Lead Up to Christmas

I started this blog post on Christmas Eve, and I'm just now getting the time to sit down to finish it. We had a great Christmas and week or so leading up to Christmas. I got to watch my all time favorite Christmas movie (A Smoky Mountain Christmas), the presents were wrapped well in advance, and we decided to keep Christmas dinner simple. There really wasn't a whole lot to worry about leading up to the big day. Now, from the 25th on....things have been crazy...trying to reassemble the apartment and figure out how we will survive with the limited space that we have. As I tell Ten, we will make it work because we have to.

Anyway, here is what we have been doing leading up to Christmas.

Mia got a couple of new pairs of pajamas. She has refused to sleep in them in the past, but now she loves PJs. Here she is in her Christmas PJs, my shoes, and a butterfly wand. Outfit coordinated by her. 

Also, Mia hasn't really been interested in food recently unless we connect it to something that she loves. For example, she loves broccoli because it is a Totoro tree. So, I decided to try my hand at my first bento for her. This took me seriously like all of 5 minutes, so it obviously could have been a little bit better. However, I knew she wouldn't care if it wasn't perfect.

Mikan, grapes, steamed broccoli, popcorn chicken, and Anpanman made from nori, carrots, cheese, and ketchup.

In more Christmasy related news, on the 22nd we took Mia to see Yo Gabba Gabba! It was a holiday themed version, and we had a great time. I think Mia was slightly confused because Muno was there on stage...dancing...in person. The adults especially loved when Biz Markie came out and sang pieces from "Just a Friend." Biz Markie definitely looks pretty old in real life, but it was really fun. 

DJ Lance Rock and the Yo Gabba Gabba cast.

Christmas background while singing a lot of their typical songs from the show.

Mia and Ten dancing along to the songs.

Group picture...okay here Mia is definitely looking like she is having a good time. I'm glad we got the chance to take her.

Mia snacking on a sucker during intermission. I'm not going to lie....we brought in snacks and some juice boxes for Mia...and I'm glad we did because $12 for popcorn was a ridiculous amount of money to pay.

After the show, we went straight home and started to cook some spaghetti. It was only 7:00, but we were so tired. Yo Gabba Gabba was kind of like being in a crazy toddler rave where the DJ is constantly telling you to dance, wiggle, stop, etc....lots of work....haha

In other news, Ten came home one night after work with two little cakes for me and Mia. Very cute and thoughtful of him...even though I am trying super hard to watch my weight...sigh....never ending battle right there.

Me and Mia actually split one of these and the other she has been eating a little bit after lunch each day...and I mean a very little bit. We don't want her to have too many sweets.

Finally, Mia had been feeling a little bit under the weather a few days before Christmas, so we we had to cancel all play dates. We didn't want to get any other kids sick over the holidays...and we didn't want her to get any worse before Christmas. We were getting a little stir crazy, so one day we went out and got things to make a gingerbread house. Wow, it was a lot of work....and I'm surprised any candy actually remained on the house. Mia was eating the icing off of it faster than I was replacing it....haha. However, here are some of the photos of the event.

Getting ready to decorate.

Looking at the icing and deciding if she should taste test it.

After the taste testing...I'm guessing it was heavenly.

Looking proud of the house and mess that we made.

Finally, pictures of our house in all of its glory. I hope to have our Christmas Day pictures up sometime this week. I'm not going to worry about rushing to get all done before New Year's. 

Weekend Update: Trip to Grand Central

Happy Monday!

I am in a super good mood. It probably has to do with the combination of a nice weekend combined with the upcoming holiday. 

Let's see. Ten had a whole 3.5 days off, so I got a major break. He shuttled Mia to 5 different classes and gave me a much needed break. That is right. On Thursday afternoon he took her to gym class followed by a slot I had booked at the indoor playground. On Friday, he took her to a party for two hours. Saturday, he was out the door at 8:00 to take her to another session at the indoor playground, and then Sunday he took her to swimming class. Talk about a lot of quiet and peace that I got to experience. I am lucky to have a guy who is so willing to take Mia out...and he loves it. It is a huge win-win for everyone.

