Big Apple Livin': June 2013

Piper turned 8 months on May 7th. It is getting harder to keep her still for a picture!

-You are officially on the move! One night you saw a toy across the room and went after it.

-You are pulling up on anything you can find and cruising on the furniture. You prefer to be standing or cruising over crawling. Usually the crawling is used to get somewhere where you can pull up.

-Your favorite activity is to hold our hands and walk around the apartment. You prefer to do this with your Daddy.

-You are starting to babble more and your favorite word is Dada. Although, we are pretty sure you don't know what you are saying.

-Anytime I have my glasses on you think it's a fun game for you. You love to pull them off of my head and play with them.

-You love to play with my hair, especially when you are being held or rocked. I think this is so sweet.

-Speaking of playing with hair, you like to grab other people's hair as well. The other day on the bus you grabbed the hair of the lady in front of us! It was a little awkward!

-We started you in swimming lessons and you have done great! You love to splash and kick in the water and don't protest when we put you under.

-You are such a great eater! Anytime we have food of our own you want some of it. You have been eating more food off of our plates than anything else. You love to eat meat and you have not spit anything out up to this point.

We are loving every minute with our Piper Girl and it is such a joy to watch you discover new things!

9 Months

9 Month Stats

Weight: 19pounds 7 ounces (70th Percentile)

Length: 27 inches (50th Percentile)

Head: 18 inches (90th Percentile- Yikes!)

-You LOVE to give kisses. You give them to us, some people at church, your stuffed animals and to the characters in your books. It's so sweet!

-You are trying to learn how to give zerberts. Right now you just open your mouth and make a sound instead of blowing. You think this is really funny. We end up with a lot of wet faces/arms/legs around here!

-You went on your first family vacation this month to Chicago and Indiana and you did great!

-You are little miss social. You love to be out around people and especially other kids.

-You like to sit and entertain people- especially on the subway. The other day you had everyone (and I mean everyone) staring at you and trying to get you to smile or laugh. It cracks us up when the big tough guy sitting across from us starts playing peek-a-boo and making funny noises to get you to smile. Sometimes you will stare at people and smile until the look at you. This can be a little awkward.

-You love to crawl up the 2 steps in our living room and are perfecting this skill quite well.

-You are still a very good eater and you eat whatever we are eating. In fact, we can't eat in front of you without giving you a bite of what we are having.

-You were sick for the first time the last day of our Chicago trip. You either had a stomach bug or food poisoning.

-You are starting to clap, especially when you get excited.

-You will wave bye-bye sometimes. Still have not mastered this yet.

-You will sometimes say the "woof" sound when we ask you what a dog says or when you hear a dog bark. It comes out more like "uffff".

-Your absolute most favorite thing to do is read books. We could read to you for an hour straight I am certain and you would still want more. You sit in our lap and actually look at the book and pay attention. We are getting a little tired of the current books.......

I am not sure how you came to be 9 months already but this is such a fun age and we can't get enough of you Sweet P!

In April, some of my very best girlfriends from Texas came to visit! They found a work conference in NYC and used that as an excuse to come and see us. They were only here for 4 days (including travel and the conference), but we packed in tons of activities! Here is the play by play.

They arrived on Monday, April 15th in the afternoon and we took off almost as soon as they arrived. Sally really wanted to eat a hot dog off the street so we walked down one block and fulfilled her wish. Then we decided to go to Times Square but we hopped on the uptown subway instead of downtown, because we were talking, so we toured 72nd street instead. It was a good mistake because Sally and Laura got to try Waffles and Dinges as a great ending to their street vendor meal. We then got on the correct subway and made our way to Times Square. We walked around a little bit and decided we needed to make a gameplan for the rest of our time. Neither Sally or Laura had ever been to NYC before. We went back to the apartment and talked through the rest of their trip, and perhaps got side tracked by other conversations along the way. We ate dinner at home and then left Piper with Brett and went to Macy's to shop. We then went to Cafe Lalo (the restaurant in You've Got Mail) and had dessert and coffee. Our original plan was to get up early the next day and go to the Today Show. However, we stayed up way too late talking so an early morning outing was quickly marked off the list! It was a good thing we didn't make the trip out there because the normal set up was closed due to the Boston bombing coverage. We went down to the Broadway show area and purchased tickets to see the musical Once for that night. We were able to get tickets for around $47. After that, we walked from 45th street to Rockefeller Center, and spent some time looking around. We tried to get tickets to an NBC tour but Piper was not allowed. We then walked down Fifth Avenue and stopped to tour St. Patrick's Cathedral. It was under construction but was still beautiful! The pictures do not do it justice. Along Fifth Avenue we just had to go into Tiffany's! We confirmed with a sales associate that it was the same Tiffany's featured in the movie Sweet Home Alabama. We took pictures to send to our husbands of our favorite jewelry and decided most of it didn't quite fit our tastes. Ha! Yea right. Then we headed to FAO Schwartz where Sally bought a present for Preston. We of course played on the big piano. We had lunch at Ray's Pizza, which is supposed to be a famous and delicious chain. I didn't think it was that great, but maybe I ordered the wrong thing? Even though I ordered pizza! We walked back through Central Park and took a break to people watch. This is one of Sally and Piper's favorite pasttimes!! Then we went home, cleaned up, ate dinner and left to see Once. It was an interesting musical. All of the actors stay on stage the whole time and each one played at least one instrument. It won 8 Tony awards and the singing was great! The next day Sally and Laura got up early and went to their nursing conference. Brett, Piper and I met them for lunch in Times Square and then they were done about 3pm. So Piper and I met them again and we headed down to Chinatown to look for knock-off purses for Sally's sister. As soon as we arrived people were whispering name brands to us as we walked by. Don't worry, we didn't take Piper down any dark ally ways but we might have bought some better knock-offs if we had. We then made our way down to see The World Trade Center Memorial. This made Piper and I's third visit there. We were close to the water so we walked out to the shore and could see the Statue of Liberty. It was a beautiful day! We then made our way back home, picked up Brett and headed out to eat on the Upper West Side for dinner. We chose Harry's Burritos and ate outside. We had delicious burritos and enjoyed the fun atmosphere! After we ate, we passed by Magnolia Bakery and of course, had to stop in and bring home some dessert. By this time we were so worn out but that didn't stop us from staying up late and talking, again! Sally and Laura had to wake up the next morning bright and early to catch their flight. Come back anytime! Here are some pics of our adventures.

Eating Waffles and Dinges at 72nd Street