New York!! (insert Alecia Keys singing "New York" here)

As a last hoorah we decided to go to the big ol' apple on Saturday. We woke up early and got there around 8:30, parked on Staten Island, and took the ferry across to New York City!!! When we got there it was kinda dead....there was barely anyone out, which was kind of weird. So we started walking, got to Wall St and that's where the crowds began. There was a large Asian tour group in line getting their pictures with the Bull, so we just passed it and admired it from afar. The first thing we did was go to the 9/11 Memorial. I'm not a particularly sentimental person, but as soon as we got close, it hit me like a ton of bricks that that was where it happened. I teared up on the spot and we hadn't even gotten to the memorial yet, the feeling of just being there was incredible. It was just the soft opening for the memorial so it was all closed off and we had to go through a bunch of airport-like security to get in, but it was worth it. It was amazing. The most beautiful monument I've ever seen (and I've seen my fair share of monuments). They had all the names of the victims on the edge of the waterfalls, and we saw a couple that said "and her unborn child" next to the woman's name. It really was a very spiritual thing being there. My heart ached for the people who lost loved ones, and I felt so thankful and proud to be an American. It was truly truly incredible, and afterwards Justin told me he noticed quite a few people crying, which made me feel better because I had started crying a few times at random.
Well, onto happier things. After that we got onto the subway (which was difficult for a germaphobe/terroristaphobe), and headed up to the Empire State Building. This we had to admire from the outside because it was about $23 per adult to get in, and we are poor. At this point I just needed to find a place to change a diaper....so we went into Macy's. When we got into the same general area as the bathroom, Haddy threw up all over the floor... I tried to clean it up without anyone noticing. Then the line to the bathroom was a million miles long which was discouraging, until I realized I wasn't using the bathroom, just the changing table, so I passed a lot of women who gave me a mean look....well while I was changing her messy diaper I ran out of wipes. With the crowds, the fussy and throwing up child, and me running out of wipes, I was starting to get stressed out a bit. Thankfully the changing table was right next to a sink and paper towels, so I was able to just get some paper towels wet and finish the job. Once we sat down and ate I was starting to feel better, until we proceeded to Times Square......HOLY COW!! I hated it. It was so crowded, and not stroller-friendly at all. It was literally wall-to-wall people, and a brain overload with all the TV advertisements that were flashing across everywhere. K, I'm gonna try and go faster because this post is taking me forever, long story short I hated the crowds. Then I went to Wicked and Justin and Haddy went to Central Park to hang out (yes, I went by myself...I'm cool like that). In short, Wicked was ABSOLUTELY AMAZING!! Loved it. Then Justin and Haddy came and picked me up after, and we headed home. The end. Pictures:

This is one of the twin towers they're rebuilding

empire state building

See that look on my face? I hate Times Square.

So excited!!

Central Park

Justin and I decided we'd like to live here. Minus all the other people in the park.

The Little Rascal is Walking

Well here she is! Our progressing child. We sure love her.
Haddy now has four teeth, the bottom front two and the top front two. She likes to scrape them together and it drives Justin and I CRAZY!!! It's so much worse than nails on the chalkboard...ewwwww I get squeamish jut thinking about it....moving on. Haddy started walking on Sunday, April 1st. After Conference ended I sat down on the floor to play with her and she remarkably took a few quick awkward steps towards me without holding onto anything, so I yelled at Justin to get the video camera and we got a bunch of great video of some of Haddy's first steps! It was so much fun and she was having a blast! You could tell she was so proud of herself. And we were quite proud too!
Here are a few more pictures of our sweet Haddy :)

Whoaaaaa there!!

Hello. What's that you say? I'm adorable? Oh, why thank you.

One of Haddy's cute birthday outfits

This beautifully made cake represents the love I have for Haddy (also I'm showing off how awesome it is because, let's all just say it, it's aweome....did I mention I made it?)

