make believe with audrie

Annie still goes to sleep pretty early at night (we try to keep her awake until 7pm if she can make it). After she is in bed I have some quality time for just me and Audrie to play.

Tonight we made up some new games. We got some clean items out of the recycle bin and Audrie set up a grocery store. Her prices were a little high but the customer service made it worthwhile. :)


Then we played 'taxi'. We took turns hailing the cab and making up fun destinations to go to.



Definitely the cutest cab driver I've ever seen!


I love this girl!

Kinda feels like home - by Jamie

The girls and I are really starting to get into a groove here.  I keep meeting other amazing stay at home parents and they always let me know of fun things to do around the neighborhood.  There is a church just 8 blocks away that we walk to on Tuesday and Thursday mornings.  They have a guy who plays guitar and sings every kids song there is.  He is great and the girls love him.  

The church also has a great fenced in yard where they set up slip 'n slides and kiddie pools.  It feels so much like home.  Audrie kicks off her shoes and goes and plays in the water...or climbs trees...or digs in the dirt.

 Annie loves it too.  Her favorite part is going from stroller to stroller and stealing other kids' sippy cups and snacks.  This girl is definitely getting a reputation among the moms!

 I know this is so random but ya know what else feels like home...a dishwasher!  We made it two weeks without one and just couldn't take it anymore.

 And last...something that definitely doesn't feel like home:  grocery shopping.  A couple times a week we have groceries delivered by Fresh Direct.  We just get online, select all of the items that we want, and then choose a delivery date and time.  It's the most amazing thing.  They bring everything right to our door and so far it has all been very good.

 I'm not sure when we might move away from NYC but I can already tell that I'm going to miss grocery delivery.

and audrie too

Did you see the photos Kim posted of Audrie and Annie on her blog? So precious. I think I'm going to have to order an enlargement of this one for Audrie's room. I looooove it!

Audrie has had a little milestone of her own lately, too. About a week ago I decided I was going to start making Audrie get ready for bed completely on her own. (Ok, I know she's 3 and a half and some of you are thinking 'my goodness why isn't she doing that already??'.) But what can I say... we're relatively new at this parenting stuff (do you buy that excuse?)!

Anyways last week at 8pm I told Audrie to go potty, brush her teeth, put on her pajamas, and when she was all done to come let us know and we would tuck her in and read her a book. She looked at me like I'd lost my mind. Ha! The first couple of nights she fought it, but we stuck to the plan and I'm proud to say she's doing it now! It's SO nice to just tell her to go get ready for bed.

I think next week I'll teach her to change Annie's diapers... ha!

milestones for annie

I snapped a few pics of Annie in the bath the other night. We always say that Annie doesn't quite have 'the' Audrie mouth... but I'm not too sure anymore. (You should click here to see a photo of Audrie at 15 months that looks SO much like Annie.)

Anyways, Annie has had some milestones lately. She's FINALLY getting another tooth. I was starting to get seriously worried because she hasn't had a new tooth since before Christmas! And she only has 6 teeth so I was starting to think something was wrong. But today I discovered a new tooth has broken through, so I guess she was just taking a long teething break.

Also Jamie and I high fived each other this evening because Annie is officially weaned from bottles. I know it seems a little LATE to be weaning her at 14 months, but it was intentional. She's been on sippie cups for a long time but still took a bottle for nap and a bottle for bedtime. I didn't want to wean her in May at one year old, because we were getting ready to fly to Florida and then, of course, fly here to NY. I wanted her to have a bottle on those flights and I thought the transition of moving across the country was enough for her to handle without taking her bottle away, too. But now that we've settled in we decided to try weaning her bottle away and she didn't bat an eye. She goes to sleep just fine with out it and we've had no trouble. Yay, Annie!

sunny days... sweepin' the clouds away

The hot weather I've been reading about in Arkansas has finally made it's way up here and it is crazy HOT! It seems so stereotypical/ Sesame Street, but it's true that the firemen up here open the fire hydrants for the kids to play in when it's this hot. So, of course, we took the girls down to play in the hydrant in front of our apartment.

Audrie thought it was the BEST thing ever. Annie was a little more unsure... had to stare it down for a minute before committing. :)

She eventually warmed up to the idea and began to run through the spraying water.

The both had a blast!

Annie was more amused by splashing in the puddles of water (although I'm pretty sure she picked up some floating dog poo).

Of course Audrie quickly made a best friend to play with.

But how could you resist playing with a goof ball like this...

It was fun watching them play! Hopefully this heat will pass soon!

triple threat

Audrie loves to dance. Pretty much every day when I get home from work that's what she wants to do. Crank up some music and dance with me. (Oh and she has to put on a dress that twirls, of course!)

And she sings full voice while she dances.

And we all know she's got the drama down, so she's definitely ready for Broadway! :)

Until she hits it big time, we're just enjoying The Audrie Show every evening in our living room.

We've started researching what dance class we want to sign her up for. She took gymnastics in Arkansas but since we are here in the Big Apple I think we pretty much have to enroll her in a dance class, right?? It's a little intimidating trying to find the right dance class for her though. As you can imagine there are a FEW choices here. I can't wait to get her started though!

would this break a law in the universe regarding not painting pianos??

Oh wow! I just found this on Pinterest (by the way, if you're not already addicted to that website... get so now!).


Oh, yes, I'm totally gonna find me a piano to paint!!

our 'one' friends

If you've been reading our blog for any length of time you would know that one of the main reasons we were able to make this move to NYC is due to our dear friends, Jason and Samanthe, who live here.

