Central Park Children' Zoo

We spent another day at the Central Park Zoo yesterday. I say another day, it was really only a few hours. I met my friend Melissa and her little boy Jonah there, but it was my first time to travel to the zoo from our apartment alone. I think it took about 45 minutes. Not too, too bad.

The zoo is cute, but super small. I think within 30 minutes we had seen all there was to see. The best part to me is the children's zoo. Yesterday it was not crowded at all and the kids could get out of their stroller and run around. Lillie and Elliott were exploring everything and running wild.

Most of these pictures are behind shots. I thought the little ones were so cute checking everything out.

Lillie grabbed Jonah's hand to go for a walk through some hollow logs.

Elliott and Jonah looking at the ducks.

Elliott climbed this fence and then could not get back down!

Taking a break after feeding and looking at the goats.

Discovering the cow back in the barn.

These animals make their sound when you touch them.

Looking at ducks again from a different angle.

Ducks again.

Elliott discovered that you could look through this rock and put your hand in the waterfall. He was so proud of himself. What you don't know is that he got mad when Jack tried to come in and mad again when Lillie appeared a few seconds later.

State of Confusion

Elliott regularly asks for a hair bow because Lillie always wears one.

Lillie says "pee pee" and stands by the toilet with her shirt raised. She does not understand that she can't pee pee like her brothers.

Hair Bow Making

I've been wanting Lillie to have some hair bows since she is finally willing to keep them in her hair. The problem was I was unwilling to spend a lot of money for one bow. So Wednesday I spent a few hours with a few ladies from church making hair bows. I can't believe how cheap and simple it is to make a decent bow. It was a fun time talking and being crafty.

When we were packing our things up, one of the ladies asked Jack if he thought he could fit all of Lillie's hair bows in his hair. I can't believe he agreed to try.

And then Elliott had to give it a shot too. He didn't last too long before he wanted them all out.

Flower Planting

I might have mentioned this before, but I regularly have to give my self a pep talk to get motivated to get outside with my kids during the day. The reality is I'm just more of a home body, however, I know it is good for us all to get out and do things. And once we are out, it is usually a good time. We actually have plans this afternoon after naps to meet up with one of our old neighbors for a play date, so I didn't want to leave the neighborhood, since we'll have to do that later. You may be wondering why I didn't want to leave the neighborhood. Leaving means having to use public transportation, the subway. I don't mind at all taking the kids on the train(and we do it very regularly), but 90% of the stations do not have elevators. I have two 25 lb. kids in a stroller, plus our stuff, plus the weight of a stroller (plus Jack when he is on the kickstand) to push around and get from place to place. I obviously can't load that down subway stairs alone, so I always have to wait and ask someone who looks willing and strong enough to help me carry the stroller down and up stairs. Whew... it's just a lot of work, but that's how it goes in this great city and now you know why I don't choose, for the fun of it, to do that for more than one outing a day.

So, I've been telling Jack since early spring that we were going to plant some flowers in the flower pots on our balcony. It never happened, two seasons later I decided that today was the day. Just for the fun of it I took my camera to document our outing.

Here we go...

This is Jack making his way down the hill.

He had to stop for a minute to admire his shadow.

This little man on the right is sitting in this exact same spot every morning. He always waves and says "Hola! Good morning America." It's cute and funny because he has a thick accent. Jack has started waving and yelling "Hola!" as soon as he sees him. So today I asked if I could take his picture. Jack unfortunately got an attitude, so it is documented as such.

This is Danny Boy. He is a local, been living on our block his whole life. I don't really know what to say about him; He loves our family, he is crazy(not crazy, crazy, but crazy enough), he can't believe Jack and Elliott have bluer eyes than his, no matter where he is when he sees us he yells "Oh my god it's Jack!," he helps me push the stroller up the hill when it is loaded down with kids and groceries, and he keeps us up to speed with all the latest happenings. Usually if we don't see him around his usual corner Jack asks where he is.

There are junk stores like this all up and down Broadway in our neighborhood. Jack likes them. We never go in so I don't know what's in the store. Our stroller would never fit in the door of these places and I'm sure Lillie and Elliott would have the whole store destroyed from the seat of their stroller.

The first florist we came to had one mum. It was a pale purple, it was pretty, but I wanted red, so we passed it by. Finally 11 blocks from our apartment we found a florist that had 3 mums, red, yellow, and white. I forgot to take a picture outside the shop. Jack picked the red and yellow. This is the man putting them in a bag for us.

So, now we are 11 blocks from home and for the majority of the trip Jack has been riding on the kickstand. Now I need the kickstand to sit the mums on and I needed to load the bag of dirt under the stroller, so Jack had to walk the whole way back home. He does fine. I would not make him do that all over the city. We were a little over half a mile from home.

Just for fun we stopped at McDonald's to get our lunch. We always have to take it home to eat, because this McDonald's is 2 story. You order on the first floor and eat on the second. No elevator. There is one small table on the first floor but we would be in the way, so we can't sit and eat. I'm thankful here in the city they give you drink bags that hook on your stroller.

There is a little "park" out side of McDonalds. Jack likes to run through it on this little sidewalk, I stay on the sidewalk by the street. We part ways ( I can see him the whole time) and meet again at the end.

Oh the hill. One of the reasons I need motivation to leave the apartment... because this is what you have to climb/push the stroller up when you come back home. I make Jack walk, it's too much to push him too.

Danny Boy lives in the building you see on the left in the above picture. He showed us the other day this huge stuffed tiger that he found somewhere and brought it back to his buildings courtyard. There is no telling what all is back there. Jack likes it and has to check in on it every time we pass the little alley between the buildings. We can only see it through the fence.

