knock knock...

knock knock
who is there?
no baby
no baby who?
no baby hurricane...no baby hurricane....no baby hurricane

happy due date lil baby brother / sister

mama and papa are relieved you did not show up during the hurricane

but now....?

are you waiting for the weekend to come out and play?

i cannot wait to meet you

love your big brother - ollie z

Shaking it

 Ollie recently learned how to hula with his buddy Emmett.

A lil practice and he may get a hulahoop scholarship ( a parent's dream?)

Posted with Blogsy

Mama Ollie panorama

Lillybean Lillybean!

Really, Lilly Bean, we love you, we do! Even though we're two whole days late with your birthday post. Mama was busy trying to keep your cousin from coming too early and being born on your birthday... we didn't want you to have to share your special day with anyone else!

We love you and we hope you had a fantastic fifth birthday day!

You're the best big cousin ever and we don't get to see you nearly enough. Sometime this spring we will come to visit you at your new house!

Village Person

Ollie may have beat out Zadia in making a fireman costume look glam. Unfortunately this costume may not be weather? appropriate for Halloween. 

And the following costume was deemed too creepy for Halloween.

Any guesses on this year's costume?

Oliver's Host Week at Preschool

What a lot of fun. But Mama just has to say—bless all the preschool teachers out there! They are a very special lot of people. Wrangling a bunch of 2.5 year olds is fun, but probably the most exhausting thing in the world! 

We spent some time getting our apartment ready for the invasion, complete with special dinosaur tiles. (Which we finally removed by the 3rd day since one of the favorite activities seemed to be to pull all the tiles up and throw them around the room, particularly during clean up time.)

Ollie was very excited to have his friends over to his house for his week. He ended up doing a pretty good job of sharing his toys and his Mama. And by pretty good, I mean he only bit one kid, had three meltdowns, and one time out. But it could have been worse. It's hard having 5 other kids all up in your space! But really, he mostly shared well, showed the other kids where some of his favorite things are, participated in all of the art and cooking projects, and loved to shout out the answers to questions that Teacher Vickie asked. 

Here are some pictures from the week:

Each day started with circle time. Ollie loved shouting out answers to Teacher Vickie's questions.


And all the kids liked the songs.

Making playdough.

A rare group effort using Ollie's tools to build "Baby Ana" (Ollie's baby doll) a bed.

Ollie usually has fun with his toys, but it's even more fun playing with them with the other kids.

Art project time.

"I know! I know!"

Time to bake pumpkin seeds. Here they are getting them ready and tasting the uncooked seeds.

Much better once they're baked!

Time for a little group yoga.

Ollie's favorite: Tree Pose.

It rained the first two days of class, but finally on the 3rd day, we got a little outdoor time on the roof.

Getting ready for another art project by looking at different kinds of pumpkins, squashes, and gourds.

Messy time: painting. (Why did we get a white couch?)

Another group effort... the kids made this train all by themselves.

Then time for dress up with our new stash of costumes. First there was doctor. They all took turns being the doctor and the patient and then gave each other treats after their appointments.

Next it was time to put the helmets on and "go rescue people".

But Zadia clearly won the prize for the most creative and stylish firefighter costume.

Something was pretty funny, not sure what it was.

Helping Teacher Vickie make chocolate chip pumpkin muffins for snacktime.

Of course you have to sample the ingredients.

Snacktime. The muffins were a big hit.

Yep, he definitely likes preschool!

Hypofethis

Ollie is getting ready to be a big brother

the craaaaaaaazy bus goes round and round

i met my buddy miles at the queens county fair the other day...we had a blast

we rode our papas

we watched the grass grow

we ran and ran....and rolled and rolled

and then we went on the craaaaazy bus and went round and round

 

miles, i cannot wait until we hang out again...

More Apples

 More pix from our recent Apple Picking Adventure

Apple #3 plus Mama!

Apple #4

OllieCrow!

The best feature of the apple orchard was the 1/4 scale mini village, with jailhouse

And schoolhouse

Bus Fest

Apparently buses are as cool as trains. Ollie recently went to the MTA bus festival and had the chance to make his own bus and drive it around the hood...

BEEP BEEP

Along with the make your own bus session, Ollie explored some vintage buses parked at the festival.  Meanwhile his Papa tried out his new panorama feature on his phone. I apologize in advance if this blog starts to have too many panorama. Click on the photo to see more detail.

Where Do Apples Come From?

Ollie has been asking lots of questions lately. His favorite is, "where does __________ come from?" So when Ollie asked where apples came from, we decided to show him. Papa planned a special secret Sunday trip upstate. He told Ollie it was a secret and not to tell Mama. The next time Ollie saw Mama he promptly told her, "we're going apple picking!" (But it was okay that he blew the secret part, because Papa still had a secret massage appointment for Mama up his sleeve. Ahhhh, what a great Papa this Mama has!) 

Ollie was pretty excited about pulling his own wagon.

A lot of the apples were pretty high up in the branches so we started out with a little help from Papa.

But Ollie's favorite part was the special apple picking stick he got to use.

And insisted on carrying himself.

It was a little heavy so Papa helped him get the apples down.

Which was VERY exciting to him, "we got an apple!!!!"

We collected a few bruised ones before Ollie understood that he had to put them gently in the bag rather than throwing them from 2 feet away.

He ate probably 5 apples that day... and some more when we got home.

And that is where apples come from.