curious hennie

last sunday, hennie and i walked over to the local theater at Prospect Park to see the first showing of the new animated Curious George movie. she was so excited and we had a great time the whole time.

i'm going to try to make time to do something like this every weekend - movie, dance, theater, art, museum or whatever we can find. hege needs a break to spend time with Mette, and hennie and I can easily enjoy ourselves and feel like we're both sneaking away from home!

bedtime

you can read these in sequence. its our bedtime reading - with Hennie deciding to lead, and Mette getting restless.

sunset park

The day after the storm hit we got out early and headed to the closest sledding site - Sunset Park, about 8 blocks south on 5th avenue. Here we're waiting on the bus

pulling hennie to get up some speed


end of a run


we didn't stay too long because we had a lot of work to do, but we quickly worked up to a hot chocolate break

its a beautiful view, smog notwithstanding. one of the highest places around - you get a great panorama of new york harbor, the statue of liberty, downtown manhattan and, of course, a lot brooklyn in between.

snowstorm

The snowstorm hit as scheduled on Saturday night and we woke up to a blizzard of cottonballs. The girls were bouncing off the walls to go outside, so Hege took them out immediately into the backyard while I worked upstairs. The first two pics are our backyard. Mette was quickly overwhelmed, so they didn't get to stay out long.

Later that afternoon, Hennie and I went out to followup on some fundraising for her Preschool Co-op. The 27" record snowfall was pretty much down at that point so literally plowed thru it for about 4 hours, walking 30 blocks one way and about half that back (we hopped on the subway since it had gotten dark). Hennie was amazing - the snow was up to her waist much of time, and she insisted on going right thru the middle of it - laughing and chatting the whole time. I held her only for about 2 blocks. We stopped once for hot chocolate and croissants, and once more for hot sake (me) and a fried bannana w/ coconut ice cream (1/2 me). Even though we got almost nothing accomplished in regards to the fundraising, it was a wonderful day to spend with her; talking and laughing and rolling around in the amazing snow. We all slept hard that night.

pigtails

Waiting for the snowstorm to hit with a day of pigtails. Hennie eventually had about 5, but we didn't get a pic.

staying in

preparing to go out

2nd 4th (Perch party)

We had hennie's birthday party on January 15th at Perch. It was a joint effort with Yuna, another mother from Chickpeas, who happens to be helping Deidre with the cafe. Her son, Sam, was also turning 4 and since they have a lot of overlapping friends via Chickpeas, it made a lot of sense to combine them. Yuna did the bulk of the work - and it was a really happy evening for the kids and the parents.



Deirdre provided pizza, juice, & snacks.


Hennie & Zora


Sophia & Hennie


Sammie - he was building a rocket ship out of crayons


Mia - Yuna's youngest child.

and this is William (with a friend), Yuna's oldest. Her husband is a military journalist, stationed in Korea. We've never met him.

Phoebe from Chickpeas. She's always got this wry, twinkle-in-the-eye air about her. Every day I drop Hennie off, Phoebe is eating her breakfast: a link sausage and a round waffle. She tends to wrap the sausage. I've laughed about it so often and, on the few times I've missed catching her eating, asked her to confirm the breakfast - she gives a smug little grin when she sees me coming. I think she finds me puzzling or maybe I just amuse her. Hard to tell. Phoebe has a lot on her mind.

Kai - Deidre's youngest son.


Owen - Deidre's oldest.

This was the puppeteer that Yuna found and hired. He composed a story especially for Sam & Hennie and performed a shadow play for them. Unfortunately, most of the kids weren't able to maintain attention (the show was too long for that age group), but it was a great idea and a first impression that the parents found entertaining.

Mette had a blast too - running around like a pinball.


Hennie had a great day and got way way too many presents.


on the bus home to open the presents and head to bed.

ballet

Hennie started a local ballet class called Kinderdance. It just opened 3 blocks down from our house, which is perfect. These were taken the first day, when I took both girls (Mette is too young, so we sat together in the back and watched).

The teacher lives a couple streets behind us on the same block and the class is held in a small rental hall. So its not a dance studio with barre, but its fine for the introductory class. She goes for an hour every Saturday.

First Position

Mette was facinated and watched intently. She was extremely well behaved - I was surprised.

The class is actually Movement / Ballet / Tap, in that order. None of us knew that the first day until it was time to change into tap shoes. Hennie felt so awkward and embarrassed that she didn't have any that she ran to me and cried and wouldn't let me put her down. It was kind of heartbreaking, but we all 3 sat together and drew and watched while I talked quietly with her about it. She was at first certain that she didn't want to come back because it wasn't 'just ballet', but she pretty quickly fell in love the thought of a second pair of extraordinary shoes...

This Many

These are out of sequence. The morning of Hennie's birthday we opened a few presents to tide her over, and then had a small family party, with David, that night after work. The cupcake things are from the evening. The crazy hair and pajama'd Mette are from the morning. Her age, however, remains relatively constant.

These are from Chickpeas in the morning. I took her to school and we stopped at a pastry shop and picked up muffins for everyone. Hege met us there after dropping off Mette and set up the tables and juice for the party. I had to leave for work, but Hege stayed and read a book to the class. Hennie got to sit next to her while she read, a birthday tradition there, and Hege said she was beaming and proud.

Hennie & Bishop