Double the Happiness

Jonathan's Click magazine and Lego magazine both came on the same day! What could be better? He usually reads aloud to himself, which is so fun for us to hear. He's not a big fan of reading to other people, but he didn't notice I was taking these videos...

(Click is about dinosaurs this month.)

(The hero of this Lego story built a sea turtle to escape a crab in the ocean.)

Being the Big Brother

Some Days Are Like That

Links

Ruffle Shirt Tutorial

Infant Seat Canopy Tutorial

How to Honor Mom Differently

Enjoy!

Adventure in the City, the End

All the pictures I've posted so far took place Wednesday afternoon/evening. We squeezed a lot into a short time! These coming up are from Thursday morning, when Jeff went to work and we were on our own.

After we zoomed up and down the elevators a couple of times, the kids and I went out for a little surprise. I managed to get them past the fur protestors who were holding graphic pictures of skinned animals as well as a life-sized model of a skinned animal. (Gosh, I hope it was a model.) We had managed to do the same the night before without them noticing. Good thing Jonathan was more interested in looking at the cable cars.

Jeff had told me about a little cupcake shop close by, and so I took the kids there.

I'm sure Jonathan was shocked that he got to eat a cupcake for no good reason in the middle of the morning, and that it was me, not Jeff, who was giving it to him! Here are the cupcakes we chose: Red Velvet for Jonathan, Apple Pie for me, and Peanut Butter for Jeff. If you had tasted them, you would know that their names just had to be capitalized. Yum! The frosting on top of mine was like the brown sugary frosting that my mom and sister put on spice cake. Bliss.

Red Velvet.

Red Velvet.

Poor Grace had to be satisfied with some bread that I had brought for her. After we ate our goodies in the park, we decided to go over to the grassy area away from the people and feed some leftover breadcrumbs to the birds. This was great fun until a park attendant informed us that we had to stop because the pigeons made a mess all over the place and then people couldn't eat there anymore. Actually, "made a mess" is not exactly what he said, and I'm thankful Jonathan didn't repeat his exact words. So, we left, but had a great time eating our cupcakes in the park and feeding the birds while we could.

On our way back to the hotel, Jonathan spotted Maybelle. I didn't get my camera out fast enough to get a shot of her, but here's one of her sisters. Jonathan wants you to know that this one is not Maybelle.

And, after a couple more trips on the crazy elevators, we packed up and went home. It was a quick, wonderful trip to the city. We left Jeff's cupcake for him in the hotel room, and he said it made a great breakfast the next day.

Or...

Me: Jonathan, you need to be facing forward.

Jonathan: Or, how about threeward?

Great News!

Check out Micah's update! New, happy pictures, and happy, happy news. Thank you, God!

Adventure in the City, Part 3

One of our favorite authors, the author of The Little House, Katy, and Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel, also has a great book about cable cars called Maybelle. We had been reading Maybelle a little bit before our trip, and I'm so, so glad we had!

After our dinner, we decided to take the kids on their first cable car ride. We accidentally took the "wrong" line and ended up on a very, very long ride. I'm so glad we made that mistake. We got to ride all around the city at sunset and watched people coming home and settling in for the evening. Jonathan had asked whether there were any houses in this city, since he hadn't yet seen any, and we got to see lots. We ended up at the end of the line just before dark and had to get off of one car and onto another to get back to the hotel. If you look closely and use your imagination, you can see the Golden Gate bridge in the distance.

(Well, Blogger reversed the order of these images, but I'm going to get this post done instead of making it perfect but not done...)

Jeff got some sweet time holding Grace.

And, back to Maybelle. Jonathan loved, loved, loved the cable car ride. We rode inside the car for part of it and outside, where we could watch the gripman working the levers, for another big portion of it. He was fascinated. It really was amazing to think of those cables running under the city and each car grabbing on to be pulled up those steep hills. He saw a cable car the next morning and was (and is) convinced that it was the actual Maybelle.

This was as close as we could get to a family shot. Oh, well, use your imagination...it was the best cable car ride we've ever had.

One more City post left...but it's not going to get done tonight. Maybe tomorrow!

Down to One Nap...

I finally took the plunge and helped Grace drop her morning nap today. She has been moving in that direction for awhile, and seems ready to do it at 13 mos., just like Jonathan did. I've been limiting her morning nap to an hour or less for a few weeks because anytime it was longer, she had a really hard time falling asleep in the afternoon. We may backtrack and give her a morning nap now and then on days that she needs it, but hopefully not too often. She is taking a blissfully long afternoon nap today. And I'm looking forward to being able to do more fun things mid-morning with both kiddos without having to work around that little nap. Our baby girl is growing up.

Adventure in the City, Part 2

I had to include another elevator picture, because Jonathan loved those zooming elevators so much, and we enjoyed a clear, beautifully non-foggy day!

We rode them twice Wednesday evening as a family, twice Thursday morning before the three of us went out exploring, and twice before the kids and I checked out and went home. He was fascinated by the cables and pulleys that ran them, and he could watch the other elevators working since there are five (I think) running side-by-side. So fun for our little engineer.

After naptime and snacks on Wednesday, Jeff got off of work and we were able to spend some time in the city as a family. Among other things, we went to the bookstore. Kids' books were on the third floor. Even Jeff enjoyed them before he left for the business section.

These Transformers books caught Jonathan's eye, and he has decided he wants to go back to read about more robots and monsters and aliens. I am not a fan of these books...the stories are lame and just market toys to kids. But, he is a little boy, and little boys like monsters and aliens and robots, so I did read one to him. And I will humor him and let him read some more. :)

We decided to have dinner at the Cheesecake Factory, not only because it was a huge treat but because it's a very loud restaurant, which is great when you're bringing kids. (I have been to a Cheesecake Factory one other time, after dinner with girlfriends at P.F. Chang's, which I told about here.) Here we are up on their patio looking down at the Square. (The people are dancing down there.) Jonathan thought it was pretty neat to be up in the sky behind the letters of the Macy's sign.

A closer look at the dancing in Union Square.

Of course, what makes people hungrier than drooling over cheesecake while waiting for a table? I can't remember whether the legislation requiring restaurants to display calorie counts has already gone into effect, but this restaurant has the calories up already. So, a piece of cheesecake supplies most of the calories a person needs in a day. (Don't count that low carb cheesecake, which we would not eat.) Did that dampen our enthusiasm?

I don't think so!

The food was incredible. Jeff and I shared all our food, including avocado egg rolls. They sound strange but were scrumptious.

This guy wanted some cheesecake.