More NY

Oh, right. I neglected to mention on my previous post that the reason I did all my activities by myself was because my cute husband was at work - in that tall building on the far left. This pic, by the way, was taken from the roof our his apartment building. We finally got to do some sight-seeing together! We took the FREE Staten Island Ferry to get a nice view of the Statue of Liberty (first pic of last post). Then we went down to the South-side Seaport. So here I am, in front of the Brooklyn Bridge. We thought about walking across it - but our feet hurt. :) So we thought a pic was just as nice.

Then we made our way over to Rockerfeller Center - see the statue of Prometheus? At dusk, the water is lit with colored lights. It looked really cool. There were people ice-skating there. And see all the international flags around the edge? - cool.
We made it to FAO Schwartz (the famous toystore) - and I had to take a picture of this toy soldier, because you know what? He was made of jelly beans! Amazing!
The little girls that worked there did some great piano duets on the big piano from the movie "Big". It was impressive.

And, here's a shoutout to Alex. Love ya!

New York, Baby!

Welcome to the Big Apple!I recently had the opportunity to go visit Jon in New York (thanks Jennie, Julie, and Mama Walker for taking care of my cute kiddoes!). So fun! Here's a pic of our apartment building - the taller brown building on the left - Liberty View apartments. Jon's staying in Manhattan - Battery Park (financial district, of course) - so it's way fun.
My first full day in New York I took a sight-seeing bus - which I loved because I got to see everything. This is a statue of good overcoming evil.
This is in the garment district - see - it's a big button and needle (did you know that 1/3 of all American-made clothes are made in New York?)

This is the flat-iron building - what an interesting shape, right? Just like an iron - hence the name!

I thought this was cool - the Dior store was undergoing renovations, so they put up a pretty, giant purse in front to still stay fashionable.

Here's a Times Square pic. If you look to the far right and see the green Toshiba advertisement, look right above it and you can just barely make out the ball that dropped on New Year's and right underneath that - "2010".

Who can resist taking a pic of cute M&Ms?

And, yes! It finally happened. I finally saw Wicked!!! - In New York - at the Gershwin Theatre.

And let me tell you, it was everything I hoped it would be. It was phenomenal!!! Loved it!

Out for now - more NYC pics to come!

J Paul Getty Museum

Tuesday we took a break from Disneyland and went to the J Paul Getty Museum. It was fun. They had some original Monet's and Renoir's that I was interested in. They also had a Da Vinci exhibit. Aidan was not in the mood to look, so we toured very quickly and spent most of our time outside.

The grounds were beautiful

This was the view of LA - it looked a little clearer in person
We spent some time in the family center.This is a wall of mirrors

The boys got to make masksHere they are - showing them off

The boys were both so exhausted by the time we left that they passed out in the car on the way home. Jon and I took a detour on the way home and cruised around Beverly Hills and got some cookies at our favorite Westwood cookie store - right across the street from where they have a lot of Hollywood premieres - and the cookies are only 35 cents each. It was fun!

Disneyland - Character a go-go!

We went to Disneyland last week and had a great time! We got lots of pics of characters (the focus of today's post). It was our first real road trip with Aidan - he did pretty well, but he's still pretty young so we may not be doing this again soon! He was a little tired by the time we got there, but by the end he was loving it. I wonder if in his young mind he just thinks that this is what we do now - get up and go to Disneyland. When we got home, he played with SO many of his toys, I asked him if he was happy to be home, and he said, "No - go-go!" He even enjoyed the characters. We got 5-day passes for the price of 3-day passes, so we were able to take some nice breaks and still feel like we got our money's worth. Alex got to spend his 7th birthday at Disneyland - every child's dream, I'm sure. It was fun - but more about that later. Here are some character pics.
The White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland - we've never seen him out and about before:

Safari Mickey:

Aidan loved Woody!

Alex has his autograph book in hand, and his lanyard on for pin trading

Aidan also really liked the Monsters, Inc ride - I think we had to ride it 3 or 4 times in a row

Alex is just the best to pose!

We caught Stitch right after going on the Tower of Terror - one of Alex's favorite rides

Silly boys

March Madness

I've decided that updating once a month may be the right speed for me. So, here's a hodge-podge for March. A belated Happy St. Patrick's day! We like to get into the holidays around here, and St. Patty's day was no exception. The boys were even good sports about me taking their pics (thanks for the shirt - AnnaLee!). Aidan's pic was a little trickier to get - he will usually only smile long enough for the camera to focus, and then he's done before I've even taken the picture. I lucked out with this one.
With a little bit of the nice weather, we've gone outside to enjoy the fresh air. I thought it was cute that Aidan wanted to swing with a little friend.

Aidan's nickname is Monkey - and he's become quite the climber lately - starting the microwave on his own, pushing the stools so that he can turn the lights on and off, turning on the water dispenser on the fridge, and he loves to fit in the little space between the microwave and the sink and play with the water. He's got a little bit of a "you caught me" look on his face, but it doesn't stop him.

Now here is a serious case of bed-head!

I got to take Aidan and go with Alex's class to see the sheep down the street. It was so fun!

Alex got to hang with his friends and feed the sheep some bread bits.

Aren't the lambs so cute?

Aidan LOVES animals and he was so excited to see the sheep, as well as a few other animals that also live there - like a dog, some ducks, a donkey, and a rabbit. Poor little Aidan may have gotten petted by the first graders as much as the sheep. It was a fun outing, though!