Macy's Day Parade!!

 Our trip to the Macy's Day Parade started at midnight on Wednesday. I had tried to go to bed around 8pm, but didn't fall asleep until sometime after 9:30. My friend's daughter suddenly became ill and they couldn't come, so I was going to make the trip alone with my kiddos.

I rolled out of bed at midnight, packed the kids up and we were on the road by 12:45am. Luke and Devin were super excited to be awake, though both very tired. Devin started saying weird, random stuff like "I like Nana!" out of the middle of nowhere.

Anyway, about 4:45 we arrived at the train station in NJ and encountered no traffic on the way. There was no attendant scheduled until 5:30 and the train was at 5:42. I was hoping to flash my i.d. and get a military discount, but the attendant never showed and I had to rush to get tickets from the automatic machine. We were the first people to arrive at the station, but by the time the train showed there must've been a 60 people on the platform. However, it was not crowded at all the entire way to the parade. At Penn station we transferred to a NY metro train and made it to our stop. After walking a few blocks we got in line for our "grandstand" seats. There were no strollers or backpacks allowed, so Luke walked while Devin rode in a sling meant for babies.. which he wasn't happy about. Lukas broke through the little metal barriers to play on the stands since he was tired of waiting in line - which wasn't allowed. I tried to coax him out, but no luck. An attendant finally showed and Luke glared, hissed at her and ran away while everyone laughed. The people behind me promise to hold our spot in line, so I very gently grabbed Lukas and marched him back to our spot.

 By the time we sat it was around 7:30. The parade didn't start until 9, so I let the kids watch the four shows they had picked out the night before in anticipation of our long wait. I was a little concerned about the amount of sitting in one spot the kids would have to do, but they did great other than a little kicking of the people in front of us and Lukas yelling every five minutes during the last half of the parade that he WANTED TO GO HOME!! That was all great and stuff, but there was literally no way to get out. I felt bad for the guy sitting right in front of Luke, but everyone seemed to be great sports.

We also lucked out in that our section was super cheery! Everyone was happy to be there, cheered and whistled a lot, and were happy to chat. The couple behind me was retired Army from Florida and the couple next to them had driven up from Georgia picking up their adult children along the way to attend the parade. One of the kids lived in Washington, D.C. and I felt their pain as they described traffic driving up to NY the night before Thanksgiving. I was so happy to be around people that were excited to be where we were. It made the experience that much more pleasant and I didn't really feel alone there.

The kids both enjoyed the parade - Devin more than Luke. Devin loved the clowns and sat on my lap almost the entire time looking at everything passing by. He even told me as this float passed by that the person was "just a little tired." This float was a bit weird.. We saw a few famous people - some of which we didn't realize who they were until they passed. I watch almost no cable t.v., so I don't know what the artists look like. The most famous ones - that I did recognize - were Carly Rae Jaepson and the U.S. Olympic Gold Medal Gymnastics team! Oh, and Jimmy Fallon, but he never looked our way.

The sleepy float

I decided it would be best to record Justin, since it's more fun to watch videos than look at pictures in my opinion. I taped the Honor Guard passing, but they were going at a almost a sprint and we were on the complete wrong side of the street to see Justin. It was a little sad that I was only really able to catch a glimpse of him. Lukas ended up deleting the video from my iPod on accident, which made it even more sad.. I'm looking forward to the Macy's Video that we're going to order and hopefully there'll be some closeups of him from the military photographers that went.

In any case, Justin didn't get to see this super awesome float:

Justin was jealous

So after about an hour of Lukas telling me he wanted to go home, we finally were able to leave. Luke was really wanted a hotdog, so we stopped and the kids ate Thanksgiving Lunch on an NYC doorstep.  The promise of that hotdog was one of the few things that kept Luke seated and quiet during the parade, so I couldn't renege. I was surprised that Luke was the one giving me difficulty and Devin was perfectly pleasant. 

Anyway, the kids finished their hotdogs and Devin popped up to announce he had to pee!! He hadn't gone since before the very first train left at 5:40am. I rushed to get him to the metro stop, but there were no bathrooms and it was almost too packed to move. We had to wait for 2 or 3 trains before we made it to one that had enough room on it for us. People started packing in and yelling at each other, but we lucked out, got a seat and squeezed together.