We also had lots of time to spend together. We went to breakfast with some good friends where we had good conversation and overpriced pancakes (seriously need a new breakfast place). We also decided to take Mia to the holiday train show at Grand Central Station. She had a great time watching the choo-choo cars as she calls them. It was also my very first time to Grand Central, and it is beautiful. I will admit that I have been pretty disappointed by most sites here (sorry Lady Liberty and Times Square), but this was a really beautiful place.

Here are some of the photos of the train exhibit we saw.

Mia loved watching the trains go by.

I seriously could not get a good picture of the main terminal. I think you need to go during the day actually. I did get this lovely picture of these two though.

Let's see in other news....we are well into Christmas shopping. I seriously hope I can knock everything out within the next week or so. I'm pretty sure I can if I stay on top of it all. I am also in the process of interviewing doulas as well as trying to figure out how we can do a better job of celebrating New Year's. We kind of failed last year, and we both want to do a lot better this year.

In some disturbing news, I am pretty sure that my doctor's office ran genetic tests on me without my permission. I have actually refused all testing, but got a letter in the mail the other day from a lab talking about said tests that were ordered by my doctors. I am one unhappy patient....let me tell you....wonder what they will have to say.

Fire Island

Last weekend we decided that we wanted to take Mia to the beach. I was all like....hey, let's go to Coney Island.....it costs like $5 round trip and the sand castle competition is going on. Ten was all like....hey, it's Coney Island....I don't want to watch trashy people in thongs make out on the beach. Fair enough.

Luckily, we have a third person in the house that makes good decisions for us....

Mia was like...hey, I have an idea. I'm on the phone with someone that says we can stay at their beach house on Fire Island...why don't we do that?

So, we packed up our beach gear and food and headed over to Fire Island. We took the subway to Penn Station...and then we took the Long Island Railroad to Babylon...and then we changed trains to Bay Shore...and then there was a shuttle bus ride...and finally a ferry ride. Yes, it wasn't that easy to get too.

Mia on the first leg of the trip eating her baby jerky (otherwise known as strips of rotisserie chicken).

Fire Island was great. We slept a lot. We ate a lot of food. We played in the sand. We swam....well Ten swam. Mia was terrified of the ocean at first, and I got in for about 5 minutes before I realized that I didn't like salt water and sand and waves all attacking me at the same time.

We had the beach almost completely to ourselves.

Mia was wondering why we were forcing her to walk in all of this sand...was it a form of cruel exercise? She wanted to be carried...A LOT.

Mia: "Guys why aren't we checking out that cool moon up there instead of this silly camera?"

"Uh-oh" Every time the waves came crashing in.

We also decided to try to hunt for some of our food....but lacked the appropriate weaponry. Darn.

The next morning we checked out the town a little bit before going back to the beach to say our goodbyes.

"I want to fly this thing home, and then keep it in our living room to hang out in."

Mia chewing on a leaf stem...that she fashioned herself....proud of our little Huckleberry. 

Heading back to the house to pack our bags and then make the 3 hour trip home. My pictures did not do this place justice at all. It was the cutest little beach town. Either way it was nice to be able to get away from the city before summer ends.

Disney 2013

We are back from our 8 day vacation to Disney, and it only took me a day and a half to unpack everything and get our apartment back in order! Yay me!

Anyway, Disney was an experience to say the least. I have been to Disney World twice before and Tokyo Disney countless times, but I had never done the whole eat, breath, and sleep Disney. Here is a little recap of our trip. We were terrible at taking pictures. At some point, you have to put the camera down and enjoy actual life, so that is what we tried to do on this trip.

The days before our trip, we did a lot of eating out so we didn't have to buy more food that could go to waste. One night, we went to Whole Foods and the pics of Mia were cute...so I am deciding to share them.

Yes, I agree that that was very random...Now, on to Disney. We stayed at the Animal Kingdom Lodge, and it was a great place to be. A little far from the other parks, but Mia loved waking up to the animals every day. She would immediately sit up in bed and point at the sliding doors to go see what was outside. Enjoy the pics and captions. We just did way too much to share without turning this into a Disney blog.

