Audrey's Birthday




Audrey's party was this past weekend. She had a blast, and it was worth the expense and all the planning, but I'm glad it's over. Unfortunately, Audrey and I both came down with a stomach virus a couple days before the party. The worst of it was over by Friday, but I couldn't do anything in the days leading up to the party. I had made a schedule for myself in order to get the cake and favors done and it all went out the window. By Saturday, the day of the party, I was finally feeling like a person again, so I was able to finish the cake at the very last minute. Last minute as in, I had planned to leave my apartment by 2:45 and I was still sticking fondant snowflakes on the cake in my yoga pants and tank top at 2:40. Needless to say, it made things even more stressful.

Everything ended up fine though. Most of her classmates came, everyone had a lot of fun, and I got a lot of compliments on the cake and cookies. I didn't even love how the cake came out. I wish I had had more time to work on it, but I'm not going to stress it anymore.

Frozen Cake

The finished snowflake sugar cookies

The finished party favors: Troll Magic and a cookie

 

 I was really happy we did the party at Chelsea Piers. I hadn't been to a party there before, so I wasn't entirely sure what to expect, but they did a great job. For the first part of the party, the kids did various races on one of the basketball courts. Then they got to play in a huge, awesome bouncy castle. That part of the party especially was a huge hit.

The Coolest Bouncy Castle.

Later, they went back to the party room we were set up in and had pizza and cake. The staff was great - they were on top of not only serving everything, but keeping kids away from the cake and favors. I didn't have to do much, I could just enjoy it.

The next day was her actual birthday, but we had a very low-key day. Audrey loves bacon, so I had bought some for her birthday breakfast, planning to make pancakes to go with it. We were both still feeling run down and neither of us had much of an appetite, so I made the bacon and asked her if she wanted anything with it. She requested a slice of leftover pizza (from her party the day before). So Pizza and bacon it was. Ookkk. She opened her last few presents, and we spent most of the day playing with her new stuff. We went out to dinner, Audrey's choice. She chose the diner, haha. Fine with me. I do wish we had had a little more energy to do more, but she seemed to have a great birthday weekend anyway.

Happy Birthday, my wonderful girl.

Bits of Our Weekend - Halloween!

This past weekend was Halloween. I loved Halloween as a kid. Dressing up and trick or treating was a blast of course, there were always Fall Harvest type events going on at school and in the community, and most memorably, my family had Halloween parties every year.

Two of my three siblings and I are close in age but our birthdays are spaced out through the year. Instead of having three individual birthday parties, my parents held one big Halloween party. Back then we lived in a big house with a semi-finished basement, so the party was set up down there. One part of the basement was turned in a little haunted maze, another area was reserved for games and the main area was set up for dancing. My parents owned their own DJ company back then, so they provided the entertainment. Even my grandmother got involved. One year she did up her makeup to look like a corpse, popped her head through a hole in a table and scared kids walking by.

So I have fond memories of Halloween as a kid. The excitement wore off as I got older, but now I get to enjoy the holidays as a parent. Not only is the holiday itself fun, but the build up to it is exciting - parties, Halloween themed events at preschool, checking out decorations in our neighborhood. I decided to take off work for Halloween this year so we could head out to the Poconos. Our neighborhood has awesome decorations, but its so insanely crowded. It has apparently become known for its Halloween enthusiasm, because people from other neighborhoods/boroughs come to Chelsea. Last Halloween was the first year we really went trick or treating (the year before was Hurricane Sandy, so we stayed in and the prior year Audrey wasn't even a year old so we didn't do a lot). We could barely walk, so I wanted to try somewhere less crowded this year.

 

Some awesome carved pumpkins at Chelsea Market

We went trick or treating in Stroudsburg, in the neighborhood I grew up in, and I'm glad we did. There were a ton of kids, but the streets were closed to cars so it was easy to walk, although the sidewalks weren't bad. Audrey had an entourage - my parents, sister, younger brother, man-friend and a family friend Audrey adores. My stepfather also invited his coworker and her daughter, who is only a little older than Audrey. The little girl showed up in the exact same costume as Audrey - same Elsa dress and crown. So the two Elsas had a blast together. It seems every other little girl was Elsa - I counted 30 in an hour and a half of trick or treating :)

Queen Elsa and Uncle Ian.

