nina's first pony ride

the farm yesterday was awesome! nina and i had a great time. she liked the bus ride, the pony ride, and the hay ride best. she chose to not milk the cow (can't say i blame her, it is kind of weird) but she did try to feed a sheep. unfortunately the sheep had been fed already by droves and droves of preschoolers, so they weren't hungry. we tried.

we also saw a donkey, horses, goats, chickens, geese, ducks, turkeys, bunnies, baby ducks, baby chicks and a sow and her piglets.

maggie did great with nick! no tears, but nick said she was very excited to go meet me and nina at the bus. i got a big hug from her, the she went back to doing her thing. well, i'm glad it wasn't traumatic for her, but a few minutes of snuggling would have been nice!

a video of nina riding a pony is coming, when the internet is faster. for now here are some photos.

or not, seeing as i'm having trouble uploading those too. hm!

maggie's back in the saddle!

(knock on wood)

she woke up dry from a long nap yesterday, so i put her on the potty about 15 minutes later. she sat there and played with a cup of water (warm water. she loves to stick her hands in cups of water, so i thought that might help her pee). sure enough, she peed within 5 minutes. hooray maggie! she was dry in the evening again too after a few hours, and we tried again and she peed again! it took about 5 minutes again, but it worked. hopefully this is the beginning of the end of diapers.

i think with maggie, i need to wait a bit longer before i put her on the potty after naps. like, 20 minutes instead of the 10-15 i waited for nina. duly noted.

keep your fingers crossed for us!

ellis island and statue of liberty!

the first one here is a view of southern manhattan from ellis island. it was a bit hazy on saturday, which was nice for us because there was no hot sun to deal with. the temperature was also perfect--high 60s with a nice ocean breeze.

me and nick on ellis island with the statue of liberty in the background.


me and vanessa

everyone except me, who was taking the picture, on statue of liberty island (what's it called??)

and here is lady liverty herself (that's how nina was saying it. see, you knew there'd had to be some nina/maggie cuteness in here somewhere!)

poor neglected blog

sorry oma, life is getting a bit hectic. maggie went through a spell a week or two ago of not falling asleep--or, i should say, staying asleep, because she'd fall asleep just fine at 7;15, but she'd wake up by 8 and be up til 10. nick is reading over my shoulder and noting that it was not actually that long of a stretch, which is true. but it really messed up our routine. the girls were in bed late tonight too, because nina took a nap from 11:30 to 12:30 today (she was late to school). she woke up from her nap and ate a grilled cheese sandwich, half a peanut butter and nutella sandwich, and drank a big glass of lemonade. wow! she's probably growing again. maggie was just a maniac, i don't know why she didn't fall asleep tonight.

then, we had grandma visiting, which should have freed up some blogging time for me, but it's more fun to chat with mom, so it didn't. i think i fell asleep at 8:30 at least twice while she was here, which is actually not typical of me. when everyone's finally asleep, we've all been sleeping pretty well, so i'm not sure why i'm so tired lately. maybe it's the year catching up with me. or maybe it's the warm weather, being out at the playground, running after maggie all day... whatever it is, i'm beat!

then on thursday night dad came (he'd been at erik's doing heating work at the house), and on friday vanessa came. we had a blast--saw the grandparents on friday, went to ellis island and the statue of liberty on saturday, and were out on long island at my aunt maria's on sunday. busy busy! i will post statue of liberty pictures tonight too. then i'm going to bed!

i am going to try to get back to writing at least every other night, but i don't know if i will... the move is starting to loom large, and there's lots to do. but i will try!

hello aunt jeanette

doesn't she totally look like aunt jeanette in this picture? i think she does. does anyone have her email? either send me her email so i can email the pic to her, or email her a link of the blog.

nina didn't want to go to sleep tonight.

well, she never wants to go to sleep. but tonight, she told me she didn't want to go to sleep because she never has dreams about princesses. i told her to think about princesses as she's falling asleep and maybe she will have a dream about them, and she said no, god made me that i never have dreams about princesses.

poor, poor nina!

nina is doing math

i forgot to mention, nina has been doing addition lately. you all know how i am not into pushing her at this age, so it's not like i've been drilling her or anything. i think they might have done some with her at school. or maybe she just came up with it on her own. i say school because recently she came home from school saying "do you know what 3 plus 1 is? 4!!" they're really great there about making learning blend into play.

we got her a coloring/activity book at costco yesterday and she was really into doing the math. i mean, she does count on her fingers when she adds, but since she's only 3.5 i'm letting it go. for now.