Thankful to the Brim!

My mom and dad flew on the red eye flight to come for Thanksgiving. Katie was on call in the hospital, so that left my mom and me to cook the dinner. Joanie is pretty fanatical about her turkey...but more importantly her stuffing. So....no joke....she made the stuffing at home the night before and packed in her suitcase. Yes....TSA checked her stuffing....Gotta say, having the butter soak in for over 24 hours yielded VERY good stuffing. Mental note for next year.

We were very thankful to spend the Thanksgiving with family and to see so many friends while we were in NYC (Whisher's family and Josh). This Thanksgiving was quite emotional for me. The last month has been a very difficult one for some of our close friends -- Makenzie is still battling pancreatitus (surgery went well and she was discharged on Thanksgiving!), our other friends just lost their nearly 2-year old in a horribly tragic accident, and my cousin Ashley (Henry's godmother) is courageously battling cancer. All of this has been a very harsh reminder about the fragility of life and the grace that exists in each of our days. We are so very thankful for all of those who bless our lives and for the opportunities that we have.

MET

Mark and I were committed to take the kids to the MET, although I have to admit I was worried they wouldn't embrace the artistic adventure as much as we hoped. They LOVED it. The MET is brilliant in that they have a special map for the kids and the loved finding all the "treasures" and the painting in the map. Such a lovely place...my sister and her kids are so lucky to have it so close.

Afterwards we celebrated our fun by going to Cupcake Cafe and getting the kids treats which we shared with the cousins. SO GOOD.

Thanksgiving Day Parade

We stayed at my parent's apartment, which is on 82nd and Amsterdam. Little did we know the providence of this spot during Thanksgiving as the balloons for the Thanksgiving Day Parade are blown up literally one block away. In the early afternoon, we walked by and they were laying them out and then we when we came back from the MET, they were blown up. The kids were in AWE. Such a magical experience. Spiderman and Buzz definitely got top honors. The next day, when we saw the parade, we just went down the block to where they were setting up and got to see the floats with no crowds. My favorite -- the one with Joan Rivers. Not gonna lie -- I got really excited...not sure why....I couldn't tell if she was excited, sad, frozen....that is one static face!

Highline

One of my favorite things about our trip to NYC was going to the Highline Park. The High Line is located on Manhattan's West Side. It runs from Gansevoort Street in the Meatpacking District to 34th Street.

One of our favorite children's books is the "Curious Gardener" and it about a boy who transforms an old train track my planting things and we thought about it as we walked along.

The walk is so awesome. There are beautiful views on each side and it was really fun to just let the kids run. As you will see, they are getting more "dynamic" in their poses for pictures. It was really fun for the kids to see the Statue of LIberty from the South end. After reading so many books about it - they couldn't believe how big she was in person,

Grammy Kris in NYC

Grammy Kris was kind enough to come into the city so that we could see her. Even though she was there a short time, we managed to go to LOTS of parks, read lots of books, and she was there when the kids experienced FAO Schwartz for the first time. As we walked around, Henry was listing out things for me to write down for Santa. I kept nodding my head....until he asked to see the list to check it......ugh.....forgot about the pitfalls of this whole "the kid can read on his own" thing...so caught.

Subways and Trains

The best part about having kids is they slow you down and appreciate the little things...like the joy in riding the subway. When it was far distance, we took the subway and I swear the kids liked the ride more than the destination. Henry loved playing "math games" on the subway, where I would tell him our stop and then we he would need to subtract the numbers of streets we were going to go under. No joke - thought it was the best game ever. Francie was enthralled with the whole process and I have to say - it seemed the New Yorkers were enthralled with her awe over it all. I really do find that in travelling with kids, you often see the "softer" side in the city as it hard not to smile when you hear the shriek of glee that Francie lets out when the train arrived. Henry even made friends with a man and offered to draw a portrait of him on the train....hysterical.

NYC or Bust

For Thanksgiving this year, we decided to head out to NYC for a week. We flew out the Friday before, so that we could get a whole week in the city to hang out with my sister and her family and take the city in. With Francie still napping, we had to do about one thing a day. The weather was incredible, so most of involved being outside. One of our favorite thing was going to all of the parks. We managed to go to 10 new parks during our visit. Yee haw.