Just a few things

 This picture was taken right after he said, "Hey Mom, I need to study my subways."

 Stanford football party cupcakes! Forever members of the nerd nation :)
And they beat Oregon...hooray!!!

Ev said, "Bruvver, will you wead me da scwipchas?" {will you read me the scriptures!}

Melt my heart.

Our day downtown

We went downtown with some other moms (and a million toddlers!) to the 9/11 memorial this last week. It is a lovely tribute to all the people who lost their lives and I'm excited to go back when the museum is open. The memorial is very peaceful, at least when our kids aren't running around playing tag!

We didn't stay on the grounds for long (because remember the tag game?), but instead opted for this park with an amazing view of the Freedom Tower. Gosh, the view...

When everyone else headed home, I decided to take my boys to an art exhibit that I knew they'd love--CANstruction! All of the art pieces were made out of canned food, which will eventually be donated to the New York food bank. It was incredible. Some of our favorite:

Up!

 

Fairytale castle.

 

Ev said: Is fooky! (It's spooky!)

Superman.

 

Some more minions.

 

And since we were already in the neighborhood, we decided to stop by and see this guy. That was definitely the highlight of my day.

 

We ended our adventure with Everett dancing to these awesome musicians in the park while Talmage climbed a light post.

It was magic.

"You know, if you say electric doors, it will come." She told T at a midtown bus stop.

He had been running circles around us, this lady and me, pleading for "dat darn bus to finawy come" and asking more whens, whys and how comes than any of us patient bus-waiters could handle. I mostly can never blame the kid, he does pretty well for being only four. The problem is that he looks six and has the mind of a man so I expect a lot from him. We had been parading across town for hours in search of a free flu shot, which we found, but why is it always so much harder to get home than it is to get there? Oh yeah, probably because I still have a dumb-phone and I always forget to Google map my way home before we leave. The shot was a cinch, but walking up and down streets pretending for T's sake that we were not totally lost, now that took some time. Yep, that's life in the big city people. Glamorous, yeah? There was also a little New York Public Library detour, and a walk through Winter Village in Bryant Park so yes, I do believe that T's circles were being run out of pure desperation, and starvation, and self-induced sleep deprivation (darn that time change!)

But as soon as she brought up this idea of magic words it was as if the whole world stopped. Well, maybe not the whole world (we live in a busy place, you know) but T's feet, those babies were immediately frozen like a statue. His mind on the other hand? I could literally see the wheels spinning through those big brown eyes, which were of course glued to our new magic-speaking friend.

"You shouldn't tell him that, it's not true." said a red-lipped lady who covered her silver bob with a ball cap. She was not amused that the bus was tardy, nor by our new friends magical antics.

"Oh, but it is true," she said with a grin. T stared at her, utterly mesmerized by every word that left her mouth. "But you have to believe. It doesn't work for adults, but if kids say those magic words, then poof! Here comes the bus."

I could see it in his face: my old-soul-in-a-small-son wanted to believe in the magic she was spouting. He wanted to say those silly words and prove her right, or maybe wrong, well maybe he just wanted an excuse to say those silly words. But he just couldn't get himself to do it. Maybe it was embarrassment? He was probably over-thinking it, he's awfully practical. And sometimes his people skills, well, they're not so hot. He slammed his big body into the stroller and sulked while the red-lipped lady and I chatted about how my neighborhood used to be swarming with "hookahs." Yes, hookers--her conversation choice.

By this time we had been waiting for a good while and people were getting antsy. And crabby. Oh, and lest you think this story is only about T, Everett was there as well screaming at the top of his lungs about how he wanted some "farties." You know, Smarties.

Our new friend, who was now super late for a meeting, was about to hail a cab when from the stroller we heard a few little squeaks that faintly resembled two magic words: electric doors.

She was the one that saw it, the M7 heading right towards us. With a wink in T's direction she said, "See, works every time!"

Store to Store

Halloween seriously rocked around here! One thing is for sure and it's that New York knows how to par-tay. The days leading up to Halloween were busy in all the right ways--full of activities and parades and devilish treats (I was going to call them heavenly, but devilish sounded a little more Halloween-ish!) We had so much fun!

 

Let's start with the treats. Between preschool, our mommy's group and our family, the treats and festive food was incredible. I didn't get pictures of everything (like the giant pumpkin cookies!), but here's a little nibble of what our Halloween was like:

 

cups of dirt

 

bat pops

centipede meatballs

 



jack-o-lantern oranges filled with fruit salad

 



Mexican meal in a pumpkin!

 

7 layer spooky dip

 

The decorations on 69th street were so amazing. They hold a huge block party on Halloween night and all of the houses are decorated from the bottom up. We walked down that street almost every day all week long looking at the progress of the brownstones, and it was certainly impressive.

 

Just a few of our favorite details:

 



the fog machine

 



so many pumpkins!!!

 



a whole family of cute spiders!

 

Halloween day was a party from sunrise until sunset, and that's really not a joke. We came home for naptime, but when it became perfectly clear they were NOT going to sleep I put them right back in the stroller and we went out to party some more! It was an all-around fantastic day.

 



some of our cute costumed friends at the morning Halloween party

the superheroes being super!

free jamba juices for kids? awesome! free jamba juice for me because they accidentally made an extra? even better. follow that up with $3 BOO-ritos at Chipotle. yes, Halloween was good to us!

