Christmas Day 2018

Benji was happy to get walkie-talkies from Santa

And National Parks Monopoly from Grandma and Pop-pop

Traditional cousins picture

minus Harper

Who continued to love on Benji

Westchester Day, 2018

We drove over the river to see Aunt Barbara (and family) on Sunday. Mark, Scott and Sara were all able to join us for brunch, so it was a packed and festive house:

Abby and Benji huddled near Kevin for most of the "adult talk"

Santa came by on the fire truck with candy canes for Joey and Benji

After brunch, we stopped over in West Harrison to see Tom and Christine's new place before heading back over the bridge:

Harper loved crawling on her cousins

Benji read her a book

Benji also got to help Uncle Tom test the water in the fish tank, which he loved:

By the time we got back to Rockland, it was dinner and we decided to visit Posa Posa for our annual treat before hibernating for Christmas.

Winter Break Begins 2018

We made our way to New York starting in the wee hours of Saturday (we left at 5am) and arrived in time to have most of the afternoon to visit with all the Paquette cousins:

Harper with Uncle Kevin

Harper latched on to Benji right away. She asked him to color with her

Patrick joining in

And now Abby, too -- she has them all wrapped around her little finger

Winter All-Band concert

Last pre-break post! The city hosted a band concert at the Martin Luther King Performing Arts Center of the bands from all across the district (so Walker, Buford and CHS). The 5th grade beginning band did not perform, but the Above and Beyond Band, of which Benji is a part, was invited to play a song (iJingle) with the 6th graders. You couldn't really see Benji once he was sitting, but here is a picture of him as he walked onstage to join the (already seated) 6th grade band:

Popcorn!

Just in time for holiday delivery, Benji's band fundraiser popcorn came in. The box is almost as big as he is:

Post-midterm lunch

Still doing a little pre-break catch-up.Abby had midterms the week before break and got out early from school every day. After her first day of exams, we had a little girls' lunch at Noodles and Company:

Emmet Otter's Jog Band Christmas

Just before Christmas, we joined the Kishore girls for a big screen showing of Jim Henson specials. The two specials shown were Emmet Otter's Jug Band Christmas and The Bells of Fraggle Rock, neither of which our family had seen before. Emmet Otter had been Kris's favorite holiday special, so his girls have seen it many times (and have it on DVD), so Katie thought this would be a good first trip to the movie theater for them. Ahead of the show, we met at Duck Donuts, which was a big hit with everyone the movie got mixed reviews):