A Lazy & Snuggly November

Fall in New York is the best. Especially in Central Park! 

 

We had such a laid back November. Maybe it's because it got very cold, but we spent a lot of our November weekends cuddled up inside drinking hot chocolate, eating cookie dough, ordering in (or making yummy soups and roasts), and watching Netflix. It was pretty fantastic! Maybe we needed the whole month to rest up after our fun Halloween festivities and to gear up for the holiday season. Anyways, we only went out a few times (and it was awesome) -so here are the pictures! (sorry they're all basically of Clark and I... but they're cute and I want to capture the memories!)

 So we made the very dangerous discovery that The Doughnut Plant is a 15 minute walk from our apartment... and that their pumpkin spice and creme brulee doughnuts are INCREDIBLE. That is a dangerous combination.

 We took some fall pictures while I was taking our friends' Christmas card pictures. And I LOVE them. Did I mention Central Park in the fall is a dream come true? 

 I took this during my lunch break on one of the last warm sunny days. The Pond always makes me think of Enchanted - the "How Does She Know" song started off here! 

More of Central Park in the fall. Clark's pretty dreamy too ;)

 Just cheesing in Strawberry Fields!

 Maybe I've already shown off this view- but my office has the best views of Central Park!!! haha maybe I should have titled this post - an Ode to Central Park in Autumn... Seeing as all of my pictures are here! 

 One Sunday, after church, Clarkie and I decided to walk home through Central Park. Best idea ever. The sun sets here around 4:30 now, so we were able to enjoy all of the gorgeous sunset. We also loved seeing some of the upper parts of Central Park - usually we hang out in the 60s-70s of the park... so it was cool to see some of the 80s. Makes me want to explore even more (like the Harlem Meer, or the Conservatory Gardens!)

Thank you random citizen for taking our picture (doesn't Clark look so dapper?!). Sadly the sunset was too bright for my camera - but it's pictured below!

 yeah. that's the real deal. I LOVE NEW YORK!!!!!!!!!! 

 On my walk to the subway station from work I get to appreciate all of the Christmassy goodness going up! These trees are around 51st and Park - I love them! Even though they went up before Thanksgiving... 

And Bergdorf's windows are up and lovely! They are a tribute to the arts - architecture, painting, music.. It's so magical to see all the famous Christmas window displays!

 My favorite - Tiffany's. Their whole building is dripping with diamond lights. So of course after seeing these Christmas lights, I had to read "Breakfast at Tiffany's" and then watch the Audrey Hepburn movie :) 

 

Uh oh... this cute doughnut wall can only mean one thing.... 

That's right! I went to Doughnut Plant again! This time with my cute girlfriend Bree. I'm so excited because next year she and her husband are moving out here to NY! Yay for more fun friends in the city! 

And one more. Because I love it and I love Clark and I loved November. Next up - our Thanksgiving with the Petersons! :)

HALLOWEEN!

I love Halloween!!!!! Dressing up, eating pumpkin-flavored/spice everything, carving pumpkins, and eating TONS of candy. Forget about the scary stuff... I used to go to haunted houses, but after going to a hunted house where the actors could come up and TOUCH you (the Joker totally freaks me out now) I swore off going to haunted stuff. Anyways, I was thrilled when Whitney invited us over to her apartment for some Halloween food and fun. Check out all the sweet costumes!!

 Zebra and Safari Explorer 

 Gumball Machine and Penny 

 The perfect NYC costume - Seamless food delivery guys! 

 Our wild hosts - Giraffe and Monkey! 

 Google Maps! :) 

 We just had to grab a jungle picture! 

 One more group shot for good measure. It was such a great evening - we had yummy food (taco soup, cornbread, apple cider, ghost cupcakes, and pumpkin cheesecake dip) and we played a great game! It was a version of charades using villains and murders as our charade prompts. The first round you can describe the person, the second you can only act them out, and the third you can only say one word! Made for a lot of laughs! 

 I made this pumpkin pie cheesecake dip - super easy and super yummy - here's the recipe: 

2 (8oz blocks) cream cheese, softened

1 cup powdered sugar

1/4 cup sugar

3/4 cup pumpkin puree

1 cup cool whip, softened

1 1/2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice

1/4 teaspoon all spice

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

Throw it all in a kitchen aid, and whip it till it's fluffy. Then let it set for 30 min in the fridge before serving.  Drizzle some caramel over the dip and serve with apples and pretzels! (original recipe here)

 haha and just a close up of my fauxhawk braid & zebra makeup. I was pretty happy with how our costumes turned out!

