Muah!

Leah doing some last minute stretches before the dance team heads out to perform.

Play and Bugs

We went to Eisenhower Park again. Unfortunately their great new playground was having some work done but we still had a great time. They have a couple of playgrounds so we headed over to one to play for a while.

Leah and Louis looked for grubs in the trees. They managed to find some pretty decently sized ones. 

Off We Go...Again

We headed off to Manhattan today. It has been a very busy Spring Break and today added to that. All in good ways. After an uneventful LIRR ride followed by subway ride we started the day off with having breakfast tea at Alice's Tea Cup-Chapter I.

We had a pretty big breakfast. The kids ate it all up. It was delicious. The tea was yummy. Perfect way to start our day. 

Afterward we headed over to Central Park for a bit. I brought along bubbles for the kids to play with.

 I tried to get the kids together for a group photo. These are some of the better ones.

 I think this may one of my all time favorite photos of the three of them together. All three of them laughing at me.

Now that we have a membership to the American Museum of Natural History we decided to take advantage of it. Even though we had visited earlier in the week the kids wanted to visit again. There were a few exhibits we didn't see on our earlier trip.

Leah has been helping Louis learn about our solar system, aside from trains and dinosaurs, Louis' other favorite topic is space. AMNH has a special exhibit right now called "Beyond Planet Earth:The Future of Space Exploration.

While I sat to feed Gabriel, Leah and Louis walked around while we waited for our turn to go into the exhibit. They loved all the information about reptiles and other related creatures.

'Beyond Planet Earth' is a walk through exhibit with various components. Leah loved the section on the moon.

 There is a wonderful computer setup which allows you to move around Mars and check out the planet. Louis's favorite planet, so we spent a lot of our time on it. Definitely will have to come back to do this again.

 Leah working on Mars.

We went upstairs and stopped in to see the dinosaurs. Leah and Louis went from kiosk to kiosk to see all the different stages of evolution and to read more info on the development of the dinosaurs and other animals. They are so perfect together!

At this point the kids were restless and hungry so we headed back towards Central Park. We grabbed some hot dogs from the halal food truck, sat and ate.

Louis wanted to climb rocks so we went over to the Ladies Pavilion. Great rock climbing with nice views of the pond. Louis is an excellent climber, takes after his sister. I remember Leah climbing the same rocks when she was his age. She led him carefully up and made sure he had a good footing.

 We stopped at a playground. Leah and Louis played in the sandbox for the most part. Hard to get Louis out of one once he finds it. A few of the other moms and nannies made comments about how great Leah is with Louis. How she was one of the few kids above the age of 4 and she didn't seem bothered by it. She wasn't. She loves it.

Earlier in the week we had stopped at the Alice in Wonderland statue but we weren't able to spend any time at it so I promised Leah we would go back. Leah and Louis climbed up okay. They were fine up until Leah lost her footing coming down and Louis followed her. They both got a little banged up but it was much better than it looked. Both were fine afterward.

It was an early day for us. We headed out after this. Usually we're in Manhattan until the evening but we had gotten there at 10 am. It was a long day. The kids do so well when we travel together. We get into the swing of things and with Leah being well experienced with traveling in NYC? It is surprisingly smooth and easy with just myself and the three of them.

Killing Time

Today Leah had a dance team practice and we needed to kill some time before meeting up with Matt to head home. We went over to the local school's playground. It's hard to believe that there was a time Leah was terrified of heights. She didn't even want to climb up to go down slides. Those days are definitely behind us.

Dinosaurs---Oh my

We went to the American Museum of Natural History today.  It never gets old. No matter how many times we visit. As the kids grow older they find new things they like and learn more. We bought a family membership so we're sure to visit a lot this year, even more than we already do.

More of Easter Sunday 2012

As a child I attended church on Easter Sunday.We dressed up in clothes we were supposed to keep clean and wrinkle free, shoes that weren't supposed to scuff and the cutest hats. I usually went down to Calvary Baptist followed by brunch and an afternoon spent in Central Park. Though we are not observers of any one religion in our home we do still keep some of our childhood traditions alive. So we don't attend church but we do meet with the Grandparents and Aunt Lindsay for brunch. We were running behind a bit today but managed to get to the restaurant with some time to spare. Leah wore a dress she picked out.

 

After brunch it was time to head over to the Grandparents' house for...more baskets! 

It was a beautiful day so we took the opportunity to try to snap some photos of the kids outside. This is becoming a 'thing' I try to do whenever we can. The Grandparents have a great yard that is perfect for impromptu photo sessions. I also love that it is their house, same house Matt grew up in, and years down the line we can look at these photos of the kids there. 

We went home and I set up a small Easter Egg hunt for them out in front of our house.