 

my cuties at Lincoln center

 

Something I found very endearing was that the shops around our neighborhood allow children to trick-or-treat to their stores. Instead of going door to door, my kids trick-or-treated store to store. And we're not just talking mom and pop shops, my kids trick-or-treated at Kate Spade! Seriously? Can I trick-or-treat at Kate Spade? After a few stores the boys knew what to do and I'd let them go in by themselves. Wow, my kids are so big lately! 

helmut lang

 

swatch

and oh, kate spade!

 

One of their favorite treats was from a local deli--pickles! It was the first treat they begged to eat!

 

But have no fear, they soon asked for the candy. And boy did they get candy!

Talmage and Everett spent hours the next day organizing, counting and playing "math" with their candy. Oh yeah, and eating it! What a happy Halloween we had!

Ironman and Super Why

Happy Halloween

With Spooky Love From 2 Really Handsome and Fierce Superheroes!

 

 

 

 

photos taken by Mark Weinberg at our church Halloween party. amazing!

Super Mema

This last weekend was Talmage's first primary program at church (the children aged 3-12 sing, give speaking parts and teach the whole congregation) and my mom (you know, Super Mema) flew out for the main event. She took the red-eye Thursday night and had to leave Sunday afternoon, which made me bawl like a little baby, but we sure had fun for the short time she was here. And boy did we fit in a whole lot of fun!

 

Mema had barely landed and we were already off to FAO Schwarz so that she could see our favorite ever play place ;) The boys think it's so fun to play with all the toys, and this time Mema bought them each a special treat. Talmage got a Mater and Everett got some Jake pirates. Talmage says that was the best moment of Mema's whole trip...he sure loves his "Mater-hawk."

I snapped this picture of Mom and Spiderman before learning that personal photos are not allowed. They want to take pictures for you, and charge $25 for the copies. Whatev! At least I have proof that Mema met Spiderman--T thought it was pretty cool!

Mema and T rocked the Big Piano.

We caught the last day of Madison Square Eats and had the most delicious lunch. I have been wanting to check this out for a while (there were around 30 food vendors set up at a park at the base of the flatiron building and you could choose a little of a lot of things) and this was the perfect way to do it. The green chili mac n cheese and the feta/olive pretzel were out of control delish.

You know, just entertaining ourselves during Everett's naptime!

Pizza at our favorite place before...

THE BIG APPLE CIRCUS! Opening night, no big deal, right? We had such, such, such an awesome time! The acts were amazing and the boys were mesmerized. Heck, us adults were mesmerized!

We're pretty sure that Pepa would have been in heaven watching this juggler. He made juggling 7 balls and doing all kinds of tricks look like a total piece of cake.

They gave all of us clown noses and we got a lot of mileage out of them. Everett has been wearing his all weekend.

On Saturday after a relatively frigid morning (both in temperature, and in T's attitude during his soccer game) we went to the Central Park Fall Fest. It was ridiculously packed with people, but we got to enjoy all of the beautiful fall colors and eat some Cabot cheese so it was worth it!

The boys also were able to jump on these "fit kids" trampolines which made them so, so happy.

After a successful primary program practice, a super-fast and generous trip to Costco from Mema and an Ever Knight nap, we went to the ward Halloween party. T's first time at a donut-eating contest was a major success. There were also crafts, a candy walk, and gourd bowling. 

And then we went trick-or-treating door to door around the church. The boys are going to have so many treats by the end of this week!

On our way home we saw some awesomely spooky decorations on 69th street Brownstones.

Mom and I went out that night after the boys went to bed. We went to Times Square because she hadn't been there in 10 years...and she pretty much decided she could wait another 20 years to see it again and be just fine! We ended up at Shake Shack and then came home and chatted for hours. I just love my Mom so much.

The next morning (Sunday) we carved the pumpkins that Mema brought with her from her California garden. They are perfect carving pumpkins and I just can't believe that she (and Pepa!) grew such amazing pumpkins...and brought them to us! So awesome.

Talmage and his finished product!

Talmage's primary program was so adorable! We realized later that we didn't take any pictures of my mom with T to commemorate the day, but there were these pictures from after church when she taught him to play the telephone game!

After church we went to Central Park and gathered some fall leaves for Pepa. My mom is so pretty!

By this point the end was near and my throat hurt so bad from tightening (you know, because I was trying hard not to sob). I wish so badly that I could live right next door to my Mama. When we were at Costco a man in line, obviously shocked that my Mom would come to Costco to buy her daughter fun treats when she only had two days in NYC, said, "That's how a Mom is supposed to be. My Mom always says, 'hey, let's go to da club!' You're how a Mom is supposed to act!" It's so true...she really is the cream of the mother crop ;)

I love these pictures showing Ever running to his Mema's arms. Those boys adore this woman to no end. I walked her down to the taxi, and you should have seen the mess that was my apartment when I came back up and they realized she was gone for good. Ahh.

The house felt so lonely without our Super Mema. She really has a sparkle that is not only contagious, but tangible. You just know when my mom is in the room, and unfortunately we are well aware of her absence now that she's gone. We're plotting how to get her back here, and we hope it is so, so soon!