Extreme Cuteness-Kitten Edition

Extreme cuteness-holiday edition

family photo day

Today we attempted to take out family Christmas photo. Last year things didn't go so well, you may have noticed an absence in your mailbox from us. Determined not to have two fail years in a row, we forged ahead again. Check out the home studio and look for the real thing no sooner than Dec 24th! Hohoho and Merry Christmas!

Trying hockey

Last weekend Graham had an opportunity to try hockey at a day sponsored by the NY Rangers. Here he is all decked out in hockey gear. It seems that ice skating is the one sport so far that he does not take to naturally. He really had a hard time staying upright despite the huge number of helpful coaches assisting him.

Mini-golfing on a Sunday afternoon

Graham and I took advantage of some "nice" weather today and played a round of mini-golf. Nice weather is all relative in mid/late November in New York. The sun was out and I didn't need my hat and gloves. The Boy, however, is very attached to his SF Giants gear and even though he was probably warm enough he refused to take it off. Go Giants! that's some team loyalty there.

15 seconds of fame

It was cool to see this article appear online. Even though it doesn't mention me by name it talks up Beacon Open Studios in Dwell Magazine!

Spaceman from Outer Space

This year for Halloween Graham was committed to the idea of being a Spaceman-Cheerleader so i made him a spaceman costume with paper mache helmet. He was getting upset that people kept confusing him for a robot but he really enjoyed giving out candy to trick o treaters that came to our door even though there were very few in our neighborhood. We went to a friend's house in a more trick or treat friendly neighborhood for a party and roaming candy collection. Somehow we managed to get him into bed at a reasonable hour without too much sugar consumption on his part (not on mine).

School is finally back in session after Monday and Tuesday's closure and a short day today. We are recovering from the storm up here but things in NYC are quite a mess. Liam was supposed to work in NJ this week but it looks like his whole week of work will be cancelled.

Tuesday storm update

Everything is fine here. We never lost power throughout the storm. We are very lucky. It's still windy and a bit wet out there. The Hudson has flooded in several places and parts of Beacon are out of power but we fared so much better than our neighbors down in NYC. whew!

Stormy Monday

Hatches have been battened down in preparation for Hurricane Sandy. No school, no work, no travel today but cookie baking is going on in full force! Ya know, just in case we loose power its good to have cookies. I tried to make Halloween cookies but we did not have any cutouts of bats or pumpkins so I had to make due with the pastel frosting my assistant and I made.

I can hear the wind howling outside right now. I keep seeing pictures of flooding from the Hudson River in our area. They say the storm will be peaking in our area later tonight. Keep your fingers crossed that the power outages will be minimal! 

Repose, with kitten

Graham was home sick yesterday. There was a lot of hanging out w kitties while the rain fell on the roof

Pumpkin Pickin

It's that time of year again. There's lots o pickin in the Hudson Valley. Here we are on Graham's school trip to Lawrence Farms in Newburgh.

5th Birthday

Graham turned 5 last Friday, it was a day full of celebration. At school they have a ritual called the Birthday Walk. The birthday kid holds a globe, the teacher light a yellow candle they call the sun. Birthday kid takes a walk around the sun for each year he has been alive and the teacher reads from the kid's birthday book that the family has completed. The birthday kid chooses 2 friends to help make his cake which they make at school in the morning. Then they eat the cake. Liam and I were there this year for the birthday walk and it was very cute. Perhaps I can get Liam to fork over some of the pictures he took there.

Later in the day Graham had his real birthday party which was held at the local bowling alley with 5 of his friends. As you can see he is having a great time and he behaved like a very good host, which is a relief for his parents.  Bowling, pizza, cake, games, more bowling, home to bed. We were all exhausted.

The following day it was soccer game, followed by the opening reception for a show I curated in Beacon called Bound to Printed Matter. All the artists make work from books. Still recovering from the weekend. 

Meet the latest

After weeks, maybe months, of debate we finally took the plunge by adding to our household. Our friend Nicole is always rescuing kittens that need homes so we drove up to Saugerties to pick one out to bring home with us. Graham was very excited about it all, we let him choose the kitty and name it. Somewhere between arriving at Nicole's home/temporary cat foster shelter and leaving we decided that our new kitty would need a friend to keep it company. There were about 6 or 7 kittens to choose from which made it very hard because as everyone knows they don't make 8 week old kittens ugly.

