Last week I came back from the New York trip and I'm FINALLY getting around to blogging about it.  It was so much fun.  Tiring, anxiety-inducing at times, and very trying for Sam, but totally worth it.  Amanda arranged a fabulous package of the city for the students and us chaperones, and I my parents were wonderful in accommodating and assisting with my eight month old.  Sam was a trooper, really.  Considering how strange and off-routine we were, he was generally happy.

The best way to share is with pictures!  I decided to break tradition.  Instead of sharing chronological photos, I'm grouping them by type.  All my photos are in this flickr set.  You can click on any below to see the bigger version. 

Sam's first flight



Dad holding Sam up to things
First, the departure sign, then the welcome lady at the hotel, then an Egyptian sculpture:

Kids being forced to pose as a group
Their enthusiasm waxes and wanes.

Times Square


Central Park






Battery Park


Rockefeller Center


The Rad Hotel Atrium and Elevators


Your ears pop as it zooms up.



Chaperones trailing the kids







Various Tours

The Met, brief tour given by Mom


St. Patrick's by Amanda


Radio City Music Hall - This was awesome, I recommend it!


Extra cool because they were setting up for the Tony Awards!


Our guide, showing us the "Men Without Women" mural.  My favorite part was seeing the bathrooms, hilarious as that is. 


The Lincoln center tour, here in the lobby of the Opera house.  Sadly, we couldn't take photos in some of the best parts.  But I got to see a ballet rehearsal on stage and the symphony tech rehearsal.


Grand Central Station (briefly) by Amanda



Getting Around the City
















Lunches and Dinners

Hearty Italian at Tony DiNapoli



Food Trucks outside the Met


 

Turkish Restaurant (not sure the name)  


Pizza after seeing A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder (which rightly won Best Musical!  Yay!)


Lunch at Union Square Farmer's Market


Dinner at Ben's Kosher Deli



Snacks, Snacks, Snacks

Featuring Sam: the Bottomless Pit

Pinkberry's and bagels






Falafel and cupcakes



Black and white cookie and rugalach
Celebrity Sightings


The Genie from Aladdin (who won his Tony and deserved it!)


From across the street, the green jacket is James Franco and his mob of fans.


Chris O'Dowd seemed friendly.  Dad wanted a picture for his father, who is a fan.  Which makes this even funnier. 


Star of Gentleman's Guide



Me and my baby

Yay!  Asleep (in a stroller!) in Central Park


On the roof garden of the Met


In Rockefellar Center


In Union Square



We had to come home a day early, so I didn't get to do Dim Sum or Blue Man Group, but that's ok.  I think Sam was done done done.  It was a super fun trip.

The best way to shop for shoes with kids.

I'm a day late in posting here, but the pictures are from yesterday's Friday the 13th when Sammy turned 9 months old!  Sam's personality has bloomed this month.



He pulls a lot of funny faces.  He smiles at the camera.  He hides himself to play peek-a-boo.  He roared at Jack today while they were play-wrestling.



He grew three new teeth over the past month.



This is not a great picture below, but it captures a bit of his full-face grin.  He squints and bares his teeth and it's so cute!



He still loves being in his bouncer.  He jumps with his hands in the air, like a roller coaster thrill-seeker.  He dances with his arms in time to music.  He likes books.  We read Goodnight Moon every night and he always stops on "Goodnight kittens" to pet them.  He turns the pages too. 



He shares his food and pacifier.  His eating skills are a lot better after New York.  We can let him sit and eat on his own at meals, instead of constantly managing his food for him.  We've been doing signs and he might be starting to do them.  It's hard to tell, but I think he has a proto-sign for "more" and "all done."



This photo session was super brief.  He flailed, rolled, and lunged all over the bed.  I can't leave him on the bed anymore.  I used to put a pillow barricade and let him play up there while I exercised in the same room.  When Jack was with him, I would take a quick shower.  Now I can hardly have him on the bed while I hover over him.  He fell off the sofa-bed in NYC and didn't learn his lesson.  He will gladly plunge headfirst into the rock pile off our patio if I wasn't there holding him by the waist.  



He's so close to crawling.  He leans forward to get up on one foot and one knee.  Sometimes he gets on all for and rocks.  Andy day now he will figure it out. 

My phone is the holy grail for him.  I pulled it out to check a message, and the smiles were over.  I had to hand him my phone to get more pics. 



THE GLORY IS MINE!



I rarely let him touch it, because it goes in his mouth.  Look at my flickr set for evidence.




Nine months and ready to take on the world.

Start with a little sleep.  If Sam sleeps until at least 6:15, that's a good morning.  If he lets me go back to bed for twenty minutes after I fill his tummy, that's even better.

Exercise first thing to get it out of the way.  Sam plays on the floor and dances to Ke$ha with me.  Meanwhile Jack gets himself up and is watching Digimon in the kitchen. 

