NYC for ME!

I'm sorry I have not been a fan of blogging for the past several weeks...I'm finding it hard to get motivated. BUT I am excited to write this blog...the blog about my time in NYC! This is not a grandparent post as I was in the city by myself - no children...so grandma's, you've been warned! However, mom's of small children who have little to no time to themselves and love New York City...read on!

Corey got to go to the dental convention in NYC this year which partly spurred on our big trip to NY last month. He was in the city from Saturday to Thursday and I was lucky enough to be able to join him from Monday to Thursday. I left Monday at 11am and got to the city via the train by 1:30. I was by myself for the rest of Monday, all of Tuesday and all of Wednesday. Corey was done working Wednesday evening, so we were able to spend Thursday together and then headed back to Wendy's house at 8pm. And yes, Wendy was the brave soul that added my 2 kids to her 3 and took care of all of them by herself while I was allowed to enjoy myself in the city. THAT is love my friends and I am so thankful for her!

So...on with the trip! This is when I arrived in Penn Station.

The rest of the day I spent shopping and wandering the streets. Here was a store on 5th Ave that was decked out for Christmas already. Christmas time in NY...a-mazing!

I walked to Central Park and found the ice skating rink...

...and to FAO Schwarz to buy for my kids and see The Big Piano!

I then met Corey for dinner and we called it a night after that. I unfortunately got no pictures of our room (which was awesome, thank you A-dec!), but I did manage to get a picture of the view from our room. We stayed at the Marriott Marquis in Time Square...right smack dab in the center of Time Square...it was so cool!

Tuesday I woke up bright and early and rode the subway to Brooklyn after getting my daily coffee and bagel. Here is a terrible self portrait, but that is the Manhattan Bridge behind me.

This is the Brooklyn Bridge, the one I walked across. If you haven't done this and are ever in the city, absolutely do it...it was awesome! It was a nice walk and it had a lot of history displays on how the bridge was built and who built it. Very interesting, very scenic and just an incredible experience!

This picture was taken right when I got on the pedestrian part of the bridge. You are basically walking above the cars.

Here is a view of the cars...

And amazing architecture!

I don't have anymore pictures of the rest of my day (my camera gave me major problems) but I spent the entire day shopping and wandering the streets which was time well spent in my opinion! I ate a panini for lunch in SoHo, shopped in SoHo, walked Canal St, shopped in Herald Square, etc, etc, etc. I also went to St. Paul's chapel (the church that George Washington prayed in after he was elected president AND where lots of volunteers slept after the 9/11 attack). I am sadly kind of forgetting everywhere I went, but I was on my feet all day making the most of my time! In the evening I met up with Corey and some of the people he was working with for dinner in Hell's Kitchen. Very fulfilling day!

The next morning I got a free breakfast at Wendy's from a guy on the street passing out coupons. I didn't have my day planned out, so I started wandering around and ended up finding the Today Show studio. I saw Matt Lauer and Natalie Morales filming a segment which was way cool!
From there I headed to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I didn't have time to go through it, but I spent some time in the massive gift shop and called it good. I then had to get back to midtown where I met an old acquaintance, Whitney Sterling, who lives and works in NYC. I met her during my 1 semester at OC and had a bunch of classes with her. I didn't get a picture, but I had a wonderful time with her. She took me to a cute little french cuisine where we ate soup, salad and bread! She then pointed me in the right direction for more shopping and I spent the rest of the day shopping! I know what you are thinking...I spent a LOT of time shopping. The sad part is, it never got old! That night we again went out with Corey's work people for dinner. We went out for sushi where we all ordered sushi (duh) except for my dear husband...who ordered a filet mignon and rice! Gotta love that picky picky man! He did try a California roll, but of course didn't like it.

Then Thursday came...YAY the one day I got to spend with my husband! We got up early and took the subway to South Ferry, walked to Battery Park and got on the ferry to go to Ellis Island. Of course this is the ONE stinking picture I got before my camera battery died on me. Sooo so upset about that one! Ellis Island was aaaaaaaa-mazing. I mean I honestly cannot put it into words how real the history was there. We did the audio tour and spent 2 hours in there and for sure could have spent 2 more hours in there. When Corey talks about our experience there, he tells you that we both took a test very similar to the one the people took back then to see if they could pass through or not and I failed...twice. They basically told me I had mental problems and would be deported back to my country. Whatever!

After we were done there, we headed to the new 9/11 memorial which was also very touching and quite amazing. It is the 2 fountains that take the place of where the 2 towers were. All the names of the people who died are etched in the fountain and at night all the names light up. I feel so lucky to be able to say that I went there. After that, Corey and I ate the best pizza I've ever had right next to David Letterman's studio, did some more shopping for souvenirs, went and saw the tree in Rockefeller Center (that was lit the day prior with Obama and Neil Diamond there to celebrate) and then finally got our stuff and walked to the train station.

I felt good about leaving the city and heading back to my kids and am so thankful for the opportunity, but a few days later and I already had that achy feeling where I just wanted to go back for a few more days! My heart still longs to be back there and I seriously was hoping I could stop feeling that way! It's an amazing place. I had an amazing time. I'm sorry this post was so long!

Polar Express

The day after Thanksgiving, all 9 of us boarded the Polar Express. It was an hour and a half train ride that is supposed to resemble the Polar Express (I guess...I've never seen or read it). It was an interesting night for our family that more than anything turned into a wrestling match with our 2 kids trying to keep them confined to our little space shown below here.

