Dixon girls in NYC

My sister and niece came to visit us in early October, and we loved it. It was especially meaningful because my brother-in-law--a very talented and educated architect--had just recently ended a long stint of unemployment, so it felt like a continued celebration of his new job and an honor that the girls' first big trip would be to come see us. Thanks, sis.

A musician in the park started playing All of Me-- our wedding song!

Find us on the screen in Times Square! (Hint: look for the stroller)

Not only did we have a great time together, but I also learned a few very important things. Examples:

• I previously believed that the New York food scene had something for everyone and nothing lacking. That was until I looked for a restaurant that could accommodate a gluten-, dairy-, egg-, soy-, yeast-, peanut-, cranberry- and sugar-free diet (my poor sister is intolerant to all of these things). Yeah, that restaurant does not exist.
• I also learned that Rock of Ages is a fun musical, but not exactly appropriate for 13 year-old nieces (oops!). While watching it I realized I also shouldn't have recommended it to other people without seeing it first (sorry, Martins!). Haha. It's funnier now...
• And lastly, I was reminded of how awesome my niece is and how if she wants to move in with us forever I'd take her gladly.

We love you both! Come back soon!

a year ago: Jared & his pumpkins

I'm going to do a few "a year ago" posts, and I'm kind of excited about it because (1) a year ago I didn't have a blog--or even a non-blog--and (2) a year ago is when things started to get, um, BIG.

I can't pretend this was my idea--Jenn B did a similar thing the day before her baby Violet's 1st birthday, where she posted a picture of herself a year before, so pregnant and soooo ready to have that baby. I thought it was brilliant. Maybe she wasn't the first to do it, but she's the first that I saw and so I'm crediting her. And then copying her.

Let's start with this one. It wasn't exactly a year ago today, but it was about this time of year, and I just checked the rules and they say that's okay. I also just wrote the rules. Also, I didn't really write them, so I can't show them to you so you'll just have to know that whatever I do is fair game, k? (Sheesh, it's exhausting assuming everyone's a fact-checker like me.) We went up to CT last Fall for pumpkin picking with our good friends, the Shamos. Jared found the perfect pumpkin that was just the right shape and size...

Just after this I got accused of smuggling pumpkins. Hahaha. Rude!

a spooky sunset + halloween 2009

Tonight the sky dressed up in orange & black for Halloween. Okay, so this picture was taken just a few minutes before that happened, but trust me, it did. :)

Somewhere in this photo, thousands of people are lining up for the NYC parade. Last year we were part of it, looking like this:

An astronaut, and Saturn 7 months along with twins.

For Halloween 2010, keep scrolling down...

trick or treat x2

We have a bad habit of doubling up, it seems. So when you're a Lee baby you get two costumes for Halloween.

First, the babies...

Tink & Tock!

Yep, the sassy fairy and the hungry crocodile from Peter Pan, of course!

Bethany heads for the hills for a little rock climbing.

Isaac makes sure the dirt tastes like dirt. Yes, yes it does.

This picture was taken a month ago. I miss my little girl's two good eyes. Two big, round, kewpie doll eyes. The infection is gone but the eyelids are still so swollen from the plugged tear ducts, we think. Specialist appointment tomorrow, wahoo!

Thanks to Aunt Kristi for the adorable costumes. Just looking at that little Isaac crocodile made me laugh. I want him to wear it every day until he grows out of it. And Bethany wore that fairy costume like maybe in a previous life she was a fairy, but definitely the sassy kind that steals her brother's new orange binky right out of his mouth.

Then, the fam...

A barbershop quartet!

We decided on these costumes on Tuesday-- as in Oct 26-- and needed them by Friday so Jared could wear his to clinic, and the kids and I could visit the clinic in ours. (We were informed that the babies' attendance was mandatory.) I made the vests and bow ties, Jared made the hats, and let's just say we didn't sleep a whole lot this week. But we had fun getting creative. The project also involved a trip with girl friends in a car to a fabric store and late-night dinner in Jersey-- to someone who regularly drives and/or lives in a place with reasonably-priced fabric stores, this wouldn't sound all that exciting, but lemme tell ya, it was.

Those little cuties put on a great show. The babies actually wore their hats! I could not believe it. Bethany won't even wear a headband anymore. Speaking of, we later added a flower to her hat because people kept asking what was wrong with "his" eye. At least this time she really was dressed up like a boy, so, our fault.

Happy Halloween!

halloween sneak peek

Inspiration struck about as late as it does every Halloween with the Jared & Debi Lee clan. On Tuesday Jared had an idea for our little foursome that we could not resist, and it has been a mad rush to piece the costumes together ever since. I'm not going to say what they are for fear they will be a complete disaster and we have to change plans (thankfully we already have some pretty adorable baby costumes that Jared's sister donated to the cause, which we are excited to use this weekend as well)... but here is a sneak peek!

All you super sleuths out there-- what could we possibly do with 4 different colors of seersucker? (Really, what couldn't we do?!)

the haze

This is what I woke up to this morning: the Hudson wearing a fog blanket. I quickly grabbed my Blackberry to get the pictures because my actual camera battery died. But even the "good" camera is just a point and shoot, and as a photographer I'm just... what's less than amateur? I'm just me being me, so whenever I see the river or bridge doing something awesome (almost daily), I always take comfort that Jake and/or Zack will get a much better shot of it than I will. Yay.

But back to the haze. The haze felt like sort of a Halloween miracle, for a couple reasons. (1) It was 7:50, and I haven't slept in until 7:50 for oh, at least 9 months + 18 days. And (2) within 5 minutes the fog was almost completely gone. I like to think it was a metaphor for my life right now. These last few weeks and months have been amazing but just. crazy, and I think after a weekend focused on recovery the fog is starting to lift.

