Thanksgiving

The week of Thanksgiving brought Sean's parents to New York to spend the holiday with us, which was incredibly good news for Clement, who loves the extra arms, 

and for Josephine for reasons like...

oh...

hot chocolate...

balloons, big and small...

a playground in Central Park...

...and a hotel room with a TV on which to watch the Macy's parade, when attending the ACTUAL PARADE just wasn't all that fun.  

(See her dancing along here. Video courtesy of Mama Jo.)

I did make her stick around for some of the real deal, though.  I remember many Thanksgiving mornings spent watching it on TV, so I insisted that we brave the chaos just to see it in person.

"Seeing" the parade in person was relative, of course.  As long as a brief glimpse of the balloons from a block away count as seeing the parade in person, then I can officially mark this off my bucket list.

Spiderman! (less stealthy than one might expect)

Pokemon?  I don't really know

Sponge Bob

... and some kind of green dragon.  Yep.  My life is complete.

At some point, Clement and I bailed on the sort-of-in-person, mostly-on-TV parade and went back to Astoria to start on the turkey.  Voila:

Allow me to explain.

I was not concerned about it flying away.

Sean bought frozen turkey pieces in Vermont from the farmers market earlier in the fall.  So I only had pieces.  But at Thanksgiving, you are supposed to have a bird. Hence the twine.

A LOT of twine because I didn't want pieces coming loose and falling or dripping outside of the pan.  I've heard oven fires don't impress in-laws.

Anyway, let's just be appreciative that God found better ways to hold turkey legs to turkey tummies.  Internal tendons are way cooler than twine.  A world created by me would have featured a lot of duct tape, rubber bands, and carabiners.

Here's the spread!  My northern stuffing fell way short of how my mom does it, but it was all edible.  And the bird[s' pieces] turned out yummy.  (gravy was blah.  need to figure out gravy.)

Josephine and Sean showed his parents Astoria Park...

 ...while I patched together Jo's recipe for apple dumplings for desert:

They turned out fine, but most importantly, there were chocolate covered mini cannolis from my favorite bakery, La Guli (I dare you to visit their website and not drool).  Sadly, the cannolis we ate are not pictured here, due to the brevity of their existence and the limitations of photography to capture such fleeting moments.   

A very happy Thanksgiving, indeed.  We loved having family here to celebrate with us!

fall snippets

It seems all our crafts here in Astoria revolve around toilet paper tubes.  The second main ingredient is packing paper, and third is watercolor paints.  Even the little pumpkin above is just packing paper twisted and stuck into the ends of a toilet paper tube, with a bit of paint on the outside.  The leaves are also cut mainly out of packing paper, some painted with watercolors.

And then when Halloween passed, we spun around the jack-o-lantern face and found uses for four more paper rolls!    

(Josephine also has a crown for her doll made out of a toilet paper tube, and other tubes have been turned into play people, thanks to princess stickers from the pediatrician's office.  She now gets really excited every time a roll of tp empties-- it nearly guarantees a forthcoming craft!  Good thing classiness is directly proportionate to how many toilet paper rolls are scattered around one's home.  Everyone knew that, right?) 

On our way home from church Sunday we walked through Astoria Park.  There's a running track and skate park on the south end of it.  Josephine hadn't seen the skaters before; she decided it looked fun.

This is the Hellgate bridge from a distance; it's the one that the north end of the park is under, closer to the playground. 

Squirrels fattening up...

... a few remaining leaves clinging...

... other gorgeous ones littering the ground.  I'm loving this season!

oh ballet day

In case it isn't perfectly obvious, Josephine chose the clothing for both herself and her bear, and they are doing ballet.

In a recent post, there is a picture of Josephine's DIY art wall on the back of the entry door, where she used some wall decals Gam sent her as tape to hold up her artwork.  Naturally, the sticky wore out and since her art (and all her stuff) gets scattered over every square inch of this tiny apartment, I decided she needed a dedicated space, so that's what's behind her here.

(Success was short-lived.  Once she filled it up she just went back to decal-ing pieces up everywhere!)

stats

Clement's 3 month check-up was today (3 mos, 1 week).   He got his Pc and HIB vaccines.  Took them like a champ.  And by that I mean he was pretty much cursing Dr. Paul at the top of his lungs.  Might have made a few references to malpractice and/or a suggestion that we see how much the good doctor would like it if Clement snuck into his home tonight and woke him from a peaceful slumber by jabbing two sharp needles into his legs.  

You know, just loosely interpreted.  

15.5 pounds (90th percentile)

24.75 inches (75th percentile)

...every last ounce and inch pure spunk.

wilbur

I don't know that I've officially explained the lack of Wilbur on my blog lately.  I mean, other than the fact that the limelight was flat out stolen by two small kids connected to me genetically.  (Even my love for hedgehogs can't keep up with the effect children have on their mommies... both in terms of my attention AND time!)

He's been staying with my folks, though, while we've been up in NY.  As was the case in Georgia (and therefore a large factor in my desire to move to Texas five years ago), hedgehogs are illegal in the five boroughs of New York City.
I knooooow.
Blows your mind, right?!  What-- governments have nothing better to do than BAR CUTENESS FROM OUR LIVES????

Thankfully, in addition to my wonderful parents who are cleaning up after him for the better part of a year, I'm also feeling the hedgehog love from a lifelong friend of mine, Andrea-- who has been finding little snippets to send my forlorn heart.

So I wanted to share these links with y'all, for your enjoyment:

The first is How to Dress a Hedgehog for Halloween.

The second is an article that comes VERY close to redeeming cats in the eyes of this non-cat person:
The Time a Cat Adopted Four Baby Hedgehogs

And if you missed it because you were gawking at the adorable baby in the photo, she also gave me (okay, technically, she gave it to Clement) the happiest hedgehog pillow you could ever imagine.

While I might be ohhhhhh a WEE bit distracted by my sister's nuptials next weekend, I WILL try to get some pictures of Wilbur to share here.  Even if it means bringing him to the wedding itself.  Wouldn't he make the best little ring bearer??