Review of 2015- Part 2

July
We celebrated the Fourth of July at home and at the playground in Floral Park. James and I went on a movie date to see "Inside Out". Owen was declared cancer-free for 1 year! James and I took the train to NYC for Aria's 1st birthday party. Miranda turned 15 months old.

Goodbye Tiny Town! We love you.

Janice and Ash came to visit. Michele and Brandon got engaged! Grandma Kathy came  to visit. We closed on our house!

August
We moved into our new house. We started exploring our new town's ice cream and beer. Jon, Becky, & Ben visited on the way back from North Fork.  Nana and Bob visited the new house for the first time. Grandma visited the new house for the first time, and we took the kids to Cedar Beach. We went out for our first date night in new town at Benten. Miranda turned16 months old.
We went to the Port Jefferson Greek Festival and rode the rides. Jaime visited and we went to the beach 3 times. James went to summer camp at his new school and had an end of summer Luau Party.

Greek Festival

September
We enjoyed Labor Day Weekend in our new town going to the playground, beach, and ice cream place. So fun. James's started Pre-K! We had both Grandma Kathy and Nana Ana here on Grandparents' Day.  James joined co-ed soccer for little kids just learning to dribble.

James's first day of school

Ash visited! Miranda turned 17 months old, and we started a Mommy N' Me class together. James got very sick for over two weeks. When he was better, we went apple picking, and Kevin wrote "Things My Wife Complains About #29 Apple Picking." Kevin and I watched the Supermoon Lunar Eclipse from the front yard. We went out on a date night for Spanish Tapas. James and Miranda made lots of fun artwork at school and Mommy n' Me.

Grandma Kathy came to visit at the end of the month, just around the time Miranda and I were coming down with James terrible illness.

October
I spent the first two weeks of October trying to get over bronchitis. I had daily fevers for the first week or so, it was rough!

In the meantime, Roger and Lina had baby Ezra! Miranda turned 1.5 years old. James and Miranda got along as siblings do. When I started recovering, Nana visited. Miranda had a Mommy N' Me Halloween Party and James also had a Pre-K Halloween Party. The kids also made a lot of art work in school. James had his last Fall soccer practice. We had a lot of fun trick-or-treating on Halloween.

Pacman and Bee

November
Kevin hosted Catherine Lacey's week-long residency at SBU. We took the kids to the Duck Pond which they loved. We visited Sarah, Lukas, and Lio in Queens and had a wonderful time! James had a fun Pre-K Thanksgiving Party. The kids made lots of fun art at school, and James took his first school picture!

Rob and Jane had their second baby Wesley! Kevin and Pete went off on a Writers' Retreat 2015

We celebrated Thanksgiving with Nana and Bob.

Thanksgiving Dinner

December
We had a very long dentist visit (with funny pictures). James had the fire safety talk at his school with the truck and the hats. Miranda's vocabulary exploded at 19 months. Kevin and I had a little bar-hopping date. We took the kids to the Suffolk County Farm to make a wreath... yeah.

James's went on his first school field trip to the theater. Mike and Havi got engaged and had a party!

Mike and Havi's day-of-engagement party!

Kevin and I went to see a local concert trio for date night. Miranda went for her first dentist visit.
The kids made lots of art in December. James's had his Pre-K Christmas Party and then got sick again. But we had a ton of Christmas-related fun this year.

Nana, Bob, and Bob's daughter Jen came over for Noche Buena, and the kids opened their presents from Santa on Christmas morning! We took the Port Jeff Ferry to shorten our trip to Cape Cod to see family at Christmastime.

Christmas Morning!

Jaime came to visit and we all celebrated New Year's Eve together. I rehashed my 2015 resolutions.

Review of 2015- Part 1

January
Last January, Daisy, David, and Melanie came out to Floral Park to visit us. Rachel and I went out for delicious Korean food. We took the kids to the New York Transit Museum, and somewhat ironically got a parking ticket. Sarah and Lukas came over for the Patriots Playoff game. Miranda turned 9 months old. James was delighted by Snow Storm Juno, Miranda less so.

