I'm Back!!! (hopefully, barring Life)

     Hopefully, I can get back to somewhat regular posting, it's fun and relaxing and gives me something to feel responsible for on a daily basis that doesn't need a diaper change. I have been lax in posting because we have had a very busy past month or so, we:

     1. Wrapped up an in-law visit and the subsequent       recuperation that I needed. We visited the Statue of Liberty, FAO Schwartz, Central Park, Empire State Building, Times Square

2. We celebrated Griffin's 10th birthday with a day in NYC and a day at home playing video games!

3. Went to a cousin's wedding with baby and no Hubby but I did get a great LBD that was nursing friendly and hid my baby belly enough for me to feel comfortable. 

4. Steven learned how to laugh, sit up, have a relatively set bed time. He also enjoys baths, reveling in the idea that his feet come into the bath with him and that he can splash. He also had his first bottle!!!

5. We went apple picking with a great friend and her two girls, the youngest is only two weeks older then Steven so we were already planning the wedding!

6. Fall television started. While this is no excuse to avoid other responsibilities, it gives me something to watch while I am rocking the baby to sleep. I am watching, with the loyalty that I can spare: Walking Dead, Witches of East End, Bones, Castle, Sleepy Hollow, Dancing with the Stars, SHEILD, Supernatural, American Horror Story and Dracula. Most of these are watched during nursing or putting to sleep the baby...and it is way more tv then I have ever watched in my entire life. 
7. My best friend and I are planning a joint family Christmas dinner that we have been planning and preparing for and getting six separate households to agree to a time and place. 
8. To tie into Steven's accomplishments, I started pumping! It took me a solid day before I got the band of how the manual pump even worked and then I realized that I have never bottle-fed a child before and that I would, after three months with a baby, now have to learn a basic skill. We did it though, he ate and I almost felt insulted that he took the bottle so easily. 
9. Hubby and I have started looking at houses in a little bit more of a serious manner, although still deciding between Florida and Georgia, my money would still be to go to Texas!

10. Hubby and I finally are officially engaged!!!!!! After five years of the ups and downs of a relationship, he put a ring on it and I said most definitely yes! No date yet, but house first!

So a very busy month, but November is the start of my new year so posting will be on my new year's resolution list! 
Happy New Year and bring on the next adventures!

Week in Review: Mother in Law Visit: Statue of Liberty

With the government shutdown, Liberty Island is now closed so I was so happy that my first visit to the Statue wasn't put on hold. We were able to visit the island the Friday before the shutdown and kept saying how lucky we were that we didn't plan the visit for the following week. MIL, kids and I had never been to the Statue before, Hubby had gone when he used to live in NYC in his younger years (Before Kendra). My family had gone when I was in the first grade but I refused to miss school to go see the statue, because I was that much of a nerd, even at six. We bought tickets in advance (they were more expensive then I really thought they would be) for 11am time slot but arrived there early and there was no problem getting on the ferry early. We decided to park on the New Jersey side instead of going into NYC, figuring it would make it easier getting home with minimal traffic. That plan would have worked except that we were so hungry when we left that we stopped at the first restaurant we could all agree on and then hit some traffic on the way home, but still ended up getting home early enough to have a normal bedtime. 

We took the ferry over to the island (which I am pretty sure is the only way to get there), they had a bunch of different ferries with names like: Miss Liberty, Miss New Jersey, Miss New York, Miss Ellis Island. We pointed out to the kids where all boats have their names and how each boat has a unique name. Ellis Island is still closed since they are repairing damage from Hurricane Sandy, but as the boat went by, we gave little history recaps on the island and Ellis Island. 

ferry at the dock before we left for the island

The weather was absolutely awesome, I wish I had packed a great lunch because the grounds were perfect for a family lunch. I had only packed some snacks so we wouldn't be starving while we there, but we could have spent another hour there just enjoying the view. I definitely would recommend bringing at least a sweater because the water makes it a little bit more chilly then the mainland, I took my sweater off on the island but I was also carrying around the baby and he is a little hot furnace. We even could have ate at the park from where the ferry left from and where we left the car. There was the old railway station there, built in 1913 that is super creepy but awesomely cool to take some pictures. The trip was awesome, easy to get to and other then the crowds (which you can't avoid at a huge touristy hotspot) and Steven sleeping through the climb to the pedestal, it was a perfect day trip. I was so happy to finally get to see this hugely important monument to our country.