Tree Decorating - 12/6

One of our favorite traditions at Christmas time is to take a ride upstate and chop down our Christmas tree, but we have yet to be able to do it with Katerina. Both this year and last year we were pressed for time and instead went around the corner to the local nursery and picked out our tree there. She loved decorating this year and the tree is bottom heavy with ornaments that she placed at her eye level.

Ballet

Having fun with her friend Presley at dance class

Fun with Grandma and Princess Tea Parties - Novmeber 23, 2007

Katerina enjoyed her time with Grandma and had a tea party with several friends.

She loved dressing up in the princess outfits cousins Gail and Larry brought over on Thanksgiving. Is it just me or is this girl adorable??

Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving

As usual, we had a wonderful day with family and friends. And, has been tradition over the past few years, we all thought about and wrote down what we were thankful for in 2007 and later tried to guess who was whose. In some cases, it was no challenge whatsoever. Like...."I am thankful for my awesome new phone, Text Messaging, Hannah Montana...." No, that wasn't mine, if that's what you're thinking. That was 13-year-old Kara. And of course, there were many thanks for the blessing of Katerina coming into all of our lives.

Even Molly is laid back

Kara looking might trendy in her leggins and UGGS

Jessie vamping it up

Jessie's friend Chanelle

Constantin & Sister Popi (Teetah to Katerina)

Following Pictures by Katerina

I think we have a budding photographer

Aunt Susie and Grandma

Judith

Dinner with Uncle Lou & Aunt Dale/Uncle Bobby & Aunt Susie - 11/3/07

What a fun night we had at Uncle Bobby and Aunt Susie's with Uncle Lou and Aunt Dale! Katerina loves all this Aunt and Uncle stuff but sometimes she just sticks with Uncle. So it's Uncle Bobby, Uncle Susie, etc. We hadn't seen Lou and Dale since the cruise and we all had a blast as usual. Somehow cowboy hats came out after dinner; not sure what precipitated it. Could it have been the wine?


Jammin' with Uncle Bobby

A hug with Aunt Dale

Rustlers

What a good sport. I can't believe we got Uncle Lou to put on a cowboy hat!

I vote for the light colored hat

Riding the bull

Halloween

Neither Constantin nor I are big fans of Halloween. It was not something he grew up with in Greece, and he doesn't quite understand this custom of dressing up and "begging" for candy as he puts it. I just never got into the whole idea of it although I love seeing all the kids in costumes. In any event, we were not going to prevent Katerina from participating, but figured we'd just hit a couple of homes in the neighborhood of people we knew and show off our beautiful princess. One of the folks we visited suggested we go to the townhouse complex down the road because it was very "happening". And that it was. So many little folks in costumes going up and down the roads inside the complex. Adults sitting on their front porches dressed in costumes doling out the goodies, popcorn machine, lights, music, lots of fun. It felt as if we were in a Hollywood Halloween set complete with extras from central casting. It'll definitely be on the list for next year.

Katerina collected her candy, got to eat a couple of pieces that evening and somehow the bag just disappeared overnight. All in all it was a very fun evening.

The Princess getting ready to go out

The first of the five target homes we visited

A quick stop at Briars to see Uncle George

Kara's Bat Mitzvah

We were thrilled to share the celebration of Kara becoming a bat mitzvah. Kara is cousin Larry & Gail's daughter; and we love her to pieces. She is smart, funny, pretty and she had tremendous grace and poise during the long ceremony and let it loose at the after party. The party was one of the best parties I've ever been to; from the cocktail hour to the dessert buffet. Full of fun and entertainment. There were 75 of Kara's friends there and the rest of the 250 were adults at a lovely beach club on Davenport Neck on the LI Sound. As soon as the kids got in the door, the shoes came off and socks went on for non-stop dancing. Larry and Gail, the unbelievably creative folks that they are, put together a very funny video of them as stereotypical middle-aged Italian (Larry)/Jew (Gail) talking about the life of Kara with a stream of pictures.

Poor Katerina was sick and couldn't attend. She would've had such a great time and so many people were looking forward to seeing her for the first time. I bought her a $100 party dress from Talbots which I will be returning this weekend since the next time she'd have an opportunity to attend such a party, she will have grown out of the dress for sure.

The ceremony was very moving and I haven't been to one since I was a kid and my own friends celebrated their bar/bat mitzvahs. The rabbi was warm, bright and funny. He was very inclusive and brought the Torrisi side of the family up at different points in the ceremony to participate. It is certainly a day that Kara will always remember; as will we all.

Unfortunately, I didn't get that many pictures, but I did get a couple of good ones.

Cousins Peter and Bobby reconnected
Susie and Judith
Jessie and Ben
Marilyn and PeterKara and Family

Pumpkin Picking - 10/14/07

We had an FCC Gathering at the Muscoot Farm Fall Festival on 10/14. The kids had a great time with each other, pony rides, hay ride, pumpkin picking, and crafts. Katerina was still riding a high from her birthday party. Mommy, however, was ready for a lobotomy! It was quite a weekend; fun, but non-stop.

Daddy and Katerina in charge of doling out the pumpkin pie, zucchini bread and an assortment of other treats.

Katie and Camillie with their pumpkins.

Paige was there, too! Good buddies.

We had 8 members of Westchester Evergreen Association join us. Rose, the president, had cooked up a large batch of dumplings for all. She made gift bags for all of the girls with hard boiled eggs, chocolate "coins" and other fun things.