New York City! Tuesday- On our way!

Earlier this year Bruce called and said that he wanted to invite Lydia and a parent to fly out to New York to visit and see Frozen on broadway and wanted to know if we were interested. Of course we were so excited to go. We have wanted to visit Bruce for such a long time out in New York, but it is so expensive and hard to leave our kids for that long. Bruce also called Wendy and invited her and Aubrey to go visit. It worked perfectly that our kids were just the right ages. Lydia is old enough to be able to go, and Austin and Caleb were old enough to be left. We were trying to decide who should go, Shantel or I and of course we both really wanted to go and we decided we would both go with Lydia. We are so grateful to Bruce who said he would buy airplane and play tickets for Lydia and Shantel. He also paid for Lydia's activities and subway pass. We could never have made it work without that and are so grateful because it was such an incredible experience and so great to visit with Bruce.

We were able to leave Austin and Caleb with my parents for the first couple of nights and then they took them to Jenna's house for the next few days.

A general overview of everything:
Tuesday Morning: Fly out from SLC and land in New York
Wednesday-Friday: All day in New York
Saturday: Fly home really early.

We went to my parents on Monday night because we needed leave about 6 am to get to the airport.

Lydia was really excited about the trip and we were excited to see what she thought about everything (the airplane, NYC, and the play).

Here are Aubrey and Lydia just after getting through security.

It was fun for them to see the airplane beforehand.

Lydia got the window seat and then Aubrey was next to Shantel with Wendy and I behind them. It was fun to see Lydia experience flying for the first time. I think even more than being in the air, she just loved the experience of having someone bring a drink and a snack and having a movie to watch. 

It is hazy- but this is a great picture because you can see New York in the background.

We landed in New York around 2:30 and I figured we would not get to Bruce's apartment until around 5, by the time we figured out where to go and made the trip on the train. However, things took a little longer. We needed to take the air train and we were able to find that and get on. But after, you have to buy your ticket (super weird- when we found the train we were looking for where to buy the ticket, and it took a bit to figure it out). Buying tickets for all 5 of us turned out to be trickier than you would think. Then we also had to figure out how to buy the subway tickets and since we wanted to buy the weeklong pass, that was a little harder than we thought it should be as well. Needless to say, we were delayed and that meant we ended up riding the subway right at rush hour. It was crazy. Although, honestly, it made for kind of a fun experience. But we had so much luggage and then trying to get the girls where we needed made for an adventure.  

We ended up getting there around 6 pm and then went out to dinner. We went to Lombardi's which is known as "America's first pizza restaurant." 

On the way home after dinner we went to times Square and walked around for a minute and then headed back to Bruce's apartment. 

With how expensive things are in New York, Bruce has a 1 bedroom apartment, with a living room and kitchen, but it turned out to be plenty big to fit all the beds we needed. 

That night after we got the kids in bed we made a game plan for what we wanted to see the next day.

It would be impossible to capture everything that we did or how much fun we had, but here are the things I really loved the most from the whole trip.

1. Spending time with Bruce, Wendy (and Aubrey), Shantel and Lydia. It was such a unique experience to have that time with Bruce and Wendy. I enjoyed talking to them and seeing so many fun things with them. Then it was so special to have some time with Lydia and Shantel to just enjoy our time and have fun.
2. Just being in New York and walking around and riding the subway. It was not a specific thing that stood out, but just everything. I loved being in the City and experiencing the sights and sounds and smells. We were also super lucky to have Bruce as our tour guide because we did not have to spend forever figuring out which subway train to ride, Bruce just knew were to go.

On to Wednesday.

Caleb Samuel: 16-17 Months

17 months.  You're easily the favorite person in the household and everyone always wants to be with you. The first thing you want in the morning is to find Daddy or Lydia, and you smile SO big when we go to get you out of your bed. You wrestle with Austin, and you melt my heart every day. We are so lucky to have you with us. 

Stats: 18 months clothes. First haircut! Five, almost six, teeth. Super picky eater (He will basically only eat fruit... and.. I don't know. Cheerios? He's got to be eating something!) 

Things to remember: 

-We're almost to nursery. Which is good because he's starting to get hard to manage at church. Not misbehaving at all, he just likes walking all over the place. He's known to cruise all around the primary room, climbing on the podium, dumping out the popsicle sticks, wandering through rows of kids. I just like to think of him as the Primary Mascot. David takes him most of the time though, and although he does fine - it will be good to be in Nursery where he can play instead of being cooped up! 

