How far along? 19 weeks Maternity clothes? I still haven't gotten out my maternity clothes from last time. I'm not quite sure how my regular jeans still fit me, because I've gained 10 pounds already! Best moment this week: We had a surprise "Christmas in July" birthday party for Andy and it was just perfect! He had no idea, just like I was hoping and suspecting. He was also a good sport about turning into a mini gender reveal party. (He originally didn't want to tell people the gender." We had Ben open the box to see that we are having another little BOY!!! We would have been happy either way, but we are SO excited for another boy! I love being a boy mom! Miss anything? Not that I can think of. Movement: I'm definitely feeling a few kicks once and awhile, but not a ton just yet. Sleep: I can't complain about my sleep! I remember having to get up to go to the bathroom nearly every night last time, but I am happy to say I usually sleep through the night! Food cravings: Nope. Just hungry all the time. Anything making you queasy or sick: The only scents I can tolerate these days are Aveda scents. Labor signs: No way. Exercise: I've been pretty good with going to the gym. This makes me happy. :) Looking forward to: I'm always looking forward to the weekend! I am excited that by next week I will already be half way through this pregnancy. Time does go faster the second time around!
The main reason we were only in NYC until Wednesday is because we weren't sure how well Ben would sleep away from home, but it was really nice to have a 4 day stay-cation as well. I love, love, LOVED being with Andy and Ben for 8 days straight. I thought I would potentially be ready for a break, but it was so fun and I loved every minute of it except for when Ben was sleeping perpendicular to me in bed. I am going to attempt to highlight the main events of the remainder of our fabulous vacation week. We started our Thursday morning with a leisurely breakfast. We ate outside, waved to the people and cars passing by, and acted silly. I could get used to this...
I finally got to go to Ben's story-time/play group at the library. He loves going and it made my day that I got to go with him. He ran right in like such a big boy! There was a special drum presentation, so we watched that as well. Ben loves music and especially banging on drums. He got a special "drum" that was perfectly loud for him. (My mom has a 6 minute video if you're interested in hearing the music.)
I can't remember how we spent the rest of the day, but I'm sure it was doing something fun! We had to rest up though because we had big plans to go to Ben's first amusement park on Friday. I am too tired to expound on the details, but I can summarize by saying that it may have been Ben's happiest day…EVER. I am not a big ride person, but Ben was in heaven. He was shaking with excitement when it was his turn after he waited patiently in line. Just look at that face! My face looked like that, too.
He actually cried almost every time he had to get off of a ride. "Again! Again! Fun!!! Ride! Ben drive!"
We started with a ride that Andy could go on too, but he was just fine going by himself as well.
I still cannot believe he never tried to get out of any of the rides as they were going.
He liked them all, but I think his favorite ride was probably the boats.
I lost track of how many times he drove the boats.
I think I had equally as much fun watching him. I was that obnoxious mom calling out to my kid every time he passed me.
My one and only ride was the train, which was probably boring to Ben compared to getting to drive his own vehicles.
Too cool for trains.
Thankfully the train would switch speeds to keep things exciting. And Mr. Friendly was sure to wave to everyone he saw.
Surprisingly, the only ride Ben did not want to go on was the pony ride. "Watch 'em."
We did break for lunch in between all of the fun, and the rides were an excellent motivator to get him to eat!
I'm pretty sure he is thanking Andy profusely for taking him to the amusement park in the pictures below. I love you as much as the rides daddy, so that's a lot!! Someone wants to be just like daddy...
It was a bit of a drive (2+ hours) but it was totally and completely worth it. Oh, and I almost forgot to mention that each ride was a ticket and the tickets cost…$0.25 a piece. We initially bought $5.00 worth of tickets and we had at least 8 tickets left at the end of the day! As if we needed another reason to return! Ben was getting a little antsy on the way home, so we stopped for happy hour and dinner.
Booo! Our last day in NYC--we were sad to have to leave! We started our day with some good old New York bagels! It may have been drizzling, but that didn't stop us! Theo & Ben loved riding together in the Sit and Stand stroller!
