I Heart NY Y'all

The Journey Back

2012-01-14T23:24:00.000-05:00

It's amazing that 1.5 people can return home with nearly 200 lbs. of luggage! Special thanks to Mr. Ed & Angie Doncaster for helping Heather & Chickadee make it to the airport!

Skipping Candles, Straight to Forks

2012-01-11T17:29:00.000-05:00

Ice cream cake is always a reason to celebrate, right?

One Stitch at a Time

2012-01-09T23:17:00.000-05:00

For those who know Heather, you have no doubt that she'll probably be buried with a glue gun in her hand. During her college days, she was a notorious sorority girl who could glitter just about anything. Since then she's gone through 'phases' of crafts...including stain glass painting, cross-stitch, scrap booking, creating shabby-chic furniture, sewing and in the most recent times, quilting. Loyal I Heart NY Y'all readers can't possibly have forgotten her last project?

While visiting her family over the holidays, Heather discovered two things: 1) There's no internet connection, 3G or Verizon cell service in the outskirts of Qulin, Missouri and 2) There are only so much LMN & Hallmark movies you can stomach after the family goes to bed at 8:30 p.m.

Boredness soon gave way to productivity after the sewing machine was cranked up! Fortunately, our friend Brandi Hodges opted to come up from Jonesboro and serve as sidekick during craft time at the looney bin. She was a such huge help that made the projects go by faster. Thanks Brandi!

The first project was a simple one. Heather & Brett's nephew, Hudson Jordan, was due a baby blanket. Inspired by some super cute sock monkey fabric found at Hobby Lobby, this is what Heather cooked up (with Brandi's mad ironing & cutting skills):

The photo fabric is available at Wal-Mart and is super easy to use! Just by printing a few pictures off of Facebook, the center squares were already done. Unfortunately, they printed a hair too small and had to be give a border of red stripes to make them fit perfectly. (Math has never been Heather's strongest field)

The quilt pattern used for Huddy's blanket is called Shoo-Fly and is super easy to make. It's basically a Nine-Square block with triangles for the corner spots.

Remember that monster duvet cover Heather quilted last year? Well, there was plenty of fabric left over from that project! Heather used as much of it as she could to make a small baby quilt for Chickadee. Don't worry, there will probably be more projects featuring the black & white fabric since she barely made a dent in the stash. It's not put together yet, but here's what each side looks like. Hope Chickadee enjoys it!

Split Rail Fence pattern

The last project is still ongoing. After cleaning out the dresser drawers, Heather realized she had tons of t-shirts. Many from her college & Alpha Delta Pi sorority days at Missouri State University. Rather than get rid of them, she decided to create a t-shirt quilt. It sounds intimidating, but turned out to be super easy.

Gotta gather the Greek goods

With a little help from some lightweight fusible interfacing, Heather was able to salvage precious, but no longer really wearable, t-shirts & most importantly save drawer space in her home...it's about getting rid of the clutter in 2012!

To start, all you had to do was cut the shirt in half...

The hardest part was being brave enough to cut the shirt!

...and then frame up what you wanted your quilt block to be. Leaving a little around the edges allowed the interfacing extra room.

To get the interfacing to adhere, Brandi put down a damp dishrag and ironed over it. A quick trim up around the plastic guide and it sure didn't take long before the t-shirt material was an "official" quilt block.

We combined four of the the front pocket designs to create a block (top left square) and pieced together the front & back of one shirt to make the lettering more even (top right square).

Because it turned out smaller than expected, this work in progress plans to add a couple of more shirts found after the fact and then some photo blocks of sorority pictures to fill it out. Here's the pseudo-finished project:

It's amazing what you can create when you don't have access to a cellphone or a computer!

First Look at Chickadee

2012-01-05T21:40:00.000-05:00

We got a chance to take a sneak peek at Chickadee while Heather was in Poplar Bluff for the holidays. Expectant parents in the area flock to Baby View where you can record ultrasound photos on video and also take a peek at what's cooking in your oven in 3D. It's a pretty cool little service!

Baby or alien?

Our technician gave us the promising news that Chickadee is pretty photogenic, but his umbilical cord stood in the way of us getting a great shot of him during the scan. We got to see his 'boy parts', his feet and hands, his heart beating and he also showed us a great shot of his butt crack. (Oh, don't act surprised...y'all know who this kid belongs to)

Kinda cute isn't he?

Only 10 more weeks until we get to see him in person!

Hot Mama's

2011-12-28T16:56:00.000-05:00

Uh, maybe don't drink the water in Northeast Arkansas....

Former next door neighbor Amy Elder & Heather

Cousins Kaitlin Morgan Rau & Heather

Heather and little brother Jim - just kidding! :)

It's a baby boom!

Happy Holidays Y'all!

2011-12-25T09:41:00.000-05:00

Hope you are having a Merry little Christmas today!

Dreaming of a White Christmas

2011-12-21T12:16:00.000-05:00

Since we weren't going to have a chance of seeing the white stuff for the holidays this year while in Missouri, Phyllis brought a white Christmas indoors!

Check out her $10 white Christmas tree she snagged during the post-holiday sales last year! Unfortunately, she had to buy all new lights for the tree that had white cords, rather than green. The new lights blended in nicely with some of the Flanigan favorite ornaments.

The Flanigans, circa 1997

Mason Jar Glass ornament from FDR Presidential Library

Obligatory Razorback red

Happy 40th Wedding Anniversary Phyllis & Mr. Ed

The Flanigans, circa 2011

Take Me Home, Country Roads

2011-12-11T23:20:00.000-05:00

After our sight-seeing adventure in Montreal, we crossed the border and dropped our friend Andy Whitaker off at the Burlington, VT airport for his ride back South. It was our first visit to Burlington, which is only 45 minutes from the Canadian border. With a population of 42,417 it's actually the largest city in the state!

