Kekse backen - baking cookies

Baking Christmas Cookies is very big in Austria - and I love to do it. I do not enjoy cooking too much, but I really like baking. So making cookies around Christmas time is really fun for me.

Lilly of course wants to help with everything and we had several sessions where we made Lilly cookies for all of our friends.

Christmas Tree Set Up

When we came home from our Thanksgiving trip, we set up our Christmas Tree.

We have a little fake one that Ben had bought me when we had moved to Nashville and we finally had room for a Christmas Tree. It has served us well for the past years and it was fun to set it up with the kids. 

They helped a lot - distributing all the ornaments in the first bottom quarter of the tree in the front :-)

Over the weeks we moved some ornaments around and added some new ones that they had made.

Unpacking the tree

Finn and Lilly observing the nice cluster of ornaments in the front of the tree

Breakfast with Santa

Finn, Lilly and I kicked off the holiday season at the end of November with a breakfast with Santa. We are members of the kids club at the fancy mall (I am sure the Green Hills Mall has one - friends in Nashville check it out).  Ours is at the Westchester Mall and they have great offers for kids around the holidays.

We went to the FREE breakfast with Santa. We got some yummy pastries and milk/ juice for breakfast from Au Bon Pain, we did some crafts, we got give aways and great entertainment from Disney Junior Station, we wrote a letter to Santa, we got a story read by the lady from the library and we got to say hi to Santa.

Overall we had a fun morning, but the kids were not really interested in hanging out with Santa. There was way too much going on for them.

Fun hats we got and waiting for Santa

Breakfast time

The nice lady from the library brought her books and went around the tables to read to the kids

I do not like this cookie anymore!

Hi Santa - great face by my kids

Dancing with all the other kids

Cheese for the big photo session

Checking out the reindeer

Making S'mores (at Thanksgiving....)

Ben's parents have an open fireplace and we love to have fires there. We collect firewood outside, help build a nice fire and enjoy sitting around it. But the most fun for the kids is making indoor s'mores. Well, they all like at least the concept of making them - eating them is a different story ;-)

Ben giving instructions to the little ones on what to do

Demonstrating the roasting of the marshmallow

Finn gave it a try

Warming up by the fire

Thanksgiving Fun (continuing the catch up...)

Here are some pictures from our Thanksgiving in November - sorry no Turkey pictures. I always forget to take those as I am usually busy wrangling some kids around the table.

I like Thanksgiving. It is a nice holiday and usually the whole family gets together. We went to Ben's parents for Thanksgiving and this year was the first year his sister Becky was hosting in her new house. All of Ben's family was there and that was really nice.

We had great food.

We had great family time.

We got to see friends.

And yes, I did do all my Christmas shopping during Black Friday. I have to admit, I like it that way!

Ampy reading books to Finn and Lilly

Hanging out with our friends

4 Generation of Muldrew men (Love this picture!)

Painting Day

Finn and Lilly really love to do arts and crafts. 

This day we spent painting wearing our hand knit stuff from Oma Lotte (probably not the best idea).

Maddie Birthday in NYC

Our niece Maddie turned 8 in November and for her birthday we organized a NYC weekend. She came down from MA with her mom and her grandmother on Saturday morning. We had lunch at home and then headed into the city. First stop was the American Girl Doll store on 5th Avenue: Maddie really enjoyed it and got to pick some outfits for her dolls.

We then walked through midtown checking out Rockefeller center, the Lego and M&M store and Times Square. I had picked a fun diner for dinner, but the line was too long. So we decided to go to Cosi for dinner which ended up being really fun. We had some yummy pizza and table side s'mores for desert.

Walking down Broadway towards the theatre area was also fun and exciting and we got in line for our show: "Mathilda". The theatre was small and we had seats in the very last row, but that was not too bad. Maddie could stand up if she did not see well and she was not bothering anybody behind us.

Mathilda was fun and everybody enjoyed it. We then walked back to Grand Central Station and took the midnight train home. 

It was a special girls day and I hope to do it again!

All the flags at Rockefeller Center

We had fun at the M&M store

The Girls at dinner

s'mores were fun

Marathon Day! (it's been 3 months already…)

When we moved to Nashville nearly 6 years ago I started running. I had not been a runner before, but really got to love it there (thanks to Misty and everybody at East Park Community Center).

So when we moved to NY I joined the NY Road Runners and have been doing some races in the spring with the goal of hopefully running the NYC marathon in 2014. But then I won a spot in the lottery for 2013 and decided I would give it a try.

I downloaded a training program from the internet and trained for 16 weeks leading up to race. I had wanted to join some running club, but it just did not work out with our situation and schedule and so I trained and ran by myself. Which was not too bad except for the really long training runs. They were loooong!

The last 2 weeks before the marathon you kind of rest and relax more than run and I was anxious for November 3rd to come. I was ready. I wanted to run.

Ben got me a nice ride to the start area from Manhattan, but I still had to get up at 4:45am in order to start my race at 10:30. I took the train into the city and met a very nice German lady who since has become my running partner here in Larchmont.

