interesting and excitin…

Us this morning during the "run around naked" hour.

Daddy and Em

More of this morning.


Today was a three time out day that was not actually that bad. They were evenly spaced and after each one Sadie decided she would be a bit better. She currently has this thing with ordering Emma around and pushing and pulling her where ever Sadie thinks she should be.

Highlights from today:
Emma took a step again by herself.

Sadie got a My Little Pony tub of playdoh with a pony stamp on top. First she wanted orange then purple then orange and then after we walked away she decided she really needed the purple more than the orange.

We bought a Little Tikes castle slide thinga ma jig. I decided we needed some sort of thing to play on while the cold weather kept us from the outside. But it is a lot of work policing the thing while Emma is trying to climb up the slide and Sadie is racing up the rock climbign wall on the other side to slide down the slide. After about twenty climbs up the slide Emma …