Haddy likes to help me with the laundry. I usually put her in the laundry basket, then go fill it up with the clean clothes in the dryer with her at the bottom, then scoot her through the apartment then into her room, where she hands me clothes to fold. Once I've folded all of them is when she goes into destructo-mode and starts throwing them all over the place...

This is Haddy in the process of making a mess...the mess turns out much bigger btw

This is Haddy playing with her favorite toy, her quiet book! But it doesn't keep her quiet.....she likes to take out all of the pieces and scatter them throughout the apartment. She does this, literally, multiple times a day, which means multiple times a day I have to go on a scavenger hunt to find each piece, put it in its spot, and zip back up the quiet book until Haddy hands it to me again to unzip so the process can start all over. And speak of the devil, she just barely walked up and handed it to me so I can unzip it....I promise I didn't plan that!

Love that smile!

Isn't she just the cutest little patient you ever did see? Haddy got sick and went to the Doctor. She looks pretty happy here, the following pictures are the worst of it and you can see she is a very sad little goob.

:( Poor thing. She kind of looks like a zombie in this picture.

Her sad little red eyes and runny nose. I hate it when she's sick!

Swimsuit showoff time!!! I have always loved the baby suits that have the rash guards, and I thought this one was especially cute!! This one is a size 2T! So it's slightly large for a swimsuit, but it will last a long time we hope! And I love it.

Another shot of her adorable suit. She's got a pretty great swimsuit bod, don't ya think?

So happy! She wants to go swimming right now!!

Doesn't she look happy to be in a picture with me?...and this will hopefully be one of the last pictures of me with brown hair, since I'm going blonde again when we get to Utah.

Haddy in her wife-beater, eating her first popsicle. I don't think I need to mention she loved it....

Diva! This picture is dark, but so cute.

Look at that face!

There is a picture of Justin when he was really little on his paren'ts wall, and this picture of Haddy looks JUST LIKE that picture!!

This is Haddy on her first walk where she actually walked and not just wheeled around in her stroller. She did very well!

Well I love this girl. Besides walking she can do some other cool things, for instance she points to her mouth when I ask her where her mouth is, and when we say "where's baby" she points to herself, and when we say "more" she does the sign language sign for "more" which we're pretty sure she does without having a clue as to what it actually means.... She also is on the verge of learning how to give me a kiss. I have been practicing this one over and over with her for a long time, and every once in a while it will actually work! Although the other day I asked for  kiss, puckered up, leaned in and got a big lick on the mouth (I didn't ask for a puppy kiss!)...but it was still cute, and a little gross. Haddy enjoys playing hide and seek with me, and she is quite good at it! I crawl somewhere very quickly and hide, and she always finds me. Amazing. And she loves piggy-back rides, she always pats me on the back (that means she wants a piggy-back ride) but I just don't have the energy to be giving her constant piggy-back rides!
I love being a mom. It is definitely not easy! Sometimes I feel lonely, and sometimes I feel overwhelmed, and most of the time I don't know how I'm supposed to react in any/all situations, but there's nothing else I'd rather be doing! I wouldn't want anyone else raising my extremely sticky and dramatic child! I love her.

