6 Flags Indoor Water Park

A few days before Thanksgiving, we took a little family trip up to Queensbury, NY where they have a resort hotel with an indoor water park. It was so nice to get out of the city for a few days, and the boys of course had a blast. Sorry, this one is going to have a lot of pictures just because I wanted to include them all, so I did. It made me so happy to see my kids having so much fun... even if they seriously did the same exact things for hours on end.  There is a reason that you will only see pictures of them on a couple different slides and only in one pool.  Love it.

Asher loves his goggles.  He "swims" with them every day in the bathtub.

Love the goggles!!

They even got to keep swimming when it got dark!

It's hard to see this one, but they would go down together, it was so cute.  They had so much fun together.  I'm not gonna lie, they also kept getting in trouble with the lifeguard.  Those lifeguards sure take their jobs seriously.  Apparently climbing back up a slide is a serious offense.  I couldn't help laughing at how flustered the guy was getting after the 5th time or so.  I'm a bad mom.  I probably should have stepped in sooner.  But seriously, they were the only kids in the pool... let them have a little fun.

Love this!

The token picture of Bart.  Just chillin'.  He did get in the water a few times.  He was a good sport.

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Thanksgiving

Yes, Thanksgiving. And after this I will be posting about Halloween, and possibly some other stuff that may, or may not have taken place 4-5 months ago. No big deal.

Thanksgiving was awesome. Jillian graced us with her presence which was lovely, as always. She was a super good sport to help me drag the kids all sorts of places, up and down subway steps and everything. She also mentioned that she was amazed at how patient I am with my kids. I don't know if I should take that as a compliment or be offended. I think I'm gonna go with compliment, because it's always a good day when someone describes you as patient, right? :)

The day before Thanksgiving, we hit up the Museum of Natural History, because Jill had never been, and I thought it was such a clever idea to go there and then just walk right outside and see the parade balloons getting blown up. I don't know why I always think that I am the only person in NYC that has these amazing ideas, because there are, of course, about a million other people that are having that exact same thought. It kinda sucks. But we had fun showing Jill the ginormous gray whale hanging from the ceiling, and ooo and aaah-ing over the origami christmas tree.

After the museum, we did indeed head out to see the balloons, which is always fun and exciting. The next morning Jill and I woke up at 5am, or sometime around there, to go save seats for the parade. Again, I'm always sure that there can't be that many people thinking the exact. same. thing. There were. We were lucky to find a patch of sidewalk up against the railing. Well, technically there was a couple that was right in front of us, but they were gracious enough to let our kids stand by them. The highlight of the parade for me was watching Jimmy Fallon wave to my kids. Probably because he heard some loud girl screaming "It's Jimmy Fallon! It's Jimmy Fallon!" coming from our general direction. I'm not saying it was me, but I do love me some Jimmy Fallon! I always love the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. It was totally worth getting up before the crack of dawn, and dealing with some of the rudest people in the world. The most amazing thing to me, was once the parade had passed us, how quickly the crowd dispersed. They're not kidding around.

When we got home, I was so exhausted, so we all took naps. I usually can't sleep during the day, but I was out like a light. But I had to wake up to make the paper bag turkey for the kids and bake the rolls. We had a big dinner with several families in our building and in our ward. It was really nice to be with close friends, even though the room we reserved was much too small for all of us, and I didn't get to sit and relax really at all. Oh well. We have so much to be thankful for, truly.

Origami tree at Museum of Natural History

Gazing up at the tree

Heading out to look at the balloons getting blown up

Me and Jill saving spots before the parade

Smurf hats...

Friend Emilee with me and Jill

Nate brought the boys right before the parade started.

Mmmmm... donuts!

Barty.  Angel child.

Sayer liked to take a few bites out of the donuts and put them back in the box.  Yummy.

Lookin' good Joan Rivers.  Really.

My favorite float

Asher loved the parade.  Both boys did actually.  I was a little surprised actually how into it they were.  A happy surprise.

The end.

Cake skills coming along...

My classes at ICE were. awesome. I especially loved the second class I took- we learned more advanced techniques in that class, and it was so fun to just get lost in what I was doing. We did this technique called Australian string work, and you have to concentrate really hard on it, so it was nice to clear my mind and not think about anything else but that. It was actually kind of relaxing. I am SO proud of my final product from the second class. We covered styrofoam cake dummies with fondant, did Australian string work and lace work on the bottom, free hand designs on the sides, and gumpaste flower sprays on the top.  When I showed Nate the cake, he had to touch the flowers to see if they were real or not. :)  I love it!

The first class was fun as well, but much more basic. We learned mostly piping skills as well as chocolate roses and marzipan fruit.

