Fun at Home

Here is a little video I put together from one night two weeks ago when Joanne worked late.

Thanksgiving Show

Ikea Madness

We were at Ikea a few weeks back and totally let Phillip run wild - we were definitely "that" family. We got reprimanded by the staff a couple times, but at least we got this great video!

Great Grandpa

My cousin sent me this picture, which I thought was pretty cool.

Nice Pic of the Kids

Just them playing around one morning before school.

Phillip at the Children's Museum

Ok this is a fairly long and boring video...I took it over a morning with Phillip at BCM and it gives a pretty good idea of what he's into these days. He's at the perfect age for that place and just goes from activity to activity. For a bonus I included a picture of Cecilia at the top of the "climbing structure".

Track Star!

Cecilia picked out this track suit for herself and would probably wear it every day if we let her. Here she is with matching shirt.

Well He Definitely Didn't Get Wet...

Dining Room Dancing

We recently got a new rug and the kids took full advantage of the open space in the dining room.

Morning Fun

When we are ahead of schedule in the morning things generally turn into this.

Brother & Sister Fun

Topsfield Fair

Here is a video medley from the Topsfield Fair we went to in October, which is kind of like the Massachusetts state fair. It's the oldest agricultural fair in the U.S. and was really great, although the rides were absurdly expensive. We actually saw a pig race too, but unfortunately no video of that.

Sam Wu

That's probably totally the wrong spelling, but here's a nice video from the greatest Chinese Restaurant I know.

First Lap

Cecilia completed a whole lap around Dana Park on her bike without training wheels! I am so proud of her! It's corny but it was really one of those incredible moments as a parent. It's impossible for me to count the hours I spent with my little girl leading up to the moment - it's really true that the best things in life are those that you have to work hardest to achieve.

Balloon Baseball

Enough said...

Mall Carousel

Sweet little video of Phillip at the Arsenal mall on the little carousel.

Bumper Cars

Maybe not a great quality video but a great memory for me! Cecilia drove this thing all by herself and there was no line so we went on it for like an hour straight...it's really hard to imagine having more fun.

The Boston Massacre

A few weeks ago I took Cecilia on a guided tour of the Freedom Trail for kids. Here is a clip where the guide talked about the Boston Massacre.

Phillip Meets Minny Mouse (for real!)

Harvard Soccer Game

Here are Cecilia and Maia Cecilia at the Harvard women's soccer game hte other weekend.

Bumper Cars

We went to this crummy little amusement park near Cape Cod on Sunday and I couldn't wait to post this "selfie" video of Cecilia driving a bumper car. The lines were really short so we went on it like six or seven times in a row while Phillip was sleeping on mommy's lap. So much fun!

Cousins

BCM Climbing Wall

Here is a nice video of Cecilia at the Boston Children's Museum on their climbing wall. She falls off at the end, but I am really proud of her strength and ability to do this kind of thing. I often get comments from other parents impressed with how well she navigates the jungle gym and I know she takes great pride in her ability to do the monkey bars and generally climb all over things. Watching her in the playground, I can tell the older kids are impressed with her too and it pumps up her "playground cred".

Meeting Cinderella

Here is another video from our trip to Storyland.

Five Year Old Heaven

Cecilia went to "Daddy Camp" this week - she stayed home with me - and we went to the mall yesterday. She wanted Gatorade but we couldn't find any so we could got chocolate milk...and then found some Gatorade. Of course I let her have both :)

Cecilia & Alexandra

Here's a great pic of Cecilia and her friend Alexandra from RCCC - took this at the Cambridge Commons playground last weekend.

Carousel

Davis Farm Again

Joanne was in Chicago for a conference and my mom and I took the kids to Davis Farm. The video of and pictures of Phillip and the baby goat is priceless.

Polar Coaster!

Love this video from our trip to Storyland in New Hampshire last month.

Bubbles!

The kids love chasing bubbles, here's a video from a few months back.

Blanky Riding!

U-S-A!

Getting ready for the World Cup with Maia!

Davis Farm

We went to Davis farm a few months ago with Cecilia's friend Tomer from Radclifee, along with his family. I really love Davis farm and we will definitely try and get there again this summer. I am going to miss Tomer and his family when the kids finish up Radcliffe in a few weeks. He is a great kid - he loves playing with Phillip - and I have become friends with his dad Victor. Here is a nice video from that day.

Brother and Sister

Phillip and Cecilia get along so well it's really great - they are playing together more and more. The other day I went to check on them and found them like this.

Phillip Sleeping

Here are couple of funny pics of Phillip sleeping.

Baby Geese

Phillip is really fascinated by the local geese and we found some babies last week.

