liz & ryan's wedding -- 6/13/09

in mid-june, we traveled to ohio to celebrate the wedding of my first cousin ryan (aunt marilyn and uncle jim's younger son) and liz. it was a beautiful ceremony in an idyllic location -- it took place outside on a patio/balcony with a river down below and lush greenery/forest behind that. afterwards, guests were treated to a ride down the river on a pontoon boat. both the ceremony and the reception were extremely personalized and very special.

it was also a mini-reunion as most of my mom's family was there... 5 of the six siblings made it and 7 out of 10 cousins (including the groom and his brother, the best man) were there. one of the highlights was seeing great-grammy boogy to "Shout!" and at least 3 other songs!! she was having the most fun out of all of us!!

the kiddies -- chloe, amelia, reid, and twins piper and ellie (18m) -- all stayed home and were taken care of by miss jess and miss barbara (the twins' aunt and grandma on stacey's side). the grown-ups all had a wonderful night out!

CONGRATS RYAN AND LIZ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

event in amelia's classroom -- 5/27/09

amelia's teachers had a joint mother's day and father's day celebration at the end of may. the children and teachers did a cute skit based on the story "caps for sale", which is why amelia is wearing a baseball cap. the top pic is mrs. chenot, the assistant teacher and below that is mrs. starkman, the head teacher. both are wonderful, patient women and amelia learned so much this year!

5/24/09

we have some happy news and some sad news about sunday 5/24/09... the day started off great with a trip to NYC. it was the first day that broadway was closed off to cars -- it was amazing! we visited the american girl store, rode the ferris wheel at toys r us and saw mary poppins on broadway (an early bday present for chloe).

but later that night our dog casey died... we think his heart gave out as he had preliminary heart failure and had been on heart medication for over a year.... it happened after the girls were asleep so we told them the next morning (appropriately enough -- memorial day). they were very upset of course. casey had been part of our family for 8.5 years, about 1.5 years before chloe was born. we celebrated casey's life with a memorial service -- the girls wrote him letters and drew pictures, we each told our favorite memories of casey (and videotaped it)... jeff and the girls went shopping beforehand so we had flowers and chloe & amelia each received a new picture frame that said "i love my dog". the frames have a montage of 3 small pics so they each got to choose their 3 favorite casey pics for the frame. the first week was very difficult with sporatic tears but the girls are dealing with it much better now.... we still miss him very much.

random pics -- 5/09

some random pics from may.... the top pic is of jeff and i at a charity function for the state theater of NJ in new brunswick. this was only the 2nd time that i have seen jeff in a tux, the first being our wedding!! the dress i wore was the bridesmaid dress from my sister's wedding in 2002. it was fun getting dressed up but i could barely breath!! 8-) and the band was playing so loudly, it was difficult to have a conversation. the next two pics are random pics i took... you can sort of see chloe's 2 grown-up teeth coming in... the last 3 pics are ones that jeff took for my handmade mother's day card!

college reunion -- 4/09

at the end of april, 2 of my good friends from college came to visit. ellen lives in cleveland and jean marie lives outside of chicago. jeannie brought her two kids with her -- emily turned 5 in may so she is 5 months older than amelia. gregory turned 3 on 4/20 so we celebrated his bday and amelia's half-bday (top pic). we should have celebrated emily's bday a little early but i am not sure why we didn't! the 2nd pic shows ellen on the left and jeannie on the right. amelia and emily were thrilled to find out that they both owned the exact same sweatshirt.... i usually see jeannie about once/year but i hadn't seen ellen since 2001... it was so great to spend quality time with her! hi guys!

earth day -- 4/22/09

earth day and all its related activities makes the PTA environmental concerns committee that i chair very busy in april! for the second year, we had a recycling education table at the montgomery township earth day fair. it's always great to hear people say "wow -- i didn't know that you had to take the caps off the water bottles before recycling them!" among other educational "lightbulbs".... one lady said to me, "i visited your table last year and had to come back to refresh myself and find out if there is anything new." LOVE IT!

this year, we decided to turn earth day into "earth week" at chloe's school. for those of you who don't know, chloe's school is K thru 2 only with over 1000 students. every project that includes the students is a major time commitment. we decided to hand out trinkets, little reminders, each day of earth week to help the children remember to take care of the earth. monday was stickers, tuesday was seed packets, wednesday was wear blue&green day and the students received a paper packet with helpful hints on how to "go green", picture search, word search, coloring sheets, etc., thursday was an earth eraser and friday was a globe keychain. the kids LOVED it!

as i did last year, i also hired a speaker to talk to the kids about taking care of the earth -- recycling, litter, conservation, etc. due to the size of our population, the speaker had to do 3 identical assemblies in one day. he was fantastic -- the kids were so engaged and entertained --and we hope to have him back again next year.

amelia is reading!

early this spring, jeff started working with amelia on the "sight words".... we had them written down on index cards from when chloe entered kindergarten... he had tried before but amelia wasn't really ready. but this time she really "got it"! i then pulled together all our early readers and after a week or two of practice, she was really reading!!! i recall specifically amelia reading a little bit on easter and aunt alison saying "boy is she going to be bored in kindergarten!". amelia turns 5 on 10/28 and misses the school cut-off by 4 weeks so she has one more year of pre-school to go before kindergarten. there are pros and cons to this but in our township, where the school has a very good reputation and therefore attracts many consciencious (sp?) parents and smart students, we feel it's very beneficial that amelia is one of the older kids in her class.

amelia now reads one "bob book" (a very elementary series with about 4 - 6 words per page and a total of 8 pages) each night before bedtime just like her big sister reads a book (or a chapter of a longer book). incidently, amelia's level now is where chloe was when she finished kindergarten (keeping in mind that chloe is a july baby and therefore one of the youngest in her grade).

spring holidays -- 4/09

as always, we had a wonderful passover seder (complete with my favorite -- matzoh ball soup -- and jeff's favorite -- gefilte fish!!) at jeff's parents house in roosevelt on wednesday 4/8/09. as this is chloe's first year in hebrew school, the seder and the story outlined in the hagaddah was much more meaningful for her. however, even tho her reading skills are really good, she got "stage fright" and wouldn't read from the hagaddah. the bottom pic is from passover with molly (15yo) and emily (13yo) -- almost babysitting age!

we had 2 easter celebrations -- one at our house with my side of the family on saturday 4/11 and one in montclair on easter sunday 4/12 with jeff's side of the family. the favorite part, i would have to say, is the egg hunts. for weeks after easter, the girls were still hiding plastic eggs for each other.... i think we found the last one about 2 weeks ago (early june)! oh, and the easter bunny upgraded the girls easter baskets -- they are now nice, sturdy white baskets with personalized liners... amelia's is pink and chloe's is green.... so cute! the pic in the middle includes reid (5.5yo).

it's a boy!!

alison and kurt found out back in april that they are having another boy! reid will have a little brother ... so perfect!! the pregnancy is going very smoothly.... due date is 9/9/09... stay tuned!

i am very behind on the blog... i hope to catch up during our two week vacation to the poconos which starts on saturday!