 On Saturday Clark and I were super duper lazy. We slept in really late... and we only left the house once to get lunch/walk around in the park. While on our walk we saw HUNDREDS of squirrels burying nuts all over the park. And they were all pretty friendly. They would run up to the little fences and reach out to see if you had food for them. Cutest little beggars. Although sometimes it was a little freaky - I felt like they might jump on us if we actually had food for them.

 Although Sunday was super cold, it was GORGEOUS out! Just look at how beautiful our neighborhood is!! I love it.

 

We bought pumpkins to carve a week before Halloween, but we weren't able to carve them in time for Halloween. Oh well! Since we felt too lazy to carve pumpkins on Saturday, we decided to carve them Sunday night instead! Clark did an amazing job carving the Chrysler Building. 

 And I carved a classic NYC taxi cab! 

 Check out our finished jack o'lanterns!

And that concludes our awesome Halloween festivities. I'd say our first NYC Halloween was a success! The Tompkin's Square Halloween Dog Parade, getting pumpkins, going to the Great Jack O'Lantern Blaze, and a Halloween party were all so fun. I'm already excited to fit in even more Halloween fun next year - maybe we'll take a trip to the Sleepy Hollow cemetery or go to the Village Halloween Parade! Happy Halloween!

Too Many Pumpkins!

One of my favorite Halloween books when I was little! 

Just kidding - in my opinion you can never have too many pumpkins, especially leading up to Halloween. And over the past week we sure have seen a ton of pumpkins!

 Starting with this DARLING pumpkin!

On Saturday, Clark and I went down to the Tompkins Square Halloween Dog Parade. Oh my goodness,  it was so much fun. People in NYC take their dogs VERY seriously... for some people their dog is their child... these people would build a full on mobile stage set for their dog to sit on...You'll see what I mean, and I didn't even get pictures of all of the most fantastic and crazy displays! It was so great to see such darling dogs and all the fun Halloween costumes. If you're ever in NYC around Halloween I recommend visiting! 

 Green eggs & ham 

 R2D2, Chewie, and an Ewok!

 The classic hot dog! 

 I thought this little sushi roll was darling!! 

 hahahaha yeah this lady... she build a whole stroller carriage for her princess dog. It was a bit extravagant! Another couple built a whole fabric farmer's market stand for their tiny little dog (dressed like a pea in the pod) to stand on... I wish I had a photo! 

cute little inmates and a pirate!

Jack in the box (shown out of the box) and a samurai!

I LOVED this golden snitch costume! 

Then to continue on with our Halloween theme we went to the Union Square Farmer's market to pick out some pumpkins to carve... never mind that we still haven't carved those pumpkins yet... but we will! Because there is no way I'm not carving a pumpkin this year :)

And because we hadn't had our pumpkin fill yet, we went to The Great Jack-o-Lantern Blaze. It's in a sleepy little town along the Hudson River, called Croton-on-Hudson, just past Sleepy Hollow. It was about an hour train ride out of the city. They carve out over 10,000 pumpkins and use these jack-o-lanterns to create an incredible light display! If you're anywhere near NY for Halloween, I would definitely recommend going to The Blaze. But you do have to buy tickets way in advance - we got ours Sept. 2nd cause they sell out! Anyways, we met up at Grand Central with the Hopkins and the Hales and made our way to see the show!  Check out how cool the Blaze was!

Lots of normal/fun jack-o-lanterns lined the pathways! 

For this display they would light up random pumpkins to make it look like there were buzzing bees! 

This cute little clown did cartwheels! 

Life sized pumpkin zoo!! 

Tiger 

The group! :) 

scary scarecrows 

Giant spiderweb with a human sized skeleton spider! 

Witches! 

Haunted ghost trail leading towards Sleepy Hollow! 

Even the Headless Horseman made an appearance! 

 

That clock is made from pumpkins...

Then they just started showing off with their optical illusion pumpkins... 

My absolute favorite part of the exhibit? The enormous dinosaurs!!!! 

This Chinese dragon was also very impressive! 

Finally said good bye to the Blaze with some weird alien/plant guys. Overall, it was so cool!

Happy Halloween!!