Walkin.Playin

After many months of sitting in a stroller or dangling from a carrier and watching Ollie run around the playground....finally Vivienne can follow along.

Unfortunately I didn't get a good video of Vivi taking her first steps at our local playground. Nor did I get a picture of her shoeless feet. I must have looked like such the irresponsible Dad. She has been shoe and sockless all summer, and she absolutely refused shoes today. That being said I do not think they make walking shoes for such itty feet!

 

Ollie has a new game to play with Vivi. For now he is happy about her new mobility

 

 

Walkin. Clappin.

Within a week she will be do-see-doughing

 

Fishing in Brooklyn

Ollie loved fishing at the Cottage so much that we decided to find a place in Brooklyn to cast our line.

Just drop it down of the pier.

And reel it in.

Or you can set your pole on the ground and wait like the professional fishermen do.

Boy loves fishing. (Although his attention span for it is pretty short, and Papa sure looked pretty funny fishing off the pier by himself with a tiny kid's fishing pole.)

You'll have to wait until you get bigger, Vivienne... you're the size of fish bait yourself right now!

Go, Vivi, Go!

She's only 10 and a half months old, but she's got places to be...

Mama, Can We Get a Doggie?

Absolutely not, Vivienne. But you sure are cute together.

Hope You Didn't Like Those Pants

Crawling baby + filthy roof deck =

Family Businesses

Grampa's known as Hammerman and Grandma Ruthie is a jeweler.

Will she use her hammer for nails or for stones?

Not sure yet, but she screams if you take it away from her.

It's her favorite toy.

Maybe she'll just use it to mash up lunch for now.

Getting His Own Snack

What do you do when the cottage cheese is all the way in the back of the fridge and you're only 3 feet tall?

Locate arm extender.

"Choppers".

"Chop" snack with said "choppers".

Beach Baby

One more late summer post. Have you noticed yet that our blog is about one month behind our real lives? Actually, our real lives sometimes feel one month behind our real lives...

This one seemed to like the beach and the waves right from the start.

Didn't mind the sand in her toes.

Or in her mouth.

Sprinklers

One quick sprinkler post before summer is too long gone...

One day after summer camp.

A great way to cool off during that crazy two-week long heat wave.

Just watch where you're going—this was right before they ran straight into each other.

But quickly recovered, and were off to play some more.

Look At This!

We're in trouble now...

(Great)Grandparents' Day with Grandma Thelma and Grandpa Gil

We recently visited Great Grandma Thelma and Great Grandpa Gil for Grandparents' Day at their community. How ridiculous is Mama that she didn't get ANY pictures of the kids with their Great Grandparents. Very ridiculous.

But we did get lots of pics of all the fun activities that were planned for the kids.

Loved the bouncy castle.

He figured out that if he went during the magic show, he could have the whole thing to himself.

Control freak? Wonder where he gets that...

Down the chute and on the the next activity...

Elmo!!

About that magic show... when the clown asked for volunteers, Ollie was super super excited to raise his hand and yelled "I do, I do!" Seems he didn't realize what he was agreeing to do...

Guess Vivienne will have to be the actress in the family.

But nothing a fountain of chocolate can't fix.

Seems more like a Grandkids' day to me.

First Day of School

Tuesday was Ollie's first day of school this year. It's still our Brooklyn-style cooperative preschool, Tiny Human Academy, but in a new place, with new teachers and new friends. And boy was he was excited. Every day over the summer when we passed the dance studio where we're having school, he would say, "There's my new preschool!"

And when the first day arrived, he was very excited to ride his scooter all the way to school.

A big "cheese" for his first day picture.

And he's ready to go in!

And was even more excited when he saw the fun new toys.

(This picture is from the second day, but he was wearing his new "school shoes" and wanted me to take a picture of him in them.)

Now That's a Racetrack

Pretty Lady, Cool Dude

The Cottage: Summary in Pictures

This is probably going to be the most massive post ever since we have some 500 pictures from our trip to the Cottage (a month ago). And it's pretty hard to choose only a few since we did SO much stuff! It was Grampa's 70th birthday for one! Besides that highlight of the week, Grammy also had lots of activities planned for the kids. And of course, there was the usual swimming, boating, fishing, racing, playing, fighting, laughing, screaming, and general chaos. Here's the week in (many) pics.