We finally got to Penn Station and I definitely lost my cool. There were so many people it was hard to breathe. We finally found a bathroom for the kids, but Luke began to fall apart and I lost my patience with him. The signage was terrible and the line for tickets took me about twenty minutes to get through. There was no way to leave this line and keep my place if the kids decided they wanted to run around, so I was very short with them.. Also there were no marked maps of the routes and Lukas lost the one I had printed, so I started asking strangers. We found someone who knew where we were going and we realized a train going that way was leaving in 4 minutes. The next one wasn't for twenty minutes. I practically dragged both kids to the train 400 meters away and poor Devin started crying. Although it's hard to realize in the moment, both kids did so fantastically well it was hard to be angry they were dragging their feet.

People were packed tightly into this one and it was about 20 minutes before the crowd thinned out enough that I could get seats for us. I finally felt like I could breathe again and Devin fell asleep on my lap.. he didn't wake up again four about four hours.

Seats finally! On the last train home.

Unfortunately this greeted me when I left the train station:

I almost felt like crying when I saw this, but I turned up the music and used the time to think. The real challenge was staying alert on so little sleep. We made it home safely around 5:30pm, which was just after Justin got home. I was starving (I had literally had one lara bar and 2 pieces of sausage since midnight) and exhausted and there was no food.. so we hopped in the car, picked up some friends and drove around looking for somewhere that was open. The only place we found was Cici's pizza and it was terrible - but, we ate our fill, went home and slept like rocks.

The next morning we put up the Christmas decorations and went over to a friend's house for a homemade Thanksgiving dinner :)

I spent the weekend shopping for deals online, which is what I'm doing today - along with rendering some suet into tallow in the crockpot! Happy Thanksgiving and cyber Monday :)

A terrible movie and ice cream

 I really wanted this movie to be good. I thought it was going to be amazing, but I should have known better since nobody was really talking about it. The action sequences were ridiculous, the acting was ok except for the main character (who was really bad), and the plot was just weird. If you're looking for a popcorn movie that is a cheap red box rental, then go for it, but don't expect anything amazing.






However, if you're looking for something truly amazing.....

This stuff is the devil. It's the best ice cream I have ever eaten, by far and it lives in the Safeway freezer. Justin has been late home many a time to surprise me at home with some of this amazing amazing stuff. I guess I wrote that like he does it solely because I love this ice cream, but really he is addicted too. Seriously, though, once you've eaten this ice cream everything other desert will taste inferior. I warned you.....

A new Prez + Another week

Carefully chopping veggies

 Tuesday saw the announcement of the reelection of Obama, which was a bit disappointing for me. But, he's our leader and won a clear victory both by popular vote and electoral college.

We had PT again for Devin this last week and I forgot to bring his day brace, which the therapist wasn't happy about. I have no more appointments for November since she books up so quickly, so I guess she'll have to wait until December to see it. I'm hoping she'll tell us no more day brace for Devin.

Luke has lately been a great help and now makes us a salad almost nightly. He's very proud of his creations and both boys are now eating salad with gusto even with the oil and balsamic vinegar dressing.

Justin left for the weekend to go to a CrossFit Olympic Lifting seminar. He came home super excited about increasing the amount of weight he is able lift in different ways.. I was just happy that he managed to miss out on an almost week-long trip to Miama, Florida with the drill team because of the seminar. He is currently trying to get the boys and I grandstand seats for the Macy's Day Parade.. more news on that as it gets closer :)

Anywho, no exciting news. We went to the library today for story time and the boys each made little Indian pouches. Luke told me that his pouch "really came together" and then spent some time outside of the library collecting small things to put inside of it.

Looking forward to a nice relaxing week ahead with NO TDY'S and no plans.

A Fierce Bad Rabbit

 About two months ago during a trip to NY, Luke received his birthday present from his Aunt & Uncle. It was a beautiful gold collection of Beatrix Potter stories. When I cracked it open, I wasn't sure that Luke would like it because of the old language and lengthy stories. HE LOVES IT. He has made me read it probably seven times over now and it is thick. My favorite story is the very last title "A Fierce Bad Rabbit." Basically a super mean bunny comes and steals a carrot from a gentle bunny and scratches it meanly in the process. While hiding, the gentle bunny gets to see the fierce bad rabbit running by after a hunter shoots off the its tail and whiskers.

