2014 Summer Outings: Albany Tulip Festival

Happy (belated) New Year: Chinese Year of the Horse

Happy Chinese New Year!!!  I know that I am about two weeks late, but between weather and the fickleness of planning with three kids, we only just got around to actually celebrating the Chinese New Year. Since we only have the two older kids on the weekends (the pros and cons of a blended family!) I try and plan at least one big sit-down meal and some sort of crafty activity to do with them. 

Two weeks ago, we celebrated Chinese New Year, which was at that point a week after the fact but it was awesome. I created a Pinterest board to collect ideas for Chinese food, crafts and decorations that I ended up almost completely ignoring. We are lucky enough to have a relatively diverse neighborhood so we do have a Chinese supermarket in town, so Hubby and I went there to try and find some decorations and food. Oddly enough, they had no little Red envelopes so I was disappointed. We picked up scallion pancakes, chicken dumplings, sweetnsour sauce, soy sauce, almond cookies, jelly candies, wasabi peas, red bean pastries, coconut flavoured cookies, Panda cookies, and some other random bits. I also had meatballs and chicken in the freezer that I ended up using. Weirdly, the meatballs were Italian seasoned which I did not account for when cooking them, but they turned out okay. 

Through Pinterest, I found great instructions for making paper fortune cookies. I was under the impression that no one in our family really liked the taste of fortune cookies, I was mistaken. Note for future parties, fortune cookies are an okay choice.

While Hubby was at work, the kids and I decorated a bit and then I tried to help them through making the fortune cookies. This was one of those stressful momma activities that I did not forecast. I tested out a few to make sure that I knew how to make them, I laid out all the supplies so that we all had our own circle template, glue sticks, pencils and scissors. I thought that this would limit the fights. I was incorrect. We were about two minutes into the project when the baby woke up from his nap so I had to go and get him. In the time that it took me to walk from the kitchen table to the bedroom and back, the two older kids got in a fight over gold shiny paper and ripped one of my scrapbooking templates. This did not set the mood well for me, I took the paper away all together, I still don't know if that was the best option but sometimes I need to wipe the slate and start over. 

The instructions were easy to follow, but our ten year old does not have much patience and when things do not work out immediately, a meltdown is imminent and our eight year old would much rather just do whatever grabs her goat before listening to any instructions. So while I was positive that this craft was in their ballpark, I was a little wrong. It may very well be a child dependent craft so heads up!

This was my template, I was able to get four cookies out of one sheet of 12 x 12 scrapbooking paper. I missed mentioning that to the kids and then just traced their circle into the middle of the paper, thus getting one cookie per sheet. Next time, I may just make them all and have the kids write the fortunes. That was hands down the best part of the entire project. We all wrote our own fortunes, some funny, some mean, some good, some random. Since Hubby wasn't here while we made them, we made him guess who wrote them after we read them outloud.

Reading them outloud and laughing about them all made up for the stress of making them. It was really fun while we were eating to giggle over Hubby guessing incorrectly. The tutorial I found here at Duitang, which is in Chinese but Google will translate if you need but the pictures were plenty to walk me through it. 

I wanted to do other crafts, but sometimes I run into a wall whether the kids are too old or two young for some things. So instead we just ate and laughed about some of the food that was not quite to out palate. Overall, it was successful, we ate tons of food and dinner lasted an hour with us just talking and trying lots of food. Happy Year of the Horse everyone! 

St Valentine's Day family celebration: Thank you Pinterest!

Happy Late Valentine's Day everyone! Cap is learning to crawl so my ability to sit and update the blog or my Etsy store is rather limited. The store comes first, well, after sweeping, laundry, sleep and food! He has really picked up on it so quickly, within a week he now will follow me around the living room while I clean or work at my craft table. There are days when I am so tired but the majority of the time I am so in love with all three of the kids that I cannot wait to be pregnant again and start the whole process over! 

Valentine's day is a little different with three kids, Hubby had to work through until the afternoon and then we picked up the older kids from their mom's house, so we had to plan a family friendly, love filled evening instead of a romantic night out for just the two of us. 

