Happy Halloween

When your bedtime is 7pm it's difficult to do too much for Halloween.  Plus, many of the city's planned Halloween festivities have been postponed or were cancelled due to Sandy.  But we dressed up Olin in his costume anyway and let him trick or treat at our house. 

I tried to get better photos of him, but once we gave him that chocolate covered marshmallow pumpkin, it was over - his full attention was devoted to his candy.  I did manage to get a few though. 

Oh, and if you can't tell, this year little one dressed up as Mitt Romney.  Just a disclaimer, this costume choice is not an endorsement of any kind, he just wanted to be relevant in his costume choice, he has great politician hair, and he naturally looks more like one candidate than the other.

Hope everyone had a nice, nay, spooky Halloween!

Surviving Sandy

Luckily, Sandy had little impact on the Burgher family.  I really wish I could say the same for the rest of our community.  We live uptown, which is much higher than lower Manhattan so we didn't suffer any flooding and didn't even lose power during the storm.  And if that wasn't good enough, our apartment is long and narrow and runs from the front to the back of our building and while on most days, I curse the layout because it means that we don't get a lot of sunlight (most of our windows face the neighboring building which is about 2 feet away), I felt extremely grateful on Monday as we were well protected from the incredible winds brought on by the storm. 

Josh did have yesterday and Monday off from work and Olin's school is closed for the entire week, but other than that it is business as usual for us. 

Thanks to all of you that reached out to us via phone calls and emails, it means a lot to us.

A few pictures out our front window Monday night - it was impossible to capture from our vantage point, but the wind was really incredible.  I don't know if you can tell from the photos, but the building across the street had to anchor its awning for fear that it might blow away...

Happy Happy Birthday!

Dear Baby Boy,
Two years old... years, plural!... time has gone way too fast.  It doesn't seem possible that two years have passed since the day we welcomed you into this world and our lives changed forever.  We are so proud of you and the special little person that you have become.  You are our greatest gift and we feel so fortunate to have the incredible luck and responsibility of being your parents.  You have enriched our lives so much over the past two years and it is difficult to remember a time without you.  Thank you for being you and the sweet spirit that you are.  Happy birthday!  We love you more than all the numbers.

Love Always,
Mommy and Daddy

From this morning, pumpkin "birthday" pancakes for breakfast...

Family Photos!

Here are a few of the shots from last week's photo session that the photographer sent over.  Gosh, this little guy of ours is pretty cute!

Over The Weekend

It was a beautiful fall weekend in NYC so on Saturday, we drove out to Long Island to celebrate Millie's 2nd birthday (I'll include photos of the party in a separate post because there are quite a few!) 

And on Sunday, we had a play date with an adorable little girl named Piper who is 2 days older than Olin.  Piper and her family attend our church so after the service yesterday, we took the little ones to Central Park to play.  Unfortunately, we got back late from Long Island the day before which meant that Olin got to bed late Saturday night and was really cranky on Sunday so our play date was cut short by a meltdown.  He was particularly angered by the fact that we wouldn't allow him to play in a freezing cold fountain... we really were being quite unreasonable.

So after a long nap, we started some of Olin's birthday party prep and did some grocery shopping.  One of little mister's favorite things to do right now is unpack the groceries.  He has even started rearranging the refrigerator for optimization (he is his Daddy's son). 

Hope everyone had a great weekend!

A Photo Shoot

We spent yesterday afternoon all dressed up on Columbia's campus for a family photo shoot to document little mister's transition to two years old.  Olin did really well (for the first 15 minutes) and he even met a friend at one point.  However, the highlight of the entire ordeal for him was that he got to wear a tie just like Daddy!  He was so proud of his little tie and held very still while I put it on him.. he couldn't stop looking down at it.

Here are some amateur behind the scene photos taken by yours truly.  I'll post some of the professional photos once we get them back from the photographer.

Oh, and if this wasn't enough, little mister went in the potty for the first time last night!

Over The Weekend

We dusted off the passports this weekend and went to the Fort Greene neighborhood of Brooklyn to shop for some treasures at the Brooklyn Flea Market (okay, not really, we were going in search of some supposed great food).  We did find the food - an overrated pork sandwich (or porchetta), but fortunately, also an incredible passion fruit donut from a place called Dough.  The flea market is down the street from Josh's coworker Evelina and her boyfriend Andrew so they met us at the market and then gave us a great tour of their little neighborhood.   I must say, as much as we love Manhattan, Fort Greene is very charming with its tree-lined streets and seemingly hundreds of lovely brownstones.  I would love to live in a brownstone someday... although they are probably not the most practical, they sure are beautiful!

And if Olin were voting, I think he would say the highlight of Sunday was playing on the air mattress we ordered for Grandpa Greg and Grandma Peg's upcoming visit.  As soon as he got on that thing, it became all out WrestleMania in our house... he may be little, but he sure is tough!

