Christmas 2014 and New Year's 2015

This year, we celebrated Christmas on Dec. 23 at our house. The kids were off from school. Dec. 22 they went to the movies with Roger. Dec. 23 they went to Kids R Kids.  They were very happy with the things they received from Santa.

Here Sidney is pretending to be a teacher and using their new dry erase board - on the other side is a chalk board

Cleo demonstrating her artistic talent depicting a jolly Santa Claus.

We drove to Jacksonville on Dec. 24.  This picture was taken at Roger's cousin Keith and Tina's house.  That is where we celebrated Christmas on Dec. 25.  We stayed with Linda et al. while we were in Jacksonville.

Rodney, Roger's brother, had a chance to meet his new grand-daughter Mia.  Also in the picture is Rodney's daughter Kym.  Mia is around 3 months old.

Sidney enjoying the baby visit by donning a Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer nose.  Behind him is Rodney's girlfriend, Charnna. Sorry I didn't get a full shot of her.

The weather was very mild for most of the trip, a few days it reached 80 degrees. One day, Roger and I went to the First Tee golf course and putting range. Roger gave the kids a golf lesson.

"Hellooo ball!"

They could not leave the golf course without sitting in a golf cart.

Isak sent me a pic of Walter  enjoying the plush soccer ball that we sent him.

Roger's cousin Tiffany hosting a pokeno gathering at her house one night.  Pokeno is combination of bingo and poker.  In this picture is Tiffany, Cleo, Kaelin, Kayla (Tiffany's daughter), Spike Blaine (the doggie), and Sidney. In prior years Sidney and Cleo have been super afraid of Spike. These photos capture the progress they have made in overcoming their fear of that tiny doggie.

Below Cleo is eating her 12 halves of strawberries to ring in the New Year. Right before school let out for the holiday, Cleo was tasked with creating a pamphlet depicting the holiday celebrations of a particular country. Cleo selected Colombia.  She conducted some primary source research by talking with her god-mommy Vivian.  Cleo learned that Colombians eat 12 grapes to ring in the New Year.  Cleo is not a fan of grapes so she revised the custom a bit to suit her tastes and replaced grapes with strawberries.

I made us miss the ball drop because we were watching Pit Bull perform on a different channel, but we eventually showed it to her on You Tube.  Cleo, Sidney, Kaelin and I stayed up until midnight.  Sidney was super tired by 11pm but he wanted to watch Cleo eat her strawberries.  Cute.

Cousins!

Cleo at home enjoying her Orbeez Footspa. The footspa is filled with many tiny little hard gel balls. The contraption vibrates and soothes her tired feet.

Sidney enjoying his Crayola Color Wonder Mess Free Airbrush kit.

Cleo successfully assembling her first robot!  Note the lit up eye!

Today is Cleo's first ballet class (12-1pm) at the Southwest Arts Center, she's never taken dance there. The Arts Center does not offer music classes on Saturday for Sidney's age group so he's not going to have an activity at the same time as Cleo.  When he's 7 he can learn guitar in the group guitar class. We may try to find him a violin instructor since he's expressed an interest in it. There's no swim class today because there's a swim meet at Adamsville Recreation Center.  Later Cleo and Sidney are going to Alexandria & Quintin's house for a sleep over.  They are all very excited. Alexandria face timed Cleo last night in order to confirm the arrival time - 2pm.

Have a  great week.

Classes, Roger's Birthday and Life Between Thanksgiving and Christmas

Cleo has continued her love of ballet.  Here she is waiting for her class at the Adamsville Recreation Center to start. Starting Jan. 10, we are trying out a different ballet class at the Southwest Arts Center where she took art and theater a few years ago. The end of season at the Adamsville Recreation Center show costs $300 and that's too steep. I am hoping the end of season performance at the SW Arts Center is more affordable. We are looking into Sidney taking a one on one musical instrument lesson. He says he's interested in learning to play the violin.  We shall see.

They will both continue to take swim lessons at 10am on Saturdays at the Adamsville Rec Cntr. We want them to be able to be strong swimmers. They don't have to stick with it as a sport once they learn.  Sidney has made great strides. Cleo just needs to be more confident. She actually did much better yesterday at her lesson. We were nicely surprised. They've been taking lessons for a little over a year.

