Our baby girl is ONE!

On Monday, Josephine celebrated her first birthday! And I took about 200 photos that day (no exaggeration). These are just a few of our favorites to share how we celebrated her big day. After a very crazy weekend in NYC, Monday was a bit hectic as well. Luckily Carissa was able to make it, although we won't have her for the next two weeks due to soccer training camps at Xavier. Josie's birthday excitement got started straight away, as she was opening gifts from Carissa by 9am. As expected, she had so much fun with the tissue paper that it was a lot of work to get her to the actual gifts, but that was part of the fun!

Here she is with her great new presents from Carissa - a very cool Melissa & Doug stacker and shape sorter and a new book called "Gossie" that is just too cute. THANKS CARISSA! (This picture also illustrates the teething crisis we are currently working through - note all of the drool on her clothes. She's also had a fever the past three days & has been generally quite miserable. Poor baby.)
And, here she is after Carissa put her in her pretty party dress, because life is too short to not hang out all day in your pretty party dress. And she absolutely loves her new book!So, after a fun day with Carissa that I spent getting everything unpacked and washed after the long weekend away, it was time to celebrate Josie's first birthday as a family.

At exactly 5:25 pm (the time she was born one year ago) - we lit her cupcake candle and sang "Happy Birthday" to our big baby girl. She was totally in awe of the candle!

After "blowing" out her first candle by going "Fuh, Fuh, Fuh" - we set her up with her very own cupcake. It took her awhile to dive in (we joked that she would've been happier with a huge pile of birthday peas) but once she did she was pretty happy -

Ahhh...refined sugar....
Now, this next one is an instant favorites. As many of you know, I'm big into routine/ritual/tradition/etc so this birthday has been SO stressful because we're trying to set some family traditions into motion that we want to continue over the years with all of our children. One of them is the Birthday Crown. I found one at Babies R Us (pictured next below) but that just didn't really do it for me, because I wanted something more special and unique that she could wear every birthday and have forever. Thank heavens for www.esty.com because they had several felt birthday crowns to choose from. When I found this one (complete with a big cupcake on front) I knew it was "the one." Well, lesson learned, Josie didn't like the crown nearly as much as I did but I think this photo is actually even better than one of her just smiling. Well, it really just speaks for itself -
On to presents from Mama & Daddy - no tissue paper in this one because we had other plans for the evening and knew it might be midnight before she got to the actual gift in this big bag if it was filled with paper -

And here she is with her first birthday present from us - her BlaBla monkey - Verdi.
It was love at first sight! (Here she is clapping YAY!)
And getting up close and personal with him - we've just learned "nose" so she was checking his out.
And now for her "perfect gift" that we got in NY - the one that we trekked all over the city to find - A music table! (And whew) - She loves it! Here are some scenes from her first concert & you can be assured that there will be a video coming soon!

After a wardrobe change into her "birthday girl" tshirt, it was time for her big birthday adventure...

We headed out to Fountain Square for a special surprise -

Little did we know that the Fountain would have a special surprise for us as well. Check out that awesome rainbow in the water!
After eating dinner on the Square, the plan was to take Josephine on her first horse-drawn carriage ride. She always points out the horses when we walk around the city and had the time of her life watching all of them in Central Park. So, we knew this would make for the perfect first birthday event. The only trouble was that there were no carriages in sight! We figured it was a bust since it was a Monday, but as we were walking home, I heard the telltale "clop clop" and there it was. YAY! Here we are waiting for the "Cloppy" -

And, try as we might to get a photo of Josie smiling at the camera in front of the horse, she was way more into Bob the Horse than she was posing.

Here we are passing the building where Louie works - And headed back down Fourth St in front of Lytle Park -
The perfect ride ended right in front of our condo where we asked the driver to drop us off (how's that for curbside service). We were actually pretty impressed with the ride. It really did offer a different perspective of the city, and Josie had a great time, too. Josephine's first birthday was an absolute success! We are really looking forward to Saturday's big party which I'm sure will yield a lot more pictures and a lot more memories!

Hello all - I promise to get the photos from Josephine's first birthday uploaded soon (so you all have time to enjoy them before the next round of photos that will inevitably arise from Saturday's party). In the meantime, all of the photos from our New York trip (lots more than we posted here) are available in her Shutterfly collection - www.josiemarie.shutterfly.com You'll notice that the collection has a new look courtesy of Shutterfly 2.0 - as always, enjoy! :)

Happy First Birthday Josephine!!!!

