Happy Birthday Mia!

Mia turned two on Thursday, August 28. We had a really good time.

Our first stop of the day was Mia's wellness checkup with our new pediatrician. It was awesome! The doctor spent a full HOUR with us! Mia is still only 22 pounds, but he said it looks like it's just genetics and he wasn't concerned. :)

Our second exciting birthday activity was to play at the park and frost cupcakes with friends. We've already made some great friends in our ward's play group and they were so nice to come celebrate Mia's birthday!







Later in the day we made Mia's birthday cake. She enjoyed the batter:





This year she was definitely more interested in attacking the wrapping paper because she understood that there were presents inside.






We sure love our Mia!

New York Pictures

I better post some of our NYC pictures before I forget! Last weekend we drove up to Justin and Tina's place in Stamford, CT. It's only about 150 miles from our place, but with traffic on Friday night it took us SIX HOURS to get there!!! But it was well worth it :)

I really didn't take very many good pictures - I was too busy keeping track of Mia but here are a few.

We took the train from Stamford to Grand Central Station. That place was awesome. The architecture and style of the building were impressive. It would have been neat to take a tour and hear about the history of the place.



So, even though we definitely looked like tourists....I didn't feel so bad because SO DID EVERY ONE ELSE!



Mia and Jack really enjoyed all of the fountains throughout the city. Tina and I had to keep our eyes on those two!



We were able to walk by the Manhattan Temple - to me it seemed out of place since it wasn't up on a hill, surrounded by beautiful grounds, with a quiet peaceful atmosphere, etc. etc. But, that gleaming statue on top was very reassuring!



Central Park is actually right on the other side of the temple - very convenient. What a park! That place was hopping with walkers, joggers, play grounds, baseball parks, and on and on. I was impressed! Mia especially liked the horse-drawn carriages and the bikes pulling trailers. She kept calling them her horses and her bikes.



Mia & Jack decided to take their own little stroll....



We also saw Rockefeller Center - Justin took a nice family photo for us! Thanks!





Here's a great picture that seems to sum up what the city is like:



It was a pretty cool experience for my first time in New York. It was awesome to go see it with the Berretts too :) Here are two funny stories from the day:

At one point I was struggling with Mia a little bit as we walked across an intersection. When we got to the other side she urgently started saying, "Mommy, Mommy my shoe! my shoe!" I looked down and sure enough, she had lost a shoe! I quickly told Ryan and he ran back across the street to track it down. Luckily he was able to find it right before a lady kicked it out of the way into the gutter. Whew! What a close call. I was just impressed that Mia was able to avert the disaster of being shoe-less in New York! :)

And finally, at the end of the day Tina and I gave Jack and Mia a bath. You should have seen that water after we had scoured the kiddos! It was an impressive shade of dark gray. Mmmmm Mmmm I love big dirty cities.

East Coast Living

Any Food Network fans out there? Have you ever watched a show like the Barefoot Contessa and just laughed at her grocery shopping stores? I didn't think those kinds of places really existed....until we moved out here.

I love grocery shopping in Philadelphia! I think the higher population and cultural diversity allow the grocery stores to stock more interesting food. My favorite grocery store out here is Wegmans.



This is really the most amazing grocery store I've ever seen. It has a cheese shop, a fish mart, a deli, a gelatto ice cream counter, a whole area of take out food, an olive bar etc. etc. It is really something to see. It even has this huge electric train that runs along the ceiling - Mia LOVES it. And, if you can believe it, they are pretty reasonable with their prices.I don't actually buy any of the fancy stuff regularly, but all that good food sure puts me in the mood for grocery shopping!

My other tribute to fine grocers out here is the Produce Junction. Our family is obsessed with fruit and this place is our heaven. The first time we walked in, Ryan saw the look in my eye and instinctively reached to protect his wallet.

I just went today and here's a look at what I bought:



The bunch of spinach was $1 as was the bunch of basil and the bag of carrots. And let me tell you - that basil smells so darn good!!!! The grapes were 2lbs for $2 and the pint of blueberries was $1.50. The prices are pretty fabulous, but the products themselves are even better!

New York Traffic

This weekend we decided to drive up to Stamford, Connecticut to see our friends the Barretts. We left around 4pm on Friday expecting to hit some SERIOUS traffic. We actually got to within 20 minutes of their place without any significant slow ups, and *THEN* we tried to cross the George Washington Bridge. We went 7 miles in three hours. How's that for traffic!? But, we kept our spirits up as well as we could:



It was a pretty fun party; I'll be posting more pictures later this week. (On a crazy totally unrelated tangent, Mia had swiss cheese and a dill pickle for dinner tonight...)