Babymoon in the Big Apple: Day 2

Day 2 started bright and early because Brandon had signed us up for a tour of Yankee Stadium. This was the only request Brandon had while in NY, so I knew it was really important to him. I was still feeling pretty bad, but decided to tough it out. We bought a subway transit map and hopped on the subway towards Yankee Stadium. Ummm...or so we thought. We rode the train for 40 minutes and not until we crossed over into Brooklyn did we realize we had gotten on the train going in the wrong direction. The subways are so confusing!! Poor Brandon missed his tour, but handled it pretty well. He decided that he would take me back to the hotel, and he was going to attempt to go back and beg to get into another tour. It worked! He told the lady his subway story and after laughing in his face, she let him join the next tour group.

When Brandon got back, I was feeling much better and ready to explore NY. We headed to The Metropolitan, but not before asking the concierege which train to take. This was an incredible museum and it was huge. When we finally decided to leave, we had to ask how to get out.
Our next stop was Central Park. It was a little rainy, but so worth walking through. It's so crazy to see such a beautiful park in the middle of a city. It was also a nice shortcut to 5th avenue shopping. I was dying to go to FAO Schwarz and see the piano from the movie "Big". The toy store was huge and it took forever to find the piano. Brandon had just about had it with crowds and walking, but he posed for me anyway. Can't you see how excited he was?
We were starting to get hungry, so we trekked back to the hotel with all the other New Yorkers during rush hour. We learned our lesson from dinner the night before, so we asked one of our friends to give us dinner suggestions. He said we had to try a family style Italian restaurant called Tony DiNapoli's (I made Brandon take a picture with me before dinner because I actually showered this time). Oh Yummm! This place was so delicious. We ordered the chicken parmigian, and I didn't know that such a big piece of chicken even existed. For dessert, we split a brownie sundae that was equally as huge, and went to bed stuffed and happy!

Babymoon in the Big Apple: Day 1

There is no way I could write everything we did in one post nor would you ever want to read that much. Therefore, I will break it up into days for your reading pleasure (Thanks, Cassie! I got this idea from your blog)!

New York Day 1
Our first day in New York started very early. Our flight left at 5:30am, which meant we needed to leave our house at 3am. However, I fell asleep around 11:30pm and woke up at 1:30am. I got a whooping 2 hours of sleep and have been cursed with never being able to sleep on planes...lets just say I was very tired the entire first day.

Our flight was smooth, and we arrived (thanks to super shuttle) at our hotel a little before 1. We sat our bags down and then just looked at each other. What should we do and how in the world are we going to get there? You see, I had 1,000 things I wanted to do and see, but never organized our days. It was lunch time, so I decided we would make our way over to Gray's Papaya. I have wanted to eat there ever since I saw the movie "Fools Rush In". With a little help from Brandon's phone GPS, we found it pretty easily. Brandon and I each got the Recession special, which was 2 Hot dogs and one of their natural fruit drinks.The fruit drink was kind of gross, so I ended up with Sprite. The hot dogs were REALLY good though.
After Gray's Papaya, we armed ourselves with a map of the city in one hand and GPS in the other (no one would have ever known we were tourists). Brandon marked the next closest landmark, which happened to be Bryant Park, and away we went. However, I spotted the 8 story Macy's on our way over and had to stop. This Macy's carries Louis Vuitton and had some of the cutest clothes I have ever seen. Lucky for Brandon, I can't fit into regular clothes, so I didn't buy anything (I did try and convince him I needed a Louis, but he wasn't having it).

Bryant Park was really pretty. I was so used to seeing it during fashion week that I though we had the wrong place, at first. Maybe one day I will make it back for Fashion week!After resting our feet, we walked to Grand Central Station. The subway station was so beautiful and our pictures don't do it justice. It was huge and buzzing with busy New Yorkers. It made me kind of wish I lived there and was rushing on my way to somewhere important.
After Grand Central Station, we decided to head back to the hotel and rest a little before dinner. I had planned on dressing up a little, but I was way too exhausted and not feeling great. Our hotel was right on Times Square, so we just decided to grab dinner somewhere around there. Ha! Big Mistake! We fell into the Times Square tourist trap and got completely ripped off. We picked a flashy New York diner called Lindy's and payed almost $100 for a pastrami sandwich and a patty melt...this did not even include fries. However, the prices didn't stop me from getting a piece of Cheesecake to go. This is the only picture we took from Lindy's. I'm looking EXTREMELY tired.
We spent the rest of the evening walking around Times square. It was amazing to see everything lit up at night. I also discovered that everything in Times Square stays open really late. Shopping Sephora at midnight...I think I will!
Unfortunately, our night didn't end so well. I was feeling terrible! I had the chills and my body was aching from fever, and Brandon was having some tummy troubles. Don't think I didn't still try some of that cheesecake though!

Jackson turns the BIG 1!