New York, New York

WHAT A WEEKEND! Let's just dive right in - because when it comes to NYC - that's the only way to do it. So, our hotel was 30+ stories, 3000+ rooms and right in the middle of Times Square. (This is where Lou's legal conference was held.) That's the hotel on the left (the entrance is under the Kodak sign). Yikes!We were definitely in the thick of it - here's the view out of our window. Wow!While Josie would've been perfectly content spending hours looking out the window (more on that later), we had to get out to see the city. After meeting up with Molly - one of our favorite people in the whole wide world (It was SO great to see you Mol & Josie loves her I love NYC tshirt) - we had a yummy lunch in Bryant Park & headed to the the NY public library. Here we are in front of the lions.
We tried to get some Juniors cheesecake, but after being ignored for 20 minutes, we decided to pose for a sleeping Josie photo then bail on the idea.Off through Times Square... Louie was in the conference all day, so Josie and I headed out to explore the city. I think this is my favorite photo from the whole weekend - I love how she's just looking up smiling at all the bright lights of the big city. I'm honestly surprised that she didn't have a big kink in her neck after spending so many hours looking up like this. Okay - the next several emails are going to start "Here we are at..."

Here we are at the M&M store (yes, that's a big red M&M elevator). Josie got a really cute onesie that will show up in a future post I am sure.
Here we are back in Times Square -

And here's Elmo in Times Square (although no photo with Josie because we weren't about to pay this guy) -
Another "Josie loves Times Square" photo - And in front of the half-price tix Broadway line- And in front of the pond at Central Park -
And in front of the carriages (which she LOVED) at Central Park -

More at Central Park (thank goodness for the self-timer) -

And Josie & Daddy at Central Park -
And this one cracks me up because it looks like one of those fake "Olan Mills" backdrops but it's the real thing - :)
And - in our quest for the perfect first birthday gift - we had to hit up FAO Schwartz and while Josie was too small (and we were too big) - it was really cool to see the giant piano from the movie "Big!" (Cue "Heart and Soul")

In FAO, they had this life-sized "ugly doll" & we chased it down to get a photo with Josie but she flipped out! Apparently giant monsters are scary to babies - Duh!
And, look what we found, a preview of later in the week -
So, as if a day of shopping & Central Park weren't enough, we thought we'd keep the ball rolling with an afternoon at the Museum of Modern Art. MoMA was awesome! Here we are at the beginning of our trip in front of a Picasso -

And being silly -
And here is Josie at the end of the MoMA trip which was actually less than an hour after that first photo. She had a complete and total meltdown in the middle of the Salvador Dali exhibit and we were "those people" with the screaming baby throwing cheerios all over the museum (no food allowed btw). The only thing that would make her happy was the cellphone. Here she is making a call. (She said something about how she was going to call Grandma & Granddaddy with the hopes that they would come pick her up so her mom & dad could see the rest of the museum.) By the way, we asked them if we could get back in on Sunday since we were there for so little time on Saturday, but they didn't oblige. Maybe next time... And - here we are in the back of at cab - where I'm holding on to her for dear life.
Oh - and I took Josie to her first protest - "Free Tibet" at Bryant Park. This is just before the rain & the cops shut it down.
And here we all are at Rockefeller Center where we ate breakfast Sunday morning (while Josie slept)-

And Josie with Altas -
And in front of Trump Tower -
Okay, enough of the touristy sites... (Although I'll be honest and say we didn't necessarily seek these out. We were just kind of walking around the city and going "oh look, there's...")

One of the best things about NYC is the food & one of the best things about having a one-year old is that you eat at 5pm so there is never a wait for a table and you don't need reservations. We realized just how uncool we are when we actually had to wait for this restaurant to open because they didn't start serving dinner until 5:30 and we tried to get in at 5. But, once we were there (Topaz - this tiny, adorable little Thai place), they were very good to us & very accommodating to Josie. Here she is looking a bit skeptical about her sticky rice "volcano" that they brought her.

