Designing in New York

I'm back, and no we did not take a full month off for our little Spring Break, I just came back and didn't get into the swing of things. But here we are, and I'm ready to catch up (again) and share some more things about this amazing city we live in. 

I have met some really amazingly creative people while living here. One of which is a girl that goes to our church and we have become friends. She is beautiful, creative and just so kind (really, she has the kindest heart ever)! Her name is Taylor, and she will someday be making the clothes that you all will love to have. Taylor is a fashion/clothing designer!! She is SO talented in this area that I am baffled at all that she makes. She makes these amazing dresses that I drool over, and hope and wish that she will mass produce or at least sell so I can have them. I love black and white, and thankfully she does too, so her dresses are my favorite. Here is her latest design that she is modeling. 

Gorgeous? YES! 

New York is a city of many fashions. Some people don't quite get it and do their own unique thing (which sometimes it does work), but others are really into fashion and look like this daily. I am not a fashionista, but I love seeing the things Taylor comes up with. If you want to see all of her other creations and follow her life in NYC as well, here is her blog! Oh and she also has an Etsy shop that I love too, here is where you can go, which reminds me I need to get one of the Eternity Bracelets before we leave. 

...and now behind.

I was totally caught up and ready to do my blog posts about this great city of New York, BUT then time just slipped away from me. And now it's Spring Break for Spencer and we are getting out of the city!!! Why exclamation points?? Because I really am ready to just get out of the busy city and enjoy some time with family in a suburban area. Ahhh....nice and relaxing. So I'll be back after our little vacation and spread my knowledge of NYC to all, and grant it the knowledge is limited, but there is still some. Have a great Winter Spring Break!

So ready to leave this traffic and noise. 

Caught up!

Now that I'm finally caught up on what has been going on in our lives, I wanted to share with you about how my goals are going and our family goals. So far, I've read two books every month, and have read the Ensign also. I have started getting pictures together for my photo books I want to make. Overall, doing good for my goals, which is great. I have also started exercising more. 

Our family goals are going well too. Sometimes we miss reading the Book of Mormon as a family at night, but we really hope to finish it before the year ends. For the other things we are doing good too. This year is suppose to be our family's year of fun, which hasn't gone as planned so far. We have been sick, busy, and Tyler just had knee surgery, so he was down and out for at least a week and a half, but is doing better now. He's back to work and trying to work his knee more and more each day so soon he can bend it all the way. He's doing great and is kinda ahead of where he should really be with bending his knee.

My next goal for this year since I've caught up on our family stuff is to do more posts about the city we live in...about time since we've been here for a year and a half already! yikes! Soon you'll have lots of new pictures of the city that I've taken over the year and a half to enjoy. This city is huge (even though it's only 13 miles long?!?!), and there are so many things to see. I know we haven't seen as much as we like, but hopefully this spring and summer we can see more! 

View from the Top of the Rock looking South.

View from Top of the Rock looking North at Central Park. 

Preston Faces

*WARNING* this post is full of cuteness that may be just too much.

Preston is growing fast and cuter every day, and also learning to try out different facial expressions. So here you go for your viewing pleasure. 

He's gotten so big that he has started reaching up onto the mobile on his swing and pulling on the toys. But look at that face, it's just too cute.

Fun one day at home with mom.

He loves putting his legs up in the air...

 ...and playing with his toys with his toes.

We love it when Preston has to be put into his snuggly before going outside, it's so soft and he's so cute that you can't help but snuggle.

Spencer does it every day Preston has his snuggly on.

Preston is such a happy boy too. We cannot complain about anything he does, because he just smiles, laughs, and rolls around. He's so content playing with his toys by himself. The only time he cries is when he is hungry or ready to go to sleep. We are too lucky!

 Preston now has also started eating baby food!!! This was his first time eating anything and it was carrots...not sure he liked the first experience.

He's done much better now and loves to eat everything! 

Lastly, Spencer had been learning about bridges for the first half of the year and so his class made this replica of the Brooklyn Bridge!! How cool! It was pretty impressive, and even more impressive of all he learned about how to make bridges. The class was able to go and walk over the Brooklyn Bridge and they loved it. Such cool field trips here.

Christmas and Family

While in Utah with Tyler's family, part of my family got together too! Our nephew was getting baptized in our church so we were thrilled to be able to be there with them. 

Spencer and his cousin A. They have too much fun together because they are 1-only 4 months apart, and 2- they both LOVE video games. It's always good to get them together. 

While there we decided to have another day of Christmas to give gifts to each other. YAY! We were very spoiled this year.

Grandma feeding Preston. She was excited to see him again, she hadn't seen him since he was one month old.

Grandpa and D cuddling. 

Happiest boy ever!

The craziness of the family. Grandpa wrestling with all the boys, Tyler sleeping with the baby and kids everywhere.

I think these little ones think they can take Grandpa. 

While at my brother's we were able to Skype with my sister and her family. It was great to have us all kinda together. D still loves talking to his Aunt Ya-ya. 

The kids got these cool gifts from Grandma and Grandpa....head lamps!!! I know Spencer has used his for some late night reading already. 

So I fret every year about if I get a good gift for our nieces and nephews. This year I was so excited because I really did think I got great gifts for each of them. Let's see how M reacts to her present. 

I'd say we did pretty well. It was a gift card to her favorite shopping place. 

A liked his gift too. Success!!!

The big gift for my brother's kids from Grandma and Grandpa was so big they couldn't wrap it, so the kids had to turn around. Spencer's reaction is awesome.

 They loved what they got! A foosball, ping pong, and something else table to play with. 

We also got to see lots of these two babies. SO CUTE! Baby O is adorable, I loved being able to hold and cuddle with her. Preston just laid around and smiled. 

We were about to leave for the night to fly home the next day and I turn around and see this:

These two cousins love each other, and it's awesome that we are able to see our family so much. I'm glad that Spencer still has a bond with his cousins when they live so far away from us. 

SNOW!

While in Utah it snowed!!! A big ol' storm came through, and since we didn't want to drive around in it, we stayed at home and played! Spencer and his cousins wanted to go and play in it outside, but we don't have any winter clothing. We lived in Africa, so we didn't need anything there, and NYC had a mild winter last year, and this year hasn't been too bad either. So no need for snow pants, boots or anything like that. We asked Grandma if there was anything she had that Spencer could borrow, these were the only snow pants close to his size....

I don't think they will do. 

We made do with layers of his own clothing. It worked, especially since he only was out there for 30-45 minutes. 

Preston slept during this time, but I wasn't about to let him go out in the freezing weather.

Spencer sliding down the stairs. He loved playing out in the snow.

Snow is so fun!

 I believe this is his first snow angel. 

Tyler went out with the new camera, which is a Rebel T3i, and had fun getting some shots of the kids throwing snow up in the air. 

Back inside, Preston woke up and was happy.

Still happy!

 And during those days we stayed inside...I started reading books I got for Christmas.