Squeezing It All In

Every year...we have a great time at christmas getting bunches of beautiful gifts (toys, toys and more toys) and then we have to find a place for all of them. More kids, same house, more stuff and the reorganization gets harder and harder every year. We had also been planning a redo of the basement for YEARS.

New Year's weekend...4 days, 3 trips to IKEA, lots of assembly and we have a much more functional, bright, beautiful basement for everyday use and to house all the guests that frequently visit us. We bought a new couch/bed, chair/bed, GREAT BIG bookcase organizer, TV stand and a few other odds and ends.

We had our first guests this weekend...Grandpa Dennis and Grandma Judy and they assured us that the new accomodations were very comfortable.

Basement...before pics


Progress...







Basement After!

Belated Happy 5th Birthday!

Summer in the Country

I admit that this may be going overboard in seasonal wear.

Urban Gardening

One of the good things, in my opinion, about living in the city is that we don't have to spend every weekend doing yard work. I do love having a little yard and I NEED the wide green spaces in the park but I don't enjoy weeding, planting, digging etc.

To make up for our lack of gardening space at home, the boys have been gardening at the Children's Garden at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden for 3 years. They really love it and the instructors make it interesting and fun for them. They just finished the Spring gardening class and they were so proud to show me the plots that they each planted. Each class made a salad to share with the parents out of the early crops that they could harvest.

They are excited to garden with Mema this summer too.

Standing Up!

It has been a long time coming but M finally pulled herself up to standing today! It was very exciting for me and her siblings. We clapped and yelled "yay M" and then she sat down and grinned at us and clapped and said "yay" too. Then she got back up, reached into the bathtub and used a little pitcher to pour bathwater all over her clean pajamas. M will be 14 months on May 21st.

So glad it is finally warm.

What a great day it was yesterday. The girls and I were out from 11:30 and we all got home at 6 pm after a picnic lunch, visiting several playgrounds, having a great walk through Brooklyn, picking up the boys and enjoying our first "icee" of the season, and seeing the flowers and playing in the botanical garden.

The boys are loving their gardening class again and did lots of planting yesterday. I am always a little irrationally annoyed...to see my beloved garden crowded again after I've been enjoying it practically empty for the whole winter.

IKEA Brooklyn

We were the last ones in Brooklyn to finally check out the new IKEA. It was fun for the whole family...tasty lunch with a view, "Smaland" for the kids" (It has a BALL PIT!), a million trillion cute home furnishings and a great walk along the water afterward. I am slow blogger. This happened last Sunday.