.

this christmas the whole (and i mean WHOLE) family gathered in sturgis. grandma merry, paw paw, and grandpa harry were there (of course). grandma carol and uncle sam. unca and aunta. auntda's mom, dad and brother were there too!

bryn had her 9 month check-up not too long ago (yet slightly delayed due to hurricane sandy). she got a clean bill of health.  2 shots later and a sticker for big sister bailey, we were cleared to leave the dr's office.

THEN. she got sick. 101 degree fever for almost 4 days. she was completely out of it. so on day 4, just as her fever was breaking, i brought her back to the dr.
hooray! nothing serious, fever gone.

THEN.
bailey's nose starts to run and she gets a cough.

THEN.
i wake up with a sore throat and matt says he doesn't feel good.

NOW.
bryn's nose starts to run again.

vicious cycle of sickness.

oh well. hopefully we'll get better before we get worse.
in the meantime, here are a couple videos of the girls. the first video is of them from the monitor (supposedly napping) and the 2nd is of brynny waking up from a nice, long morning nap, waving to mommy. :-)

also, note that brynny now has 8 big teeth (4 snaggly ones on top and 4 pretty straight ones on the bottom). also, she is crawling like crazy and will probably walk soonish.

our crazy muppet costumes :-)


the trick-or-treating gang (sammy as batman, jackson as robin, evan as the UPS man, nico as dr. qt patootie, bailey as kermit and bryn as animal).


bryn really enjoyed getting, holding onto and gnawing on candy (wrappers).  she felt like a real "big girl". fun was had all around.


bailey waiting for trick-or-treaters to come to our door.

hurricane sandy blew through the area last night. thanks to mayor bloomberg, we were as prepared as we (collective new yorkers) could be—either evacuated or holed up in our apartments with stockpiles of nonperishables.

from where we (the lillvis family) sat, things were actually quite ordinary. the rain wasn't even that heavy. just no school for the bailey. no work for us. but no going outside either.

waking up to the nonstop news coverage of the storm on TV, we discovered that the storm was pretty fierce. the MTA web site posted a statement as follows:

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to avoid the already-fast onset of cabin fever, we ventured outside to check things out. sure enough, no cabs, few cars, and virtually every store was closed. our poor, ragged doorman has been on duty since sunday with no hopes of freedom any time soon.

walking through the empty streets, i was overcome with sadness and shock. not by what i saw with my eyeballs, but by what i envisioned "disaster" to be in times past and in the present. there is a feeling of helplessness. oddly, the smartest thing we can do is to stay put and not do anything. again, for us, this is not a tall order. we are just going to stay and watch tv and play games and take advantage of our still-on electricity and say prayers for those less fortunate.

the reality for us (new yorkers) is that transportation and power for a large portion of manhattan could likely be shut down for up to a week.... i like to think of the city that never sleeps as taking an extended nap. 

i've always espoused the belief that everything happens for a reason. in the past, this would come to me far after an event would have happened. i would have connected the dots in history and come to a realization or understanding of "the why". lately (as in this past year), "the why" has been becoming more and more apparent in the moment. 

inspired by caine's arcade and the imagination foundation, we hosted a cardboard challenge party for bailey and her friends from school. this really amounted to us hoarding cardboard and recyclables for a week and turning them into toddler-friendly games. i must admit that the prospect of conceptualizing/hosting this event was daunting. but it actually turned out to be ALOT of fun for us all. after the girls went to bed, i'd design games, design fun passes, and signs. matt is really the architectural wizard that made the complex stuff like the puppet theater (and bailey's house, car and boat).

and we were able to raise a little bit of money for bailey's non-profit co-op school. yay!
pics from the event can be seen here.

on sept 23, brynny was baptized at the church of the good shepherd by rev. erika meyer. all of our family (her godparents: uncle john, aunt denise, and uncle sam; grandma merry; paw paw; grandma carol; uncle michael; aunt fran and uncle mike; auntie lesley; uncle conrad; uncle nathan) were there to witness it along with nanny gaby and aunt marni and aunt shnow.

 although bryn was asleep for the beginning of the baptism, the water on her head, definitely woke her up. surprisingly though, she barely cried. what a good baby :-).

 the week was filled with a great visit from grandma merry and paw paw who graciously and generously watched the 2 girls while matt and i went on our 1st vacation away from them. too scared to go too far, we ended up at buttermilk falls inn for some great food, movie, sleep, and hiking. though we (and my boobs) missed the girls, we had an AWESOME time.

back in new york, we pigged out, literally. our first family meal was at momofuku ssam bar where we had the bo ssam pig roast. it was pretty extreme and exceptionally delicious. that meal was followed by a birthday dinner for aunt da at casa nonna. then, at the baptism, gaby and jorge's friend catered an outstanding mexican meal for everyone. to end the family weekend of food, we had a sundae prix fixe at dovetail on the upper west side. yum.

happy dieting everyone and thanks to all our great family for coming. for a link to the pics on flickr, click here.
we love you.
xoxo
v