New York at Christmas

Last weekend we went to New York City.  I'm like a little kid, and as soon as we found out we'd be living within hours of NYC, I had to go at Christmastime.

It was Stretchy's 2 month birthday.  I thought a trip to NYC seemed like a pretty good present.

We got up early (we even had to wake Stretchy up) and arrived at the Saratoga bus station at 8am.

Stretchy wasn't sure about her first bus ride.

By the time we transferred in Albany, she was a pro.

We arrived in NYC around noon.  Stretchy was in awe.

It was bustling and crazy and there were people practically lined up to walk across the street.

Stretchy was a little overwhelmed and decided to take a nap.

We saw Times Square.

Stretchy woke up in time to see the Christmas Market at Bryant Park where we saw the ice skaters

and got our picture taken by the tree.

There were lots of interesting things to see

On the way to The Tree

We waited in line at FAO Schwartz.  Fortunately, the stroller line was short!

Daddy couldn't figure out how to use the camera... but here we are by the Ugly Dolls.

We went across the street to the Plaza Hotel

Where there was the best Santa ever.

 Stretchy got her first picture with Santa, and it was the cutest thing on the planet, but I'll save that for another post... but here she is afterwards in the fancy waiting area chair.

On the way back to the bus we tried for a family portrait...

And took a few more photos.

I have to say that looking back, was taking a 2 month old to NYC a very enjoyable thing to do?  When you are a crazy, worrying mom, No.  But was it amazing and awesome and would I do it again?  Totally.  If only for the Santa picture.

A New Nickname & Apples

First order of business for today's post is... a new nickname for MiniM.E.  Most of the other "mommy bloggers" I follow don't use their kids' names.  Which totally makes sense (mostly when you are an awesome blogger and have tons of followers- many who you've never met... less when you only have a tiny smattering of people who you'd trust your kid with...).  That's why I picked MiniM.E. (which, if you know her name, as probably all of you do, makes sense).  BUT hopefully I will eventually amass a ginormous following due to my fantastic sense of humor and inevitable pitfalls as a new mother (or not...).

When choosing MiniM.E.'s nickname, I was envious of others with adorable names for their kids like "The Incredible Hulk" (at newmomontheblog.blogspot.com) or "The Pork Lo Mainiac" (at starkravingmadmommy.com).  My first mommy blog was rantsfrommommyland.com (absolutely hilarious) and they have good nicknames too, but I am too lazy to re-read posts from ages ago to find them.  And somewhere in my mommy-internet-land there's a "Burrito Boy" for the way the blogger's son looked when swaddled.

But since I started my blog before MiniM.E. was even born, and frankly, newborns have close to zero personality (unless those funny smiles and sounds while pooping count?), I didn't have any direction when choosing a nickname.

UNTIL NOW!  MiniM.E. is the most fantastic stretcher I've ever seen.  Most people (babies included?) stretch after sleeping.  Check.  MiniM.E. stretches after every nap.  But also when getting out of or into the car seat, baby swing, pack-n-play and/or crib, after eating, after burping, before diaper changes, during diaper changes, and after diaper changes, and often every fifteen or so minutes.  Hence, the new nickname "Stretch Armstrong" (or "Stretchy" for short).

I promise I will soon capture a photo of said stretching.

Apparently, I probably shouldn't be posting photos of Stretchy on my blog (but you guys are all my friends and family, so for now, its okay- until she stops looking like "nondescript baby") and I should probably also nickname my husband...  I'll put it on my mile-long to-do list...

For now, a photo showing Stretchy taking after her mom and beginning a caffeine addiction at an early age.  The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

see, she even looks jacked up on caffeine!

A Very Christmassy Weekend

My Christmas decorations are finally up!

I have to say, it is very difficult to get anything done with a 7-week old, let alone hang anything delicate or which requires hooks, lighting, electricity, or live branches.

Thank God for my mom who is willing to drive 3.5 hours anytime to see her granddaughter or my Christmas decorations would consist only of the boxes of Christmas decorations scattered around our house.

I was asked, when complaining about how much work it was to put them up, why I would even bother- after all, I have a new baby, and who is coming to my house to see the decorations anyway??
BUT, I LOVE CHRISTMAS and NEED my decorations, so to me, it was worth it :)

Saturday was the last step in decorating our house: we needed a tree!

