Almost Christmas

I see you both already got some Prezzies from Santa - in your shoe!!  How fun to find something there just for you.  Your gingerbread house looked yummy - I could almost taste a bite of it.

New York is very pretty this time of year.  The skating rink has lots of skaters and the big giant tree at Rockefeller Center has all lots and lots of lights.  Everyone wants to take a picture with the tree in it!  Grandma got some pretty silver snowflake earrings at the shops in Bryant Park.  It is fun walking around the shops and tasting samples of candy and chocolate.

Yesterday my work had a party and I tried to eat all the cupcakes.  I LOVE cupcakes.

I hope you have a tree this year and get to celebrate Christmas properly.

I love you both - you are such beautiful and well-behaved children.  I am so proud of you and miss you very much.

Love
Grandma Nici

Happy Holidays

Well, Thanksgiving has come and gone.  I'm sorry you weren't here to celebrate it with me.  I made a lovely little turkey with my special cranberry dressing, along with the famous green beans and sweet potatoes.  Very traditional - just the way we've always done it.  Emmerson, you never ate Grandma's special meal, but Taylor did and he always gobbled them up!

Christmas is coming and Grandma's lights are up outside the house, and inside the house up the staircase.  No Christmas tree this year - the part of the house I live in is just too small for a tree.  But Grandma took her big wreath to work and it is up just beside her desk - and I decorated a lot of the rest of the area too so it looks nice and festive.

A friend came to visit from home this weekend and it was quite nice walking all over New York and showing her your latest pictures.  You are both getting so big!!  Congratulations for potty training to Em - that's a big step and good job Taylor for getting so good in your French.  I am always so proud of both of you.

I love you both very much and miss you as always.

Grandma Nici

It's Turkey Day

Hello my sweet babies.  It's Thanksgiving in the United States - and Grandma is making a small turkey, dressing, and cherry pie!  It's just not Thanksgiving without a turkey - even if it's only really delicious the first day out of the oven.  When Taylor was very little, you would come to Grandma's house and have turkey......and when you were a little older and lived in Grandma's house your mommy and daddy would cook part of the big meal, and Grandma would cook the rest.  We would all eat at one big table, usually with a couple of friends who would come because they didn't have any other family. 

Next year I shall have to adopt some more of those family-less folks - or have them adopt me so there is another big table to sit around.

Taylor - you were an adorable pirate and you did so very well in your school show.  I was proud of you!

I love you both - and miss you very much.

Grandma Nici

Halloween is almost here!!

Halloween is coming in just a few days.  I know it is very warm where you are, and Halloween isn't a very popular holiday, but I'm glad you got to dress up in costumes at school.  Lots of little kiddies will come to Grandma's house for candy and I'm all ready for them.

I found mommy's blog today and was able to catch up on all your adventures since you went away from Grandma.  I'm so glad you are both doing so well, making new friends, and learning the language at school.

My goodness, Taylor!!!  Losing your teeth so early.  Well, at least you will be ready for the new ones when they pop right in.  Most kids have to wait until they fall out.  You got your dollars early and probably already spent them.  Don't fall again....you must be very careful.

I will enjoy reading your adventures and will always keep you close in my heart until we see each other again.  I love you both and miss you very much.

Grandma Nici

Almost Halloween!

There are pumpkins in the stores, and scary masks all lined up in the Target aisles.  I think about Taylor's first Halloween - he was a little doll.  And the ones after that when he would get so excited.  I think I liked the mouse costume the best - but i think HE liked Spiderman.  That was our last Halloween together - Spiderman.  But i still have the pictures.

There's no Halloween in France.  I wonder if Emmerson will have the joy of dressing up and collecting candy and ooohs and aaaahs aren't you cute from strangers.  There is really nothing like it in the world.

I love you both my darlings.  And send my hugs and kisses across the ocean.

Grandma

Beach Time Baby

Hello my sweet ones.  Grandma just got back from the beach at Point Pleasant and I thought of you the whole time.  I have pictures from when Taylor went with Mommy and Daddy to Miami and he played on the beach with a bucket and shovel making sand castles.  The first year you were afraid to go into the water, but the second year Daddy took you in the pool.  You weren't afraid after that.  I hope you get to go to the ocean in France and Emmerson will learn to like the water too.  Grandma loves to go swimming and play in the sand.  It would be so nice to play in the sand and water with you both.  Someday we will do that.

I watched the videos of Taylor learning to play tennis today.  I transferred them to my phone so I could show them to other people - I'm so proud of you!!  You didn't give up and kept trying to hit the ball over the net until you did it THREE times in a row - and you were only four years old!!   Good Boy!!!

I love you both very much and miss you terribly.  The new Toy Story 3 and Kung Fu Panda movies came out this year and I pretended like we were all watching them together.  I think you would have liked Captain America too.  You are fighters and good at heart just like him.  I really hope you are both well and happy and learning French so you can have lots of friends.  I worry about your being able to talk to other boys and girls in your school and neighborhood.  And that you will come back to American schools so you can really use your intelligence and get into a wonderful college when you are a big boy and girl.

I miss you so much.  Remember I would talk to you all the time if Mommy and Daddy would allow me to call you on the videophone.  Good night sweet babies.

Grandma Nici

Happy Birthday Taylor

Yesterday was your birthday honey.  I thought about you all day.  I'm sorry I missed it again, but I knew it wouldn't matter if I tried to call or email - you wouldn't get it.  But know I thought about you, that I wrote a little birthday letter to you and I will do it every year.  I love you so much and miss you every day.  I do so hope you are happy, safe and well.

