Oh, All The Pretty Things

Our first Mother's Day. Seemed to come pretty natural. My mother had told Laura that this was a good day to start planting some flowers in the yard and that's all she needed to hear. The two planned on making a perennial pilgrimage to the local growery to stock up on all the pretty things. But first, I had a few plans.



Laura thinks I made her a special heart-shaped breakfast in honor of Mother's Day, but really... I just love French toast.



After seeing how happy the heart toast made everyone, Yuula was less than excited for her glass jar of mush.



But once we threw her in a spring-y dress her attitude changed.



The girls came back with a good lot of pinks and yellows and in betweens. Dad & I were hard at work on the shed/garden project (still) so we appreciated from afar, but the brightening of the yard was hard to miss.





Yuula helped how she could, as in not at all, but being cutesy is enough when you're a baby.




Max.



Eileen and Susie showed up to take the Mom factor up a notch plus always adding a hint of absurdity to any modest gathering.



We went full-on spring and busted out the patio furniture and grilled. Nothing was fully prepped and ready for it's first seasonal testing, but I'd like to report that it had a promising first run.





Even the hammock made a surprise appearance.



The day was long and after such a drug-out and dismal winter everyone was in sunshock. The day ended with more sitting around and talking talk and less action. But that's the sign of a good day's work.



And I think Laura had a nice Mother's Day too.



One down.

Eves For Thieves

We're getting good at Eves. Christmas Eve is a given, but this year Easter Eve and Valentine's Eve were all pretty strong. Mother's Day Eve was more unexpected but no less unprecedented.



In the morning we worked in the yard, cleaning up finally, and moving furniture from deck to deck, displacing the kittens and sending them scrambling for cover. They'll be fine, don't worry. They're kittens. As long as the raccoons don't eat them.



On the way home from the party/Lowe's/Weis I informed Laura that I did not get her flowers for Mother's Day. Not an oversight. It was an intentional withholding. We decided to go about the tradition with a different approach in that we would steal them.



It wasn't the first time. Won't be the last.



We got home and decided sit outside to take in the nice weather since it finally decided to arrive. This week has been getting green and suddenly there's no better time of year.






The Mom & Dad arrived and we made Italian bread pizza and passed out somewhere between Mom's favorite Youtube videos of babies laughing.




Oh Mom.

Red And Blue Made Black

Time for weekend retrospect. We are in and fed and showered and screening Amelie for Mom & Dad. They've never seen it! I know, right?

Anyhoo...



First up is a proper showing for the baby party yesterday. Isabella turned one yesterday. Best 1 year old's party I've been to yet. She was feeling a little under the weather and therefore was not overly anxious to get down with the other munchkins, but it's her party and... you know the rest. And it's okay, Yuula made sure her toys were plenty played on.



She came around when it was cake time tho. What one year wouldn't?



Jordan & Dunja were a little astonished to see how dark and sinister the once colorful icing made her look. One party goer exclaimed "It looks like she devoured a ninja Smurf!". All laughed. It's a one year old's birthday party.



Yuula just sat back and studied the scenario, taking notes for when it would be her turn.

A Mother Serves Her Sugar

Happy Mother's Day

We Love You

so far so good, eh?

It's The Small Victories

Look, I know the Mets ain't gonna win no World Series this year. They most definitely will not even make it to the playoffs. In all likelihood they will end up 4th or last in their division, watching Reyes on some playoff team and 4 of their best starters on the verge of Tommy John. So on a night where they can do something like end Andre Ethier's hitting streak one game shy of the Dodgers record, I will celebrate when I can. Besides, sitting out a game or two, watching the game from the dugout and still claiming that you are in the midst of a record breaking hitting streak is crap to me. Get out there or your streak is over. That is all. Let's go Mets! Now that is all.

Everybaby Party

One year olds can party. Food, cake and now presents. Meeting some good people, hearing some Dutch, playing with babies. Unfortunately Yuula is horrified by the ball pit but I think we can work that out.

Sidenote: Yuula is the only baby that kept her party hat on the whole time. Must be the astronaut shoes.

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A Week In Weary

We may not have counted on being this wiped out when we made plans to get up first thing this morning and get to work on the garden. We gotta get that chicken wire up so the girls can plant tomorrow, but it doesn't look like it's happening right now.