Saturday morning was Devin's first dental appointment. I asked if he would cheese for me. At first he said no, but then he shot me this look:

He did GREAT! Not only did he let the dentist scrape all of his teeth, he sat through having all of his teeth polished. The dentist was really shocked and so was I. Maybe my wiggle worm is settling down :)
He lately has been taking joy in helping me do things like cook or clean the toy room and then proudly announcing that he helped. He's giving kisses freely and often pretends to be a kitten.

I took this picture for proof!!

Saturday I made two new good recipes. One from my brain that I created and call Bacon Chowder and the other from Primal Palate called Infamous Bacon Cookies. The bacon cookies were pretty good. Not mind-blowing and I think the batter was better than the actual cookies. I also think that candying the bacon with maple syrup was a bit too sweet. 

Bacon Chowder

1 head cauliflower

Half stick of butter

Tsp or so of salt to taste

Tsp or so of garlic powder

3 green onions chopped

3 or so pieces of bacon cooked and chopped

Put everything in a pot and cook until the cauliflower is mushy. You can either mush it with a fork or do what I did and use an immersion blender at the end.

Add one can of coconut milk. Taste and see if it needs more butter/salt. Do not cook down the liquid or it'll be more of a puree. For one batch I had to add another can of coconut milk, because I did that. Anyway, I think it's super good and I've made it twice now. I will probably double the recipe later because it only goes for one meal with two small kids and two big people.

Halloween & Welcome Home Justin

Lukas making cards.

 Tuesday evening Justin was slated to come home, but he called around 6pm to tell us that his flight had been cancelled. It was too bad because the call came right in the middle of the kids making welcome home cards for him. I expected a lot more crying when I informed them that dad wouldn't be home in the morning, but Lukas just shrugged it off and Devin didn't flinch. We were fortunate to survive the storm without any power outages and after I put the kids to bed, I was planning on spending a relaxing evening watching Revenge on Netflix, but the internet was sadly out :*(


The next day was Halloween and I honestly wasn't planning on doing anything. We went to Whole Foods to grab some sauerkraut - which Luke has been eating up. I explained to him that fermented foods like sauerkraut have good bugs in them that fight off bad bugs in our tummies that make us sick. Since I said that he's been scarfing the stuff. I plan on trying my own fermented carrots and maybe beets soon.

Anyway, I decided that just because Justin wasn't home for Halloween, we weren't going to skip it again this year (he was in drill team training last year and at work). The kids put on their firemen costumes and we ran to march in the parade that evening. We went to the youth center's Halloween immediately following the parade and that was P-A-C-K-E-D with children.

We came home to eat dinner (grab a glass of wine) and then ran out to trick-or-treat. The second house over from ours had this terrifying setup:

Not pictured was a terrifying nurse. The oldest son of the family was dressed up as a creepy nurse with messed up bloody makeup. He didn't say anything, just smiled creepily and waved the children into the tent for candy!! Devin wouldn't go in, telling me that I needed to get the nurse out first. Luke went in like a champ and grabbed that candy! We spent the rest of the night running from house to house with our friend Carrie and her daughter Kk. 

My fire-fighters.

It was so much fun watching the kids have fun :) They actually knew what to do this year and didn't need to be pushed or carried. Plus, I had some great company. The neighborhood was really well done up this year and it's one of the great things about living on base. Tons of people get into the spirit of the holidays and you feel like part of a big community.

There was one other house that Devin was terrified of and that was what he called "The Growling House." He walked almost up to the candy, but stood staring at this with his lip poked out and shook his head. Devin told me that this thing was going to swoop down and growl at him.

We got home and watched a Halloween video while I picked up, then had some surprise visitors. After a long night I finally put the kids to bed, but was a bit too tired to watch a scary movie like I'd planned. I'll have to have my Halloween celebration a little later :)

Best Halloween in a long time and the kids were totally great about setting the candy aside to eat in moderation. I managed to stay out of it until tonight! Justin arrived while we were sleeping and we spent today getting back into our routine.