Jake had his last day of class yesterday!!! That means… 
HE’S DONE WITH SCHOOL!!!!

The kids and I made this banner that we hung up and we had all his favorites for him when he got home.

Enchiladas, Strawberry Shortcake, and Orange Soda! :o) We had a great time and Gideon kept singing Happy Birthday to him because I had been telling him all day that we were having a party for Dad. It was so cute and Jake just loved it.

I’m so proud of you babe!! The time just flew by! Now let’s just knock that test out and you’ll REALLY be done!! Woohoo!!!

CONGRATS!!!!

On day 3 we postponed all previous plans (going to see the Empire State Building and Statue of Liberty) to walk BACK to Times Square (remembering our cash this time) with the intent of getting me some of the awesome knock-off bags we saw the day before….

Then, it started raining… so none of the “good” vendors were out. You know, all that was left were the ones with “Praba” or “Gucsi” or “Dolce & Cabana” hahaha. I know, I probably should have just bought one, but I was so bummed after seeing MUCH better knock offs the day before that I just decided it was a no-go on the purses!
   By then it was lunch time. (Time seriously zipped by!!) So, we went to Planet Hollywood….I don’t know why this is the only picture I took while we were there…. but umm that’s the replica thing from Star Trek. (shout out to my trekkies!) There was lots of other cool movie memorabilia and a trivia game on the placemats that I failed at. Jake told me he was disappointed in my trivia skillz. :o)

Then we went to the Times Square visitors center and I got to molest the New Years’ Ball from Y2K….

We took these silly pictures in a photo booth…
Had a nice European girl take a picture for us…
Ate these things that looked delicious but tasted like plastic…
Saw these people….
Sorry for the profanity and the finger. It makes me laugh… :o)
Then we went to a movie…   This was the coolest movie theatre!!! You go inside and buy your tickets just like normal but then you have to go up 4 or 5 escalators to get to the actual theatres! They go right through other stores like Champs and Dave & Busters. It was really cool!! (Thx hubby for that lovely picture of me while we were waiting in line…)
 
We saw The Bounty Hunter. On a positive note: You get to see Gerard Butler with his shirt off. On a negative: The chemistry between him and Jen Aniston was a little off…. It was cute and funny and was definitely better than walking outside in the rain, but I’d feel better about it if I had paid a dollar to rent it from RedBox… just saying.

Once we finished with the movie we had to HAUL back to the hotel because we had a car waiting to take us to the airport. We walked through the garment district on our way back…
  Back to the car… The bellman convinced us that it would be “like a limousine!” (it was not) and less than a taxi (it WAS) so we took him up on the offer instead of trying to wrestle our luggage on rainy streets and through the subway. It was fun because we got to see more of the city as we were leaving instead of being underground.
Bye, NYC!!! Until next time… It was GREAT!!!

On Saturday, Jake woke me up at 6 am. Which is 5 am home time. I about died. Then once he talked to me enough about how he couldn’t sleep that I was totally awake… he fell back asleep. FIGURES! So I took a bubble bath! It was so nice to have completely quiet, uninterrupted “me” time. Pretty much I just fell asleep in the bath. haha!

So then when Jake woke back up at about 8 we decided to head to Times Square. Only problem was it was ridiculously cold. No, like so cold my eyes wouldn’t stop running and that I knew snot was running out of my nose, I just couldn’t feel it. Oh, and I hadn’t brought anything more than my light jacket. Crappity.

So we went to H&M and I found a little hat to wear and threw on the scarves that I brought. Then we just did the touristy thing….

We did a little shopping and picked up some things to bring home to the kiddos. We had planned on going to a Broadway show that night, but ended up getting a great deal on tickets to Comic Strip Live.  If you’re a Seinfeld fan it’s the place Jerry does stand up in the opening credits and the list of comic alums who have performed there is ridiculous! We had soooooooooooo much fun!!! The comics were great and we were right by the stage (if you can even call it that… it’s tiny!) It was totally perfect for us! We love a good laugh. We were bummed not to see a Broadway show but that just means we’ll have to visit again!
The weather wasn’t as frigid by that evening, so we enjoyed the looooong walk back to the hotel and picked up a pizza on our way. Note to self: You DO NOT need an entire EXTRA LARGE PIZZA PIE for just two people. No matter how hungry you think you are…. Holy. Smokes.
We <3 NY style pizza!!! YUMMY!!! We thought about renting Blindside… then when we saw that it would cost us SIXTEEN DOLLARS AND NINETY FIVE CENTS (what?!) we opted for the news! And then to bed!

Alright, prepare yourselves….