Chefs came around and filled our mugs with hot chocolate. A hobo guy came through and talked to all the kids and in the end, Santa came.

But as you can see here, Paisley wanted nothing to do with Santa. She acted excited to see him and we kept playing him up and she just wanted to see him and kept asking where he was. In the end, I don't know if it took too long and she lost her patience or if she was just plain scared of him, but her face pretty much sums up her reaction!

It was an adventure, that's for sure. However, it was an adventure with loved ones, which made it all worth it!

A New York Thanksgiving

A 2 week trip in New York and New York City has wiped me and my little family out! We had so much fun. So much in fact, that I must split the posts up! First off is Thanksgiving. We had an amazing Thanksgiving with the Mathias' and the Hermans. It was my first Thanksgiving where I was considered an adult, responsible for how all the food turned out - including the turkey!

And none of my fears about the food burning or turning out horribly came to life. Everything that we made for Thanksgiving turned out A-mazing!

I took on the turkey (as displayed here) and was quite proud of myself for how it turned out. I don't usually get that lucky on my first shot! I also did the stuffing and corn casserole.

Wendy out-cooked herself for sure doing the broccoli, mashed potatoes, gravy, rolls, apple dumplings...I know I'm probably forgetting something. And we had Jasmine's lovely assistance who Ruthie claims she has taught the most to since she's been married the longest! I'm sure you can imagine Jasmine repeating that multiple times throughout the day as a reminder to us that she indeed knows the most! :)

And what would a Butcher holiday be without some games?! We played hand and foot while the kids watched Alvin and the Chipmunks.

Everything about Thanksgiving was great this year. Great food and even better company. I feel very blessed to be a part of this family and we were so blessed by the opportunity to be with loved ones we don't get to see very often.

A Halloween Blog Post

This was the first year in many that I remember Halloween being fun. That's because my little Tinkerbell thoroughly enjoyed herself! Here she is with another fairy and Buzz Lightyear ready to take all the neighbor's candy. These kids are my old co-worker's kids. We were all pregnant at the same time and they were all born within 6 weeks of each other.

For about an hour we trick-or-treated around our neighborhood and we had to tell Paisley that she can't walk into people's houses because we don't know them! Here she is trying to invite herself in.

We went back to the house after we were done neighborhood trick-or-treating and then set out to hit up all the relatives. Between my family and Corey's family, there are just too many relatives and we were out until almost 10 trying to hit everyone's house. I need to cut that down next year because there are not enough hours in the day to hit up all my relatives and all of Corey's relatives before bedtime!
I think fun was had by all this Halloween though and I'm crossing my fingers that next year I can convince Paisley to be something other than Tinkerbell!

1 year pictures

We went to Picture People one last time because we had some money left on a giftcard. I wanted to get pictures of the family for Boston's birthday and here are some of the good ones. There aren't much more than this, but I am satisfied enough with the results. From now on, I'm just going to do a Laura and take pictures myself.







I'm way behind on blogging...I haven't even blogged about Halloween yet. So be on the lookout.

Boston's 1st Haircut

So I'm a terrible "think aheader" (don't worry, I'm sure it's a word) and didn't get a before picture of Boston's hair. The above photo is the best one I could find. It was getting long in the back and it has always been thicker in the back. I wanted Corey to try and spruce him up a bit for the upcoming pictures we were having taken for his birthday. A blog on that is coming soon.

As you can see, Corey did a great job. He would have gone straight to my hair lady if it weren't for Corey's willingness to do it himself. He started by just cutting straight across the bottom of his hairline and it looked really weird. I asked him if he could use his clippers to blend it and he agreed. I went downstairs to get something and while I'm down there I hear "bzzzzzzzzzz" from the clippers and then I hear "UUUUMMM Kelsey? This is BAD. This is REALLY BAD. Come here and look at this!" And no, I do not have a picture because Corey wouldn't let me take any, but when I got back upstairs, there was a pretty large chunk of hair missing in the middle of Boston's head. He had moved his head when Corey went in to blend it some more. Oops!

So the above pictures are the end result. It is much shorter than I had envisioned because of the missing chunk-o-hair and it was weird to look at my little baby for a few short days who suddenly looked older and not so baby-like. But now I think it suits him well and I think Corey did an awesome job!

Did I mention he is going to be 1 on Saturday? It is a weird/happy/slightly depressing feeling. It seems like just yesterday Paisley was turning 1. I remember her birthday party like it was yesterday. Cherish every moment, right? I will, don't you worry!

Scone Take #2

I wanted to try my hand at my favorite scone - Lemon Poppyseed. They turned out ridiculously delicious! I used the same recipe that I posted earlier, only this time I added some poppyseeds (I didn't measure, just went by looks) and the zest of 2 big lemons instead of chocolate chips. I also added about a 1/4 cup more sugar to the dough because when I made them last time, they tasted more like a biscuit and I wanted them to be sweeter.

I have never zested a lemon before, so that was a first for me. I was worried that it wasn't going to taste lemon-y enough, so I decided to make lemon frosting. I just used powdered sugar and lemon juice from the lemons I zested. It came out VERY strong, so I added more sugar and then added some milk to that. Then...it was perfection!

I get lemon poppyseed scones whenever I can at coffee shops, but I honestly liked mine better! Not to toot my own horn or anything...

If you are the only scone eater in your family (like myself), you just gotta share with other people that would appreciate them!