Delis by day and restaurants by night - we took a cab down to the West Village to meet Molly on Friday night and found the perfect open-air Italian spot.
Josie enjoyed her brick-oven pizza and pumpkin ravioli and we all enjoyed hanging out with Molly (did I mention how much we adore her?) Then, as an added bonus, they unrolled this big movie screen to watch the Olympic Opening Ceremony. Very cool indeed!
On Saturday night, we escaped Midtown again in order to continue our quest for the perfect first birthday present & found "Kidding Around" in Chelsea/Greenwich Village which was voted NYC's best toy store. I saw it in a magazine & we headed there as soon as we could. We landed the perfect gift (which Josie will open tonight) and then headed off on foot for dinner. Then, there it was, like a tiny oasis in the bustling city - Gustorganics - a 100% Organic restaurant, complete with outdoor seating. PERFECTO!
After a weekend of eating "questionably" we were thrilled that at least one meal would be safe. It was delicious and Josephine ate a big girl meal of mushroom risotto & baked chicken. YUM!

And, to top it off, the restaurant was right next to Pinkberry - which made for the perfect dessert. And, as if the evening couldn't get any better, we got to meet "Sha Sha" the iguana who hangs out around NYC in her sweet pink buggy. (Only in NY right?) And, I'm not gonna lie, a couple of great meals aside, this photo typifies most of Josie's meals - anything that would fit in the "snack trap" - she definitely had about all the cheerios, goldfish, raisins, and peas she could handle.
And while I'll say that Josephine enjoyed the sight-seeing and fine-dining, her absolute favorite activity was staring out our window down to Times Square below. She literally spent hours looking out at all the lights, cars, and people and saying "Na, Na, Na" (and we have no idea what that means). I'll admit; this totally made me nervous. But, it made her SO happy.

She is a total daredevil. We couldn't believe how she was hanging out here 21 stories above the city street like it was nothin'.
She's totally fearless.

Here's a video of her "living on the edge" -

I'm hoping that she got her fix of Times Square and that it didn't captivate her so much that she'll want to move to NY when she's 18. :)

After what was a pretty hectic weekend in the city, we were actually ready to end our weekend "vacation" and head home. We called the same car service that brought us in (because only car services have car seats) and much to our surprise, they showed up to get us in a big black limo! It was hilarious. People were posing with it to get their photos taken & probably thought someone important was going to get into it, and then here we come with our baby and stroller and all our luggage. Too funny! So, I'm of course thinking - this is hysterical. Josie had a limo for her first birthday. I couldn't wait to snap photos & take some video, but she totally freaked out. I'm not sure if it was the fact that it was so dark in there (very tinted windows) or that it was just so different than anything else she's seen, or because she was totally beat and wanted to get home too, but she freaked out! So, ironically, we had to get the car service in the first place so that she would have a carseat, but she was screaming at the top of her lungs, so I had to take her out to nurse her. So, here's Josie "enjoying" her first limo ride.

And here's Louie trying to do the same...
So, goodbye to NYC. It was about 2pm & were would be home by dinner time - or so we thought...
We got to the airport with plenty of time to spare and quickly realized that the terminal was jam-packed. It didn't take long to figure out that flights were being delayed and cancelled left and right. Looong story short, our flight was delayed, then cancelled, then un-cancelled, then delayed and ugh - it was pretty brutal. Luckily, Josie spent the first hour asleep in her stroller.
And then we spent the next four hours camped out right here trying our best to keep Josie entertained. She actually did incredibly well, and I'm happy to report that Louie & I managed to keep calm as well (although there were definitely a couple of moments of panic).
Josie did very well on the flight home (that is - she slept like a rock from take-off to landing) and we were home and in bed by midnight. I was SO afraid that Josie was going to turn one at Laguardia Airport - and luckily had her "birthday crown" in tow just in case. (Special thanks to Aunt Manda for helping out calling hotels & getting online for us when we were stuck.) Oh - I should also mention - Josie randomly stood up and took about 2 steps right there in the middle of the airport. Still not sure if this was a total fluke of if she'll be sprinting by the end of the week...

Happy to be home and a busy (exciting) week ahead.

Oh - one funny thing - we were in Central Park and people are crazy and this guy (who did not have a good body) thought he was an olympic ice skater or something & decided to do a performance on roller blades! He had his ipod & was totally going to town. I felt bad just blatantly filming him (but shouldn't because everyone else was) so I posed Josie in front of him & got as much as I could. So, this is a video of Josie in her stroller and a video of one of the funniest things we'd seen in a while. Enjoy!

New York state of mind....

Early tomorrow morning your "Three Schneiders" will head to NYC where Louie will attend a conference, Carri will do too much shopping, Josie will get to meet our dear friend Molly & we will all celebrate Josie's approaching first birthday. I promise there will be lots to report when we return. Stay tuned...