6 years, 10 months/4 years, 8 months.

Happy New Year's!  Thank you Mathes-Shulmans for such a fun weekend!  Not to mention exposing your beautiful and shiny new house to our destructive children.  And especially thank you to Hazel for sharing her toys and territory with said children.

6 years, 10 months/4 years, 8 months.

From Christmas in Philly to Shabbat in Dallas!  Already suited up in new matching jammies--thanks Spice!

6 years, 10 months/4 years, 8 months.

Obligatory attempt at a good picture with all the kids (which turned out with this mysterious snowy magic effect).   Thank you all for the laughs and gifts, and especially Nana for hosting a kid sleepover while Will and I got a good night's sleep!  Until August!

6 years, 10 months/4 years, 8 months.

Cousin Christmas!  We drove down to Philly on the 26th to be well-rested for a big day of bowling and cousin time on the 27th.  Thank you Nana for such a festive day complete with Christmas crackers! 

6 years, 10 months/4 years, 8 months.

Merry Christmas!  Santa came!  The boys were outraged that Santa left his shoes on inside and tracked magic snow all over our house.  They got over it when they saw that he left some pretty great presents (including remote control cars!) for them.  We had a fun day including church, traditional sausage, egg & cheese casserole, reading new books, and playing new games.  Thank you all for the texts, calls, cards, and gifts!

Really cute jammies thanks to Hanna Anderson.  Next year, the whole family is getting a set (watch out, Will!).

6 years, 10 months/4 years, 8 months.

A very busy Christmas Eve.  Cookie decorating followed by a trip to the city to see the Christmas windows and Rockefeller Center tree, followed by a very early dinner at Frankie's 457 where Connor took his first sip of wine (he approved).  We got home just in time to write notes and leave cookies for Santa.

Therese's e-mail of the week, entitled "Run run as fast as you can!":

Dear families,

Whew! The week flew by. The children were hard at work all week
beading, painting, mixing, and decorating gifts for you all. We beaded
necklaces. We painted boxes. We decorated bags. We mixed cookie dough.
We rolled it out and cut cookies. We also managed to have time to run
in the big room. All work and all play.

We read six versions of The Gingerbread Boy and hoped that our cookies
would not try to get away from us. They did not! We compared and
contrasted our different storybooks of the demise of the cookie. The
children noticed different noses on the gingerbread boy; some had
buttons, others not. One story had a bear; only in one story did the
old man and old woman have a son. All stories had a river but one, and
only one had the pursuers sitting down to rest. They also noticed the
different sizes of the books.

Friday the children served our gingerbread men cookies to mamas,
papas, babas, grandparents, siblings, and babysitters. It took three
days to make them and three minutes to eat them.

When we return we will be working on more block building, leading into
sculptures.

Thanks a million for the cookies, gifts, and kind words! All are truly
appreciated.

Have a peaceful holiday,

Therese

6 years, 10 months/4 years, 8 months.

Last OFNS cookie party!  Connor made delicious gingerbread cookies for each of us.

6 years, 10 months/4 years, 8 months.

This morning, Will and I went to Graham's park celebration.  He and his group had created their own park, complete with real grass!  He fell asleep reading Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator tonight.

6 years, 10 months/4 years, 7 months.

Our Amaryllis has started to grow!  Thank you Nana!

6 years, 10 months/4 years, 7 months.

The Nutcracker!  This year, we went to the "NYTB Presents: Keith Michael's The Nutcracker" version.  

Therese's e-mail of the week, entitled "It's a family affair":

Hi All,

Our week began full of energy. We needed time outside, and inside, to
run around. And around and around. So we did. A couple of other days
we ran to run too. It felt like we ran a marathon this week.

Tuesday Heather came and talked to us about self portraits. We looked
at each other’s faces for shapes and then in mirrors at our own faces.
We saw ovals and circles. We talked about lines and shapes and got to
use black sharpies to draw our faces. After our self portraits, we
drew another picture of our choice using colored markers. The pictures
are on display by the cubbies.

We read Are You My Mother? and What Moms Can’t Do. After reading Our
House and The Wonderful House, we asked how many people live in your
house? Everyone got to choose paper cut-out people to represent family
members and color them with markers. Some children made eyes, noses,
and mouths, while others focused on drawing clothes. We glued our
families into our homes we made last week. Homes sweet homes.

We read Loving before going to play in the big room. Big room games
this week: train, black panthers, family, going to the market, block
building, wheels, and just all around running and climbing.

Next week we will continue reading books about families, and we will
make gifts and cookies for family members.

Families are invited to join us on Friday at 11:15am for cookies and
milk. Cookies and milk! Yum!