Friday:
We arrived at about 3:00 NY time. We were appropriately greeted by a man (probably near 70) undressing himself on the subway and trying to entice tips. It was hilarious and disgusting. Also, I was glad we were on the other side from his as far away as possible so we could laugh at a distance.

We got to our hotel, got settled in and took a stroll around our little spot in Midtown East. We found a delicious pizza place with slices as big as your face…

Jake of course had his favorite Pepperoni & Olive. He was soooo excited about the crazy amount of olives on there. Happy day for my man. I had Spinach & Tomato. It was incredible! Loved it.

So then we wandered around a bit more, grabbed some Jamba Juice and basically just got our bearings so we didn’t get lost every 15 minutes. I love the area we stayed in. It was so close to everything, but Jake says next time he wants to stay right on Times Square… crazy man!! Also, fyi… all museums are FREE on Friday nights! So we headed to the Museum of Modern Art (or MoMA) I was in heaven. Only bummer is that we had to pick just one! There was just so much to see!! Here are some pictures of what we saw…
Wowsers!! MoMA has a pretty extensive collections of Monet’s works which I was really really hoping to see. Come to find out they’re doing a Monet exhibit and so all the works are set up for a members only preview right now… which means I didn’t see a single one. :o( Sad day. But sooo much awesomeness anyways!

And after 5 fabulous floors of art, plus the sculpture garden and the walk back to the hotel, we were spent.

More to come…

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!

Dear #1 Hubby,
I love you babe! Thanks for being awesome, keeping me sane, and reminding me to have fun! Also, thanks for letting me keep the shoes. You and I both know they have my name ALL OVER them. Here’s to many more shopping blunders on my part and ever growing patience with me on yours! Seriously though, you’re the best. Thanks for being mine!

Love,

The best wife in the history of all wifery :o)

• Gideon woke up last Friday and decided he was ready to be potty trained. It's like MAGIC! He went from not caring to being totally ready... LITERALLY overnight. So, he's totally pee trained. I'm not brave enough to have him out of a Pull-Up for naps or bedtime because that’s a long time for a little boy to hold it and I'm just not ready to clean up the whole "I wet the bed" mess. (Let's be honest... why bother!?) As for the whole #2 issue... he's totally embarrassed of the whole ordeal and somehow thinks that going in his pants is less traumatic than going in the toilet... so, we're still working on that. But... HOORAY for the Gid-Man! This is PROGRESS!! (Also, I feel like I should provide full disclosure to that fact that I keep him excited about it by bribing him with sweet tarts. I got a big bag and he gets 5 every time he uses the potty.)

 

• Ashelyn is 21 months old. Technically that means I should still have 3 more months before the so-called "Terrible Two's" kick in. She however, did not get that memo. Holy cow child, please calm yourself. At least she’s still super cute.

 

• Hubby & my anniversary is Wednesday. We're going to NEW YORK!!! BAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
• That's how excited I am. Actually, that doesn't even come close. We leave on Friday for 3 days with no kids. This is seriously the first vacation Jake and I have taken together since I was like 5 months pregnant with Gideon. That's too long. WAY. TOO. LONG. Anyhoo, we're staying here:

and since we’re staying in Midtown we’re planning on making the 20 minute walk to here :

And since Wicked is sold out until I’m 45. (Unless you want to pay $300 a ticket.) We’re considering going to see American Idiot, since this weekend is the first of the spring preview. I heart Green Day even if I don’t heart all the political garbage behind the album. They still made a killer album and how often do you get to catch opening weekend of a show on Broadway??  For us? NEVER. What’s your opinion? Anyone else heard anything about this show??

Thanks to my awesome friend Laura for being willing to watch the kiddos on Friday, and to my awesome Mom & Dad for putting up with them  them up for the rest of the weekend. LOVE YOU!

Oh, and we can’t forget Al for giving us his free buddy pass. You are FANTASTIC!

I’m sure I’ll have lots of pictures to share when we get back. Did I mention I’m excited?!

After we played at Fairy Tale Village we took the kid’s to Fritz’s. It’s this old style diner where you call in your orders on a phone in your booth and the food is delivered on a train track. The kids LOVED it.

After we ate we let the kids watch the fountains for a bit before heading home. We had quite the group!

There are 2 kids not even pictured here. It was so much fun and FREE. Can’t beat it.

On Tuesday, the playgroup bunch finally got together again! We headed out to Crown Center to let the kid’s play in the free FairyTale Village they had set up. The kids had a blast running around and playing together. The only down side was that it ended up being REALLY busy because it rained all day. We just guarded the exit. :o)

The bridge from The Three Billy Goat’s Gruff

Playing by the chairs from Goldilocks & the Three Bears

Waking up the GIANT from Jack & the Beanstalk

Climbing into Cinderella’s magic pumpkin!