Big kids

The just looked so big in this picture, I had to post it. My babies are growing up fast!
And Lilly is wearing one of the pretty dresses her great grandmother "Oma Lotte" has made her. Danke Oma Lotte! (we hope Opa Konrad sees this and shows it to her)

Lilly is a girl!

Lilly is as girlie as it comes:

• her favorite color is pink, 
• she loves princesses, 
• she loves to dance and dress up like a ballerina, 
• she loves glitter, 
• she loves her toe and finger nails painted (pink of course), 
• she loves to put on lipstick, 
• she loves to wear dresses

I am not sure where this came from because I am not girlie at all. I do not even own a lipstick or nail polish :-) But I think we are in for a treat with this fun girl.

Lilly in a pink dress after applying some lipstick :-)

Bronx Zoo: Dino Safari

We went back to the Zoo this week to finally check out the Dino Safari.

They currently have a special show about dinosaurs at the zoo and we had to see it (and we will be back a few more times before it closes.)

It takes you on a ride (like a hayride) through some of the back parts of the zoo and lots of dinosaurs are displayed along the way. They move, they make sounds and some even spray water. To say that Finn loved it would be an understatement!

And at the end of the ride is an area set up to learn more about dinosaurs, see some skeletons, dig out some dinosaur bones, pet a baby TRex and take some pictures.

Mall fun

At the other mall (the not so fancy mall), they have free stuff too. They have a game on the floor for the kids to play. They love jumping and running on it and making the fruit pictures splash.

Note: They are wearing their "snakes" to the mall (the belts from their bathrobes).

Love for Ikea

I am very happy to report, that the kids are already sharing my love for Ikea. There is one 30 minutes from White Plains in NJ and we have been there a few times by now.

We usually drop off Finn at the daycare there - 1.5 hours of shopping for Lilly and me. Finn loves to play in the ball pit and run around with the other kids. Once unfortunately we had a little accident and had to cut our shopping trip short and they had to close the ball pit afterwards :-(

But usually Finn has fun there while Lilly and I check out the upstairs first (show rooms) where she usually tests a few things: couches, beds, chairs, etc.

Lilly testing the Ikea bed

We then go downstairs and pick up what we need from the market place. After paying we put the things in the car and come back in to pick up Finn. Note: they have super close family parking right outside the entrance where the daycare drop off is! 

This time we went back upstairs for lunch (meatballs of course) and some play time in the kids section.

Finn playing in the kids corner

And on the way out we hit the ice cream for a sweet ending of our trip to Ikea.

Kids and friends...

Even though I am counting the days until we can finally move into our house (should be end of July), we are enjoying living in White Plains in the meantime. Our apartment is at the Avalon building and there are lots of young families here. The kids have made many friends by now and we love playing with them on the playground and at the pool. We will miss them once we are in Larchmont!

Lilly and the girls having a picknick

Our favorite friend Isabella joined us for ice cream

Finn & Lilly

Here are some pictures from our photo session trying to get a picture for the father's day frame....

Last Day of Dance/ Movement Class

We have been trying lots of different things this spring and probably our favorite class was movement class aka dance class.
Lilly did the 2&3 year old class first - we called it dance class for her and she loved to wear her tutu.
Finn was in the 3&4 year old class and we called it movement class for him (you know, he is a boy and does not go to dance class :-).
Their teacher Emily was great and they really had fun. Lilly knew every move and was always by the teachers side. Finn participated most of the time, but often wandered off doing his own thing.
Here are some cute videos from their last class this week.

Finn liked to be first in line

Lilly was always close to the teacher

Some of their dance moves (Lilly's class)

And this was Finn's favorite part of the class: the boots song

Beautiful Hydrangeas

I really like hydrangeas and the remind me of Cape Cod!
These ones we found outside the kids nursery school.

Strawberry picking

I love berry picking - all kinds of berries. Since I have been a child, we have been strawberry picking every year. So I try to continue this tradition with our kids as well. Nashville was awesome for strawberry picking (lots of options) and in Austria we even had some right outside our house.