Brrrrr,

Therese 

6 years, 10 months/4 years, 7 months.

Baby's first Christmas letter!

Translation: plane remote control santa.  Or, Dear Santa, Please bring me a remote control plan for Christmas.  Love, Connor.

6 years, 9 months/4 years, 7 months.

Will saved the best tree at the OFNS tree sale for us to decorate this afternoon--last chance for us to be quite so familiar with the inventory!  Graham is very jealous that Connor is the only one small enough to sit on Daddy's shoulders and top the tree.

6 years, 9 months/4 years, 7 months.

Today, we went up to the Guggenheim in a snow storm to see Peter and the Wolf.  The show was charming and very funny--new annual Christmas tradition!  After the show, we walked through a beautiful, snowy Central Park from 88th all the way down to the subway on 57th.  A few fingers were nearly lost to frostbite and several innocent bystanders were hit by snowballs, but otherwise we had a great afternoon.

Therese's e-mail of the week, entitled "Home is where the heart is":

Dear parents,

We started our week building with blocks. The children worked in
groups of four to build structures. They built a castle and a bridge,
a gum machine, a stage for a show, a king and queen castle complete
with trolls, and a garbage can.

Tuesday we built with blocks again. We asked what are the blocks made
of? The children answered wood and told us it comes from trees. What
they had to say about their buildings: it’s super high, we’re working
on a castle, we’re making a boat, this is a chair, we’re trying to
make a robber cage, when the walls fall we have to build them again,
it’s harder than it seems, this is an airport, these are the seats but
it’s not really stable, and ours is a tiger cave. Shortly after, that
group turned into a bunch of growling tigers.

During yoga the children sat in a circle holding hands and leaned to
the left. We also saw them trying to pick up pom poms with their toe
toes. While half of us were in yoga, the other half went to present
our giant rainbow bagel thank you card to La Bagel Delight. They
seemed delighted! We saw a real rainbow bagel on the counter which
caused a stir among a few children. We went twice to give our card, so
that both groups could have a turn.

On Thursday the children looked through our bookshelf for books with
pictures of houses. We found many. During circle we examined each
picture for shapes. The children saw rectangles, squares,
sort-of-circles, diamonds, triangles, and a shape no one knew the name
of yet, a trapezoid. We read Our House, The Orange Splot, and looked
at Harold And The Purple Crayon to see other kinds of homes. One
person told us his house was flat on the top.

After snacks everyone chose what color to make their house and we used
different shapes of construction paper to construct our homes. The
next day we added watercolor. One person painted their windows blue,
while another told us they were painting the whole cabin because it
was misty. Then we read Animal Homes.

Next week we will talk about our families and who lives in our homes.

Have a homey weekend,
Therese

6 years, 9 months/4 years, 7 months.

Graham is starting to draft his Christmas list(s).

My best translation:

More scissors.  More books.  More costumes. A glow in the dark stuffy.  More gras logos (?).

Dot-to-dot book.  A cat.  A big bag.  A coloring book. A log of legos sets.  A big poster.

Dear Santa, may I have: a smart toy, a phone, Harry Potter books, more tape.  A dog.

A remote control car.  A remote control plane.  A hot wheels set.  A grid (?).  A parachute.  

6 years, 9 months/4 years, 7 months.

6 years, 9 months/4 years, 7 months.

4 hand duets.

Therese's e-mail of the week, entitled "Duck Duck Goodbye Geese":

Hi you all,

We read Goodbye Geese and played Duck Duck Goose. We also read Time To
Sleep, Up In The Garden And Down In The Dirt, and Trees. All are books
about winter and the changing seasons.

We took our fall tree photo, although for the first time the leaves
never completely turned yellow. We noticed while playing in the yard
that all the leaves have fallen and we see buds.

Our trip to LaBagel Delight culminated in consuming many mini hot
bagels. We finished off the butter we made last week. At the bagel
shop we saw a boiling pot of water, an oven with moving shelves
inside, wooden boards to bake the bagels on, and many toppings. We saw
our bagels go into the oven. We played in the yard while they finished
baking.

While half the class was in yoga with Frank, the other half made new
and improved play dough. The children measured and mixed dry and wet
ingredients. The second group got to choose a color, and we mixed it
with our hands - squeezing, rolling, and folding. In yoga, the
children were seen doing wheelbarrows with their feet on the stage.

We read In The Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak. We noticed that the
mixing in the book was similar to the mixing we did when making new
play dough. Some of the ingredients were the same. We noticed that the
bakers in the book worked at night and remembered that the bagel baker
at La Bagel Delight also goes to work at night.

