Stardate 63302.14 - Alison's Birthday Party

A few weekends ago we traveled upstate to attend Alison's 4th Birthday Party at Gymboree. As the kids get older everyone seems to be moving the venue for birthday parties from people's homes to facilities like Gymboree--a pretty good idea, and one we subscribed to for Loren's 3rd birthday party. They kids get a lot of space to run around in, and best of all we don't have to clean up!

Here Cheryl carries Kate around the play area.


Loren walks across the bridge.


The birthday girl poses in what I called "My First Prison".


Once Kate fell asleep I took over carry duty for a while.


Loren really enjoyed the music portion of the program.


And of course, she enjoyed eating all the icing off of the cupcake.


But the most favorite activity of all was probably the bubble chase at the end of the event.


Afterwards we went back to Denise and Greg's place for Alison, Max, and Loren to play some more and so we could all catch up. It made for a late return home, but we all had a great time.

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Stardate 63299.45 - Easter

Wow, we've gotten really bad about updating the blog. Now that I'm no longer working from home I cannot just take 15 minutes in the middle of the day to put up a blog post every couple of days. And by the time I get home, eat dinner, get Loren to bed, I've got about an hour or so before bedtime (especially now that I'm trying to get back to the gym in the mornings).

Loren and I just had a funny exchange:

L - I have a present for you!

C - I have a present for you! Lots and lots of love!

L - That's not a present! A present comes in wrapping paper!

So while Loren plays with wrapping paper, wrapping me a birthday present, I'm trying to quickly put up some pictures from Easter weekend in NJ.

Here Loren and Kate pose in their dresses. I prefer the natural light to the flash, but the natural light photos frequently come out a little fuzzy.



Here the entire family attempts a pose.


Kate snuggles with Daddy.


Uncle Andy and Aunt Jen helped Loren to hide and find Easter Eggs after church on Sunday.





Loren just handed me a present, by the way, and said, "I have a present for you to open, Dad! I wrapped a key chain for you! Surprise!" This keychain, by the way, is one that came free in some solicitation for money and I'd given it to her 2 days ago.

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Stardate 63261.45 - Wingmen Video Featured on YouTube

The Artemis Eternal Wingman Video was featured on YouTube. If you haven't seen it yet, please check it out.

Although I was not able to be in this one (wasn't in Virginia when it was being shot there), I am nevertheless, a Wingman.

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Photos

Apologies for the lack of posts lately! We are all doing just fine. Kate has really cut into our available time for blog posts. Or maybe it's just that our rare "free" time these days seems to go to catching up on sleep, or crashing in front of a little bit of TV. But tonight I'm somehow still awake after everyone else has gone to bed -- no small feat, as we've had a week of rough nights for Loren with separation anxiety and then croup. But the apartment is quiet, so here's a quick catchup on photos from the past several weeks.

We had a snowstorm in the beginning of March. Loren was sick that morning but recovered enough by the afternoon to go play in the snow. Luckily last year's snow pants still fit.



Kate models several outfits and accessories that she has received as gifts...





plays with a rattle for the first time...



...tries out the Bumbo Baby Sitter. She doesn't quite have the head control for it yet, but loved spending a few minutes sitting like big sis.



Two weekends ago we went out to New Jersey when Andy and Jen came up to visit. Here's an updated "four generations" picture. Unfortunately we did not manage to get one with everyone looking at the camera and eyes open.



Loren had a great time with Uncle Andy and Aunt Jen.



Last weekend we went to the Staten Island Children's Museum on the recommendation of our friend Inna. It was lots of fun.

Stardate 63223.41 - Six Companies Control Everything

Stardate 63212.37 - Artemis Eternal Invitation

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Stardate 63180.07 - To The Zoo! (Again!)

With temperatures expected today near or at 70, we decided to get out of the apartment and travel yet again to one of Loren's favorites, The Bronx Zoo. Here are the obligatory, fuzzy, no-flash photos from inside one of the habitats.



Here Loren poses by the waterfall at the "B" entrance to the Zoo. Loren can now read "Zoo" when she sees it on signs and books. She can also read "off" and "no". I'm sure there are more, but those are three words she really knows well.


Cheryl took her on the bug carousel.


Here I hold Kate so Cheryl can eat lunch.


Cheryl and Kate pose.


Loren had more fun, I think, climbing on these rocks than she had seeing the animals.


And here we are all mid-afternoon getting ready to leave as the crowds have steadily increased to the point of annoying.


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Stardate 63162.56 - Visit to NJ

On the last day of February we drove out to NJ to do a clothing swap in the attic (Loren's 2-3T went into storage, her 3-6 months came out for Kate) and to visit with Cheryl's parents and grandmother. We have some furniture we need to get out there, but for that we've either got to rent another car or I have to go out there without Cheryl and the kids. There just isn't enough room in the Rav4 for 4 people and a coffee table. Once the kids start getting bigger it might be time for a bigger SUV (maybe a hybrid?) or the dreaded station wagon. Cheryl is anti-minivan (too suburban, and we'd never get it into our parking space in the building.

Did I mention that we found someone who is renting his parking space in our building to us? I cannot emphasize enough how wonderful it is to be able to take our time putting stuff into the car and taking stuff out of the car. I always felt rushed in the other garages, feeling like we had to get the car moving as quickly as possible to get out of the way of other cars going in/out of the garage. And, he is charging us $50 per month less than we were paying at the other garage!

Anyway, here are some Kate pictures from Saturday. We realize we need to get some more of Loren up onto the blog - it has been the Kate show for the past several posts.




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Hand-me-downs

note: I give up! Blogger keeps rotating the photos. Imagine them rotated 90 degrees left!


I finally got a picture of Kate smiling. She has been smiling more and more often for a couple of weeks, but always seems to stop (or fall asleep, or need to eat, or we get distracted by Loren, etc) by the time we get the camera ready. I'm sure there will be more and more smiley pictures to come. She is a pretty happy baby.

As an oldest child I mainly got to wear "original" clothes, with the exception of some clothes handed down from my mom's youngest sister Janice, who is 4 years older than me. Kate, on the other hand, has worn almost nothing but hand-me-downs. We have so many 0-3 month clothes --from Loren, cousin Ellie, and a few even from cousin Ethan-- that I have joked she could wear a different onesie every day that she's in the size and never repeat. Once we get into the larger sizes we don't have quite as many, because Loren caught up to Ellie in size so we didn't get Ellie's hand-me-downs. But even so we have lots leftover from Loren and I will have to make sure Kate gets some of her own special things.

Having two girls wear the same clothes gives quite a sense of deja vu. I dressed Kate up in this outfit yesterday because we were making a stop by my office (she never woke up during the visit, so no one saw it anyway!). I remembered that we had pictures of Loren in the same outfit at her first Christmas.


And, to go back even further, the duckie sleeper in Steve's right hand is still in Kate's wardrobe. And somehow Blogger did not rotate this one. But I'm not going back to reimport the others.

Nana and Kracker visit

Curt's mom and Judy came up for a quick visit on Thursday evening and Friday. Loren stayed home from school and had a great time playing. And I enjoyed a day at home with two extra sets of hands to help with the girls.

Kate napped on Judy's lap.



Loren used the chalkboard on her kitchen to teach Nana and the animals.


In the afternoon, we took our new tandem stroller (Joovy Caboose Ultralight) out for its first run, to Choux Factory, a.k.a. the cream puff place.



Loren shows Judy her new favorite website (starfall.com)



Jane and Kate were worn out after an exciting day.