Come What May

So many of you know that Justin applied to some schools to get his PhD. Well none of them accepted us. This thought never really crossed our minds as Justin was filling out the applications, so we didn't really know what to do with ourselves when we found out. But now we've adjusted our thinking and are SO EXCITED to move back to Utah!!!! I can't wait. It has been a wonderful opportunity to be here in Philadelphia, and I am truly sad to leave my wonderful ward (best ward ever), but I'm so happy to be going back to family. Family is so so important to me, and I want my daughter to know her grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. It's difficult to do that on the other side of the country....
So we are set to fly into Utah April 25th. We will be living in my parent's basement, probably for about a year. Some people may think "oh that sucks" but not me! I'll have multiple babysitters living right up stairs from me! And this will be my brother Brad's last year at home before he goes on a mission, so it'll be fun to spend more time with him. And also I love my parents. And there will be a little kitchenette thing downstairs for us, so it'll pretty much just be like we're in a little basement apartment, except it will be free, which we like since we are poor and in debt.
Although Philly and I have had our differences when it comes to driving and navigating, we have had some great times here. Here is a little list of things we will miss about Philly:
- Our ward. Our ward rocks. There is so much diversity and culture, and the people in it are nothing short of amazing. Best people I've ever met. And I LOVE my calling. I love my primary class and my activity day girls.
- Our friends. They rock. I hope we can stay in touch with them.
- There's a million cool things to do. We've gone to Gettysburg, Amish country, Valley Forge, Atlantic City/Beach, Washington DC, and done a bunch of things around Philly. We are planning on going to New York before we leave as well.
- The trees. Beautiful!
- The color. I love being the only white person at my grocery store!
- The history!! I love America, and I love being in such a significant place in America's history.
- Justin says: School. He is weird, he really loves school.... He says this year has been really rigorous but his education has been nothing short of "first class" and he has loved his experience at Penn.

Well that's all I can think of for now. Some of the things we won't miss include:
- The "dirt bike gang" as we like to call them. There's a group of boys that must live somewhere around here who have EXTREMELY LOUD dirt bikes that they literally just ride up and down the street for fun or something. I hate them.
- It's no secret I hate driving here. I will not miss it at all.
- Very few restaurants carry Dr Pepper. Lame.
- Humidity.

That's it. I can't think of anything else.

Well, life has yet again surprised us with what's in store. It turns out we're pretty bad at predicting it.... But all we can do is live life to the fullest and enjoy the ride, right? Justin will be reapplying to PhD programs in the Fall, although most said they require 2 years of work experience, but we'll see. Who knows? Not me. In the meantime we will be living the life in my parent's basement with free rent, cable, internet, and babysitting! I'm not complaining!

Spring Break Recap

Our last day of Spring Break we went to the Please Touch Museum, which is a children's museum. Here are our pictures:

Statue out front

Lobby

The lobby is as far as we got, because they were going to charge us $15 for Haddy!!!! We weren't about to spend $15 on her when she's still too young to even understand what's really going on....so we left. Instead, we went out to eat at a place called Friendly's and it was DELICIOUS!!!!!!! I don't think there are any in Utah, which is sad for Utah.
That was Spring Break! Now it's back to the grind.

Big Bus Tour and Natural Science Museum

So yesterday we took the Big Bus tour of Philadelphia and we're glad we did! We learned some very interesting things, and I will admit, it was nice to be sitting down! We also went to the Natural Science Museum, which had some cool dinosaur bone stuff. It was a pretty laid back day. Something interesting that happened though: We were done looking through the museum and went to our stop to wait for the bus, which was right in front of the Four Seasons hotel. All of a sudden this fancy bus pulls up (not ours) and parks outside the hotel, and  we weren't really paying attention until we realized all the guys walking out of it were very tall, and all wearing Utah Jazz gear.....it was the Jazz!!! Sooo random and so funny! We didn't even know they were in town! Anyway, we thought it was cool. Here are some pics:

Cool gold-leafed statue of Joan of Arc

This picture is very dark, unfortunately, but that's Justin and Haddy standing next to a T-rex!

Haddy and I at the back of the bus. Since it was a nice day everyone wanted to ride on top, which means we pretty much had the whole lower level to ourselves!

Here is a large creepy dinosaur head.

Haddy in front of this fake tree thing in the kid's section of the museum.

Justin and Haddy riding a turtle...

This is the bus the Jazz came out of! Unfortunately by the time I got my camera out all the team members had already gone inside...

That's it! Not many pictures. OH well. Today we are having a day at home to plan and figure out our move next month (btw we're moving back to Utah the end of April....we will miss Philly but are excited to be back around family!).