restarting

I always find January 1st such an arbitrary date for beginning the "new year" and even more so this year.  With semester "finals" coming up for the kids next week, semester endings for dance this week (including lots of observation days- stand by for lots of photos), and me finally being back on my thyroid medication and hopefully getting back to a state of normality, it neither feels like the end of an old year, nor the second week of a new.  It just is.

So in the spirit of that, here's some ballet photos of Kit and Ella's Monday class (for family).  But first, this is how my boy goes to class: A big thick tartan hoodie, stripy long shorts, midcalf socks and thongs.  Seriously.  I have learned not to make a fuss- the more of a fuss I make, the worse it gets.

( Ella is in the purple skirt.)

I wish I could have videoed Kit doing turns across the room.  As one grandparent said on the way out; "you know what you are doing, young man".

Weekending

A busy weekend with birthday parties for Kit and Ella (sleepover), and Metallica concert at Madison Square Gardens for Matt, Oscar and Remi. Kit and I had a very quiet evening.

Yesterday was WET and WINDY and awful really, but quite mild. Today SPECTACULAR and WARM! A perfect day for our first walk at The Cove for the season. I took Kit, Ella on her scooter and a very fat looking Honey who ate a whole bar of chocolate that Kit had brought home from his party last night. And yes, I know that much chocolate can kill a dog, but apart from having a VERY upset stomach and panting a lot today, she seems ok.

So I'll leave you with some photos from our walk. The light was gorgeous-wish I knew how to really capture it.
The dam that keeps our pond a pond is behind Ella and Honey. The tide was going out.

Looking across to Long Island (in the distance, distance)

Looking back towards our house. The water was so still and the reflections so amazing.

Loverly. Of course half the world was out there too. But it was a lovely way to spend a Sunday arfternoon.

Anything but.

Normal that is...

Today was Homecoming for Oscar. Now, even though we went through this last year, and we've lived in the US for 6 years, I had no idea what "homecoming" was all about until today. It's really totally self explanatory- the college students come home and the high school students put on a big hoo haa for them. That meant multiple trips up the the highschool today first with a poor tired, fresh back from a sleepless school trip to Boston last night, Remi for a game of soccer, then with Oscar and getting stuck in traffic prior to the homecoming parade.

Meanwhile back home we had this flooding:

You can't see the wall as it is totally covered. And this was once the tide had receeded somewhat. We've had it the last few days...it's the storm surge caused by the bottle neck of Long Island Sound as the storms come up from from the south. And while it's been really cold (November weather), the rain isn't due to hit until tonight (and then stay for a couple of days).

And then this afternoon we were lucky enough to see a performance by big Apple circus locally. Matt got free tickets for Kit, Ella, Mum and I. We got to have free face painting...

We also got to learn tricks with some clowns- I got totally addicted to trying to spin a plate on a stick. I did it once. SUCH fun! Kit and Ella want to go to circus summer camp...I wish I could too!

And we had fun watching the circus. Love the circus. Love watching the kids' faces while they are watching the circus.

And now I'd love to go to bed, but I'm waiting for a call from Oscar to go and pick him up from the Homecoming dance.

Not a normal day. But a really good day.

An unintentional blog break

Wow, this week really got away from me. Things are in full swing preparing for when Mum comes on Friday. I had the landlord come in and fix a few things this week, plus an electrician to put in lights and new power points up in the attic. Nothing like having people in and out of your house all week.

And because Mum will be sleeping in my studio, which kind of means I won't be able to use my studio for 3 weeks (how will I survive?) I was also having a last minute blitz. I began a quilt for my bed (finally). I have had this quilt in planning for a year at least. I bought some fabric and loved it so much that I planned a quilt around it. Japanese fabrics. I had been a bit daunted by it really-I just didn't know where to begin. And then I read about the quilt-as-you-go technique. This appealed to me immensely as I was also worried about quilting a king sized quilt on my ailing sewing machine. So this is it. It is very random and kind of "messy" but I love it. I love the colour palette and the variety of fabrics. I will be looking forward to getting back into it in a month.

I've also been painting some masks. Inspired by an article in Martha Stewart Living magazine. They were made with crepe paper, and while I was able to find the plain white masks no problem, crepe paper proved a little tricky. So we painted them. The cat mask was just perfect for Ella and she wears it all the time. So much fun to paint. We're now planning her Halloween costume...A cat of course-particularly pertinent this year as it coincides with her Warriors obsession.

