out with the old, in with the new

Due to personal injury (and perhaps a little bit of stupidity), this post is happening a little later than I had planned. I threw out my back while lifting Pup 2.0 from a snowbank (because my life is full of glamour like that). I also sliced into my thumb while washing a pot (not one of my finer moments of 2010, but there you are). In any case, we had a great Christmas. We hope you did too.The pups were royally spoiled. Papa and I agreed that this year was a little...excessive.

We did our traditional Christmas Curry (it'a really ust chicken curry, but if you say it's Christmas Curry, it makes it sound really festive) for dinner, tasty and easy! We take the (extremely) low stress approach to Christmas dinner.

We made pear cake, because is sounded good (it tasted good too).

We took advantage of the after Christmas snow (storm?) to do a little sledding in the back yard. I think snow sports will probably be enjoyed more by Papa and Seal Pup 1.0, because Seal Pup 2.0 and I are the only ones who think that whole playing in the snow business when it's 10 degrees outside is crazypants.We spent our New Year's Eve at the public library in our new neighborhood, because we know how to party. Fun and functional at the same time, library cards for all!

We partied so hard, none of us really made it to midnight. But that's okay, it just means we will be well rested for a great 2011, or something, I have no idea; but, we are looking forward to a great new year.

Happy New Year! And of course, there are lots more pictures in flickr.

toljabee!

Last week we celebrated SP 2.0's advancement in years (or to a year, I guess). The (big) Little Guy turned one year old, and we celebrated the best way we knew how, we threw him a party. A big one. We threw a toljabee.

We observed Korean ceremonial celebrations.
Oh, look. He is going to eat well for the rest of his life. Shocker.

As well as American ones.
There was good fun (and a wardrobe change).

And now SP2.0 is no longer a baby (technically).There are more photos in flickr, I have not done any editing on the photos, so what you see is what you get. I just needed to get the pictures up before my mother started calling me about them, because she was probably wondering where they were last night.

Please excuse me while I go and reconcile the fact that I now have two "big boys."

sp 1.0's five seconds of fame

So you know how I love flickr? Last month, SP 1.0 got five seconds of fame when a photo of him appeared on the Martha Stewart show (the producers found it on my other flickr feed--which gets tagged with tons of metadata). If you want to watch it, go here. It's about 5:15 seconds into the segment; but, he gets a little air (and you can learn about flickr in the process).

Or, you know, you can just look at the picture here (but you miss the Martha commentary, which, why would you want to miss it? I mean, it's Martha!).

The shot is from almost January of last year. It's blurry and not the greatest (low light, I hadn't yet recieved the awesome lenses that I got for Christmas last year)...but the pie is Martha's recipe, so there you are.

thankful.

Thanksgiving has come and gone. We are all walking around with a pound or two (or five, whatever) extra about our persons; but we are none the worse for wear. I found myself especially reticent last week since Thanksgiving was, traditionally, a holiday devoted to my father and his visit to New England, as well as the enjoyment of good food. While my dad couldn't join us this year (and won't in future), I think he would be pleased to know that we ate good food. A lot of it, actually (see previous note about extra poundage). We also watched the new Star Trek movie, which I am absolutely certain my dad would have loved (it was quite good, and I say that as a non-Trekkie, not that there is anything wrong with trekkies, perse).

We also kicked off SP 2.0's birthday week (the countdown to '1' began on Thanksgiving this year).

Don't worry, there will be more birthday coverage later, I promise! There is a lot of birthday goodness that will need reporting! Get excited!

This year, we had two Thanksgiving meals, one on Thursday...which, you know, was Thanksgiving. And then we celebrated again on Friday. There was a goodly amount of fabulous food (if I do say so myself, and yes, I do). For those interested in such things, you can find the menu for the dinner tables here (or at least what was intended, I had to change the soup (no fennel) and I opted to make cupcakes instead of the meringue cake that only I would eat).

We had two meals because we had a special visit from some Adventuring Seals and we wanted to celebrate accordingly.

