Cuddling

It's harder and harder lately to get everyone in the family to smile, even with a fast shutter.

This Santa gives free candy canes!

Black Friday snuggles

We stayed far away from the malls. In fact, Carey and the kids and Aunt Kathy never left the house! I worked from 1030-4, but got home early to partake in the pre- and post-dinner play. Snapped a couple good ones of the kids snuggling with Carey, but messed up by trying to be fancy and not use the flash. Still, a little photo editing and I like them. At least enough to not delete them (and to share with you, dear readers).

Macy's parade 2009

I don't know if two years in a row makes a tradition, but we braved the crowds again this morning and took in the spectacle. Ever wonder how they float those balloons down the street without getting tangled in anything? They take down the traffic lights!

We walked eight blocks north from Penn Station and found a good spot at 7th Ave. & 41st St. Not close enough to see the marching bands and ground-level floats, but a great view of the balloons as they floated down 7th before taking a left on 42nd. Next year we're hitting up our friend Aaron, who does a little business with Macy's, for seats in the grandstand!

Hee-hee!

Dora's big head!

Hey kids, what are you thankful for?

Continuing our annual tradition and letting Lincoln participate for the first time, here's how the kids answered the question, "what are you thankful for?" this morning at breakfast. This editor has done no editing.

GRETA

• Turkey
• God
• Flamingoes
• Bluebirds
• Red Pandas
• Kitty Cats
• Lambs
• Mommy & Daddy
• The whole world around me
• Aunt Kathy
• Jinx
• Rabbits

LINCOLN

• The Animals
• The lemur
• Pizza
• Bears
• Jinx, the kitty cat
• Bears
• Bears
• Emily

We're off to the Macy's parade. Look for Lincoln hanging on to the ropes that tie down the Spider-Man float.

A plethora of princesses

Every now and then my job has its perks. Tonight was one of those nights. It started with the first east coast screening of Disney's "The Princess & the Frog" at New York's Ziegfeld Theatre. Both kids sat rapt through the 90 minutes, laughing and clapping at the funny parts and hiding their faces (but not their eyes) when the voodoo doctor worked his evil magic. After the credits rolled, we walked a couple blocks to the Roseland Ballroom, where Disney is presenting The Ultimate Disney Experience through Christmas. It was like Disneyland in the Big Apple! Nine beautiful young women dressed as all the Disney princesses, arts and crafts, obstacle courses, arcade games, props and costumes from various films, and a drawing lesson from a Disney animator. Truth be told, at 8:30 p.m. we only took time to meet the nine princesses. But it was well worth the wait. Just look at that face.

Eight more poses with princesses in this Facebook photo album.

God's condiment

I've blogged before about Lincoln trying mustard to be like his Dad. But that was on basic things like hot dogs and french fries. He has since moved on. Very far on. To wit: Sunday night's apple slices.

Jump around, jump around...

Jump up, jump up, to get down!

We spent Lincoln's lunch hour on Saturday at Columbus Park in Chinatown, nibbling on takeout Dim Sum that he had missed while sleeping at the restaurant. The food was fine, but more exciting were the teenagers practicing parkour. It's an urban "sport" that features athletes moving themselves through the landscape without any mechanical help. Lots of running, jumping, hanging ... it's skateboarding minus the board.  I was too fascinated myself -- having only seen parkour in movies like "Casino Royale" and the sports show E:60 -- to take any pictures of the pros, but as soon as they left the park, Lincoln and Carey jumped right in.

More Soho photos in this Facebook photo album.

歡迎來到唐人街

That's "Welcome to Chinatown" -- courtesy of Google Translate. We joined our friends the Haydens for heaping plates of Dim Sum this afternoon at the Golden Bridge Restaurant, part of Danny Ng's Palace. He's like the Wayne Newton of Chinatown, I think.

That pile of dark gastropods on the right is snails. I insisted. And then Carey ate them!

I sampled a couple, but found them less satisfying than other mollusks.

My favorite dish was the sesame sticky rice balls. Half bagel, half marshmallow, all good.

Strawberry sprinkles on a Saturday!

Helping Parent Day 3 at Weekday Nursery School

Greta and I enjoyed yesterday morning. Her school has spent the last couple of weeks learning about harvest celebrations in other countries: Homowo, the yam festival in Africa, Sukkoth, the harvest feast in Israel, Obzinky, the wheat harvest in Poland, Pongal, the rice festival in India, Asia's Chinese Moon Harvest, and the Vietnamese Harvest with the star parade.