I also painted this one...not sure if that's how it will stay (which is why it doesn't have elastic on it and is sitting on Matt's face funny). I do like the idea of turning it into a bird mask.

While I had the paints out, I jazzed up Kit and Ella's cork boards for them.

And finally finished painting their room so that I could put them up on the wall.

And with all that creativity out of my system (and new lights and proper electrical outlets) I was able to finish setting up Mum's room and make the attic nice for her...

Of course I didn't take any photos until today which is really rainy, which is why everything is dark.

No, Ella's not dead, just tired out from all the work I made her do...

Don't you love her puppet line???

And after all that hard work we needed a little creative therapy...so we made a "welcome Nanny" banner.

This week I'm carding wool and preparing for a spinning demonstration I'm doing on Saturday at the harvest festival the historical society is holding. I haven't spun for a while, so I want to have a bit of a practice and make sure everything is working. I think I'll be doing a bit of spinning and knitting for the next month...

The fruits of my labours

I am so lucky that these two are such good friends. Only 16 months apart, they spend a lot of time together, do a lot of activities together, and share a room.

Here they are on the first day of school.

This is their room now...after moving their beds and craming in a desk and two book cases.

It's a tight squeeze, but I'm so glad they both love reading and listening to their audio tapes-hence the need for the book cases.

{And something else I've been working on...Kit told me the other day that although he loves his quilt that I made last year, he feels it's a bit babyish. So I thought about it and came up with this solution...

Over the top of the "dragon's eggs" I put these big squares with snowboarding silhouettes. I made the silhouettes by printing them out, scanning them, making them bigger and then putting them under iron on webbing so I could trace around them. Then I ironed the webbing onto black fabric, cut out the silhouette and then ironed it onto white fabric. I did stitch around the shapes just to make sure they wouldn't come off over time. I had to make the boarders just to make sure the squares were big enough to cover the eggs underneath.}

And even though they have no room to play in their bedroom, they still have the landing and the attic. Which is good because they play such lovely games together. Their favourite at the moment is a game with playmobil cats and kittens (and other plastic cats) based on their favourite book series, Warriors. I love that they take the world they read about and make it real for them by encorporating it into their games.

Ballet photos

This is what I look out on every morning when I'm checking emails and reading blogs...my darling training for his 100 mile bike race in July.  It's a fund raiser for Cancer and he gets up every morning and rides for an hour.  Isn't he great!
Yesterday the kids had their photos for the ballet concert.  The concert itself is at the end of the month, but they like to have the photographer come in and do all the photos early.  It's a good excuse for the kids to dress up in their costumes.  For Kit, it's one of the few times a year when he has neat hair.
He takes it all very seriously.
Ella's costume is really sweet this year.  And the colour really suits her.
She said to me that she feels like a real dancer when her back is exposed like that.
Sweet.
So starting tomorrow night we have tech rehearsals and dress rehearsals for the next 2 weeks...but luckily for us this weekend is a long weekend for Memorial day (2 years ago I was in Norway).  And the weather the last 2 days has been glorious again...lets hope it holds up for the weekend.

oink

Kit and Ella had ANOTHER grading last night.  From orange to purple. They have really improved.  It was good to watch them.

They are also going to be doing a demonstration in the ballet/dance concert, so lots of training going on.

And of course, they got their new belts.

Other things going on-Remi's been sick since Sunday.  Cough, fevers, sore throat- not really sick, but enough to keep him home.  And I wouldn't be too concerned except that his school (his grade) has announced their first case of swine flu.  I took him to the doctor today who didn't seem too concerned either, but wants me to keep him home until Friday.  Unless he gets worse. And it's 7:40 pm and he's taken himself off to bed, so I guess he's not getting better.  And Kit and Ella came home with a note saying there's been a case of whooping cough at their school.  JOY. Hopefully we can dodge all the serious stuff.

The photos

Matt with Mary and me

Matt and I at the table

This is all of us: A Danish couple, A Norwegian couple, A Norwegian/Iranian couple (he speaks Norwegian too), An Aussie/Norwegian couple, and Matt and I, a couple of Aussies, with Mary.

Our pit stop in the Bronx.

Frederick giving his speech

A close up of him...can you see his crutches?

Mary's dress with the long train that everyone kept treading on...it actually got ripped at one stage and she said to me "I'll have to have that mended".

Matt, Mary and I-she's unbelievably skinny, totally felt like a whale next to her.

Mary and I having talking (our whole table was determined to get into the photo)

I was calling to Flemming to get in the photo

Our Van on the way home...