Cheeze Peaze.

2010-05-14T16:41:00.000-07:00

Happy Halloween

2009-11-05T18:10:00.000-08:00

Please note that we made the girls' costumes this year.

Amelia as Chucky-Dorothy: Dorothy is from "The Wizard of Oz" and Chucky is from "Rugrats." She wanted to be Chucky and since we were making a Dorothy costume, dammit, we just threw in the name Chucky for effect; it worked.
Celeste sewed the dress and I glued red glitter on combat boots.

I thought I was making a Toto costume for Ella, but it turned into more of a Scarecrow/Lion hybrid. I prefer to think of her as a woodland creature. I sewed the felt together and used scissors to make fur/hay. She sure is pretty fucking cute.

Vacation

2009-09-29T19:26:00.000-07:00

Don't Eat The Leaf

2009-04-06T18:07:00.000-07:00

A Horse Back Ride

2009-02-12T17:23:00.000-08:00

This is Amelia riding our family friends Diane and Dorothy's horse; the horse is named Dori. She took right to it and spontaneously broke into song.

Amelia and the Snowman.

2009-01-12T16:52:00.001-08:00

Ella on the floor

2008-12-08T17:21:00.000-08:00

If you're really patient--and quiet--you'll hear her say dadadadada (that's me!).

Halloween

2008-11-10T18:37:00.000-08:00

Ella playing piano

2008-11-03T19:17:00.000-08:00

Amelia Climbing The High-Chair

2008-10-25T16:01:00.000-07:00

Blowing Blobbles

2008-10-14T20:43:00.000-07:00

"I see broccoleez."

2008-09-24T19:37:00.000-07:00

Haha, this is possibly my favorite video ever, so far--because Ella pulls Amelia's hair at the end. Sisters!

Please enjoy Amelia reading to Ella.

That's the sound...

2008-09-17T18:26:00.000-07:00

of the men, working on the chain gang. It's also the sound of Amelia teaching Ella to dance.

Ella Cooing

2008-09-10T18:12:00.000-07:00

Man, it really sounds like she's got something to say.

Yertle, is that you?

2008-09-10T17:41:00.000-07:00

We took a trip to the Natural History Museum before that tropical storm rolled through last Saturday. Here's a picture of the girls in front of a big turtle. Yertle?

Now that's an armadillo!

Honky Tonk Blues

2008-08-26T06:43:00.000-07:00

The girl's got moves.

Ella Hangs Ten

2008-08-26T06:22:00.001-07:00

Here's the first in our series of vacation photos. Ella's learning to surf.

This is a preview of my "vacation."

2008-08-19T19:29:00.000-07:00

12 children in 1 house. The oldest child all of 8 years old. We love it though; we're sadomasochists.

"It's 'melia's [!] birthday!"

2008-08-18T18:32:00.000-07:00

Yes it was, and she got to spend it with a lot of her cousins.

She had a lot of activities to do at aunt Cheryl's.
Cheeeeeze.

Go ahead and claw my eye out. It's cool.

Weekend Activities

2008-07-27T17:53:00.000-07:00

Using binoculars is an important skill. We're getting an early start.

Is that a monkey in the tree?

Relaxing is an important skill too.

Cheeeeeeese.

Baby, baby, tomato.

2008-07-24T20:00:00.001-07:00

Ella (left @ 2 mos), Amelia (center @ 2.5 mos) and Pink Brandywine (right @ 3 mos) .

Smiling

2008-07-15T18:01:00.000-07:00

If I ever choose to look for a new job and during the interview they ask me what my strengths are, I'm definitely bringing up my making super-cute baby girls skills.

Do you know the warning signs of appendicitis?

2008-07-11T21:01:00.000-07:00

I thought we did but we had self-diagnosed this as food poisoning with all the vomit and, uh, well you know. The abdominal pain wasn't localized at the appendix, so we thought it was sore vomit muscles. In our defense: diarrhea and vomiting aren't normal appendicitis symptoms.