I think there were about four zebra roaming around and the same amount of giraffe. Also, a few other animals that I couldn't name for the life of me. BTW Disney gave us a free upgrade on our room so that we could have a Savannah view...and we are so happy that they did.

Us at our hotel buffet...I think everyone gained a bit of weight from this trip...Mia included...look at her go to town on the kids buffet.

We spent a lot of time at the Animal Kingdom. The other parks were absolutely great, but Mia loves her animals and it was closest.

Riding on a safari

Checking out all of the fish. This may have been her favorite part of the trip (excluding Festival of the Lion King -- she was so excited during the show I thought she was going to crawl up on the stage and start dancing).

We also made sure to book a lot of character dining so that we could meet the different characters without having to wait in long lines.

Mia absolutely loved all of the characters...no tears here.

Mia and me at DinoLand...where we rode the dinosaur version of Dumbo

Ten and Mia at Epcot after the Nemo ride.

Good morning animals.

At the sci-fi drive in for lunch.

Watching Disney Junior Live at Hollywood Studios.

...and what every night looked like...lots of good sleep

Not a lot of pictures...but a snippet of our trip. Now, I will say that we had a really nice time at Disney. I mean who doesn't like vacation in general, but we just aren't the type of family to take a week off and go every year. Once in a while is fine, but there is so much more that we would like Mia to see and do....that goes for all of us for that matter. There is so much more to experience outside of the Disney resort, but like I said we did have a good time.

Mother's Day and Japan Day

I hope that everyone had a wonderful Mother's Day. I had such an absolutely great time celebrating with my hubby and baby and felt truly appreciated. I also want to say thank you to my mom and grandmother for all of the effort they put into being the best moms that they could be. Thank you!

Now our weekend started exactly the same as it always starts with swim lessons. Ten and Mia always take a stroll around the pool before their class begins.

Whose shoe is that? haha...oh well

Practicing floating...getting better

I'm excited to say that Mia will be moving up to the next level. The instructor told Ten that even though she was still a bit young for the class that she should go ahead and advance. Yay! Good work Mia! Mia can hold her breath underwater, splash around, and blow bubbles...so she is ready to learn some new things.

Also, on Sunday we headed to Central Park to go to Japan Day. I wasn't really sure what this event would be like, but it turned out being a lot of fun. They had a few different activities and some basic Japanese foods for people to try, and the best part was that it was entirely FREE! 

First, Mia and Ten tried yo-yo fishing. Mia was really looking like she wanted nothing to do with it at first, but when she actually got the balloon...she was super excited.

After her game, we headed over to the calligraphy tent to have something written for us. A lot of people were having the teachers write Happy Mother's Day or their names. We decided for them to go ahead and write Mia's name...so, we gave them her kanji and this nice lady wrote it out for us.

Unfortunately, she actually wrote it wrong...so Ten decided that he would sit down and do it himself. You should have heard the oohs and aahs over how beautiful (their words not mine) Ten's handwriting is....his mama should be proud since she is a calligraphy teacher.

Oops someone's little hand got into the picture.

The finished product is hanging on our wall at home :)

Next we headed over to the stage area. They were actually between performances but had some music playing and Mia wanted to dance...so we let her dance her little heart out.

Notice how there aren't many people in the picture...well they were all lining up at the food tents...free food can make people crazy...haha. We ended up going to the okonomiyaki line first which was a great idea because some people had to wait 40 minutes to get it!! Wow. We also had some gyoza, ramen, miso soup, and rice balls...all pretty good.

Okonomiyaki tent.

They were also handing out bottles of tea....by the box! I was shocked when Ten walked up to me with a box of tea. He said that they asked him to please take the whole thing, so we ended up with 24 bottles of flavored tea...It was so heavy carrying around the event, but I'm loving having the extra tea around this week.

We then headed home and showered and had a lovely dinner made by Ten. Also, here is a pic of my Mother's Day present. Two new shirts and a Vacation Candle from Yankee Candle...perfect for the summer. Thanks Ten and Mia.

Me and Mia then headed off to bed because we were pretty tired. I had the best Mother's Day. Thank you so much to Ten for making me a mom and to Mia for loving me!