All dressed up for church, Charlotte took a walk in the hall.

Happy Birthday Charlotte!

Turning 1 is so fun!

Wow, that was delicious!

After finishing her first cupcake. We love you Char!

March 27, 2007

One Year Ago

One year ago today, I checked into the hospital with low fluids and a high aversion to getting on the subway to go to work. I can't believe how fast this year has gone!

We've been enjoying some nice weather at the local park. Charlotte practiced her cruising for a while but then reverted to crawling, to the dismay of her jeans.

100th Post!

100th Post!!

For this special occasion, I thought I'd stop my complaining about not having a dishwasher or any room whatsoever for anything in this tiny apartment and focus on the things I will miss when we leave New York City.

You become cool. When you tell out-of-towners that you live in Manhattan, they say, "Oh wow!" and you just know they think you live some sort of glamorous, G-rated Sex and the City life. I nod, smile and do not correct them.
Real diversity. You make friends with people of all cultures, and feel a little more unique yourself. I'll always remember going out west for the first time since moving here and being totally let down that everyone looked like me.

A Second Family. No one's real family lives out here, so you rely on your friends and generally get to know them better than you otherwise would through the car/subway/bus-pooling, close proximity, similar situations we are in and the holidays and special occasions spent together.

Sights. I never get tired of seeing the Empire State Building from my window, or the amazing skyline. Yes, the Statue of Liberty is smaller in real life than in the movies - but no less inspiring. The bridges surrounding the island are my favorite and I never got tired of seeing Poseidon at the skating rink, but I also appreciate the lesser known sights like the Monopoly-esque brass figures in the 14th St. subway station, Cleopatra's Needle in Central Park, the bull on Wall Street and St. Patrick's Cathedral.

Big City, Small World. In a city of 8 million people, you don't expect to run into people you know. But since we've lived here, I ran into an old roommate on 6th Avenue, a girl I went to high school with 13 years ago in Florida on the subway, a friend from college at Rockefeller Center and innumerable friends-of-friends and church connections. A lot of people come here for a short time for either school or to start careers and it's a lot of fun to be part of that environment.

Much is required, some is given back. Though you pay a ton in city taxes, a lot of it is for free stuff you can do. I like to avoid large crowds and bedlam/pandemonium whenever possible, so we didn't do a lot of it, but was able to see Conan O'Brien and John Stewart's shows live, have thoroughly enjoyed Central Park's immaculate lawns, and have taken advantage of the "donation only" admission rates to many museums.

Opportunities abound. I think a lot of people come to New York because you can be and do anything you want - and I believe that's true as long as you are willing to work hard for it and you see people doing just that every day all around you. I appreciate the education and opportunities Columbia has given Helaman, and am greatful I was able to have a rewarding job myself with amazingly kind and generous employers.

I'm not publishing the things I won't miss in an effort to maintain a positive and family friendly blog:)

all for clean knees

Charlotte's started doing this weird elephant crawl around the apartment. Her little knees might be getting tired of the hard floors...! In any event, it is hilarious.

She's also working hard on getting some teeth. We can see a tip of one and it is quite exciting, as all of her contemporaries have several teeth at this point.

Helaman is scrambling around now to finish everything he needs to do to graduate and get licensed. They don't give those licenses away for free. Every day brings more fun surprise fees.

I spend a chunk of each day lately online looking at places to live in Dallas and waiting for pre-approvals to arrive. I can't believe we're going to live in a regular city soon. We're flying out in April to search for homes, which will also be a fun vacation for us with my parents watching Charlotte in Houston and reliving her glory days of having only one child. Soo.... we are also working hard on weaning Charlotte from breastfeeding which is harder than I thought. I've introduced whole milk a couple times and she's not as crazy about it as I imagined. It's so delicious! Like drinking ice cream!

11 months

I always feel a little out of the loop when I haven't posted for a while! I really enjoyed everyone's opinions about cloth diapers though. If you haven't weighed in on the topic, please do! At last count, there were two people in favor of using cloth, 3 maybe's and 5 emphatic NO's.

WANTED for attention stealing and killing with cuteness

The last week we've been in Phoenix soaking up the beautiful sunshine. We loved it.

Meeting of the minds

Charlotte and Ellie enjoyed getting to know each other while having a little snack together when their moms were in line.