This will probably be more of a picture post then a blog. I got so many good ones that it's going to be hard to narrow down. Anyway, My nephew tuned 1 on August 20th and he had quite the celebration. We started off his birthday morning by all singing "Happy Birthday". He kept looking at us like we were crazy. I don't blame him. It was 7:30 in the morning after all. We also tried to get him to eat his healthy birthday breakfast of glazed donuts, but he wasn't a fan. I wish I could say the same. After Breakfast, we got him ready for his big photo shoot. His pictures are going to be so cute! However, he fell into the corner of a suitcase during the pictures and ended up with a goose egg right between his eyes. Thank goodness for photoshop. The photographer was running late so Mom and I snuck our own pictures.
Mimi and Jackson
Then we wrapped up the day with a little Chuck E. Cheese. Driving the carChuck E. Cheese came out to wish Jackson a happy birthday! And the best part...cake! Then on Saturday we had Jackson's Big 1st birthday party. The theme was sponge Bob, but I'm sure you could have figured that out all on your own. Here is the cake. Isn't it cute?All dressed for his partySliding down the 13 foot water slide. The child has no fear! His big day ended with lots of presents.
Happy Birthday sweet boy! I can't wait to see what your 2nd birthday will bring.

The BIG Ultrasound

Just a quick post! We had the big ultrasound appointment where they check every inch of the baby. Everything looked perfect, and we can't ask for much more than that. She weighed in at a whopping 13oz., which is right where she should be. Of course, they wanted to get a profile, but she refused to get into position. This seems to be a common occurrence for Miss Priss (if you recall our NT scan, they tried for an hour and a half to get a profile). We did, however, get a great shot of her backside!

We feel so blessed!

Oh, and she's still a girl!

We've got Kicks!

This little lady is kicking up a storm lately! About a week ago, I started feeling these tiny muscle twitches. I didn't really think anything about it, until they kept happening. Finally, a light bulb went off in my head...the baby!I wanted Brandon to feel her ,so I decided we were going to plop ourselves on the couch while I enjoyed a few marshmallows. I realize feeding Miss Priss pure sugar to get her hyped up and kicking is not the best thing for a Mommy to do. However, desperate times call for desperate measures. Sure enough, about 5 marshmallows in(they were the tiny ones, and there may have been more then 5... but who's counting?), she was kicking like crazy. I believe Brandon's exact words were, "Wow, there really is a baby in there!". Well, I certainly hope so! I am also missing a lot of my favorite television shows because I would rather stare at my tummy. It's so cool to be able to feel her kicks from the inside and see it from the outside.

Dear Presley,
I woke up bright and early to your little kicks this morning, and it is probably one of the best ways in the world to be woken up! I would lay there all day if I could. However, when I'm about 38 weeks pregnant and no longer sleeping very well; maybe you could wait until a little later in the morning to begin kicking me. For now, kick away, Miss Priss.
Love,
your Mommy

Nursery In Progress

Just a side note, I have about 20 things on my To Do list and blogging is not one of them. You can tell where my priorities lie. Now back to the purpose of this post.

The Nursery!!!
Today our baby furniture was delivered and I love it. I would like to just throw in a huge thank you to my parents, who so graciously bought it for us. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you! We love it ,and Presley will too. Anyway, we got a call saying it was going to be delivered earlier then we expected, which thrilled me. However, we are currently using the room as our gym and needed to get everything out. The treadmill is so big that we have to take it apart to fit it through the doors. Well, at almost 10 at night we (and by we, I mean Brandon) began disassembling. It was going so smoothly until we (again, I mean Brandon)got to the last bolt. Turns out it was shredded and there was no getting it out. We attempted to shove what was left through the door, but that was NOT happening. After a few choice words, Brandon's solution was to take the doors of the hinges of the old gym/new nursery and to the old guestroom/fabulous new guestroom/gym combo. Success! We were able to empty out the room in preparation for baby furniture. Lesson learned...never wait until 10pm to start such a big project. Come to think of it, we have been learning lots of lessons lately. Miss Priss, you are certainly teaching your parents a lot, and your not even here yet.

The nursery is literally a blank slate and I can't wait to get started. However, I just can't seem to make a decision on what I want to do with the room. Even though we still have plenty of time, it has been keeping me up at night. I will post as soon as I decide what I'm going to do (I know you will be on pins and needles waiting for that post...I hope you sense the sarcasm). Here is what Presley's room looks like so far.


and here's the furniture from a different angle because I know your dying to see!


Everytime I walk past the nursery, I can't resist popping my head in and taking a look. It just makes everything even more real! So all we need now is bedding, curtains, a rug, a glider, maybe a chandelier, and most importantly, a baby!

Halfway There!

"Believe you can and you're halfway there."
— Theodore Roosevelt

Sometimes being halfway through something can seem unsatisfying. However, there are some halfway things that give me great pleasure, for example:
-Looking at the time on the treadmill and seeing I'm halfway through my workout
-Making it to Wednesday because I'm halfway through the week and that much closer to the weekend
-Passing Centerville on my way to Houston because I'm halfway home.
-Compromising with Brandon because we each met halfway (this is huge for me as I am rather stubborn when I feel I'm right).
But the thing that I am most proud of is making it HALFWAY through this pregnancy!
Today marks 20 weeks exactly, and I couldn't be happier! Lets have a look back at when I first THOUGHT I was getting a belly. and now at 20 weeks
Just 20 more weeks to go and we get to meet little Miss Priss! However, I wouldn't be opposed to seeing her a week or two earlier.