Chocolate Show

This was my second year attending the International Chocolate Show. It was a little smaller than last year, but still great. I ate chocolate till I wanted to drop, enjoyed the cooking demos and ended up getting tons of free stuff - chocolate and chocolate themed beauty products.

One of the most interesting items of the day (besides the deep fried Whoopie Pies) was Pig Candy from Roni-Sue's in NYC. It's chocolate covered bacon. It was really good, and had completely different flavors with milk or dark chocolate.

Jason and a chocolate leaking Keaton

The best chocolate to cook with. I walked away with about 4-5 lbs of this goodness!

Halloween

We went to the Museum of Natural History for their Halloween day activities based on the recommendations of others. It was so crazy and crowded that I would never do it again. BUT, we did manage to have a good time and see parts of the museum we might never have wandered to.

That evening we went to Marci and Dan's for their annual Halloween party. It was great as usual and always fun to see what everyone dresses up as.

The family theme - Peter Pan...I'm glad Eliot was excited to get dressed up. He threw a fit one day when I showed him the finished costume and he said that Peter Pan didn't wear green, he wore blue. But the day of, he was thrilled. Phew.

Peter and Smee

Looking around for more candy stands at the museum.

Peter and a crocodile

Smee, Captain Hook, Tinkerbell and Peter Pan (with the crocodile, of course). I'm proud to say that I made our costumes, well most of our costumes. Hook's was made by my cousin Alicia. But I crocheted Smee's hat, and sewed Peter and Tinkerbell.

Scary. He was brave enough to walk through East Harlem like this.

Bye Bye Birdie

Last night Zahra and I went to Bye Bye Birdie.

Hmmm, what to say...

It was worth the $20 we paid, probably not more. Well...the Conrad Birdie scenes were great (and when he walked out on stage in those tighty whitey's I wasn't complaining) and the kids were really cute. So if you want to see a few awesome scenes - "Honestly Sincere", "One Last Kiss" and "Telephone Hour" (and one chiseled underwear clad boy/man) then head on over!


We decided to wait at the stage door to see an old student of my aunt Michele's. Then we got all into it and decided to wait for cutie pants "Conrad". Here I am waiting. Today I was thinking how I should have stopped Bill Irwin and asked him for a picture since Eliot loves Mr. Noodle so much (he's on Elmo's World as Mr. Noodle). Now that I posted this, I realize I did get a picture of him...he's on the left. Eliot will be so confused when I try to explain it to him.

And I could learn a few pointers from this guy about how to take seduce a camera...Suffa!

Fun in rainy CT

This past weekend, I went up to Connecticut to enjoy some fall leaves and activities with Alicia's family. It rained all Saturday, so we ended up changing plans and enjoying inside activities. It was still wonderful. The kids love playing together and all her boys fawn over Eleanor. We worked on some projects, cleaned out her basement (again - this seems to be the big project I do ever time I go up), and worked on Halloween costumes. I love being up there, so thanks for always letting me come!

Aidan and Eleanor. He was able to make her laugh harder than anybody.

Eliot shoved his little body in there with Keaton and didn't help one bit with pushing it around. When Keaton stopped for the picture, Eliot said "Go, go, go! You've got to listen to your friends!" That's what he's doing below.

I was going to add a picture of Alicia and Jason on two side by side computers, hard at work at Farmville on Facebook, but I thought it might look too pathetic. Ooops...gave you two away.

And home with Papa.

Kandinsky at the Guggenheim

The Guggenheim had their 50th Anniversary day last week, which meant getting in for free. The art on exhibit is all by Kandinsky, who I wasn't familiar with. I really enjoyed the art and as we got higher and higher up the ramp, I liked it more and more. I even found a piece that I grew up with hanging in the family cabin (I always thought it was Picasso).


The kids after getting their free Guggenheim cookie. One bite in and we had a melt down since it was shortbread and apparently that doesn't fly with Eliot.

Eliot was a grump at first, but by the end was helping me point out colors and shapes, and playing in the kid areas they set up for the day. The best part was the exhibit at the very top. It was a room with gold bead strands hanging down across the entire width of the room. We walked back and forth through them playing in them. One lady strolled away with a strand dragging behind her stroller wheel. How embarrassing to ruin an exhibit.


It ended up being really fun, even if people were constantly giving us glares for having strollers and kids in there. Kids need art too you know. I just started pushing the stroller, weaving through people and not feeling bad if they cut me off and got clipped by my wheel. I can't believe how rude people can be. I think I'm losing my patience for rudeness. Which generally means I can be rude back if pushed. Hmmm, city living.

Here are a couple of pieces I liked. Go see it, it's really amazing!

Top o' the Rock

Last week we were able to go to Top of the Rock. It's basically like the Empire State building where you go up to see the view. It was really pretty, although a cold and rainy day (which ended up being good for a touristy site since there were no lines and no waiting).

Looking uptown to Central Park

Now we've been there, done that.

Eliot-isms

Just about every week at Family Home Evening, Eliot interjects and makes comments about things Jesus loves (usually it's a type of food). "Mama, Jesus loves noodles", "Mama, Jesus loves milk"...and tonight, "Mama, Jesus loves oatmeal". Of course I nod and agree..."yes, you're right Eliot, Jesus loves oatmeal."

A couple of weeks ago, a park near us was having a big neighborhood festival. For the occasion, there were free pony rides. I asked Eliot if he wanted to ride the pony and he said "Mama, I don't want to hold the reins and go clip clop." Didn't even know he knew what a rein was, and "clip clop"? Classic.