Baking bread with Finn and Lilly

Spring has not fully arrived yet in NY - there are still very cold and dreary days and we just don't last too long outside at the playground. The other day was one of those cold and windy days and we decided to get busy inside baking breads.

In Spielgruppe (nursery school) back in Austria Finn had been baking bread several times and they gave us all the recipe. We had brought the recipe with us and made some little breads.

The kids helped me make the dough which was a little improvised as we do not have a scale or measuring cups or a mixer or a mixing bowl in our temporary housing- and everything was in grams and liters.

We let the dough rise and then formed little breads. When I went to get some milk to brush them, they decided to give them all "dinosaur tracks" :-)

We then baked them in the oven for 18 minutes. They did not rise the way they were supposed to (maybe the not too exact measuring or the too much handling by the kids), but they tasted great nevertheless. The kids ate a few as their snack and kept eating them for dinner, breakfast and lunch.

First Race in NY

So last Sunday was my first race here in NY. I had signed up for the NY Road Runners when Ben agreed to take a job in NYC back in January.
They organize a big number of races in NYC and they have the great program 9+1: run 9 races plus volunteer at 1 in one year and you get a spot at the NYC marathon the next year.

I have signed up for 6 races so far and ran the first one on Sunday. It was a nice 4 mile run through central park - but because of what had happened in Boston the week before, it was a little different. Lots of police everywhere, you were not allowed to check bags, no garbage cans anywhere and more than 10,000 people running (many more than in the previous years). We had a minute of silence before the start and all got a black ribbon to wear.
Overall the atmosphere was pretty good - it just got a little strange at about mile 3 when there were 20+ police officers on the side of the road with an open backpack and a box inside. It turned out to be nothing, but that made me run even faster.

Now I have 8 more races to go until the end of the year....

Sports Class for Finn

We also signed Finn up for a sports class. I was looking for soccer, but that was already full and I am really glad about that. The soccer class was after our session and they all showed up in their soccer outfits and soccer shoes - my poor Finn would have felt totally out of place. I was not prepared for that yet.

His session is called "Total Sports Squirts" and in the following 7 weeks they will try all kinds of different sports. They started off with T-Ball and Finn had a great time. He is one of the little ones (3-5 year olds), but the coaches are really doing a great job and we can't wait to see what we will try next week.

The only drawback is, that Lilly is too little to participate and she really would love to run with the kids as well :-(

Waiting for instructions

Coach helped Finn to bat

Running around all the bases

Hitting more balls

Movement Class (or Dance Class)

We are still in the middle of everything (corporate housing running out, not temporary housing yet, no house yet, not sure where we will be moving too, etc...) and that is really difficult right now. But I am trying to get some structure into the children's life and I have signed them up for some classes.

On Tuesday they started their movement class, which turned out to be dance class. Lilly absolutely loved it. She is in the 2 year old class from 9:15-10:00 and had lots of fun.

Finn is in the 3 and 4 year old class from 10:05 to 10:50 and after a rocky start he also enjoyed the class. It helped for sure that there were 2 other boys in the class apart from all the cute little girls in their tutus :-)

Their teacher Miss Emily is great and we look forward to next week.

Lilly holding the teachers hand

Driving with the hoop

Finn listening to the teacher

American Museum of Natural History

This is probably the best museum we have ever been to: the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Many people had told me about it, especially about the Dinosaur sections and I was very excited to finally take Finn and Lilly there.

On a Sunday morning we took the train to the city and decided to take a cab from Grand Central to the Museum. The only bad experience of the day: The cab driver pretended to be new and asked us how to get there. I was so glad I had looked at the map before and that I know NYC a little, that I as able to tell him how to get there easily. But those poor tourists that do not know, he probably would have taken them on a ride around the block to add 5 or 10 dollars to the bill. That is mean!

But we made it there ok, right in time for opening and we decided to buy a membership right away. And that was a good thing, because we have only seen one floor and the kids discovery room. We will be back many times to see the rest of this big and beautiful place.

We went to the 4th floor where the dinosaurs are and spent over an hour there. We then went down to the kids discovery room where we spent nearly another hour. It was awesome: Finn and Lilly were just running from one exhibit to another and could not believe all the dinosaurs they saw. And in the hands on kids room they read books, built dinosaurs and dug for fossils.

We then walked through Central Park back to the train and enjoyed the pretty spring day.
And we will be back soon to see the 3rd, 2nd and 1st floor of the museum.

Wow, look at his dinosaur...

