Halloween Strikes Again

(Disclaimer: Our graphics card is not happy with us at the moment and as a result, the formatting of the text and pictures you see bears little to no resemblance to what I put together. Sorry.)




For some reason Halloween is popular with our kids. In spite of recent, time-consuming, additions to our crew, we managed to fit in all the important activities.


The Halloween Stand:

As usual, Ellie and her friend, Abby, concocted their own plan for an activity. Rather than a costume parade like last year, they planned a Halloween stand where they would sell all things Halloween. Ellie and Abby (and Nico and Grace to a minor extent) spent the last month drawing Halloween pictures, making homemade Halloween mazes and other games, and then Monica and I drummed up some Halloween treats. Grandparents of both girls showed up with financial support and kudos to Monica for getting the word out to all her neighbors and "encouraging" them to come. If I'd had any more family around, you'd better believe that you'd all be encouraged to come too. In the end, it was a raging success and nearly all the goods sold.


Pumpkin picking:

Although the patch was not nearly as cool as last year's location, it was a veritable sea of possible jack-o-lanterns.









Anders and Liam came along too.











The Big Day:


Every year I let the kids choose what they want to be and then I do my darnedest to make it happen. Nico picked a skeleton. I was simply delighted! We already had a skeleton costume in our dress up bin, and he was happy to wear it. Hallelujah! Ellie however, picked a phoenix. We did not have a phoenix costume and I defy any of you to find one for sale. They simply don't exist. So, yet again I got to make a costume. Let me just say that my $12 hot glue gun is one of my better life's purchases. The costume turned out better than I could have hoped and the most important part is that Ellie loves it. Wahoo!

Here you can see Ellie "in flight," and the kids in action at our neighbor's house.












The kids also got to carve their pumpkins today - with Alex's help. Nico went with a more traditional approach while Ellie decided to model her pumpkin after her phoenix self.

Nico was happy about his pumpkin, just not having his picture taken.












It was a great Halloween, and if the candy haul is any indication, the kids will be enjoying it for many days to come.

baby avalanche

Everywhere I look these days, I see babies. Have you seen Raising Arizona? You know that scene where Nicholas Cage is trying to round up the octuplets? It's sort of like that. Anyway we are doing great, sorry for the lack of posts lately. We'll get back into it soon (or so I keep telling myself).

Anders

















Liam

















Liam again

















Grandma Anderson and one of the many babies

















Anders, one of the many babies

Deputized?

If that's not a word it should be. And it can now be used to describe Alex!!

Alex is the new Deputy Team Leader for the Manhattan Team of the NYC Parks Department. As such, he will help oversee all the design projects in Manhattan. Pretty cool, eh?! More meetings, more responsibility, and more money....

Way to go Alex! You're going to do a great job!

names

After days of thought, discussion, and analysis (probably overanalysis), we have decided on the names. Here they are:

The Baby Formerly Known as A is Anders Nathanael Hart.



















His younger brother by 18 minutes is Liam Henry Hart.



















Our primary motivation for choosing those names is just that we like them, and we like how they sound with Hart as a last name.

Anders also references our many ancestors named Anderson on both sides, and some actually named Anders. Liam is an Irish version of William, which recalls my Irish heritage. Nathanael and Henry were initially inspired by Nathanael Greene and Henry Knox, two great (if far from perfect) Americans. But really the primary motivation came from just liking those names.

Here are a few more photos from the last few days.

Ellie, Nico, and Grandma Anderson came to visit in the hospital. We're all home now, by the way.



























































































Have to throw this in here. Since the birth took place in the OR, in case a c-section was necessary (it wasn't), they required full nuclear-proof gear. Here's the proud father about to embark on a germ-free trek.
























Delivering at Stonybrook was a great experience overall. The people were so good to us at every step. Even the views from our rooms were pretty nice. We'd recommend this place to anyone around here.



















Ever since the birth, it seems like time is divided into two categories: Sleeping and (more often) Not Sleeping. There is some of the former though.










































I love this shot.
























As nice as Stonybrook was, we were happy to get out of there. The boys celebrated their first ever car ride by falling asleep.
























Thanks for stopping by!

they have arrived!

