Dreaming of a white Halloween?

Me either. But alas, the forecast is calling for snow tomorrow. For our area it's more likely to be a rain/snow mix and not really accumulate more than an inch or two (if that), but it's unusual nonetheless for this time of year. Hopefully it's not an indication of the winter that lies ahead! Gotta say, snow before Halloween certainly makes the global warming argument hard to buy.

Our Halloween plans are simple. We will be going to my sister's house to see her munchkins. C will be dressed up (you'll have to return next week for those pictures) and we'll carry her around the neighborhood with her cousins, but we're not collecting candy for her. I can't bring myself to be one of those parents who holds out their adorable toddler expecting Reece's Cups and gum and return. Obviously the 18-month old is not eating a bag full of candy, and those parents are capable of going to the store to buy their own Reece's cups. Get real. I feel the same about those people as I do about the 17-year old guys who knock on the door dressed in their high school football uniforms. Lame.

Oh my gosh, and as we type the daycare center one street over is parading their tiny tots through our street in their little costumes! They aren't knocking on doors or anything, just having a parade. Too stinkin cute!

He's taking pictures of my pumpkins!

Fast forward a few hours, and here are our pumpkins lit up at night!

Not too bad, right? C loved them, even though she doesn't look so excited in this picture. She was mostly wondering why we were sitting her on the front steps in the dark and telling her to say cheese. Haha :) When we got inside she was talking excitedly about Elmo and meow. I'm pretty excited to put her in her costume and see what she thinks about the Halloween experience this year!

A Fun/Busy Week

I tell ya, ever since our trip to NY things have been wild around here! I've been trying to get us back onto some kind of normal schedule, although we're also adjusting to having our days completely free so maybe I don't quite know what our normal schedule is yet.

So far this week we...

• Visited Eli at home! He's doing so so so so well and we are beyond excited to have him out here and part of our family. His first pediatrician visit couldn't have gone better. He had gained over 1/2 a pound on his birth weight! And maybe I'm biased but it was pretty darned precious to watch C marvel over him for the first time. Whew, be still my heart...

• Carved two pumpkins- one kitty cat and one Elmo, two of Cs favorite things. I haven't carved a pumpkin since I did so once as a child. It went surprisingly well, I thought!
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• Had a play date with my friend/former co-worker who had a baby in July and whom I haven't seen since prior to her pregnancy. That was a super-fun gab-fest. She and I have a lot in common and have never had a problem chatting an afternoon away. C was also completely enamored by her baby girl, Scarlett. Silly me forgot to take any pictures though!
• Had a play date with my BFF Mary Beth and her adorable little guy Nick, whom C swoons over. They were so adorable chasing each other around the house and chatting in their toddler babble. I can't get over how cute they are together. They shared their snacks with each other and talked to the dog together. They even played together with the same toy. At one point C even picked up his sippy cup and held it for him while he took a drink! Call me crazy, but arranged marriages don't seem so bad when I look at these two ;)
• Have re-established a solid running routine. I decided that the Thursday running group was not focused enough for me. So I found a training program online, re-worked my cleaning schedule to fit in two runs during the week and one on the weekend, and have been on track. Now that I can run during the day when C is napping, it's so much easier to plan it into my schedule and stick to it. As a result, I don't intend to return to the Thursday running group. I guess in other ways it wasnt' really what I had expected it would be anyway. I'm still on the fence about running in the graduation 5k race. I feel like I should so I'm not a quitter, but I also don't think I have to pay $25 (after already paying $45 to participate in the group) to run 5k to prove that I can do it or make it more of an accomplishment. Why not just run 5k on the treadmill like usual? That counts, right? I'm thinking I'd rather have the $25 than a photo of me crossing the finish line. I intend to keep training and run other races, so it's not a once-in-a-lifetime situation or anything.

And the fun doesn't stop there. Tomorrow we're going some shopping and then doing dinner and a movie with some friends of ours. We have a birthday party to go to on Saturday, and Sunday we're celebrating my father-in-law's birthday. I never thought I'd hear myself say this but... is it Monday yet??

