Family

Columbus Day & Cousins

Sarah Family, Holidays

We went to my great aunt & uncle’s house today for a cook-out since the kids had off from school.  They live on a small, mostly retired farm, next door to another great uncle who cares for a retired race horse.

The girls had a good time playing with their little cousins and feeding Brownie!

Lots of little cousins in sunhats!
The sunbonnet isn't doing much good there!
Brownie likes grass just as much as apples.

 

Family Puzzles

Sarah Family

I found the best puzzles ever in the toy store by our dance studio.  Family puzzles!  I adore complicated puzzles, and used to have thousand piece puzzles in progress on the dining room table all the time…pre-kids, of course!

An appropriately seasonal puzzle!

So, these puzzles only have 400 pieces.  But some pieces are big, some medium and some tiny.  Basically, Anna-sized, Carolyn-sized and Mommy-sized pieces!

Time to sort the pieces...
...sorted by size and ready to go!

It didn’t take too long to put it all together – we started it yesterday after school – but the best part was that everyone could work on it without frustration.  We’re definitely going to need to get more of these!

All done!

Mini Family Reunion

Sarah Family

We went to Ithaca today to celebrate my cousin’s college graduation.  It’s unfortunate that this side of my family is a bit scattered across the state, so we don’t tend to gather as often as we’d all like.  But everyone was there today, and we all enjoyed catching up!

Say, "cheese!"

More pictures from the day are on flickr, including this great one my dad took of me and Anna:

Anna & Mommy on the deck.

There and Back Again

Sarah Family, Travel

We made a quick trip this weekend to NYC.  Our first trip with Anna out of diapers…let’s just say, I would be happy to never see the inside of a rest stop bathroom again!  The purpose of our visit?  To surprise Poppy for his birthday, of course!

Happy Birthday, Poppy!

It was fun to get all the cousins together again – it happens so rarely, everyone seems to grow many inches in between visits.  (Shhh, don’t tell anyone – I think my eldest niece is very nearly as tall as I am…)  The girls had so much fun playing with their cousins, and were very sad to have to leave.

Giggles and Grins

Now we’re home again, with two rather grumpy children who have sat in the car  for far too many hours in the past three days.  Hopefully everyone will get a reasonable amount of sleep tonight!

Mother’s Day

Sarah Family, Holidays

We woke up to snow (!) and some minor tree damage from the wind storm last night, and decided to ignore the downed limbs and head to Ithaca as planned.

Anna is finally old enough that I don’t have to be shadowing her every second in other people’s houses, and Denis took over most of the kid duties today to give me the day off anyway. So I got some knitting done with my mom, and visited with my grandparents, and it was an all-around nice way to spend the day.

Unfortunately, the kids were kind of not-so-well-behaved at Friendly’s on the way home…I’m glad we don’t live in Geneva. Hopefully they’ll forget about us before we’re back there again…