Late in the summer, the kids and I headed up to Glens Falls one day to check out The Hyde. It’s this super cute art museum in a beautiful historic house. I had never been there before but was excited to explore around. It was a beautifully warm August day and we made the most of it. We visited the museum, stopped at a coffee shop and got drinks and snacks and enjoyed downtown a little bit.

The current exhibit was woodcuts and engravings by Albrecht Dürer and etchings by Rembrandt. It was awesome! If you didn’t know, I am slightly obsessed with all things printmaking. I took every class I could in college. The Hyde had wonderful worksheets for the kids to work on based on the art they were seeing. They learned all about etchings, lines, crosshatching and monograms. Rowan and Finley had a blast working on them and especially trying to find all the Dürer monograms with the magnifying glasses. I will say, I did feel overly watched (which I get, but…) by security but everyone was nice enough about bringing 3 small children to the museum. It’s a good lesson for them though! I like bringing the kids to museums not only to introduce them to beautiful works of art, but because they have to learn self control as well. They can’t run, yell or climb. They have to be respectful and understand there is a time and place to get crazy. It’s good for them, even if we always do get into trouble a little bit. Hahhaha! Always. We always get in trouble at least once.

Do you like brining your kids to museums? We’ve been going a lot lately. I feel like I have 2 more museum posts waiting to be posted… MassMoCA and Storm King coming up!

This post is sponsored by our friends at Zappos. 

Have you guys ever read books about birth order? It’s something that totally fascinates me. I believe there is real truth there. I am the first born in my family and obviously so is Rowan. I can tell already with her that she is sooooooooooo a first born. Rowan looooves to follow rules, is super bright, hardworking, and very motherly to her siblings. It’s fun to read about each child and what characteristics they might have based on the order they were born. One thing I’ve paid close attention to is what they say about middle children. Dear, sweet, sensitive Finley. I really try hard to not, what we like to call “middle child” her. We try to give her as much individual time and attention as we can and make sure she always gets her very own special things. I try to keep the hand-me-downs to a minimum. That’s why I was so excited to team up with Zappos and let her pick out these new Leepz sneakers by Stride Rite. I knew she would feel so special since these were our very first venture into light up shoes in our family. She has been walking, jumping and skipping around the house making them light up. It’s been so, so cute. I think (I mean I know) a part of her really likes hearing Rowan say she wishes she had a pair as well. I love being able to give her special moments that are all her own. Finley is also super excited because, as the middle child she’s so in looooooove with her older sister, and she can’t wait to take her new shoes to the track and be like Rowan. She told me she thinks she will be able to run just as fast as Rowan does. We found a high school in the area that has weekly family track meets. Everyone is invited to come race, no matter what age you are. Finley races, Rowan races, Kev races, it’s awesome!! The kids have been having such a great time going every week and with Finley’s new shoes you can bet she is going to run like the wind.

These are the perfect shoes to take her from the end of summer and keep her running straight into the back to school season. We don’t need tons of back to school gear this year because we are homeschooling the kids (I can imagine there will be lots of pajama days) but new shoes were definitely on the list. I am glad that we could easily (Zappos makes everything easy!) check that off the list. Whooohooo!

A few from the past track meet…

^^go FinFin go!!

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We packed up the car on Saturday and headed 2 hours north to Lake Placid for the holiday weekend. We love Lake Placid and were all totally stoked to be up there camping for 3 days. It was Orion’s first camping experience and overall he did pretty good. One of my favorite things to do in Lake Placid is head up to the summit of Whiteface Mtn. It’s one of my most favorite spots. The view is just beautiful (like stunning!) and it’s easy enough to get up there with the kids. There’s a short hike once the road ends but totally doable (although a tiny bit nerve racking) with little ones. Finley loved climbing all the rocks to the top. They’re becoming such great hikers, I love it! We spent the morning hanging out on top of the mountain and then headed into town to watch the parade and fireworks. We feel so very lucky to live so close to the Adirondacks. I highly recommend everyone coming and checking out the area at least once in there lifetime. There is just so much to see and explore. New York is really a cool state. It took sometime to win me over when we first moved here but I have to say I am a total convert. New York you have my heart.

^^Daddy & Daughter cliff jumping

and our little parade goers…

The past 2 weekends have been sort of a whirlwind (in the best possible way of course)! Last minute I decided to head up to Toronto with a friend to watch her husband (who plays for the Albany Devils) in the playoffs. They were playing the Toronto Marlies. Oh man was it fun! and stressful! but awesome!. They ended up losing in game 7 which was such a bummer, but I was so glad we got to be there to watch the final 2 games. It also meant we got to pop in and see family while we were up there for the weekend. I love when the kids get to see my Grandparents!! We also went to the yummiest little place with my cousins called The Cold Pressery where I had a delicious acai bowl and killer iced matcha latte. I/m pretty sure I also ate my weight in Canadian candies that I can’t seem to find in the states very often. The 7 hour trip always takes waaaaaay longer with kids in the car but we muscled through and all in all everyone did pretty well. Well except for the lady at the toll booth who was NOT impressed that we were paying a $12 toll with quarters. It provided Courtney and I some good amount of laughs after so totally worth it.

Last weekend we headed down to Brooklyn for the Airbnb Brooklyn Half Marathon. A friend (same friend as above- we love you Courtney!) have been training for this half for a few months now. We’ve been running 2-3 times a week together. During the week we run in the morning while Rowan is at school. Courtney pushes her son in her Bob and I push Finley and Orion in our double BOB. Goodness I love that stroller! And then the husbands watch the kids on the weekend for us to do the long run. Anyway, race day was Saturday morning. I guess this is the largest half in the whole country, there were over 27,000 people running! Which was cool and not cool all at the same time. Once the race stared, we didn’t cross the start line for 35 mins??!?!?!?! Crazy! There was a whole lot of weaving in and out of people which got kind of tiring after a few miles. It was a nice race though- through Prospect Park and down to Coney Island. We stayed over an extra night so I could go to the ErgoBaby event the next day. It was in the most beautiful location in Brooklyn! And I got to see Dani! Love that girl. The rest of the day we wandered (kids scooted) all around Brooklyn. We left convinced we should rent/sublet a place for an extended amount of time sometime soon. Brooklyn we love you!