Hanukkah started mid-December this year. Perfect timing if you ask me…while Hanukkah is certainly going to fall when it does based on the Jewish calendar and not my personal desires, I really do enjoy when it is not too early in December but not too late either. Too early means I generally haven’t gotten my plan coordinated with Christmas gifts just yet and too late in December causes overlap with Christmas and I find we are rushing through the two.
The first night this year was December 12, which was also my mom’s birthday. We went over to my parents house – my mom cooked a brisket, potato latkes, and asparagus. Despite the fact that Avery, Emerson, and Harper ate none of it, it was delicious…my mom’s brisket is excellent and last week it was especially tender and cooked to perfection. We had a chocolate mouse cake from Cenans for dessert! My parents finally took me up on my idea to follow in the steps of my maternal grandparents Adele and Sol and give money in envelopes to the girls each night. The first night started off small (a quarter) and then doubles each night. My parents also got them each one gift that they opened the first night that they had previously requested. Avery got a Baby Alive Doll, Emerson the game “Pop The Pig”, and Harper sunglasses. They also received a few other smaller gifts some nights from my parents but overall much smaller scale than in years past due to the money gift each night. This was by far my preference as the girls really didn’t need or even want much.
On the fifth night, I realized we had yet to take any pictures. So we attempted. Seriously, I wish I could say these were a joke! The girls are not a fan of taking pictures together. Emerson especially….stone face everytime when the camera comes out!
On the seventh night, one of the other gifts the girls received from my mom was a coupon for a day out with grandma. Each of the girls wrote on the coupon what they want to do with grandma. They were all three thrilled about this gift as they all love their one-on-one time. Justin and I loved this gift idea as well as we value experiences significantly more than things, especially random things. I absolutely love how Avery and Emerson are sounding out their words. Emerson’s says “Spend the day and sleep over on the weekend. Eat ice cream with movies “Sing”. Read a book to you. Go to the mall.” Emerson believes hers requires two days with grandma.
Some of Avery’s are especially awesome. Avery’s says “We will have a fun day. A sleep over. Go to Dairy Queen. Go out to dinner and out to lunch. Watch a movie with ice cream. Go to Washington DC. Go to the toy store. Great Falls. Go to Ledos. Go to Grandma Adele’s. Go to the mall”. Avery believes she needs about 6 weeks for her special time!
Harper wrote the word grandma and I’m so impressed with how well she is doing with her letters. Harper wants Grandma to pick her up from school, followed by ice cream, the movie SING, the mall, and then a sleepover! 
Seriously, I LOVE these! On the last night of Hanukkah, I thought we would try for a few more pictures. It was still pulling teeth, but the outcome was slightly better!
My parents stopped bye for the last night. For the eighth night, my dad deviated from doubling the money from the seventh night. He gave them each a $100 bill and wanted to see their reaction. Not surprisingly, their reaction was probably a let down. I don’t think they truly understand the concept of a dollar or the value of money….thus another reason that I LOVED the money each night from grandma and grandpa. Each night we turned it into a little math lesson! Not only that, but I can remember one Hanukkah gift I got from my parents as a kid (and I’m pretty sure I received one every night) but I have such vivid memories of opening up the Hanukkah money that doubled each night from Adele and Sol. In fact, if my memory serves me correctly, they actually folded the money up tightly in loose leaf paper.
Anyway, until next year Hanukkah…and speaking of next year, we made a promise to the girls to do some dreidel games next year and indulge in some jelly donuts (since they don’t like latkes)!
Nevis came to visit us again Monday morning, the morning after we put our Christmas tree up. He marked his territory by plopping himself on the tree as he has done for his arrival the past 4 years. He has gone back to the North Pole and returned each morning for the past two nights now. Avery and Harper made themselves crowns to wear Sunday afternoon and Harper had an idea to make Nevis his own crown. We left it on the coffee table and Tuesday morning when Nevis showed up in the kitchen cabinet, Nevis was wearing his crown….it was magical. In the mornings, the girls are no longer pre-occupied with wanting to sleep more, wanting to delay getting dressed, or anything other than wanting to see where Nevis went. Hearing the pitter patter of feet running down the stairs and around the house with their anticipation of Nevis’s silly antics and the deep gasps and belly laughs of where Nevis has planted himself for the day bring pure joy to my heart. Harper, Avery, AND even Emerson believe in the magic of Christmas.
