You can never have too many Pretty Ponies...

Merry Christmas!

What a GREAT day!  The girls woke up early, which wasn't great, but they were great the entire day.  It was nice and relaxing not having to run all over the place and we were home in time to clean the house up and get things put away, which in years past has had to wait until the next day.

The girls BIG gift was a dollhouse that I spruced up a bit.  It took a LONG time but the girls absolutely love it, some railings bit the dust and we'll put those back on within the next few weeks.  I think it will keep them busy for a long long time.

The most amazing part of the day was when Lydia, out of the blue, told us it was Jesus' birthday...what a smart little girl! 

Twas the night before Christmas...

when all through the house

Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,

In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;

The children were nestled all snug in their beds,

While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads.....

Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night!"

The Crowe girls turn a year older!

Felicity turned 3 on Friday and Lydia turns 2 on January 2nd, so we decided to do a joint party and invite some friends for swimming at Crawdaddy Cove in the Holiday Inn.  We weren't quite sure what to expect since we've never done the whole party thing but it turned out great!!!!   

Christmas picture outtakes

Please tell me it gets easier as they get older trying to get them both to smile at the same time?  These are some of the pictures we got while trying to get one decent one for the Christmas card.

My dad

What a great guy!  Check it out: http://www.madison.com/wsj/media/tree/index.html

Bunk beds!

The girls new beds arrived on Friday afternoon.  Our friend from church, Aaron, custom made them in two weeks!  Totally amazing!!!  The girls really like them...and mommy likes how the ladder can come off so during the day we don't have a bunch of monkeys jumping on the bed.  

Check out the rest of Aaron's work at http://www.rcfaw.com

Cute kids

Snow day!

First decent snow of the year and someone got pretty excited!!!  Daddy even built a snowman with her and when they were done got some hot chocolate.

5 girls....it's doable!

I've always wanted a lot of girls....well today we visited my good friend Molly and her girls (Emily, Kate, and June).  It was kind of cute having five girls sitting around the table eating lunch, playing dress up, coloring, smiling and laughing.  I think I could handle five girls....maybe we should get started on that third girl Isaiah :)

Here are some pics from the day!  We had such great hosts and Molly's kids are always so well behaved (I cannot say the same for Felicity today unfortunately), it's always a good time when we visit. 

Halloween Clearance!

Thanks to Target's Halloween clearance our girls now have a LOT of great dress up clothes.  Here's Felicity modeling a few.

The kids loved trick or treating and were great the entire night.  Of course all of our pictures turned out horrible but here are two that give you the general idea.  Felicity was a "scary spider" and Lydia was a cat.

NYC

I just returned home from a long weekend in NYC (my first) and had a wonderful time visiting my good friend Meghan.  

Friday night we went to Jazz at Lincoln Center to watch Meghan's boss perform...which just happens to be the famous Wynton Marsalis.  It was a great show and I'm sure I'll have hearing loss for awhile now!  After the show we hung out with Wynton's son and had some pizza, what a great kid!  No pics from Friday because I didn't want to be the crazy tourist taking pictures with Wynton (he was super nice though).

Saturday we woke up LATE but ate an EXCELLENT brunch at Igloo in Astoria.  I think it was probably the best brunch I've had.  The day was sort of dreary, windy, and drizzly but we did some shopping on 5th Avenue and of course we had to go to the toy stores!  We also swung by Magnolia Bakery which had the most delish cupcakes ever!  I had a red velvet and it was pretty much pure sugar but it was awesome.  By early evening I looked pretty awful from all the walking in the rain and wind.  

One of the things I really wanted to do was see a musical on Broadway so we put our names in for the front row lottery at Wicked, fully intending that we'd be seeing something else because the chances of one of us getting tickets when there were 300 some people there were pretty slim.  Imagine our surprise when my name got called!!!!  We got front row seats to see Wicked for only $26.50 a piece!!!  It was the highlight of my trip!  GREAT musical!

After Wicked we walked to the famous Serendipity for some appetizers and desserts.  YUM!

Sunday was a beautiful day and we ended up walking 8.3 miles and pretty much all over.  We started by going on the Staten Island Ferry, down to the WTC site (which wasn't anything to see), by Wall Street, up through SoHo, Chelsea, West Village, etc and then ended at Central Park.  It was great.

I think I'll have to take a trip to NYC every year for a long weekend.  Thanks Meghan!!