The Big Apple

The Saturday morning following Will's party, we loaded the boys into the car around 8:30 and didn't tell them where were going. We drove to the airport and handed Will a map of Manhattan. It was great! John Will surprised us with this trip, but he kind of had to tell me so I could pack our bags.  JW's birthday was the 20th, so it was his birthday gift too. We all really had fun. I took over 100 pictures, but I am just posting a few here. It was a trip I know the boys will always remember. The best moments were when we were all 4 sitting on the subway and JW would look over at me and say "can you believe we brought them to New York City?"

Will with his map at the airport

No joke, this was the name of the restaurant at our hotel. The boys loved it!

Will with a street corner Lady Liberty

The wall of Legos at the new Lego store in Rockefeller Plaza. It was amazing. We also went to FAO Schwartz, but I personally liked the Lego store better.

Wall St. subway stop.

Ryan in Battery Park

Boys on the ferry boat to Liberty Island

Waiting to eat dinner at Carmine's

This may be my favorite picture of the whole trip. Will riding the subway and studying the map. By the end of the trip, he understood the NYC subway system. I was blown away because they confused this Southern girl!

Will at the American Museum of Natural History, Dinosaur Hall. This really was amazing. It exceeded all our expectations. A must see with kids in NYC.

Lady Liberty. We joked that they must have wanted to re-create the Ellis Island experience, because we had to stand in line FOREVER, then we were herded like cattle and packed on the ferry. All in all, I'm glad we saw her, but it made for a long, hot day.

The view from our 23rd floor hotel room. We were right in the middle of Times Sqaure. We were staring right into the 4-story M&M store- such a fun, happy place!

While we were there, we also explored Central Park and found a really cool playground. We got on the wrong subway one time and ended up in Grand Central Station, we wandered around Columbus Circle, and we ate some really good New York pizza in Times Square.  It was a great trip!

Will's Birthday Party

Will turned 7!! He wanted another backyard/water slide birthday party. Okay, easy enough....so we invited some friends over for a late Friday afternoon party. I think everyone had a great time and the rain held off just long enough for us to finish up our cake.

Will and friends at the water slide

Will on the water slide. This year we decided if we were going to rent a water slide every July, we might as well buy one. We found this on on "rollback" at Wal-Mart.com

Ryan and his snowcone

Will and friends

My attempt at decorating a plain Publix cake to look like a lego cake! Clearly, it isn't winning any awards.

Will loved the cake, so that's all that matters!

 

We had these fruit kabobs, grilled hot dogs, mini hamburgers "sliders," chips, snowcones, cake and ice cream.

Lego Cookies

Here are the lego cookies we gave out at Will's Lego Birthday Party. I thought they turned out cute.......but NEVER AGAIN!

They took me all one day, night, and the next morning. Making four batches of icing was very time consuming along with placing all the mini M&Ms. I think they were a hit, though. More pictures of the party to come........

My Life: Boys and Food or Food and Boys

I have come to realize that my blog has two topics: my boys and food. Maybe I should rename it "Boys and Food." Ha! Oh well, shows where my priorities are, right?

Every morning this summer I have eaten the same breakfast: Greek vanilla yogurt and fresh berries, usually blueberries or raspberries. It's wonderful, cold, light, and fresh. I feel so healthy eating it. We have eaten pretty healthy this summer. Not much beef or any fast food due to my watching Food, Inc. a while ago. I've been making lots of different kinds of salads and feeling pretty good about our diet in general.

Then, I do things like buy a bag of pizza-flavored Combos and eat them with a Dr. Pepper (not even diet) for lunch. Or make huge chocolate chip cookie ice cream sandwiches with Will and eat them at 9:00 p.m. while watching TV. I can be quite inconsistent in my health-conciousness. I can't figure it out.......it's like sometimes I must indulge my inner junk-foodie.

Well, now that I have just "outed" myself, I must go finish up the cookies I'm making for Will's birthday party on Friday. He will turn 7 tomorrow. Wow! It's hard to believe I am going to have a child that is 7. But, yet, that Monday night 7 years ago when I went to bed only to wake up and have my water break in the hallway seems like a lifetime ago.

Stay tuned.....there will be lots of pictures to follow.

Happy 4th of July!

I was very pleased with the recent cookies I made. We have enjoyed giving them to various friends and family.

Enjoy your weekend!

Swimming lessons are over!

The boys took 2 weeks of swimming lessons from Ms. Nancy. This is our second year with her and we all really love her. You probably remember I referenced our first week as drama and tear-filled. Well, the second week was totally different. Ryan actually had fun and looked forward to lessons every day. By the end of the week Will could swim across the pool alone. She really pushed Will this year and I am so thankful. He is fully capable of swimming, he just still gets nervous. She gives everyone a medal with their name engraved on it at the end of the lessons.

We love Ms. Nancy

Will swimming backstroke across the pool

Will swimming freestyle

Ryan examining his medal

Will with his medal. I could tell he was proud of himself today.