Benjamin Elijah

In other fantastic, exciting news, our nephew was born on Tuesday October 18th! We had been hoping and praying he would wait for us to get back from New York since his due date was the 16th, and he did. In the wee hours of Monday morning my SIL's water broke and they were admitted to the hospital by mid-day. Mama labored all day long and after over an hour of pushing, it was determined that the little man was not coming out that way. So a c-section was done and Benjamin Elijah was born at 4:18 am on Tuesday the 18th! He weighed in at 7lbs. 14oz. and was 20" long. He did have to spend a few days in the NICU because his mommy developed an infection during her labor. Fortunately, he was a super healthy little man and never showed any signs of distress during that process and was the healthiest little thing in the NICU. He wasn't hooked up to anything other than monitors for his heart rate and respiration and was in a regular bassinet. He was finally moved to my brother and SIL's room on Thursday night and was discharged to go home with them on Friday.

Ok ok, enough of me talking. I know you just want to see the pictures! Here he is, in all his handsomeness :)

Portraits of perfection, I tell ya! There is just nothing more miraculous to witness than mommy and daddy with their brand new baby. Big congrats to my little brother and his wife, Jenna on this amazing little man :)

Our Biggest Big Apple Adventure Yet!

"Every day in New York is different. You never know who you're going to meet, what you're going to learn, or what you're going to step in."

I heard that so-funny-because-it's-so-true quote by Anderson Cooper on a TV commercial and just had to use it for this post! We're back from our biggest Big Apple Adventure ever and I'm excited to tell you all about it. We had an amazing time and were pretty sold on making this longer weekend trip a tradition. With only a few minor shake-ups in our plans, we managed to see and do everything we wanted to except taking C to Toys R Us in Times Square. Good thing there's always next year :)

So if you know me, you already know that I have a few zillion pictures from this weekend. To avoid crashing your computer or mine, I've just picked the highlights and broken them down by each day we were there.

THURSDAY, OCT. 13

We arrived around 4 pm, checked into our hotel and had some dinner. Then J headed out to go see Book of Mormon while C and I had a pajama party in the hotel room.

 The view from our hotel window. It was damp and foggy on Thursday night so it added some extra character to our view!

FRIDAY, OCT. 14

It was wet and rainy so we decided not to venture too far from the hotel in case the weather got really bad. We did get up early and head to Rockefeller Center to see the Today Show, though!

 I got to fist-bump Al when he came by where I was standing! Due to the stroller, I was unable to make it through the crowd to be on camera, but J and C were on!

We headed uptown after breakfast to wander through FAO Schwarz.

 This is just a picture of our hotel with Times Square in the background. We were on 7th Avenue between 55th and 56th streets. A few blocks south of Central park, and a few blocks north of Times Square. Perfect!

 The birthday boy getting ready to have some dinner and beer at our favorite brewery, located in the Empire State Building!

 Cornhusker Lager - yum!

Crabcakes - double yum!

SATURDAY OCT. 15

Finally some sunshine! We strapped on our walking shoes and hit the sidewalks for the long journey down to Ground Zero. Luckily it's a beautiful walk through some really fun neighborhoods. And of course, seeing the 9/11 Memorial was beyond worth the walk.

 Being lovers of the city, we're huge fans of HGTV's Selling New York. This is one of the Real Estate companies on the show.

Greenwich Village = my favorite neighborhood

The firehouse used in Ghostbusters is in Tribeca

 Feeding Cheerios to some pigeons

The National September 11th Memorial:

On our way back uptown, we stopped at our favorite pizza place.

 I couldn't resist. 

Seriously? Only in New York.

 This is Times Square, if you couldn't tell :) We were trying to get to Toys R Us but it was even more packed than it usually is because the Wall Street protestors had come up to demonstrate in Times Square. There were police officers wearing riot gear walking up and down the street and a police helicopter hovering over-head. We were literally smashed shoulder-to-shoulder and I had my finger in one of J's belt loops so we wouldn't get separated. We ducked out at the very next block, needless to say. Pretty scary, but 10x more so when your baby is in a crowd like that with you.

SUNDAY OCT. 16

Sunday was another really pretty day. We had until noon to check out of our hotel, so we got some breakfast and spent the rest of the morning playing in Central Park.

And with that, we picked up our traditional smoothies from Jamba Juice and hit the road. We had the best time we've ever had in New York and as always, can't wait to go back. It was really nice to come home though :)