Finally some family fun

September was crazy -- I mean SUPER crazy! It seemed like school just swept in and took over our lives, Jon was super busy trying to get settled back into work after being gone on vacation, and every weekend was filled with some random obligation that one of us had to attend with no time left for some much-needed family time. October finally made an appearance and we couldn't have been more excited. So, we tried to cram tons of fun into our first free Saturday!

We took Gabriel to get a haircut with at a kid's hair salon after several failed haircut attempts by me and grandma. He's totally let me and my mom cut his hair before with no problems at all, but he just wasn't having it lately (he's definitely 2 1/2!). So, we headed down to Cozy Cuts on the UWS hoping for a miracle. The miracle was not so much the barber or the awesome jeep to sit in or the Little Einsteins DVD blasting in front of him, as it was the GIANT Thomas train that he spotted right as walked in! Oh yes, these people aren't stupid. You walk in the salon and have to walk through a huge toy boutique filled with any/every children's TV character ever created in order to get to the hair cutting stations.

So, GIANT Thomas was brought to our station, opened, and sat in the jeep only to witness a huge meltdown from Gabriel. He totally freaked when he realized what was going on and nothing could calm him down. I wasn't really impressed with the barber either who just sat there and did nothing to try to help the situation. Finally I just sat on the stool and held him super tight and she cut his hair like that. We were all covered with hair, and there were several straggling hairs but it got done! Totally NOT worth the price or the trip or the other random toys that seemed to leave with us -- I should've just let his hair grow out until he got over this phase! But it got us downtown and we were able to do some fun things after that.

There's a great little playground (The Wild West Playground) on 79th and Amsterdam that we always pass, but never have time to go to -- so we stopped there for awhile to let the kids play. It's also conveniently located right around the corner from Shake Shack, so that was a must. Jon ran and got food and then we ate it at the playground (a much better dining experience with children!).

After lunch, we decided to go bowling! There's a great bowling alley at Port Authority that we had heard was really fun. It's been re-done and we were pleasantly surprised as to how nice it was. We were the only ones there which was super fun (I guess that's what happens when you bowl at 1:00 in the afternoon on a Saturday!). We all had a GREAT time. We had been in need of some good family fun for awhile, and this was the perfect activity that day. I highly recommend it! (Tip: it's a great rainy day activity because you don't actually have to ever go out in the rain... just come up from the subway at 42nd street and go right up to Port Authority without ever going outside!)

GIANT Thomas in all his glory!

Shake Shack picnic!

Wild West in NYC!

Noah bowls a spare!

Gabey keeping score

here it comes!

***Unfortunately the haircut situation was much too traumatic to photograph -- it would've been priceless though!***