The peach was my favorite!

Aren't they so cute?

Look who wants to be a big kid...

Bart loves to be where is brothers are, and already wants to be doing what they are doing. Isn't it too early for this stuff??

Merry Christmas!

Just a day or two late. ;)

We had a wonderful Christmas with our little family. We decided not to travel anywhere for the holidays, and I have to say, that I have never been more pleased with a decision. Packing up tons of stuff, dragging 3 kids plus said stuff through the airport and sitting on a plane with them for 5 hours, dealing with time changes etc, sounded exactly the opposite of fun. So we were more than happy to be sticking around for a nice relaxing holiday.

To be honest, we didn't do much. I took Asher downtown to the Lionel train store and to Bryant Park to see the big tree and ice skaters, the week before we took the kids to see Santa at Bloomingdales (never again, we will stick with SantaLand at Macy's from here on out), and Nate and I were out and about the city throughout the holiday season, so I feel like we got our fill of holiday cheer. However, we never once made it to the famed tree at Rockefeller Plaza, or to the window displays down 5th Ave, and I feel perfectly ok with that.

We stayed in on Christmas Eve... decorated gingerbread cookies, delivered the cookies to neighbors while caroling (Nate brought his mandolin and Asher wore suspenders, it was pretty awesome!), kids watched A Muppet Christmas Carol while I made rolls and other dinner preparations, had a nice Christmas Eve dinner, Nate told the Christmas story, the kids opened their pajamas, and down to bed they went. I did have to resort to telling Asher that if he got out of bed one more time, then Santa wouldn't come. How mean am I? At least it worked. :)

When the kids went down, that is when the real fun began. Seriously. The night of Christmas Eve is possibly one of my favorite things in the world... getting everything set up for the kids, making it a special, memorable sight... it's the best. I have such wonderful memories of staying up with my mom and sisters, wrapping stocking stuffers and setting out the presents, then turning off all the lights except for the tree... it is honestly one of my favorite sights. I remember waking up in the middle of the night when I was a kid and coming out to see the family room just like that, tree lights on with all the presents set out, it was so magical looking and so exciting. Seeing it now just brings back all the excitement I would feel growing up.

We watched While You Were Sleeping while Nate got to work setting up the tree house we got for the boys. I think it took about 3 hours. Not fun. But it turned out really cute. I finished with all the wrapping and got everything cleaned and set up nicely. I was so excited for the kids. Unfortunately, Asher woke up at 4:30 am, rearin' to go. We sent him back to bed, although I don't think he actually went back to sleep. When 6:30 hit, both kids were up for good, so I came out, turned the tree lights on, got the oven ready for the cinnamon rolls, and the camera ready. We had such a fun time opening gifts and playing with toys. The kids played and played all day long, with naps for everyone inbetween, except for Sayer who refused to fall asleep. After a nice little nap myself, I got to work on the rolls and peppermint chocolate tart for dinner. We met up with some families from the ward down in our community room for Christmas dinner and games. It was such a nice evening. The kids had fun with their friends while the adults had fun with white elephant gifts, board games, and plenty of good food. The day was a perfect mix of relaxing and being festive with friends. We did miss our families, but now that the kids are older, it makes everything so much more fun and magical, so we didn't mind being on our own as much.

Last night we had a huge blizzard, which was very fun to watch. I was supposed to start my cake decorating class today, but it got pushed back to tomorrow because of the storm. I heard this morning that some of the subways weren't running at all. It's crazy how this city shuts down when it snows.

Here is our little Christmas Eve dinner table.  We don't even have 4 chairs, so I had to move the table over to the couch.  It was pretty ghetto.  I sure do miss having my nice Christmas dishes and goblets.  Oh well. 

Pretty.

The boys checking out the tree house on Christmas morning.  I love their jammies.

Playing with their trucks. 

Barty had a blast rolling through all the toys and wrapping paper.  He had plenty to keep him busy. 

Anyway... we hope you all had a wonderful Christmas filled with magic, love, family and friends!

4th Annual Christmas Cookie Exchange

My good friend Natalie has put on a Cookie Party for the last 3 years.  Unfortunately, she moved to LA, so I asked her if she would mind if I carried on the tradition.  She said of course, and so, the 4th Annual Christmas Cookie Exchange was born.  It was so fun to organize and put together. I decided that I wanted to go all out and make it really cute and memorable for the ladies. Believe it or not, even though there is SO much to do this time of year, it's sometimes a little hard, to feel the holiday spirit here.  I haven't really figured out why that is, except that it's just different from what I am used to.  Different place, and different people.  I think it's a little different for everyone.  But I like to think that I helped everyone who came get into the Christmas spirit a little more. ;)  I had more than a few people comment on how festive and fun it was, so I think I can call that a success!