 

Audrey and her new friend. They called each other Elsa all night

 

Audrey said I should be a princess kitty

Post trick or treating dinner at good old Friendly's.

The weather the rest of the weekend wasn't great, so we didn't do a lot outside of my parents house. I ran some errands Saturday (party preparation - snacks and baking supplies and decorations, oh my) and Audrey hung out with my mom. Saturday evening man-friend and I had some grown up hot chocolate and watched Chef. We went home Sunday afternoon.

Mmmmm

Our Halloween in the Poconos increased my indeciveness about living in the city. The build up to the holidays in the city is unbeatable, but the day of - holidays you go out to celebrate especially, 4th of July, Halloween - are always intolerably crowded. I could never move back to the Poconos, but there are parts of New Jersey that are appealing. In a perfect world, I'd keep my apartment in the city but also have a country place, as well as a car to make getting back and forth much easier. But since I don't live in fantasy land, I obviously need to make up my mind sooner or later.

Bits of our ... Month

I hadn't done a weekend post in a while because, to be honest, the first few weekends of the month were rather uneventful. It rained a couple Saturdays in a row, so other than gymnastics, we stayed indoors. Most of our Sundays were spent at the park, running errands, etc. One Sunday we went to check out a party supply store in the Village to see what they had as far as Frozen party decorations (mostly a waste of time, same stuff that I found on orientaltrading.com, but twice as expensive - although it was fun to browse the costumes) and then hung out in Washington Square Park for a while. Another Sunday, man-friend and I went to see St. Vincent, which was very good, while Audrey was with her father.

Trying on ridiculous hats at the party store

 

 


One of our wonderful walks in the pouring rain to gymnastics

This past weekend was the first in a while we had more going on. On Friday, the practice group I work in had a Halloween party, and kids were invited. So at lunch, I went and picked Audrey up from preschool and brought her back down to my job. She changed into her Elsa costume there and then we went to the party. She loves my coworkers, and got a lot of attention at the party, as well as tons of sugar. My coworkers bought her a little Frozen purse to go with her costume, and she went home with it stuffed with candy.

 

She looks like she's rapping with this pose.

 

This was the reaction to "You've already had more sugar than you're usually allowed to have so no, you cannot have any more."

We went to the Halloween Harvest at Luna Park (Coney Island) this past Saturday. We lucked out with some gorgeous weather. The park was decorated for fall, and a lot of kids came in costume. They also had a bunch of activities going on, outside of the usual rides and games, such as pumpkin picking & painting, trick or treating for kids, free caricatures, among other things. One useful fact I learned: the park right next door, which you can literally see from Luna Park, is a whole separate thing. Any credits or wristbands you buy at Luna Park aren't valid there. I knew the Wonder Wheel was separate, but didn't realize all the other rides were as well, so I bought more credits than we actually needed, thinking there were tons more rides for Audrey than there actually were. Luna Park only had a handful of rides Audrey could actually ride, but at least the credits were good for games too. We played more games than I ordinarily would have, mostly because we had still a bunch of (nonrefundable) credits to use after Audrey was done with the rides.

 

 

This stuffed slice of pizza was one of the prizes we won. Probably one of the best carnival game prizes ever.

Next weekend is Halloween. We're both very excited. One of the perks of having a child is the new approach to the holidays - remembering what it was like as a kid, getting to see your own kid enjoy it, the preparations leading up to the holiday (picking out a costume, decorating, Christmas shopping). I'd stopped caring about holidays in my twenties pre-Audrey, so its fun to be excited about them again.

Bits of Our Weekend: Florida Trip

We returned from our long weekend in Florida yesterday.

