jamie's birthday!

this past thursday was jamie's 33rd birthday! i had been asking him for months what he wanted to do for it and he never had an answer for me. finally he said "just go out to eat i guess". i asked if he wanted to invite friends, he said sure. i asked where he wanted to eat, he didn't know. this went on and on until the weekend before his birthday when he finally decided on bark, a hot dog place he loves. he still wouldn't give me any definitive answers though. he hadn't asked anyone yet, etc. finally the day before his birthday he decided he wanted to go with some friends to eat at this food truck on the lower east side. (i know that doesn't sound exciting but apparently the guys that own this food truck won some contest on the food network and now they travel around.) so we decided to go to bark on sunday. he was still going to be coming home between work and dinner though, so we could have a mini celebration then, which is a good thing since i had already ordered the cookie cake!
anyway, it was a pretty low-key birthday and i decided to get him a bike lock (my mom got him lights for his bike), but i wanted to do something to make it special. i decided to write up 33 reasons why i love him. i made them on little note cards and i had planned to hang them around the house for him to see when he got up the morning of his birthday, but i ended up just setting them up on the table. please don't judge me, they are not cute or perfect by ANY means, i had only 1 nap to make them in, but they got the job done and jamie was really surprised.








i got oliver a special shirt for daddy's birthday. i don't know if you can read it, but it says "my dad is outta this world".


jamie's first card from oliver






the delicious cookie cake. i wish this was a scratch a sniff picture because it smelled soooo good! something made me think of cookie cakes a few weeks ago, i was thinking how they were all the rage for a while and now you never hear about them. i asked jamie if he liked them and he said yes. i decided to try to get one for his birthday. it just so happens there is a TCBY/mrs. field's in the target shopping center near our house. however, that does not make this an easy process! let's not forget this is new york! i had to walk there (it's a mile away) with a baby, and then carry said baby AND this 16inch heavy cake home! it was quite a feat and i was very proud of myself to get it home without smudging the icing, or dropping the baby or the cake!


i had been telling oliver how delicious cookie cakes are, and letting him smell it so he was excited!

happy birthday jamie! hope you had a good one. xoxo

apple picking

for the past 3 years we've gone apple picking each fall. i love it. i love fall and i love fallish food and the colors and everything. so this year, i was determined to take oliver apple picking. it turns out there are several places to go around here (and when i say around i mean an hour or so drive). we decided on a place called sun high orchards. i read about it online and saw that in addition to apples and pumpkins they have a market and a petting zoo! it's in new jersey and it's supposed to only be about 40 minutes away. we got there in pretty good time and really enjoyed ourselves, however, the trip home basically canceled out the joy. it took us over 4 hours to get back into the city! this was the second time we've gone to jersey and both times it has taken this long to get back. so we've decided we are not going to new jersey ever again. sorry jersey.

here are some photos of the good times:















notice the pig's name is oliver!






oliver meet oliver














i know this isn't a very good picture, but it's the only one we have of all of us




oliver was not amused!






i was really wanting a picture of him in the pumpkin patch, he hated every minute!

2 months!!!

today baby O is 2 months old! i can't believe it. he is so big and has changed so much this month. he smiles and kicks, and loves to be talked and sung to, and look at his toys.
it's been raining most of the week and today we had to run some errands (including going to his doctor's appointment). so i felt like a real new yorker having oliver in the carrier and walking around in the rain. thankfully it wasn't raining too hard and i have some new rain boots!
the doctor said he is the best looking, smartest baby she's ever seen (i know she says that to all her patients, but this time she was telling the truth, right?) he is now 13.3lbs and 24.5 inches long, in the 90th percentile. he was all smiles for her, and then came the shots. poor ollie-bear. he did not like them, but he quieted down quickly and has been sleeping ever since (which is why i'm able to post this!) hopefully he won't have any side effects and will be a happy guy tomorrow.




as you can tell, i had a harder time with the sign this time because he loves to kick, kick, kick those legs!






look how much he's changed since last month!