Celeste complained she was ill on Wednesday morning. We gave it 24 hours; after 36 hours of increasing suckiness we thought we ought to get to an emergency room.

It was acute appendicitis. After being diagnosed at 2:30am, the doctors quibbled over whether to treat her for 6 weeks to reduce risk of damaging inflamed tissue (seriously doctor?) from neighboring organs. Luckily the smart doctor won out.

Pre-op action photos:

Busting through the O.R. doors. That's right, just like on all those medical dramas.
Post-op morphine induced faces:
I may get in trouble for these portraits.
Grinning and Bearing it:

What We Did For the Fourth.

2008-07-07T16:11:00.000-07:00

We traveled to Nader and Lauren's weekend abode in Connecticut. It was in Litchfield County along a river with a name. We renamed it Lazy River and floated down it in tubes; just like the lazy river at every water park in America. The beer can you see in the foreground is for a game called Brew-ski, but that's another post.
The house was converted from an old railroad station thing. The field stone foundation wall is nestled up about eight feet from the river's edge. It was picturesque and we really enjoyed their hospitality and patience; our abridged family of four (we left the two dogs and cat at home) is a traveling circus except our circus has no clowns or any proper acts and we have lots more smelly diapers:)
The lazy river, above and the makings of a portait of Celeste, Amelia and Ella. See if you can figure out why

(Photo credit: Lauren) Matching outfits courtesy of Aunt Rene!
(Photo credit: Lauren)

(Photo credit: Lauren) That's our blog's namesake, fully realized. Yes, it is Tostitos Brand Salsa con Queso (Medium), for those of you scoring at home.

(Photo credit: Lauren) Nader and Amelia discussing the 60's political protest songs we listened to all day. Can't get much more American than that.

(Photo credit: Lauren)

Sisters, sisters.

2008-06-30T17:12:00.000-07:00

"Sisters, sisters
There were never such devoted sisters,
Never had to have a chaperone, no sir,
I’m there to keep my eye on her"

-Irving Berlin

Balloons Make Me Happy

2008-06-29T11:29:00.000-07:00

"I am a child, I'll last a while.
You can't conceive
of the pleasure in my smile.
You hold my hand,
rough up my hair,
It's lots of fun
to have you there."

-Neil Young "I am a Child"

Please disregard the disheveled state of our living room. It's kind of like a five o' clock shadow these days.

A new hat.

2008-06-03T19:34:00.000-07:00

Playing in the construction zone.

2008-06-02T17:50:00.001-07:00

I hope I'm not incriminating myself by posting these.

Sunday Afternoon

2008-06-01T19:27:00.001-07:00

Chilling with grandpa and great grandpa on the swing.

Watering grandma's chicken head.

Happy and Healthy

2008-05-28T19:09:00.000-07:00

Nothing else to report.

First Full Day

2008-05-23T20:13:00.000-07:00

This is the view from Celeste's bed in the nursery. Very Memorial Weekendy, no?

I'm going to compensate for my hair loss with pictures of my daughter's beautiful new 'do. I honestly believe that when they close the shades in the nursery, during non-visiting hours, the nurses and doctors whip out some pomade and go to town with all the newborns' with hair.

Grandma Willis restraining Amelia from Ella. Amelia only kicked her once during their first meeting, and not that hard. So their first fight was pretty mild. ;)

Mother and child.

Oh baby(8 lbs, 12oz)!

2008-05-22T19:08:00.000-07:00

She was being induced, so we should have been prepared. Ran out of diapers and dog food this morning.

Woke up to sirens and helicopters around 6am. Walked the dogs. On the way back noted a semi stopped on the BQE. 10 minutes later noted same trailer in the same spot and no traffic moving in the other direction--not a single vehicle; we can see a small piece of the BQE from the second floor. Apparently there was a truck accident. It sounds like it was similar to the one Large Marge was involved in:

"On this very night, ten years ago, along this very stretch of road in a dense fog just like this. I saw the worst accident I ever seen. There was this sound, like a garbage truck dropped off the Empire State Building... And when they pulled the driver's body from the twisted, burning wreck. It looked like this..."