James eating snow in an intense way

Around then, our neighbor's pipes burst. Kevin wasn't home when it happened. I was home but I had no idea what had happened. I couldn't see any water anywhere. When Kevin got home he called the neighbor to tell him he could hear something strange. The neighbor was at work just 2 minutes away but he didn't return for another hour. When he came back at 3 am, he freaked out and banged on our door. We weren't friends with him-- for lots of reasons accumulated over 5 years-- and we have kids that wake up at 6 am -- so we didn't offer to help him bail out his apartment with buckets or whatever. So he started writing us angry notes. Terrifying to live with someone like that. We started discussing moving options.

February
Kevin, the kids, and I watched the Patriots in Super Bowl. Grandma came to visit. Kevin and I made up for phoning in our 5th anniversary by celebrating our 5.5 wedding anniversary in Manhattan. About a week later, we tricked Sarah and Lukas into going out for a double-date on Valentine's Day. We celebrated Kevin's 35th birthday at home with the kids. Miranda turned 10 months old. I visited Ash and we watched the entire first season of The Affair. Ha! Baby Robert was born! Nana and Bob visited and we celebrated Bob's birthday.

Surprise snuggles

My mom's January scan came back and they told her her cancer had returned.

March
Ash and I visited Hudson and Aria and then went out with Christina, Megan, Laurie, and Janice for Girls' Weekend in NYC! I did 36 fun things for my 36th birthday... mostly at home but also in NJ with my mom. I also went to the doctor with my mom to discuss her treatment options. She started on her first drug trial.

Me and Mom in Jersey

Grandma Kathy came to visit and we celebrated St. Patrick's Day with her. We went to Washington, DC and visited with Cory and Robin, Sarah's whole family including new baby Robert. We held the first ever CLOU-A-RAMA in  Charlottesville, VA 2015, and Kevin did a WWFTC Reading at VA Festival of the Book. Miranda turned 11 months old and started walking.

Kevin wrote Diary of an Angry Pink Baby #10: Driving about our roadtrip.

At Mas in Charlottesville

April
Lukas and Sarah visited over Easter Weekend. We started looking at houses seriously. Things remained bad with the neighbor and we started looking at houses closer to Kevin's work. We took some photos at the beach near the houses we were checking out at Cedar Beach.

Michele came to town to attend a friends bachelorette and I got to see her again! Kevin read at James nursery school in March and I read in April. James let me interview him for his 4th birthday. Miranda turned 1 year old! Here's her month-by-month photos. We threw a joint birthday party for James and Miranda. A secret speakeasy opened on our block and we went with Nick and Emily. We took James and Miranda to Queens County Farm.

Miranda's cake. James had his own Curious George cake.

May
Lukas and Sarah had baby Lionor! We had a Cape Cod going away party for Andrew moving to Japan! David and I went out in Brooklyn and he tried to give me a hint that he was going to propose to Melanie (or maybe he tried to throw me off the scent?) but I totally missed it. I got my little greedy hand on baby Lio as fast as I could. I celebrated Mother's Day with my mom at Swing the Teapot. David proposed to Melanie! Kevin, Casey, and Jon celebrated Jon's 35th Birthday in Boston.

Miranda turned 13 months old. Megan and Ed had their second baby Maxwell! We celebrated Memorial Day an outdoor concert at Planting Fields Park. We took the kids to the Bronx Zoo and their favorite animal were the ducks.

Jon's 35th birthday at Fenway

June
I went to visit Sarah and Lio in Queens. Kevin and celebrated our our 6th Wedding Anniversary at the Belmont Stakes and American Pharoah won the Triple Crown! Casey visited and the guys went out to Hoboken to visit Jon. I went to Cape Cod for my grandmother's very delayed funeral. We also celebrated my mom's 58th birthday on the Cape. James had his moving up ceremony at  moving up ceremony at nursery school. We celebrated Father's Day at Cold Spring Harbor. Michele visited again which made me so happy! Mike and Havi came to visit us and the kids. Miranda turned 14 months old.

James graduates nursery school. Class clown?

Second part of the year in the next post.

Review of 2014- Part 2

Oh more excitement in 2014!

July
The kids watched their first World Cup with Lukas and Sarah! Sort of. I barely paid attention either. Go Spain! Or something. Oh, we're patriotic! Here's our 4th of July outfits!

