Dusting off cobwebs.

I realize it's been awhile since I posted here. I'm actually considering quitting this place. What's the point of keeping it up if I barely update it? The reason I don't blog more often is I don't find much satisfaction in writing here. This blog has never been a place where I express what's really on my mind and I am sort of "faking" it here since the pictures I post are not the true story of my life. I just feel as though I'm deceiving anyone who comes here to check out what we've been up to.

That said, what and where have been up to lately? David goes through different changes so rapidly that I can barely keep up with him. After I convince myself that he hates his sister ("I don't want a sister, I want a brother" and constantly annoying her), he proves to me that he would move mountains for her. At times, I awe at his generosity, consideration and love for her.

Seth decided to involve David with a cub scout organization. As long as I don't have to bring him to their meetings, I couldn't be happier for them especially when two of them went camping for an entire weekend with the organization.

David's sense of fashion drives me crazy. He is into button down shirts, jeans that have to be certain length and sweaters (no sweatshirts). He won't ware anything that says 4t or 6t on it. The mornings before school don't look good if there's no ironed button down shirt in his closet. It doesn't matter that he has a gym that day. Right now I'm knitting him a vest, so hopefully, he'll like wearing it on top of his shirt.

We took the kids to the "Bubble Show" on Broadway and David was one of the kids chosen to help out on a stage. It didn't go well with Ms. Jealousy. Thankfully, David shared his gift with her.

We did the usual fall activities : pumpkin and apple picking, Bronx Zoo during the Halloween celebration, pumpkin carving, lots of Halloween parties and going trick-or-treating. David found a Darth Vader costume at one of the garage sales and decided to use it during Halloween (yay!) and Julia went as a Super Girl.

Julia really surprises me with her personality. She has never been a very girly girl. Yes, there was a year when she'd refused to wear pants and she used to dress up in some of the princess dresses. But she never liked playing with dolls. She will still chose to play a board game over any activity. Her favorite game nowadays? Trouble. The hours she spends playing it per day? At least 2.

She's been wearing a princess cape, white Minnie Mouse gloves and her rain boots everywhere for awhile pretending to be a Super girl. David told me that next year he wants to be Indiana Jones for Halloween because it would make Julia happy. She's obsessed with super heroes and adventurers . She loves when David reads his beginning books about super heroes to her and she's pretty much memorized all the information about them.

She reminds me of David at her age. He used to wake up earlier than anyone and head straight to their arts and crafts table and do his projects. Julia does the same thing now except she wakes up anytime from 3 to 5 am in the morning and refuses to go back to bed. Without any naps she surprisingly functions pretty well during the day.

Whew, it was a long catch up post. Hopefully, it won't be too long before I write another post.

Life In The New Home.

I haven't been updating my blog for some time because a few months ago, as I was writing a new (and long) entry about our summer, my computer crashed just as I was getting ready to publish it. For some reason, the posting hadn't been saving drafts and it all got erased. Since then, I really haven't been motivated to write another long entry. Still, I'm going to try again, this time writing another long recap of the past few months.

Last summer my friend and I participated in the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure 5K race in Central Park.

Julia entered creative movement / ballet class which she loved so much at first, but her interest waned until, by the end of the classes, she refused to go.

Last summer David kept begging us to take the training wheels off Julia's bike. (The bicycle we had previously purchased was a bit too big for him and not suited for learning how to ride with two wheels.) Once we got to it, he jumped on the bike and rode it if he's been doing so forever. Soon afterwards, we purchased him his own bike - one that wasn't pink and decorated with princesses - at a garage sale, so Julia could have her bicycle back.

David was enrolled in soccer class this fall. He loved the class, and would get so excited about scoring a goal (even if it was for the other team!)

Since he likes soccer so much, and because of the space outside of our new home, he received an early Christmas present -- a soccer net.

Ever since moving to our new house, David's been asking every day to have his friends over.

With a bigger house comes bigger responsibilities. The kids learned quickly that they are expected to help out. They didn't mind it ... for about week or so.

Bigger house -- more rooms that don't get furnished right away and are used as either reading rooms, racing tracks or dancing floors. The kids make the best of it with their makeshift furniture.

Julia loves her school, mostly because they do a lot of art and crafts there.

At home, we still do a zillion of arts and crafts projects. David, however, usually isn't on the same page with me and Julia, and does his own arts and crafts projects.

