B is for...

Brooklyn

It's been on our to-do list. We've done the bridge and all but we wanted to try the famous pizzeria over there called Grimaldi's. So we did it with Colie, who was in town for a couple days (pays to have a friend in the airline business huh?)Fabulous pizza! Kate actually preferred the table :)
Butterflies, Bones and the Brain

Also on the to-do list (our time in NYC is growing short) the American Natural History Museum. We splurged a little to do some exhibits thanks to some "fun" money (thanks Brooke and Mom). Rachel and I did the Butterfly conservatory. It was incredible...butterflies EVERYWHERE! You could feel the wind from their wings as they flew passed your face. We saw butterflies of every color and size. So beautiful!
We were told that if we wiped the sweat off our foreheads (it was quite humid in there) and held out our hand we might be able to catch a butterfly. Kate was the lucky one...she did it no sweat!
Jake did the Brain exhibit and is now hooked on brain games. Tommy loved the dinosaur bones and the spaceship.
Kate loved it all. It was fun to see all her admirers as we pushed her around. Poor girl is bursting out of her 3-6 month clothes. Still waiting for that warmer weather.
Bananas

The food cart is back! I love the convenience of this thing!
Blossoms

Finally! Spring is definitely trying.
Baseball

Jake has been anxious for baseball season to start, so that he could take Tommy to another game. This kid sat enthralled for 3 hours, without getting restless, and didn't even mind the fact that it was pretty cold outside.
Birthday

Pumpkin pancakes, nice weather, a date with me, a donut cake, and friends to share it with...I think he got pretty spoiled. I took him to a seafood place for dinner. We've never done it because I don't like seafood. I think he enjoyed it and the curried tuna sandwich was actually really good.He deserves it all and I wish I could give him more. I really love this guy. We had a conversation that night about being competitive. I never really realized it before but Jake isn't competitive, despite all the sports he did in high school and his academic achievements. What he is is an achiever. He's not interested in beating somebody, he's interested in doing the best he can do. I am constantly impressed with his commitment to us, his family and his ambition for his dreams. He has a real talent with relationships and can network like nobody's business. I love spending time with him. He can still make me laugh and we can still talk into the late hours of the night (course not as often as we used to). We also celebrated our 7th Anniversary yesterday and even though we haven't had a chance to celebrate it yet we enjoyed thinking about it symbolically...that we are now "perfect" and "complete" :)

Dear Spring

I'm ready to pack my gloves, scarf, and ear muffs away. I'm tired of looking up the weather in the morning and seeing "feels like 17." You've teased us with a couple visits but you are more than welcome to come and stay now. Afterall, it will be April this week. I have never been more excited to see your blossoms and flowers. Come quickly!

Love, Melanie

Seriously, we have had some yucky weather this past week. Anyway, here's a cute picture of Rachel and some of her classmates walking to school one morning. I must say that this is one thing I have loved about her school and living down here in Battery Park City. It's such a fun little community and even though there's still thousands of people living in this area you do see people you know fairly regularly. We'll often hear a "Raaaaachel!" from across the street at random times of the day. We know all the kids and most of the other parents in Rachel's class from playdates and birthday parties, because usually the entire class (plus their families) are invited.I had the great privilege of attending Rachel on one of her field trips. All of them so far have been within walking distance of the school, but last week we got to go to the Guggenheim!
This is our tour guide showing the kids a sea shellThe building is designed like one
They had a blast walking to the topSadly our tour was cut fairly short, because of the rain. Well, it was the traffic really, but I'm blaming the rain. We didn't get to see a lot of the artwork, but I loved what I did see.
For playgroup last Friday I told Tommy we were going to a playground. He wanted to go to a "sand" playground and cried hard for 20 minutes as we walked to this indoor playground. It's just still so blasted cold!! Once he saw this place I don't think I've seen him happier! If only this playground weren't so far or hundreds of dollars to join I would have gone everyday this winter. I just love the ball pit...I haven't seen these in ages!

Providence

Some friends of ours let us borrow their car for the weekend so we could escape the city. We decided to do Boston again. All 3 kids fit snuggly in the back seat of the sedan and we made our way up on Friday. Since we've seen Boston a couple of times we decided to explore Providence, Rhode Island. We spent some time at the capitol building and then eating grilled pizza and bakery items in Little Italy. We had a great time.

Here's the fantastic four enjoying tv shows and chocolate milk
The kids ready to ride
View from the capitol building

Fun little square of Little Italy where we had lunch
The kid table
Crazy Kate
Hours of fun with dress up
It's so fun to see these two pick up on their friendship that was started at 6 months old.
On the long car ride home yesterday Katelyn fell asleep drinking her bottle
The kids loved playing together building forts, playing games, coloring, and just using their wild imaginations. Tommy loved all the boy toys. He made it very clear for about half the car ride that he did NOT want to go home. Jake and I also loved talking to our friends into the late hours of the night. Always good times!

Winter Break

For Rachel's week off of school we headed to Utah to visit family

I loved the fountains at the airport that were their perfect height
The luxury of a yard! Rachel dressed herself in snow gear and headed out on her own. This is where I found her our first morning at 7am
We took her out for her first time skiing. She couldn't wait even the 8 miles up the canyon, she was so excited.
She really wanted to do ski school with a teacher, but 6 hours is too much. This technique proved to work pretty well. Although afterwards I learned that the new thing is hula hoops. Genius! I'll have to try that next time.
The best part of the day was the smile on her face and her saying, "I'm doing it!"
What a great Daddy Daughter Double Date
We headed up to Driggs, Idaho on day #2 to spend some time with Jake's brothers and their families. We snowmobiled, relaxed, watched movies, and enjoyed great company.
Warming up with Scarlet
Just had to throw this one in there
Early morning cartoons
"Not in my town"
Boys and their cars
More cousin time
We did a trip to Provo to spend time with Great Grandma.
And oh Brick Oven, how I love it, let me count the ways: 1. brown cows (root beer shake) 2. garlic bread 3.spinach artichoke dip 4.pizza
And the BYU creamery, you just don't get any better...mint cookies and cream, graham cracker ice cream and chocolate with marshmallow cream and caramel. We definitely gained a few pounds on this trip.
This is a picture of the kids playing after their ice cream.
Mini bowling, miniature golfing, go karts, playground and arcades...kid heaven



Once there was a snowman, tall, tall, tall

We had some beautiful weather there in the end and we took full advantage
Tommy teaching Jack how to drive
Katelyn and Sophie, just one week apart. I love how all my kids have cousin friends!
A successful vacation, we also enjoyed texas roadhouse rolls and cinnamon butter, seeing old roommates I haven't seen in years, and their new babies, seeing BYU win 2 big games (placing them 3rd in the rankings), Citta Gelato, Just Dance on the Wii, Cafe Rio, and In-N-Out.

My favorite part of it all was spending time with family and friends. Take out all the fun places and good food and I would have been just as happy. Thanks again everyone!!

Sweet Memories

A couple weeks ago we took a trip to Dylan's candy shop with the money we got from Valentine's Day. They got to pick out a couple of treats for our upcoming airplane ride. I just love the smiles on these kids' faces.And for memories sake, while we were in the neighborhood we decided to drop by the apartment we lived in over 5 years ago, and our doorman's still there!
Jake and I had exactly the same idea of what to get each other for Valentine's Day. Great minds think alike. It was such a fun surprise, and double the chocolate!!!