22 Weeks!

While Brandi and Ryan were in town, had my follow up ultrasound since the little guy was uncooperative last time. This time, Baby Mhire behaved very well. I know he is just swallowing in this picture, but he looks like he is smiling to me!


Although I get overwhelmed sometimes thinking about all we need to do before he enters the world, we're getting more and more excited to meet our little man in November!

The McCarthy Trio visits the Northeast

Tommy and I were so excited to have Brandi, Ryan and Lincoln visit us for a week. Aunt Audra was especially excited to get to meet her second nephew, Lincoln, for the very first time! Lincoln is such a sweet, happy baby, and a great traveler. It's so exciting to think that he and Baby Mhire will be so close in age and hopefully great friends!

They arrived late on Monday night. I had taken Tuesday and Wednesday off of work, so after everyone had a good night's sleep, we headed into New York City. We didn't have a plan, just a general idea of where we wanted to go. Brandi and Ryan just wanted to wander and get a feel for the city. I'd never really gotten the chance to wander around Soho, so I was really excited when Ryan suggested that. We browsed all kinds of interesting stores and made some very eclectic purchases (I love New York onesies, coasters from the MOMA store and a baby spoon complete with airplane wings among others). We stopped for pizza at Lombardi's, the first pizza restaurant in the US for some delicious pizza:

We walked down past Ground Zero and headed over to the Brooklyn Bridge and got some ice cream before heading home for the night. Our feet were sore, but we had a great day.

After the busy day the day before, we took it easy on Wednesday. We all headed over to Meli-Melo in Greenwich for Crepes and Croque Monsieur for lunch then wandered around Greenwich. It's always fun to browse the stores along the main street, event though we can't afford much in any of them! We finished off the day with some yummy pizza at Colony Grill. Yum!

Unfortunately, I had to work on Thursday and Friday, but Brandi, Ryan and Lincoln continued their adventures with a trip to Newport and another day back in NYC. On Saturday, we ventured over to Shelton, CT to pick some blueberries - we used them to make a delicious blueberry coffee cake on Sunday morning:


Coincidentally, Brandi's friend who used to work with her at Lockheed, Billy's family lives in Stamford and was having their annual 4th of July extravaganza. They have a beautiful backyard with a pond (complete with canoes), they had all kinds of food, drinks and even a fireworks show (great for me since I didn't get to see any on the 4th of July). Thanks to Billy and his family for the hospitality!

Sunday we headed to Stew Leonards for some shopping and Lobster rolls for lunch, made a quick stop at Chocopologie and then the McCarthy's headed back into the city one last time for church. They headed back to Fort Worth on Monday. We're so glad they were able to make the trip!

Catching Up...Again!

Time for me to apologize to all those that follow (or try to follow) our lives through my blog. Once again,I have fallen far behind in my blogging. The past month has actually been pretty busy around here. Since Katy left there's been the 4th of July, my birthday, a visit from Brandi, Ryan and Lincoln, more ultrasounds, and most recently WAY too much work (don't worry, I won't blog about that). Let's see, where do I start?

We decided not to brave the craziness of New York City to watch fireworks again this year. Instead, our night was much more low-key. Our friends, Stephanie and Doug had us over to their house for barbeque and we finally got the chance to meet their new son, Ethan who was born in April. Ethan was absolutely adorable and a very good baby. I've been around such good babies lately, I'm starting to think maybe I can do this parenting thing :) We had a nice quiet night with Stephanie, Doug, Wissam and Dorothee and even though I didn't get to see fireworks, it was still a great 4th of July!

I turned the big 3-1 the next week and, unfortunately Tommy was spending the week in Dallas (his first week at his new job), so he was not around for my birthday. The week before, however, he did get me a wonderful present. Being pregnant and tired all of the time lately, I was getting really discouraged that I wasn't keeping the house as clean as I would like. Thanks to Tommy, we now have maids come once every other week. It's amazing how much better I feel in a clean house. Don't I have a great husband?!

The night of my birthday, Mindy, one of my friends from work met me for dinner at Chocopologie, my favorite chocolate store in SoNo. The store is also a restaurant and I'd always wanted to try it. I had a croque monsieur - good, but not the best I've eaten. The desserts, however, were amazing!! Mindy and I split a crepe Suzette and the house specialty, the "Chocolate Love." The Chocolate Love was 4 different mini chocolate desserts; a mousse, a molten chocolate cake, a chocolate ganache between pieces of almond brittle, and chocolate ice cream. It looked as good as it tasted and I'm so upset with myself for not taking a picture. Here are a couple of pictures I was able to find online (sorry the dessert is so small):

I missed my hubby, but we had a great night - thanks, Mindy!

It's a.....

BOY!!

Most of you reading this probably have heard by now, but Tommy and I went to the 20 week ultrasound last Thursday and there's no doubt that I'll be having a little boy in November! I have 2 little nephews already and so many friends who have just had/are having boys - it's so exciting to think of all the fun our little guy will have playing with his cousins and friends!

