Love Birds

Cristina came from North Carolina to visit for New Years.

Sledding

We went sledding both Saturday and today - it was fairly warm (in the 40s on Saturday and into the 50s today), but we had a lot of snow leftover from the last couple of weeks, so the sledding was perfect.

We went to Clay Central Park on Saturday and Centerville Park on Sunday. These photos are from Sunday (and from my cell phone, so the quality is poor).

Alana didn't want to go on Saturday - she was busy playing dress up, but once we got there, she was totally enthusiastic and it was hard to get her to leave when Caleb was ready to go!

Side note: it rained all afternoon and evening on Sunday and now the snow is almost completely gone!

4 feet so far this year!

I came across this while looking for something else - the Golden Snowball Award website (an annual contest among 5 NY cities). Notice that we're 40 inches ahead of last year and double the average! 52 inches sounds like a lot of snow!

http://goldensnowball.com/2007/02/buffalo-and-rochesters-snow-season.html

Syracuse
This Season - 52.2
Normal Average to Date - 23.9
Normal Seasons Average - 111.9
Last Season This Date - 10.9

This is fun too - the average snowfall rankings for cities with a population over 100,000:

http://www.buffalonian.com/history/articles/1951-now/2001snowstorm/SnowfallinMajorusCities.html

Venn diagram

This is the coolest - Caleb had to make a venn diagram at school to show the similarities and differences between Christmas and Hanukkah.

Alana's school party

I left work early to attend the Xmas party at Alana's daycare center. She got a book called "Snow" (which is perfect b/c she loves snow) and she and her school mates sang Rudolf and Jingle Bells. It was totally adorable, of course. These photos are poor b/c I took them with my cell phone, but at least the cuteness was documented.

Alana makes an entrance

My brother and his wife sent Alana this adorable curtain, called "Make an Entrance," from the catalog HearthSong. Alana loves it and ran off to put on her Tinkerbell costume, the dress up outfit that she thought best coordinated with the curtain. She was a lot happier than she looks in this photo.

TRH Watertown First Annual Holiday Dinner

After having to postpone the TRH NY Region dinner on Sunday in Skaneateles, we were delighted that the weather was fine tonight (though it started snowing on our way home! The dinner at Sacketts Harbor Brewing Company

http://www.1812ale.com/

was very nice and we ate like piggies. And big bonus: though Larry's restaurant was going to pay, Steve Flynn, the owner of the place, picked up our entire tab ($400) - quite a pleasant surprise.

(I looked great that night, but for some reason, took a terrible photo.)

How much snow did we get anyway?

Once again, people from outside the area are asking me how much snow we got in the last protracted (and much ballyhooed) snow storm, but honestly, I'm not absolutely sure - I always hear how much snow we're expecting, but almost never how much we actually got. It's kinda weird. And I've never found a website that reports snowfall, though I've looked several times (and I'm sure there must be one!) Best as I can tell we got 11 inches over the weekend (though I also heard 17, but it doesn't look like that much).

Snow day cooking extravaganza

We were snowed in today, though the weather was not as bad as predicted. I made delicious beef stew and used my bread machine for the first time. The result was good, but a bit disappointing, only because my expectations had be very built up. The machine worked very well - so fast and so easy. I want to try many other recipes. The mix I used, from The Gluten Free Pantry (an excellent company), was a bit boring - I would add some herbs or other flavoring next time.

Gourmet birdfood

Today I made bird food from the recipe of my childhood employer, Miss Foster. She was known in my hometown as "The Bird Lady" - she had extensive backyard feeders and people from the area brought her hurt birds as she was very knowledgeable about helping them. She had developed her interests while bedridden for many months and had turned her interest into a serious vocation. She hired local kids like myself to help with the yard maintenance and we all learned a lot about birds from her. She was a tough old bird herself and quite the curmudgeonly character, but I'll always be really grateful for the experience.

Anyway, the recipe: melt 1 cup bacon fat (or other kitchen drippings) over low heat, stir in 1 cup oatmeal, and then add two cups finely crushed bread crumbs. Serve to birds in a large bowl that won't tip over. Optional: stir in half a cup cracked corn.