More Soccer

I finally got a couple goals on video today - I love watching her and Maia run down the field laughing afterward.

Gardening

Soccer

After a Winter playing in an indoor league, Cecilia has been doing quite well in the more competitive outdoor Cambridge league this Spring. She has two goals in three games and seems to still really be enjoying it. She doesn't score in the video below but I think it's pretty decent.

Big Swing

I went to three playgrounds today! I love this video, what could be better than watching your kids have so much fun?

Scaffolding Gymnastics

Hurtling...

New Bike

Picked up Jacob's old bike on Saturday, here was the inaugural run.

Pink Stuffed Animals

Phillip's favorite stuffed animals, probably because they smell like his sister.

Bronx Zoo

Passover

North End Playground

Cousin Joanne and Rachel were in Boston this weekend so we all went to the North End for dinner and I took this pic in the playground across from Faneuil Hall.

Here is everybody on the new carousel.

Leo

Here is a nice picture of Cecilia and her friend Leo from school.

Blocks

Cecilia was really into building "train stations" with blocks for a little while, here is an example of our work.

Bedtime songs

This is how Phillip sings ABC:
"A-B-C-B-A-B-C. Next time daddy mommy, YAYYYYY!" With lots of clapping during the Yayyyy part. Here's a video. He's pretty tired, so it's a little less vigorous than usual, but you get the idea:

Phillip at the Playground

At the playground, Phillip seems mostly interested in two things: watching bigger kids play basketball and meeting girls. Here are a couple of nice pics from Dana Park from a couple of weeks ago when Cecilia and Mommy were at a birthday party.

Holiday Jumping

The kids were off school for Martin Luther King Day in January, so we took them to Jump On In, where we had Cecilia's birthday party last year, just for a free-jump session. I'm not sure if Phillip had more fun in the bouncy houses or on the foam mats on the outside of each bouncy house! :)

Smell my feet!

Thank goodness Cecilia is around to teach Phillip how to stick their stinky feet into people's faces.

Random things this winter

This is a crazy "yeah yeah" dance that Cecilia came up with.



Here is a game that Phillip never gets tired of - running away from Mommy or Daddy.



A montage video of random times we played at home together:



Cecilia and her friend Alexandra, right before we went sledding:

Cecilia the cowboy and her cheetah (horse):

Oh we are SO cool, and we know it:

Selfie

Dancing at the Lubrettsky's

This is from two months ago. Phillip is SO funny!

Recent high chair antics

This is already from 3 months ago! At the end of this video, you see Phillip learning how to use a fork - he's now pretty good and eats more than his sister!

Everybody Reading

Here's a cute video of both of them "reading" on their own from the other night.

Some People Make Snow Angels

I suppose I should be happy she's taken an interest in spelling...

Rock Climbing

Cecilia's 4th birthday party (again), June 2013

Cecilia's second celebration for turning 4 was with her Preschool Class at Radcliffe Child Care Center:



Her third (and final) 4th birthday celebration was at Jump On In, with all her family and friends invited together.

This might have been the most fun she ever had, and I'm pretty sure all the kids had a blast:



Some of the adults had a pretty good time too!



Even Phillip had a good time and pigged out on pizza:

The exposed tummy in this picture is hilarious.


Finally, you can't have a birthday without (cup)cake!

Cecilia making Phillip laugh (again)

This is from last May:

Eat-in kitchen, May 2013

We spend a lot of time in our "eat-in" kitchen. Here we are back in May, singing and clapping!

Phillip "dancing" last May 2013

This is when Phillip was only 9 months old. He was sitting up pretty well by himself at that point and almost crawling.

Cecilia's 4th birthday last May

Cecilia got to celebrate her 4th birthday a total of FOUR times last year. The first was with New York Grandma and the Lubrettsky's. We started off the weekend with a nice dinner and cake:



And it was such a nice weekend we spent some time on the Greenway, where we got some fantastic photos. Here is a nice one with New York Grandma and all her grandkids:

The rest of the pics can be found here.

Sledding to Nana's

A couple of days ago, it was a huge snowstorm, so we took the kids to Nana's on a sled. It took a while, but it was really fun!



Afterwards, Cecilia and I made snow angels.



Then we shoveled. A lot.

Dinnuh

It used to be that when Phillip and Cecilia got home, I would hear Phillip say, "Mommy! Mommy!" and he would run toward me and give me a hug. Maybe ask me to pick him up. Then he would say "Dinnuh dinnuh" meaning he was hungry and wanted dinner.

NOW, he sees me when he gets home, and immediately says "Dinnuh!" HUMPH.