(definitely a boy!)

I've been really good about holding off on shopping until I knew whether we'd be having a boy or girl, but now that we know, we had to do some shopping this weekend :). We didn't go crazy - just a few cute onesies and shirts. We also started our registry - less overwhelming than it would have been thanks to Katy's help a last week, but still overwhelming. I still have a few things I need to pick out, but I think we got a pretty good start. Many of you know Tommy's strong dislike of shopping. It's been fun to see him get so excited about shopping for our little guy. We currently have more shirts that say something about daddy on them than mommy!! Now, if we can just decide on a name...

Any must have items for a new baby boy? Any advice? Experienced moms, please let me know. I need all the help I can get!

Evan's First Visit to New York City

On the last day of Katy and Evan's visit, we decided to take a trip into NYC. We managed to get the stroller on the train, find a seat, and headed in to Grand Central Station. Once we arrived, we had planned to head over to Times Square, but our route was blocked by a parade. Evan got to watch a few minutes of his first parade, and then we headed up Park Avenue towards Central Park. By this point, we were getting hungry, so we stopped for brunch at Sarabeth's, right on the south side of Central Park.

We both had French toast (mine with a strawberry-raspberry sauce and toasted almonds) and agreed it was delicious!
Evan enjoyed it, too!
We had also planned to take Evan to Central Park, but decided we'd better get some shopping in before it got too late. We headed to H&M and the Gap and I finally bought Katy some clothes for a VERY LATE birthday present. Unfortunately, Evan decided in the Gap that he was finished shopping and was going to scream until we left. It didn't take long after we left before he was fast asleep. Before we headed to the train station we made 2 stops. First, no baby's trip to NYC would be complete without a trip to FAO Schwartz. I don't think Evan will remember much!

Finally, we stopped at Crumbs bakery for a couple of cupcakes on our way to the station - Yum!!

Tommy made us a delicious spaghetti dinner and we headed to bed fairly early for an early morning trip to the airport. I miss you already, Katy! Thanks so much for coming!!

The Bronx Zoo

On Saturday morning, we all headed to the Bronx Zoo. I've been wanting to go for a while now, and Evan being here gave me the perfect excuse! It was a really nice zoo and we had a great day! Here's our day in photos:

Tommy and I and our lovely fox ears:

Katy looks more scared than Evan coming down the slide!

Lemurs and polar bears:

Evan's 2nd carousel ride - the ladybug on the bug carousel:

The butterflies almost landed on me in the butterfly center:

Evan's favorites were the giraffes:

Not very many people showed up for the guided Congo tours at 3:30, so we got our own private tour from one of the zoo guides. The gorillas were really cool!

Here we are at the end of the day in front of the zoo (Tommy is taking the picture, of course!):

We finished the day with Thai food at Papaya Thai in Sono and, of course, a trip to Chocopologie. A delicious way to finish a great day!

Sisters Shopping Day

Since the day Katy and Evan booked their plane flights to come visit us in Connecticut, I've been so excited about their visit! They finally arrived on Thursday night. Their plane was 45 minutes early, but unfortunately, I got caught in New York traffic and it took me almost 2 hours to get to the airport! We eventually made it home, ordered pizza for dinner, and called it an early night so we' d be rested to begin our long weekend.

Friday was shopping day. It took us a little longer than we'd planned to get up and ready to go, but we got out and about near lunchtime and stopped by the food court in the mall in Danbury to grab some lunch. There was a big carousel in the food court, so we decided that we'd take Evan on his first ride! Here are Mommy and Evan before the carousel started:

And during the ride:

I'm not sure he was too excited at first, but he eventually settled in and started to enjoy himself.

After lunch, we headed over to Babies 'R Us. My wonderful sister, the experienced mommy, walked me around Babies 'R Us and offered her advice as to what I absolutely needed, and what wasn't as necessary. I kept a detailed list and Tommy and I will head back to start our registry this weekend after our gender ultrasound on Thursday (I can't wait!) Keep your fingers crossed that Baby Mhire decides to cooperate!

Finally, we headed over to Destination Maternity. Her timing was perfect, my pants hadn't buttoned properly for about a week, so I really needed some maternity clothes. All of the women working in the store were very helpful - clothes just kept showing up in my dressing room! I felt like I tried on everything in my size in the store, and finally settled a few basics: a pair of jeans, black work pants, 2 short sleeved shirts and 2 tank tops. Katy even bought a couple of the shirts as an early birthday present for me. Thanks, sis! Here's a picture of me in some of my new clothes - I'm finally starting to have a little baby bump (even if you can't really see it in the photo)!!

(my 20 week Ultrasound is coming up this Thursday - can you believe it?! - Do you think it's a boy, or a girl? Vote in the poll at the top of the page!)