He named them Pedro and Ciriaco after his favorite Red Sox baseball player Pedro Ciriaco. The orange one is Pedro. They have currently taken up residence in my attic studio and are proving to be very entertaining little furballs. They have yet to be introduced to Lucille or our other far more cranky cat Big Fat Ramona. We will keep you posted on the details of that circus when it happens.  

Second 1st Day

Last week was a few days of half day school for some of the kids in Graham's class but not all.  Today is the very first day of full-day back to school action for all. Here is the little man waiting for the school bus in cooler weather clothes. Note that he still has to have his sunglasses.

First day of kindergarten

Today was the first day of school and since Graham goes to a Montessori school he is in the same classroom with the same teachers from last year. They don't really call it kindergarten per se they call it Primary, but he is almost 5 and he'll be going full time and in any other school he would be in K. Whatever you want to call it, I call it "hooray"!!!!!!

 

One happy kid

Here is Graham tonight at his first major league baseball game. This kid is obsessed with baseball. We got a pair of last minute tickets to the Mets-Astros game at Citifield and the excitement shows on his face.

Maine!

Cape Cod

A quick but thoroughly enjoyable 4 days were spent at the Cape this week. The beach was fabulous!

Big Truck Day

It was Big Truck Day at the Cold Spring Library yesterday. Fire trucks, diggers, dump trucks and more  were all there for kids to climb on and play with to their heart's content. As you can see, Graham was having a great time sitting behind the wheels. 

Let there be pie

Canoe

We now have our own canoe. Here are Graham & Liam as we are about to embark on our first trip on the Hudson

Slip n Slide

You know that summer is near when the Slip & Slide comes out of the basement. Graham and his friend Max took advantage of the beautiful weather we had last weekend and had a great time in our yard. In his typical fashion, G threw himself into it over and over again. He has a big bruise on his hip to commemorate the fun. 

Pinball Wizard

Here is Graham concentrating very hard on his pinball game. The boy certainly can focus when he wants to.

Mothers day

Me & my boy in the hammock on a lovely day

2 vids

one kinda weird

G and the Toad Stool

Our friend Nicole took this photo of Graham while we were visiting her at her place in the Catskills. He looks so grown-up!

Planting

After several rainy days i finally got some plants in the ground. I'm going for nothing but color in the front yard this time, skipping the veggies this year.

Last weekend was Beacon Open Studios weekend. Here we see Graham inside one of the art trucks where he was having a fabulous time. Liam's man cave on wheels was a big hit. More about that later. I'm pooped. 

Here he is with some of his friends. 

Easter egg hunt pix at long last

At long last I've gotten around to posting the pictures from the Easter egg hunt and brunch in our backyard. What a lovely day it was, we enjoyed some unseasonable warm weather. Check out Graham and a few of his friends looking for the egg-shelled loot. Taking a cue from Graham's school, I wrote every kid's name on an equal amount of eggs so there would be no fighting over who got more. 

Violet finds some eggs with help from her mom

Graham is on the hunt

Milo and Oscar must get more eggs now!

Ruby & mom

Dress up!

We were over at the house of a 7 year old girl the other day and Graham thought it would be fun to try on her princess dress. She has so many. He's never played dress up before, usually that's the girls' territory and he gravitates towards sports. But not to worry, an hour before the princess dress came on he was in the park hitting baseballs. He has not asked for the princess dress since.

Easter and more

Today was Easter. We held an Easter egg hunt in our backyard on this beautiful sunny spring day. A few of Graham's friends & their parents came, hunted eggs, ate brunch (and candy) . There was much activity and Graham was pooped by the end of the day. He fell asleep on his daddy's chest.

More photos of the egg hunt coming soon.

Easter Eggs

Graham and I got into the spirit of spring last weekend by coloring some eggs. He usually doesn't like to do any project that seems like a craft, but he really enjoyed coloring eggs.

After we dyed eggs, w went to the annual Easter Egg Hunt madness in Memorial Park. Its always cold and crowded, but we still go. Here Graham and his buddy Milo pose with the Bunny after raiding his candy basket.