We were only there Friday-Monday, so it was a short trip, but Audrey and I had fun, Audrey especially. Man-friend's parents live in Palm Coast, about 20 minutes from the beach. When we arrived Friday it was raining. The rain kept up for the rest of the day, varying between down pouring and drizzling. However, Jason has a nephew a year younger than Audrey, so she had a playmate the whole time, and lots of toys to play with indoors. His parents also have a pool in their backyard, and my little fishy was determined to spend as much time in it as possible. At one point, she decided she didn't want to wait any longer to go swimming, rain be damned, and convinced my boyfriend to get in the pool with her.




The pool was covered but it was mesh, so it kept out the insects but not the rain.

Unfortunately, the rain continued on Saturday. We had planned on going to a dolphin aquarium and doing a pet and feed with the dolphins, but the tank is outside, so we had to skip this due to the weather. We ended up going to an indoor arcade and out to lunch with Jason's sister and nephew though, so we still had fun. In the afternoon, the rain finally stopped, so Audrey spent a couple hours in the pool. The water was freezing, so I opted to watch.

 

 

Sunday was gorgeous. Hot and sunny: perfect beach weather, which is exactly what we did. We went with his whole family so Audrey had plenty of people to splash in the water and build sandcastles with. After the beach there was more pool time, of course.




Post Beach Ice Cream

We had an early flight Monday morning. After a long day of travel, we got back to NYC Monday afternoon. It was a nice last-bit-of-summer trip, and I'm glad Audrey got to meet Jason's family (I'd met them all 10 years ago, but hadn't seen most of them in 8 or so years). She loved everyone and was sad to go.

Bits of Our Weekend

This weekend was mostly the usual - gymnastics Saturday morning, some errands, etc. Saturday evening we went to the San Gennaro Festival in Little Italy. I've gone almost every year for ten or so years now, and I swear it gets crazier every year. Going on a Saturday was definitely a mistake. We could barely walk, and someone had to carry Audrey the whole time because I was afraid she was going to get trampled. We didn't really eat the street food, we just went straight to our favorite restaurant, Da Nico. I love that place, the food is delicious and the service is almost always great, but I swear they jacked up the prices - whether permanently or just for the festival, I don't know - but everything was definitely a few dollars more than I remember.

She insisted on wearing the crown headband. Like most kids, she's obsessed with band-aids. There was no real reason for wearing this one. And she stole the glasses from Uncle James. Queen of the hipsters.

 

We didn't stick around long afterwards. I grabbed some of the flavored cannoli from Stuffed Artisan Cannoli's stand. This is one of my favorite things about the festival (ok, at this point probably my only reason for still going). They don't have a storefront, but they make awesome flavored cannoli - birthday cake, cookies and cream, peanut butter chocolate.

 

She wanted to sit outside and blow bubbles, so we took the dog so she could get some fresh air too. Maddie was quite interested in the bubbles for a while, but then her attention shifted to digging in the little bit of dirt she could reach.

 

Friday's outfit, chosen entirely by Audrey. She asked for a picture but when I tell her to smile this is what I get ...

Bit of our Weekend

This past weekend was another relatively quiet one, as planned. Audrey had gymnastics Saturday morning, which is still going well. On Saturday, I met up with a friend and we had drinks and then went to see 50 Shades! The Musical Parody, which was hysterical. My friend was able to get pretty cheap tickets, but it would have been worth even if we had paid full price. I had actually forced myself to read the first 50 Shades of Grey book at the height of its popularity, just to see what all the hype was about. Despite wanting to throw the book down a well by a couple chapters in, I soldiered on and actually finished it. Saturday was the first time I was glad I had done so. Having read the book actually made the musical even funnier. I'd go see it again in a heartbeat - in fact I'm thinking about dragging the man friend to see it.



Highly Recommend.





Double fisting the bacon at breakfast.

 


Her face when "Let it Go" came on during our second carousel ride. I swear her hair isn't always such a mess.

 


I bought Audrey her own umbrella: this is how she sat on the couch watching cartoons on the iPad


On Sunday, Audrey and I went to the park, had a snack in the grassy area of Chelsea Waterside, and rode our favorite carousel a few times. I also made a couple pots of soup. Now that it's (already!) getting chillier, I've been craving soup lately. I made Broccoli Cheddar and Cream of Chicken with Wild Rice. Definitely not the healthiest soup options, but making them at home is much better than getting take out - I can control what I put in it and know it isn't loaded with sodium, etc. I liked them but will try different recipes next time, or at least tweak these. These were good but both could have used a little something more.

