Parental Leave Pedal Boating

Samuel had a fever on Tuesday, so no school on Wednesday
Steve just started parental leave so he was home with us
What do you do with a kid who is recovering from a fever?
Why, you go pedal boating on the local lake, of course.Do you think Samuel is excited about going on a boat?Samuel tries to pedal... umm not quite big enough... maybe next time...
Daddy does it all
Don't you wish you lived here too? (not to be mean, FDR family)
Still a little sick...

Happy Birthday Sara and Lena

The Silberman family minus Daniel, celebrates Sara's and Lena's birthdays.

Why can't you keep your eyes open Steve? The Kafka picture curse.
When do you know you're not an inlaw, but a full fledged family member?
When you are handed a plate of food and told to cook it.
Food, for me? Uncle David, you are my new best friend.
Cousins
Samuel is blessed to have older cousins who can teach him the important things in life.
This year, Lena demonstrated the important tradition of how after you blow out the candles you need to remove each one and lick the bottom. Samuel picked up on it very quickly.

January Potluck

I almost let the month of January go by without a post. But as luck would have it, our new camera arrived today (yippee!) and Kathy and Rob hosted the potluck tonight (yummy!). These were just the two things that I needed to get back to the family blog.

The thing that has been keeping me from blogging for the past month is my realization that, while my iphone camera is as incredibly convenient as it gets, it also takes as incredibly low quality pictures as it gets. So, last month, when I decided to make a photo album out of my blog posts, I was disappointed to find that all of the candid photos I have been taking for the last 6 months are virtually useless for anything other than web photos.

That depressing revelation led me to refuse to take any more pics until I had a new camera. A little silly, but true.

But tonight, with our new digital SLR in hand, Steve, Samuel and I, had a lovely social evening and very yummy time at Kathy's, Rob's and Jessie's.

while the adults ate...

and drank...
and ate some more...
the kids played

Word on the street is the martinis were quite potent, but they were absorbed nicely by Chris's lemon lime coconut cake

Thanks Kathy and Rob! We had a great time.

going to the snow

i know that steve has become a true california convert because he said it on our way up to tahoe. he told samuel that we were "going to the snow". yes, snow is a place, not a season.

breakfast stop in sacramento on our way up "to the snow"

the vacation begins, as every vacation should, with... sleep

bubbie pulls out her carefully selected* bag of tricks

*she was only allowed to bring one bag of toys

samuel suits up for his big day in the snow

happybirthdaynewcsaboxfarmfieldtripchanukahohchanukamakingtoastdayattheparktrainingthefourthchef

we did a lot this month. so much, that i haven't had a chance to blog about it. so here is one big catch up.

the month of december began, as it always does, with the day of my birth...

i was lucky enough to have dinner with my family, preceded by a day at the spa, which i will not speak of further, but it was also the place where i'm pretty sure samuel was conceived...

next came our pick up of our first winter CSA box. so i suited up shira and samuel, and we biked on over.

and shira began her chef duties with our newly acquired produce

we went to the farm for a field trip with our preschool class

samuel showed his true colors as a pyromaniac this chanukah, much like his uncle david. in order to satisfy his desire for fire, he insisted we light two menorahs each night.
steve and i realized how few of the chanukah songs we actually know all the words to, since samuel began to ask for chanukah songs at bedtime. dreidle dreidle sung many times in a row just did not satisfy.
this chanukah marks the first time samuel truly began to understand the concept of gifts. he was excited about unwrapping them, and was more interested in the contents,
than the box (most of the time)
samuel putting his new matchbox cars into his new matchbox carrying case (courtesy of auntie lauren and grandma joan, respectively)

samuel playing maestro as lauren and lena play the piano after chanukah dinner: (video at www.mysunmoonandstars.blogspot.com)

this month also marks shira's half birthday. and boy is she growing up: (video at www.mysunmoonandstars.blogspot.com)


samuel is also growing up. his latest burst of independence** includes making his own cheese toast from start to finish. the steps to make this happen
1. samuel pulls his chair over to the freezer, opens it, pulls out a piece of bread, puts bread on chair, pushes it over the counter, climbs on the counter, opens the toaster, puts bread in
2. opens the fridge, removes the cheese, brings it over to the cutting board, asks me to cut him two slices*
3. places the slices of cheese on the bread
4. closes the toaster turns the dial on and waits for it to toast
5. pulls out a plate from the cabinet, puts his toast on it
6. eats it happily


*when samuel doesn't want any help at all, he slightly modifies this step, and instead of cheese, uses butter - he rubs it straight on the bread and doesn't need my help (or approval)

**the first time he did this, he did it all without my knowledge. i just showed up in the kitchen to see him eating toast, and he proceeded to show me how he made it happen.

What happened?

I will hopefully return to blogging in the next few days. What happened? Well, I realized Chanukah was rapidly approaching and thus used my few moments of "free" time to catch up on some gifts that I meant to knit. Now that I have finished those (pics to be posted after the recipients of said gifts have them in hand or head, as the case may be) I have been madly baking.

1. Today I managed to go to preschool with Samuel.

2. Be the one in charge of the outdoor art project (painting a candle precariously stuck in some kind of clay and then sprinkle with glitter. )

3. Talk another preschooler down from an "i miss mommy and must cry hysterically until she returns" fit.

4. Tote my hysterical preschooler to the car under one arm while pushing my infant in a stroller in the other (and get them both in the car, and drive home while he continued to scream, etc. etc.)

5. After hysterical preschooler slept, made two loaves of pumpkin chocolate chip bread and 3 dozen pumpkin chocolate chip mini muffins.

6. Made a 3 course dinner while infant decided she was too tired to sleep and would rather scream every time I put her down.

7. Made 3 dozen ginger spice cookies after putting crazed preschooler to bed.

8. Made plans to meet an old high school friend in San Francisco tomorrow who I haven't seen in almost 15 years.

9. Blog about it all.

10. Relax to some mindless television (I hope).

Thanksgiving 2009

For the first time in several years, we spent Thanksgiving at Grandpa Lou's and Grandma Joan's house. It was nice to finally have the whole Silberman clan together again. Daniel was home from Udub, Lauren is living nearby again and we weren't in New York.

Samuel unpeals the wrapper from one of the turkey cupcakes that Emma made.
From the moment he saw the turkey cupcakes he insisted on having one, and went into meltdown when we told him he had to wait until after dinner. Steve finally negotiated for Samuel to sit on his lap for five minutes and eat two pieces of actual turkey before he devoured the cupcake and a half.

The rest of this post is a series of three videos. Once again, you can't see the videos on Facebook, if you'd like to watch them, go directly to my blog: www.mysunmoonandstars.blogspot.com

I am strongly tempted not to include the first video because you can hear me singing on it, and yes, I sound REALLY REALLY BAD. I mean embarrassingly bad, but it has my Dad's traditional self deprecating toast at the beginning, and it wouldn't be Thanksgiving without it. And really, since everything in the world is not about my vanity, I'll take one for the team. Just please ignore my voice.






Shira attempts to eat Steve's plate, and maybe some mashed potatoes too. She has yet to actually get any food very near her mouth, but it is only a matter of time.