Either way, it truly was so fun to put on. Sure, it was a little stressful.  Especially when I went to the room that I had reserved to finish setting up around 6:45pm, only to find people in there saying they had it reserved, and their boss had it reserved after that. Excuse me?!? Yeah, I cried. Thankfully, we got it all straightened out, without me having to move everything that I had already spent an hour bringing over and setting up, and a lovely time was had by all.

My sister in law, Lizza, knew that I was doing a peppermint theme, so she sent me the cutest red and white striped straws.  I was so excited to use them, until I discovered that they were too short to use. :(  Tragic.

The spread.  I made sour cream sugar cookies, spinach-artichoke dip, and then had fruits and veggies, pita chips, water and Izze sodas.  To be honest, the sodas were my biggest splurge.  Nate made fun of me a little for getting them, but I pretty much had my heart set on that "look".  I also wanted to have the banner above the table, but it didn't work with the window.  Oh well.  My inspiration came from here.

The "stands" are pasta boxes and canned food wrapped in wrapping paper.  Awesome huh?!  The center stand is my flour jar filled with soft peppermint candies.  I also used the wrapping paper to spruce up the water bottles.  That, and unwrapping all the peppermint candies were probably the most time consuming parts of the preparation.

Everyone brought such yummy and beautiful treats!  The chocolate marshmallow cookies on the left got second place in the best tasting contest.

Peppermint egg nogg cupcakes won for best tasting.  We also had a "prettiest dessert" contest, but I don't have any pics of the winner, which was the mini raspberry tarts.

Yes, this is my Christmas tree that I brought over.  (the party was held in a room in the building next door to mine)

The favors are homemade peppermint bark and english toffee, in clear pillow boxes, wrapped with baker's twine and ribbon.  I thought they turned out pretty cute.

And now, I'm already looking for another excuse to throw a party. ;)

Come Come Ye Saints

A guy in our ward, Mark Abernathy, did an awesome arrangement of this song, which him and Nate played in church a while back. Then, a little while after that, they recorded it to go on Mark's cd. You can listen and download for free here. It's awesome!!

6 months

It's been awhile since I've written anything about our little Barty-warty. He is now a chubby little 6 month old. As I said before, I feel like these 6 months have gone by so fast. Bart is still a little angel child. He sleeps anywhere from 12 to 14 hours at night and takes 2 or 3 naps a day. He is a trooper wherever we go, whatever we are doing. Either just sitting quietly in the stroller or hanging out in the ergo. He has finally mastered the art of eating from a spoon and is currently enjoying rice cereal, bananas and sweet potatoes. Bananas are the clear winner as far as favorites go. He likes to "play" on the floor, and can roll both ways. Although, he seems to have forgotten how to roll from his stomach to his back, because he gets mad when he has had enough time on his tummy and refuses to just roll over to remedy the situation. He likes to talk/scream, view the world from his bumbo chair, have his big brothers play with him and make him laugh, to be tickled and given lots of lots of kisses, and to suck/chew on anything he can get a hold of.  He has been getting lots of attention from the ladies these days, and he seems to already know how to smile just so.  He has the softest, squishiest skin, I just can't get enough of it. I know I am just a teensy bit biased, but I am pretty sure that he is just about the cutest, sweetest little guy that ever was seen.  See...

This outfit was my brothers.  Cool huh?

We sure love this little guy.

Happy November 1st!!

Wow! I can't believe that it is already the first day of Novemeber. This year has flown by, and this semester has especially gone fast. This morning, we walked outside to go to the library, and the air was icy. We had to break out the hats and gloves for the first time today. Then as we walked past Columbia campus, they were putting up the Christmas lights!! I couldn't believe it. Seriously, is it really almost the Holiday season? Don't get me wrong, I love this time of year, and am already SO excited for it (I'm not gonna lie, I'm listening to Christmas music right now. It happened by accident, but it was nice, so I left it on. Don't judge), but it still feels like summer just ended. I mean, we just took our a/c units out like 2 weeks ago.

Anyway... I am excited for Thanksgiving, and the fun things we have planned. I will probably hold off on the Christmas music for a couple more weeks. Although I can't say that I appreciate Nate's bad attitude toward it, and that is not the reason I am holding off, by the way. Nate tends to be a bit of a scrooge when it comes to holidays in general, and it makes me a little sad (hint hint Nate).

I hope you all have a wonderful fall day!

P.S. I hate suckers. Could there be anything more sticky and gooey??