One more quiet weekend till our mini vacation!




One more quiet weekend and then our mini vacation in Florida!

Bits of Our Weekend

This past weekend was the first in what will probably be a series of quiet weekends in the city. We go to Florida at the end of the month, so this past weekend and the next two leading up to our trip will be low-key (in other words, inexpensive).

Scaffolding - the jungle gym of the sidewalks. Classy.

The most exciting part of our weekend was Audrey's first gymnastics class. I had signed her up for weekly gymnastics classes for the Fall semester over the summer, and they finally started on Saturday. She was very excited, and in the days leading up to the class kept telling me she needed to wear a "bathing suit" to gymnastics. I didn't buy her a leotard right away, I wanted to make sure she liked it before spending any more money. The kids could also wear shorts and a t-shirt, so that's what I sent her in. I noticed most other kids were wearing the same, so she didn't feel left out for not having a leotard on.

Parents weren't allowed in the studio, I watched from a tv in the seating area that overlooks the gym.

My less than stellar view :(

After gymnastics, we did a carousel ride in Chelsea Waterside then ran a couple errands. It was supposed to rain on and off all afternoon, so we went home a little early, and other than a quick walk for the dog, stayed in for the day.

Oh you know, just waiting for the horses to go by so we can cross

On Sunday, Audrey was with her father so I used the afternoon to run some errands, clean up a bit and watch a couple episodes of Game of Thrones.  I also made a pot of this sauce, because we were almost out of the previous batch.
 

A quick Scooter ride Friday after preschool

 
 
 

Post Walk, little fox.

Bits of Our Weekend: Labor Day Weekend

This was probably our last weekend in Pennsylvania for a while. My brother was supposed to start classes this week, so the car stayed in PA and my mom drove us home. I say supposed to because unfortunately, he flipped over the handle bars of his bike yesterday and banged himself up pretty badly. He will be ok, but he's in ICU for the next few days with a lacerated spleen and a bruised kidney. Hopefully he will be home this weekend.

On to happier updates ...
 

 

 

We went to my Aunt's wedding on Saturday. It was very informal - it took place on the groom's family's farm. Half the guests had on cowboy boots. Many people wore jeans. It was a lot of fun, particularly for Audrey. I'd met my aunt's now husband a couple times, but had never met any of his family, so I didn't know most of the people there. But the farm had a lot going on, and Audrey had fun running around with my cousin's 7 year old son and another little girl close to her age that she met there. There was a swingset in addition to the tire swing, plus dogs hanging out, a photobooth area with tons of props, and even a swimming pool, although I didn't let Audrey go in - I hadn't brought a bathing suit and besides, it was too cold.

 

 


The outfit she came up with from the photo booth props



 

On Sunday, my family, man-friend and I ate lunch at this little restaurant right over the PA-NJ line. They specialize in greek food and hamburgers. Random, but my chicken gyro was delicious. I wish I had taken a picture of it, but it took longer than everyone else's food so I just dug in.

 

Sunday evening I made these amazing Chicken Enchiladas. I followed this recipe pretty much exactly. I had been craving Mexican food for a while for some reason. I really wanted guacamole but I already had enough to do in the kitchen. I've made these enchiladas a few times now, but this was the first time I had made them in a while. They're a bit labor intensive, and the recipe makes enough to feed a family, so there's no point in making them for just Audrey and I. We'd eat leftovers all week.

 

 

Despite her face, she was having fun. My child has inherited my Bitchy Resting Face Syndrome.

Between lunch and dinner Sunday, we hung around outside. It was gorgeous out. Audrey played with that big pink ball and we took silly pictures.

On Monday, I helped my little brother with his Algebra homework for a bit, and then we went home. Other than my brother's accident, it was a good weekend. Audrey starts gymnastics next weekend, but otherwise our next few weekends will be low key (inexpensive!) weekends home in the city.