We made a big Thank You bagel for La Bagel Delight. The children
worked in small groups first with crayons, then watercolors, and
lastly, acrylic paint and sparkles. Our bagel is a rainbow bagel, and
is currently on view in the classroom.

We will give it to them next week. We will also begin talking about
our homes and families.

Have a merry weekend,
Therese

6 years, 9 months/4 years, 7 months.

Waiting for the bus en route to a play date at Stellan and Axel's place.  

6 years, 9 months/4 years, 7 months.

6 years, 9 months/4 years, 7 months.

 Fallen leaf season in Prospect Park!

6 years, 9 months/4 years, 7 months.

While Will kicked off the Old First Nursery School tree sale (4 more weeks and both our financial and time commitments to OFNS will be done!), the boys and I took advantage of a beautiful day to go to the Central Park Zoo and explore the park.

R.I.P. Marlon Brando - 2005ish - November 24, 2017

Marlon went to the great sunbeam in the sky today.  After seeming in a lot of pain yesterday, he seemed to feel better and spent the morning sleeping in the sun and lying on the table while we tried to eat around him.  Despite all of his troubles, he was affectionate and purring until the very end.  We hope he could feel how much we love him.

We are heartbroken to lose him.  He was such a special cat whose greatest love was to be with our family.  He sat in the middle of open books and magazines, puzzles, card games, and magnetile structures, looking to get petted; was impossible to get off the table during meals; head butted as an effective strategy to get attention; stole spots on the couch the moment they were vacated; made friends with every serviceman and visitor who came to the door; and put up with all sorts of harassment from visiting children.  He spent a decade sneezing on our furniture, barfing on the carpet, and pooping in the tub and still managed to win us over with his wonderful personality.  He loved chin scratches and ear scratches, getting brushed, batting at string, and curling up to watch a movie together.  We miss you so much already, Marlon.

6 years, 9 months/4 years, 7 months.

Happy Thanksgiving!  Will cooked a delicious turkey on the smoker and everything else turned out well.  Thank you Nana, Uncle David and Aunt Meghan for driving up to share the day (not to mention your stuffing, drinks, and Christmas preparation items) with us!

We told the boys about Marlon.  Graham is sad but not distraught.  Connor doesn't really understand. Both keep asking for a cat for Christmas.

Therese's e-mail of the week, entitled "We are family tree":

Hi everyone,

Monday we added spikes to our fruit. The children used hand-eye
coordination and fine motor skills to poke pipe cleaners through holes
in the fruit, and twist. Then they squeezed glue and added their
family photos. The fruit doesn’t fall far from the tree.

In preparation for our feast we washed, peeled, and boiled sweet
potatoes. One person said they knew the pot was hot because you could
see steam. When they were cooked, the children took turns adding a
tiny bit of brown sugar, butter, and cinnamon. Everyone got a to use
the electric hand mixer.

The next day we guessed how many cranberries were in the bag for our
cranberry sauce. Guesses ranged from 5 to a billion. We counted,
washed, and boiled the berries after adding water and sugar. We also
made butter from heavy cream. We filled four containers, turned on the
timer, and shook, shook, shook ‘em up. People were great about passing
it to a friend when they felt too tired to shake any longer.

In the morning, before the feast, we read My Many Colored Days and
passed our feelings jar as each person said a color that represents
their feeling. The responses: yellow for excitement because of the
feast, purple for mad, blue for sad because of a fall on the stoop,
pale pink for happy because of the feast, and more.

The family feast went off without a hitch. We sang Way Down Yonder By
The Sweet Gum Tree as each family hung their fruit on the tree.
Afterwards, we ate a delicious feast.

Happy Thanksgiving,
Therese

6 years, 9 months/4 years, 7 months.

Baby's first trip to the ER!  Connor tripped while running down our block and his forehead (luckily above the hairline) hit the corner of a stoop, splitting his tissue down to the bone.  We assessed the situation at home (once I got the bulk of the blood cleared away and took a look with the iPhone flashlight, it was obvious we needed professional help), grabbed the iPad and snacks, and we rushed to the Methodist ER where we waited a couple hours for a plastic surgeon to stitch him up.

Connor was a perfect patient--focused on "Sing," "Daniel Tiger" and "Yo Gabba Gabba" and Graham was a very supportive big brother.  At home, he desperately wanted to help Connor and in the hospital, he got worried and told me that he was sorry he got mad at Connor sometimes and just wanted him to live.

After we were done at the ER, we got a pizza (and ate the whole thing!  a first for our family) and took a cab home.  After we got out of the cab, Connor pointed out the corner that got him.  Upon closer examination, we found an entire lock of his hair embedded in it!  Something for the memory box for sure.