And then there were two! (two more, that is.) Everything went about as perfect as anyone could ask for, and all three people involved are doing just fine.

Here are the quick stats. Baby A: 7 lbs even, 19-3/4", looks like Nico. Baby B: 7 lbs 7 oz, 20" even, does not look like Nico. Still no official names yet! We wanted to see what they looked like first.

And here are the pictures:

Baby A...


















And his little brother, Baby B. A little unhappy when he first showed up, but quickly mellowed out.


















APGAR was 9/9 for both, with a solid 100/100 on the cuteness scale, if I may say so.




















If you could ask them, I'm pretty sure they would say the highlight of their day was going in the incubator. They both calmed right down and settled into an extended staring contest.



















It was pretty much the highlight of my day too, come to think of it.





































And now, a brief tribute to Ami, who deserves more than a brief one. She sailed through this like a pro. The doctors and nurses kept saying things like, "You can came back here to deliver anytime," "Girl, you make this look easy," and "Twins obviously weren't enough of a challenge for you. Next time better go for three."

I took this right after she delivered the second. Is it possible to give birth with style? If so, she did it. Look at that smile! (Yes, I'm sure the epidural had something to do with it.)



















Check this space for more photos soon!

Florida in July...

For reasons that may forever remain a mystery, the Anderson family decided to have its annual reunion at Disneyworld in July. JULY! In case you didn't know it's hot in Florida in July. Nevertheless, nearly the whole Anderson crew made it down there (We missed you Jenni!!!), and had an awesome time.

The NY Harts decided to drive down rather than spend the money on airline tickets and car rentals. As a bonus we got to see some great friends and great things along the way. For starters we got to see Lindsay Jones Waters in VA. We were hoping to spend a nice leisurely evening together, but NYC traffic being what it is, we didn't actually get to her house until after midnight. Ever the gracious host, Lindsay put up with our lateness and made us a delectable breakfast of cinnamon rolls. MMmmm!

The next day we decided to take the Blue Ridge Mountain Parkway. It was gorgeous, and I highly suggest it to anyone in the area. The kids thought going through the clouds was awesome, but found the "overlooks" completely terrifying, in a fun way.

After a delightful day, and a brief stop at the South Carolina State Capital, we made it the home of our good friend Kathi Woodall. Ellie and Nico really hit it off with her kids and Ellie declared that she wants to have more sleepovers with them.

Eventually, we did make it to the Orlando area and joined the whole crew in a week of heat, theme parks, humidity, cousin time and a celebration of my parents 50th wedding anniversary.


Hangin' with the fam.













Marge, B. Ray & Brad with some of the honorary Andersons, Ye Fu and Lyn, some great friends of all of us from many moons ago. I think this was the first time I'd seen them in almost 20 years.










Ellie and Brit were inseparable!













Inseparable and daring...
















Nico and I stuck to the more placid rides, me for obvious reasons, and Nico because that's just what he went for. We did try to get him interested in some of the more intense rides, but after Test Track at Epcot, he was having no more of that. Here we are on flying dinosaurs at Animal Kingdom.







This is one of the rare photos of Alex. He spent a lot of time running around with the girls since he actually could go on the more intense rides. It's a bit hard to see him, but he's there.











Ellie was delighted to find Marie from The Aristocats (one of her favorites still...). She would have been interested in some of the princesses as well, but the lines were simply unbearable.














A rare shot of Nico actually happy to be in a picture. He really liked hanging out with Mike. I think it made him feel a little more grown up to be hanging out with the "older cousins."










He liked hanging with the younger cousins as well, especially when they had a Nintendo DS.












What Nico did while Ellie and Brit went on scary rides... find snails.


















And lest you think I wasn't actually pregnant on this venture... We spent many an afternoon in the pool at the house. Did I mention it was hot?












Our last parting shot of Disneyworld. Nico is back to his thundercloud look.












All in all it was a fantastic trip. It was wonderful to see everyone and the kids LOVED seeing all the cousins. It was also great to be together to celebrate Mom & Dad's 50th anniversary. However, I'm voting for somewhere a little cooler when we celebrate their 75th.

End of School Year doughnuts (belated)

What can I say... our kids in a nutshell.