Your yard will be full of grateful birds!

Another perfect spelling test

Snow = Slow

You can see in this photo (that I took outside our house in the murky hours of the early morning) that we didn't get much snow, but it came at just the wrong time (in the afternoon yesterday). It took me over an hour to get home last night, which is twice as long as usual. But the weatherman says this is a dusting compared to the "blizzard" expected this weekend (coming across from Texas, of all places) - they're predicting a *foot* of snow on Sunday.

Forecast: SNOW

It's snowing like MAD here - someone said an inch an hour (though this picture taken out my office window doesn't really show how fast it's coming down - they're predicting at least 6 inches, maybe up to 10, by the time it stops tonight). Schools let out early - thank goodness for Matt (he'll be home when Caleb gets there). Not sure I'll stay at work 'til the bitter end - I have to see how things go in the next hour or so. Larry took an overnight bag with him to work - it's not bad up there, but they get a lot of snow in between Watertown and Syracuse - during the last snow storm, they shut down Hwy 81. I hope he gets home, but if not, oh well.

Resident goy makes latkes

This is actually the second time Matt cooked the latkes (but I forgot to get photographic proof the first time). For his dedication he was rewarded by being splattered with oil directly in his right eye about half way through the batch, which obviously cut his ministrations short. (This is our friend's kitchen, not mine.)

Alana's show and tell

For Show and Tell this week at Alana's preschool, she brought a menorah and dreidel and talked about Hanukkah. The daily report form said she did a good job.

Hanukkah gift orgy

We saved up many presents for this, the third night of Hanukkah, b/c it's the first night that Larry was home.

We opened all the presents from Gma Bobbie and Gpa Burt, and Aunt Beth and Uncle Lee, and we opened all our "big presents" - a Wii game system for Caleb and an iPod for Matt.

Alana got a Little Pet Shop play set from Grandma and Grandpa, Daddy got Guitar Hero Encore - Rock the 80s and Mommy got her own personal bread machine so she can bake GF bread at home. Everyone loved their gifts!

The second night of Hanukkah

Finally took some photos of our Hanukkah celebration:

Everyone playing dreidel with Hanukkah gelt (chocolate coins).

Alana and Caleb playing with Hanukkah finger puppets. =>

Caleb with the very patriotic color scheme he picked out for the second night candles.

More snow

It's snowing like mad this afternoon - this is a shot of my building from the outside.

Snow day

We got about a foot of snow between Monday evening and Tuesday! I ended up staying home with the kids, though Matt was home, just b/c the roads were bad and I didn't want to struggle to get to work, with more snow on the way.

The afternoon was nice though. We took Roxy to the park, though didn't stay long as it was COLD - the boys had a snowball fight of course. Then we got some lunch and went to the library and video store.

I made beef stew for dinner (Matt and Larry loved it, but Caleb and Alana, not so much). Then we had our first night of Hanukkah celebration, though of course I forgot to take any photos. It was fun! Yummy latkes, then we lit candles and played dreidel and then opened a few gifts. The kids loved the (cheap!) toys I got for them - knights for Caleb and a little stuffed horse for Alana.

Larry on TV!

Imagine my surprise when watching the snowy weather debacle unfold on the local news channel I happened to catch my husband (!) being interviewed (briefly) for a piece on TRH (and some other Watertown businesses) helping out soldiers at Ft Drum. I kept the channel on and when the story cycled through again I called the kids to watch. They were all THRILLED to see Daddy on TV!

If you go to the site, you can read the text of the story, or you can click on a link and watch the clip (it's maybe 1 minute):

http://news10now.com/content/all_news/watertownnorth_country/?rID=128566&SecID=90

This is the email Larry got from his boss, Jerry:

We have another TV star – Larry @ Team Watertown.
Great community message- click on the link below!

Businesses helping wounded soldiers
News 10 Now - Syracuse, NY, USA

Snowy Monday

Very little snow so far today - this is the view out my office window. No affect on the local schools this morning - it was icy, but nothing too treacherous. It's snowing now (you can't really tell in the photo), but we're not expecting much accumulation today. Now tonight, that's another story - they're calling for 5 - 8 inches! We'll see what it's like in tomorrow morning.

