School's out!

This has been one crazy week, Tabatha graduated from kindergarten and the next day Elizabeth graduated from her pre-school and will now join her sister in the local Jewish private school. It is great having the kids at home and we are having a really good time, but I still have another week before camp starts and am running out of ideas of what I can do with them. So far we have filmed 35 minutes of footage and managed to compress it down to a 7 minute long movie called "Fancy LaLa- Princess Makeover" I then made it into a DVD for their parents and grandparents complete with credits, a dvd menu, outtakes and photographs of the girls which included a photo-shoot I did with Tabatha after she was all dressed up with makeup and her hair done. I edited the photos so they looked professional, and that made the parents very happy.
We made yummy kosher cupcakes, and after making the mix realised there was enough for 38 people, so everyone who came to the house this week was offered about 3 cupcakes. The next day we made purple playdoh and I was pleasantly surprised to find it turned out just like shop bought playdoh. Just to make sure the creative juices kept flowing we then made a money box out of an old breadcrumb tin.

  Friday came and I could finally meet my fellow European friend who by sheer coincidence is also staying in New York, I cannot tell you how good it was to see a familiar face! It was a real shame however, as we had planned to go to a gig together in the evening but due to bad weather and bad directions from people on the street my friend did not arrive until after the last band had finished. It did mean that I as I was waiting for her I got chatting to a very lovely man from Manchester who gave me his number and said he can let me know about good nights that are age appropriate in the city.
On Saturday after dropping my friend off at Pen station I head over to brooklyn to find this house I mentioned in my last blog.  It was a really odd feeling as I was walking down the street, I knew exactly where I was going as I had already been down these roads before when I had google earth on full screen. The area was a little more run down than I had imagined and it was a pretty dead area but still I kinda liked it, it would be somewhere I wouldn't mind living as it was a really nice distance away from the city. The house itself was much smaller than I had thought it would be and was kinda crooked but it was so cool actually seeing it, a really bazaar thing that I thought would never happen.

Today was Elizabeth's birthday party, we had 36 people in our back yard half of those all being under the age of 3. It was a really nice day however, all the children were really well behaved and got along well with eachother, it was also nice meeting some of the Moms. One Mom I spoke to had an au-pair arrive at her house on Thursday afternoon and had left again by Friday despite my best efforts and many other people who were trying to help her which was a real shame and hard especially as camp doesn't start for another week, so this poor woman is now left with a full time job and 3 kids with no childcare. With any luck they will rematch soon, her son stood next to me today and let out a loud "Hrmp" sound, I looked at him and he exclaimed "You know it was like she just took a sleepover on the other side of the world."  it must be hard for them. Life goes on I guess and its better she left now then when the kids are already really attached to her.

I have no real plans for the coming week, just searching the net for crafts activities and lots and lots of playdates.