Costume Changes...

Here is a sorta fuzzy phone photo of the boy all decked out as "Scary Lion" & ready to go trick or treating



But we also had to try out the SuperMan outfit that F. w0re last year so here he is "flying" to Dana Park for their Halloween party


and FINALLY here he is trying on the costume from the Prochovniks that he wore last year AND the year before ...

Naked Trees

This was our backyard park just a couple of weeks ago....



Then when we got back from CA it was looking like this.....




Luckily the lil monkey has a new to him coat from Chloe's that is just whats needed in the cool breezy fall

Halloween Preview

He is planning on being either "cowardly lion" if you ask Farah or
"scary lion" if you ask him,


but yesterday for the neighborhood block party we broke out.....

SUPERMAN

Back to Boston

So we got home after being on the Left coast for the past 10 days. I have to say its a bit of a shock to the system. The boy is currently taking a morning nap (not for long the way Mabel is barking -grrrr) something he hasn't done for like a million years - I keep worrying that we have a gas leak or something, but I think its just the time change. We also had to turn the heat on and find the boxes full of hats, sweaters and gloves - sadly the steam heater in the basement was a bit finicky last night - jetting out a frightning noise and filling the entire basement with steam - which caused me to yell at Em to grab the dog & baby & go outside into the cold while I knocked on Jeff's door upstairs & begged them to fix it before the house blew up. So Jeff showed me the emergency off switch, told Em to come back inside & fixed the whole thing up this morning.

On a warmer note - we had a great (but hard at times) vaca-y. Saw mucho mucho family - including my mom, sisters, dad as well as lots of friends - even our East Coasties were in attendance - Adam & Ila were in SF so there was a floatie nation gets dim sum moment (see photos) and we saw Holly & Doanie at Mel's wedding. We got to our favorite playgrounds - the Discovery Center in Sausalito, the Eureka Valley Rec Playground on Collingwood (& this used to be such a cruisy, cruisy park) the little park on 24th Street at Diamond.

The boy got HIS FIRST HAIRCUT (pictures on an earlier post) - and he cried, and cried - which meant that I didn't - mommy & mama were both very brave!!!

We got to spend to nights at heaven on earth aka Orr Hot Springs - The lil one likes to lounge in the hot tubs almost as much as his mama's AND - For the First Time Ever ... He went Pee outside in the bushes. He was almost as excited by this as Emmy & I were (sorry no pictures of this one). He has also taken to SINGING almost constantly at times - some English songs, some Hebrew and a good handfull of gibberish. I have a short video of Shabat Shalom that I will post below.

Discovery Museum with Grandma Roseanna

First Haircut

Okay so these are the BEFORE shots - you can see the lovely ringlets.....


And you can see the fly-away sides that alternated between making him look a little like Einstein or else like we had intentionally given him a mullet.

The AFTER shot....

still curly but his 3 dread locks are gone & the rest is all a bit closer to his head now.

What will he tell you about the experience...

Q: R. did you have a haircut?
A: "I Cried"


Nuff said

Fall Colors

The Yellows & Greens
The Reds
& the red-heads (okay maybe more a blondie....)

NYC playground on a rainy day

We tried to meet Val D. & Melisa & Lisa for brunch at Katz's Deli in the lower east side, but we all had trouble getting there at the same time - so first R & I ate (very good matza ball soup & yummy sandwiches as well as a perfect black & white cookie!!) - then Val ordered & by the time Mel & Lisa got there I had to get a rambuncious monkey out to the playground - luckily this one was close by, but it was also deserted & wet - its right on 1st & Houston.....


Very busy street - the park was actually double and triple fenced - keeping kids in & others out I guess.

Despite getting a bit damp he enjoyed himself.

Later we walked around the hood & got latte's at Teeny - then Val & I walked down to Chinatown & got the most amazing soup dumplings from the secret soup dumpling place.

Train ride to NYC

Some shots of me & the monkey as we were heading from Boston to NYC - as you can see he is pretty excited to be on a train. He loves when we pass the other trains & he can watch them out the window & he likes the cafe car a lot. All in all its a pretty easy trip even though its about 4 hours long. He runs around a little bit, but mainly plays in his seat & colors & eats snacks etc. etc.

Tonight's Dinner

From http://www.virginiaapples.org/recipes/chef-acorn.html


Roasted Acorn Squash and Apple Cider Soup

Serves 4

2 Acorn Squash
6 c Apple Cider
2 c Vegetable Stock
4 tsp. Honey
4 tsp. Butter (unsalted)
Salt and pepper to taste

Cut each acorn squash in half and scoop out the seeds. Place in roasting pan. Drizzle honey over the halves and place a teaspoon of butter in each one. Pour apple cider and vegetable stock around squash. Cover and cook in 400 degree oven for about 1 1/2 hours or until tender. When cool, scoop out the flesh into a blender. Add cooking broth and puree until smooth and strain into a soup pot. Adjust consistency with stock or cider. Season with salt and pepper. Ladle into squash halves to serve.

We interupt this family blog....

I saw this over at Lesbian Dad and had to skip right on over to ph33r & loathing to snag a copy - please go over there & read the MOOSEHUNTER article as well its worth your five minutes FOR SURE - it does a good job at saying what I would say if I was clever enough to say it so well - especially this following quote:

...I don’t know why it’s a taboo to say someone is too dumb to be President. Hell, most people don’t have the kind of mental sharpness necessary. That’s why it’s so important to pick the right person out of an entire country of potential leaders. But Sarah Palin? She’s not even worth considering. She’s fucking dumb, okay?

NYC Natural History Museum

On Thur morning we tromped out of Brooklyn and headed off to the Natural History Museum to meet some new friends for a playdate. R. loved the front steps and the big statues of the Roosevelts. Sadly he wasn't in as good of a mood once we got inside - not into the diorama's this time & only a little more excited by the dinosaurs.


Luckily Central Park is right across the street so we found a playground there and got some running around in. It turns out that both R. & our new friend H. both love diggers of all types (no surprise there really) so they enjoyed checking out the lawn maintenance equipment in the park.



After a too quick lunch we headed down toward SoHo to find Val D.

Brooklyn Style

 


Here you see the lil monkey enjoying the ride infront of the local Park Slope Pizza etc place. You might be able to see the bruising that is coming up on the side of his head from the tangle with a local girl where she walloped him right off the top of the playground slide - enough to make me nearly drop my tall St@rb*cks Mocha as I went running to triage his fall - moving (yes) loss of consciousness (no) screaming (yes) blood (no) - & offer the all healing b@@b. When he was recovered we all made it to dinner just fine (well without my waterbottle which was lost to either the playground or the st@rbucks store - but either way it was a Nalgeen that I probably shouldn't have been still using for myself anyway...

So despite this small trauma We had a great beginning (& continutation) of our visit to NYC.

(more to come...)

Flickr Meme - this mornings time waster

My creation
Originally uploaded by suzukigrrl

Here’s the meme:
If you want to play too, type your answer to each of the questions below into a Flickr search. Using only the first page, choose your favorite image, then copy and paste each of the URL’s into the mosaic maker (3 columns, 4 rows).

The questions:

1. What is your first name? (rachael)
2. What is your favorite food? (vietnamese)
3. What high school did you attend? (lowell)
4. What is your favorite color? (royal blue)
5. Who is your celebrity crush? (nicolas cage)
6. Favorite drink? (latte)
7. Dream vacation? (costa rica)
8. Favorite dessert? (angel food)
9. What do you want to be when you grow up? (well traveled)
10. What do you love most in life? (emily)
11. One word to describe you. (butch)
12. Your Flickr name. (suzukigrrl)
Except my photos came in backwords... so start at the bottom right corner and head left then up for name, food, place

or looking at the photo its:
suzuki girl, butch, emily
traveller, angel food, costa rica,
latte, nicolas cage, royal blue,
lowell, vietnamese food, rachael

Dan Savage wants to be your gay pal - Sarah Palin