Throughout the trip, Theo was a great food role model for Ben, we still say, "take a big bite like Theo" or "make it all gone like Theo!" And what do you know, he does just that!
We opted to do a little shopping on our last day. We made a trip to West Elm to look at the couch we were interested in for Andy's office. There were about 100 different fabrics to choose from but we ordered a couch and should be getting it in a whopping 12-14 weeks. Hope we still like it then. ;) Apparently I didn't take any pictures of our shopping trip, but that's probably because Ben was sleeping most of the time. We went back home to spend our last few precious hours playing with Theo and Simmy! We attempted a group picture and this is the best we could do:
And I thought it was hard to get 1 kid to sit nicely for a picture…
As we were waiting for a taxi, we had to get in a few last pictures before we said our good-byes. We tried anyway, we tried!
We were so sad to go! We had so much fun in our 5 short days. I didn't elaborate in my blog, but they were the most gracious and generous hosts! We really took over an entire level of their apartment, and they made sure we were comfortable and well fed. We were extremely spoiled and we are so grateful for their hospitality! Ben gave grandpa a call from the taxi on the way to the airport. "Grandpa! Airport! Pick up! Ben! Airport! Airport! Flying." There was probably a "so high!" in there somewhere.
The A/C was out in the airport (how is that possible?!) and our flight was delayed, so I was pulling out all of my entertainment tricks. The one that bought the most time? The ring pop, for sure!
We had to sit in the last row to sit together, but we didn't care. I was so happy that we got to sit together on the way home!
Ben was getting a little tired by the time we finally boarded, so we read some books while the flight attendant did her little talk. I am still not exactly sure what Ben did or said, but she could NOT keep it together and was laughing the entire time she was trying to teach the flight how to be safe. She ultimately apologized to everyone that there was a cute little redhead who was distracting her! I guess it's hard not to look at that sweet little face!
That ginger boy fell asleep before the flight even took off and he woke up shortly after we landed. Perfection!
While we loved our little vacation, it is always great to be home, too. It was really nice having another 4 days of vacation before we had to go back to work. I will probably write 1 more post summarizing our last few days of freedom!
I seriously need to get moving on these posts because I am forgetting things by the day. Here we go, day number 4, our last full day in NYC. I haven't mentioned it in detail, but Ben's sleep was not the greatest this trip. Despite the fact that he had a perfectly good pack 'n play right next to our bed, but alas, he wasn't having it. The first few nights we (I) stayed with him as he fell asleep on our bed, and then we would put him in his bed after he fell asleep. This worked until he would wake up and attempting to get him back to sleep in there was impossible. We quickly learned that if we wanted to sleep, we had to let Ben sleep when Ben slept best. Thus, he and I became bed buddies. We had been getting up early, so we thought that we would try and check out the Today Show, something that I have always wanted to do. Since it was supposed to rain every day, we were nervous to go, but it turns out the weather would have been just fine any day we went. Long story short, we were going to get up early on Tuesday morning to be a part of the Today Show crowd, but since Ben was actually sleeping in (-ish) we let him SLEEP! We finally got down there just as the show was ending. Oh well! Next time! We still had fun checking out Rockefeller Center.
It is getting harder and harder to get a certain someone to smile (a non-cheesed out smile) and look at the camera, but that won't stop me from trying! I'll take smooches and "noses" over pics though.
Harder yet is trying to get a nice family photo.
After we hit up the super sized Anthropologie (my boys are the BEST shoppers), we decided to walk over to Times Square. Ben loved taking in the sights and sounds of Times Square. Well, all the sights EXCEPT for the life-sized Elmo. He was so into the sights that it was hard to get his attention…
He loves to people watch and to be "up so high!" I love my happy boy(s) so much!
I take back what I said about Ben and family photos, Ben takes GREAT family selfies.
The boy loves his sunglasses.
And he loves his momma. (And he will love Newsies some day.)
I think he might have thought Times Square was some sort of parade. He was doing a lot of his famous waving.