Hanukkah program

This is Alana (in the dark dress), dancing like a dreidel, at the synagogue toddler program this morning.

Guitar Hero

Matt and Larry split the cost of this hot new video game, and everyone has gotten into the action. Here's Caleb jamming out to Ghost in the Machine.

Proud builder

Alana put together this Tinkertoy contraption at our friend Jake's house (it's a bad photo, taken with my cell phone, but she looks so pleased with herself).

Trip to the zoo

It was a beautiful day, after a cold and snowy Thanksgiving, so we met our friends Geo and Nicole (and their mom, Dawn) at the zoo for a frolicsome afternoon. This is all four kids peeking out of the penguin cutout (left to right: Caleb, Nicole, Alana, Geo).

Tea Party

This is not Alana's first tea party, but it's the first tea party where I made real food. Such sweet memories - tea parties were one of my favorite childhood activities!

Icy time

We had a wonderful walk in the park today, but the kids were good and ready to head home to hot chocolate by the end because they spent the first 15 minutes at the park smashing the ice in this puddle. (Alana is in her brand new coat that we bought at Burlington Coat Factory yesterday afternoon.)

Battleship play

After a long walk at the park, we vegged out most of the day. Among other things, Caleb set up a bunch of soldiers on this battleship (he took this photo himself).

Thanksgiving

Burt and Bobbie weren't able to make it - Burt is coughing like a mad man and is taking antibiotics again - the trip is just too much. Such a shame, though Larry's Right Hand Man, Tom, and his wife and 3 children came. It was a great success, as the children played really well together and the adults were able to visit. The meal was a success as well (my first ever full-hostessing of the event), though I would tweak several things if I could - the turkey was quite tasteless, which surprised me, since we stuffed it with onions and garlic and spread garlic and several other spices on top (next year I may try brining overnight), and even though we used a roaster bag, it was dry on one side (boo hiss!) The mashed potatoes tasted good, but I should have mashed them more (they were quite lumpy). The (Stovetop) stuffing and store-bought gravy were less than satisfying, no surprise there - I should have gotten Pepperidge Farms! The pecan pie was gorgeous (Jeannie's recipe), but could have used 5 more minutes in the oven. The wild rice stuffing that I made from scratch was wonderful, but the wild rice was crunchy - not the texture that I had expected (I would make it again, but partially precook the wild rice).

The major triumph was that I really timed everything perfectly - everything that was supposed to be hot was hot when we sat down to eat. Also, I made cranberry sauce from scratch for the first time and it came out really well (next time I would dress it up with some orange peel or chopped pecans or something). There were plenty of leftovers (we sent some home with Tom and his gang) and I made soup with the turkey carcass, so that felt like a triumph too.

Alana was especially excited about Thanksgiving this year and had said several times in the days leading up to it how much she loves eating turkey (not sure why, since I don't think we've had any since last year, which she surely doesn't remember).

Caleb said the sweetest stuff that he was thankful for - only his family and not his toys or anything ("that stuff doesn't matter") - I almost cried.

Larry is suddenly fixated on Turducken for some reason and when Leo called in the morning to say "hi," what do you think he'd just made? Turducken! He ended up talking with Larry so I never got the story of why, but it did seem a freaky coincidence. Larry had a huge turkey banquet at TRH on Wednesday, with contributions from all the staff. They deep fried a turkey and all agreed that it was fantastic (crispy outside, juicy inside). Larry is determined to deep fry ours next year!

BD earrings

I got some money for my birthday and ordered a bunch of new earrings online, to go with my longer hair. The blue rectangles are little books. These all came from two sites: Ten Thousand Villages (a fair trade site) and The Greater Good Network (which donates profits to various charities, including breast cancer research).

Brrr!

From the "It's Always Something" file - overnight Saturday, our furnace died. The ironic thing is, we're just waiting for the approval of our home equity loan to get a new furnace and do some other winterizing.

We had a repairman come in on Sunday. He said the circuit board died, but because it's an older model, he doesn't have the part and has to order it.

