Merry Christmas!

And our 2011 Animoto here

Merry Christmas friends!

An Ellie Angel

"Angels we have heard about... Sweetly singing all the time" -Ellie

Christmastime in New York

image found here

We spent a super rainy night enjoying the NYC Christmas sights -- a plus for the low crowds, but we were a soggy bunch by the time we returned home!

FAO Schwarz toy store - where we dried off, warmed up, and waited for Jordan to join us before braving the short subway trip to our next destinations. (And where we almost bought Jordan a 2 lb. Reeces until we saw that it was $25!)

"Let's all choose our very favorite color and hug them!"

Dancing on the big piano

The Rockefeller tree -- beautiful, and amazing to see the Rockefeller building as a backdrop - so tall that it disappeared into the clouds above.

image

And the ice skating rink there - with 2 lone skaters circling the ice in an inch or so of rain puddles.

image found here

The Saks 5th Avenue light show -- this was amazing. Kathie sent us a link beforehand and it was the big event that Landon and I were most looking forward to.

(Watch this -- it's so fun!)

Time to baby-proof

This little guy is scooting and crawling and kneeling and pulling up and standing and discovering all sorts of exciting places around the house. (How did this happen so quickly?)

The moment Jordan 'gets home' from work

(and me of course trying to talk to him about his day/my day :)

I'll have to ask Landon to tell me the story

Just found this on the camera tonight when we uploaded our photos. :)

From Landon on my Birthday

"I want to write down all the things I love about Mommy!"

What New Yorkers haven't seen

There are a lot of things to see in New York --

image by Fernando Volken Togni

And besides all of the sight seeing, you could easily spend an entire vacation here just people watching

People by Peter Spier

But one thing that you won't see (at least I have not yet seen it)

is a mom (or dad, grandma, grandpa, nanny...) with three young children :)

We've been quite the happy little parade this week!

Sitting on the dock of the bay (and other fun)

Landon with a new friend

We revisited this great dock near where we stayed last year and the kids had a blast racing around, performing on the stage, climbing and dancing on the benches, watching the boats go by... a fun afternoon spot. :)

'Did you see I can do this cool thing?'

We also took a ferry over to Battery park (we were loving the warm sunny day -- but the park was mostly empty (thankfully - for a worried mom in a huge park :)

This is my favorite thing there -- a bicycle merry-go-round where you peddle to make it spin.

and Ellie enjoying her peanut butter crackers. :)

A day in

Out my bedroom window this morning

I've been sick this week and poor Owen was sick today too, so we decided to spend the day in. (Except for a quick trip on the light rail to go and pick up my purse that I left at a restaurant on Tuesday night!)

Best of the day --

• Waking up in the morning to a beautiful blue sky view (after a crazy day and night of storms)
• Landon's "What a fancy dinner!" (a little low on our hotel rations -- mac and cheese, baby carrots, grapes and deli ham :) Making dinner and chocolate pudding with the kids.
• Dancing with Owen to Peter Breinholt Christmas music.
• Skyping with Kathie
• Jordan calling to check in and see how we were doing.
• A clean up game/scavenger hunt - especially the kids excitement for it.
• A few quiet minutes right now -- looking out at the apartment across the street with Christmas trees glittering in several windows.

Happy children :)

Obviously not too disappointed with a day in rather than a day of out-and-aboutness :)

Best of today - in Manhattan

• beautiful, warm Fall -ish weather (w/ lows much higher than our highs this week - hooray!)
• Landon and Ellie climbing on the rocks in Central Park -- Landon eyeing the huge tall rocks, but obeying and enjoying the smaller (safer) ones with Ellie
• Landon and Ellie crackling, gathering, throwing leaves in Central Park -- running and jumping and tumbling in the piles. Landon chasing Jordan with piles of leaves, Ellie following behind with one leaf in her fingertips 'I have this leaf to throw at Daddy!' or carefully carrying an armful 'I'm going to give these to the animals if they're here..." Owen happily surprised at a stroller full of leaves from Landon
• no children lost or any other tragic misfortune that we cautioned them about :)
• Owen's 'da da da' jabber on the subway
• cozy quiet time in our nice apartment, resting and listening to Landon read to Jordan.