Annabel at Five Months

I've totally procrastinated on this post, and today is the last day that she's 5 months old. Tomorrow is her half birthday!

So, a little bit about Annabel this past month. Big news is that she started sitting on her own at five and a half months! She's also getting mobile. She gets around by rolling and scooting, and seems really close to crawling. It's definitely time to baby proof! No doctor's visit this month, but she weighed in at 19 pounds a few weeks ago. Early in February, we flew to Little Rock for cousin Reid's 3rd birthday. We enjoyed spending time with the Peterson side of the family over a long weekend, then we drove to Texas and were there for a week, visiting with lots of friends and family. Annabel was a great traveler! It was my first time flying alone with her, and I was definitely a little worried about how we would do. Luckily, she had her own seat on all the flights, and slept in her car seat most of the time. The flying was easy, but sleeping away from home was not. She went from sleeping through the night, to waking up one or twice a night, and that lasted two more weeks after getting home.

We're still enjoying our baby classes. We usually go to a baby gym class on Mondays at Elliott's Gym, Music for Aardvarks on Tuesdays and we recently started another music class on Wednesday mornings at the Bloomingdale School of Music.

Annabel loves the baby swings at the park. We're having fun visiting all the nearby playgrounds in Central Park and Riverside Park. We're enjoying this mild winter, and try to make it to the park at least once a day. I'm really looking forward to spring and it being warm enough to picnic and spend hours outside.



She's generally really happy most of the time. We love to make her laugh. She gets the biggest grin when her dad walks in the room. She's still nursing every two and half to three hours during the day, and doesn't have any teeth yet. I feed her rice cereal or oatmeal around 6pm every night. She usually takes three naps a day. She doesn't nap in the stroller as well as she used to, so I try to have her home for nap time as much as possible. She usually goes to bed around 7pm or 7:30pm, and wakes up between 6:30am and 7:15am.

Favorites:
Drinking out of a cup
Sophie the Giraffe
Rubber blocks
Stacking rings
Swinging
Reading "Ten Little Ladybugs" by Melanie Gerth
Reading "DOG" by Matthew Van Fleet
Animal sounds

Nicknames:
Anna
Belle
Monkey
Anna Grace
Bella
My Grace
Husker Du - Not sure where this came from

We love this little girl so much and I feel so, so lucky to be her mama.

Week In Review

Last weekend was really chilly, and we spent most of our time at home, hibernating. On Friday night, we did make it out to try a new neighborhood restaurant, Jacob's Pickles. You really can't go wrong with fried pickles to start, followed by a fried chicken sandwich on a biscuit. We had planned to take Annabel to a music class together on Saturday, but I knew she was too tired to make it through the class without getting fussy.

Joe's company moved into a new building this week. Still on 6th Ave, but a couple of blocks south. He has his own office now, and a great view. Annabel and I can't wait to see it! I framed this picture of Annabel for his desk.



It's supposed to finally snow this weekend! Two to four inches! It hasn't snowed here since Halloween weekend. Friends Karan and Sabina are in town, and we're looking forward to catching up with them on Saturday over lunch at Shake Shack.

Other thoughts:

-I was motivated to clean/organize/declutter this week, and I tried to take full advantage. That motivation only comes a few times a year.

-I need to make some other Mommy friends. The thought of it stresses me out. I wish all of my friends would just have babies and move to New York.

-Annabel slept through the night every night this week!

Here's Annabel in gym class this week

Week In Review

Annabel and I arrived home last Thursday after spending three weeks in Texas. This week has mostly been about us getting back into a routine. On Monday, we moved Annabel's crib into her own room, and I also started putting her down in her crib for naps. I can see how a structured day is becoming more essential. We also started back up with baby classes. The days are definitely more enjoyable for us if we have something fun planned, rather than just the usual chores and errands. There are (free!) gym classes offered Monday through Thursday for babies 6 months and younger. We usually go twice a week. We also started a music class on Tuesday, called Music for Aardvarks and Other Mammals. A good looking, dad-type plays the guitar and sings popular kid songs and also some original songs about city life. They pass out little instruments and colorful scarves and we sing and dance with the babies. We're also starting another music class next month on Wednesdays.