From Grand Central I took a cab to the bus and then I took the bus to the starting line and the waiting began. That is really the only bad part about this race. You have to be at the start area really early because later on they close down the roads and you can't really get there. It was cold that day and made the waiting no fun. I also did not know anybody - but that changed soon and I found some people to chat with.

Needless to say that I was eager to start and ready to run. I had put down a 10 min mile for my coral and I ran that exactly from beginning to finish (final time 4 hours and 21 minutes).
It is really impressive when you start out with 10 thousand other runners (over 50,000 in total) and you run over the first bridge from Staten Island with "New York, New York" blasting over loudspeakers and helicopters hovering next to you filming you while looking at the skyline of NY. Just awesome!

The beginning miles are a little different for every color (they have 3 different color blocks start every 30 minutes) to spread things out and then after several miles it all joins together.

I loved running the race! There were so many people out supporting the runners, giving out drinks and food, kids distributing High Fives, bands playing at different corners. It was really cool.
I also really enjoyed running through the different parts of town and seeing how the neighborhoods changed.

Once we came into Manhattan I had some friends to look forward to and I saw them around mile 17 - thanks Joe and Mark for cheering and Mike for continuing to drink. It gave me a great boost and I enjoyed running down first avenue. But at around mile 20 I started to feel it and I had to start forcing myself to continue running. I did not want to walk - I wanted to run the whole thing!

I thought maybe some gooee (gross runners fuel) would help, but it tasted so awful that I spit it all out. I was really down at that point because I had hoped it would give me an extra kick :-(
And that's when the greatness of this race hits you: this wonderful lady was standing by the side of the road handing out sliced oranges and her friend was giving away pretzel sticks. Oh boy, that  was the best orange I have ever had and the pretzel stick was delicious. I wanted to go back and kiss them and thank them for being so sweet (that lady had a whole cooler full of cut oranges with her!).

Coming into Central Park meant that the end was near, but at that point I only wanted to be done and did not care anymore how loud the people were calling my name (written on my shirt) or cheering us on. I actually wanted them to just be quiet!
With the finish line in site I got a very special treat: Ben was right there waiting for me at the grand stands just before the finish line. I got a nice kiss before crossing the finish line and heading to my baggage claim area.

I really wanted to just lay down at that point, but we had to keep moving and that was good. After I got my bag I walked back down towards the finish line, met up with Ben and took the subway and train back home. I was really looking forward to a warm shower/ bath at home and some good food.

It was an amazing day and I look forward to 2014 as I have earned my entry!

5am - getting ready to catch the train

Waiting to run over the first bridge

New friends at the waiting area

Ready to run!

Big E (another late post - and awesome fair)

When we are in the New England region in the fall, we always try to go to the Big E. This is an annual fair held for the New England states in Springfield, MA - 20 minutes from Ben's parents house.

It is huge and ridiculous and fun and exhausting and hilarious and great for the kids!

We went with Ben's whole family in September and had a blast. We saw lots of animals, visited different state houses, ate fried food, checked out the carnival rides, bought souvenirs, listened to music and watched the people.

Lilly sitting on Ampy's shoulders

Amy and Finn checking out the cows

The singing fridge

Lots of photo opportunities

Maddie and Lilly on the rides

Finn and Abbie on the rides

County Fair (another little delayed post…)

Even though we live close to the city now (30 min north of NYC), it can still feel like the country sometimes. If you drive 30-45 minutes further north, Westchester county can get pretty rural.

We even found a County Fair and went to check it out. It was absolutely awesome. They had lots of animals (cows, horses, sheep, goats, chickens, etc.). You could pet most of them and have a look up close.
They had lots of carnival rides of course which the kids loved.
There was a magician there for the kids and Finn really enjoyed his show - Lilly lost interest pretty quickly. They also had arts and crafts for the kids, a hayride and of course lofts of fried food. We spent a beautiful Sunday morning there and we will be back for sure next year!

Checking out the big horses

Petting some goats

Lilly did some spin art

On the big wheel

]

Overlooking the area

And of course some cotton candy

Fourth of July (oh well, 6 months later….)

Another really late post. 4th of July :-)

For 4th of July we went to our "adopted" family's house in New Caanan, CT. We have known the Castle Family for many years and they are like our family by now. Ben and Jon have worked together for many years and we have seen the kids grow up. The 4 Castle kids are awesome with our 2 little ones and it is always a big treat for Finn and Lilly to go to "Big Jon's House".

One 4th of July they had a big BBQ in the back yard and it was really nice. The kids loved running around and swimming in the pool, we enjoyed good food and drinks and nice conversations. And at the end of the day Jon was shooting off fireworks. The kids absolutely went crazy over them.

BBQ Festival in NYC (wow this is really late….)

I am in a clean up mode these days - lots of organizing and cleaning out. And I found this lovely post that I had never put up. Enjoy!  BBQ Festival in NYC in June 2013

Even though we have little kids, we still try to hang out with our friends on a regular basis. Some of Ben's good friends from college live in NYC and we went to the BBQ Festival with them. It was a blast!
There was lots of great food, music, beer and a park for the kids to run around in. There was also a dog park nearby and Finn and Lilly loved checking out the dogs.
We will be back for sure next year!

Our picnic area we had set up

Lilly having some ribs

Hello New York

Right by the famous flat iron building