23 Great Moments from November 2011

Oh, November. You were great, I think. I hardly remember you. Here's a glimpse of our life during that month. Click here to see the whole album.

We were the lucky recipient of another Cubs hat for the kids from Aunt Natalie. I guess that must be the frustrating aspect of buying toys for kids you love. They often lose it or break it before they've had a chance to enjoy it, or you've had a chance to enjoy watching them using it. Well, I was quick to snap a photo of Auric in his new awesome baseball cap before some tragedy could befall it.








(He put it on like that. I have nothing to do with that nonsense.)










Thora and Zach, winged fairies, at dance class. While Zach has kind of tired of the costume insanity that accompanies each dance class, and therefore chooses to dance in regular clothes, Thora insists on dressing up each week. The only thing I prohibit is the black Wonder Woman wig. That just seems like a little too much. But the wonder woman costume and rose petal fairy wings, and often accessorized with a scarf tied around her rib cage (I'm not sure what that supposed to be) is juuust right.







A meeting of the minds. Auric, Etta, Ellie, and Lila hash it out during one of their weekly morning play sessions.








Actually, in case you want to know what goes on in the mind of a 2 year old, here it is:

Thora saw improvement in her English and Chinese classes at school this month. She's getting better at sounding out words in English, figuring out the beginning and ending sounds, writing the letters and numbers (9 still stumps her, as do the counter-intuitive letters y and w). Here she is, proudly exhibiting her ability to write Moon in Chinese. She can also write part of her name. (There are two characters, one is simple and the other is incredibly complex. She can write the simple one.) I'll get that on film soon, I hope.










In November, Hilary, Zach's mom lined up tickets for us to see the 360' Peter Pan performance. It was exceptional. If it comes to your city, you should try to see it. Prior to the show, Thora, Zach, and I were killing time while Hilary grabbed us all hot chocolate. Thora was inspired by the poster behind her and performed her own version of magically flying. See the album here for a nice little series of photos, culminating in this one on the right.



Auric painted his first painting in November. And while Auric and his sister surely have different personalities, I was shocked to see it so obviously displayed in their respective first paintings. Notice in Auric's he dabs. It seems kind of careful, dare I say, thoughtful.











Compare that to Thora's first painting. Need I say more?



















On this particular week, Thora's great friend Mia also dressed in fairy wings for dance class.













Behold, Auric, the lead guitarist of his rock band.












And here we have a tub full of Ed Grimleys.












This was one of Auric's favorite activities. It was just like his beloved puddle jumping, with added dryness. This went on for about a half hour, me kicking the leaves into a pile and then watching him run through it, kicking the pile apart. Oh to be a kid...

"What ink pad?"

We attended our first live sing along in a movie theater of one of our favorites, Mary Poppins! They gave us a goodie bag upon entering, full of glow sticks for fireworks at the end of "Step in Time," a mini cup for the tea party on the ceiling, and a tambourine for "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious." It was great fun!









Mary Poppins on the big screen! Good Times!












With no real plans of our own, we were kindly invited down to Zach's grandparents' place in Connecticut for Thanksgiving. A great time was had by all. Here are Zach and Thora during the big meal, drinking chocolate milk out of plastic wine glasses.






We went down to the beach in neighboring Greenwich for a hike on the incredibly unseasonably warm day. These photos were shot by Zach's Aunt Becca. Thanks, Becca for the great pics!

Here's Auric, not realizing that it's hard to look contemplative and philosophical when you're wearing a leash. He almost pulls it off, though, doesn't he?





Here are the buddies, Auric and Zach, the two most photogenic boys I know.











Thora loves these guys, even when she's torturing them.







During November, Thora's JK/K class had a parents breakfast, after which, the kids put on a performance. Thora and her classmates did a few songs and stories in both English and Chinese. Here are the highlights from that. (Don't worry; when I say highlights, I mean it. The video is only 53 seconds long.)

Thora's kind of hard to see, so if you want a closer look at them singing "How Many People are in your Family?" click here. The teacher recorded both halves of the class, and Thora is in the video near the bottom, the second kid on the left.

Here is the other song that they sang, "The Fruit Song," during one of their practice sessions leading up to the big show.



Then, to round out the month, after months of planning, we finally got to celebrate Sean's birthday with my present to him, a couples' cooking class with Mark, the chef with ArtEpicure. It was an amazing experience. He tailored the menu to our interests, particularly our hope to get better at cooking a meat dish, and to have guest-quality dishes in our repertoire. We made fresh spinach salad with poached eggs and a warm shallot dressing, braised beef short ribs, sage butternut squash risotto, roasted asparagus, and Julia Childs' chocolate mousse. Everything came out perfectly, and more importantly, we've been able to replicate the dishes at home with a fair amount of success! It was a great experience and I would whole-heartedly recommend it to anyone who likes to cook who lives in the Boston area. It was a very fun and memorable night!

Stay tuned for the next post, December. Until then...