Baxters + Brookers = a barrel of fun!

Woah, we had a barrel of fun this weekend with The Brooker Family!  (For those of you who might not know, this is Jesse’s sister Aimee, her husband Jim, and their two daughters Hannah 4.5 and Kayla 2.

This is what we did:

40 apples... at least

Thursday:

In preparation for their arrival, Jesse and I volunteered at the CSA so that we could get all the extra apples that people didn’t pick up.

Friday:

We cleaned the house like wild people and the family arrived around 11pm.  The girls had slept in the car, so they had a bundle of energy and ran around like a herd of elephant!  (I hope the downstairs neighbor didn’t notice.)  Admittedly, Jesse and I were so excited to see them that I’m sure we didn’t encourage the settling down much, lol.  Oh, the joy of being the fun Aunt and Uncle.  :)

Saturday:

The PURPLE train!

We had a LONG day!  I was up in the wee hours of the morn, because I needed to get ready for my friend’s film shoot.  (I played a yoga instructor extra… stills will be coming later.)  Then, Hannah, Kayla and I made the most delicious breakfast.  (Go ahead and use this idea, because it rocks!)  We went our separate ways.  The group (minus me) took the PURPLE TRAIN and went to this really cool jazz around the world concert for kids at the symphony space and then we met up for lunch.  When anyone in the group mentions the jazz, Kayla will immediately pop up and tell you she danced.  And, from what I’ve heard, that is no lie!  She danced and danced and danced!  Hannah very much enjoyed herself as well, and the grown-ups thought it was pretty cute.

At lunch, the girls got balloon animals, which was cute, and — thank goodness– distracted a bit from the fact that it took 500 years for our food to come (and it was wrong).  Not super impressed with the Saturday staffing of that

restaurant, but it gave us plenty of time to talk about Occupy Wall Street :-p.

Kayla with her flower balloon

We had planned to follow lunch with this Halloween Festival, but I pulled the plug, because we were all tired.  Kayla slept for a bit, but the minute we walked in the door, Hannah was like, “uh, Aunt Mary, we’re making applesauce now”… Did I mention she was up before me?  Where does she get that energy?!?

So make applesauce we did!  We began with 40 apples, and after Kayla ate 2 bowls at breakfast on Sunday, we made 6 FULL JARS of applesauce.  And, this is no lie, Hannah cranked the applesaucer (Thanks Grandma Deb for the cranker) for almost the WHOLE ENTIRE TIME!  There was a bit of time when Hannah fell asleep (not kidding, maybe 20 minutes) and Kayla woke up and was able to crank a few too, but Hannah did not leave her many…

After the applesauce, when everyone but Aunt Mary got a second to chill out (LOL, no sleep for the coolest Aunt ever!) we got dolled up for a night on the town.  – but not before Kayla went to the bathroom on the potty: really funny, she had a lollipop as a reward for going on the potty, and this woman was talking to her on the train and Kayla took out the sucker and was like, “I went poopoo on the potty”, and put the sucker back in.  Hilarious!–

For dinner we went to the famous Thai place here in Woodside, Sripraphai, and it was amazing!  Even the girls liked it.  – Except when Kayla stuck her finger into the spiciest dip and put it right into her mouth and no one knew what was happening until she was making this horrible face!  It was terrible in the moment, but really funny once she was ok, poor thing.  IN OUR DEFENSE, the waiter set it down RIGHT IN FRONT OF HER, I mean, come on!  She was in a high chair!  She’s ok though, she drank some of Uncle Jesse’s Thai Iced Tea, which had milk, and she relived the horror a few times, but she trouped it out.

Then, as if we hadn’t had the longest day ever, we went into Times Square to see the lights, get t-shirts for the girls and have some ice cream.  (Not me, I’m dairy free, but there was sorbet.)  It was so fun for the girls to see Times Square at night, and, again, they trouped it out like it was no thing.  Until they fell asleep on the subway ride home.  Uncle Jesse carried Hannah all the way down the steps and up into the apartment– a massive test for his after bootcamp body.

Sunday:

This sort of began on Saturday night.  Kayla and Hannah slept on a twin mattress in our room.  Kayla woke up crying around 3 in the morning.  I thought I heard someone else dealing with her, so I went back to sleep.  Then, a few minutes later, I realized I was wrong.  I got up to look.  She had sleep crawled under this wicker chair next to her bed and had become lodged.  I thought she was awake, because she was crying for her mom.  So, I got her out and went over to open the door so that I could easily carry her into the craft room to her parents.  I turned back for her and she was asleep again on the bed.  After a few hours, she was crying again in her sleep and I got up, but she was still sleeping, so I let her be.  I can’t stop laughing about finding her under the chair.  How silly!

Believe it or not, Hannah made nearly all of this!

Then, we all woke up on Sunday and the girls helped me mix up the waffles.  During this breakfast, Jesse mastered the perfect waffle, so that was pretty exciting.  I canned the applesauce so that they could take some home with them.  We had a slow morning, swung in the hammock a bit, packed up the car and they were on their way.

It was a great visit.  It’s so sad that we’re so far away, but it’s great that we are able to connect with them when we can.  This is the second year we’ve had this October visit and I hope it’s something that continues.

These are all the photos I have, so more might come when I get Aimee’s album.  Thanks for reading

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