Friday morning brought the citizens of the Hudson Valley almost a foot of snow and since Hubby had to be to work at 5am, we were up early to shovel so he could even get out of the driveway. After finishing up, he went to leave and I went to the window to make sure that he was able to get out of the driveway okay when I saw him sneaking in with this wonderful bunch of flowers! I am not the biggest fan of cut flowers, it seems an odd tradition to me, but since I don't get them often, the once or twice a year that he buckles and buys some are even more special. I do love fresh flowers in the house, it makes everything seem pretty and I love having the reminder of him sitting in the middle of the kitchen table all day. 

Originally, we had planned on making cupcakes with the kids but I wasn't sure how late they would end up getting home with the snow so I made them in the morning. I caught a look at a cupcake recipe on Pinterest where she put strawberries inside of the cupcake. I can't find the original blog that I found it on but here is another. The one that I was reading, the woman had cooked the cupcakes completely, then dug out the middle to put in the strawberries. I am impatient and with an infant on the hip, I need minimal time from start to finish for a project, so I just stuck the strawberry in the batter while it was cooking. I made six without strawberries and the rest with, which went over really well with the family. Sprinkles and some fresh strawberries topped them off beautifully (the leftover raw strawberries were finished well before the cupcakes, we love our fresh fruits here). 

yummy red velvet, strawberry, vanilla cupcakes!

I again stalked Pinterest to find quick Valentine's cards for the kids. Our Minecraft obsessed boy, Griffin got a Creeper themed card, while little miss Eve got a fox themed one. I found them here  and here. Mine are not nearly as fancy, but I had to work with the things I had and in a limited time frame. They both liked them, although I was told that my Creeper was not perfectly drawn. I'll get 'em next time! The fox was a wooden decoration that I had bought on clearance from Michael's more than six months ago and finally got to use!

      This was Hubby's Valentine's collection. The superhero poster in the background was one of his old shirts that he had worn so much that the collar was fraying unattractively. Since I hinted that he shouldn't really wear it out of the house, I figured that I would use it to decorate the house instead. Using a canvas from Michaels, again on clearance, I stapled the shirt onto the canvas frame and cut away the rest of the t-shirt. He liked it and I think it will look great in our bedroom (next to our Captain America and Doctor Who posters).
I have Pinterest (I might be addicted) to thank for the card and the bacon roses. I found the bacon roses here, although I did not follow the instructions perfectly. I refuse to drill holes in my cupcake pan, for one. I use that thing for everything! All I did was to roll the bacon, stab it through with a toothpick, then broil it for about half an hour. I let them sit until they were cool, them finangled them onto the skewer sticks that I had laying about. Those directions also called for using the stems from a bouquet of fake flowers, which I did not have on hand, so skewers with paper leaves in my TARDIS coffee mug worked beautifully. The card came from Pinterest too, but I can't find the link, I believe it was through Etsy's Pinterset board, but I am not sure, sorry!

In addition to my wonderful flowers (and a box of chocolate that is almost gone already!) Hubby and both of the older kids picked out cards for me, which were adorable. Eve's was the kitten, Grif picked out one that had Love you written out in stitches and Hubby picked out the diamond one (I told him that it made me feel like Beyonce, cause ya know, bling). He also gave me a cute little moon necklace, the package said "I love you to the moon and back" and an amber resin necklace that I have been eyeing since before Cap was born! We will see if we like it or not, if nothing else, it is pretty and the baby likes to hold onto it while nursing, so it's a win for me! It was a perfect Valentine's day. I love just spending time with the family with nothing too pressing or stressful going on.

Happy Valentine's Day to everyone and a huge thank you to my wonderful Hubby for being the best and making me laugh and love every single day!!!

Thrift 2014: Score 1

Hubby was able to get out of work a little early this past Wednesday so I gave him a heads up that we would potentially head to the thrift shop, since I haven't been since November. Unfortunately, or maybe rather fortunately if you talk to my wallet, my father also had to go grocery shopping so he came with us. While neither he nor Hubby rushed me, I felt guilty walking through every single aisle like I enjoy doing so instead of getting a couple pairs of jeans (I am still in an odd shape from baby...how much longer can I use that?), I ended up browsing pretty quickly and was happy with the few things that I did manage to grab. 