Annabel at gym class





Other thoughts this week:

-We want to find another apartment on the Upper West Side when our lease is up in April.

-Annabel may have red hair! We can't tell for sure yet, but I'm feeling really glad we didn't name her Lucy.

-Manhattan babies don't wear hair accessories. Annabel does.

-I'm losing crazy amount of hair. It's everywhere.

-Joe is becoming quite the camera/photography enthusiast. Here is one of his photos of Annabel from this week.

Annabel at Four Months

It's cliche to say, but babies really do grow and change so quickly. The time goes by so fast! I can't believe she's already a third of the way through her first year! We saw Dr. Sasala today for her four month visit and immunizations.

Here are her stats:
She's 16 lbs and 1oz, which puts her in the 91st percentile for weight.
She's 25 and 1/2 in., which puts her in the 87th percentile for length.

Some of her favorites:
Pink horse wubbanub
Stuffed bunny made by Grandma Carol
Stuffed Curious George
Sophie teethers
Her feet
Mirrors
Soft books
Making razzie sounds
Goodnight Moon
Swinging

Nicknames:
Monkey
Muffin
Anna
Anna Grace
Belle

She's still only had milk from Mama, but we plan to give her a taste of her first rice cereal within the next couple of weeks. We just returned from her first trip on a plane (to Texas for Christmas) and she's getting over her first illness, a cold caught from her cousins in Texas. She's in a frustrating stage, because she wants to be sitting or standing, rather than lying down, but she can do neither of these unassisted. She still likes her bouncy seat, but is starting to outgrow it. Her jumperoo arrived today, and she seems to like it. Her eyes are blue, and her hair is starting to grow in. It's strawberry blonde (I think). She has fair skin, and definitely looks like a Peterson! We moved her crib into her room this week, and she's sleeping well in there. She's been waking up once at night to eat. I take her to a gym class for babies 2-6 months old, and this week we start a music class. Both classes are held a short walk from our home. It's one of the many things I love about living in this neighborhood! There are so many fun things to do with babies here!

I'm Back!

Sooo... you may have noticed that it's been about a year and a half since I last posted here. I've been inspired by my friends to dust off this old blog and (attempt to) start posting again. Not quite sure how the past year and a half passed so quickly, but so much has changed! We're now proud parents of a baby girl, Annabel, born on September 3, 2011 and a puggle named Molly. We're still living in New York, on the Upper West Side. I'm now a stay at home mom. True story - My mom recently came across an assignment I'd written for my 8th grade English class, about how my dream was to be a mom, living in New York City, married to a successful businessman (ha!). We'd visited NYC, gone to Central Park, and I thought the groups of mommies walking together with their fancy prams looked so awesome! Now, here I am 16 years later, and my dream has come true! Now quite sure how I manifested that one, but thank you Joey (and God)!

The plan is to use this space to keep a record of our lives, and as a way to share photos and stories with family and friends who live (mostly) far away. I'm not planning to post daily, but I'm going to do my best to post at least once a month. Here we go!

Greece Part I - Santorini!

Our trip to Greece started with a flight from JFK to Athens. We left New York late in the afternoon and arrived in Athens the next morning. After a two hour layover at the Athens airport, we boarded an Olympic Airlines plane and made the half hour flight to Santorini. We stayed in Oia at Oia's Sunset.





Our friends, Chris and Laura, were already in Santorini when we arrived. We met them for dinner on our first night in town. The restaurant had a perfect caldera view of the famed Oia sunset.







On our second day, we took a five hour cruise around Santorini with Chris and Laura. It was definitely a highlight of our trip! We highly recommend Blue Lagoon Cruises! There were six of us on the boat, plus two crew members. At lunch, the crew grilled a delicious meal. Drinks flowed freely throughout the day. The boat stopped a few times for us to get out and swim. Cruising on the Aegean Sea in a beautiful catamaran was a total dream come true!


