We took the kids to Toys R Us to create gift registries for Christmas. While there, they got to meet Geoffrey the Giraffe.

Appreciating our decorated Christmas tree.

We celebrated Roger's birthday at the Hammock, a seafood restaurant in the Sandy Springs area of Atlanta.

Roger's college friend, Wendy, joined us. Cleo and Sidney are enjoying their s'mores dessert.

Sidney was selected as the International Baccalaureate ambassador for Caring for the month of December. Each teacher in each class selects a student who the teacher thinks embodies the principle being celebrated that month.

Here he is with his teacher, Ms. Edwards. She was also Cleo's kindergarten teacher. Sidney was so incredibly proud of himself. Ms. Edwards told us that when he returned to school after Thanksgiving, he told her that he was ready to be an IB ambassador. She had already selected him at that point.  Whenever anyone at the ceremony congratulated him, he was quick to point out that Cleo was IB ambassador for Openmindedness for November. He is the true embodiment of caring.  We are so proud of him.

After the ceremony, we went to Ms. Edwards' classroom. Sidney lovingly kissing Cleo on the cheek.

Sidney on a field trip having fun with his bestie Shane. Shane's mom sent me the photo.

Tendu and out.

Plie

Doing ballerina exercises.

Sidney with a karate pal waiting to perform for us.

Cleo and Sidney enjoying some coffee at Dunkin Donuts after a long day of running the streets doing Christmas errands. Just kidding. It's water.

Cleo and Sidney posing in front of the Annie poster when they saw Big Hero 6 with Roger.  We saw Annie in Jacksonville.  We went with Kaelin and Makayla, Roger's god-mother's granddaughter.

Posing next to Baymax, one of the characters in Big Hero 6.  The last day of school for the kids was Dec. 19, but we didn't head down to FL until Dec. 24. I had to work Dec. 22 and 23.  They spent Dec. 22 with Roger and went to Kids R Kids on Dec. 23.  Their school resumes on Jan. 6 so they will be going to Kids R Kids tomorrow. Quintin and Alexandria are making surprise guest appearances at Kids R Kids tomorrow so Cleo is ecstatic to see Alexandria.

More to come. I will update my blog with our Christmas adventures in Jacksonville.

Thanksgiving in NYC 2014

I realize that's been a long time since I last updated my blog.  It's been a busy past 7 months for me and it seemed I was never able to find the time. This year, I will do a better job of maintaining my blog!

We had a great visit to NYC for Thanksgiving.  Sidney and Cleo both loved riding the subway.

These were taken after a visit with Noma.

Running the streets with Noma!

We met Auntie Vivian at Cafe Luluc for our annual pilgrimage for the best pancakes on the planet.

 

Afterward, we went to a nearby park in Cobble Hill.

We spent quality time with Walter River, who I fell more in love with each minute I spent with him.

Our dinner at Westway Diner was fine. But I think we are due for finding a new Thanksgiving spot.

Cute 5 year-old fake smile made when told to "smile!"  Although, I think he and I are competing for the funniest looking smile. ;-)

A more genuine cutie boy smile.

Group shot! I know my hand is awkwardly placed and my hair looks crazy because my bun has shifted to one side. Aside from that it's a nice photo.

Cleo and Sidney being cute.  There is a previously-taken picture of Cleo wearing that hat when she's probably two years-old. It belonged to Isak's grandfather, Hyman.

The kids had fun at our VIP visit to The Museum of Natural History. Fran's mom, Evelyn, hooked us up with passes that got us into the special exhibits.  It was a busy, tiring day. Ahnya came with us.

Earlier in the day before the museum playing with Fran's daughter, Lily Rose, at Evelyn's house.

Posting dutifully in front of the moose display.

After the museum, we met Noma for dinner at the 82nd Street Diner.

Sidney showing Walter something kid friendly on Sidney's iPad.

Sidney is even more interested in subways now. He walks around pretending to be the voice of the conductor. He lists the stops that the F train makes as well as other trains. He really wants to take the train lines that we didn't take during our trip, e.g., M, B, etc.

Cleo says she wants to move to NY. They both love it there.  It was a great visit. It was wonderful seeing everyone.

I will be coming to town the weekend of Feb. 27-March 1 for Ahnya's Feb. 28 baby shower. Woo woo. Cannot wait for the baby to arrive in mid-April.