My Compelling Reason

A while back I posted about my trip into New York City that took 2 1/2 hours and I said I would have to have a very compelling reason to ever want to go back in again. Well, soon after that post I learned what my compelling reason would be - Magnolia's Bakery opened up a new shop near the temple. We were rarely down by their West Village location, but their new location is near Central Park and Zabar's. So after I learned of their new location, I just needed to wait for our good friends Katie, Chris, and kids to come. Katie has been one of my best friends since high school, and I love that we still keep in touch and see each other from time to time with our kids.


Tell me you wouldn't do just about anything to get ahold of one of these beauties. I stuffed myself beyond all reason finishing Asher's...and Kaia's. =)


Then we spent some time enjoying one of the playgrounds in Central Park. Asher is a nervous nellie, but Kaia had a blast.



Both Asher and Kaia loved our friends' baby, Rowan. Kaia said dozens of times, "Mom, he is such a cute baby! He is just so cute!" And Asher loved giving him kisses, more than Rowan liked receiving them!



A cute little hug (notice Kaia's arms reaching for Rowan):

What a Haul!

Every once in a while I travel to the burbs to get our Honda checkups. I travel 30 miles instead of getting the car checked locally for an extra reason - a FABULOUS kids' consignment store I discovered a couple of years ago. I only stop by this store a couple times a year, but I always find awesome deals. The first time I was ever there I bought my Baby Bjorn for under $30. Well, today they were having a sale of 50% off their already low prices on books, toys, and games. I bought a total of 13 high-quality books, games, and wood puzzles for $26.25, an average of only $2 apiece!! For any of you who live near me, let me know if you're interested in the info. Here's my haul:

On our outing today, I took the kids to Burger King for lunch by myself for the first time ever. The meal went well. Asher obviously loved the milkshake. Kaia was really excited to play in the kids' play area after eating. She started heading up and Asher noticed that she left her shoes at the bottom. He picked them up and carried them up to her, where she declined to take them. He sat there for a minute holding them; then he noticed the holes in the side of the play pen and took the opportunity to drop her shoes through them before I could get to him. Kaia was really devastated! We had to go get the manager to bring the key to open a gate so Kaia could get around the back of the play area to get her shoes. She kept telling me, "Mommy! Next time do NOT let Asher take my shoes and drop them!" Anyway, it made the experience that much more fun!

I've been taking pictures recently of places around town that I want documented for the day we leave the area. This is one of my favorite places. Who wouldn't want to take their car here to get fixed up when they see what they've done with this awesome green car?

Dancing King!!

Asher has really taken to dancing recently. He knows which of all the toys play songs and exactly the right buttons to press to get a song he can dance to. He has a few different dances he does. We like to call this one "stiff legs." This love of dancing obviously came from Peter's genes since I avoid dancing at all costs.

Car Conversation

We were driving around between errands yesterday when Kaia randomly said, "When Dad's not home is not a good idea. When Dad is home is a good idea!" I totally agree.

Bye bye, binkie!

So my sister is complaining once again that I haven't posted frequently enough. =) Sorry, we just haven't had much going on in our lives right now besides normal life - which is fun but not always bloggable. And I'm taking an on-line scrapbooking class right now from Big Picture Scrapbooking, which is pretty much soaking up all my free time right now - but definitely worth it!

Anyway, we decided this was the week to help Asher get rid of his pacifier. Our pediatrician has been bugging us about it since he was a year old and we always had a good excuse not to get rid of it - like 17 hour plane rides. Then he grew really attached to his binkie for a while and I envisioned that he would have it for the next 10 years. Recently he's started backing off of it again so we figured we might as well get rid of it before he became ferociously attached again. I was planning to wait until Tuesday to get rid of it because Peter would be putting the kids to bed while I went to book club. =) But then on Monday Asher threw his bink between the wall and the side of our bed, so I would have had to move our whole bed to get it. I put him down for a nap, which just did not happen. Then I found a pink bink - tell me, why do they package pink pacifiers with boy colors like orange and green? - that I gave him for nap round 2. He still wouldn't go to sleep so I decided to cut the tip off the pink bink and see if that would convince him to get rid of it. He just smiled through the bink and finally went to sleep. Every day I've been cutting a little bit more off the tip of the bink so it's getting pretty small. I was starting to think this was just a ridiculous idea and I was wondering why we were even getting rid of it in the first place because he was waking up early in the morning and having crying spells in the middle of the night. But now we've started to have some payoff - he slept all night last night without his bink - and he never even woke up all night, which is unusual for him. And I just put him down for his nap with no pacifier at all and he went to sleep without crying. Yeah!!