Gap trench coat $6.99

D-signed size 7-8 girls jeans 3.99/ half price 1.99

D-signed I have only seen at Target so far, and these are in great condition, a request was made to widen the bottoms of the super skinny jean though

All in all, I spent a little over $11. I was proud of my little shopping trip (I am pretty sure that I did it in under 15 minutes but don't ask my Hubby), I got great clothes in great condition for less than half of retail price. I am in love with my trench coat already and I can't wait to pair it with skirts when it warms up!

Dropkick Murphys tee for G, he doesn't know who they are but Hubby and I are both big fans so it works 1.99

Happy New Year: Resolution? Unplug

          

Happy New Year to everyone! From my family to yours, we wish the happiest and healthiest of years. As for us, we will be spending a quiet evening watching the Texas A&M football game against Duke, a spaghetti dinner and sparkling black currant juice at midnight, potentially some homemade apple pie vodka. 

Since it is New Year's, I do feel like I have to share the obligatory resolutions that I have decided to work on. On the top of my list (besides being the best Momma that I can be!) is to unplug. I know coming from a blog where I am obviously connected, this may sound hypocritical but I have set up guidelines to make my life less about being always available and always finding the answer and more about living in the moment. I will (try to) write all my posts on Sundays, my one day where I am free to have my own time with the internet. The rest of the week I want to be available to my kids and to myself. I read articles like this at Click Orlando, this at PsychCentral, and this on the Huffington Post website. 

I sometimes look around and see all four of us attached to electronics and wonder what each of us are thinking that makes it so that whatever is going on in the screen is better than the conversation that we could be having together. Not that it is always as drastic as that but I want to know how everyone's day was either at work or at school, I want the kids to tell me about a book they are reading or to tell me all about the origins of Thanksgiving, or how long division bores G because he knows how to do exponents and square roots, how E loves dolphins and if they are the smartest animals in the world or not. I want to have conversations with my family. I do not want my face glued to the phone screen, scrolling through Pinterest while I am at their concerts, checking Facebook at breakfast, or checking emails at bedtime. That's not what I want the kids to see and that's not who I want to be either. 

Without being connected all the time, I want to find time to finish sewing projects, to paint more, to read tons, to keep the house kept up, and find ways to show Hubby and the kids how much they mean to me. 

To unplug, this is my main goal, but not to just unplug but to reconnect and stay connected to my friends and family in a deeper, more realistic way. 

My 2014 Resolutions:

1. Unplug

2. Read more (reading list to follow)

3. Focus more energy on my Etsy store, KikiGrace

4. Halve my craft stash (destashing crafts are great posts)

5. Exercise 5x week (get back to pregnancy jean size, I am already at pre-baby weight)

6. Pare down my clothing

7. Finally sell/donate/rehome piles that I have been sitting on

8. write more letters

9. more family time

10. Buy a house!!!

Handmade Holidays: Project 5: Tissue Holders

For some reason, I am sure that it was a good one, I had bought a 12 pack of tiny pocket tissue packs. I never use these tissues so I am pretty sure I meant to make felt tissues holders originally as well but I never got around to it. As previously mentioned, I have a serious goal of destashing and reorganizing my crafting life this holiday season, so I need to use what I have. I love working with felt, its great for crafting, for kids and its cheap with no fray! For the kids, and potentially for a couple adults, I made/am making some tissue holders. 

Here are a couple that I found on Pinterest, my not-so-secret love affair:

Boogey Monster

Teddy Bear and Kitty Kat

Bunny and Robot

Here are the two that I have finished so far: 

For my niece, a little Monster High-esque maybe with a button closure

For my nephew, I love the tongue!

My nephews present, I have to get a photo in that tiny gingerbread man!!! Don't forget! I also added a tag in case he wanted to attach it to his bookbag

Handmade Holidays: Project 1: Baby Quilt

My first project for Christmas ended up being a complete by chance sort of thing. I have a problem. A problem that I have heard many crafters have, and that there may be support groups for. I collect craft things, tons of craft things. Even before I was working in a craft store, I had tons of bits and bobbles. Then I worked in a fabric chain store for a year and goodness did the collection grow and spawn. It was/is a problem. Hubby gives me the "look" when he glances towards my corner/closet/room/pile of things that will become other things one day. With that look in mind, I am making in a serious focus this month to make as many presents as I can manage, thus eliminating a fair amount out of my stash and saving us money on shopping (kind of, considering I have already spent the money). 