There are no places for strawberry picking too close in Westchester, but we took advantage of being up in MA/CT last weekend and went strawberry picking on our way home from Ben's parents house. We had picked a place in CT, but on our drive we passed a little farm and decided to stop there.

There were only "small" strawberries left, but they still tasted great and we had fun. We all ate lots of berries while we were there and brought some home with us. Not too many this year, as we are still in temporary housing and have no room to put it anywhere. We will be back to jam making next year again!

Finn found a big one

I would put one in and Lilly would eat two out

Our harvest - check out Lilly's T-shirt covered in strawberry juice

Walking back to the car

Mail

One of our favorite things to do in our apartment building is to go and check if we got mail. Especially packages. I have to admit, that sometimes I buy little things online so the kids would have a package to pick up :-) My mom has been really great about sending packages to the kids - everything from candy, little toys and clothes. In the last package they got some nice outfits: a new summer dress for Lilly and an Angry Birds t-shirt for Finn. Danke Oma!

Beach Time on Long Island

One of Ben's good college buddies Mike (his family) has this great little place on Long Island. It is called a cabana and it is right on the beach not too far from the city. It is basically a little cement room in a row of many of them with a shower in it, a fridge, some furniture and storage space. Bathrooms are at one end the on of the row of cabanas and at the other end are the dunes and the beach. There is enough space in front of each cabana to put a picknick table and a grill and then more sand for the kids to play in. A few weeks ago we joined them for the first time and it was awesome. The kids loved it and I am looking forward to going back this weekend!

With the boys at the cabana

Bronx Zoo

Last week was our first time to the Bronx Zoo - and the kids had a blast. We were there for about 3 hours and we have not seen a quarter of it. We actually spent most of the time at the Mouse house (I know, but they loved it) where Finn showed me the chinchillas and the 2 legged mouse.

We then spent the rest of the time at the reptile house where Finn looked at every display at least twice. 

Lilly got very tired by the end of it and we had to leave, but we will be back soon. Especially as we joined to become members and can come as many times as we want to :-)

It was also really easy to get there as we just hopped onto the Bronx River Parkway from White Plains and Exit 6 goes into the Bronx Zoo Parking Lot. Awesome!

The twolegged mouse

On our way to the mouse house

We did see the seals

Fathers Day

This father's day we kept with the theme from the past years - a beautiful handmade gift from the kids.
As Ben has a new office it seemed a great idea to take a picture of the kids and have them decorate a picture frame. We do not have many craft supplies yet so Finn colored the picture frame in his favorite color - plain green! Ben did not mind and has proudly put it in his office.

Finn at work

Fancy Mall (Westchester Mall)

So.... I do not go shopping very often these days (not much fun with Finn and Lilly), but last week I kind of had too as fathers day was coming up and Ben's birthday and Maddie's recital and Barbara's birthday. Lots of reasons.
So.... I took the kids to the "fancy mall" named the Westchester Mall and I have to admit it was a success :-)
Did you know that they give your kids cookies and crayons and coloring pages at Nordstrom?
That you can drink as much tea as you want at Teavana?
That they get stickers at Urban Outfitters?
With all those distractions the kids did pretty good and I might be back soon.

Races

I am still working on my races to get entry to the NYC marathon 2014. Here are few pics of my recent ones.

Womens Oakley 10k - same day as Frauenlauf in Bregenz

Run for Israel - June 2013

And also, I won a spot for this year (November 2013) in the lottery and will try to run the NYC marathon twice in a row. Let's see how that goes!

Arts festival in White Plains

A few weeks ago they had the Arts Festival in White Plains. As it was only a few blocks from our apartment, I loaded the kids up and went to check it out.

Unfortunately the merchandise was not too exciting, but they had a crafts table for the kids where Lilly made a hat and we had yummy kettle corn popcorn. And the kids got balloons!