I tried to get an artistic type photo of the bink and Ash - the tip is cut off this bink but you can't really tell in the picture - and the artistic part didn't really work with my pretty basic digital photo; I wish I could have had the bink in focus and him out of focus or vice versa. Anyway, Asher was really mad and wouldn't even look at me:


On a different note, Asher's figured out how to ask for those things we can't say no to. For example, right as Peter's walking out the door to go to work, Asher urgently calls out: "Ki(ss)!! Ki(ss)! Hu(g)!" (The ss's and g are in parentheses because he says the words like you normally would but without the ending consonant sounds.) How could anyone resist that? His other favorite is to fold his arms randomly throughout the day and say "Pair!" (prayer). I can't say no to that one either so we've been saying a lot of prayers recently.

Who are you?

Take the Quiz here!

So I found this quiz on my brother's girlfriend's mom's blog. Who would've thought? Anyway, it was a fun little quiz to see which Jane Austen quiz you're most like.

Not too surprisingly, I am Elinor Dashwood. It told me at the end of the quiz that "You are Elinor Dashwood of Sense & Sensibility! You are practical, circumspect, and discreet. Though you are tremendously sensible and allow your head to rule, you have a deep, emotional side that few people often see." However, I don't think I'm actually all that discreet and anyone who has seen me in a testimony meeting certainly already knows about my emotional side!

My favorite question/answer of the quiz reads as follows: "Your best friend is...your cousin, who's also your love interest." I guess it would be hard to modernize that one!

Evening Excursion

After being home all afternoon, I decided we would take a trip to the mailbox and garbage dump around 6:00 tonight. I was still collecting the recycling in the kitchen when I realized Kaia had opened the front door and let Asher out. I ran out the door to catch up with the kids and the sight I saw told me this would be no ordinary trip to the dump. I ran back in to get my camera and I’m so glad I did. This was one of the most entertaining excursions I've had in a while!

Asher, helpful kid that he is, was taking out the massive bag of dirty diapers all by himself. And each of the kids was carrying a dishtowel. Not sure why?? Asher was insistent that he also get to carry an envelope - these days he has to do anything he sees Kaia doing. Recently Kaia - on her own initiative - wrote out "invitations to the ball." A couple lucky people will now be getting those in the mail in a few days.

As an aside, what has in the recent past seemed like cute assertions of Asher’s independence is quickly turning into frighteningly fierce demands that his will be met. If he wants something I'm saying no to, he points his arm as straight as he can get with his index finger extended towards the item he wants and says the name of the item in an increasingly loud voice, as if I'm just not hearing what he's saying. Yeah, right.

Anyway, I tried to help Asher with the bag of diapers but he was very mad about this. I finally got him to share the responsibility so we were carrying the bag together. We finally made it outside and I found out what the dishtowels were for - they double as a shawl! Who knew?

These days I like to pretend we have a backyard and live in a real neighborhood. I stood in the middle of the parking lot holding Asher and watching the dogs across the street playing, until another man walked by with his dog and one of the dogs from the house across the street literally attacked his dog – ferociously. That was fun, and oh so appropriate for our area! Kaia had been watching from a cement ledge that extends from the building and told me her stomach hurt when she saw the dog do that. Here is the cement ledge that the kids played on for several minutes:

Here's our "backyard." Nothing like a couple tubs of paint, some broken glass, and a bunch of rocks to throw for kids to really learn to be kids.


Kaia did some breakdancing on the way back to the house.

As we walk down the last hall to our place, Kaia and Asher like to play red light/green light. Basically this involves me standing still as they run down the hall to look for hiding places. Here's a picture of when Asher found Kaia. She's not crying or upset or anything - I guess she thought she was still hiding as she got an "Asher hug:"

Potty Talk

So I think I've heard before that kids around the age 3-4 can become interested in talking about potty matters. Have other parents noticed this as a normal occurrence? Today Kaia was really on a kick with this one. Sometimes I wonder what kids talk about when adults aren't around. Well, today I caught a glimpse...Kaia and Asher were sitting on the kitchen stool together sharing a snack (the picture below is actually from a little while ago; it's too cold outside again to wear shorts now). I was around the corner when I heard this conversation:

Kaia: I like it when you say poo, Ash.

Asher (very obliging and enthusiastically): Poo!

Now, I'm sure this sounds really strange, but there is at least some explanation. A few days ago when the kids were in the bath, I noticed Asher had his pooping face on, so I stuck him on the toilet for the first time. I think he found this pretty cool because once I stuck him back in the bath (no luck on the potty) he kept repeating, "Poo! Poo!" and pointing to the toilet. Anyway, he actually does say "poo" with this really cute, sort of high-pitched voice, so I do see where Kaia's coming from.