I was in the middle of sewing super hero themed curtains for my nephew (there will be no photos because they were a ton of fabric and by the time I was done sewing, I was soooo done looking at them. Plus, they are wrapped already), and I found a pile of handkerchiefs that I had bought from evil WalMart, probably five years ago. They are the white fabric with gray owls and little stars on them. I imagine, when I bought them that I had a plan. What it was? I have no clue. But they were adorable, I have a thing for owls and considering Baby had a loosely Potter themed nursery, the print was actually kind of perfect. I had matching gray fabric left over from RenFaire costumes, yellow scraps from a box of my mother's fabric, white flannel that I had bought for burpcloths (before realizing that I never use them) and a package of crib sized batting that had been on clearance for 3.97. So I had everything except for binding. Hubby suggested an orange colour to match the little owl beaks, and I agreed.

When I made the two older children blankets last year, I just used sating ribbon folded over as binding so I figured that I would do that again for this blanket. Foolishly, I thought when I couldn't find sating ribbon, that acetate ribbon would work just as well. I was wrong. Very wrong. Don't ever do that! I washed it and it fell apart so horribly that I was very tempted to toss the entire blanket in the garbage. But I had already stitched in Steven's name and the date. So out came the seam ripper and two evenings wasted, then out to buy actual blanket binding and a night to sew that on correctly. Note to self: do it correct the first time, you cheapskate! We also went to the secondhand bookstore to pick up a copy of Harry Potter to go with the blanket for his first reading book. I can't wait to start reading my favorite series to him. I am secretly hoping that the older two kids cuddle up and listen too. So, after using four or five yards of fabric that I had laying about and a slightly stressful binding experience, Steven's first Momma-made blanket is all finished, folded and waiting to be wrapped. 

Piecing together the squares

Finished top

Hand stitched little message for Steven's first baby quilt. Hopefully, we will have many, many nights snuggled underneath, reading together

I also finished a handful of burpcloths, mostly I just use these when feeding Steven to wipe his face and hands. The fabric was a flannel flat sheet from the thrift store for $2 and it made 9 burpcloths. 

The Thankful Project: Day 3

Thank you again to Chasing Happy for hosting the Thankful Project. 

Today's topic is to discuss a place that you are thankful for. I was kind of unsure exactly what that even meant to me, so I took a bit longer to even come up with a list of places that I could be thankful for. 

As quiet and blah as it looks now, in the beginnings of winter, this I will miss.

When it comes down to it, as tumultuous as my childhood may have been, I think that the place that I am most thankful for is the backyard of my parents' house. This was, hands down, the place that spend the most time growing up. My father's somewhat extreme style of parenting during the summer, after my parents were divorced, was to send us outside at 830am, we were able to come inside to use the bathroom, to eat at noon, and then not until 6pm. We were left to, mostly, our own devices to amusement and to not injure ourselves. I can't imagine sending our kids outside now, unsupervised, for hours on end but my brother and I had no complaints at the time about it. 

Marley playing on a fallen tree during Hurricane Sandy, thankfully none fell
on the house, but we lost three trees.

Up until I was in middle school, my brother and I would pretend that we were Native Americans. We built teepees out of old sheets and giant branches that we pulled out of the surrounding woods, branches that were six to eight feet tall, all tied together with old clothesline and childish determination. We would collect acorns and chestnuts and poisonous red berries, pretending to eat them all. We would make bows and arrows out of yarn and shoe laces. We glued empty water bottles to the bottom of a piece of wood to make a raft to navigate the stream in our woods, treacherous as that stream was, we could have managed the two foot wide by six inches deep stream without the raft. Also, side note, Elmer's school glue is not water resistant, do not use it for rafts in the future. 

Then in sixth grade, I met one of my best friends, Ryn and we had history class together where we learned about Ancient Egypt and I read The Egypt Game.( I highly recommend that book, like insanely so, that and The Phantom Tollbooth) Then our native village turned into an ancient Egyptian palace. My little brother was a pharaoh, we made robes out of sheets, headdresses out of cardboard, memorized hieroglyphics, mummified a doll and buried her in my backyard under a dogwood tree, complete with turkey dinner and silver plated dishes. 
We fullfilled our Harry Potter fantasies by building a Hogwarts out of plastic milk crates and handmade wands and spellbooks. Under the pines trees we would relive all our favorite moments from the books and wonder why we never got a letter delivered by owl messenger. 
This was the yard that we had a pool in for a long time, that we were allowed to spend entire days in, until we were wrinkly and uncomfortable. A yard surrounded by woods that fed our imaginations, we created cities and towns, jurisdictions were separated for my brother and I, territorial boundaries that we were not allowed to cross, marked by swept up leaves and pricker bushes. 

