Merry Christmas

Our annual "Sleep Under the Tree"

(or in front of...)

Side note : there were plenty of fits of giggles while we "pretended" to sleep for picture purposes.

Side note Part II : Anderson slept snugly and comfortably upstairs in his bed... 

we'll be glad to have him join us once he's out of the "break all the rules" age 2 phase.

Oh Christmas Tree...

Christmas is up and running... let the Season begin.

Crowning Achievement

Mags had her Primary Presentation today.

It was a day of achievements.

Mags : sat quietly during the entire program and sang I am a Child of God w/ her class.

Mom : finally figured out how to do an outside braid and made a little crown and bun.

Thanks Mags for sitting so patiently while I experiment on your long locks. 

Celebrating.

Who said it's terrible?

Turning 2 that is.

 My sweet, happy, darling boy turned double today.

It is Shocking how time has raced by...

but...

 at the same time...

I can hardly remember my life without this little blue eyed wonder.

Finishing his second year...

he's talking up a storm. 

The words that come out of his tiny little mouth...

in his tiny little voice...

 are edible.

I was combing Mags hair the other morning when I caught a snarl,

she whimpered,

Anders dropped his car and came flouncing over...

"Maggie sad hair"

Correct-a-mundo.

He says Thank-you/you're welcome to the cross-guard when we go to pick Maguire up from school.

Treat. Snack. Juice. 

anything that has to do with consumption

Are all very well vocalized words 

He loves trucks.

He loves dolphins.

He loves counting to three (always skipping one).

He loves to run outside as fast as his little chub legs will take him.

He loves eggs.

He loves hugs and kisses before bedtime.

He still loves to be wrapped before snooze time.

He loves being read to.

He loves to shout "Ew" after anyone burps (or does any kind of grodie act).

He loves to shake to the beat.

And.

He loves his Daddy, Mama and sister with no inhibition.

The one thing he doesn't love...

to ever have an empty stomach or even partially empty for that matter.

He likes it nice and round and plump and full at all times.

I. am. so. blessed.

I find putting my thoughts and emotions into words is so difficult when it comes to my babies.

I sit here and just tear up at a white screen

I'm just so in love.

(and now I want to go lift them out of bed and snuggle them)

Happy Birthday my amazing boy.

Go! Flames! Go!

I was watching PBS with the kids a few weeks ago when a commercial advertised Avalanche tickets.

They were super cheap and some of the proceeds would go to charity.

Then...

I heard the words "against the Calgary Flames"...

Done.

To say Joel loves the Flames is an understatement.

It was pretty fun to tell him I'd gotten tickets to the game for our family.

I wish I could describe the look on his excited face as we entered the arena.

Mags was a little overwhelmed by the noise at first, but before long both kids were right into it.

They would both raise their fists and say "go flames go!" (or "go go go" in Ander's case)

The word Hockey is now prevalent in Ander's vocabulary.

BOO 2011

Oh Halloween...
how we enjoy you.

We had a great Halloween weekend in the W household.

It started off with a Ghouls Night In party I had with some great girlfriends.

I only got a picture of the party favors...
Caramel Apples in a little Thank-you bag.

After I said goodnight to all the ladies,
I had the luxury of staying up until 3:30 am
to get the little miss' costume ready for her Kindergarten party.
Thankfully JW stayed up to keep me company.

Our little Princess Mummy...
I have to note that she had talked about being a princess for months
(not super picky on what kind of princess),
and I wanted to try creating a Mummy costume
(not super picky about whether it was a commoner or royalty)
so this was us compromising.

Sunday evening we
listened to Halloween music
Calling all the Monsters being #1 this year
Ate homemade Chicken Noodle Soup w/ Ghost Cheesey Biscuits
Carved Pumpkins
and
Snacked on Caramel Popcorn while watching Igor
(kinda weird movie if I do say so myself)

On All Hallows Eve we met up with some great friends
for some trick or treating up by the Broadmoor.
Dreamy houses... even in ghoulish decor.

What a great Halloween season this year...
I sure love me some little mummys.

Our little devil...

We found some little devil horns from a costume a few years back...

