Aunt Erin

These two adore each other. She's a fantastic aunt - does all the fun stuff that he wants, snuggles up and reads, you name it.  Shawn is overseas and she came all the way from Florida to hang for a couple of days. We're so lucky to have her and miss her already!

View from my desk

Andrew with the sitter and her son, raking leaves in the yard.

Foodie Andrew

Andrew LOVES our local food co-op. He pushes around the kid sized carts and with that freedom I'm always surprised at what he chooses to bring home. This is a photo of him in the cheese department after sampling raw goat gouda. Finally he's getting a bit more adventurous. This past trip he grabbed a can of spaghetti o's (liked the tomato sauce but not the o's), baked mushroom bites - think mushroom nuggets - and tried those, frozen corn- which he will only eat frozen-, carrots, broccoli and snap peas (which he'll only eat raw.) Otherwise he piled his cart high with fruit. Literally. To the BRIM. And a wedge of raw goat gouda of course :) Thank God that Shawn and I volunteer there so we can keep our food costs down - the beauty of a co-operative market!  Trivia: Did you know Andrew chooses to be a vegetarian? At first I thought it was his pickiness at work but he's tried it and gags at the taste. Doctor says that's perfectly fine, we've just got to make sure he eats lots of eggs and beans, which we are diligent about.

Supercrazyawesome

Shawn just got a laser cutter - check out what it can do (besides his personal art projects!) I'm dizzy with possibilities.

Art projects

After a year of having no interest in arts and crafts, Andrew has gone full circle and now spends an hour or two each day making things to hang up on our new art walls. Some examples-

Match the number mosaic tiles

Collage

Painting 

Birthday Parties

One of the side effects of sending a kid to preschool, I've discovered, is the weekend birthday party trend. He loves it and I get to catch up with friends. 

Fall Festival

He was far more excited about the corn maze than the sheep photo opp. 

Peekaboo

Loving our new neighborhood playground! Especially climbing through these fun pipes.

Thanks, Nana!

Andrew was super excited to receive a spider themed care package from Nana! He put spider stickers and spider tape on spider web paper and then we hung the cotton web on our living room which looks pretty cool from outside at night too. More spider fun to come (think Halloween!)

Big boy bed!

Costume Preview

Here's a little Halloween hint, once again sewn with love by Nana.

Buzz Buzz

Andrew took me for a nice ride on the playground bumble bee.

Mr. Manners

              Raspberry fingers.

Mad Genius

Enjoying the number pegs at preschool.

We're in!

   44 Overidge Rd., Latham NY 12110

Last Days

We're enjoying our last days in Troy before the big move across the Hudson River. It's been chaos managing everyone's schedules and packing but were almost done. I spent a lot of time at the new house today and love it! But we will really miss hanging out on our front porch for sure.

Oopsies

Overshot the end of the slide, but guess that's part of the fun!

First Week of Preschool

Walked right in, never looked back!

It was phase-in week so he started at 1 hr, and each day gets progressively longer until he's at 3 hours next week. He comes home singing new songs and telling me about new games he played. The first day he even ASKED to take a nap. That's a first.

Goodnight Toddler Andrew

Tomorrow my son will wake up a preschooler! 3.75 years passed so freakin quick, I can hardly believe it. I'm really excited for him. He's such an exuberant, smart, joyful, energetic kid and I know that going each morning to an environment as wonderful as Montessori will really open his eyes and mind.  New friends, new teachers, new activities. I kind of wish I were the one going!

If you're unfamiliar with the Montessori method, give this a watch:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2NjD65HrBA

Love

How neat would it be if these two got married one day?
Next week together they head off to the 3s class at Morningstar.

Beautiful CANDID shot taken by Juni's Mom at Grafton State Park-
So sweet that they hold hands without us having to prompt it for a photo!

Poor Andrew

Andrew was not at all thrilled when Juni dressed him up in a tutu. The things we do for love.

Mother and Son

Me and my little man.

Eitan

Andrew and one of his few boy buddies, 1.5 year old Eitan.

Love this Smile!

Andrew makes lots of really ridiculous smiles these days. Ones that are more scary than joyous - with clenched teeth, or open mouthed. Especially when its on command for a photo. This one is a genuine i'm-happy-to-be-alive kind of grin and I'm so glad to have gotten it on camera! The school 16 playground is one of his favorite places to be, we walk over there almost daily.

Monday, Monday

 Our Monday morning play grou, minus most of the moms.

Hana 1.5, Juni 3, Andrew 3.75, Sofia 2.5, Bella 1, Mason 4.25

          Raspberry picking with Sofia.

NYC Visit, Day 2

 A trip to NYC without visiting the Legostore? No way. Andrew was totally diggin it.

 And of course, the big piano at FAO Schwartz was a hit too.

But mainly kiddo and I just hung around with Dada, and enjoyed the big city.

Shawn and Andrew went home on Sunday, but I stayed through Wednesday to do some research. It was really sweet to return to the little guy who kept saying over and over again how much he missed me. Even now, days later, and out of nowhere, he tells me how glad he is I'm back. 3 days has been the longest we've been apart.

NYC Visit, Day 1

Andrew's face upon seeing a subway for the first time. I've never seen him speechless before.

 We took a walk on the High Line - an old abandoned elevated train line on the west side. You can see how they integrated the tracks with the plantings. Andrew, of course, fascinated that train tracks can be hiding in gardens.

We met friends at their fabulous apartment on the upper east side. This is the view from their rooftop terrace. Kiddo was amazed that the cars were so tiny from up there.

LOTS of walking. Andrew was pooped by the end of the day, and on Day 2 we opted to use the child-backpack to carry him around.

As I thought, he loved the city. He's still talking about it now, days after our trip. The trains were a highlight of course, but this is also the first time he saw skyscrapers, mass taxi honking, and people crowding the sidewalk. Day 2 pix to come....

Train Ride

So it's no secret that Andrew LOVES trains. You can only imagine how excited he was to ride a real one Saturday morning to NYC! It was so fun to be a part of his excitement. The rest of the trip was great too, more on that another time.

Skinny dipping

Andrew has already figured out how to make pool time alot more interesting....

Monday Playgroup

 Monday Playgroup - Andrew, Juni, Mason and Sofia

Something must have been funny.

With his "arms of power"

We always have fun on Monday mornings with these kids and their moms. Hoping to keep it going once preschool starts in the fall. Its really funny to hear the kids have little discussions between themselves, independent of us. They are remarkably polite to each other. This past Monday the kids spent most of their time searching out spider webs, Andrew's latest obsession.