Did You Miss Us?

Once again, I find myself apologizing for not updating this blog. This time it's been four months. Shameful, I know. There's lots of reasons for this. I put a lot of emphasis on putting up pictures and that takes a lot of time/effort. There are probably easier ways to do it than the way I do, but I haven't found something I like. The four months I've missed are a little intimidating, too. I've missed so much that I should fill you, dear reader, in on.

So, I've decided to just start right now. Forget the past and begin a new bloggity blog style and just write up what I want when I think of it. Maybe a sentence, maybe a picture thrown in there. Who knows!?

The Black family has been very busy lately. Erin has been working multiple jobs and we've had a revolving door of babysitters taking care of the kids. This past weekend we took part in a craft fair in Queens, selling Lyla Tov Monsters, sweaters and notecards. These all happen to be on sale at www.blacksrock.etsy.com as well.

I'll dedicate another post to talk about the Lyla Tov Monsters (see picture above), assuming I get into the swing of this blogging thing...

Yesterday, I took a day off from work to hang out with the kids and we went to the Queens County Farm Museum to pick some pumpkins. The weather has been fantastic! It was a great morning with the successful acquisition of three pumpkins and looking at lots of animals. Lyla painted her pumpkin soon after we got home, but Quinn prefers its natural state at the moment. We'll carve the third one closer to Halloween.

That's it for now. Let's see if I can post before another four months pass us by...

Quinn Turns Two!

Quinn hit his second year with style throwing our first ever backyard bash. His friends all had a great time playing in the sandbox, drinking juice boxes and riding around in plastic vehicles. Pics of the festivities are up in his birthday image gallery.

He even got to show off a little of his walking, though he seemed to still prefer the crawl.

Lyla's New Bike - Trike-a-thon

Lyla got a chance to put her new bike to the test during a neighborhood trike-a-thon to raise money for Hope & Heroes. Quinn mostly was carried along, though he did get some time on his trike. He's just not so big on keeping his feet on the pedals just yet. More pics to come later... you know... eventually...

Happy Hannukah!

Tonight is the last night of Hannukah, so I just have enough time to get this greeting up! We hope you all had a great Hannukah.

We had a great November and got to see lots of friends and family, as you can see by our November Photo Gallery. December has been a little rough with cold season and some little aches and pains along the way, but we're hoping everyone is in great shape for next week when we head out to Wisconsin to celebrate Christmas with the Slattery's!

We wish all of you a very happy New Year! May it be filled with love, laughter and health.

We Survived!!

I know this has taken a long time to update, but first, my computer died. Motherboard just blew out. Then, I used Erin's computer and spent about an hour updating how my weekend with the kids went. Then, it turns out I wasn't actually logged in and three quarters of what I wrote disappeared. I didn't have the heart to write it again. Now a little time has gone by and I have my new MacBook Pro, so I'll try and rally enough energy to give you a shorter version of my weekend. Here's what had been saved and a little bit more...

Well, I made it through the weekend and Lyla and Quinn still have all their fingers and toes and are in good health.

Saturday went pretty much as planned. It took a little while to find The Little Mermaid, which I thought Lyla would enjoy. I didn't really think about the irony of watching that for "Sushi and a Movie" night until later. Lyla got a little whiney during the whole, "I think I have a Blockbuster account, but don't know where my card is and don't know which of my previous addesses it would be connected with, so I should open a new account" portion of the trip. But overall, both kids were great through that and running to the grocery store to pick up some needed items. Lyla managed to convince me that she needed pink ice cream, too.

We made it home in time for lunch and then managed an hour nap with Lyla before Quinn woke up from his nap. After naptime, I got everyone ready to roll and out the door to go to the park. Fortunately, the timing worked out, so my friend Julie, who was visiting from London was able to meet up with us before heading back to England. She met us at the park and hung out for a little bit, then came back to the house for a little while before her next visit with people.

Quinn, as usual, was super easy to put down for bed, then Lyla and I got down to "Sushi and a Movie. As I mentioned before, The Little Mermaid may not have been the best Sushi movie in the world. However, "Les Poissons" was fantastic to watch and popping eel into my mouth during Flotsam and Jetsam's devious moments was great. I didn't explain any of that to Lyla, though. She went to bed pretty easily.

Now the downside of Saturday was that Lyla took a few bumps. First, I accidentally got some sunscreen in her eye was I was getting her ready to go out. I got her cleaned up and calmed down, but it looked like she had a shiner the rest of the day. Next, while helping with making lunch, she fell off her stool and bumped her chin on the counter. Finally, while walking home from the park, she was trying to pull on my shirt and fell down and scraped her knees. She was a trooper through all of it.

On Sunday, we went to Igloo Cafe for brunch and saw Lyla's friend Zoe and her mom and dad, Chrissy and George. George was conveniently visiting our table in time to watch Quinn while I took Lyla to the potty and discovered the cool new toilet with the build in potty seat. Amazing what they have these days!

After naptime cousin Michelle and Becker came to visit and go to the Beer Garden. All was going great there, until Michelle was giving Quinn his dinner and then he decided to puke all over himself, his seat, the table, the ground and anywhere else he could. We headed home a little earlier than expected and Michelle and Becker took care of the kids while I cleaned up the mess. Quinn seemed fine despite the experience. I was too tired to make the test cake.

On Monday, I got the pool filled up after Quinn's morning nap. Lyla was great during Quinn's speech evaluation and it went well. The evaluator said Quinn probably wouldn't qualify as he communicates well non-verbally. Then naptime was extra long for Lyla, so we didn't have time to go out to the pool and she woke up part way through Quinn's OT. Then not too long after that, Erin came home.

Now, this is all almost a month later, so I'm sure I forgot lots. I seem to remember Monday being very difficult, but I think Lyla was just being a pain in the butt in the morning, which is why I couldn't get the pool filled up during Quinn's nap. Overall, I managed to keep it all under control.

Now that I've switched to a new computer, I need to figure out how I'm going to get photo galleries up. I might change how I do it, so hold on for new pictures. I've got some great ones!