Yesterday we celebrated Barbados' Crop Over celebration, which features the harvesting of sugar cane. The kids tasted raw sugar cane, enjoyed my homemade coconut bread, made turkey hand prints on paper made from sugar cane fibers, and decorated festival masks for a Kiddie Kadooment parade featuring Calypso music. Throw in free play, letter "h" worksheets, and a romp in the gym, and you can see how quickly the 2.5 hours flew by.

Busy....!

Sorry for the lack of posting this week. The kids got their H1N1 shots yesterday, that's exciting. And Carey is helping parent today at Greta's pre-school, so she'll have photos and stories to share late tonight. The house smelled like coconut bread when I left, which was Greta's snack-of-choice to commemorate some holiday festival in the tropics, I think. The class is learning about how different countries celebrate this time of year. Me, I'm working late covering the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show. Tough job. (Tune in Dec. 1 on CBS.)

Sibling affection

Carey and I are very thankful our children genuinely seem to like each other. No rivalry yet. Most of their waking hours are spent together, except when Greta's at school or Lincoln is napping. And while they're awake they're very imaginative. In addition to Married, another of their new games is called Nap. They drag their blankets and pillows into a common area -- say, in front of the TV when I'm trying to watch football -- then snuggle next to each other and whisper things like, "'Night, 'night!" followed almost immediately by, "Wake up!" Then they repeat the process of tucking each other in and role playing a very brief bedtime routine. It's all quite charming.

More party pix

Naturally I had more than my BlackBerry at today's soiree. Snapped 120 photos, but first edit knocked 'em down to 67. Second edit left me with 21 keepers, presented to you here in this Kodak Gallery.

Happy birthday, Emma Bailey!

Boston creme at the drive-thru!

Reading is fun-damental

While Greta and Emma get educated at pre-school, Lincoln and Emma's sister Charlotte spend a few mornings together each week. This week they gave Carey a brief break when they sat together and "read" books.

Dah, dah, dah, dahhhh!

When we got home Sunday afternoon from our weekend in D.C., Greta and Lincoln invented a new game: Married. First out came the dress-up clothes. Lincoln picked his favorite scaled and sparkly cheerleader costume, while Greta grabbed two white blankets and fashioned a wrap and veil. They then proceeded to hold hands and walk around the house chanting the wedding march -- "dah, dah, dah, dahhhh!"

Poetry, by Greta

My folks bought Greta a subscription to Ladybug magazine for her fourth birthday. Nine issues a year, including Nov/Dec 2009, which I'm looking at now. Some sort of fairy queen on the cover, reading a book to an angel boy sitting inside what looks like a conch shell. They're drinking an orange liquid (carrot juice?) from acorn cups that rest atop a mushroom side table. It's a very trippy magazine.

Anyway, they are soliciting poems about snow. Greta is very into rhyming lately, so she dictated these two poems to Carey today at the dinner table.

Snow is falling to the ground
Snow is covering my town
I make angels in the snow
I play all day and I'll never go
I have a sip of hot cocoa

Snowmen are so fun to make
I like to bake hot cocoa
With my mom and dad
It makes me feel warm and glad

More pix from DC

Still pals

We wondered when we left D.C. if Greta would lose her bond with the boy who shares her birthday. We needn't have worried. She and Jay got along like we never left and the little siblings -- Lincoln and 9-month-old Ella -- shared a few intimate moments as well.

They went to the zoo, zoo, zoo

I met the kids today in Washington and heard stories about their FIVE hour visit to the National Zoo with Aunt Kathy on Thursday. Greta got a stuffed red panda for her good behavior and Lincoln scored a stuffed lemur. They checked out every exhibit except Amazonia.

All hail...

The Yankees are back on top of baseball! The kids and Carey left for D.C. yesterday, so no recent photos. I join them tomorrow afternoon. Yes, leaving town just as the ticker tape parade begins  :-( Good thing it's the Yankees and I KNOW they'll win another before I die. Because that's what they do. Win.

27 outs from a 27th title

And Greta is dressed appropriately...

Where's Grandpa?

My folks left yesterday after a two-day visit. Lincoln, like cousin Max before him, is rather smitten with Grandpa. Here they are on the kitchen floor Monday morning. He's asked this post's headline quite a few times since they left.

Spooky slideshow