Once I come up/look up a project, Julia will follow every single of my directions whereas David takes all the materials and creates something on his own ... every single time. Of course, this personality trait extends into other aspects of his life which needless to say makes it tough to parent him sometimes.

For example, here's Julia and me...

...and here's David.

One morning, I gave the kids printouts which had cutouts that could be combined to make a dinosaur. David took one look at it and set out to do it for himself.

This is Julia's dinosaur made with my print outs.

Julia's Native American hat.

And David's ... hat.

One of my activities that David doesn't actually mind doing, but rather expresses an enthusiasm in it is placing letter stickers next to the words I have written and then reading them. I have him do it while I'm cooking a dinner, so I can help him with a word if it's too difficult for him to read. Sure... I could have him just write the words, but he wouldn't be as enthusiastic about doing it every single evening. In addition, he practices his letter writing when he is not drawing. Julia does a similar activity with numbers where I put small stickers on one side and then after counting them, she places number stickers on the other side. It actually creates a quiet time at the end of the day which we all need (not to mention a good reading and counting exercise.)

So what is David up to nowadays? Excercising his creativity, whether it's making drawings or simply making things out of anything he can get his hands on. I can't get him out of the house to take Julia to school because he is in the middle of "making steam" for the steamboat he's been putting together since 6:30 am, or we are late for his school because he's been making a rocket ship and the cone-shaped tip of a ship is not staying on. He makes me necklaces out of paper, clocks and masks out of paper plates, flowers and monster truck wheels out of towel paper holder and he draws non-stop.

Meanwhile Julia is happy to sit on a floor and "read" to us for up to an hour. In fact, the library is her second home. Additionally, she loves - absolutely loves - jigsaw puzzles! In fact, once she steps into the house, this is where she'll head, completing one puzzle after another and laying them side by side on the family room floor. She is up for anything as long as it's an indoor activity. She's not fond much of outdoors.

For Halloween, the kids were Minnie Mouse and Spiderman. Julia had been talking about dressing up as a bird for a year until her friend handed down this costume. David insisted on being Spiderman, even though we're not entirely sure how he knew about this character.

The kids participated with their friends at the Leonia Halloween parade.

Here was our second choice for a Halloween costume. (Not!) Seth just had this crazy idea of wrapping David up and he was happy to oblige.

And this leads us to Thanksgiving 2009!

We spent the holiday with good friends, thankful for everyone and everything in my life.

One Great Weekend.

There are weekends, and then there are great weekends. This weekend was the latter. Not only did the kids have non-stop fun, but so did Seth and I. Saturday started off with a Halloween parade in our town. Of course, my kids went as Peter Pan and Tinker Bell. Julia actually believes she is Tinker Bell for real. One thing that was great this year was that both Julia and David were thrilled that they recognized a lot more costumes than last year.

Here they are with their friend, Snow White (a.k.a. Olivia) whose birthday we would celebrate a few hours later that day.

David was so excited to walk in the parade that he was actually skipping.

He shortly ditched his sister and joined Olivia.

Once in the Recreation Center, decorated for the Halloween season, they headed straight for the treats.

The kids were chasing one another like maniacs, and barely paused long enough so that the parents could take a picture of them.

A short time later, they were changed and ready to celebrate Olivia's 4th Birthday. After getting them dressed, Seth and I got ready while they preoccupied themselves with their favorite activity -- "reading."

Party time! For my kids it meant running, eating pizza and then a frozen dessert.

On Sunday, we continued celebrating Halloween by heading to the annual Cabbage Night Family Festival at the James A. McFaul Environmental Center in Wyckoff, NJ, which provided a zillion free activities for the kids. Some of the activities that the kids enjoyed weren't even part of the festival.

We went on a hay(-less) ride.

The kids participated on stage with the musicians and while Julia bolted after the first song, David actually participated for the duration of both songs.

David pushed his way into the bouncy carousel-house and I couldn't get him out.

Pumpkin painting was kind of activity they just wanted to get out of the way, so they could go on having fun again. After slopping on a few splotches of paint, they were on to the next activity!

They both rode ponies.

Over two hours later and with both kids missing their naps, they could barely stand on their feet.

Of course, once the car pulled into the garage at home, the kids' energy skyrocketed and sleeping wasn't in their plans. They both went biking, helped Seth in the garden and then proceeded to turn our living room upside down.

It was indeed a great weekend.