NYC - Day 3

We loved Hairspray, how can you not?  Auntie Teisha gave the girls the soundtrack a few years ago, and they were well prepared for the sing-along!

Magnolia Bakery - one word YUM!  We traveled to Greenwich village to check this place out, and were more than happy to log the extra miles.  It was so cute, old, shabby chic, all they make is cupcakes and we are not real big cake fans, but these were so good!  We sat down on someones front porch (that someone wasn't really happy with us either, apparently our spot had been previously occupied by litterers!) and once again, Steve had a little photo shoot.

For you Kare-bear - you would have loved this store, too!

NYC evening of Day 2

Maddie, throughly enjoying her ice cream!

Rylee and her cute new (fake) purse

Steve was having too much fun with MY new camera.  Incase you read this hon, did you notice how I capped MY?

How do you like the double chins?

Sorry about the monotonous post titles, I'm tryin' to keep my mind organized. :)  

As I mentioned before, we LOVE Rascal Flatts.  And we're not even big country fans.  We love almost all their songs, and sadly we were out of town last time they came to Dallas.  We found out they were going to be in NYC and that solidified our travel plans!  

So, with lyrics like "God bless the broken road" and "I'm goin' to learn how to face my fears, love with all of my heart, I wanna' leave something here" one would think it would be a great, family-friendly concert, RIGHT??  Well, WE faced our fears.  They came in the form of 20,000 drunk cowgirls and some raunchy, fowl mouthed entertainers!  We left after a few songs and some references to a tight-clothed girl who forgot her skirt.  Maybe I should have done some more research?  The usher told us on the way out that all country concerts are like this, and they are notorious for drunks and girls that wanna do you know what with you know who. After doing some dollar cost averaging, I figured we spent about $22 per minute.  I'm composing an e-mail to them in my head, and am absolutely positive they will read it!

What better way than to mend you sorrows than with a Haggen Daaz bar in your hotel room?

I couldn't think of any, so that's exactly what we did.  Happy Birthday to Me.

NYC Day 2

Some friends of ours suggested that rather than take the ferry and get off at the Statue of Liberty, we take the Statin Island Ferry that goes right PAST the Statue.  Boy am I glad we took their advice!  We were all surprised at how much smaller she (the Statue) is than we thought.  We snuck a few facts and some trivia in and had a very brief patriotic moment after pretending that we were immigrants coming from Europe to America (Ellis Island) where all our dreams would one day come true.  I may have enjoyed this a bit more than my family!

With the wind chill - temps dipped into the teens! Brrrrrrrrrr!

Awaiting our 2 seconds of glory outside the 'Today Show" windows.  We attempted to get there at 7 am to secure our fame, but sleeping in sounded much better. :)  We actually got on TV a lot, anyone catch us?

Rockefeller skate rink

Steve took this great pic of an old church.  Nice huh?

NYC Day 2 - American Girl Style

This cute little box has conversational questions inside like "If you could spend the whole day with anyone, who would it be?" And "Who would you like to have as your best friend?"  If you guessed Hannah Montana, you'd be right.

When Steve and the girls asked me where I wanted to go for lunch on my B-day, before I could even think about it, I said American Girl Place.  Buried childhood wishes perhaps?  That place is like a dream come true for a little girl.  Before Grandma Bev (Steve's mom) moved from Illinois, we would make an annual trip to the original AGP in Chicago and have fab memories from our visits.  They have since added some stores in LA, Atlanta and...drumroll please...Dallas!  Anyway, the store in Dallas is not as big, elaborate, or sassy as Chicago and NYC, so we were anxious to see it.  

We had a great time chatting and eating their yummy, cute food.

NYC - Day 1

True to New York style, we landed in NYC at 11, arrived at our hotel by noon, had lunch at some famous restaurant, walked 3 miles around the city, played for a couple hours at the ginormous Toys R' Us (complete with ferris wheel INSIDE) and were back at our hotel by 6 to get changed to go see "Grease" on broadway!  We all know about my failing memory, but I swear we use to watch Grease when we were kids all the time and loved every minute of it???  Maybe all the naughty stuff went over our heads, and I'm hopeful it did with Mads & Ry too!  The highlight of our night was seeing a family friend (Teisha's adopted younger sister) Natalie Hill who plays Cha Cha (and other parts) in the play.  The last time I remember seeing her, she was in Jr. High when we were on a quick trip to Utah - anyway - she's adorable.  She graciously took us back stage and gave us a tour.  The girls were excited to meet Sandra Dee, Danny and the rest of the cast.  Thanks Teish for calling her!

Rylee wasn't feeling too hot so we cut our night short at 11pm!

Madison's new haircut

How cute is she?  Now, if only we can re-create this style. 

Sorry!

I know, I know, I need to update....I'm getting to it.  I'm having a hard time getting going, I'm bummed about a few things.  1- Mitt's not doing well in the poles and the media hates him and everything he stands for 2- I saw the movie "Kite Runner" and it was even more sad than the book, it was closer to the book than any movie/book combo I have ever seen - maybe a little too real.  3-I messed up my New Years resolution to eat more veggies and workout 3x/week on Jan. 5th 4-Steve has been traveling for over a week now and lastly, it's way too cold outside.  Whew, that felt better!

Madison

In the olden days, we kept a family journal (with a notepad, can you believe it?) and dedicated a special section to the funny things Madison would say. So, since THIS IS our family journal, I will keep them here!

Steve was telling us about one of his weird dreams (I'll spare the details) and he told us some lady he didn't recognize was bossing him around. Madison proceeded to say to him "Dad, I hate to tell you but that's not a dream, and that lady is mom!"

Not quite sure where to go with that one!

Happy New Year!

The lone shot from New Years day at the Weiss's. Again, more dominoes, football, food & fun!!

I'm still trying to figure out how to post these pictures in the order I want them! These are backwards. :< Madison, at 1am, ready for bed.

Rylee, at 1am, not ready for bed.

I love this shot of Hailey.

I'm not sure where it got started, maybe it's because we lacked funds for fireworks growing up, but every year at midnight, we bang pots and pans as loud as we can on the front porch. It's a good thing we have a great relationship with our neighbors. ;)

Silly Tyler has his headphones on, I wonder if we were too loud?
Brrrrr....It was about 25 degrees outside!


My we have some beautiful girls!


Dominoes!