Here is proof:

Snowtubing

Two weeks ago we went snowtubing in Connecticut with Annemarie, Paul, Nicholas, and Caroline, and also Ines, Sanjeev and Sydney! I was a little worried that it was going to be too cold, but I figured it would be worth trying, even if we only stayed out for 45 minutes. The kids ended up loving it!!! Especially the older kids. We bought a 3 hour pass, and were out there almost 4 hours (they let us go longer since they saw how much fun we were having), with only a little 20-30 minute break.

This is my favorite picture from the weekend:

The entire set can be found here.

We all started out a little tentatively, but pretty soon, I was sending Cecilia and Nicholas down first in their double tube, and then going after them in my single tube and trying to hit them on purpose. They said they were the pins and I was the bowling ball. I would hit them with quite a bit of force and send them careening up the bank! A little scary, but as long as they stayed in their tube they didn't get hurt.

Cecilia and Nicholas were best buddies the whole trip. Here's a video of one of the early double tubes they took down together. Pretty tame in comparison to what came later.



The next day we went swimming in the hotel pool, and finished off our trip with lunch at the Cheesecake Factory. It was a fantastic weekend.

Mem Drive, Spring 2013

One day last May, we went on Memorial Drive with Ben and the boys. Cecilia, Aaron and Jacob all rode their bikes, and we took Phillip in his hand-me-down little pink car.

One stop was at the relatively new Corporal Burns playground, where they have a crazy climbing structure and this big ring that you can spin around. The video of the kids (and Pete) on the ring is pretty amusing:



There was one exhausted little boy by the end of the trip:

Memorial Day weekend 2013 in Philadelphia

It's becoming a tradition... every Memorial Day we go down to Philly for a little med school reunion! Most of the time is just hanging out at Annemarie's. The kids are all pretty close in age, which is fantastic!

I'm betting as they get older, they'll just play together all the time and us adults can relax... We also usually make it to the Please Touch Museum while we're down there.




This year, Annemarie's parents, who also live in the area now, had a big party! It was nice to see the whole family again since I used to see them every Thanksgiving during med school. Annemarie and Paul brought their bouncy house, which was very popular with the kids.




Can't wait until next year!

Children's Museum MLK 2014

I went to the Children's Museum twice this weekend. The first time I was alone with both kids and I was worried about handling it, but Cecilia was so well behaved that it was no problem. She is really remarkable when she tries to be good.

The second time I went just with Phillip which was really nice, since I don't usually get to spend quality time one-on-one with him. He is a bit of a wild man though and it's actually pretty humbling. When Cecilia was this age I used to think that kids who behaved like that - pushing, hitting and grabbing toys - must have bad parents! I don't want to overstate it though, he's not bad and is definitely learning, but I have to watch him like a hawk.

Music April 2013

The future musicians of America:

Making Phillip laugh

I'm pretty sure there's nothing better than making your baby laugh. These videos are from April 2013 - it's a running theme, but I can't believe how fast the time has gone and how much Phillip has changed!

Phillip and the towel:



Bicep curls with Phillip:



Phillip laughing at the rattle:

Jang visit, April 2013

I can't believe it's almost been a year already, but last April, the Jangs came to visit us in Boston! Phillip was not even 8 months then. The full pics can be found here.

Most of the time was just spent hanging out. Not surprisingly, all the grandparents wanted to do was play with their grandkids! Here are a few videos I've compiled.

Cecilia and the grandparents:



Phillip and the grandparents:



Pure chaos:




My poor parents, we dragged them everywhere. It was finally "warm" in Boston, meaning it hit 50 degrees, so we dragged them to the beach. We dragged them to a multicultural potluck at Radcliffe, and I made my dad cook fried rice for it:




Finally, we dragged them to New York City, and I won't elaborate, but both parents got sick... that wasn't the best of ideas. But overall, it was a fantastic trip! My favorite picture from that visit:

Sacramento Railroad Museum

We went to the Sacramento Railroad Museum over Christmas, it was really pretty impressive. I had some great conversations with Cecilia about building the Transcontinental Railroad and the exhibits were really nice. Here are two pics of Cecilia and a video of Phillip.

Uncle Bruce at Fairytale Town

Nice pic and video from our trip to Fairytale Town Sacramento over Christmas.

Cheetah Style

Winter 2013-2014 fashions are all about cheetah prints.

Alberico Fun

The weather was decent on Sunday so I took the kids to Alberico playground for a bit - I really love this video.

Nice Cousins Pics

"Shoveling", plus the new Cheetah / Snow Leopard Hat

Grandma's Bed Madness!

From Thanksgiving