Santa and Such

The week before Christmas, we took a trip down to Macy's after school.  Alexis wanted to see Santa even though she doesn't believe he's real (and we don't tell her otherwise).

 
I had already taken Ella to see the big man earlier in the month when I happened to be in the vicinity of Macy's, but it did not go well.  On the way upstairs in the elevator she was singing "Who laughs this way ho ho ho? Must be santa!" (lyrics she learned from Bob Dylan) and seemed like she was looking forward to seeing him.  But when our time arrived, she was so scared and wouldn't even walk in front of him.  She didn't want to enter the room where he was or anything.  After some major coaxing from me & the elves (who were really really wonderful and kind), she decided to walk past him.  We paused in front of him for a moment so she could get a good look.  He asked her to "give him 5."  She obliged and slapped him on the hand which triggered his "Ho Ho Ho!"  He managed to get her to do that 2 or 3 times.  But she refused to get any closer or take a picture.

Anyway, this time around was a little smidge better, but maybe because her big sister was IN LOVE with Santa.  As soon as we arrived to see him, Lexi ran at him full speed, jumped on his lap and hugged him really tightly.  I was actually shocked at this emotional showing of hers, considering she doesn't believe he's real.  (She's the one ruining it for your kids.  Sorry 'bout that.)  She talked with him while Ella warmed up to him.  And then we tried to take a photo.

Waiting in line

Talking to one of the Elves

Hugging Santa

Notice how Ella won't even look at him.

Snow Fall

A few weeks ago (December 19, 2009) the east coast was plummeted with feet of snow.  It happened overnight on Saturday night into Sunday morning.  (We typically don't get much more than a couple of inches here in Manhattan at any given time, although over the past several years there seems to have been one huge storm.)  Church was NOT canceled, so we trudged through the snow, pioneer style, to get there.  After church, we bundled up in our snow gear and headed over to the park to get some good snow action.  This was Ella's first real experience jumping in and playing around in the snow.  We don't have any sort of sleds (mostly b/c we have no where to store them) so the kids have yet to be initiated into sledding.

Lexi's gift

Dear Ms. L,
Thank you for all you do as Lexi's kindergarten teacher!  She has learned so much this year- how to really read, beginning math problems, graphs, writing stories, and other amazing things.  We are proud of her accomplishments and know you have played a large part in her life.  We will miss you while you're on maternity leave, but hope your new baby will enjoy snuggling in this quilt that Lexi and I created together.  Happy Holidays!
Love, Ms. C (and Alexis)

Our Own Gingerbread

Grandpa Portlock gave the girls a gingerbread house kit.  We also had another that I had picked up earlier in the month, so they each got to decorate their own house, which was very exciting.  This activity took much longer than I thought it would- it filled up the entire afternoon after Lexi came home from school!  Wonderful!

Legos & Gingerbread

Recently, a guy by the name of  Sean Kenney revealed his latest Lego Master creation at the Sony Center in the Time Warner Center.  We headed down, despite the nasty weather, to get a glimpse and meet him.  We love Legos in this house- they are not just for boys!  :)

They had several tables set up with loads of Legos for the kids to spend time creating cars and trucks (it was also a book signing party for his new book Cool Cars and Trucks.)

Here Alexis got to meet him and he was anxious to see her creation.  He spent a good couple of minutes listening to her tell him about her vehicle and talking with her about Legos and imagination.

Obligatory photo with the newest celebrity in my kids' eyes.

And the big reveal! A replica of Times Square!  How 'bout those billboards, eh?  All with Legos!  And the ads on the left there are actually screens with moving images.  Can you see the TKTS booth?  And the tourist bus? And the city bus? The cabs!

Here's a view from slightly above.  And can you see whose on top of that cream-colored building? (above the Target ad)?

It's Spiderman!!!

And the hot dog vendor!

Then we headed over to Le Parker Meridien to view the specialty gingerbread houses made by several area bakeries.  Wow.

Empire State Building

Grand Central Station

A Subway Car

Traditional House

The three Bears- I tried to get a shot inside this house, but it's too dark, I'm afraid.