Ever since we did family pictures two years ago, I knew I wanted to do them again…not necessarily annually, but not too much longer of a time lapse than that. We liked Bridgette and her pictures from two years ago, but they were very expensive and this time around I really wanted pictures of the whole session for a much smaller price. After looking around for honestly six months, I finally found a photographer that I liked and Justin liked. We booked her in June for our October session! Our session was a set fee for 25-30 edited images. She ended up giving us closer to 70 images! I don’t think she was as talented as Bridgette yet I am quite happy with the end results we got in terms of the number of images and the price. I don’t think she really captured Avery or Emerson’s true personality. Emerson is difficult to photograph period; however, Bridgette managed to connect with her and bring out her personality, where as Allison did not. Avery was also wearing a new pair of glasses and the tint was a little lighter than normal which didn’t make for an apple to apples comparison from the last time either…although that had nothing to do with her deep belly laugh personality not really emerging during the session. Anyway, after thinking about this session for what seemed like eternity since we booked it months in advance, I was so happy when we were done in a sense…I had spent more time than I should probably admit deciding on the location, outfits, and spent the day of the pictures afraid to move since I didn’t want my hair that I had gotten done early in the day to get messed up! With all that said, here are the pictures from our session!
JASMINE
ELSA
The princess pact.
Ariel, Jasmine, and Elsa meet a black cat.
And a chick from the 70’s with an afro. 
The girls had a great time trick-or-treating. My sister was traveling for work and was able to trick-or-treat with us this year! We went all the way up Hillington this year and the girls got more candy than in year’s past…so much that my sister and I took turns holding their pumpkins as they became fuller. Elsa even wore her high heels the entire time! Quite the princess! And everyone had so much fun that the fact that the girls forgot to wear their tiaras wasn’t realized by me until the end of the night and wasn’t realized by the girls until several days later.
The Tooth Fairy came to visit Avery! She lost her first tooth!! Her two bottom teeth were loose…one on the verge of falling out with her adult tooth coming in behind it. So when we were out Saturday night and she came running home from the Gladwells (during the ten minutes I had run home with Harper) with Justin because her tooth had just fallen out, I thought for sure it was the looser of the two teeth. Turns out it was not…and it had fallen out when she ran into a pillow…yes, a pillow…a hard one apparently! She was visibly upset at first but as the hour passed by, she was pretty proud of her accomplishment!
Sunday afternoon we had planned on going to a farm with a pumpkin patch, apple orchard, and petting zoo. When the weather was raining in the morning, we almost scratched that idea and went to the local Reston Farmer’s Market. Miraculously, the sun came out and the forecast said it was going to get up to 80 degrees so we decided to stick with our original plan and go to Homestead Farms in Maryland. It was a huge place with a large orchard, a petting zoo (including goats who walked above ground), a lake, a pumpkin patch, a tractor for hayrides, a general store, and a market. It really was a great place. Our experience wasn’t as carefree and appreciated as much as it should have or could have been. Emerson wasn’t impressed from the moment we got out of the car despite the fact that she could barely see the farms offerings from that vantage point and distance. We had to backtrack after being in the farm all the way out to the last row of the parking lot to get a wheelbarrow for our apples and pumpkins. It became hot…very HOT as in 90 degree hot very quickly and that isn’t something that was anticipated in mid-October! Then when we got deep into the orchard, Avery had to go to the bathroom and claimed she couldn’t hold it. Apple picking was over for Avery and me. Meanwhile on the way back to the porter potty (yes, I went in one a total of four times while we were there), the shoes I was wearing gave me the WORST blisters. I could barely walk. Finally, when Justin got back the girls picked out some pumpkins but I truly don’t think any of us were into it. While Justin was waiting in line to pay, I shopped in the market and got all my fresh vegetables for the week (kale, green peppers, poblano peppers, cherry tomatoes, orange tomatoes, sweet potatoes, green beans…oh yeah, and some snacks for the girls). Homestead Farms had the potential to be great, but unfortunately our attitudes took the amazing experience factor down slightly.
The girls experienced a NY hot dog! 
Then we leisurely strolled around the lake coming out by the Boat House and then walking through Central Park Zoo. I thought maybe we would go in, but that was before I realized it wasn’t a free zoo. We then made our way back towards the hotel stopping in Bloomingdales along the way for a bathroom break and then at Serendipity, where I thought the girls would get a kick out of having a massively beautiful milkshake, but apparently I wasn’t the only one with that same idea. It was 4:30 so I thought with the off time we would get in, but the amount of people waiting was so abundant that I didn’t even bother asking what the wait time was. The girls were disappointed, I promised we would find the girls ice cream somewhere else but as you know when you are specifically looking for something is the only time you can’t find it! We arrived at our hotel before we found ice cream so again the promise of ice cream was made for later. We actually wanted to fill the girls up on dessert since the place we had dinner reservations at later in the evening was truly an indulgence for Justin and I with very little on the menu that would be appealing to the girls. Once we arrived back at the hotel, we checked in our room. We were told the happy hour started in 5 minutes so we quickly unpacked so we could partake in the “free” happy hour. We downed a few glasses of wine and nuts before we freshened up and headed to our dinner reservations. Our dinner reservations were at Tolache on W. 50th. It was perfect because we got a chance to walk through Rockefeller Center and by Radio City Music Hall.