Nana visited her mini-me.  Christina, Dan, and Hudson welcomed baby Aria (Dan's mini-me) into their lives. Aubree, Patrick, and Avery welcomed baby Asher (Patrick's dad's mini-me).

The agony of naptime

Miranda turned 3 months old. I blogged about full days alone with both kids. But, really, that doesn't even happen anymore. Kevin is here so much to help and now we have mother's helpers for when he isn't. Still it's fun (read: painful) to look back on this precious time!

Grandma came to visit and got Miranda to laugh for the first time!

Giggling with Grandma

And the Clou blog celebrated its 5th anniversary (which was also the 8th anniversary of Kevin and me meeting)!

August
We went back to the Cape- Miranda's second visit! And then we hurried back for one of the best visits to Jersey: to see cancer-free Owen and family!

 

So many beautiful people in front of the pool table!

Kevin's friends from Florida had a big month! Jim and Lisa had baby Otto! Trey, Sunny, Cort, and Max came to visit for a few days. So fun! And Neil and Anna had baby Bettina!

Cort, James, Miri, and Max!

Family time: Concert outside the local library. Nana watched James and Miranda so we could we could go to Jackie and Rob's wedding.

 

Jackie and Rob get married!

Miranda turned four months old! And we all went to meet her new bestie, Aria. James got to enjoy the Imagination Playground, and a visit to Kevin's job, which also has fun fountains everywhere.

September
James started Nursery School! He loves school and is so excited to go. It's a nature school and they go outside and commune with the elements even if it's cold or raining. Right now he only goes two days a week for 3 hours, but he really wants to go every day. Here's a little video they made at school.

First day of Nursery School!

Kevin had A LOT of writing events this month. At the beginning of the month, he went on a writing retreat with his friend Pete, while Grandma and I bonded, drank wine, and watched the kids. Jaime came to visit too and helped while Kevin participated in Lit Crawl NYC. Kevin also had a reading at Fall for the Book at GMU so we took the whole family down to Fairfax and visited friends. I watched the kids at home while Kevin signed books at The Brooklyn Book Festival. And then! Kevin left on a multi-day book tour in the Midwest while Grandma came back to help with the kids. Seriously would not have survived the month without Grandma!

Kevin reading to a spill-over crowd at Fall for the Book


James, Grandma, and Miranda are besties.

Nana babysat Miranda while we took James apple-picking for the first time. Miranda turned 5 months old and started taking a bottle and eating food regularly.

James loving the farm's playground

October
Chrissy, Allison, and I went to Atlanta and I had my first night away from Miranda! (I had a deposition come up at work and I almost missed my flight because I cut it too close! But I made it!)

Allison, me, and Chrissy in Atlanta

We took the kids to get pumpkins and take some obligatory pumpkin photos. Miranda turned 6 months old and started saying "Dada" regularly. Since the kids have the same birthday, James turned 3.5 years old! And we had our first Halloween with two kids- best Halloween ever!

With my two pumpkins

Halloween with Dr. James and Bunny Miranda!

November
Nana visited and dressed the kids like Cubans. Miranda turned 7 months and went through a rough patch where she stopped sleeping in the co-sleeper or sitting in her bath. Um, yeah. I went out for the first time in a month to Jackie's birthday, making Jackie responsible for my first and third times out without Miranda.

 

Cuban clothing

We celebrated Thanksgiving with Kevin's family on Cape Cod. We spent a few days there with family and friends, including Casey and kids, and Kevin A and Monica and their kids. We also went to go see Grandma Catherine. When we got back we had more friends visit us at home: Lukas and Sarah, Jon, and Jaime.

Miranda's first Thanksgiving!

Great-grammy playing with James

December
Our friends Teresa and Jon and their son JJ welcomed baby Phineas to their family. And our friends Jeff and Inga and their son Silas welcomed baby Clio to theirs!

Cathy and her girls came to visit New York. We took James to hang out and he had so much fun with Madison and Kennedy. Nana babysat Miranda so we wouldn't have to hurry back for naptime.

Christmas joy!