Christmas in Palm Springs- this one was Lexi's favorite, although I'm not quite sure why.

And then we went for pizza at Oprah & Gayle's favorite pizza place: Mariella's. It is pretty good.  And I do have to say here, that we had actually already eaten there several times before it was featured on her show.  Does that make us cool, or what? We knew about it before she did!

Holiday Show

Today was Alexis' holiday show at school.  It was during the school day, so Ella and I were the only ones that were able to go.  Her class performed Frosty the Snowman.  She's been singing it around the house for at least 3 weeks now, so I know they've been working hard on it at school.  They all had these cute snowman costumes that they decorated.  I. like a dummy, forgot our camera!  Luckily pretty much everyone else had one, and Lexi's classmate's mother let me do the video taping of the song- but since I had to capture both our children, who were on opposite sides of the stage, I couldn't ever really get a close up of Lexi.  So without further ado..... here is the video.  Lexi is on the left in the front row.  She's quite a little showgirl. (not quite sure where she gets that, though, since neither Matt nor I are ever anxious to get up in front of a crowd and perform!)

Speech Therapy

Ella has been receiving speech therapy for almost a year now.  We had her evaluated at about 20 months old when she didn't say a single word.  I mean, nothing.  No babbling, no gibberish, no repetitive sounds (like dadada, gagaga, or lalala etc).  She basically played in silence, even when spoken to.  At first we wondered if it might be some sort of hearing issue, but she did turn her head when called, and was able to follow age-appropriate directions, so we ruled out hearing loss.  When she was officially evaluated by the Early Intervention people, they diagnosed her with a severe speech delay- at about the level of a 7-month old.  She began receiving services shortly thereafter.

Her first therapist was Talia.  She was great- she'd get right down on the floor with Ella and got her to open up and really begin experimenting with sounds.  After working with Ella for about 7 months, she moved to a different agency.

Now we are with Marcella, who is actually from Colombia so has an accent when she speaks English.  But Ella can understand her most of the time, and Marci really knows her stuff (she's been doing this for 20+ years).  Here are a couple of videos from a recent session.  As you can see, Ella has come leaps and bounds!  She is definitely a little chatterbox now.

She still makes many mistakes when speaking, but many of them follow the same articulation patterns that other children her age use (aka phonological processes).  She doesn't terminate many of her words, and she doesn't say the /k/ sound at the beginning of a word- she'll say it as a /t/ sound instead (i.e "tat" instead of "cat" or "tandy" instead of "candy").  She also completely eliminates the /g/ and j as in "jam" sounds.  She just won't say them at all in any word position.  So "angel" sounds more like "anel".  And /g/ is replaced with /d/- "doe" instead of "go". 

In this video, the purpose of the activity was to get Ella to say "out" with an emphasis on the final /t/ sound on the end.  We have been overexaggerating our pronunciation of /t/ and also using some visual clues like closing our hands next to our mouths to demonstrate that your mouth closes at the end of a word.  Ella mimics the hand gesture well, which is a sign that she is understanding the concept- and since this video was taken she has actually begun to end /t/ words correctly and distinctly more often.

Thanksgiving Balloons

The night before Thanksgiving we headed down to the Upper West Side to see the gigantic balloons being prepared for all their glory in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade (which we still haven't actually seen, since we usually spend Thanksgiving upstate with my family).  This year was just as exciting- there are mobs and mobs of people (I can't believe people bring strollers!) and it was drizzling rain this year, but you can just feel the excitement of the upcoming holiday season in the air.

My sister Laura came up from Florida for the week. And Grandma & Allie came along, too.  Our friend Marcus joined up with us also- and after viewing the balloons, we had dinner at Shake Shack (have you tried their peanut butter shake?!) and then dessert at Jacques Torres.  

Marcus took lots of photos that night.  You can see them all here.

We then drove upstate on Thanksgiving morning to spend a few days with our family up there.  I don't have a single photo from the weekend- we ate, saw The Fantastic Mr. Fox, shopped, ate, and spent time with family.  Truly delightful.