Dinner was good but Justin and I certainly didn’t enjoy it as much as we would have had it been just the two of us. The staff didn’t appear to be too keen on the fact that three of the five persons in the reservations were kids. While it certainly wasn’t a kid restaurant, there were a few others who also had kids so the fact that our waiter really didn’t even make an attempt to connect with us, was disappointing. They rushed us out the door…in seriously in less than an hour, we were done with dinner. The food itself was great and Emerson loved the flank steak, rice and beans.
We then walked to Madison Avenue Park on 23rd and the girls had fun playing on the playground.
After the girls played for a few, we headed to South Seaport. The girls each bought themselves a fidget spinner (the latest craze) from a street vendor (I negotiated 3 for $10) with their own money and they were ECSTATIC! Seriously, they were so excited to have their own fidget spinners. Honestly, I thought they would ask for something else since they still had birthday money remaining, but they were quite content with their purchase. Justin and I then grabbed an adult beverage (or two) at an outdoor bar while the girls played with their fidget spinners. We were sitting at a big picnic table in a cool location; weather was beautiful, and it was chill and awesome. Honestly, it was amazing. I’m sure the fact that I was buzzed after one beer had something to do with it, but it is moments like this with my family that I feel so content and happy. While we were hanging out there I got blessed by a Hasidic Jew. Emerson had previously called me out on it when I earlier said no thank you to a Hasidic Jew on the Brooklyn Bridge asking me if I was Jewish. (I thought he was trying to sell me something). Anyway, Emerson and I talked about it afterwards and she asked me if I would say I was Jewish the next time. Well the next time came when Justin was grabbing us beers. My Hebrew was so horrendous….I’m sure the Hasidic Jew boy with peach fuzz was internally laughing hysterically. By the way, the Hasidic Jew families with young kids are the cutest families ever. Anyway, after our drinks, we were going to scratch Battery Park but when the free bus was literally at our feet and the ride was less than 10 minutes away, we hopped on. Where we hopped off, we could see The Statue of Liberty from afar. We took a picture of it on the phone so Avery could see it. We honestly stayed there for less than 10 minutes but at least the girls could say they saw The Statue of Liberty. Justin had fun taking pictures of the girls. 
Justin and I equally enjoyed our bacon, egg, and cheese on a whole wheat everything and a cup of steaming hot coffee. We stopped at Buttercream Bakery on the way home for some dessert as I hadn’t yet indulged in any NY dessert. We got cupcakes to go…two for me….a pumpkin that I ate with the rest of my coffee when we got back to the hotel and a chocolate buttercream. Both were absolutely delicious. Russell picked us up at the hotel again, which was awesome, and then after a quick bathroom break at Russell and Mary’s house, we were back on the road. We made great time and even made it back in time for Avery and Emerson’s ballet class.
20 years! That’s how long it has been since I graduated high school. It’s truly so hard to believe. Yes, a lot has happened since the days of walking the halls at James Madison High School, but the memories remain so vivid and near, that it makes it that much more difficult to comprehend that my time spent there ended 20 years ago. I remember as a kid my parents and grandparents would talk about how fast life passes you by and the words really didn’t resinate with me until a few years ago…until after I had kids and it was then that we both seemed to get older by the minute! My high school experience was great and I’m fortunate to still be great friends with a handful of my closest high school friends. While the miles between us has kept us from seeing each other as frequently as I wish, the truth is for twenty years we have remained friends seeing one another at least once a year, sometimes even a few times a year or more! My high school friends went to the reunion making my decision to go a no brainer (oh yeah and that fact that I still live in the town that I grew up in with the venue being 10 minutes from my house helped). The night before the reunion Katie O’Brien had people over at her house just like old times…except this time we were all legal and drinking wine instead of Coors Light:). Of the 350 students in our class, only about 45 alumni attended. While I was a little disappointed at first that the numbers weren’t higher especially considering a lot of folks are still local, it turned out that the smaller numbers allowed for more conversations with the folks that were there, some of whom I am certain I wouldn’t have talked with had the attendee list been much larger. The reunion itself was a great time…I really had a blast and still had a smile when I walked into work on Monday.