Breakfast next.  Leftover crumpets (yay for Trader Joe's!) with fruit and smoothie.  A fried egg for me.

BWAA HAHA HA HA!  They had zucchini in their smoothies!  I win at mothering!

Shower and style my new do, that I dyed last night.  Summer always makes me want to do something new with my hair.  This might be the most fetching self photo I've taken in years, despite the broken dresser and unmade bed.



Sam took a nap and we cleaned Jacks' room.  It was remarkable because we did it together without tears shed by either party.

Then off to the usual story time.  


 
Oh wow.  There they are.  Beautiful.

Stopped at MickleDonnull's for cold drinks and a bag of ice before having lunch at home.  Sam is starting with some leftover hamburger, and Jem thinks Sam is A-OK. 



Quiet time for both boys - the best part of the day.  Sam woke up shortly though.  I have him play while I finished up some work. 


Not pictured: Me having an anxiety attack over Sam coughing and sneezing this morning.  I can't break this healthy streak yet!

Last week.

I've been meaning to take the kids to Utah for ages.  I still hadn't met my new adopted cousins, who have been here for years.  Plus visiting the rest of my mom'a side of the family, and my brother and his wife, so we really needed to visit.

We didn't rush the return journeys.  On Sunday morning the kids got out all their wiggles while I searched high and low to gather all our stuff back into the car. 

At the height of Jack's Frozen obsession, he bemoaned my lack of grandfather clock so he could recreate a moment.  Wish fulfilled:












We tried to get a nice picture of Grandma with her two great-grandsons.  We succeeded in taking the pictures, but I'm not sure if any of them are nice.  There's a lot of silly to wrangle.







We bid our good-byes to Layton and stopped in SLC to see Andy and Jenn.  The dogs were thrilled. 








Then it was time to origami Dad into the backseat for a long drive.  He kept the boys happy by plying them with french fries, blueberries, and cookies.



Ah, such a beautiful sight!






 
 
(He tattooed his name on his fist.  What a thug.)




This was taken as we pulled out on the road.  Both boys were asleep by Palisade.  It was the easiest of the four drives, for both traffic and kids' moods. 



Today?  Happy to be home, playing with new toys, taking extra naps, and exploring the crawling skills honed in Utah.  Boy, do I have some baby-proofing to do.

Days on trip: 5

Miles driven: 1,158

Roadside potty stops: 1

Restroom potty stops: 4

Chicken Run viewings: 3

Hours of iPad gaming: too many to count

Sam naps skipped: 0

Jack naps skipped: 3

Fatboy sandwiches consumed by me: 3

Peanut M&Ms consumed by me: ~ 270

Mornings slept in by me: 1

Diaper blowouts: 3

Loads of laundry: 2

Cousins visited: 7

Photos uploaded to Flickr: 62

Toys received by Jack: 10

Toys received by Sam: 3

Falls out of bed: 1

Total head bonks to boys: ~8

Alpha-bots recovered from long ago lost: 1

Replacement Alpha-bots imported from Japan just in case: 26

Requests for McDonald's by Jack: 5

Requests for McDonald's granted: 3

Weird Utah billboards observed: 14

Items missing upon arrival in Arvada: 2

Ounces of Diet Coke consumed by me: 376

Swimming dips: 3

Swimsuits packed by me: 2 per boy

New swimsuits waiting at Mom's house: 2 per boy

Sunburns: 0

This place is just a couple minutes drive away and free! We will definitely be back this summer.

Three injuries before 8:30 AM.  Two head bumps and one pinched fingers.  Ahh, the early mobility phase.

Scene: ext. Target

I still haven't captured one of Sam's fantastic roars, but this one is decent.  

Earlier this week Ben commented that my blog makes Sam seem like the happiest, bestest baby.  For the sake of honesty, this is what some days are full of:

We were debating how to spend this precious Saturday morning.  Park?  Backyard wading pool?  Movie?  Then we noticed that the Arvada Sand in the City Festival was this weekend.  Sounded fun, but when we discovered it was only a few blocks from our house, that sold us.  So we walked through the neighborhood to a pretty fun little fair.  We met out friends Mike, Trish, and Ellis (aka Wolfie) to play.

Enjoyed the sand art.  This one, a tribute to the Lego movie, was very popular.  We are indulging in an enormous Froot Loops marshmallow square.






They had one being built so you could watch. 

Jack and Ellis admiring a ladybug.  This is incredible for Jack, considering his bug phobia lately.  It crawled on his hat and he did not freak out.  Yay!



There are more pics on my flickr site.  Lots of good food: a plate of Hawaiian pulled pork and grilled chicken with rice and mac salad, freshly fried mini donuts, a wild boar sandwich, funnel cake, and a fried Oreo.  When the kids were cranky and the water bottles empty, we tucked them into the chariot stroller and simply walked home.  A nice way to spend the morning.