We went out on a limb by purchasing inexpensive tickets from Allentown, PA. And, oh boy! was it a good idea. It was nothing but smooth sailing in downtown Manhattan, barely a brake light in sight and no traffic thru the Holland tunnel. We made it to Easton, PA, home of the Crayola Crayons, in one hour and had oodles of time before our scheduled departure. I purchased a tin of brand new crayons in every hue of purple for my niece, Sasha, who just celebrated her 3rd birthday and has an affinity for all things purple.

You really wouldn't believe the scene at the Allentown airport, unnerving for a couple of cynical New Yorkers-- friendly conversation, no waiting at security, easy-going travelers and rocking chairs at the gate. You're probably asking yourself, "okay, when does tragedy hit? when does kali forget her ID? when does shane lose his trumpet?" But, ladies and gentlemen, the day went without a hitch. It was a completely enjoyable day of travel. It was Mahalia's first flight and she slept, as perfect babies do, the whole time.

Our trip was amazing. It was the best Thanksgiving in recent memory. Why? Having a baby, a little family of my own is changing me, making me mushy all the time. I love being with my brothers and sisters, playing scrabble, sharing belly laughs over a card game. I love their children and seeing them with their children. I love Shane and am amazed at his gentle way with Mahalia. Family, family, family!! I mean really, could I be any luckier? It just warms the cockles of my heart know that these people are out there somewhere, silently cheering me on. Here are a few photos. There are so many more......

Lilli's resemblence to Dora the explorer is uncanny! Check out the new teeth!!





Sophia giving mealtime thanks.



Sasha-bo-basha (aka Farty McFartson)
post-meal snoozarama

baby Olivia

Shane works all day on Saturday. His job takes him to the fine borough of Queens where he teaches jazz loving high schoolers how to swing and such. On many a Saturday our good friend, Beth, comes out to Brooklyn. Beth and I share a love of shopping and we often call each other to go and "touch things" in expensive shops. A typical Saturday usually ends with an episode or two of various home and gardening shows, or a house-flipping show. If we're lucky, we might catch an episode of The Barefoot Contessa or maybe even that program about the dreamer dwarf and his grumpy dwarf wife.



Today we changed it up a bit. Mahalia and I walked and walked thru Brooklyn. We cruised down Flatbush Ave. up to Prospect Park and thru the Botanic Gardens. We stopped to look at the Japanese Pond.



We stopped and looked at some funny pointy plants in the herb garden.



We admired seasonal fruits and vegetables at the Farmers Market at Grand Army Plaza.








We stopped at the Brooklyn Museum and I saw one very disturbing piece of art called Baby Girl by an Australian artist that creates gigantic, extremely lifelike sculptures. I couldn't find a picture of the Baby Girl. I found this one though called Big Man. It gives you an idea. It's extremely large in real life. The baby was fresh out of the womb with the umbilical cord and everything. It's around 20 feet long. Beth was with me but was too disturbed to look.















I splurged on a new lovely pair of striped socks.

get a load of these wrists. we've been working hard on them
Mahalia Earhart

Mahalia now enjoys picking over her stuffed animals like a vulture picks over a carcass.

Take a close look and you'll notice the teeny-tiny dreadlocks forming on the back of Mahalia's head. We call her Dreadlock Rasta baby. I snapped this shot in the nick of time. Daddy gave her a little haircut today and snipped them off.

Thank you to everyone that wrote or called to make sure Shane was okay. After 2 hours in the bathroom he was totally better. There was a moment that we both thought a trip to the Brunswick, Maine ER was going to be necessary but it seems once he got absouloutely everything out of his guts he was fine. He was ravenously hungry the next day. After his 5th lobster roll I knew that he was really feeling better. Our backpack never did show up but I'm glad that instead our luck got used up on escaping the stomach illness that Shane experienced. Highlights of the trip included the most perfect weather imaginable, staying at the Kennebunk Inn which is owned by our friend and chef Shanna, eating lobster risotto, showing Mahalia the seaside and buying a year's worth of toothpaste at the Tom's of Maine Outlet.

