More Summer Fun Time Pictures

Today is the first day of Fall, so to stay organized, I've updated our Summer Fun Time Picture Album for 2010. Besides going to birthday parties almost every weekend, we made sure to take advantage of living near the beach, Red Bank and Eastmont Orchards.

We visited Sandy Hook half a dozen times, I lost count of how many times we went to Long Branch and we went to four Jazz Concerts in Red Bank.

Eastmont orchards has also been fun, we go there weekly starting in late July, first to get peaches and nectarines, and now to get apples. Last week Indira took the girls to go apple picking, they brought home 20 lbs of apples, and they were all gone in less then a week!

Also, we love going to Dorbrook Park in Colts Neck, it's a large County Park about two miles from our house. There they have a big kid's playground, a water Spray ground, and a two mile long paved trail that's great for roller blading, walking the kids or jogging. Indira takes the kids to Dorbrook several times a week. Couple weeks ago we rode our bikes from our house to Dorbrook for a picnik. The kids rode in a trailer behind the bike. It was Katelyn's first ride in the bike trailer, and she absolutely loved it! :) We don't own a two kid bike trailer, so we had to borrow one from our neighbor, but now that we know how much fun it is, we may just have to buy our own.

Another fun pasttime is just hanging out in our backyard on the deck. This summer we spend a few nights by our fire pit roasting marshmellows and drinking wine. Something we'll definitely have to keep doing into the fall as the nights get cooler.

Here are the pictures of our summer adventures..

Grounds for Sculpture Visit ( 8/21/2010)

We had a very busy summer this year, we made sure to enjoy the outdoors as much as possible. We were so busy that I didn't even have any time to update our Blog for a while. Among many other trips, we visited Grounds for Scupture in Hamilton, NJ. It's a large sculpture park and arboretum. Last time we were there, I was pregnant with Ashley.. It was nice to return, both Ashley and Katelyn enjoyed running outside, and for a change Ashley wanted me to take her picture by every sculpture, especially the "people" sculptures :)

There were peacocks everywhere in the park, and Mike decided to feed one of them some cheerios, next thing we know, he's surrounded by at least ten, somewhat angry peacocks. It was funny and scary at the same time. We had to leave quickly to avoid what could have turned out to be a nasty confrontation.

Nastya (our previous au pair) was visiting us for the weekend, so she along for the adventure :) Here are some pictures:

Katelyn Update - 15 Months

In two days Katelyn will be 15 months old! In short 3 months since her first birthday she's totally changed from a baby into a toddler. She's running everywhere, constantly chatting something, sometimes humming songs (Twinkle, Twinkle Little Start is one I recognize her humming most often), dancing to the music and starting to color.

I can't really brag about her vocabulary, she doesn't say a whole lot of words that we can identify, a lot of it is baby talk: Mama, Dada, Nana, Indira, this, that, up, uh oh, Meow, nite nite, hi, and dai (which is "Give me" in Russian)

What Katelyn does do very well is Dance! Indira has been teaching Katelyn to dance, and she really likes it. You can tell that she really enjoys the music and dancing :)
She climbs up on our Fireplace mantle, reaches from there to the Boom Box on the end table to turn on her CD, and dances up on the mantle :) It's so funny to watch, it's like she's performing for the audience :)

Katelyn is like a little energizer bunny, always on the move, a lot more hyper than Ashley ever was. She likes to climb on furniture - couch, chairs, stairs; she even tries to climb over the gates we put up to keep her from the stairs. When Katelyn is awake everyone has to be on high alert to make sure she doesn't get in trouble..(It makes Mommy, Daddy and Indira very tired at the end of the day) Good news is that Katelyn is usually ready for bed by 7:30, so we get about an hour quiet time to spend with Ashley before she's off to bed.

Not much else is new with Katelyn, she still puts everything in her mouth, which is a constant battle, and has also discovered the toilet and that she likes playing in the water there.. So, we really have to watch her! I call her my little Monkey KK :)

Katelyn now has 13 teeth (four in front - top and bottom, a set of molars all around, and one eye tooth on bottom). She loves chewing on apples, and then spitting out what she chewed. It must make her teeth feel good. Unfortunately all of her bottom teeth are very crowded and overlapping, so looks like we'll need braces when she gets her adult teeth. She also has a gap in her two two teeth on top, but it's normal. Hopefully that means her adult teeth will have room.

Last month we visited an eye specialist for Katelyn, since it appeared that one of her eyes was turned in a bit. It's not very noticable, but we wanted to make sure there wasn't any real issue. Dr. Turtel was super nice, he checked Katelyn's eyes and reassured us that her eyes look straight and it's only an illusion that her eye looks turned in because her nose bridge is so flat. That's good news, b/c we were concerned that she may need to wear glasses, and being that Katelyn is veyr strong willed that may not have been an easy task to accomplish if it came to that.

Also good news is that so far Katelyn appears not to have any allergies!
Ashley has a minor Cashew allergy and allergy tostrawberries. She also had an egg allergy that she outgrew that one already. None of Ashley's allergies are severe, she can eat anything but certain nuts and berries will make her itchy. She knows what she shouldn't have and she's pretty good at regularing herself.
(More on Ashley in another post)

Avaya Reunion @ Turtle Back Zoo

Yesterday, we went to the Turtle Back Zoo in West Orange. It was a mini Avaya H-aisle reunion. We met up with our friends from Avaya, a lot of the folks with whom I used to work, it was great catching up with everyone. We got to see Raj and Marie - Ryan, Sara and Mia; Chris and Nina with Olivia; Gary and Yuki with Mia; and Victor, since Victor has no kids he brought his cousin Nacho :)

The weather was awesome, it's 80F and sunny, quite warm for this time of year. We got to see a lot of cool animals, both Ashley and Katelyn were on their best behavior all day even though we skipped their naps. We ended the day with a late lunch at Marie and Raj's house. (They live only two minutes from the zoo.) Kids had a blast, and parents did too :) The kids watched a movie on the ride up and slept on the ride home! And Katelyn didn't get car sick!! (Finger's crossed that she's done getting sick in the car. She used to throw up on almost every car ride over 15 min long..)

