Alana's new haircut

I lost my guest room

As this photo shows, Matt is all settled into his new lair (previously known as, my guest room). Kids today have so much stuff (I certainly didn't have my own TV, computer, printer). But we found a place for everything (luckily there's a large closet in this room).

In this photo, Alana is watching him play his new video game, God of War (don't ask).

Bonus - I didn't realize that I'd also captured Roxy in one of her favorite activities - shredding Kleenex from the waste basket.

Alana at the beach

Caleb is hanging with the grandparents this week.


It was such a beautiful day today that Alana and I went to Oneida Shores when I picked her up from school.

We almost had the place to ourselves when we got there just after 5 o'clock, but the weather was perfect. We played in the water, collected shells and feathers and then used them to decorate our sand castle. Bliss.

Walk in a rainy park

It poured rain this afternoon but when it let up, we took Roxy to Clay Central Park. These photos aren't good but it was too fun not to share.

This week's flowers

College bound!

Larry and Matt are in New Haven, CT today, visiting a college that Matt is interested in b/c they recently started an undergrad foresic science program:

http://www.newhaven.edu/

Larry reports that New Haven is a pretty unattractive area (a couple levels down from New Brunswick, in his words), but apparently that's not a deal breaker for Matt. It's nice that they got a chance to take this road trip together (though it tooks hrs longer than expected to get there yesterday, due to a truck fire blocking traffic on the way there).

I'm in shock that August is winding down (it's really cooled off lately, especially at night, and feels like fall instead of summer), and Back to School is just around the corner - I got Caleb's school supply list for 2nd grade in the mail last week, so we're off to Office Max tomorrow.

Happy Birthday, Siri

Today, I took the kids to the zoo for the 40th birthday celebration of their elephant, Siri (yes, the same thing Tom Cruise named his daughter). We went with our friends Dawn and Nicole. Siri also paints, which is what she's doing in this photo.

Our local paper had a picture of Siri on Sunday which Alana was quite excited about. I also saw the story of the elephant birthday party on CNN Headline News on Sunday. Not too surprisingly, I couldn't see us in their coverage - there was only a slim chance, but how fun would that have been? I couldn't find that clip, but this is the one from our local news channel:

http://www.9wsyr.com/mediacenter/local.aspx?videoid=199764@video.wixt.com

Here's another photo from the zoo - the kids on a tiger sculpture ->






<- And Caleb posing as a penguin (all taken with my cell phone since I forgot the camera yet again).

This week's flowers

Back to the Van Buren Pool

Caleb swimming in the "big" pool and Alana in the baby pool.









<- Larry and the kids in the water.









Daddy tossing Alana ->



Matt and Alana picnicking.











Matt diving in.

More weekend photos

Caleb said his back hurt so Alana is giving him a massage with her feet (!)



Below, the kids camping out on the bedroom floor.







Caleb and Alana jumping on Matt.

Another branch of the family tree

Since I have some photos of The Family, thought I'd add them. Here's my insanely sexy older sister, Lisa, with her roommate Cathy's miniature dog, Memphis.

And my gorgeous niece, Amy Danielle (yes, she's voguing).

And here's Amy earlier this year with my adorable nephew, Henry when he was about 3 months old (he's my brother Leo's son, not hers!)

Here's her brother (my nephew), Ian, with Caleb in February.

Van Buren Pool

Another perfect (weather) day here in central NY. We went out for breakfast at Larry's favorite diner, Stella's, and then took a walk along Onondaga Lake (the most polluted lake in America). Weirdly, a bee flew into Larry's sandal and stung him on the top of his foot. We rushed him home and he put ice on it and look some Benadryl. That put him out of commission, so I took the kids to a nearby (20 minutes away) Rec Dept pool that my neighbor Joanna had told me about.

It was lovely and the kids had a great time. The local YMCA is only 3 minutes away but they don't have a baby pool and Van Buren does - Alana can't touch the bottom in 3 ft deep, so she really prefers a baby pool to play in.

The pool has a nice snack bar, with a good selection and reasonable prices - after swimming, Alana enjoyed an ice cream sandwich.

I remembered the camera, but it died after the first photo (the batteries I hope), so again these (mediocre shots) are from my cell phone.

Back to the beach

We went to Oneida Shores today. It was a totally perfect day - the water was warm and the weather was ideal - sunny with a nice breeze.















Matt built a sand castle with a big moat, then Caleb helped him fill it with water (during a brief break from swimming).















Alana played in the sand most of the time, but got in the water with Caleb for awhile toward the end.



These photos are from my cell phone, since I forgot the camera yet again.