Just the Four of Us: getting caught up

This is going to be a lengthy post, but I want to get caught up on some things we've been doing lately around this crazy town.

First, just a cute photo of both the girls getting ready to go out on a rainy day in their rain boots.

And I need to capture this on video, but anytime you get near Annie with a camera lately she yells "CHEEEEEESE!!!" and gets this goofy grin. Love it.

Ok, a few weekends ago I had one of those days where I was just in love with living in NYC. I woke up that Saturday morning and decided I wanted to find something to do with the girls.

I got on my favroite website www.mommypoppins.com (which has a TON of activities to do with kids in NYC) and happened to see that there was a free children's theater event at Lincoln Center. So I threw some clothes on the girls and we took the subway downtown to Columbus Circle. I'm SOOOO glad we did. It was totally AWESOME!

It was an organization called Story Pirates and they put on a TERRIFIC show for the audience of preschoolers.

The basic idea is that they act out stories that kids have written. And if can imagine what kind of stories a 4-5 year old would write... they were hilarious stories. The actors were so entertaining and had the kids laughing the entire time.

Here is Annie trying to get onstage...!

Before the show started they had the kids write their own stories and make books.

Audrie and Annie both made cute books to bring home.

Here is my attempt to be in a photo with Annie. She actually did great the entire two hours we were there!

The best part of the show was the last 30 minutes they let the kids in the audience make up the stories and the actors did improv acting and singing right there on the spot. It was great!

My heart nearly stopped though when they called on Audrie to make up the next part of the play. In that split second before she spoke and everyone in the theater was looking at her I could only imagine WHAT she was going to say. Luckily she just said something about how every turns into vegetables, so it was fine! Then the actors danced around and made up a song about turning into peas and carrots, etc. Audrie thought it was the BEST THING EVER.

So this one of those days where I loved how easy it was to find something awesome, free, and educational to do with the girls. We all left with big smiles on our faces.

Before we got back on the subway to head home, Audrie stopped to get her favorite snack -a hotdog from a street vendor. I gave Audrie two dollars and let her walk up and order it herself. She was so proud.

Then last weekend a girl in Audrie's ballet class invited her to her birthday party at Build-a-Bear. Jamie and I commented on how great it felt to be inside Build-a-Bear and do something familiar (because we have Build-a-Bear in Arkansas). The irony was that this Build-a-Bear is in the middle of Times Square so when we walked out it was back out in the madness. But for a moment it was nice to pretend we were back home.

I don't know what my problem was but I didn't get any good photos from this birthday party.

The girls had a great time and we got to talk to other parents at the party. Which it's always nice to meet more people here with kids the same age as ours.

Look at Audrie's goofy smile in the middle of all these kiddos!

Audrie was very sweet and well-mannered at the party. I love it when we get to see her using all her "please and thank yous" like that. Warms my heart.

Annie mostly ran laps around Build-a-Bear the entire time with me chasing behind her..! But she wasn't mis-behaving... just burning off energy... with a huge smile on her face while she ran. She did pause once so I snapped a photo...