The family photo shoot.

We love our friend Minna. She is an amazingly talented person, and lucky for us, one of her many talents is photography. A couple weeks ago she did a photo shoot for us and you can see how it turned out here.

Here are a couple teasers....













If you are interested, you could hire her to do your family too!!

hallowe'en report

Ellie was a fruit bat. She requested to eat only fruit during the day today to complete the costume.

























Nico was a black sheep, or "back seep" as he calls it. Why? "Because seeps are my favorite," he explains.

























Ami was a Purple Witch, as usual. I was a construction worker, having constructed my costume at the last second with materials close at hand. Kudos to Ami for putting together Ellie's and Nico's costumes from scratch -- she worked on them for some time.



















Ellie's pumpkin (started sagging a bit at the end there)

























Nico's pumpkin, complete with three eyes as per request
























Ami's pumpkin and mine. Ami's (on the right) was really cool. It looked like some sort of Aztec god, especially when glowing from the inside.



















On the trail... Burns Street is a great place to trick or treat. Many of our neighbors get really into the holiday spirit with costumes and decorations. So it's fun for the kids, and also for the adults -- this is the only time each year we talk to most of them.










































After the haul, the traditional lineup and a viewing of It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.



















Hope you all had a great Halloween!

Where do I fit in?

I'm convinced that excepting eye color, I have no genetic input in my children. Do you agree?

Alex's Moment of Fame

For all you followers of Morningside playground, you should check this out.  

I have the coolest husband!!

My money is going down the tubes...

A random funny story:

A couple days ago, Nico was playing with three quarters and a penny. He likes to have money because he thinks if he has any, regardless of the amount, then he has money for the ice cream truck.

Anyway, he was laying down looking at his money when I walked out of the room for a minute. All of a sudden I hear him saying, "I didn't want to eat that money! I didn't want to eat that money!" I ran over to find out what happened, and alas, the penny was gone. I asked him what happened and apparently he was holding the money in the air and the penny fell in his mouth and he swallowed it.

Well, this is my first "swallowed object." So I was a little concerned. Nico picked up on the vibe and started crying. Then Ellie picked up on the vibe and started crying. It is not helpful to have two crying children while trying to call a doctor. After shutting them out of my room I was finally able to hear the doctor who told me that unless he was choking, I shouldn't worry and that the penny would "pass" within a couple days. He said I was welcome to "look for it" if I chose. (Um, yuck! I decided not to).

After I was able to calm the kids down, we had our dinner - spaghetti. Nico took one bite and said very excitedly, "Mama, now your money is all saucy!"

Morningside playground... is done!!!!

The Morningside ribbon cutting was today! It's finally done. Alex's first playground - and boy, did it turn out great. Everyone had absolutely wonderful things to say about the park. Commissioner Castro (the VP of the Parks Dept. for Manhattan, so to speak) told me he thought it was the single best playground in Manhattan. You might think he was just trying to be nice to me as the designers wife, but I later overheard several other staff members say it was, "probably the best playground in the city." This is no small potatoes in a city with over 1000 playgrounds. Yes, that's one thousand.

Morningside playground is in Morningside park which was designed by Calvert Vaux and a little by Frederick Law Olmsted as well. It is very old and very beautiful. The park itself is located on the western edge of Harlem, just down the hill from Columbia University. Alex did an amazing job incorporating a lot of the natural elements of the park into the overall design as well as pulling some very cool play equipment together. He designed the big structure himself and the playground equipment manufacturer built it to specifications. Thanks to Becki and Jason, he also ordered a super-cool car driving table thing. This driving thing is wildly popular and is now going into many of the new playgrounds as they are built (thanks Beck and Jason for the tip-off on that one!).

Anyway, Alex did a great job, and Ellie and Nico had the fun to prove it!

If you want to see more pictures of the park in use, check this out.

Ticket Phobia

As a parent, it occasionally becomes obvious that something is deeply unsettling to my children. "Tickets" apparently are the scariest thing ever.

Last year, at the end of school this picture was in the packet of Ellie's artwork sent home by the teachers. In case you are wondering, Ellie's art reads: NO PARKING. IF YOU PARK YOU WILL GO TO JAIL. NO PARKING. I guess I'm slightly dramatic when I get parking tickets.

However, I knew the fear was spreading when we were at the airport a couple weeks ago, and Alex and I mentioned to Ellie and Nico that we had to get our tickets before we could get on the airplane. Nico instantly started sobbing and saying, "But I don't want the police to come!! I don't want the police to come!!" It took a few minutes, but we were finally able to convince him that these were "good" tickets.

Maybe for therapy we should get movie tickets every few weeks.

Ellie's first day of school...

Ellie was excited to get started on this new adventure. Unfortunately, they wouldn't let us in to her classroom for unknown reasons (maybe they think we're al-Qaeda?). But we did meet one of her teachers, very briefly. She's in the white pants below.

Ellie seems to be having a good time, although the full day isn't easy. But she's making friends, likes her teachers, and has (finally) figured out lunch.