Sleep-over in NYC

Josh travels about every other week for work, which results in lots of hotel points. A few weeks ago we decided to use some of his points and spend a night at the Sheraton hotel in Time Square. We had such a great time...

 First of all, I survived my first time driving into the city with the kids and no Josh. I thought it would be nervewracking, but we didn't hit any traffic so it was only a 40 minute drive and the kids were great. 

Josh works right by the hotel, so he zipped down and helped us check in at the hotel and unload our bags. Then the kids and I walked to Central Park. We paused for a picture by this statue and in my mind I was thinking "I HOPE I don't lose any of my children these next few hours while Josh is still at work!" We actually had a fun time and no one was permanently lost.

My kids LOVE Central Park. The playground are fun, but the girls' favorite part is all the big rocks to climb on.

Buds

 I kept glancing over and seeing these two casually walking around the park arm in arm. The friendship these two have makes my heart melt.

Even cautious Mya was loving all the climbing and running around with random NYC kids. 

 I think this is the only moment that Tate stood still the entire afternoon. He was running around and having such a fun time.

After work, Josh met us at the park just in time to snap a quick pic of me and the kids. I was feeling rather triumphant at this moment because I had survived my first outing in NYC without Josh's help wrangling the kids.

We popped into the Columbus Circle shopping center, since I was still scrambling to put outfits together for family pictures the next morning. And then we had dinner at one of Josh's favorite pizza places "Uncle Mario's". Yum.

The next morning we woke up bright and early and had our pictures taken in Central Park. (I haven't gotten the pictures back or else I'd post them). Tate was a wild man. In hindsight, Central Park wasn't the ideal place for photos with Tate. There were way too many rocks to climb, dogs to chase, open fields to run around. I will be very impressed if our photographer managed to get a good shot of us!

Bryn and I loved this beautiful doorway at Petrossian. I'm not a huge fan of Petrossian's bakery items, but this gorgeous doorway almost convinced me to give it another shot!

We're very famliar with Penn Station, since that's where the New Jersey transit connects, but this was our first time taking the kids to Grand Central Station. It's a bit grander and cleaner than Penn Station! 

 We had Shake Shack at the food court of Grand Central Station. 

 Josh and I wanted to do the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island in the afternoon, but the girls overruled us and convinced us to do the American Girl store instead. It is haven for them. 

 I'll end with these cute pictures of Mya with her favorite Bitty Baby. She is saving up her coins for a Bitty Baby, but it's going to take a while!