Lilly enjoyed it as much as Finn

Look, I have the same dinosaur on my shirt

Putting the dinosaur bones on

Pond in Central Park

The boys in the park

Wave Hill - Public Garden

If you know me a little, you know that I like to find cool things to do that are preferably free or on the cheaper side :-)

In one of the free parent magazines for the area I had read about Wave Hill Public Gardens in the Bronx. First it sounded a little far as we are in White Plains right now. But in Westchester everything is kind of close and so we decided to take the kids there on a Saturday morning.

Saturday mornings the entrance to the garden is free and they have crafts for the kids. Each week they have another theme and the kids can make 2 crafts. We went when on the daffodils day. The kids got to make a daffodil hat and a shaker. Even though they still needed lots of help from us, they had fun glueing things on and coloring.

On the way out, a volunteer was reading stories and we stopped by to listen for a while.
We then had a little picknick and a muffin from the food truck before we headed back home.

It is a wonderful spot overlooking the Hudson River and I am sure to be back - especially when Barbara comes to visit!

Enjoying the view

Lilly and her hat

Working on our projects

Showing off our results

Listening to the story

Having a snack in the garden

Everything was blooming

Florida vacation

Before we even moved back to the US we had already planned to go and see Bill and Barb (Ben's parents) in Florida. They are so called "snowbirds" - they flee the winter up North and spend January through May in Florida.

They have a cute little place in an over 50 community and I just love visiting them there.
This time only Finn, Lilly and I went as Ben had just started his new job. We missed him - but we had a great time nevertheless (sorry Ben).

Florida had not had the best weather in the past months, but when we got there we brought the nice weather with us (delivered in a bad storm that we landed in). We had 5 days of sunshine, beach time, pool time, ice cream and drinks for mama.

The kids loved the beach: Finn just ran up and down trying to catch the birds, collecting shells and building sandcastles. Lilly loved the water and wanted to swim the whole time.

Thank you Barbara and Bill for a a wonderful time!

Yummy Icecream

First evening playing in the waves

Beach to ourselves

Swimming in the pool

Having a rest by the pool

Bill and Finn watching "Wipe out"

Snack time - their favorite time

Beach babes

She laughed so hard

They loved those chairs

Finn writing in the sand

Lilly loved the water!

Bye Amy and Ampy!

BBQ with the NY boys

Even though we are moving to a new city we have never lived in before we are lucky to already have some nice friends here. Ben's three college friends Mark, Mike and Joe live in NYC and they came up to White Plains to see us this past weekend.

We had a fun afternoon with them: some beers at our place before we went downstairs into the courtyard to have a BBQ. Part of the amenities of the Avalon (our building) are gas grills in the courtyard next to the playground. We had some sausage, steak tips, rips and grilled vegetables.

Finn and Lilly had fun running around and playing with some of the other kids of the building.

We continued hanging out at our place until the kids had to go to bed and the boys then went out for a few more drinks at the bars in town.

It was great seeing them and the kids loved playing with Uncle Joe, Mark and Mike.

Kids playing in the courtyard

Lilly is hungry

Ben did a good job grilling

Lilly & Joe - new best friends

Love this picture

Lilly all over Mike - Finn all over Mark: great uncles!

Easter Sunday

We had a little and sweet Easter celebration in our temporary housing here in White Plains, NY. After the kids got up they were looking for some eggs and their baskets. They found some real colored eggs for breakfast and each got a basket filled with play dough, bubbles, a toy and some candy. Thanks to my cousin Franziska and Günter, Finn also got a digital camera (love hand me downs!). He started taking pictures right away - I might have to start his own blog: World seen by Finn.

We then had traditional Muldrew easter breakfast: Kilbasa sausage from the grill, hard boiled eggs and English muffins.

As the weather forecast for the afternoon was not so good we decided to get out in the morning and have some outside time. We took a trip to Stone Barns Farm and spent a few great hours there. It is only about 20 minutes from White Plains and a beautiful spot. (And if you watch Top Chef you know what I am talking about - they have had several challenges there in the past.)

We got there early enough to find easy parking. We started off with exploring the beautiful stone building and had some yummy cookies from the cafe. Finn then wanted to see the pigs and we headed down to the animal section. They had baby lambs and baby piglets and lots of chickens and other grown animals. We had a good time looking at them and checking everything out.

There was also an easter egg hunt going on, but it was sold out (organized really well!). I had seen that on the website and I had packed our own eggs - learned from the mom the day before. And we had a little easter egg hunt ourselves at a nice spot up the hill.

Easter Morning

At Stone Barns Farm

Our own egg hunt was much more fun