Sunday, December 30, 2012

Three months of life!

Ok I'm determined to get caught up on blogging before the New Year hits with all it's new goals and resolutions. Sorry for bombarding you with THREE months of happenings, but here we go. I'll start with October...

The leaves were really beautiful in NYC this fall. This is a picture of the George Washington Bridge next to our apartment.
 Annie has been LOVING going to school twice a week. Here she is with her backpack leaving our apartment.

And another picture of her at school. Her teachers think she is pretty awesome.
 Even though I do lay their outfits out for school each day, I am sad that I don't get to take the girls to school. Jamie will often text me photos of how they look that morning before school...

A few photos from an afternoon at a playground in Central Park.



A taxi parked on our street.
 The weekend before Halloween Audrie's ballet class had a dress-up day, so I let her go as a rockstar. She loved it!
 But then later on the train home I accidentally snapped a photo of her mid-blink eating a cookie and she looked more like a rockstar in need of rehab... ha!
 Right before Halloween, Hurricane Sandy hit NYC. It was such a strange week for us because we were not affected by any damage- we never even lost power. Yet the other half of NYC was devastated.


The only annoyance for us was that we were stuck indoors for a week. The parks were closed and the subway wasn't running. We had to be creative with things to keep the girls entertained!

(Movie night in their carseats...!)


 Annie went out with me the morning after the Hurricane to survey the damage...



 We cut and pasted magazine collages...
 Made fruit loop necklaces...
 And I printed off coloring sheets of our faces and let the girls color them all silly.

 Thankfully we did get invited on a playdate at a neighbor's apartment. So we cleaned up and headed out.
 Our neighbor has a 2 year old little girl and they all had a blast decorating cookies and playing together for a few hours.
 Finally Halloween arrived and we had a day full of costume changes. We started as princesses headed to Starbucks for coffee and breakfast with the Burrows.
 I don't know if you can see in this next photo but Annie had a Marilyn Monroe moment in her dress!
 We met Jason and Sam and Samuel for some breakfast (I honestly think this was the first time we had really gotten out of the apartment since the Hurricane).
 Annie has this thing that she does when she is attempting to pout. She crosses her arms across her chest and HUFFS a big sigh. It's very dramatic and no one can take her seriously when she does it!
 Pausing on the street to smile with daddy.
 Then we stopped in the store to get some groceries... in their dresses of course.
 That night we got ready for Trick or Treating. The girls both had asked to be the Little Mermaid for Halloween so I started by spraying their hair with red spray tint.
 (FYI- I was worried about it washing it out, but it honestly came out that first night in the bath.)
They were both super excited to put on their costumes!



 
Jamie and I usually dress up with the girls, but we weren't even sure if Halloween would happen due to the Hurricane so we had to throw something on last minute. I decided to put on a red cape as some sort of crazed Red Riding Hood.
 I let the girls wear red lipstick and they thought that was a really special thing!

 Pretty mermaids!


 Then we headed over to Jason and Sam's to pick them up for trick or treating in our neighborhood.
 They dressed as the Flintstone Family! SO cute.
 We walked up and down the neighborhood getting candy from all the stores and cafes along the way.
 We didn't stay out long, but the girls had fun and got a ton of candy.

 We got home and let the girls eat whatever they wanted from their loot (after I swiped the chocolate of course!).

 Ok, so that brings you up to date on October! Thanks for reading all this!

Saturday, December 29, 2012

dance workout with Audrie

This afternoon Annie was taking a nap and Audrie was playing with the iPad with her headphones on. I dozed off on the couch and when I woke up Audrie was doing this...


Friday, December 21, 2012

reasons why my life is ridiculous

 Two random pictures I took yesterday while walking around the city. (Birds on 5th Avenue and a woman on a billboard.)
So most of the time I think my life here in NYC is ridiculous. Some days it's ridiculously awful and some days it's ridiculously amazing.  But either way it's not normal. At least not to this small town southern girl.

That doesn't mean I don't love the non-normal. That's one of the reasons why we moved here. Because normal was getting boring. And ridiculous looked kind of fun.

Here is a por ejemplo of what I find ridiculous (as in "is this my life?!"):
Thursday morning I got up and walked a mile and a half to work, because that's what I do every day when it's not raining or snowing or crazy cold (in those cases I take the subway). As soon as I got to school I had to get ready to leave again because I was taking the sixth grade on a field trip. I was helping organize the trip, so it was my job to lead the group.

So we (me, 100 eleven year olds, and chaperones) walked the two blocks from my school to the subway station, coraled everyone onto the One train, rode down to Columbus Circle, transferred all hundred kiddos onto the B train, got off at Bryant Park (where Fashion Week is hosted) to go ice skating at the outdoor rink there.

In the midst of herding all those students on the subway through New York City... I thought to myself "this is ridiculous".

Before we moved to NYC and would visit- I would have never imagined even GOING ON THE SUBWAY BY MYSELF let alone being responsible for taking the entire sixth grade with me.

On the way back from the field trip, one of the chaperones thought it would be quicker if we walked through Times Square to catch the subway there (so we wouldn't have to transfer trains). So I said yes and lived to regret it. I almost had a stroke trying to coral all those kids through Times Square in the holiday season. Ridiculous!

Ok so after work I had the luxury of having the evening to myself since Jamie and the girls are out of town. So I got on the subway again and decided to head downtown to 5th Avenue/ Rockfeller Center area to do some last minute Christmas shopping.

So there I was strolling down 5th Avenue, past the Bergdorf window displays, Tiffany's, Harry Winston's, FAO Schwarz, the Plaza... and it wasn't like I was trying to be all "look at me I'm New Yorky"... it was just me doing some regular Christmas shopping. And I had to take a moment to look away from my shopping list to look around and think how ridiculous it all was.

We took the girls down to see THE Rockefeller Christmas tree the other night and it was magical.



 These are the times that I find ridiculously amazing. The times that are ridiculously awful are too personal to share on here. Those are the times I call my friends or family and sob into the phone.

The best advice I've received is how this is just a chapter in our lives. A season. Life will always have it's joys and pains no matter the geography. For now this is where God has placed us. In the heart of New York City. So I will enjoy the amazing times that we have here!







Friday, December 07, 2012

another art video from Audrie

My mom teaches high school English in Arkansas and last time Audrie did her "How to draw a Pumpkin" video, my mom showed it to her high schoolers and they really enjoyed it (and even mailed Audrie their renditions of their pumpkin artwork). It was so cute of them!
Anyways, so they asked if Audrie would do a video on how to draw a Snowman. Of course she will! So here you go...

Enjoy!

Saturday, December 01, 2012

Christmas Cheer

 Oh my goodness I'm behind on so much blogging! I haven't even posted our Halloween photos and we've done some super fun things in the city lately that I can't wait to share. However, I wanted to go ahead and post the annual 'pose your kids in front of the tree' pics.

So here you go...!

Our sweet girls obliging their mommy for a few quick pics in front of the tree.