We told MiniM.E. we were going to get a tree and she was so excited that we managed to snap a few good photos of some excitable smiles (or maybe I was just making really stupid faces and talking in a ridiculously high-pitched, sing-song voice... you'll never know...).

 And then she was SO excited that she fell asleep.

Sleeping doesn't last very long anymore, so after a few minutes we were ready to head out.

We decided on Ellm's Farm for our Christmas tree this year because you got to choose and cut your own.  They had trolley rides out to the farm and hot cocoa and cider and donuts and most importantly, reindeer!!

It was everything it promised to be, with the exception of the reindeer.  Turns out they were no longer living.  SO SAD!!!  Especially because I wanted a picture of MiniM.E. riding on one.  But I guess they probably would have allowed that anyway... sounds like a law suit waiting to happen.

It was a very Christmassy great time.

We found our tree and Bob cut it down

We tied it to the car

And enjoyed some hot cocoa, all while MiniM.E. slept, even through the photo op at this um, awesome? train with a hole cut-out for faces...

Yesterday, MiniM.E. put the first two ornaments on the tree!

SO CUTE!!

Alright... fussy baby- must go!!

Christmas Pictures

Can I just state how obnoxious it is that babies can be so super cute in person, but as soon as you press the shutter button on the camera something happens and they stop looking cute.  (or maybe its just my baby)  Seriously, now that MiniM.E. is smiling, all I want to do is capture the adorable-ness.  However, I get this instead:

Not that that's a terrible picture... it's a cute picture of a smiling baby, but it doesn't look ANYTHING like MiniM.E.

So my camera is filled with a lot of bad pictures.  Which, I have to say, made taking a Christmas for Christmas cards very difficult.  

Here are some of the best photos from the first session...   I didn't choose one from this batch for the cards because I decided against the green-striped outfit.  

A good smiling picture!!

I've realized that the best photos are sleeping photos.  Sleeping babies are the best kind of babies for taking photos (and enjoying while being a stay at home mom) so for "Christmas-Card-Photo-Session-Two" we opted for a sleeping MiniM.E.

My Baby is Growing Up...

Before I get to posting about anything substantial, here are some photos from our long weekend:

This is where MiniM.E. sleeps at our house (in the pack-n-play under the changing table thingy so the cats don't accidentally jump on her...) but we couldn't fit it in the car... 

so this is where she slept at my parents' house- why did we spend so much on a pack-n-play?

trying out the new hat

resting up for the big trip

excited to leave... 

enjoying the comfy comforter

unsure about shopping on Black Friday

nice couch...

sleeping in with Daddy

MiniM.E. turned six weeks old on Saturday.  It's funny that when you have a new baby you mark the time first in days, then in weeks, then in months... then in half years... and sometime between kindergarten and fifth grade you just use years.  And eventually you don't want to remember how many years old you are.

But I digress... the point of this post is that MiniM.E. is growing.  She was so tiny when we brought her home and I kind of wanted to keep her that way.  You don't really notice something growing when you see it every day, but I think she just went through some pretty major growth-spurting, because a few days ago when I woke up and carried her down the stairs what used to feel like a Cabbage Patch doll suddenly felt like a bag of bricks.  Not to mention the fact that I'm squeezing my poor baby into clothes that have probably been too small for at least a couple weeks (what? that outfit isn't supposed to look like a spandex jumpsuit?).  But the biggest milestone was switching from newborn diapers to size one.

Looking back, apparently I should have made this switch weeks ago... however, being a new mom, I didn't realize the signs of a diaper being too small... those red marks around her legs- those have always been there, haven't they? and the fact that it's really hard to make the diaper tall enough in the front AND the back... well, she's just getting taller, right?  And maybe that's kind of the case- she's still pretty long and skinny...

While home for Thanksgiving we met up with one of my oldest friends and her 11-week-old.  He'd just moved up to size TWO diapers... which made me think... are MiniM.E.'s diapers too small??

So I decided that once we finished off the size "n"s, I'd move her up to size one.  But every time I changed her I couldn't help noticing that I was squishing my baby into teeny-tiny diapers when she really wasn't so teeny-tiny anymore.  I just didn't want her to get bigger...


To celebrate the last day wearing my favorite jungle outfit, MiniM.E. decided to show off all her new smiles:

...I also snapped a couple more non-smiling photos :

And finally this morning, I packed up all the newborn diapers and all the "spandex jumpsuits" and replaced them with roomy size ones and bigger clothes.  She seems much happier now.

and she fits in the NEW jungle outfit!!