Grandma

"On this, the occasion of the most important birthday of all, I wish you love and happiness.  You are five which is a very grand year indeed.  Be a good boy and blow out all your candles, then share your cake and your laughter with everyone around you.  I love you."

Fourth of July

It's almost Fourth of July!!  Taylor, you loved the fireworks when you were very little, then suddenly two years ago you were afraid of the booms.  The first year Grandma and you sat and watched them on television.  We turned the lights off and the sound down.  Then little fireworks started outside the window and you liked them because there were almost no booms.  We watched the same fireworks show on television lots and lots of times over the next week, because Grandma recorded it on her TiVo. 

The next year you lived in the apartment building by the water and you climbed up Grandma's leg into her arms.  It was raining just a little anyway, so we went into the house and watched from inside the glass door so you couldn't hear the booms while Emmerson dozed in her stroller with mommy.

You and Emmerson won't have any fireworks this year because France doesn't celebrate July 4th - a holiday for American independence from England.  But maybe there will be fireworks for a nice French holiday.

Or maybe your little ears won't have to suffer any booms at all!!

I love you Taylor and Emmerson.  I love you both.  I won't ever forget you.

Happy almost Summer

It was a warm day last week, and it rained late in the afternoon.  It reminded me of the day Taylor and I went outside the play in the rain.  It was so warm we didn't mind getting wet.  Mommy and I did that one summer, but she was older!!  It was a year or so before she met Daddy.  She came to visit me in Virginia and just after an afternoon thunderstorm we went outside barefoot and played in the gutters in from of the house.  The water was as warm as the day we played and splashed.  Wasn't that fun?

Sandwiches

Hello Sweet babies.  This weekend I put the baby stroller on Craig's list.  I got it when Emmerson was born, because Taylor was almost too big for a stroller and Mommy had taken the one I was using.  I thought that when you both came to visit the stroller would be there just in case we wanted to take a nice long walk.  Yes, Taylor, I know you are a big boy and could walk as far as we needed to - but Emmerson is a little smaller and might need a ride. 

I still have all your videos though.  All the movies we loved to watch.  Someday we will watch them again and we will laugh and snuggle just like we used to.  This time Emmerson will be able to snuggle on the other side and I will be a nice Grandma sandwich. 

I love you both and hope you are happy in your new home in France.

May 23, 2011

I was laying in bed last night, my eyes wandering around the room.  And you know what I saw right then?  The picture Taylor made for me a long time ago  Do you remember when Mommy and you put paint on the paper, then paint on your hands and pressed them on the paper?  You had orange hands for a little while, didn't you?  You gave the picture to Grandma as a special present.  It is in a pretty white frame above my dresser where I can see it every night before I go to sleep and every morning when I wake up.  I hope you have a picture of grandma - maybe the one I made with you and me and Emmerson in the boat on the water. 
I love you Taylor.  I love you Emmerson.

May 2011

I found out you were in the neighborhood on Monday after Mother's Day.  Mommy left some pictures of you and Emmerson in my mailbox, but I was at work so I couldn't have seen you there.  Mike told me you were all home in preparation for the final move to France.  Mommy and Daddy selling furniture and getting rid of the apartment.  I wonder how you will take your toys and books to France.  Or will you have to leave them all behind.  It means you won't have anything Grandma ever gave you to help you remember.  You had books Grandma recorded so you could just press a button and hear Grandma read to you.  Mommy made sure she came to say goodbye to my neighborhood friends while Grandma was at work.  I am sorry I didn't know you would be so near or I would have stayed home to see you.  Maybe you recognized the house and thought about Grandma being there.  I love you so much.  I don't know when you will finally leave, but Grandma's heart will always be with you and Emmerson.  You are my grandbabies and always will be.

March 2011

Big Mike told Grandma he got pictures from Mommy and Daddy and showed me some.  You are such a smart little boy and so handsome.  Emmerson must be getting so big too.  She is 2.  And you will be 5 this year.  Wow.  I am so sorry I will miss your birthday again.  I haven't seen any of Emmerson's cakes.  At least I was able to celebrate one of yours at my house before you left.  Do you remember?  I have pictures or you taking pictures.  You were so cute - you wanted to do the same thing everyone else was doing.  Now you are going to school in France.  I wonder if you have learned to speak French yet.  I suppose you must know how or you would not have a lot of friends and you always had lots and lots of friends.  Grandma misses you and Emmerson a lot.  I don't know how you will remember me - but I am going to write here.  I started this somewhere else, and decided to move everything here so I could make a website for you.  It will be the way you can find me.  Someday when you are a little bigger you will Google your name.  Everyone does.  And you will find the website named for you.  And you will find my messages to you and know that I never forgot.

Happy Birthday Emmerson

January 2011

Grandma was just told you were not going to come back from France.  Mommy and Daddy have decided to stay for a long time.  I think I always believed I would see you again and now I don't know if we ever will.  Some of your books and all of the videos Grandma bought you are still at her house.  Everything else I had given to Mommy, and I am so sorry she threw it away.  You would have remembered me more if you were playing with the same things we would play with.  Do you remember using the UNO cards to learn colors and numbers?  We would match.  I would say - find a 7 or a blue card.  And you even understood the wild cards and would tell me what color or number I had to find that was different.  You are such a smart little boy.  I love you and Emmerson very much and miss you every single day.