3rd Annual Christmas in NYC Tour

This weekend marked the third annual trip to NYC to see the Christmas decorations.  After rain postponed our plans for Saturday, we were up and out very early on Sunday to head into the city and see the sights.  Nana, Deedee and Morgan joined us.  Morgan and Eric had never been to New York City before and everyone was so excited to go.  We got into NY by 8:15 AM so that we pretty much had the place to ourselves for the first hour or two.  Here we are at the Macy's:

Nana and Morgan at one of the windows:

Brian and Eric looking at the windows:

The crew:

Brian, Eric & I:

My mom and I:

Felt family at Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree:

Deedee and the family at the tree:

 Now Nana, Morgan and the Felt family at the tree:

After stops at American Girl Doll Store & FAO Schwartz, a Tony Bennett sighting and a pizza lunch, we headed over to Central Park to do some rock climbing.  The three kids had a blast:

Eric was loving it:

These two cousins are such good friends:

All three kids waving:

Too sunny for Eric's eyes to be open:

The walk back from Central Park brought us through Times Square so Morgan could see the sights there.  Everyone got to pick out a souvenir.  And by the time we got back to the car, we had one man down:

In total, we walked more than 4 miles!  The kids were very well behaved and we all had a good time  . . . and everyone will be in bed early tonight.  

It's Beginning To Look a Lot Like Christmas

We returned from Elmira on Saturday at 1:30 and by evening, our tree was being set up.  Evan was very into the decorating this year.  He loved helping out and especially loved climbing the ladder to help decorate:

Pictures in the reflection of the mirror: 

Now helping Brian:

And the next day, it was all done and time to snuggle with Lily in front of the tree:

Eric didn't really want to help decorate, but he was happy to have his picture taken by the tree:

Eric's absolute favorite ornament is this Lightening McQueen that he's pointing to.  He looks at it whenever he can:

And on Sunday evening, we headed to Longwood Gardens to check out their holiday display:

I'm beginning to think we may never get a perfect family photo . . . but we'll keep on trying!

What was even cuter was Evan asking if Santa was going to come on the day we set up the tree.  He is so excited for Christmas this year, which means I am even more excited for Christmas this year.  25 days and counting!

White Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving brought an unusually early snow storm.  Our plans to leave on Wednesday were moved up to Tuesday so that we could travel safely before the storm started.  So on Wednesday when the snow started falling, we were all excited to go play in the snow:

Evan being a big helper and shoveling Nana's sidewalk:

Caylee had fun making snowballs:

And a rare photo of Nana & Papa with 4 of their 6 grandchildren:

The four grandchildren together:

Morgan laughing after throwing a snowball at her Nana:

And Caylee with an extra large snowball:

Later on at night, Nana and the kids snuggled in on the couch to watch a movie:

On Thanksgiving Day, Aunt Shelley was happy to take a family photo of us.  Unfortunately, Evan was watching football while we took this one:

And on Thanskgiving day, Evan got some snuggle time in with Lily:

We also got to visit the lake for a day (too cold to pull the camera out).  And got to go see a Christmas parade in Sayre.  It was a fun few days and the perfect way to kick off the holiday season!!

Halloween

Halloween day was a lot of fun.  We sent Eric to school with his lion costume and we had our fingers crossed that he would actually wear it.  It wasn't quite a surprise when his class walked out and he was the ONLY kid in the whole school who refused to put on his costume.  But the smile when he saw us at the parade was priceless - he took off in a full sprint.

And this was his face when he realized he had to continue on in the parade and couldn't stay with us it was all over:

Along came Evan, holding his teacher's hand and looking so proud to be dressed as a baseball player:

Swinging for the fences:

The boys together:

And a family shot:

Deedee and Pops came down to see the boys in the parade.  Unfortunately, Eric was being camera shy at this time:

So when it came time for trick-or-treating, we were worried Eric would not be in costume.  We told him he couldn't go trick-or-treating unless he was dressed up.  He was not into the lion costume, so we pulled out Evan's 2-year-old cow costume and he was much more excited for it.  He did not want to wear the headpiece, so we only were able to have it on for the picture, but this was better than no costume:

A comparison to Evan as the same cow:

We started out trick-or-treating with a group of neighbors and friends.  Of course, my camera-shy boys wouldn't take a picture with the whole crew.  But about halfway through, we split up and had our neighbor's cousin (also Eric's BFF at school), Brennan, with us.  They finally agreed to a photo.  Eric and Brennan loved trick-or-treating together.  Notice Brennan's lion costume - this is what Eric was supposed to be.  We had high hopes he'd want to wear his lion costume at school to match his friend, but that didn't work.  

And now onto the candy, which will probably take about 3 months to finish eating.