I'm in the midst of an ill-fated trip to Maine. The day started out sunny and crisp--a perfect November day in New York. Shane brought Mahalia to school and played his trumpet for a Group of three-year olds who sat and listened to his "beautiful instrument that sounds different than my instrument bongos I have at my house." We left City & Country excited for a trip into the fresh-air wildreness. Shane would play some jazz while Mahalia and I took in the Atlantic air and feasted on Lobster rolls and clam chowder. The day took a turn for the worse when Shane realized that he accidentally left our fully loaded dipaer bag on the street in Brooklyn. It contained items such as a brand new pair of leather booties (yes, mom, the ones you bought us,) a beloved giraffe, a new and extremely well working manual breast pump, and three bottles of expressed breast milk. As we were on an extremely tight schedule to get to a concert and for those of you who understand the unbearable and time consuming driving hell that is New York city and 100 miles in every direction outside of the city, we could not afford to go back to see if the bag was in fact still on the street. Well, this sort of put us in a tense mood which improved with every mile that we travelled outside of the grimy city we call home. I've done what I can in attempt to locate our bag––we called our trusty landlord, Tom, to have a look; I sent a pathetic email to the FLATBUSH FAMILY NETWORK where people in our neighborhood post emails that say things like, "LOST-pink barette. somewhere between Manhattan and Florida." and then the next day there will be another post "FOUND-PINK BARETTE!" So I'm hopeful that it'll turn up. Now we're hanging out in this quaint little hotel room in this lovely little village in Maine and everything would be perfect if only I didn't hear the sound of Shane throwing his guts up in the bathroom for the 5th time tonight. Now I'm praying to the good lord in heaven that Mahalia doesn't get sick and start spewing vomit all over the inside of the little yellow bug. Oh please GOD if you never give me anything else in life grant me this one wish...............mom and dad suggested that perhaps we should wear masks to prevent us from developing any similar illness. You'll remember from the beginning of this post that we spent 8 hours in traffic together today. Surely, the damage has already been done. um, will be sure to let you know of any new and fun things that happen on the rest of this trip.

This will be the last thing I say about Halloween. Shane got a shot of crafty and created a sock puppet with Mahalia's face, a sock, a hat and an old onesie. There was a sock puppet competition at Barbes, the location of the weekly Slavic Soul Party show. We are very mature. I'm proud to say that Shane's puppet won 2nd place!! Shane reported that many people felt that by using his own baby's head judges would be swayed to vote for him as the winner. Personally, I felt that Shane's sockpuppet kicked ass. You be the judge.

Mahalia also has these sunglasses which were a gift from Sarah Hale. I find the resemblence to Elton John totally uncanny. We're working on the rest of that Halloween costume.

I used to be a Halloween nut. We didn't see too many homemade costumes at the Wash. Sq. Park Parade. My favorite kind of costume tends to be of the far-fetched-homemade-almost-falling-apart variety. Back in the day I won the Celina, OHIO parade as a Hot Air Balloon Pilot. Some of you might remember. It was the most awesome. That same year my little brother went as a dead cowboy. He wore a coffin and everything. Awesome. This year Mahalia wore a Peanut costume sent to her by her friends, Ben and Marisa. Daddy forgot about Halloween on the actual day so we had a dress-up picture session on Wednesday. She ain't trick-or-treating or anything. Sliding her into the costume made her less than happy. Thank God she found her thumb. All you need is thumb. Thumb is all you need. Oh yes, for those of you don't know, laying next to baby Peanut is the real Peanut.

Aunt Marguertie came for a visit. She's the kind of person that prefers animals to humans. Upon meeting Mahalia, she looked her up and down and whispered, "Oooh! Look at her paws." We happened upon the children's Halloween parade at Washington Sq. Park and Marguerite remarked more than once that she'd prefer an animal-in-costume parade over the children.