-He loves to put shoes on his hands. Actually he just loves shoes, but you can most often find him walking around with someone's shoes on his hands. I'm not sure why. But he loves it.

A lot of firsts this month! 

First words - his vocabulary has skyrocketed. Officially I would say his first word was "nana" meaning banana. However, we went to a cabin with our friends, the Middletons, this month and I remember specifically telling them:

"He has two words - nana and mama. Mama means anything that he wants, preferably to hold, like his mom, a toy, his dad, his siblings, his shoes, etc... Nana means anything he wants to eat/put in his mouth, could be a banana, but also could be a sucker, his waterbottle, etc... "

By the end of the two night trip he was saying SO many more words. Shoes. Lydia. Daddy. a couple other that I can't remember. They weren't really clear - but it was very clear that they were words meaning those things and different from before! Now he's saying quite a few things and it's amazing how quickly it happened. 

First ice cream cone. We were at David's work Summer Party even though David was flying home on an airplane from a work training in Denver. The party was at the Gateway Children's Discover Museum in Salt Lake, so I had decided to go anyway - and we mostly had a great time and I managed all three kids without any problem. However, eating dinner was a bit of a challenge - trying to get all three kids plates and food, and making them eat it. Caleb saw the other kids with ice cream and I gave in without much fuss. He looooved it. One of the partners, Paul Skeen (who I think is wonderful), came up afterwards and said something about how watching him eat his ice cream cone was the highlight of his whole night. (He then picked up all of our garbage/plates and cleaned up for us because he's a good person and it made me so grateful to have David working with him.) 

First Haircut! Most of his hair was short - but he had these random really long pieces of hair scattered around - so I trimmed it all up. He did great, and I feel extra proud of myself for documenting my third child's first haircut (even though I may have started cutting on one side before I remembered to snap some pictures!) You're so handsome and did such a great job for your first haircut, Caleb. 

First movie-theater experience + carousel ride (actually, maybe not his first carousel ride, but still)

We went to "Pandas" in the iMax theater for our family vacation and he loved it! He sat just like this the whole time, bouncing his legs up and down (because he wasn't heavy enough to keep the seat all the way down). I just put a big pile of buttery popcorn in his lap and he loved the whole thing. 

First real camping trip. Maple Canyon for the win! 

First trip to the zoo!

We have a picture of Lydia at this age sitting in a lion water fountain at the Houston Zoo and I tried to recreate it with Caleb. Also, one of the pictures below is Caleb standing in front of some crackers that had been left behind by some other zoo guest. Caleb kept finding things on the ground and eating them and it was awful! In this picture I saw him see the crackers and I told him "Caleb, leave them alone - those aren't for eating." and he just kept looking back and forth between me and the crackers with a big smile on his face. Like, as soon as I turned my back, he was planning to eat them regardless of what I was saying. The zoo was a success and we all really enjoyed it! 

-He likes to help and do whatever we are doing. Sweeping the floor, playing on the computer, reading books. He's at the stage where he wants to mimic everything we are doing and I'm surprised at how well he does it. He can maneuver the broom around the kitchen, turn pages in books, and basically everything else he sets his mind to. 

-The kids do this really cute thing every morning where they tell David that they want to "wave" to him as he leaves for work. He goes out and gets in the car and they stand on the porch and wave to him as he drives away. They have even started specifying that they want him to wave out of the sun-roof. Caleb does not allow himself to be left out of this tradition. If he's sitting in his booster eating breakfast when David walks out the door, he frantically signs "all done" and vocally protests until I get him out so he can run to the front door with the kids to wave goodbye. 

He has started tantruming with the best of them. If he doesn't get his way, he lets you know how upset he is about it. It's the best when he's really upset because he'll flop down on the floor and cry, sometimes scooting himself all around. I know I shouldn't laugh, because he's got a lot of big feelings in that little body of his. But it's kind of adorable, and also they only last like 1 minute, then he's up and happy again. 

Other pictures: 

Caleb, we love you!

The Peaden Life: Volume IX -- Part II

Our Peaden Family adventures continue...

Be excited for our trip to New York, the start of our homeschooling journey, and our first Thanksgiving at home. Plus, a special announcement on December 1, 2018.