NYC for Memorial Day

Over Memorial Day weekend we decided to head to NYC to see the herd of nieces and nephew (with another on the way!) before they took flight out west for the summer. Our plan was to give their parents some time to clean, pack and rest while we entertained kids. We took at least a few if not all five of the kids out every day we were there and had a blast!

Our first stop was a little playground at the very top of Central Park. Gwen and Sadie have uncle Thomas just wrapped around their fingers. I love watching him with these girls.

^^ Sadie never leaves home without her purse or her two cell phones^^

Any time Thomas sat or stood still for even a moment he was swarmed by kids. They just love wrestling around on their very own human jungle gym. This was how much of our weekend looked:

We rode the subway to church on Sunday, these kids are such city kids. They were watching out the window for the point where the subway tracks split- one goes down and the other goes above it. They tell me about this every time we visit. It's kind of a big deal when you're 4 or 5 years old.

^^ Right after telling Sadie to stop licking the post she's leaning on. Immune system of steel growing up here!^^

The afternoon was filled with naps. Sort of. I'm not sure how much sleeping actually happened, there was a lot more wiggling around, watching the iPad and poking uncle Thomas' face when he started to snore.

That evening we watched all five kids, took them to the park and put them to bed all by ourselves. It was pretty crazy but we didn't lose any of them. It made me really glad that you just get one kid at a time and gradually get used to having more and more. Five kids all at once is a little overwhelming

On Memorial Day we took the three youngest to Central Park. Cameron really wanted us to take him to the Bronx Zoo and was not happy about the fact that we were headed to the Central Park Zoo instead. He also had a little meltdown when we got on what he claimed was the wrong train which was taking us to Fake Central Park. I was so glad we had about 457 packs of fruit snacks to bribe good behavior and calm fights over orange juice and shared bagels and incorrect train choices.

It ended up taking us a little longer to get to the park than we planned, we stopped for bagels, at the splash pad and playground, we got popsicles and had to find the potty a few times. By the time we got to the zoo it was about time to head back home so we skipped seeing any animals and walked our way up to the Bethesda Fountain (Befesba Mountain if you're Cam). Sadie watched for every horse and carriage that passed as we walked through the park and got especially excited when ones with pink or purple adornments came our way.

As the fruit snacks began to dwindle we stopped to let them take off their shoes and run in the grass for a while. They found a turtle near the Boathouse pond and couldn't wait to tell their mom about their new friend Snap Turtle. We headed back to the subway via Strawberry Fields and were very grateful that we will just have one kid to wrangle for a while before we add any others to the mix.