I'm not sure if they are sick of us yet (if so, they do a good job of hiding it) but we are pretty much smothering them with our neediness.

Tuesday night they invited Audrie and I to go see a children's production of Aladdin. Oh my goodness it was SO cute my face hurt from smiling. And Audrie sat there grinning the entire time, too. As soon as it was over Audrie jumped up, pointed at the stage, and said "I want to do a show, mommy!".

The other day at my new school another teacher casually asked me what my plans for the weekend were and I said something about some friends coming over for dinner. This teacher knows we just moved into town so she looked at me surprised like "oh, you have friends?". And I had to clarify it was our "one" set of friends here. And it happened again today where I was telling this same teacher about going to see Aladdin with our friends and she asked... "your ONE friends?". Yep, our one set of friends!

We love you, Jason and Sam (and baby Sammy-Oh). Thank you for being our ONE friends in this big city!

Another Day...Another Park - by Jamie

The parks in NYC are an absolute life saver when you have kids who love to get outside.  I can't keep these two girls shut in together for too long or they start to drive each other (and me) crazy! 

 This morning we went down to Central Park which has several playgrounds.  This one is a little smaller and confined...perfect for Annie!

 Audrie loved it too!

 Luckily Jason and Sam were free this morning so they went downtown with me.  It's much easier to navigate the city when you have seasoned veterans showing you around.

 Audrie loved this slide.  It was made out of metal rollers.

 Annie is a big fan of slides too.  She is much more brave than I prefer...

Although it's pretty hot outside I love getting these girls out there to play.  We are going to have to get very creative this winter!

step inside

 I realized that if I wait to post pictures of our apartment until I have everything 'done' then it will be a LONG time, so I decided to just go ahead and snap a few pics for ya.

When you walk into our apartment it opens to a long hallway. To the right is the kitchen, living room, and master. To the left are the girl's rooms and the bathroom.

 You've seen Audrie's room because it was the first thing we set up the day we moved in. And we wanted it to look as close to exactly like her old set up as we could get it. We thought this would make her transition more comfortable and it seems to be working since she loves her room. Both girls actually spend lots of time playing in Audrie's room.

 We did put the huge bean bag in her room so she can sit and read... ha who are we kidding... so she can leap into it from the top bunk while screaming WATCH ME MOMMY!!!

 We did take the ladder off her bunk bed because Annie was already trying to climb it.

 But other than that, Audrie's room is the same as before.

 And our tiny tiny bathroom. Barely enough room to back into the toilet to sit down! :)

 I did get to hang all my bathtime pictures and also behind this mirror is a HUGE medicine cabinet which I am very thankful for.

 I don't know if you can read this next photo well, but it's an adorable drawing of a mommy mermaid kissing her tiny baby mermaid and the caption says "Kiss your children now, for soon they will swim away". Love it!

 Here is the hallway (and our front door). We still have to hang our coat rack on the wall here and get some kind of bench or skinny buffet table to put our keys, etc, when we come in the door.

 And our little bitty kitchen. Oh my goodness, the kitchen has been the biggest adjustment for me. No dishwasher. No counter space. And stuff just crammed anywhere we can find a spot. My sweet mother set up the kitchen for us when we moved in and did a GREAT job with what she had to work with.

 You guys, we have been using the top of our trash can as counter space...!! (We do have plans to go to Ikea this weekend to remedy the kitchen issues, but it's been awesome figuring out how to make this space work.) Yes, this is a picture of Jamie cooking pancakes with the electric skillet on top of the trash can..!

 But our living room I LOVE!

 I painted (shocking, I know!) an old filing cabinet we had and are using it as an end table.

 Our home still has all our 'Kim' pics everywhere, of course.

 Although I did work pretty hard on this photo wall of mostly photos I've taken.

 I like how the computer desk is near the window so I can work and see the skyline view, too.

 The living room opens up into the master bedroom.

 But there are double doors to close if we want to.

 I still am not finished with our bedroom. It needs work, but I still sleep great here (mostly because I'm WALKING all over the world every day!). Our king size bed takes up most of the space so it's cozy.

 My dresser, laundry basket, and more Kim pics.

 There was just enough room for both our night stands!

 I hung these cross pictures in our bedroom but left some space below them because I want to take some more soon.

 And oh my goodness. The closets in this apartment are ridiculous. This is all I could stuff into my closet (the rest of my clothes are in Annie's closet!). And poor Jamie has his clothes in tubs under our bed.

 Speaking of Annie. Here is her bedroom/guest room.

 I really like how her room turned out. Although I am sad that we didn't bring her crib! We thought we wouldn't have room for it here, but then it turns out that her room is quite large and her crib would have fit perfectly in this space. (The crib is in storage in Arkansas if anyone wants to volunteer to drive it up here for me...!)

 Also you can't tell in the above photo, but there is no bed frame... the bed is held up by 6 huge Rubbermaid tubs.

 I can't decide if we are going to get radiator covers (see the large silver radiator in the picture above?) or if I want to just try to teach the girl's to stay away from them this winter. The covers are expensive, but I guess burns on your body would not be so great either. ;)

 I like how the valance in Annie's room frames the bed since there is no headboard.

 And of course I brought all their little decorations.

 It was really fun setting up our new home.

I hope you don't think I'm griping too much about this apartment, because I really DO love it so much. It's small, but it's our home. And we are creating some amazing memories here. (Like cooking pancakes on a trashcan...!)