Here are some pictures from the day:

Finger Lakes Mini-Vacation

The first week of September we took a five hour road trip to Finger Lakes, NY. We have previously been up there three times for wine tasting with friends and were overdue to go back. We left Katelyn at home with Indira and took Ashley and my mom with us. It was our first road trip in the minivan, and it really couldn't have gone any better!

This time we had to include some kid friendly activities, we managed to squeeze in a hiking trip to Watkin's Glen State Park to see the Waterfalls, as well as catch a Mark Twain Trolley tour in Elmira!

Ashley was on her best behavior all three days. It was a special treat for her to be included on this trip. She got a vacation from Katelyn, and Katelyn got a vacation from Ashley :) And she also got some quality time with Busenka (my mom). We brought coloring books, DVDs for the car, blankets, snacks and 20 lollipops! (Something that Ashley never gets to have at home) The price of 20 lollipops - $1, wine tasting experience - PRICELESS :)

Ashley got to sleep in a big girl bed at the Inn where were staying, which she was very excited about, and she even got to sample some fresh Grape Juice! We came home with over 4o bottles of wine!

Here are some pictures from the trip:

Liam's 4th Birthday Party

Liam (our next door neighbor) had his 4th birthday party at Lowe's the hardware store, followed by a Pool party at their house yesterday. Ashley is very close with Liam and his big sister Emma. We are very grateful to have such great neighbors next door!

Here are some pictures from the party:
(Katelyn is not in the pictures because she missed most it because of her nap..)

Summer Fun 2010

This summer has been extremely packed with all kids of parties and get togethers.
Here are some pictures from last weekend. Between a Ft. Monmouth day, 2 birthday parties and a pig roast, we managed to sqeeze in making binoculars for Ashley so that she can "spy" like Diego (on Go Diego Go) in our backyard.

Katelyn Walking!

Finally at 12 months of age Katelyn has mastered walking! She's still a little wabbly, and is not a huge fan of shoes, but watching Ashley run is making her want to do the same.

Here are some videos from this weekend, starting with the newest first:

Katelyn Walking in Shoes First Day (July18, 2010)


Katelyn Practicing Walking (July 17th, 2010)



Katelyn Learning to Walk - Part 1 (July 16th, 2010)


Katelyn Learning to Walk - Part 2 (July 16th, 2010)

Ashley - A dancer? Umm.. not so much

Last week I took Ashley to a dance class to the same dance school that our neighbor Emma goes to. They had really nice things to say about the place and I figured perhaps Ashley may enjoy taking dance classes too and it could be something that I do with her that's special for her and me.

Well.. it really couldn't have gone any worse.. That day Ashley refused to nap which happens on regular basis now, she stays in her room, but doesn't sleep. She was cranky and just didn't want to go.. I had to promise her ice cream, just to get her to agree to come to dance class. We got there, and she didn't want to go in by herself, so the teacher was nice enough to let me come in the room with her. Then, Ashley didn't want to participate, she sat next to me frowning the whole time.. I made her watch the other two girls (who were 4 years old) follow the teacher's lead. Ashley joined for a minute several times throughout the hour but still wasn't impressed. At the end they had free dance time, so Ashley agreed to put on a tutu and dance around with a flower. She really enjoyed that part but the class was over! We said thank you for letting us try this and the teacher recommended coming back next year.. We watched older girls practice tap dancing and Ashley really liked that. Afterwards we stopped to get some "pink" ice cream (strawberry flavor) as promised. And Ashley wouldn't stop talking about how much she loved the dance class! Weird, because she really didn't act like she liked it. I think she only said it because she wanted to get more ice cream next time.

We agreed that Ashley needs to practice at home first before taking a class. That afternoon we went to the mall and got Ashley ballet shoes and a pink tutu and have been practicing at home. Now Ashley thinks she's a great dancer and is ready to tackle ice skating.. but I keep telling her that we need to practice dancing first before we can try ice skating.

Hopefully if we practice dancing a little at home and get her used to the idea of going to class by herself, she'll be ready to join in another few months.

The only reason that I want her to do something like dance is because she's very tall for her age, got super long legs, and can sometimes be very clumsy. (This summer her bathing suits are size 5/6, and they fit her perfectly) I'm hoping dance or gymnastics will help her get more coordinated!

Meanwhile since Ashley enjoyed watching older girls dance so much, I promised her that we'll go to see a dance show of some sort. Hopefully that'll get her interested in dance even more!

Our Stay-cation :)

The first week in July, our au pair Indira took her one week vacation, so I also took a week vacation from work to spend time at home with my monkeys :)

We had a busy week, starting with my birthday on July 1, then July 4th weekend, going to visit friends, fireworks (Katelyn's first!), more friends, playdates, mall, beach, sprayground, pool, picnic in the park and going on the Thomas the Train for a ride! We drove over 500 miles, and I'm happy to report that Katelyn only threw up once in the car :) Ashley got to watch movies in the car, so she was content for majority of the rides :)

Here are some pictures from our adventures. I wish I took more, but we tend to get so wrapped up in everything that taking pictures is just not the highest priority..