President's Day Weekend

President's day weekend was fantastic and jam packed with fun activities.  Friday night was Valentine's day and we dropped the kids off at their grandparents and had a romantic night out at Eleven Madison Park.  The best part?  

Sleeping in on Saturday!!! 

Brunch was next on the list and we headed to uncharted territory: Fort Defiance in Red Hook.  It was delicious up until the waitress brought our coffee in filthy mugs, but apparently that's OK because, well...because it's Red Hook.  The rest of our Saturday was spent running errands (food shopping, dry cleaning, salvation army, etc.) and sadly being so productive was thrilling.  

Sunday morning we went to see Sesame Street Live: Elmo makes Music at MSG.  Ivy probably liked it more than Violet, who seemed a bit bored.  Their favorite part was buying the kitsch they sell before the shows.  We probably have at least 5 or 6 of those tacky spinning, light-up wands and we keep getting suckered into buying more at every single kid event.   That evening I thought it would be a fun idea to make pizza (with pre-made dough I bought at Trader Joe's) and it was fun, up until Ivy thought it would be a good idea to bathe in the flour.  The four of us then huddled around the oven and watched the cheese bubble up.  It was actually a really sweet family moment.  Violet refused to eat the pizza but the rest of us were less picky. Definitely a step up from frozen pizza but not quite Lucali or Sottocasa.  

Monday morning was another frigid Winter day but that didn't stop us from bundling up in several layers and going to check out the new ice skating rink in Prospect Park (LeFrak at Lakeside).  Ever since the start of the Sochi Olympics Violet has been gliding around the living room in her socks and pretending to figure skate.  I am thrilled that she is showing interest in a (semi) sport.  At first she was shaky on her skates.  Actually, Gene described it as clinging on to him for dear life while being dragged around the rink.  But then she slowly got more and more into it and by the end, she was able to skate while holding on to Gene's hand.  She's no Julia Lipnitskaia but for her first time, she did great!  Later that afternoon we went to Twinkle Playspace in Williamsburg to book Violet's 4th Birthday Party.  The kids ran around and Violet met Oliver who she forced to chase her around while she barked commands like, "Follow me, I am the leader".  He eventually got annoyed or bored (or both) and ran away, which of course resulted in tears from Violet who was incredibly hurt by his insolence. When I asked her why she was crying, she sobbed uncontrollably and was able to finally get the words out, "thaaatttt boyyy. aaahhh. that boyy...waaa...he didn't let me be the the the the leadeeeerrrrr."   It was time to go home.  The weekend really was lovely.