Our third day in Santorini, we took the bus from Oia to Fira, which is the busiest town in Santorini. Fira has lots of shops and restaurants, and is much more frenzied than Oia. We were glad we chose to stay in Oia. Later in the afternoon, we returned to Oia and spent the rest of the day exploring.



















On our fourth and last full day in Santorini, we went to the beach. There are a few different beaches to choose from, and we decided to take the bus to Perissa. The beach is lined with cafes that have lounge chairs in the sand. You pay a small fee to use the chairs, and you can order food and drinks to be delivered from the cafe.





We had a really amazing time in Santorini! Thanks to Chris and Laura for spending time with us on their honeymoon!

Next post - Athens!

Boston, Cape Cod and Martha's Vineyard

I apologize in advance for the length of this post! I've been wanting to take a trip to Boston and Cape Cod since we moved to New York. One of my favorite things about living here is the close proximity to so many great destinations. You drive less than an hour and you're in completely different terrain. We drove through four different states in 4 hours!

Our trip started with a night in Boston. We picked up a rental car in the city after I got off work on Friday afternoon. After working out some issues at the rental car company that threatened to end the trip before it started, we were on our way. At around 8:45pm on Friday night, we made it to Boston. We checked into the Courtyard By Marriott, which is located downtown on Tremont Street in the theatre district. Our friends, Matt and Tammy, picked us up and we went to dinner in the South End at Gaslight, which is very similar to Pastis in NYC. After a great dinner, we had drinks at The Butcher Shop, an interesting little place that's a butcher shop by day and a wine bar by night. The next morning, we spent a few hours exploring downtown Boston and walking along part of the Freedom Trail. While I was enjoying the history lesson, Joe wasn't really in the mood for it, so we had a nice lunch at Marliave, headed back to the hotel to get our bags, and drove to Cape Cod. The drive from Boston took about two hours. The town we chose to stay in, Provincetown, is at the furthest tip of Cape Cod. I chose it because the town is very lively and totally walkable.

We stayed at the Inn at Cook Street. The place is very cute and looks like it came straight out of a Pottery Barn catalog. I choose the "Four Seasons" suite for us to stay in. What I didn't realize was that the room was right next to the kitchen and common room, so mornings were noisy. For the most part, we really enjoyed staying at the inn. We were one block from the ocean, and a very short walk to lots of restaurants, boutiques, art galleries and the harbor. It was the first B&B we had ever stayed in, and we found the group breakfasts a bit awkward. The food was delicious with a lot of variety, but Joe and I are both introverted types and would have preferred breakfast by ourselves.





The second day in Cape Cod, we drove over to the Cape Cod National Seashore. The beach was beautiful, but it was a bit cloudy so we didn't lay out. Afterwards, we drove around exploring Provincetown some more.





The next day was the first official day of Summer. We drove an hour to Woods Hole, where we took a ferry to Martha's Vineyard for the afternoon. The ferry took us to Vineyard Haven. We had lunch at the famous Black Dog Tavern. The view of the harbor was lovely and the food was great, too. Of course, we had to buy something with the famous black dog logo. I have a small obsession with totes, so I got an L.L. Bean style tote with blue handles and a black dog on the side.









After shopping in the boutiques at Vineyard Haven, we took the bus over to Oak Bluffs. I'm not sure if we were coincidentally there at the same time as a seniors tour, but it struck us how many elderly people were there. It was very different from Provincetown, where the vast majority of people are young and lively. After exploring Oak Bluffs, we boarded the ferry and headed back to Woods Hole. The ferry rides were fast and very scenic.



Our remaining time in Provincetown was spent reading books at the inn, and walking into town for meals. We had lots of delicious seafood. We especially enjoyed the lobster rolls and shrimp rolls.









On Tuesday, we made the approx. 4 hour drive back to the city. We really enjoyed our road trip, and it left me wanting to see more of the East Coast!