The four of us went to get a Christmas tree, and the kids got their picture with Santa. James had a Holiday Party at school. Sarah came over and decorated cookies with us! We went to the Holiday Train Show at the Bronx Botanical Gardens- it was kind of a bust.

Miranda turned 8 months old and started pulling up and crawling. Jaime visited again and the Casey came to town.

Nana made Noche Buena dinner

We celebrated Noche Buena and Christmas with Nana at home. It was awesome because James actually understood cared this year. After Christmas, we went up to the Cape to see Kevin's family. Also, here's our super crazy New Year's Eve- woo!

Christmas morning as a family of four!

Quality time with Uncle Andrew

Review of 2014- Part 1

For us, 2014 was an amazing year. We had our second baby and Kevin's short story collection came out! We saw our families regularly, and our moms were both healthy. That's pretty great if you ask me. Rereading my old posts though, one thing that stands out is how amazing our friends are. Thank you guys for being awesome and for letting me blog about how awesome you are!

January
We started the year with New Years Day Brunch with Sarah and Lukas. I made a ton of New Years Resolutions- some of them I actually kept!

My friend Anna had her fourth child, Maxwell. James went sledding for the first time after "Snow Storm Hercules." We celebrated "Little Christmas" or Epiphany with Nana.

I posted about being 6 months pregnant with Miranda, and Kevin posted about me complaining about him buying me gourmet cupcakes. (TMWCA #27)  Kevin wrote an article in The Airship called, Who Owns Walt Whitman?

Casey visited, and then Pete visited.  Grandma visited for the weekend and so we were able to go to a Neutral Milk Hotel Concert with Nick, Emily, and Briggs.

February
James loved all the snow we got last year. He loved sledding, making snowmen, and even shoveling the driveway! We had so many snow storms that the Weather Channel made up crazy names for them and by February we were up to Maximus, Nika, and Pax- and Kevin even got a snow day from work!

The snowman is bigger than James!

I was 7 months pregnant and calling Miranda "Itty Bitty." Since I was pretty big, we kept Valentine's pretty low key and just took James out to dinner with us. James even made me a Valentine in his Tiny Tot's class!

James had a fun playdate with Regan's beautiful girls Morgan and Payton, and Regan gave us a bunch of stuff for Miranda. For Kevin's 34th birthday, Lukas and Sarah came over to celebrate and we had more snow.

Kevin also wrote an article for The Millions about creative writing that lots of people read! The Law Order UK people even tweeted it!

Probably the best part of the month was Girls' Weekend in DC with my college friends.

 

My college buddies and my big pregnant belly

March
Nana visited and Kevin and I went on a fun date for soup dumplings in Flushing. I was 8 months pregnant when Kevin and I picked out a baby name (Miranda!), and I finished updating the nursery so that James and Miranda could share the room.

I celebrated my 35th birthday with a solo sushi date with Kevin and an outing with James and Grandma Kathy.  We celebrated St. Patrick's Day with Cory and Robin. Brady also came to visit this month.

St. Patrick's Day 2014!

We had a babymoon in Atlantic City, and we took James with us!  We spent a lot of time at the pool and even took him out to dinner, but Kevin had to go gambling by himself. (He didn't mind.)

 

Swimming at the Borgata!

Kevin wrote another article for the Airship about how the stories of Lydia Davis are great. My little buddy Max C. was born.

Things were going pretty well, when James got his first vomiting stomach bug ever. I got it too and decided I should go to the hospital when I started having contractions! Luckily, Sarah and Lukas were awesome and watched James while Kevin came with me to the hospital. I made a quick recovery once they got fluids into me.

April
I was 9 months pregnant and getting pretty big! Here's Miranda dancing inside my belly. The hospital was renovated with a new maternity wing after I had James, so I took another hospital tour and packed my hospital bag. I was very uncomfortable, so Kevin wrote a post to make fun of me for complaining about pillows. (That's a funny one.)

My childhood friend Cate had her baby girl Anna!

We celebrated James's 3rd birthday early with the help of Rachel, Tim, Isaac, and Eleanor. I also blogged some of his more amusing quotes to remember what he was like before turning 3.

 

James's 3rd birthday!

Ash came to visit and help me through a few of the last days of my pregnancy. Kevin and I took James to get his photo with the Easter Bunny.

