Thanksgiving and Christmas prep

Hello and welcome back for another edition of PICTURES OF ELIZABETH ... starring Elizabeth, daddy, mama and a few other special guests.

This time on PICTURES OF ELIZABETH, we start with a file photo of super cuteness a few days after Halloween, when daddy and Elizabeth made a mini Jack-O-Lantern with a pumpkin she got at the Haunted Halloween Walk at Owl's Head Park. Which is cuter, E or the pumpkin?

We also have a somewhat dark and blurry picture of Elizabeth and daddy at the New York Aquarium. For readers out there, we have free parking and a free guest pass to this aquarium, which is located on Coney Island. So if you visit during beach season, let's hit the beach. If you visit during the off-season, let's hit the glass at the shark tank!

In bittersweet news, we traded all of Elizabeth's adorable girl's clothes (three big boxes) for adorable boy's clothes. It was sad to see such cute and barely worn apparel go away but now we have baby boy clothes for Henry. Sniffle sniffle, hooray.
Good thing Perez Hilton doesn't read this blog or he'd lambast the hell out of this starlet's picture.
One of the guest stars on PICTURES OF ELIZABETH today is Pecos (pronounced "DOH-dohsh") in his new bed with blanket attached. I think they should invent this for humans.

In keeping with our love of all things free, here we are at the National Zoo, where Elizabeth saw an anteater and then rode a very cold metal version of one.

Elizabeth likes to stare when she kisses. Let's hope she drops this tendency by high school.

Thanksgiving dinner was a little less formal this year. Go ahead, wear a Nationals T-shirt and eat with your hands. It's family.

A cute photo starring Elizabeth's Pittsburgh-based namesake who stopped by for a visit.

The rice gobbler missed her mouth a few times but managed to get one grain to stay on each cheek.
Festive photos in Elizabeth's Christmas dress...and hat. Here she's trying to curtsy.
Here Elizabeth is actually furiously shaking her bell ... but because of the magic of a fast shutter and a flash, it looks like she's posing.
There are some nutty people out there ... and most of the Christmas nuts move to our neighboring neighborhood, Dyker Heights.

Pictures from the last month or so

As the title implies, here are a smattering of pictures from the last month, many of which make it seem like Elizabeth eats nothing but junk, which is mostly true.

Our new apartment (pre-furniture):
Elizabeth copying daddy shaving (with a comb):
E and daddy in Central Park (she's getting very good at the fake smile):
Enjoying a blueberry puff:
E on a bouncer at the Third Ave. Festival:

E on her 2nd birthday. This was the the first of two celebrations:

E a few days after her 2nd birthday, during the second celebration. Yes, that's a panda cake and it was delicious:

E and mama at the Bronx Zoo for "Boo at the Zoo" ... she was dressed as the Itsy Bitsy Spider and was trying to engage the other spiders there in conversation:

Boo at the Zoo part II ... the hay maze:
The spider finds her web at Boo at the Zoo:
Waiting for the bus on Halloween. We went to a Haunted Halloween Walk at a nearby park:
Free pumpkins at the Haunted Halloween Walk:
Chocolate-coated candied apples at the Haunted Halloween Walk:
Hot (warm) apple cider:

Jack-O-Lantern carving. Normally her hands weren't as close to the blade as this:

The result:
E's first Trick-or-Treating experience. They weren't home (or they were so scared by the massive spider on their stoop that they didn't answer the door):

Trick-or-Treating success!:
Elizabeth would have rang door bells all night. We stopped at six or seven:

E had a dull glaze to her eyes after her fourth tootsie roll:

New design

Hey folks! What do you think of our new design? We figured we needed something different ... now that this has become less of a family travel blog and more of a family-stays-at-home-and-posts-pictures-every-once-in-a-while blog.

Also, just FYI, some of you have said that you wished you were notified every time we update our blog. Well, you have a few options:

1) If you have a google, yahoo, twitter or aim account, click here or click "Follow" on the left side of the screen.

2) If you're into RSS feeds, click on the "Posts" button under "Subscribe to" on the left side of the screen.

3) Petition us to start sending e-mails out when we finish a post.

Justin, Kate, Elizabeth, Pecos, and our little fetus named Henry

A family grows in Brooklyn

It's been a busy and tiring few weeks for us.

After saying goodbye to Josh and Melanie - our last visitors - by having them do dangerous, adrenaline-raising tricks, we said goodbye to Jay and Linda by, apparently, having them raise our adrenaline levels.

We said goodbye to the playground by their place by having Elizabeth scrawl "E waz here" all over the place and try to steal the sand (little did she know our new home would also have sand ... Coney Island pictures below).

We said goodbye to our apartment.

And we said goodbye to my work ... or at least the birds on the roof of my work via the spout. We also practiced calisthenics, which would no doubt come in handy by keeping us flexible during our move.

We finally said goodbye to all of Elizabeth's favorite European foods ... wild blackberries, paella, and ... well ... corn.

And then, after a flight and a too-short weekend with Gigi and Grandpa, we were in Brooklyn, where we set off to find a new home.



And new playgrounds...

And new ... American ... food, including mangos.

And Nathan's hotdogs.

And bagels.