One Year in NYC, celebrated with SNOW!

This past week marked one year living in New York City. I don't remember the exact date...that was a very crazy time of life! I do remember that it was a week before Valentine's Day.

We had a snowy week! Addison is just as crazy about the snow as she is about sand. Audrey struggles to walk in the deep snow, but she LOVES to eat it!

Our tree on a snowy day.

Audrey in a pillow of snow!

Addison dutifully measured how deep the snow was in various places, then Audrey used the ruler as a popsicle.

Imagine tons of screams and laughter with this picture.

Tiffany got to work from home!

11 inches of snowfall = time to buy a sled

We bought our first sled and I took the girls sledding for the first time. We took the G down to Fort Greene Park and the hills were perfect! We had a blast! Luckily it fits all three of us and I got to join in on the fun!

We also had a snowy co-op day the week before!

Valentine's sun catchers

Had to put Audrey back in the backpack carrier this week as the snow has turned to slush, ice, and puddles too deep for this girl!

Oh, the things we do for our hairy dogs.

You know that children's book, "If You Give A Mouse A Cookie"? Well, all day long I've been trapped in that book, only with a different theme...

If you give your dogs a bath, they will be really clean and wet. You'll realize you need a bath too. Oh and the shower needs to be scrubbed now too.

If you give them some time to dry off in the bathroom before letting them loose in the house, then you will have a very wet and hairy bathroom. You'll have to take the time to wash all the towels and rug, wipe down all the walls, cabinets, and floors.

If you clean the bathroom you'll feel good that one small room in the house is perfectly clean, but while you were doing that the wet, clean, spunky dogs have rolled around the whole house trying to play and dry themselves. So you'll have to clean the rest of the house too.

If you take all the wet, hairy sheets off the beds to wash, vacuum the floors and rug, mop the floors, vacuum and lint roll the couch, then you've let a lot of time go by without thinking about the mess in your children's room. You'll have to calmly, very calmly peek into their room.

If you're children have played on their own for an hour or so, then they are happily engrossed in their art work, toys, and dress up games. You'll have to break the bad news, it's time to clean up the room and walk the dogs. 

If you clean up their room, you will not only feel accomplished, but you will also want to do another purge...maybe tomorrow.

If you happily walk your clean, brushed, almost dry hairy dogs in the afternoon, they will love the fresh air and also love to roll in the dead leaves and grass. Then you'll demand them to shake it OFF and go home and repeat this story in two more weeks when it's time to bathe them again.

The End

Christmas

Santa's cookies (thankfully we hid some in the freezer because we've got some real Cookie Monsters in this house.)

Its been really fun to look at all the pictures and videos that Addison and Audrey take on their own.

Christmas day was perfect. We opened presents and played games together all day.  I didn't take many pictures, but we have one long video of the day and a few funny videos from Just Dance 2017...not sure if Andrew wants those public! 

We got to celebrate Tiffany's birthday at Breakfast at Tiffany's!

Stephen's visit

Stephen came and it suddenly got VERY cold and snowy!

We put Stephen to work decorating cookies!

We ate a lot of good food! Pies 'n Thighs, Egg, Fornino, Rye...my chili.

We had to change our plans a little because the weather, but we still had a good time. We took a tour of Mast Brothers chocolate factory! We played board games and video games.

We experienced season in the city....so many people!

Tired girls and the Rockefeller Tree.

The girls absolutely love their Uncle Stephen! Thank you for visiting, Stephen!

November in Florida

We decided months ago that since we could only go to Florida once this year, that we would make it a longer trip. So we went for almost 3 weeks. This was Audrey's first flight and Addison first flight that she remembers. They both did really well! Some of these pictures I took, some Addison took.

Addison was Grammy's helper in yoga while Audrey and I hugged palm trees.

Grammy and Poppy set up a nice play area outside on the patio for the girls!

 We spent the first 5 days out on Sanibel beach.

Addison was thrilled about this "tide pool"!

The pool felt a little cool, but that didn't stop these girls!

Colin hit a home run for these girls!

Pre-beach breakfast!

They are here! The girls were so excited to see these familiar faces.

Audrey loves her Aunt!

Grammy has better decorations than we do!

We love this driveway!

My not-so-little girl.

Captain Bradly!

Helping Aunt Tiffany make centerpieces.

 Outside and FREE!

Thanksgiving dinner was jam up!

PIES

 Papa's plate!

Madi!

Thanksgiving group

Nana and Papa

Ritter Family, minus Austin and Benjamin.

Madi sandwich

Tiff and Rob

Girl cousins, plus a blender

Grammy and Poppy

Grandpa

We took a trip to the Shell Factory! The girls loved this crazy place.

Stuck a feather in his hat and called it macaroni.

 Best Santa. Audrey asked for a dragon, Addison asked for a toy hamster, Madi asked for boots!

A really fun day shopping with Grandma and Grandpa!

Addison brought her camera and so most pictures of that day are of the many fountains of Miromar outlets!

Grandpa turned 70 and took us bowling!

Roller coaster simulator

Back at the beach, wearing her new dress from Grandma!

Helping Rob with his sandcastle!

Homesick Audrey. By the second week, she missed home and Daddy so much.

The girls had a blast picking out and decorating the tree for Grammy and Poppy!

We got to visit Madi's house and meet Minnie!

Steve brought down bins and bins of things from the attic for us to go through. Barbies, trolls, sheet music, stuffed animals, pictures, scrapbooks, family videos, millions of things. So we purged and got to share some childhood toys with the girls!

It was a great trip! 

When we got home, all the leaves were gone and it was time to set up our own tree.