Halloween

Eric promised me a foot rub if I post this tonight so obviously I am. I don't know why he cares, I think it has something to do with how much he likes to show off his kids.

Halloween was almost a week long event here. It started with music time on Friday. Lily and I compromised and she got to be a princess for music time and her preschool party if she wore her Goldilocks costume for the ward party and for Trick or Treating. Luckily we have a pretty good supply of princess dresses lying around and the Goldilocks costume was mine from when I was her age, so we only had to buy Finn his bear suit. I sewed all the bear stuff for Eric and I, so it was a pretty stress free Halloween.

Finn loved wearing his bear costume. He would just giggle when he saw me get out his costume.

She couldn't be the same princess twice of course.

Finn eating his trunk or treats stash on the way home. Wrapper and all.

We went trick or treating at my parents. They have some fun neighbors that really get into it. Lily had to reach into a coffin for candy that had a posing dead person inside it, bet on which pumpkin had candy in it risking not getting any and perform a song in front of 15 people to earn her candy.

The best part. The candy feast.

 

Disney On Ice

Lily, like many girls her age, loves anything Disney princess. So when my friends found $10 tickets to Disney on Ice, I was really excited to take Lily. She was in heaven. She was so in to it, standing up and dancing. I loved watching her watch it.

She wanted to wear her snow white costume. She put it on and everything. Then after some thought she asked me, "Mom do we sit or stand?"
"We'll be sitting in chairs most of the time, you can stand if you want though."
"Well I better not wear this, it might be uncomfortable to sit in." Were her exact words. She is all about comfort this girl. That is why jeans rarely make an appearance on her. So she nixed the dress, but kept the snow white head band. She also packed a back up tiara in my purse in case she ever wanted to switch.

( We're just missing Beckett and Lily's boy entourage would be complete. )

New York

(Kayli, Me, Natalie, Paige, Nicole, Danielle, Jessica, Emily)

I have been dreading posting this because, well, I am lazy, but I feel my blog can't move on until I post on bigger life events like trips. Trips seem to be a rarity lately, so they are pretty major life events. Especially when I take a trip without my family. I think this is the first time I have ever left Finn and definitely the first time I've left Eric alone with the kids for a whole weekend. Luckily he is a better parent than me so I was carefree all weekend.

We started our carefree weekend by driving to the depths of Brooklyn at 1 am for a sleepover. Do I need to expand on this? I think so, it is a good one. So we were graciously given free reign over my friend Nicole's friend's apartment (can I grammatically do that?). Anyway, we were told it was in a very safe area, near central park on the upper east side. So we (by we I mean me, so yes, this was my fault) put her address in the gps. xx street New York City, New York. So after driving the estimate 4.5 but realistically 9 hours to get to New York we pick up the key and were then supposed to drive a few blocks to the actual apartment. It took 45 minutes to get there, but the gps' predictability had already been failing us, so we weren't surprised. We drive through a neighborhood with cops on every corner and end up getting an awesome parking spot right in front of the apartment. Now it is about 12:30 am and there are kids out running around and tons of people out sitting on their front steps chatting, which seemed out of the ordinary to us, but I think a bunch of white mormon girls pulling up in a big ol' mini van wheeling their little carry-ons and carrying their pillows up the stairs to their neighbor seemed even stranger to them. We're all standing on this step with every eye on the street watching us trying to get this key to work. Clue #1. Key doesn't work. Actually let's go through all the clues that all 8 of us seemed to miss. Clue #2. We drive over a bridge to get there. Clue #3. We pass the Brooklyn Art Museum (which we actually clarified out-loud by saying "Oh look, there is the Brooklyn Art Museum").  Clue #4. This friend's apartment is on the third floor. This row house is two stories. Clue #5. This friend said her apartment was on a one-way street, we are not. So the evidence is piling up. Yet we still take ten minutes to try the key, call the friend and run the heck out of there once we realize we are not in the promised safe neighborhood. Luckily we all escaped with our purses and purity.

So we finally found the apartment. Note: When finding an address in New York, clarify Manhattan on your gps when the location is on the island.

We were staying in New York for just 2 days, so we really had to pack it all in. First we went to Time Square to secure tickets for later and then headed to Greenwich for a food tour. If you know me then you have to know this was what I was most excited for. 

There is a company called "Free Tours by Foot," they do tours in a handful of large cities and they are free. On this tour she took us to four restaurants to experience some of Greenwich villages finest cheap eats. We started out with falafel, then had my favorite of all four, the artichoke pizza at Artichoke Pizza. Try it! Then we had a classic New York slice at Bleecker Street Pizza and ended with a cookie at Cookies and Milk. It was awesome and I highly recommend it. 

By the time we finished this tour it was pretty much time to go to the show. We bought tickets to Jersey Boys. It was so much fun and the music was great. 

The next day we went on another free tour of Central Park and it was so interesting. Last time we went to New York, Central Park was my favorite place we went to, so I was excited to go on a tour and learn more about it. 

We headed down to the 9/11 memorial after that and then a few of us attempted to get tickets to another Broadway show until we realized all the shows started a half hour before we even left downtown. So instead we of course ate. 

We went to Sprinkles cupcakes, walked around a little while.

Went to F.A.O. Schwartz.

And ate some more at Serendipity. 

We didn't get to go to another show, but it was a fun night just window shopping and eating. Oh and if you are wondering why I look so fat in all the pictures, it is not just all the cupcakes, frozen hot chocolate and pizza, there is a baby in there too. Thanks for sticking it out to the end of this super long post.