We're home!

Lunch time.

A frustrating part of any meal with Lillie and Elliott. Trust me when I tell you they get punished for this. They don't really seem to care. And they each encourage each other in this bad behavior. I'm trying to stop it... any suggestions?

Two flower pots were on our balcony when we moved here. This one was a brownish color. I had a little bit of black spray paint so I painted it real fast to make it match a little better.

Let's plant!

Huge mess. Very small space. Three kids. I wish I could tell you it was all nice and peaceful. I wish I could tell you I did not get frustrated. Lillie and Elliott had to leave the party early and go back inside to play... it was too much.

At last, the finished product. I realize they aren't the prettiest mums you've ever seen. And I know that a bigger, red one would look nicer in that big urn, but really the whole point of this trip was for us to go out together, buy a few plants, then plant them together. And now Jack is the official water boy, so it gives him a job each day. There are much better selections of flowers in other parts of the city. Every Sunday morning we walk through the Flower District on our way to church and they have beautiful, healthy looking flowers and plants, but remember I'm was not leaving the neighborhood today! We enjoy having an outdoor space. Typically in NYC you don't have the option of getting to do this at all, so it's nice for now. And we'll enjoy the little bit of color it adds when we look out our sliding door. And our balcony just got a new paint job. The stucco was so nasty, now it's nice and fresh looking. And since we let our kids use sidewalk chalk on that part of the balcony, they have a nice, clean slate. You can see a little bit where they've already added some new work!

Now everyone is napping. I'm going to get cleaned up... we have another outing to make in a few hours.

Gender Neutral Bedroom Ideas

A year ago I was trying to figure out what chairs to get for Lillie and Elliott for their first birthday. Jack's chair was red and I wanted to coordinate Lillie and Elliott's to go with his. We'll, I ended up with a green polka dot chair for Elliott and a pink polka dot for Lillie. Not really coordinating, but I like them.

Lillie and Elliott have successfully climbed out of their bed once or twice, so now we are trying to decide if it's a good time to move them to twin beds or not. I'm pretty sure by Christmas time they won't be in their baby beds anymore. Since my three kids all share a small room, Lillie will get Jack's bed and Jack and Elliott will get the bunk beds we bought for Lydia and Mary when they lived with us.

I've decided that for their birthdays or Christmas I'm going to ask for bedding for all three of them. The big question is how do I coordinate a small bedroom shared by 3, 2 boys and 1 girl. There are lots of pink/blue combinations, but I'm not really feeling that so much. I've been doing some researching and I have my best friend Ellie on the look out too. What do you think? Throw your decorating ideas out there.

Here are some pictures I like that have potential. I don't know that there is one picture that I love everything in it, but it gets the juices flowing. They didn't upload in the order I wanted them to, but when I try to rearrange them it's not posting correctly... anyway you get the picture.

*This was a pretty post with a few nice pictures of ideas, but when I went to publish it the pictures won't show up. Click on the links to see them (if you want) and leave a comment with your ideas and a link to a picture if there is one!

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I love these colors and I think you could use this color palate for a boy girl room.

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This is a big picture view of a room that used the materials in the first picture.

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This is an inspiration board from a different website/blog. I think my first two pictures got their inspiration from the top middle picture on this inspiration board, or other way around, but they are different sites with too similar of bedding for it not to be.

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I like that this is simple and it's not the typical blue/pink combo. I think its a good idea, I don't know that this idea would work since there is not just a boy and a girl sharing a room, but 2 boys and a girl. It might be a little too uncoordinated for a small space. I don't know.

Another idea, this was a thought from Ellie, is to do matching solid quilts/duvets and then personalize each one with different sheets and pillows. Company Kids seems to have a good variety of options for that idea.

We'll see...

911

Remembering those who lost their lives 9 years ago and praying for their families. We're asking God to make himself know to this city and believing he will. It was a beautiful day here and I'm glad to be living here. We are not scared, but propelled!

This is from the top of the hill up from our apartment a faint look at the lights that are shining tonight from the World Trade Center site. You can barely see one spotlight, the other one is directly behind it. I could see them both reflecting off of the clouds up in the sky. Sobering.

The Past 6 Months

The past 6 months came and went and our time with Mary and Lydia is officially over. They came in March with an agreement to help us out for 6 months. They moved back to South Carolina two Saturdays ago. The help they gave me over their time here can hardly be expressed. I am very grateful for the sacrifices they made to come to this city and serve our family. As in all experiences we learned a lot and I know they did too. Please pray for them as they try to discern what it is next on their journey. That God will give them peace and wisdom to move forward.

Mary and Lydia, I am extremely grateful for what you gave to me while you were here.

I didn't have one with everyone looking. And the kids had to be bribed with suckers to even sit still for a picture.

So now it's mostly back to normal for the Wyatt family. Staying true to Wyatt fashion(we've had someone living with us for almost 3 years, on and off again, Brandon H., Hannah, Chris, Lydia and Mary, Brandon M.) we didn't gain the bedroom back when the girls moved out. Brandon Moore has moved in with us. Brandon is from TN, a graduate from Union University, Freddy T. was his middle school pastor back in the day. Brandon has a special testimony that he will be sharing with The Gallery this coming Sunday. You'll want to be sure to check it out on the podcast. He is interning with The Gallery while taking seminary classes at the SBTS extension center here in NYC. He is not here to help me with kids, however, there are two girls who go to college here in the city that are interning at the church and will help me once a week. I'm grateful for that!