The last 4 years, we have been the lone celebrants (ok, maybe another American here or there) in Shanghai and Sydney. As you can imagine, not much celebrating America happens there… though, we did have one sad attempt in Sydney through the American Society in Sydney.  They tried their best but it’s nothing like celebrating the 4th in New York City!

So, here we are, staying in the city for about a month, living in limbo (because we have just repatriated back from Australia), and with only a handful of friends in the area, we found ourselves at a loss for what to do.  Sadly, no backyard bbq invites or trips out to the beach.  We are here with 3 children in tow, instead of just 1, and wondering how to properly have our little ones experience the firework extravagazna we’ve come to expect.  We totally lucked out… we happen to be staying in a serviced apartment near Columbus Circle, only a few avenues away from the Hudson River and our windows face west - SCORE!  Now, could we see the fireworks from our windows? That was the unknown… but luckily, the building has a wonderful roof top deck with perfect views of the Hudson (and Central Park). So, with a simple pre-registration, we were all set to have the easiest fireworks viewing I’ve ever experienced.  10 minutes before the fireworks were scheduled to start, I took Sam and Noah (in their pjs) up to the 43rd floor roof deck for a nice, warm view of the skyline.  The kids couldn’t have been happier… We could see all 6 sets of fireworks along the river. The only thing better would be to hear the accompanying music.  1/2 way through, the kids were getting tired so I took them back down and tagged off with James so he could see the fireworks as well (baby Annabelle was snug in her crib already). But the pleasant surprise was that we had a very clear view of the fireworks from our 11th floor windows.  It couldn’t have been more perfect… 10 mins later, the kids were all asleep.  Now that’s the best way to watch fireworks in NYC with little kids!

So, we changed it from Wizzy World to doing it at the beach… well, because we can. But, at the last minute, we nixed that idea too as it would just add that much more logistical issues for us as well as our guests, so we decided to do it just at home.  So, now, being at home, it couldn’t just be without any decorations or anything, now it had to be just as good as Sam’s, considering there would be a lot of similar guests. So, we (or should I say “I”) decided on a Thomas the Tank Engine theme since Noah is really into these trains and loves Thomas.

I looked high an low for any and all Thomas decor… I found some hats, plates, cups and goodie bags, but no pinata. The kids LOVE pinatas… so guess what? I had to make it myself.  I must be crazy! I started with a basic model using cardstock just to get an idea.. then I went for the real thing. I think it turned out pretty good…what do you think?

The body is a powder detergent box which I slashed a bunch of holes and cuts into to make it easier to break because it was pretty thick. But since it was a box, it was easy to fill it with all the candy and toys. I tried to limit the candy and put in a bunch of toy cars and blowers and toys. I even put in some healthier snacks… well, I tried. Then the front was made of black cardstock and I drew the face just on paper and glued it on. the blue is just blue wrapping papers and the rest was just various cardstock I had on hand for the red and yellow. It took most of 1 night.  My big problem is that I didn’t attach the string before finishing it so at the last minute I had to improvise and punch holes in the top to get string attached so it could hang. Not very pretty, but oh well. Here is the pinata in action:

and then the mad rush for candy…

So, I made the pinata on the Monday before the party and it wasn’t so bad so I had another great idea… let’s make Thomas Trains that the kids could sort of ride… I was inspired by my friend Christine who makes tons of toys for her son Ian with just cardboard and duct tape, so I thought I could do it too… so, starting Tuesday at like 8pm, I began my madness

I did enlist some help of an assistant

a couple hours later, and our creation was complete:

So, silly me, we can’t just have 1 or all the kids will fight over it, so, I made 3…

Percy

James

And then, there was one little detail left call the cake… yup, I made my own Thomas Cake.

I was going to make a 3D Thomas Cake that looks just like the toy - as inspired by my friend Shell who did it for her son a few months earlier. But after all the train making and the amount of work it was going to entail, I decided on just doing Thomas’ face. So, I used fondant for the first time… store bought (I’m not that crazy - well, I did think about making the fondant myself). So, it’s 2 round chocolate cakes with a layer of strawberry preserves in the middle covered in blue fondant. Then the face is made in fondant using black icing gel to outline the face. I think it turned out great, if I do say so myself. Noah seemed quite happy with his birthday party and I was quite happy when it was all over.

So, happy 3rd birthday to my little man…

now, how am I going to top this next year? Maybe Chuck E. Cheese? haha…

In any case, we went to this dinner to help support this organization and ended up winning a couple silent auctions.  First, we won/bought a dinner at Aria and tickets to see the Australian Ballet’s performance of Edge of Night. Unfortunately, we didn’t find out until after we won the auction that the ballet only performed from Nov. 12 - 24th and the baby was due Nov. 17th… this proved to be a problem.  Luckily, we had friends celebrating their wedding anniversary in that time and were happy to buy the tickets for the ballet off us…

So, what does this all have to do with a photo session? well, we won/bought 2 silent auctions that night. The second being a photography session at Gap Studios in Frenchs Forrest.  Luckily, that is near to us as we had no clue when we bid on it. This would be our first real family photograph since Shanghai and we were excited.  We dressed up in blue jeans and white shirts/dresses and I have to say, the pictures came out great! See for yourself!

Samantha has been attendng some type of school program since she was 18 months old, beginning in Shanghai at the Portman’s pre-school. That was only 3 days/week and technically 1.5hrs drop-off and another 1.5hrs optional mommy and me playtime but through that and through 2 years at the Children’s Cottage, not once did Samantha ever have any issues leaving me to go off and play - so I figured, kindy would be the same.  Wow, was I way off!  My otherwise independent little girl became the one crying every morning, hanging onto my leg and refusing to go into class.  My extroverted child became the shy mouse that need the extra attention of the class aid to help settle her each morning.  What happened?  I’m not so sure.  She had been so excited to start school since we’d been talking about it for months and she was so excited to wear her new uniform, but once we got to the actual school… she turned into someone I didn’t even recognize.  thank goodness Lolo and Lola were here to watch Annabelle and Noah. I couldn’t even imagine what a scene it would be having to sooth Samantha while chasing Noah all around the campus and probably trying to breastfeed Annabelle at the same time…

So, one problem could have been my fault… she started school about 10 days later than everyone else.  I know, I know… bad mommy. But we had our planned trip to Fiji and I really didn’t think it would make a big difference. The first couple weeks are just a settling in time and I really thought Samantha would have no problems in that department.  I’m still not convinced that was the reason since she started crying the first morning before even realizing that the other kids had already started school the previous week.. so it had to be something else, right?  I think it was just that it was so different from preschool.  It was bigger. There were bigger kids. And she didn’t know a single person even though we had attended the kindy orientation and the afternoon tea to meet some other kids. Also, I think, going from 10 weeks of school holidays and 2 weeks of fun in Fiji straight to a new school was probably a bit jarring.  So, in the end, I was an emotional wreck, not because my little girl was growing up, but because my little girl was so scared. It broke my heart to leave… but I had to.  Of course, when it came time to pick her up, she was a smiles and laughter!

Before the tears: