Studio Bubba

We just finished renovating the recording studio.
Brought Cami and Finley out to take some pics
-craig

Snug Bugs

We are going to celebrate Pops birthday tonight - woohoo!

A Moment

I am having a moment where I am not planning to, or preparing to, or actually moving some object. I am also not trying desperately to finish some album art. Nor am I caring for my baby. Or working or trying to work (ha! work!! what's that!!?) SO, I happily have a moment to offer you these...

West Village Girl

A little poem/song from her Aunt Annie - had to share...


Baby Finley is living
happy in the city
take a walk, glide a slide, chase a bird

Then to Mac Dougal for falafel
Then an earful in the square
A musician over there
Little bosa nova twirl

Then go over to the gents
playing chess Chat em up
skip around with the bongo sounds
flying in the air

Walk some mileage, use her smile-age
Cast her spell far and wide
With Baby Finley in the city
one just can never tell

Doors open, hearts melt
cabbies honking, good is spreading
It’s her town while she’s growing
Up a west village girl

Yes! Finley is living
Sitting pretty in the city
Cutie baby growing up to be
a west village girl.

Country Mice No More...

We are soon to be City Mice - exclusively. For nine years we have lived up here in Pawling and it has become apparent for many reasons that we need to go back in the city - full time. We have very mixed feelings about this decision but there really isn't much choice. I swing wildly from weeping to excited - anticipation to dread. Needless to say this has kept us all busy with crazy logistics - I haven't been this tired since the early days when Finley was born.

Step 1 - Find, prepare and move Mighty Toad, the recording studio.
Step 2 - Gently ask roommate to leave and take back over our Minetta Street apartment. Clean, prepare and move what we think we can comfortably take with us.
Step 3 - Have estate sale and sell most of what is left.
Step 4 - Put the rest in storage.
As of today we are still on steps one and two... We accept prayers and luck, please.

The new studio needed lots of paint and TLC!! Mitch is not pictured because I accidentally erased all pics from first day. We were literally flinging painting - only had Tomo for 3 hours... Tomo - most awesome babysitter! She kept Finley happy in the 8x8 vocal booth for while we painted and it rained outside!

In These Troubles Times...

She did in fact make these shoes herself... How much do you love her chubby little tookus hanging out of the diaper?

Karma

We live in the woods. It is a fact that there is lots of wildlife and they belong here more than we, though when Finley began to crawl I had to draw the line with the field mice. I tried to catch and release them - they got out of the traps. I tried the electric boxes that are supposed to kill them instantly/humanely (?) but actually didn't work until finally it was a full on war with the horrible snap traps. In the past two months I have given up and let them live their little lives in our basement and looked the other way. The other part of this story is that I made some Christmas garland out of rigatoni. Two pounds of rigatoni, dyed four different colors - it was awesome and gave me those good homemade crafty mom feelings that I often strive for... I saved the garland with the rest of the decorations in the basement. Maybe you can guess the rest. These pieces were found in clothing bags up in the ATTIC! I can't even find the bag that held the garland - they took the whole bag! TWO POUNDS OF RIGATONNNIIIIII! They can eat forever on that. The worst part is the scratch scratch scratch of them dragging and munching it in the ceilings at 4:30 in the a.m. !!!

A Baby Grows in Brooklyn

What a better way to celebrate Valentines Day than to go to a baby shower! Well, maybe you have other good ideas, but what says "love" more than a baby! Lisa (daughter of Keith Lowchyj) and Steve Waggoner are expecting a girl on April 15. This is a woman who had SERIOUS baby fever when Craig's family all came out to welcome Finley two months after she was born. We are so happy for them all! Finley and I had a great time - she loved all the attention and especially the punch.
Lisa and Steve with Finley - July 2007






The men return from their shower festivities (an Irish horse track bar!)

Here's what we did when she couldn't take any more opening presents that weren't hers!

Burgeoning...

By definition "to grow and expand rapidly" as in - Her Personality! This a Finley Only blog at the moment, if you hadn't noticed...

Happy Valentines Day!

To everyone!!! XXOXOXOX
(especially those Geiger boys)...

Here is Finley (aka "I Like my Left Foot Naked Even In The Snow" Girl) with one of her great loves - the CAR!!!

Too Clogged to Blog

Everything is upside down (don't even want to get into it) and blogging has been a virtually nonexistent activity. But I do have a couple things to share ...

This is an oldie but greatie that I found while looking for Emmett b-day pics. I love this video. It is summer 2004 and we were driving back from that famed putt putt game and feeling good!



Next we have a sad little example of our winter play options out here in Pawling, well Danbury, CT actually - a 45 minute drive to The Mall!! to run amok with other kids at this pretty excellent little playground in The Food Court!! that reminds of the poor dogs at the tiny dog runs in the City. Last we hit the carousel for a ride and a horsey hand stamp. It beats the pet store, but not by much.

Move It Along...

Happy 8th Birthday Emmett!!!!

We love you like crazy!!


Remember that awesome day you beat us all in putt putt!?

A Giggle Fest For YOU

I was researching record covers when I happened upon something truly amazing... Follow this link to some of the most fun you are going to have today.

Sometimes You Just CAN'T

Do what someone wants you to - especially when you're not even two:)

Happy Birthday Mac!!

Well, it was officially yesterday that she was officialy Eleven!! Here are a couple of blasts from our past with you. We LOVE you!

Bye Bye Bottle!

We went to the doctor today and found out what we suspected was true - Finley is the height of a three year old and the weight of a FOUR year old (almost 35 pounds!) She's top of the curve for that big noggin of hers too. I would also like to share that every night we read Cat in the Hat and Goodnight Moon sometimes twice and her favorite part is "goodnight nobody..." she screams "yeah, nobody!! yay nobody!!" - gets very excited for nobody - she's either a fan of the ironic or the underdog or both, I guess...

Some things she's up to...

She repeats everything you say and is asking "what's this?" incessantly which I seem to have endless patience for - who knew? Is asking the dreaded "why?" which conversely I don't have much of that same patience for. In fact she may just be gearing up because she doesn't even seem to care or listen to the answer, just likes asking the question (which is maybe why I can't take it!) It has degenerated to "because and because Mama said so"... Last night in the drug store at the checkout I put her down for 1 second to grab bags and go and she snatched some jelly beans lightning fast and as I wrestled them from her she actually cried "but I NEED these!" A full sentence with complex begging! I couldn't even believe it. She is changing so fast and absorbing at such great speed that I can totally see why they call them sponges at this age. Though she is still saying "hold you??" when she wants to be picked up which is one of my all time favorites and I hope she still says it when she's thirty.

Firsts...

Here is my sweet sweet nephew Silas on his first day of preschool. Click here for the whole heart-crushing post over at the Plump Otter.

Now, let's see if you can figure out what "first" I had yesterday.

Quite on the opposite ends of the experience spectrum, I believe...

Al Franken Rocks!!

I found this on Talking Points Memo today. If I were a politician and people were digging stuff up about me I would wish it to be this cool. I hope he gets sworn in tomorrow!!

!!Happy 2009!!

Craig and I went to his regular New Year's gig at Tribeca Grill and had another great time ringing in the new year with great muscians, food and friends. This video is dark but who needs to see when you can hear... my favorite tune of the evening...





Random (floating?) merrymaker getting lost in the groove.


Pops and Bebe did their regular babysitting gig too:) Thanks guys!

Jotting down her resolutions perhaps?

Merry Christmas Everyone!

She gets it already! - and was up in the middle of the night several times - wanted to "Open?!" and wondered about "Santa cookie!?" Now...
The house is quiet, the baby asleep, Craig is at a gig, the house is clean(ish?), the tree and all the Christmas lights are on... Whew, Christmas with a kid is a whole new deal... What a great day. Thanks again to Pops and Lisa for sharing the holiday with us - 8 years running!



Most of the Geiger family (we missed you Bill!) came over for Christmas Eve. The boys were so sweet, even when Finley was taking swipes at them for touching her stuff.


Lisa Nirvana - with a grandchild, opening presents Christmas morning!

Post present frenzy CRASH with Papa, Dr. Suess, sucker, and belly button.

Betcha never knew you could eat a dinner roll with a spoon! (bib courtesy Sandy)

The meal...

Finley's own little corner of the kitchen. Can't wait to see what she cooks up!

Christmas Comes Early For Annie

It was such a sweet request we had to see it through... So here it is: Finley eating sugar cookies say "Aunt Annie" over and over! Guess what her favorite word is now? "Coooooookkkiiieeeee!"

Before All Else Fails

I found this beautiful vintage sewing machine at the dump and lugged it home. An internet search and a few days later, I had the manual. It's a tank and it does work. Thing is I HAVE NO FRIGGIN IDEA what I'm doing - manual or not. I need to take it to a sewing shop (? do those exist? I don't know!) and get a few of the accessories that it no longer has and some needles and thread and stuff. Until then, things are getting done my way. I believe they call this style "by hook or by crook":)

Manual...


Seat cover with duct tape!

A Potty and The Moon

Finley has expressed a lot of interest lately, backing her caboose up to the toilet and making "pssssss" sounds and what-not, so here we go - officially potty training!



One of Finley's great loves at the moment is the moon. "MOOON!" Annie already knows, "Moon!, I hug you!" and tonight was the biggest, fattest, moon of her little life. I was teaching her to howl at it and she was trying to "Jump!" to it. It is actually one of the most awesome moons of my little life too:) Here it is from her bedroom window.




In her new red power snuggly suit listening to mixes in the studio and checking the mail with a feather duster.

Finley's First Toddler Snow

Art? Therapy? Madness?

Finley and I decided to do some art. We feel these represents a few of our conversations...
-Papa D