Barnes and Noble Storytime

While Mikey was at school today, Katie and I went to Storytime that they host at Barnes and Noble.  Although they hold it every Wednesday at 10am this was our first time going; finally!  We only stayed for about 15-20 minutes (which got us through 3 songs and 1 story) before I realized that once storytime was over that the entire kids book section would be packed with kids.  So we snuck out of Storytime to do a little book shopping for Easter and to read some books to Katie before things got crazy.

Katie watching the employee sing and act out songs.

This was part of the fishy song.

Storytime - A story about a boy who lost his blue sock.

Not Jessica, Mommy!

We recently started working on full names.  The kids both know what their first names are but we are working on last names. 

A recent conversation went a little like this!

Me:  "Mikey - do you know that your full name is Michael Muir?"
Mikey:  "No, me not Michael Muir (he pronounces it like "more"), me Mikey!"

Me:  "Hey Mikey, did you know that my name is Jessica and Daddy's name is Scott?"
Mikey:  "No, you're not Jessica, you're Mommy!"

In fact, I am Mommy and I will always be.

Oscar Party

One of my KPMG friends Jen, invited a few girls over to her apartment for a late and last minute Oscar-PJ-Chocolate-Wine party.  I'm in.... especially since she lives only 31 floors above me.  We had so much fun talking, catching up and being super judgmental about the Oscar red carpet dresses.  The chocolate and wine was delicious!

On a side note, how is it that every time I'm out late or stay up late that my kids wake up super early the next day.  The night of the Oscar party I got to bed a little after midnight and Katie was up at 5am!  Does this happen to you?!

The only pic. I snuck!

Warmer weather

Dare I say warmer weather is on the horizon?  Today we enjoyed sucking in some fresh air at the playground.  A few of Mikey's new favorite games to play are chase and hide and seek although he is horrible at hide and seek.  He'll run and find a hiding place but giggle really loudly the entire time!  He's hilarious.  Katie can now climb the steps and go down the slide all by herself.  Such a big girl!

After nearly an hour of chasing and running around the playground, we were all ready for a nap.

Saying "hello."

Weee.

Here she goes!

Playing chase.

Hiding.

Playing more chase.

Katie loves playing with bouncy balls.

Little Italy

Tonight Scott and I were able to sneak away for dinner in Little Italy.  We initially had reservations at a restaurant but when we got there it was completely closed down and out of business.  Weird.  Can that happen within 2 weeks of making a reservation? I guess so.  So we walked around Little Italy a bit and were hassled by Italian guys or guys pretending to be Italian to come and eat in their restaurant with the promise of free drinks, free dessert and free wine.  Not exactly what we pictured Little Italy to be like, but maybe the cold and rainy weather slowed things down for them.  We basically walked into the first busy restaurant we saw where we weren't hassled to come in and had a nice Italian meal.  Scott thought it was great but I honestly wasn't impressed.   I could have gotten the same gnocchi 2 blocks from where we live for half the price and it would have tasted the same.  But it was fun to say we went!

We ended up going here.

Playdates keep us sane.

I am definitely starting to feel the end of winter itch.  It has slowly been creeping up on me and I can tell the kids have started to feel it too.  We just need to get out but this cold, really cold weather has made it almost impossible.  Feeling like we are stuck inside our little apartment has been leaving us all feeling a little grumpy, cooped up and blue but thank goodness for playdates.  Although our playdates are inside, the new apartments, new toys, new spaces to explore, new kids to play with have been a godsend and are keeping us all happy and helping us get over that little winter slump.  Thanks friends!!!

Evan and Katie enjoying some cookie crackers.

Mikey in all his glory playing with  a train set, and car ramps.  

Katie loved Madelyn's princess room.  

Mikey and Katie playing with Mathis.  

James' Music Class

Friends of ours here suggested we try out this music class.  This man James travels to different locations around the city and brings lots of instruments with him for the kids to play with and he brings different instruments that he will play during each class.  It's very reasonable compared to most other music classes in the area and the best news of all is that on Thursdays he has a class in the Gleenwood building right across the street in their playroom.  We checked it out today and as you can tell from the pictures below Mikey loved it and was a great participant while Katie was by my side the entire time.  If I tried to sit her by herself she just cried.

Sitting so nice waiting for the class to start.

Mikey did lots of  running, jumping, dancing around.  He really liked music class.

Clapping his shakers together.  That's James in the back.

Time for some bells.  He put them around his arms.

Each instrument James brought out he let the kids get a close up view before he started playing.

Mikey pushed the trumped buttons down while he blew.

Sharing puppets.

Lots of different puppets to play with while we sang The Farmer in the Dell.

This was Katie for the first half of the class.  Hand on belly, thumb in her  mouth and finger up her nose.  Took her a  while to warm up.

A tambourine on his head.  

Pretending to play the drums on a soft block.

Checking out the guitar and harmonica.

parachute time- that Mikey (bottom right) loved to run under.

Cleaning up time.

There were lots of kids there ages 3 mos. to 4.  I counted 24 kids!

Playing with our friends Mathis and Anais.

Marriott Marquis

My Aunt and cousin were in town last week for a few days and so we got together at their hotel for some dinner and drinks.  We had so much fun talking and catching up that before I knew it it was 1a.m. which is really really really late for me and my usual 8:30 or 9:00 pm bedtime.  (I love my sleep!)

View of Times Square from the Marriott bar.

Way overpriced cocktails were sipped throughout the night.

A few very yummy desserts. Chocolate, strawberry and pumpkin mini cakes.  

Just Ask

As we approach the end of year 1 here in NYC we had to revisit our rental agreement.  Typically rent will go up anywhere between 3%-5% however we have known a few families here in NYC that had to move due to their rent increasing 30%.  Crazy, I know!  So we were able to get our rental agreement extended so that we are covered through July instead of March.  The month of July is typically when the rotation at DPP begins and ends.  We also negotiated our rent for the coming year. Long story short, our rent is going up by zero, zilch, nada, nothing!  Wahoo.  Gotta love that!

Click Happy

A certain someone in my house likes L.O.V.E.S to take pictures.  Mikey will grab my camera out of my purse and snaps pictures.  If I am close by he will just press the picture button as many times as he can before I grab the camera from him.  He thinks this is super funny.....but other times if I'm busy with Katie or if he grabs the camera without me knowing he'll take more calculated pictures of certain things....usually toys and after he's taken however many pictures he wants he'll put my camera back.  I have no idea when he does this until I upload my photos onto my computer. Here's just a few pictures he's snapped recently.

I love what he chooses to take pictures of.

Love his face here.

Little toes sticking out.

Puppet Show

Today we went to the Swedish Marionette Theater in Central Park where we all enjoyed our very first live puppet show.  The theater was really cute with lots of character.  It's very quaint and looks like it's from a story book.  The kids were incredibly well behaved and sat on the benches the entire hour long kid friendly show.  Mikey really enjoyed it and Scott and I both loved watching his facial expressions. Afterwards we enjoyed a walk through CP and stopped for lunch at a yummy restaurant before coming home to nap.

The puppet show stage.

The puppet show was about Pippi Longstocking.

Looking all around.

Lots of other kids there too.  It was dark inside so hard to get good pics.