What a weekend! We took off to the city for the weekend, crossing another thing off our Holiday Fun list. Now we only have a few things left:
FRUCCE FAMILY HOLIDAY FUN LIST
Visit Santa
Advent Treasure Hunt
Go to NYC to see the Big Tree
Bring Peyton to See the Rockettes
Bake Cookies
Pick Out the Perfect Christmas Tree
Go on the Polar Express
Movie Night by the Fire
Christmas Photos at the Beach
Make Gingerbread Houses
Bring Gifts to Toys For Tots
Drop Money in the Salvation Army Bucket
Read Christmas Books in Bed
Make Paper Snowflakes
Drive to Forest Park to See the Lights
Sleep Under the Christmas Tree
The weekend didn't exactly go as planned, but we still managed to have lots of fun. We wanted to take the kids to see Santa at the 34th Street Macy's. I had this naive thought that Maybe people will be so preoccupied with last-minute shopping that the wait won't be so long? But when we got there, the wait to see Santa was three hours. Sooooo, we scrapped it. Walking through the downstairs of a decked-out-for-the-holidays Macy's (and by the same perfume counters that Elf walks by when he first gets to New York!) was pretty exciting, though, and the kids thankfully weren't too upset about not getting to see Santa. We went to see the tree in Rockefeller Center and to the Lego Store instead, and that was totally cool by them.
We had lunch at the
Pershing Square cafe- it's a
great place for breakfast or brunch. We've been there a couple of times- they have always been able to seat us right away, the food comes out fast, it's really good, and it's across from Grand Central Station so you can see all the hustle and bustle of the travelers there. (I found out later on that night that there was a cool train exhibit at Grand Central that Ollie would have been all over. Fail #2.)
 |
| "I'll just have steak and eggs" says the little man. Oh, if that's all... He also told us he didn't want "sparkles" (salt) on his eggs. That kid cracks me up! |
 |
| Tired little munchkins after a full day. |
Our plan for Sunday was to go play in Central Park. It was supposed to be the warmer of the two days but it ended up being quite chilly- still, we braved the cold and walked to the park. There was a holiday puppet show at the Swedish Marionette Theater which I was hoping to get tickets to once we got there but it was unfortunately sold out. (Actually, very sold out, according to the guy working there. Whoops. Fail #3) The kids were more upset about missing out on this than missing Santa the day before, but we promised them we'd go to the playground and play soccer... Only, we could not get our bearings and it took us a really long time to find the playground! By the time we got there, Peyton was freezing and we were all pretty starving (& I was on my two-hundredth Braxton-Hicks of the day). But Ollie had so much fun playing soccer it was worth it! He's already making plans to go back to play soccer with new friends.
 |
| Cold little muffin :( |
After the park, we walked to
Cafe Fiorello for some pizza (and to warm up!), then back to the car to head home. Oh, and the drive home happened to be where we confirmed that Ollie does, in fact, get carsick if he plays with a phone/ipad- for the second time in two weeks, he projectile vomited after doing just that. The first time was last week when I was picking up a pizza (if I say it was
the most embarrassing moment of my life would you think me dramatic?) and yesterday, about 20 minutes outside the city. It was just such a mess that Jon and I had to laugh or we all would have cried. Picture us stripping the poor kid down on the side of the road in the freezing cold. Attempting to wipe down his seat enough so that we could make it home. Peyton crying that the smell was "too bad". I guess it's just one of those parenting moments that you look back on and laugh. Now that I finally got the seat clean (and believe me, I seriously considered tossing it due to the
volume) I'm already finding it kind of funny. Needless to say, Ollie will not be allowed to play any sort of electronic game in the car from now on!
Well, we're home now (and even though everything around us seems to smell vaguely of vomit...) we're getting excited for all the fun headed our way- Christmas is in three days! That means that Ollie is SIX in three days!
Hope you all are done with your shopping and ready to enjoy it all!
