Memorial Weekend Getaway

Tyler had to go to New Jersey for work the week before Memorial Day, but got done on Thursday. We decided it was a perfect opportunity to vacay to NY. So my parents came out to watch Ava and Christian and Bennett and I head out to meet up with Ty. It was fantastic. We had some VERY generous friends that allowed us to stay in their "apartment" for the weekend, while they were gone. It was hard, but we made it work. When we first walked in we saw this:

you know, the Hudson and the upper west side.

Then we turned our heads left and saw this:

the sunset over the Hudson.

When we could finally take our eyes off of the view we went into our bedroom to see this:

the other side of the upper west side and Central Park. If we looked to the right from our bedroom window we could see into midtown, but we didn't get a pic of that.

So we woke up to this:

And fell asleep to this:

I know, it was rough.

When we weren't gazing out the window or searching the building for Kenneth (from 30Rock) and Gayle (AKA Oprah's BFF) we did a ton and ate some seriously tasty food!

The Pier on the Hudson about 2 blocks from our place (real close to where the plane landed awhile back).

Yankee Stadium. Note, I said stadium, not game. $375 for the cheapest seat we could get. We're not that big of baseball fans!

The Temple wasn't far so we did some walk by's.

We had to, we're 30 Rock fans!

A few strolls through Central Park. I love it there. I think I would run a lot if it were my track. Apparently we totally failed our hosts by not riding on the carousel...who knew it was a must do.

There is just no other place like Times Square. Bennett was wide eyed.

Like Father...

Like Son. Ride it boys!
Out to Lady Liberty and Ellis Island.

I just put this pic in because Ty looks hot ;)

We obviously did a little more than this, but you can't capture everything:) My fave eats were definitely Norma's (again...almost twice), Cafe Habana (yummiest grilled corn. ever.), Telepan (worth the $$$$), and not enough pinkberry (which was right around the corner).

Oh and by the way, this boy was awesome.

It was such a nice trip. We have a huge THANK YOU to send to grandma and papa and of course to p and j for letting us crash at their place!

Life's a Beach...

...especially on a day like this. Here is what it involved.

A little, or rather a lot of chillaxin'.

Digging a pit to play in. (I love Christian's face in this pic.) I mocked Tyler as he brought a full sized shovel to the beach with us, but I'll admit the kids loved their little play place.


Walking/running our friends' dogs. Ava and Alexa were in heaven with these little guys.

More pit fun.


What beach trip is complete without a little burying.

More chillaxin', and Logan looking real cute!

Great day, besides the fact that I am a strawberry :) Got to love the first trips out for the season.

How did this happen?

So how come I feel like this was just last week?

When in all actuality last week I was here, at a mother's day brunch at Ava's preschool.

Not a day has gone by that this little girl hasn't made me smile! She is full of life. She has all the feelings of DRAMA QUEEN and likes to share them with anyone and everyone, regularly. She gets a certain thrill from teasing her brother, but then makes up for it by giving him her Trader Joe's balloon after he releases his into the sky and bursts into hysterics. She is determined and oh so persistant, I am patiently awaiting the day I will enjoy and encourage these qualities. No, today is not her birthday. I just think she is special and wanted to share. Love you sis!

Documentation

Bennett had his first trip to Disneyland.

The other kids enjoyed it as well. Christian didn't seem to mind meeting all the princesses. He even tried to hand Ariel a boogie...nice. Luckily for us she didn't understand his 2 year old talk, lucky for her he didn't wipe it on her.

What a good little Mommy!

Here is a pic of Mr. Bennett Man. He's barely 4 months and 17 pounds and almost 26 inches. What can I say, we build 'em tough!

(Thanks to the real mr. bennett for the pic.)

So my little man is a sleeping champ. A good 11 hours will do the kid. I'm lovin it. On the other hand, my other, little-mr. number one has been taking his turn in the wee hours of night. Apparently he just wants a little extra attention (and moc...or milk) at 2:00am. Not so great. So he would wake up, scream out and wake up my little pro sleeper. The only thing worse than one child awake at 2am is 2 children awake at 2am. So we did what all loving parents do. We turn the door knob around and locked him in his room. We then popped up the port-o-crib into our dead-to-the-world sleeper girl's room to let the C man work it out for a couple nights and get back into a good routine.

So we were a couple nights into it, and it is working great. All kids sleeping. 7:30am rolls around and I start to hear Bennett making his morning coo's accompanied by miss ava jabbering away to him. At this point I am well aware that she is in the port-a-crib with him (a common occurrence). Eventually Bennett starts fussing for a minute, followed by reassurance from ava that she is there. Tyler hops out of bed to go intervene when suddenly bennett stops crying. Tyler soon comes to get me to come see. I walk in the room to see ava holding bennett in a cradle position, her shirt pulled up and bennett LATCHED ON to her umm...upper stomach. Ava was gently saying, "It's okay, I'll feed you."

Ha!