Fortunately, we have electric heat in the master bedroom and Matt's bedroom (left over from when the house was first built - the gas heat was added about 5 years later). The kids slept on the floor of our room and we closed the doors of the other two bedrooms.

It could be worse - it's only seasonably cold right now - 30s overnight and 40s during the day - nothing like the frigid temps we'll get later in the winter. I was worried about how cold the house would be in the morning, but the thermostat read 54 degrees when I got up, so there's either some residual heat coming from the furnace, or just lingering heat in the house.

Larry spoke to the new furnace people today, and they said they can come first thing Tuesday morning. So we're not going to bother getting the old furnace fixed - we'll just huddle under blankets tonight and be grateful that we'll have heat the next day.

Snowy walk

It snowed a bit more overnight and it was so freakin' gorgeous in the park, it almost made me cry - just enough snow to cover everything with a light, fluffy white blanket. Roxy ran around all over, and went nuts when a squirrel ran across the path in front of us - I think it was the highlight of her life so far.

Snow!

Our second snow of the winter. It was snowing like mad when I was coming to work, but it's done now and there seems to be only a solid dusting on grass and rooftops. This is the view out my office window (that's the helipad in the very upper right corner).

The Horror, The Horror

I was just trying to get Alana out of a fussy mood, so I let her help me pump gas (she loves to help). I wasn't paying enough attention, and when she pulled back slightly on the pump handle, the gas shot out of the tank opening, spraying her full in the face. It was so awful. I rushed her inside and flushed her eyes. She was fine, but we all got a fright (even the other people pumping gas came over to see if she was O.K.) She was upset b/c she thought she had been bad, but I assured her that it was totally my fault. The smell is lingering in my car, but that would be a small price to pay as long as Alana recovers.

Ugh!

Worst stomach day in a long time - something I ate, of course, though it's hard to know what. The only meals that aren't suspects are breakfast on Saturday (b/c I made that myself) and lunch at Rice on Saturday (where I ordered from the GF menu). It's (almost) worth it though!

Family time

Stopped at the Crayola Museum in Easton, PA on our way back to Syracuse where everyone had a good ole time.

New York, New York

A town so nice, they named it twice.

I really enjoyed my trip to NYC, but the stagehand strike shuttered most of the B'way theaters, so we saw Cirque du Soleil at Madison Square Garden - fun, but not the same. The kids would have loved the show, which was specifically designed for families, but I found it rather underwhelming after seeing Cirque du Soleil on TV and knowing what they're capable of. Oh well.

I had wonderful lunch at Rice off Houston St (the rice-infused green tea was incredible and the Porteguese soup totally hit the spot). After the show, my friend Terri (who came in from Houston) and her friend Amy (who lives in Brooklyn) and I had dinner at Marseille on 9th Ave. Unfortunately, despite what I'd heard, they did not have a GF menu, nor any particular interest in accomodating me - the chef said the only thing that he could guarantee was GF was the salmon, which I don't much care for. They did have a very reasonably priced Prix Fixe menu - three courses for $35. I ordered the delicious "Tunisian chicken," and had a mocha parfait for dessert, along with some excellent capaccino, but the highlight was the roasted hazelnuts on the endive salad, which were almost as good as the tea I had earlier. Eating in NYC is the point anyway, right?!

I also really enjoyed walking around the city, which I used to do a lot when I lived in NJ, but haven't done in years. The weather was better than I had expected (the rain cleared out and it was fairly mild), which made it especially pleasant. This guy drumming on buckets, one of several street performers I saw, was quite good.

Another triumph - Matt was very impressed with Pace University and it's moved to the top of the college list (and so reasonably priced at just $40K a year). Larry and Matt had a splendid feast in Little Italy before heading back to NJ.

It's my birthday!

The month of October went by so quickly that I'm rather stunned to find that it's November and today I turn 45 years young. Now that sounds just ridiculous - how can I be that old? But time marches on, and mostly I just count and count and count my many blessings!

SNOW!

We got the tiniest dusting overnight - the first snow of the season (Alana is SO excited). This morning the kids' Halloween pumpkins look like they've been frosted.