I couldn't resist...

and in all fairness...

I did say "give me your grumpiest face".

I don't always have to ask when I get this face...

My heart bursts for this little boy of mine.

First Snow

We had our first snow fall today...

there was some excitement over it.

It was perfect snow for a snowman creation.

The kids did a fairly good job freezing and soaking themselves in the name of fun.

Pumpkin Hunting

We went to pick our pumpkins today.

By the look of things I think we pleased the masses.

Ladykiller

Learning to pedal his tricycle in style.

1st. Checkout.

Mags got to check-out her first library books from school this week...

Really?
REALLY?
JDW and the Discovery channel he watches
has a lot more influence than I gave credit for around here.

New York, NY

Don't even ask how hard it was to document this...
cause it was next to impossible.

I just experienced New York for the first time...
and I'm pretty sure we could NOT have fit one more thing in there if we'd tried.
(unless of course you took out walking time... cause there was A LOT of walking time)

We stayed pretty close to Times Square,
so upon arrival that evening,
we decided to check that off immediately.

And we needed to replenish our fuel.

Whitney arrived feeling pretty under the weather,
so we went looking for orange juice.
We all got one once we found these little beauties.

Begin Long Walk #1

Donuts for breakfast...
that's right your eyes do not deceive you.
(as I began to submerge myself in blankets on night #2,
I may have quietly asked if we could look for something a little more substantial
than a bakery for breakfast the following morning...
it was a funny moment.)

Ground Zero.

It's places like this that make me miss/crave/long for living in the city again.
To say I adored Chelsea Market is a bit of an understatement.
Exposed brick+quaint bakeries+cute shops+hustly and bustly+lobster roll=perfection

Moments after this picture was taken,
I looked across the street and beheld Bonpoint.
I was a tad bit excited.
Window shopping was the only shopping I'd be doing however...
once inside Whitney said something like
"you should by something for Maggie to remember this by"
I inspected all the clothing perfectness and a $300 dress just wasn't in the budget for the trip.
I then saw some cute cable knit tights...
I couldn't see a price tag so I asked the sales associate...
I then put the $60 cable knit tights back in the cute little basket they came from.

Note : as this was all going on,
apparently the police were arriving next door because of a robbery at gun point...
mixed emotions about missing that one.

Once we exited the store I decided to at least capture a picture of the cute store front...
as I began lowering my camera, I noticed a short little guy walking funny (kinda dodgy like).
It was Mathew Broderick.
It suddenly dawned on me that he may have thought I was trying to get a picture of him...
I wasn't...
to the point that I wanted to shout it at him.
He continued to walk all dodgy like passed us and all the way down the block.

That night we met my brother and his wife for dinner at the Dream Hotel...
I wish I could explain how entertaining this dinner was...
It was a memory maker...
Jocelyn: "Regan... you let me wear a CARDIGAN"
but I'm going to leave it at that.
I will say that in the middle of dinner,
a somewhat disgruntled Lindsay Lohan stomped by.

We then stopped at the Momofuku Milk Bar for a cookie on the way back to our hotel.

The amazing panoramic view from our window.

City Bakery
ABC Carpet and Home
other shopping in the Flat Iron District
and
Central Park

Eating dinner at La Esquina in SOHO.
Watching people either excepted or denied into the secret door was priceless.



Whitney suggested doing the Empire State building at night...
I'm so glad she did...
the most entertaining/weird/fun/somewhat humiliating evening of the trip.
And yes...
the picture above is all three of us squished in one of those bike carriages humiliating ourselves.

Brooklyn here we come.

After walking for-ever...
we found the Brooklyn Flea Market.

Once it was dark we left Brooklyn and headed for the Staten Island Ferry.
There was quite the array of individuals waiting for the ferry.
It was kinda perfect though.
Free ride right passed the Statue of Liberty (both ways obviously) lit up in all her glory.

We were giddy about the empty car we scored.

On our last day before we flew out we got some cupcakes from Magnolia
and ate lunch on the Highline.

Such an amazing trip in an amazing city with some amazing girls.
One to go down in the records (as painfully long as it is) for sure.