So, everyone says their life is crazy, their week was crazy, their year has been crazy, and I think it's true. Everyone I know is up to incredible things like getting degrees and buying homes and taking care of sick babies and handling huge responsibilities at work, school, church and home. I don't mean to say I deal with any more than anyone else, because I know I don't. This is just a taste of what we've been up to, and I think it will be good for me to put it down and move on.

I already wrote that business was GOOD at Hotel Lee in September. We had a blast with my sister and niece here in early October, too. I loved that they got some 2-on-2 time with the babies and were able to see our little life here in the city. My adorable 13-year-old niece was suuuper excited to go to Times Square because that's where movies are made, and I thought that was pretty cute. All 6 of us went to the airport together, and while they flew back to the west coast, our little fam of 4 went to Ohio and Kentucky. This was our superfriends! trip, and is definitely deserving of a post or two of its own, because we got to see two sets of our greatest friends. Almost makes us want to live in the middle (or wherever they are) just to be near them forever. We're still considering it.

Our midwest vacation took an unexpected detour as Jared flew back to California for 3 days to attend his Grandma Lee's funeral. We weren't quite expecting to lose her yet, and are sad we didn't get to spend more time with her in recent years while living in NYC. It seemed impossibly difficult for the kids and I to go to the funeral (just to have me wrestle them in the church hallway the whole time), but we're glad Jared could pay his respects and be with his family.

The cherry on top was actually cherry-flavored infant Tylenol by the dropper-full. This past Wednesday, the day we flew back to NYC, Bethany's left eye started to look pretty bad. She's always had an issue with her tear ducts, which we were hoping would resolve itself before it got infected. Long story short: over the past 4 days we've spent 12 hours in the doctor's office or in the ER, Bethany has endured all kinds of tests, and the infection turned out to be so bad that our little Left Eye (her new nickname, at least for now) needed her antibiotics via IV. (BTW this was after being seen by a pediatric ophthalmologist, told that it wasn't infected, sent home with nothing, and told to come back in a month. But, what did we expect a pediatric ophthalmologist to know about our baby's eye problems? Ugh.)

Our tough cookie has handled this all so well.

...well, most of the time. It's definitely been hard for her.

She's not all the way healed but doing much better now. Her eye is still swollen and red but we think the infection is going away. We also think Isaac managed to avoid getting the eye disease (if it is even contagious) but we're still watching for it and being so careful to avoid it.

In a way it was nice to spend the weekend holding our babies and tidying our apartment and catching our breath. Having Jared home made it all a billion times better (Thurs and Fri were really hard with him at school shmool and babies that just wanted to be held). I feel like I'm working my way back to normal life, or at least a new normal in a way that includes having 2 babies that are constantly changing and growing. And I'm hoping there will be more for the b-log provided that these kids continue to be napping champs. The haze is lifting.

the hotel lee gets all... hotelly

The last few weeks have been crazy but fun as we've welcomed a few of our friends & family to our cozy little place. Like any classy establishment, we like to do a little name dropping when we can...

PMa/Panama/P-Monster/Penny came over Labor Day and was apparently put straight to work... feeding naked babies. It's turning into kind of a rite of passage around here. We also took her to Bryant Park, and (re-)introduced her to Carmine's, Patsy's, Levain, and Max Brenner. (Okay New Yorkers, probably not the most original places, but still GOOD.) We love friends who love food as much as we do.

The Shamos drove down from CT for the day, and since Honda Pilots were made to fit 2 families of 4, we took a quick trip to City Island. Did you even know this place existed? I didn't, but thankfully my smart and handsome husband did. Such a quaint little part of NYC. Did you even know it was part of NYC? I didn't! We ate at the Crab Shanty, where their clever little hostess saw that our adult-to-kid ratio was 1:1 and put us in the back room all to ourselves. Wyatt and Bethany took naps, Owen sat contently as he always does, and Isaac made a mess with oyster crackers. It was great.

We then met up with the Thrill (aka Will) for the Yankees vs. Rays game. We got to see the top 2 teams play each other (Yankees won) and a dedication to "the Boss" (Steinbrenner, not Springsteen). Jared & I combined this with date night and left the wee ones at home. Great game, great company, and pretty good philly cheesesteaks.

Mom came to make sure her little grandtwins are still cute, and to give her Kewpie doll a Kewpie doll. Success on both counts. We also had a nice lunch with Mom's aunt & uncle (look at those twins being twins!).

The Thomases just joined our east coast family, yay! They came down to watch Conference with us and let the kiddies run around pantsless. The twins found little Emma pretty fascinating. Jared made us an amazing pork roast, and we walked it off with a GW bridge sunset.

Coming up next: my sister and niece get here tomorrow, wee! And then the Lees get to hit up This Little Miggy Stayed Inn in Ohio and the Waldorf-Fiet in Kentucky. It's a rough life.

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EDIT: Maybe this is why I have to take pictures of everything. It's usually when looking through them that I think about the things we did and then get the urge to blog it. I failed to mention a brief (and non-photographed) but awesome visit from Kara & Kelly & unborn baby boy! We met up for a Dominican takeout picnic dinner at the Cloisters, followed by a Mr. Softee on the walk home, and then a relaxed visit at Hotel Lee. Kara and I went to grad school together with the most amazing and fun group of people that ever went to grad school. To my MPAers, holla!

The Martins also let us crash in on their party of 2 while they were here for one day to celebrate their anniversary. Our visit was definitely not long enough, but worth it to see our good friends from dental school.