But I digress.

We got to the hospital basically on time, but it was an anxious start.

We got in at 8:45; they had to run a course of antibiotics for four hours before we could really do work. By we I mean she. She fully dilated around 5. At 5:30 she gave it 5 pushes over two contractions and--baby.

In the table with the heat lamp thing, fresh from the womb. Don't worry, there's a nice shock of hair under that cap.Giving it her best Mother Theresa; God bless her soul.
Five minutes after delivery, Celeste looks surprised it took all of ten minutes of pushing.
What flavor are your kiiiiisses? Taco flavored?

I just brought her non-hospital food. Hence the big grin.

That's our baby in the foreground. By the way, her name is definitely Ella. Middle name most likely Cooper. Not because we want her to be a barrel maker, but rather because it's where we met...The Cooper Union. Aww.
My grandmother, who was in attendance mentioned we could use Brook as a middle name because today was the 125th year anniversary of the Brooklyn Bridge. I don't like the name Brook so much but could live with Brooklyn if that shirtless Englishman hadn't named his son that. The last photo here is me trying to take a picture of the fireworks for the Bridge's anniversary from the Gowanus (the ball of red to the right isn't tail lights). Unfortunately they stopped right after I took this terrible picture.

Amelia vs. Bono

2008-05-12T19:15:00.001-07:00

Photo credit: www.showbizireland.com

Baby Ruth?

2008-04-26T19:50:00.000-07:00

That red arrow is pointing to a cat in a bag. Mookie actually enjoys getting in the bag and being drug around by Amelia. Strange.

I apologize for the messy house, but we were rocking out.

Girls Names: First and Middle

2008-04-22T19:11:00.000-07:00

Boy Names:

2008-04-22T19:10:00.001-07:00

Walkin' the dogs.

2008-04-12T10:15:00.001-07:00

A Boy's Name:

2008-04-09T18:57:00.000-07:00

On the off-chance it's a boy, this is what we have so far.

A Girl's Name:

2008-04-09T18:16:00.001-07:00

We understand there is some trepidation regarding "Celia." It sort of rhymes with Bedelia but please keep in mind it's a full syllable short. You are allowed up to two votes; you can actually vote every day if you want to and we do appreciate the traffic :-)

We will then make a short list and add in any new names that we are soliciting (please leave any name suggestions in the comments section below) for a new poll in a few days. We are naming our child by committee! Please note that we reserve the right to veto the results if we're not happy with them, but since we are picking all the names in the poll I don't think that will be the case.

Elephant Walk 12:30am March 18th, 2008

2008-03-24T17:23:00.000-07:00

I thought we were the only ones who had figured out that the Ringling Brother's and blah blah circus' elephant walk through the Queens-Midtown Tunnel started in Queens. There turned out to about 150 other people in the know.

There's a lot of anticipation of the elephant walk. I took this picture of Amelia and made everyone move away so it looked like we had abandoned her under the Pulaski bridge.

It's all a bit surreal and only lasts for a couple minutes, at most. They actually march against traffic, down a ramp, under the LIE, then back down in front of us into the tunnel. Traffic is not stopped making it all a bit..mmm, surreal. Vocabulary good.

Bye-bye, elephants.

Dancing Queen

2008-03-23T19:23:00.000-07:00

We like Dengue Fever.

Girls Names:
	Julia Foster Bray
	Ella Ayah(we need help with the middle name on this one) Bray
	Celia Cruz (help here too?) Bray
	Eleanor (Ella for short? Does that work?) Julia Bray

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First and middle boys names:
	Warren Milller Bray
	Miller Warren Bray
	Conan Guthrie Bray
	Guthrie Conan Bray
	Cyril Wallace Bray
	Cassius Bray (no middle)

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A Boy's Name:
	Buckaroo
	Lincoln

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Girls Name:
	Gertrude
	Ella
	Celia
	Eleanor
	Greta
	Julia

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