It was fun. And the cousins had a ridiculous good time with each other.
Even the youngest ones!

Watching all the Pups play with each other reminded us all about how we wish we could get them together more often. I think it was a good trip/visit (one of these kids got really sick after this tire swing ride, and it wasn't one of the ones from the west coast).

The trip was a short one, however. Papa had to load up the van to get the Adventurerers back home a few short days after they arrived. Since they were flying out of Boston, there was a little stop in Boston Common to see some ducks before the long flight home.Thanks for visiting!

And for those interested in such things...there are tons more pictures in flickr (hello, grandmas.)

no sleep till...brooklyn

Last weekend we wandered south to Brooklyn, New York with a pit stop in Flushing on the way in and out.

My mom wanted to treat Kelly to a birthday dinner at a Korean restuarant called Kum Gang San since January, so we we finally got around to going. It was a fun meal!

We decided to make a weekend trip of it since we have been wanting to take the pups to the Brooklyn Children Museum for a while.

SP 1.0 had a great time, it's fun for kids of all ages; but, they really do a good job of catering to the sense of wonder and fun that the wee ones have.

Even SP 2.0 got in on the fun.

Before we took off for our trip, I did some research on family-friendly restuarants that could be classified as "fine dining" because, quite frankly, you don't go to New York and eat at McDonald's. I was able to find a great Meditteranean French Bistro called Pit Stop (it had an auto racing theme) for lunch that served THE BEST hamburgers; and SP 1.o was impressed with the kids' chicken fingers too (so were we).

It was a great "pit stop".

After lunch we headed to a fiber shop called Brooklyn General, because, you know, I am into that sort of thing--even if the boys are not.

Then we hit Prospect Park. We did a lot of walking. And there was swinging.

Lots of swinging. SP 2.0 has recently graduated to swinging in the cradle swings on the playground, it's a big deal!

And then for dinner, we went to Applewood.

Where we, quite possibly, had one of the best meals of our lives. SP 2.0 enjoyed the culinary experience vicariously!

The chef(s) was very accomodating to my non-dairy lifestyle; and, they made SP 1.0 something that wasn't even on the menu (and gave him extra bread). Papa discovered that he liked pate and I learned that I love apertifs that involve blackberries and gin.

Before leaving Brooklyn, we walked the path to the Brooklyn Bridge and walked a quarter of the bridge.

We stopped in Flushing on the way out of town to eat at Kum Gang San again for lunch; and, we also stopped at Han Ah Reum for some groceries.

It was a great trip! There are tons of pictures in flickr of all our Brooklyn fun.

a birthday, belated

Some of you may have been wondering how SP1's birthday celebration went last month. Let me assure you, the ascendancy to the age of three was celebrated with due diligence. There was, of course, a birthday week, which began on St. Patrick's Day this year...because it seemed right.

He got a Frisbee on the first day, which in hindsight, was probably not the most brilliant gift to bestow upon someone newly three (feel free to learn from our mistakes).

As our family tradition dictates, the birthday prince/king (there are no princesses as we have no girls save me, and no one bakes cakes for me, really) gets to choose his cake. SP1 said he wanted a "strawberry cake." Which really, could be anything. I took it literally and made him, well, a strawberry cake.

It was Ina Garten's Country Strawberry cake, which really, is a glorified strawberry shortcake; but, there you are.

We had two parties on his actual birthday. First there was the celebration at school.

Eighteen goodie bags--it isn't for the faint of heart--that's the parents' perspective, of course. But it was pretty fun. The kid liked it, so really, that is what matters most.

We also had a few friends over to celebrate at home. It was pretty low key, as low key as we get, I guess.

The Pup's favorite present was the yoga mat he asked us for a month before his birthday. No, seriously.

He said he wanted a yoga mat for his birthday. A blue one.

And then we wrapped up the celebration the day after by writing thank you notes.

The whole celebration was a nice way to welcome in the big three, I think.