Spring, Playground, and hanging out with Nick & Lauren

Central park and the city in general have been looking really pretty lately! Lots of blossoming trees and tulips and daffodils everywhere. We've been trying to absorb as much of it as possible since it doesn't last long. 5 more weeks in New York and then we move back to California. I can't believe our time here is almost over. I'm so excited to get back to family and friends we left behind on the west coast, and to have a house (with three bedrooms instead of one!!!!) and a backyard for M to play in, and to bbq, and have a vegetable garden. But leaving NY is going to be so tough. What a wonderful 3 years its been here - so much to see and do, and we've met so many friends, and this is where we had our baby girl. I feel like I'm part of a community here now. It's going to be hard to say goodbye.

Pink and blue look so pretty together

Tulips are almost fully opened in the conservatory gardens

Jeremy had a great idea to take advantage of the beautiful scenery and do a photo session with Mackenzie. Unfortunately this was one of the times where baby decided she didn't like our plan. We got a couple decent pictures, but there was no sitting still for this little one, and the photo session was short lived.

M loves practicing her walking skills. She still prefers to do it with a hand or two for help, but around our apartment she'll cruise on her own occasionally. Most of the time though she says "up!" which means, "Gimme your hand now and let's walk, or I'm gonna cry" So we do a lot of laps around our apartment, with baby holding on and mommy hunched over.  Toddlerhood has been a bit of a rough transition for me. Not that things have been that hard, but I feel like I'm getting a preview of how stubborn she can be sometimes, and what's to come. She wants to be her own person, and do things herself, and no mom, I don't want your help!! I'm pretty sure I shouldn't even be calling her a baby anymore. But I'm having a hard time letting that word go, so even though she's more like a toddler, she's still always my baby to me. 

Walking!!! I want to walk ALL THE TIME!!

Touching the flowers

How the photo shoot really was - no mommy no!

Me rolling my eyes at this little girl. 

Jeremy has been in California for a few days on a golf retreat followed by work stuff. So us girls have been trying to keep ourselves entertained while Daddy is away. We both miss him so much! Weekends are the hardest since I am envious of all the families I see out doing stuff together. At least the weather was nice and gave us a chance to get outdoors. I went for a jog with the stroller on Saturday morning, and M napped, and we finished up at the park where we met up with Nancy, Greg and of course Teddy! M has been saying "ted" lately. We're working up to the full "teddy" soon. Greg took a bunch of pictures while we were out and captured some good moments.

Passed out in the Bob on my run

I love the slide!

Sliding together

Hi Five!!

First time in the sandbox

Nancy, T, me and M. What kind of germs were on this shovel?

A few other misc pictures from the week:

Static fluff top on the slide earlier this week

Nothing cuter than a naked baby in a diaper.

Saturday we also hung out at Central Park's East meadow lawn. There were lots of families out playing. We even met a cute redheaded twin boy who was 19 months old, and sat on our quilt with us and played while I chatted with his Mom. There are so many families in the UES and people to meet with kids the same age. M still won't wander off the quilt for fear of the grass. But she was content to play with her toys and crawl all over her mommy, trying to rip the pages of mom's book and stealing her sunglasses. It was super relaxing :)

When I do this it means I'm tired.

Holding her bottle with her feet

 On Sunday M and I had a visit from Jeremy's cousins Nick and Lauren! M showed off her walking skills, and then we went to the park to see the flowers. Thanks N&L for coming to visit - it was great to see you two, and so wonderful to have adults to talk to with Jer gone!

This morning M had a ball bumping our stroller against the wall with her little butt:

There's a good chance I have a future shoe-lover on my hands. Lately M can't get enough of shoes. She loves when I put them on, and then she likes to take them off and try to put them on again. Unfortunately putting them on is too hard for her so that game often ends in tears of frustration. But we're working on it! She also likes to play with my shoes and tries to put them on. The other day she wanted to practice walking in them and got mad when they wouldn't stay on her feet. 

And another swing video: