Day 3 - Christmastime in New York City!

Yesterday mid-morning, Jared came out of his home office to tell me that he needed to head to Manhattan to interview someone in the afternoon and would be staying the night there as he had a meeting on Long Island the following morning. "Want to come?" he asked, half joking. I think he was surprised when I responded "Yes!"

I love New York City and have been dying to go since we moved here but it always sounded a little daunting to take three young kids there. Somehow, though, after having six kids the day before, an overnight trip to the city with just three kids sounded totally doable!

I made arrangements with a nearby kennel to take our dog Jack overnight, packed some necessities for the kids, and hit the road mid afternoon so that we arrived in the city just after Jared's interview was over. I was super proud of myself for managing the crazy traffic and getting us to our hotel, the Marriott Marquis on Times Square, all by myself!

The best part about our room, on the 28th floor, was the awesome view of Times Square below.

Looking down from our window.

We loved this billboard across from our window!

The kids loved hanging out in front of the window, looking down at the traffic and people, and watching the ads on the giant screens!

After checking out the room, it was time to show the kids the city! Our first stop was the huge Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center.

This picture of the kids in front of the tree does not show how enormous it is. The part captured in the picture is just a tiny portion of the entire tree. There were so many people there, so it was hard to get a good picture from far away to get more of the tree in the shot!

We walked up 5th, past Saks Fifth Avenue, which had a really neat Christmas light and music display on the side of the building. Our next stop was FAO Schwarz, which of course the kids loved! Here are a couple of pictures of them playing on the giant piano.

Then we headed back towards Times Square, stopping for slices of pizza at Ray's Pizza.

Our last stop was the M&M store. Nathan and Hannah each got a small baggie of their favorite kind and color of M&Ms. Nathan chose red plain, and Hannah pink peanut.

This picture was really funny. I was taking a picture of the kids posing with the red M&M when a sweet young Asian woman got really excited and was gesturing and trying to talk to me, but didn't speak much English. At first I thought she was offering to take a picture of me with the kids and started to hand her my camera, but no, it turned out she wanted to take a picture of me and the kids with her own camera! So Jared took a picture of us with ours, and some lady we don't know now has a picture of us on her camera too! Strange.

We were pretty beat by the time we got back to the hotel, but the kids were troopers and let me take this picture of them in their matching Christmas pajamas. Every year I get them matching holiday pajamas (one year it was Thanksgiving pajamas), and it has turned into a fun tradition.

So Day 3 of our Christmas Countdown was even more exciting than I had originally planned! Be sure to check out Day 1 and Day 2 if you haven't already!

Do you have a favorite big city to visit? Have you ever been to New York City?