After we were all pretty tired, we took the subway back home. "Ben sit! Ben sit! Big chair!" (As long as you're holding my hand with both hands and not touching everything in sight you can be a big boy all you want…)
We were warmly welcomed home by Theo, Simone, and Maria.
Theo had camp that morning, so Ben was happy that he got to play with him in the afternoon.
I had to get my Simmy time in too, even though she looks like she might not be to sure about it...
Normally on our last night we would take out our fabulous host/hostess, but since Patrick works late (like 11:00 or later!!) and it probably wouldn't be the most relaxing night to take all of the kids out, Andy and I took Ben to Lombardi's for some PIZZA! Despite the downpour on the way there and the way home, we managed to stay pretty dry! The pizza was delicious, but do not be fooled by my happy face. Ben was only pulling my leg when he pretended to take his first bite of pizza!
Our trip breezed by so quickly! Thankfully we had a later flight, so we had 1 more day to spend with the gang!
How far along? 18 weeks Maternity clothes? Surprisingly, I have yet to get out my maternity pants/clothes from last time. I think I'm only getting away with this because I wear comfy elastic waist skirts most days. :) Best moment this week: We had out anatomy scan today and everything looks PERFECT!!! We are thrilled and feel oh so blessed. The tech was able to see the gender, but we had her put either a pink or blue bow in a box which I wrapped. The timing of the opening of the box it to be determined, but we're going to let Ben do the honors. Miss anything? Nope. Movement: Just a few kicks here and there. I'm waiting for more! Sleep: My sleep has actually been pretty amazing this time around. I am able to sleep through the night most nights and when I do get up to go to the bathroom, I typically fall back to sleep right away. (I hope I didn't just jinx things…) Food cravings: Not really. My appetite hasn't been huge. Anything making you queasy or sick: Not really, but strong perfumes/cologne sure get to me! Labor signs: No way. Exercise: Walking all around NYC was good exercise, but I'll admit I have been slacking a bit. Looking forward to: I'm excited to find out if it is a boy or a girl (I'm thinking another boy) but really I'm just happy that baby is so healthy!!
We woke up every morning with Theo waiting for us at the top of the stairs. It was soooo cute. He would call, "Benji? Benji?" and then Ben would get all excited and run to the stairs. Getting to play with Theo was Ben's motivation to finish his milk! This was the typical scene in the morning:
Ben loved having a built in playmate! Since the rainy weather seemed to be holding off again, Andy, Ben, and I decided to spend the day exploring Central Park. It was a pretty easy walk to the park. Ben was loving all of the taxis that matched his taxi from Theo.
First stop: Strawberry Fields. Ben was most interested the musician playing Beatles songs. :)
Our next stop was the big fountain. Ben, of course, wanted to throw money in, but he happily settled on looking for fish.
Not the greatest family photo, but it will have to do. :)
Next, Ben had to wave to all of the people on the boats. We will have to take him on a paddle boat next time.
Then, we checked out Balto, the big dog that looks like Ra Ra.
Since Ben kept requesting to see (non-statue) animals, we thought we'd better check out the Central Park Zoo. But first, it was pretty hot and humid, so Ben had his first Dip 'N Dots. He approved! Well, he approved of a few bites anyway.
I wouldn't say birds are his favorite animal, but he sure knows a lot of different types of birds thanks to Nana and her bird book. I'll have to ask him what birds these are tomorrow morning...
I was a little scared at how close the bird was, but Ben wasn't.
At least one of the bunnies knew where to put his head…
The entire time we were at the zoo, Ben was asking to feed the goats. We weren't even sure that such a thing exists in NYC, but amazingly, the LAST animals we saw at the zoo were the goats (and llamas and sheep)! We were literally $0.02 shy of the $0.50 we needed to buy some goat food, so thankfully a kind New Yorker helped us out. Look at him feed those animals like a pro!
After several hours at the park, we were all pooped.
As usual, we ended the day with some quality play time with Simmy and Theo. Theo was typically too busy for photos, but there will be more of him in future posts!
And last, but not least, Ben crashed on our bed once again. By the end of the trip, Andy was on the couch and I shared the bed with this wiggle worm.
