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Happy 5th Birthday to our Cooper Benjamin! He has rocked our world in many ways and we didn’t think we’d make it to 5, lol! Cooper is by far our most loving, sweetest child, but at the same time he is the most dramatic, expressive and spirited child all wrapped up into our boy. Cooper is infatuated with trains, so for his birthday we are all boarding a big diseal train in Cedar Park on Saturday and going on a trip. (and it gets me out of a party). ha! Happy Birthday little man.
I’m sure you’ve all been wondering why you haven’t seen my “lovely” little children’s faces in such a long time. I mean with five kids you’d think I’d post at least one of them every now and then.
Well this is why; exhibit number 1:
My two year old flat out refuses to look at the camera and throughs a big fit when she sees it coming near her. Including my iphone. It takes a whole lot of tricking to get her even to look over in my direction. *sigh* and then when she does, that is what I get, a look of “Are you done yet?” I can only imagine what our Christmas cards will look like this year. ha! Gee I wonder where she gets it from?! Yup you guessed right, big sister Parker has been pulling this stunt for 6 years now. Nice huh? and yes, her big pretty blue eyes have gone green since she has appeared on the blog. It’s funny all 5 kids have been the same way- first two year bright blue, then at 2 1/2 they all go green.
Exhibit #2- Oh look here she is again… avoiding me.
We’re back from a week long road trip through 5 states and nearly 3,000 miles driven! We had several stops along the way with fun activities planned for our kids. Here is a quick collage from my iphone of our adventures. I’m loving the instagram app, it’s so much fun, even better than FB because its all pictures. I’m cozyimpressions if you want to follow.
Just returned from a wonderful visit to West Texas with my family, where we floated in the pool for 3 days non-stop! It was so refreshing, and a ton of fun for the kids too. Here are some snappies of our family (including our 9 yr old Golden Retriever, Maggie).
I know the blog has been very far and few between the last two weeks. Cozy is closed through July 9, for some much needed rest and family vacation time before the big fall rush. If you are interested in a fall holiday session please email now to reserve your spot, the fall dates are filling up fast and usually are booked up by the end of August.
Now onto our Nassau trip to Atlantas. Nassau is not my favorite place to go in the Bahamas, but almost every eastern Caribbean cruise stops there. Sometimes we just stay on the ship, this time we got off and went over to Atlantas. We took a tour, Discover Atlantas, which is an under ground tour of their HUGE aquarium. I found this to be very impressive, with lots of varieties of fish, sharks, sting ray, GIGANTIC manta ray, deadly jelly fish and other aquatic wildlife. The kids LOVED it and it turned out to be a GREAT science lession for them. Here are a few pictures from under ground. They are all taken with no flash, in dark, LOW light conditions. This is why I LOVE my Nikon, it never fails to pull through.
I just returned from my annual mother daughter trip to NYC. This year we celebrated my 34th birthday while we were there. What a great time we had with our friends. We saw The Adam’s Family, front row center, it was hilarious! A must see. And we dined at many, many fantastic restaurants. So good that I will, once again, make you a NYC restaurant guide like I did last year and the years before. Side note: We made reservations at all of these a month before, except for the Shake Shack.
1. Mesa Grill this is Bobby Flay’s restaurant, and a favorite of mine. We discovered this last June in NYC and decided to go back for a second time. I had the lobster, but a MUST have is the side dish: The Roasted Corn with Chipotle Aioli, Lime and Cotija- YUM!
2. The Boat House This is a favorite we have gone to over the past 10 years. Be prepared to wait at least 1-2 hours for your meal. I promise it’s worth it, and they do NOT take reservations. You will wait NO matter what day of the week it is. We typically do Sunday brunch there, but this year we opted for lunch on a Thursday- 1.5 hour wait. This is located in Central Park and seating is outside overlooking the little lake.
3. Balthazar - A French trendy restaurant, my mom’s all time fave. We also go here EVERY time we go to NY. Balthazar is located in Soho, a very swanky part of town that happens to be my favorite place to shop and walk around. Must Eat- The Macaroni and Cheese, oh boy this is the best I’ve ever had. In fact I order this every single time we go, ha! We always go here for their Lunch.
4. Babbo Mario Batali’s Italian restaurant. WOW this was a new find by our friend Patty, and boy it was a good one. I had the ravioli filled with sweet potatoes and I’m still thinking about them, yum! We also had FRESH strawberry gelati , holy cow it was delish!
5. The Shake Shack We ate at the one on the Upper West side for lunch and the line was out the door and to the corner. Wow, great burger, fast service, good price. A must see.
6. The Park We met my cousin & her husband for lunch here. This was recommended by Kate Spade, so we thought we’d give it a try. The atmosphere was really terrific, they serve breakfast, lunch and dinner. Service seemed really slow, but still a fun time.
The shows that The Disney Cruise Line puts on are phenomenal! They are all different, but each one has a snip it of the Disney movies that we all love so much.
Toy Story 2 characters preformed “You’ve Got a Friend in Me”
Snow White danced on the stage with a few of the children in the audience.
Beauty was there with the Beast…
The Little Mermaid swam all over, she was suspended from the roof and she flapped her tail all about. The starfish were doing cart wheels and Sebastian the crab (shown below) danced around. During her song a huge bubble maker blew bubbles all over us in the audience. It was magical!
Cruella De Vil, she was awesome, her car rose out from the stage as the song Cruella De Vil played in the background.
Let me just say that Tarzan was a HUNK! Take a looksie for yourself:
Another special treat from the Disney cruise line is their private island in the Bahamas, Castaway Cay. This island is full of fun stuff to do. You just get off the ship and they have a tram waiting to take you all over the island. There are two family beaches, a teen beach and an adult only beach- Serenity Bay. There are restauarnts (all included in your cruise) ice cream machines, bars and shopping. There is a water park- The Pelican Plunge, jet skiing, snorkeling, bike riding a sting ray excursion and more. The list goes on and on. This is by far my favorite cruise port of al time.
I love the titles to their bars and restauarants: Cookies one and Cookies Two, The Conched Out Bar, Sand Bar, In Da Shade Games, Pops Props, Spring A Leek, Heads Up Bar, She Sells, But The Seashore just to name a few.
It just so happens that I grew up in a fabulous, little beach town. Of course as a child I had no idea that it was such a special place to live. I thought everyone had a beach across the street from their house. Much of my childhood was spent jumping in the waves, swimming, collecting sea glass, sand between my toes, and being as brown as a coffee bean. I use to beg my mom to apply more sunscreen because I was so tan and just wanted to be fair skinned. Makes me laugh now. Now that we live land locked in Texas I can truly appreciate where I came from. I long to go back and think of the beach and my roots daily. It’s special for me to bring my own kids to my home. They also love the beach and seem their happiest when jumping in the waves and swimming in the ocean.
While we were in FL we spent a few days at a beach club just across from my childhood home. It was so great waking up and playing on the beach at 8am. My dad joined us one morning. They collected sharks teeth and sea glass that day. Rick read his kindle in the sand. This is what I call a day in paradise.
Over the next few weeks I will be posting about our big 8 day long trip to FL. We had a lot of fun and were able to do many different things so I want to post them all in their own posts. Our first stop was to Disney’s Polynesian Resort. With its Hawaiian theme it seemed to suite us well. They have a big pool with a volcano slide, which our kids must have went on a hundred times. This resort also has the famous restaurant Ohana that features Lilo & Stitch. We had breakfast there, which costs a small fortune. But the kids loved it and the food was fantastic!
