Alice's Tea Cup

Today Mom and I took Ava into the City for a girl's day! Ava was excited to have time with just the girls and to leave the boys behind.

We took her to Alice's Tea Cup on the Upper West side for tea and an amazing lunch! After walking in, Ava was greeted with the choice of butterfly wings to wear and sparkles to be sprinkled on her.



They had a whole bookshelf of books (not all Alice books) for kids to take to their table and Ava chose an Alice pop-up book.



This is Ava's meal. A chocolate scone, apples and nutella, and chocolate mousse. Uhhhhhh, hello yum!



And this is our meal! Chocolate, pumpkin and plain scones, egg salad and chicken sandwiches, and homemade cake and cookies. And yes, we took home a leftover box.



After eating a few apples with nutella, Ava turned to me and said, "Momma, I'm sleepy, can I lay down?" And she slept for an hour!


After the nap, we headed to Central Park for a stroll. We headed to Belvedere Castle and climbed up to the spiral staircases to the top turret and enjoyed the amazing views of the park and the City. It's the highest point in Central Park, so the view is pretty spectacular!






Thanks Mom for an amazing day. I know Ava and I will remember it always!

Martha's Town

Today we ventured up to Bedford, NY...Martha Stewart's hometown (or one of them). Bedford is a quaint New York town and has a lot of large estates and horse farms surrounding it. We stopped in the village green and the kids picked LARGE bouquets of dandelions. It's taken a little training, but I think they now know the difference between dandelions and other yellow flowers. AND they know they can only pick dandelions!



C'mon Mom, can I pick just one???!!!!




The real reason for going to Bedford was to try out the Bedford Post , a restaurant featured on the Martha Stewart show that Janna and Erin and I were in the audience for back in March. Kid friendly?? Kind of, but not so much for my kids. Yummy food, but better left to go with the girlfriends, or on a date.



After lunch, we ventured out to find Martha's house, based on a tip (and map drawn on a napkin) from a really nice local we met! Apparently Ralph Lauren is her neighbor, but we had no idea what we were looking for....we just saw a lot of nice houses and some gates, but no signs saying "Martha lives here". Why didn't she send out the welcome wagon for us??!!!

Today was great, but the best part was that I got to venture into the City by myself for a while and have a date night with my honey. We ate at Mama Mexico, and it was sooooo good! We walked inside and they had a strolling mariachi band, which is OK, but I really wanted to have a quiet dinner. I noticed a homemade sign in the window that read "outdoor romantic seating available". Cha ching!! We asked about the patio seating, and because it was a "cooler" day, there was NO ONE outside!!! We left the noisy indoors and had the ENTIRE patio to ourselves. What a blessing! A few people came outside and quickly decided it was too cold, and they headed back indoors. I had on my long coat, so no worries here. All the more peace and quiet for us!


This was the view from my seat. I felt like a peeper, but there were two cute kids in their brownstone doing homework. Can someone please set up a private NYC home tour for me?? Please??




Awesome, awesome day.

PS. By the way, Mama Mexico makes fresh guacamole right at your table. Amazing!

Yeah Me!!

I won! I won! The creator of my website, Blu Domain, held a contest for people to win new websites (all their site templates have real people names, hence the word Baylee), web hosting and a variety of other things. My image was chosen! Check out their blog post, and you'll see my picture there listed among the winners!

Yeah me!! When I find out, I'll let you know what I won....

The Bronx Zoo

Oh my goodness today was hot! Just a preview of the summer to come I guess. I don't mind the temperature, but the humidity is what gets to me. I think I'll lose 10 pounds this summer just from the heat alone. I guess that's not such a bad thing...

We visited the Bronx Zoo today and I was impressed. It is such a beautiful zoo, and quite large. We were the first ones at the gates waiting for opening time, and had the zoo to ourselves for about 5 minutes before the school groups showed up.

Here is Ava, the lover of maps (especially zoo maps) and wanting to lead us all around. Wonder where she got that from?

One of our first stops was the famous bug carousel, which is a piece of art in itself. There were more bugs than I could name, and the kids couldn't wait to pick their bug of choice and go for a ride.





Yes, this is a dung beetle, and yes, we chose to ride a different bug. I really didn't want to go there and explain a dung beetle to a 2 year old....he might get ideas.



OK, now these next couple images just get me. Ava LOVES to hold Tyson's hand and is constantly asking him if he wants to hold hands. He usually agrees, and it makes her day. Just look at how she is looking at him! She is so proud to be a big sister. I love it.




Our last stop of the day was the giraffe house to visit the baby giraffe. Why is a 150 pound baby so darn cute??!!

The Bronx Zoo is definitely going to see us again. I think it will take five trips just to see everything!

Rye Nature

Can I just say that I love Spring on the East Coast?? When spring is here, spring is here. There are no (at least I don't think so) April or May snowstorms that kill your spring blooms. This last week has been absolutely gorgeous and our trees have really bloomed in the last few days. It's been amazing!

After our Nature Center class, we took a little detour on our walk home and walked through some of the Nature Center property instead of walking on the road. Why wouldn't we?? Check it out!

Look Who We Found....

Look who we found hanging out at the Rye train station this evening??!! Gran and Papa!!!