New York with the Family

Well October was a tremendously busy month and we ended it with a trip to New York City to visit Aunt Michelle with Grandma B and Aunt Rachael.  We got their a day early and Aunt Michelle spoiled us with watching the kiddos the first night while we went and saw Wicked and caught a slice on our walk to the show.  It was a great start to a great trip.  The next morning we went to the Museum or Natural History which was so much fun for the kids to see dinosaur bones since trying to understand the size of these creatures is hard.  Aunt Michelle was a great kiddo catcher because they were off to the next exhibit before we could even get into the first sentence of the sign at another exhibit.  That night we got to celebrate Aunt Rachael's birthday with more NYC pizza (yum) and a tasty cake.  

He's famous already.

Our version of a double stroller when legs wore out.

 The next day before we headed off to the Hudson Valley we got ourselves to Central park which was a short walk away.   The first pictures you see are the kids waiting outside Aunt Michelle's brownstone.  The block was so picturesque I couldn't help snapping away. We let the kids play on the playground and then, because Hayden had seen kids in books and magazines jumping in piles of leaves, we built our own pile of leaves and the kids got to jump into it.  It was a rake-less pile so not big enough for me to take the plunge, but perfect for the pint size. 

Gotta love having taxi's running about everywhere.

From here we headed up to the Hudson Valley to explore Washington Irving's Estate.  We took a train from Grand Central Station which in itself is a sight to see.  The kids loved riding on the subway.   Once to Washinton Irving's estate we got to exlore and there was a fall festival going on so we partook in some games from his time like stilt walking and hula hoop.  I was not getting my hula hoop skills on.  I blame it on the belly and everyone was too scared to put me on the stilts.  There were storytellers, puppet shows and scarecrow building.  After we had dinner, we headed to Blaze which is a jack-o-lantern feast to the eyes.  There are thousands that form animals and scenes and it was a stinker to take pictures of people and jack-o-lanterns so you just got the pumpkins, in a literal sense for those pictures.

At Grand Central Station

Riding the train...and a little tuckered out by now.

My guess is the reason he was so good at this is because he moonlights as a stilt-walking clown

I think he's showing off for the fairy in the picture

Aunt Rach trying her hand at the stilts

Not quite on her own.

Washington Irving's House

Scarecrow building

From the Legend of Sleepy Hollow

A sleepy Hayden from Rip Van Winkle

3 good listeners at the storytelling (mind you, no pictures or any visuals, so not bad for a 2 and 3 year old.)

Enthralled with the puppet show