Sick Again!

Happy Monday everyone!  It's not such a happy Monday in the Burgher house because we have yet another illness and Olin is home from school again. 

This morning, his teacher called me to let me know that little mister had a few blisters on his hands and that we needed to take him to the doctor to see if it is contagious.  Well, as luck would have it, it is contagious.  He now has something called hand and foot virus which causes these little blisters on his hands and feet (of course). Our doctor said he must have got it from one of the children at school because it is going around and completely not a big deal.  Like a cold virus, there is no treatment for it and it goes away on its own after a few days. 

I think the doctor sensed my absolute desperation and frustration when I pleaded with him to tell me what we are doing wrong to which he responded again that this is totally normal for a child's first year in school.  This is our third trip to the doctor's office in the past 3 weeks - we are going to spend Olin's college fund on copays!  The good news is that while there, the doctor checked his ears and said that they look perfect and we can stop his antibiotics.

When we returned home, I called the school to report the latest and asked his teacher if he is the sickest child she has ever had in her class.  She laughed and said absolutely not and with this virus, Olin can return to school after 24 hours which means I get to hang out with my little buddy tomorrow too. 

Please keep your fingers crossed that we have no new illnesses (and thus no more trips to the doctor) at least for a few weeks... we need a break!

Sleeping Beauty

While with the doctor yesterday, I took the opportunity to ask her about how we should "dress" the little one for bed now that he is almost two.  Up until now, we were given strict instructions that no blankets should be in his crib so he slept in a sleep sack or in the most recent warmer months, in just his pajamas,  However, now that it's cooling down again (it's been really chilly in NYC the past few days), sleeping in just his pajamas isn't warm enough and the sleep sack is getting a little small. 

Well, we got the go ahead from the doctor to let him sleep with blankets and while I know this may seem incredibly inconsequential, it felt like a big deal around here last night.  When we tucked that blanket around Olin, he got so excited like he knew that sleeping with a blanket is something that big boys do.  It was very cute and Josh and I only checked on him about a dozen times to make sure that he wasn't in any danger of suffocating himself! 

Oh, and that Cookie Monster in the photos below was a gift from Grandpa Greg and Grandma Peg last week, and let me tell you everything is about "Cookie" around here these days... I have lost count of how many times that we have sung "C is for Cookie" and yesterday when I had to wash Cookie Monster, after a tragic fall out of the stroller that resulted in him getting stuck in the stroller wheels and drug for a few feet along the dirty NYC sidewalks, a mini meltdown ensued.  He really does love that guy and I am not sure what we have done all this time without him!

A Sick Day

It feels like old times around here (aka before school) because little mister is under the weather today and staying home with Mommy after already having a vacation day on Monday for the holiday.  We went to see his doctor this morning and learned that the poor little guy has his first ear infection (it's in his right ear).  The doctor said that it is most likely due to this cold he hasn't been able to shake for the past three weeks.  Or perhaps more likely, it's been one cold on top of another because he starts to get better and then a few days later he gets stuffed up again.  She also said that we should get used to it and that it's not uncommon for little ones to get up to 10 colds in their first year of school!

My friend, Luney, suggested that we feed Olin pineapple because it's supposed to help with the congestion so we have been eating a lot of pineapple in the Burgher house.  So much so that Josh even invented "Aloha Oatmeal" this morning.. I don't know that I would recommend it to everyone, but Olin sure seemed to like it.

Anyway, we have antibiotics and he has the all clear to go back to school tomorrow.  Until then, I will enjoy having our little one around the house today.  And fingers crossed that we can finally get over this illness... we have a big birthday coming up in exactly 19 days!

A Rainy Afternoon at the Museum

Here are some pictures of our Sunday at the The Metropolitan Museum of Art.  We love that place so much and it seems that little mister is developing a love for it too. 

A few years ago when we lived just down the block from the Met, we were so lucky because our well-connected friend George would get us invitations to all of the museum openings.  These openings were always beautiful events that we would get dressed up for and enjoy music, food, and a sneak peak of the art with a crowd that we do not normally hang out with!  It really is an extraordinary place and one of our favorite places in the city.

Anyway, on Sunday we wanted to see the Regarding Warhol exhibit and while Olin wasn't overly excited by much of it, the last room of the exhibit was decorated with neon green wallpaper with florescent pink cow heads all over it.  If that wasn't enough to capture the little one's attention (he really loves farm animals these days), there were a few dozen giant silver balloons being blown around the room so that patrons could interact with them.  Well, when we got into that room, Olin's face lit up and he got so excited every time one of those balloons floated past him and he was able to touch it.  I think he could have spent an hour hitting those floating balloons back up to the ceiling.  Unfortunately, because it was a special exhibit we were not allowed to take pictures, but it definitely was the highlight of our visit on Sunday!