Lilly at the crafts table (Finn chose to eat and drink instead)

Lilly and her finished hat

Scooter Time

I think the kids would be ready for their bikes soon, but unfortunately we do not have much space right now to store things until we move into our house. So I was looking for "an easier and smaller alternative" and I bought the kids scooters. THEY LOVE IT!
Our new favorite past time is scooting outside. I bought them fun helmets to go with their scooters and we got all our friends in the building hooked on scooters by now.

Ready to go outside

Lilly has a fun style

Finn got the hang of it really quickly

Having fun with our scooters

Dinner at the Mexican Restaurant

Have I mentioned that my kids favorite food is Mexican? If you ask them what they would like for dinner, they will probably say Quesadilla 9 out of 10 times.
But as we have not found anything close to "Las Maracas" (our favorite Mexican Restaurant in Nashville), we are still on the look out for a good Mexican Restaurant here in Westchester.
We tried one the other night and it was an adventure. Believe me, nothing is ever boring with us. Here is how our evening went:

• It was in a sketchy neighborhood (nothing too bad, but it was pouring rain and made everything look even worse)
• We were the only non hispanic people in the restaurant (everybody turned around to stare at us when we walked in)
• They only spoke Spanish there - haha, the waitress came directly to me to make sure that I spoke Spanish.
• The food was yummy and the kids really liked their beans and chips and salsa and quesadilla.
• But then a random young guy came in (very drunk) and just wanted to talk to Ben about not having kids on his own - in a mix of Italian and Spanish - and he then wanted to give him money to pay for the kids food as having kids is so expensive.
• An then the old Mexican man from back in the corner of the restaurant came and asked the young man out and to leave us alone.

Oh boy, what an evening. As I said, never boring with us and we have to continue looking for good Mexican Food as it was nice, but not there yet...

Rainbow

Since we have moved into our current temporary apartment, we spend even more time outside than before (smaller apartment and only little furniture).
But as it is Summer right now, it is just fine and we find lots of fun things to do. The kids love to color with chalk on the playground and usually all the other kids also stop by to borrow some chalk.

Here is a rainbow that Finn and Lilly made the other day.

Yes, we spend many hours by the pool...

We love having the pool in our building and we are there every day if the weather is nice. We have met several kids from our building by now and Finn and Lilly love playing with them in the water. They have gotten really used to the water by now and they float by themselves with their floaties (Schwimmflügel) on. They climb in and out and swim around.

I am very happy that they are comfortable in the water now and I think we will take swim lessons in the fall.

This day was only in the mid 70ies, so nobody was at the pool except us. It was awesome!

Memorial Day

On Memorial Day we were invited at Jon and Jill's house in New Caanan, CT. As we have known them for so long now and Ben has been working with Jon for so many years, I like to think of them as part of our family. Great to have them close again!

Before we went there Ben took the kids to see part of the parade in White Plains. Lilly wore her cute white, blue and red dress and was waving her flag.

We then went around lunch time to their house. They have a beautiful big house with a great back yard with an awesome pool and a trampoline - heaven for our kids.

And their kids are old enough to be great babysitters which I really liked :-) Thanks Grace, Madeline and Caroline!

The kids (all of them) spent most of the time in the pool or on the trampoline and the older girls took turns watching Finn and Lilly. 

Lunch was great: Jon did BBQ on the grill, yummy side dishes and lots of fruit which Finn and Lilly loved.

Gracie and Lilly in the pool - that was in the beginning when she was still getting used to it

Jon and Ben at the food table

Beautiful backyard and pool - the group of people was really nice and fun

Caroline and Finn at the pool - this was a great start for the pool season, Finn even jumped off the diving board into the pool and swam to the ladder to get out again!

And at the end of the day they turned on their fire pit and the kids (big and small) were roasting Marshmellows.

Thank you very much for a wonderful day and we look forward to being back again this summer. 

As Lilly put it: "Again Big Jon's house. Me love girls." :-)