You are going to have to bear with me, I am doing my best to go back into my archives and put all of my pictures up…so we might be playing catch-up for a bit longer :)
Okay, so these are from when we were still out at Mamie and Poppy's house after Hurricane Sandy. Here is Charlotte mastering Henry's balance bike :)
Little ham
I bought lots of arts & crafts materials at Target right before the storm (in case we had a lot of time without any power), including these little men. Charlotte was very busy decorating hers, and then came over and said, "this is a brother and sister. She is really happy and good and listens well and he screams a lot and he's naughty". I wonder what on earth she was talking about, haha. Hysterical.
Off to the "jungle" or the "tree house", depending on the day :)
Cuties
My love
Climbing trees!
Goose
Such a sweetheart
Charlotte wanted to play "evil woman" (with me as the lead character), so here they are waiting patiently for mommy to start playing. Love how he is sitting :)
Yup, 4.5 years old and she still fits in the sink (comfortably) for bath time :)
Playing "seek"
Silly boy
I guess it comes with the territory when you have an older sister…she's putting stickers on his ears and kept telling him he had "pretty earrings"
Checking out the damage :)
On the evening of Sat, Nov. 3rd we finally got power back and so we moved back to our house. One of the first things I did was to put together bags and bags and bags of items to donate for the victims of hurricane Sandy (Charlotte's school was one of the donation centers). So I asked Charlotte to go through her things and put together some items to donate…and this is what she came up with. A sparkle hat, a cat, and one of Jon's gloves. Haha. Guess she doesn't get the whole concept. Although as the days went on, she did gather more and more items for me to donate (and don't worry, I didn't try to donate the hat!), so maybe it did sink in a bit :)
On Sunday, it was a beautiful day and we took the kids to the elementary school, where Charlotte was brave enough (and FINALLY tall enough!) to ride her "big girl bike". She got it for her 4th birthday, but really couldn't reach the pedals until just recently.
Cutie pie…so proud of herself.
Henry is of course saying, "help us! help us!", as if they are in jail :)
Conveniently, we moved back home on Sat night, and Monday Jon left to go to Arizona for the week for work…so I was left with the kids, and we were all trying to adjust to being back. Henry had some major sleep issues…this from the kid who didn't make a sound once you put him to bed for the last 2 years! But he was fighting sleep, waking up in the middle of the night and asking me to sing to him, screaming for me at all hours, and…worst of all, waking up at 5:30am and refusing to go back to bed. Good times. Monday was his first day at school, and this is what happened during lunch :)
I tried to wake him up…I picked him up, brought him into the living room to change him, tickled him…nothing! He also had school for the first time that morning, so I think between school and his awful sleep, he couldn't wait another minute for his nap. Too funny :)
Yup, she fits in our sink too :)
Walking to school…of course she picked out all of her accessories :)
It's twins this time.
So proud because she picked out her outfit. P.S.--they were still painting the built-ins, that is why there is nothing on them!
Sibling bath time! :)
While Jon was gone, our first full week back, we had a nor'easter (it happened to fall on Jon's birthday). A nor'easter that was almost more scary than the devastating hurricane we had a week before. It was scary because all of the trees and branches had been weakened during Sandy, and we had wind gusts that were even stronger than the hurricane! Oh, and I was by myself with the kids. Not a happy camper. But at least the kids had fun watching the first snowfall of the season! :)
Snowy day cuddles :)
Still snowing!
And of course, never a dull moment…at around 5:30-6pm, 3 fire engines come screeching down our street. We had no idea what was going on, but the kids were glued to the action!
(Note that she immediately put her sneakers on and grabbed her lovey just in case we had to leave again…ugh)
Hard to see the picture, but that is one of the fire engines. Apparently, our neighbors tree had fallen into the street, and one had fallen onto the electrical lines that connect to his house. The firemen told him that it could start a fire and they had to cut the electric immediately, so they did that and the excitement was oven for the moment (although the scary winds continued).
Not long after that, our power went out. Luckily, I had all of our flash lights and candles and whatnot ready to go. I was most worried about our security system not working, chicken that I am :) Actually, I was most worried about trees. Then the alarm :) But thank goodness, we got our power back right before the kids went to bed so we never even had to break out the battery-operated noisemakers haha.
That night, I put Henry in Charlotte's room in a pack-in-play, because there is a huge pine tree behind the house that I was worried about. He went right to sleep, but Charlotte refused to sleep in the room because she said he "sucked his pointer finger too loud". I kid you not. Soooooooo, for the first time in her entire life…or for the first time since she was 4 months old, Charlotte slept in our room. And she slept in our bed for the first time ever!!! Craziness. Goes against everything we've ever done, and we always said we would never do it, but by about 9:30pm, I was really tired of trying to get her into her room, I was afraid she was going to wake Henry up, and my nerves were totally shot. So I caved. To be honest, while it would never be anything I allow regularly, I kind of enjoyed it…she was so peaceful the way she slept (I was awake, so I spent a lot of time looking at her), and unlike her daddy, she didn't try to steal my covers…and I liked hearing her soft, sweet little girl breathing. I was afraid that she would try to sleep in our bed every night after that, but thank goodness, she didn't even attempt it!
The next day, after a mostly sleepless night for me, we "awoke" to quite a bit of snow.
By the afternoon, when I felt the branch situation had stabilized, we went outside to build a snowman. It was funny, kind of, because there was like a 3' x 3' section where I would allow the kids where there was no possibility of anything falling on them, haha. Kind of like a snowy jail cell :)
I really wanted to get in there and help them make a good snowman (i.e., FIX it!), but I fought my desire and just let them go with it (hard for someone like me) :)
The result was the saddest little snowman I had ever seen! But they were so proud of him, and we even got daddy's scarf so Frosty "wouldn't get cold" :)
Frosty is so pathetic he's cute, right?
You can see some of the tree damage out of the window…scary stuff
The next day the winds were still really strong, so I kept Henry in Charlotte's room for his nap. She once again didn't want to sleep with him, so I told her she could nap on the couch, thinking there was no way that would happen. But she actually took a 2 hour nap right there, as I sat on the other couch watching TV and cooked in the kitchen and everything! Lots of firsts this week :)
Daddy came home at the end of the week, and we celebrated his birthday a few days late. I had ordered a cake mold, with some cute little umbrellas and stuff for Jon's birthday cake, but all of my deliveries were delayed because of the storm. So we had to improvise. Here is daddy's pathetic surfboard cake :)
But it was yummy! Henry kept on eating and nodding his head, and then labeling everyone's cake…"Henny's cake, mommy's cake, shadi's cake, daddy's cake".
Happy 33rd Birthday Jonathan!!!
Charlotte enjoying daddy's cake :)
This is how the kids like to watch TV now…drives me nuts, haha
One day Kurt was here measuring for window treatments, so of course the kids had to get in on the action...
…such a little helper!
Love his little squat :)
That Saturday, Charlotte and I went to Home Goods to get some stuff for the house…she saw this chair, and said "I think Poppy would love this chair…we should get it for him!" :)
Before we got stools, this is where they would like to eat their snacks :)
And this is where Henry likes to hide (although I put the kibosh on that!)
On Nov. 13th, only a few weeks late thanks to the insane weather, Charlotte finally had her Halloween party at school!!! Here she is in her Cinderella costume walking to school :)
Funny that they had their Thanksgiving party just a few days later :)
Okay, that is all for now…more soon! :)
Xoxoxo
l
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