James loving up on Ash

I was 9 months pregnant and getting closer to the due date! Miranda was due on the 24th, but I started having contractions on the 19th!  I had an emergency c-section on the 20th, and Miranda was born on Easter!

 

Miranda born!

I wrote about our first days in the hospital, my mom taking care of James while I was at the hospital, and going home for the first time. We took her to her first doctor's appointment and celebrated her turning 1-week old!

Miranda's Grandma came to visit right after Nana left, and my grandmother Daisy  and brother David came to meet her too. Our friends came to visit too! Not to be forgotten, I did an interview with James to remember his deep 3-year-old thoughts.

Kevin's short story collection, We Were Flying to Chicago came out to rave reviews! Kevin also had an article in Tin House about what a genius Denis Johnson is on the sentence level.

Miranda: Before and After

May
I blogged when Miranda turned 2 weeks old, 3 weeks old, and a month! I celebrated my first Mother's Day as a mother of two with my mama! Sarah, Donald, and William came to visit us and meet Miranda. Rachel came to visit too.

 

Mother's Day 2014

Kevin had his first reading of We Were Flying to Chicago at Stony Brook University. He also did a "book swap" at the Astoria Book Store, where Miranda made her Queens debut. I was super sad I couldn't go to his KGB Bar reading, but I had to stay home with the kids.

We spent Memorial Day with a ton of family: Grandma Kathy, Uncle Andrew, Aunt Katie, and Nana! Sadly, Nomar the cat passed away this month.

My friends Josh and Anna had a baby boy, Maxwell G.

June
Kevin wrote Diary of an Angry Pink Baby #9: Eating. We celebrated our 5th Wedding Anniversary by just being with the kids all day, but actually we're planning on retroactively celebrating alone this month. (Better late than never!) Father's Day was more of the same (though Kevin went hiking the day before).

Our 5th Wedding Anniversary

Kevin kept getting awesome reviews and opportunities for We Were Flying to Chicago, and I finally got to go to one of his readings at Brooklyn Book Court. We even had friends come in for out of town for that reading! Michele even spent a little extra quality time in Long Island with us.

Nana visited and we took adorable pictures.  Miranda turned 2 months old and still wasn't doing anything too exciting.

We took a long trip to Cape Cod so that Grandma Ruth, Grandma Catherine, and Kevin's Aunt Mary and Uncle Dickie could meet Miranda. We even got to spend some time at the pond, nd with Casey, Laurel, and Oliver. Kevin also did another book reading at Epoch on the Cape. We visited the Cape Cod Natural History Museum, and were still there for the weekend! On the way back, we visited Pete's family.

Getting in the kayak.

Stay tuned for July-December!

Clou Blog's 5th Anniversary!

Five years ago on the three-year anniversary of meeting Kevin, and shortly after getting married, I started this blog! A lot has happened since then! For the short version check out my year reviews below. This blog is definitely a labor of love. I really enjoy writing it, taking photos for it, and reading back on the old posts. Especially with a second baby now, it's so fun to look back and see if things were different with the first.

So many things have happened in five years it's hard to believe it's been such a short time. We lost my dad. We lost two very young friends Erik and Chris. We lost three grandparents. We had two beautiful children and our friends now have 36 more children among them (21 of them boys!). There have been another twenty-three friend-weddings in the last 5 years. My mother and Owen beat cancer! Kevin published his first book. Life is a rough ride and we're so lucky to have each other for it. All of us. That's why I've never changed the banner- because we're all in it together.

My year reviews since I began the blog:

2009: Second half of the year, starting from when we got married
2010: First half and second half (when we lost my dad)
2011: First half when James was born and second half
2012: First half and second half
2013: First half and second half

But of course, probably the best part of the blog has been Kevin's 41 posts so far. I'll try to get him to write more!

Us through the first five blog years:

Our Wedding, Cape Cod, June 2009


One-year Wedding Anniversary, Brooklyn, June 2010


Our son James is born!, Long Island, April 2011


James's First Birthday, Long Island, April 2012

Ta-da! Warwick, NY, June 2013


Our daughter Miranda is born!, Long Island, April 2014