As a mostly adult, I have our kids now play in the yard. We continue to have bonfires, whether they are legal fires or not, I am not sure still. James, the kids and I built a giant Wicker Man one year and lit him on fire. I picked flowers to weave in and out of the branches and we stared at the giant wooden man until he was ashes. My brother and I would try to keep a single fire going to weeks at a time, cooking hot dogs and waffles over the flame for our amusement. We had random gardens that never amounted for much food outside of the dozen or so tomatoes we would eat as soon as they ripened. We have always ate summer dinners outside, have hung hammocks between the trees to laze about. This is the first place that I ever "laid out" in the sun to actually try and tan. It was this yard that my brother was stung over two dozen times because bees hate him and he was a clumsy six year old. This was the yard that we had my two ever birthday parties in, one in first grade and one in sixth grade, were a girl stepped on a nail and it went through her foot in the woods. This is where we had my graduation party, where my grandmother parked her RV when my youngest brother, Colin, was born so she could spend time while my parents were in the hospital. This is where I kept my first ever pet rooster named Dani California and where he would chase Colin down because they were the same height. 

 This is the red maple that my brother and I would climb right before a thunderstorm to ride the storm winds in the branches before it started raining. And under these same branches, all lit up with holiday lights, is where I said yes to my wonderful and amazing Hubby when he asked me to marry him. 
So this yard, above all other places so far in my life, I am the most thankful for. 

The Thankful Project: Day 2

Again thanks to Chasing Happy for hosting this thankful linkup. 

Today's prompt, "A role that you've played," was a little more difficult for me then yesterday's prompt. I am thankful for being able to be a partner to my wonderful fiance, thankful for being the "favorite" granddaughter to my Pappy and Nana, thankful for being the only sister to six brothers and mother to my wonderful baby, Steven. But I think the role that I am most thankful for is that of stepmother.

I met James' two children when they were two and four year of age, so I wasn't there when they were babies but I have seen them grow over the past five years. It is the hardest thing that I have done, almost harder then being a birth mother, is carefully treading the water of being a stepmother, especially when their own mother is very loving and very involved. I had a really hard time coming to terms with being the stepmother for the first two years that James and I were together, I loved being the fun person but I am a strong believer that children need schedules and routines, which turns me into the strict, mean one (according to Hubby). I have my own Type A, obsessive personality that does not coincide well with children to begin with, but I have grown so much as a person, become so much more patient (I had none to begin with), understanding and I listen so much better then I did when we first met. 

James' daughter, (my stepdaughter or my soul-daughter, as James calls her) was the easier fit when we first met. I was fun, with crazy coloured hair, cool clothes, danced in public and I wore a cat collar as a necklace so for a two year old girl who wore tutus and pink cowboy boots regularly, it wasn't hard to get along. As she has gotten older and started acting like much more of a teenage, we have conflicted a little more. James says that I am harder on her, more strict and hold her to high standards, which may be true. I worry about the culture of lowered expectations for girls, that it is okay to just be cute or pretty, but I want her to know that it is just as important to be kind and to be smart. I am thankful that she has taught me how important it is for girls to have positive role models, she has taught me to see the world through the eyes of a little girl (I hated pink, glitter, and dresses as a girl) and I hope that she has the patience in the future to help me learn more patience and to breathe before acting. 