Many factors have resulted in this Saturday morning being a wash. I'm looking back at our photos and I don't think there's a single day since mid-March that I haven't been up at 5am, including Saturdays, Sundays and even my birthday and our anniversary. I've been putting in the early hours for work, started teaching the RxHS girls again and the projects in the yard (shed/garden/mess) have taken up every possible free moment in between. Add to that a baby that has designated the hours between 2am and 4am as "let's stand up and bounce and slap and scream" time. It's actually kinda funny. We laugh, but it's a tired laugh.



Then yesterday we both woke up feeling pretty crappy. Laura left for work too quickly, but soon after she arrived there we began swapping stories of some pretty debilitating stomach pains and nausea. After some perfunctory examination we determined we had been poisoned, but more likely the combination of texmati, paneer, azienda agricola and yogurt didn't mix well overnight and was causing our innards distress.



Other than that it was a nice past couple of days. My oatmeal recipe is coming along quite nicely and I think by next winter you won't be able to find a better hot breakfast on the mountain.



Yuula has become obsessed with going outside. I take her for a walk about three times a day now. Sometimes down the road, sometime just around the house. She likes to yell at the cats and paw at the grass. Better get some play clothes.



And despite a busy work week the girls found some time to play.




We are going to a birthday party today tho. Isabella, the daughter of Laura's good friend Dunja is turning 1! I plan on getting drunk and jumping off their back deck. Or maybe taking a nap in her crib. It's a party. Anything's possible.

Stumbled Upon Some Nuggets

My mom asked me to find a few photos for her in my extensive family archive and I stumbled upon some doozies. More than I'm willing to dish out all at once, but this way I have something to fallback on when there's nothing else going on, like today.

Let's flash back to Easter 1995....


Dani and Vic were in the early stages of their now legendary relationship.


Easter was the only day that it was normal to catch Grandma wandering the yard looking for eggs.


Awwwwww. My mother was a stalker.


Always a pickup game of something on Easter, but there was money riding on this year's.


I couldn't pass up a photo of Vic carrying a pink basket.

I found lots more so, stay tuned and hope for boring days.

Baby Loose On A Construction Site

Boy that's a dangerous title. But the photos on this post will prove that there was minimal "construction" and maximum baby/kitten play.




A few things we learned yesterday.


#1: It is hard, but not impossible to dig post holes in our driveway. We met some rocks who never expected to meet the light of day, and they were less than appreciative.



#2: Babies like kittens. Kittens are afraid of babies. The whole interaction is adorable.



#3: You can never have enough Schiff's tea biscuits.



#4: Laura is capable of holding a baby in one hand, leveling a board with the other and drawing cut lines with her mouth.



#5: It is not a good idea to befriend the yogurt organizer (official title?) at the Weis market on 611 because while it is impressive that he knows "Hungry Like A Wolf" was released on Duran Duran's 2nd album, Rio by EMI/Capitol in 1982, the whole encounter will get quite creepy as he expands the conversation into how, to him, the song sounds like a tractor trailer jackknifing against the divider in the left hand lane of 80 east in between mile marker 3 and 4... he cleared the dairy aisle. He is not good for the yogurt business.



#6: Wasps like the Amish.

Trinity Did Me In

I had plans to talk about our busy day, construction and baby and so-on, but I'm tired and a little buzzed on cab-sauv (how lame?) and the season 4 finale to Dexter just put us thru it (Laura is crying) so I give you a cutesy photo of Yuula with some dandelions. The rest will have to wait for tomorrow. For now, bottomm of the 9th and Mets are tied with SF 6-6. G'night.

Ain't Nothin' Gonna Break Her Stride

from crawling to climbing in 2 short weeks

First Of May

Did you know that Hitler was announced dead On May 1st, 1945?

Hard to miss the headlines today. Even last night watching the Mets/Phillies game and the sudden, mysteriously growing chant of USA from the crowd seemed to confuse the players. Camera shots of breaking news reports on cellphone screens and an immediate and unusual conversation shift from stats to military operations, I ended up switched to a real news station to watch the speech. Heard Obama interrupted Trumps beloved TV show with the announcement. Classy. Facebook blows up with precision patriotism and elegantly photoshopped art (see above). From the royal wedding to the death of a villain, so ends a Disney week. Back to it. The Mets won in 14 innings.