Hubby's son, on the other hand, was a much harder sell. I was scared to push too hard, he was quiet, a little angry and very set on being with his father, understandably so. I have six brothers, so I always figured that I would sync so well with a son, but it was so much harder than I had expected. It wasn't until recently that he and I have started to have our own inside jokes, our own conversations, our own little system and agreement on how our relationship should be. It started with him learning how to spell and we would play the spelling game. Hubby or I would give him a word and he would try spelling it. He wanted harder and harder words, to the point where I was just reading words out of the dictionary to challenge him more. Since then, we have settled that we are both good spellers, so we have that in common. He and I both get ready quickly when we have somewhere to do, while James and Eve take their time. Griffin and I call them the Delinquents now, because of their shared lackadaisical attitude sometimes. Grif and I both tend to be a little more serious and introverted naturally so I know where he is coming from. As I have gotten older, I am trying to become more of an extrovert, but naturally I just need quiet me-time. I am thankful that Grif has taught me that boys come with their own basket of problems, but none are insolvable. He has taught me how much fun video games can be, that sometimes it is okay to just wear sweatpants and no socks every single day (it is no reason to increase blood pressure over) and that being a stepmother can just be as simple as being companion souls sharing life's journey together and not overbearing, anal retentive craziness, at least most of the time. 

So thank you, Eve and Griffin, for helping me to learn how hard and how easy it can be to be a stepmother, that we aren't all evil, and that there is always enough room in my heart to love our happily blended family. 

The Thankful Project: Day 1

 While planning out the next month for  my blog, I stumbled across Chasing Happy and her wonderful Thankful Project and the prompts with link-up of everyone else sharing what they are thankful for this month (and hopefully the rest of the year as well). My new year starts on November 1st after Samhain, so a month devoted to things that I am thankful for sounded perfect and then it will work right into the holiday season and the time that I get to spend with family. So here we go:

Thankful Project: Day One: A person

Hands down, the person I am most thankful for is my fiance. My family helped shape me into the person that I am, but Hubby has made me into a person that I am happy with and can make others happy. Like more young girls than most would care to admit, no matter how smart or pretty or accomplished I ever was, I battled with self-image and self confidence. While I am not saying that Hubby has cured me and that I am now a ferocious, confident, devil-may-come kind of woman that I would like to be, I am so much more confident in being comfortable as a person than I was before I met him. As scandalous as it sounds, we met while he was my boss at a past job. I took the job seriously enough to move from part-time to full-time but he motivated me to become a manager, and not the benevolent despot manager that I had known previously but a fun, understanding but down to business kind of boss that encouraged workers and still impressed upper management. I took jobs with people that I didn't know, in towns that I had never been in before, managing an entire store of people that I had never met and aiming to be knowledgeable in every area of that store. It made me see that retail isn't all bad and that I had the ability to be a leader that I had never really felt before. I would love to say that everytime he tells me that I am beautiful that I agree, but I don't but I walk every day with the confidence that he thinks that I am beautiful and smart and worth all the grief that I cause him. He makes me thankful for our family, for my family, for friends and for my ability to love someone so much that I miss him every morning from not seeing him while I was asleep. 

He will kill me for this picture, but this man helps me make bread...he is wonderful!!! 

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. 

Week in Review: Mother-in-Law Visit: Walkway over the Hudson

The past two weeks were stressfully spent preparing for a visit from Mother-in-Law so blog posts have been falling to the wayside, although I have plenty of pictures so recap the week. After spending Monday in a hurried mess to try and get everything neat and organized, we drove almost two hours to Kennedy airport to pick up MIL. MIL and I have met before but it was very early in the relationship with Hubbs. Since there is a decent time difference between Ireland and New York, we spent the afternoon just relaxing. Tuesday we also had a late start, just trying to get MIL used to the time difference and then took an afternoon trip to the Walkway over the Hudson in Highland, NY. The bridge used to be the railroad bridge and is now part of the local rail trail in addition to being a park. It is very high off the water, but in no way feels unsafe ( I have a fear of heights so these things are important to me!). We parked the car on the Highland side of the bridge (west side) and only walked to the halfway point since it was getting late and the bridge closes at dusk. There was a spacious parking lot, a snack/drink cart and very clean bathroom facilities. We saw tons of kids on the bridge, walking and biking and the bridge is very pet friendly (they even had a water dish at the halfway point just for pups!) so if you bring the kids, be prepare to spend a fair chunk of time just petting dogs. If you wanted to make a day trip of it with the kids, you could go to the Children's Museum for the day, picnic at either end of the park and walk the bridge during sunset. Overall the outings rating would be a 6/10. It is very weather dependent, but we had a great time and it was an easy walk to just enjoy the view. 

looking south towards the Mid-Hudson Bridge

looking west towards Highland

Later we had bathtime!!! Once he realizes that it's a bath and not liquid death, Steven enjoys it a ton