There's something about the countryside of Vermont and we saw plenty of it on our 3 hour dive back to Clifton Park...

...can't you just smell the fresh air?

Front Row at our First Protest

2011-12-10T23:08:00.000-05:00

The best part about visiting other places is experiencing the food, the people and the culture there. But sometimes you can get a bit closer than you intended...which is exactly what happened to us during a quick getaway to Montreal.

After a day of playing tourists, Brett, Heather & Andy walked out of La Ville Souterraine (Montreal's Underground City & coincidentally, the largest underground complex in the world) and right into a protest!

Honestly, when we first heard the drummers we thought it was a parade, but then realized that traffic in all directions was at a standstill. Our next assumption was that it was the Occupy Montreal movement...after all, Brett's Halloween costume had left us with little drummer boy memories.

This is what we ended up being smack in the middle of on de Lorimier Avenue:

After a little investigating, we discovered the protesters were Congolese Montrealers who started their demonstration on the nearby Jacques Cartier Bridge. The protest was a spontaneous reaction to the announcement of election results in the Democratic Republic of Congo and caught local authorities off guard. (Congo's incumbent president, Joseph Kabila, won 49% of the vote, versus 32% for veteran opposition leader Etienne Tshisekedi)

We watched for about 30 minutes and then found seats a little farther away from the front row after the riot police marched up. While we didn't stick around to see how it went down (hey, we were hungry!) we did see the aftermath of the traffic snarl for miles. Sucked to be those folks, y'all!

Handy Andy to the Rescue

2011-12-07T17:26:00.000-05:00

Living far away from friends and family can be tough, but it's great when folks come to visit! We love showing off New York and treating ~~ourselves~~ our guests to Italian bakery cuisine.

Our pal Andy Whitaker currently holds the record for most visits to New York-he says he has a thing for the cannoli. During his last visit Upstate he voluntarily rolled up his sleeves to put together Chickadee's new crib!

And when we write voluntarily, we mean as in Heather & Brett went to bed and woke up with a completely assembled crib!

God bless our 'Handy Andy' y'all! Now Chickadee won't have to sleep in the dresser drawer...

Who's that Mystery Guest Reader?

2011-12-01T11:01:00.000-05:00

Speaking to Mrs. Kienzle's 2nd Grade Class

When a room mother at the All Saints Academy in Albany stumbled across Heather's blog on albany.com, she was looking for a guest speaker to talk to a classroom of 2nd graders.

The students regularly have "Mystery Readers" come read books to them and talk about their jobs and what they do. It's a great way to expose kids to different occupations and to include the community in their education.

Of course, Heather was hooked the moment she got the invitation! All she had to do was show up and bring a book...but since we don't have a lot of reading materials (yet) for small children, Heather was super thankful when her mother-in-law (and former kindergarten teacher) Taryn helped her pick out a couple of books.

Armed with Officer Buckley and Gloria, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, I See Santa Everywhere and The Dog Who Saved Christmas, Heather faced her toughest live audience yet!

Thankfully, the kids were excited to listen to the stories and polite enough to not ask why Heather looked like a beached whale (thanks to Chickadee).

They asked lots of questions about blogging and reporting and had plenty of stories to share with Heather about their own travels. Unfortunately, none had ever traveled to Arkansas, Missouri or Mississippi...but one smart little girl could proudly spell "Mississippi"...which is more than Heather could say at that age!

Pregnancy Pics...It's All About the Belly!

2011-11-30T11:28:00.000-05:00

We just got the proofs back from our pregnancy photo shoot (thank you to Brett's sister Dana for an awesome Christmas present!) The pictures were taken by Dana's babysitter Chris Marsh who also doubles as a photographer...talk about the best of both worlds!. Photoplay Photography is responsible for some of the best pictures we've seen of our nephews Walter Mack and Hudson, so we knew we were in good hands!

Here's a peek at our pics:

Not too shabby, huh?

Stylin' & Profilin'

2011-11-29T22:50:00.000-05:00

Gotta say, Chickadee and Brett are going to be looking sharp next year in their matching ensembles! Check out their new outfits, courtesy of our Charlotte based Santa & Mrs. Claus (aka Dean & Taryn)...

Baby Lessons

2011-11-27T22:37:00.000-05:00

With Chickadee coming soon, we figured it might be time to learn something about babies. Thankfully, Brett's sister Dana has two and let us practice on them while we were visiting over the Thanksgiving break.

The Jordan Boys

Two-year-old Walter Mack is a wild man. The kid is completely outgoing, supernaturally ENERGETIC and has the voice of a parrot...so watch what you say. He recently got into troubs for saying 'crapola'. WM loves to play 'ball' and his newest trick is trying to tackle you. (That's what happens when your dad is a coach).

His little brother Hudson is the most calm, chill and easy going five-month-old baby we've ever seen. Like the child doesn't even really cry. And he makes funny prehistoric dinosaur noises, which are quiet entertaining. We're pretty sure that with our genetic makeup, Chickadee will not be like this.

Over the Thanksgiving break we got a few parenting lessons:

1. Don't naturally assume that the pictures on the diaper go in the front. Considering both of us put the diapers on backwards, we'd like to issue a complaint to Huggies for tricking us. Why put pictures on the back of a diaper?? How does the kid enjoy that, huh?? Stupid diaper art.

2. Babies are messy eaters. And they like bright colored gross stuff. Like puree sweet potatoes. And you shouldn't accidentally cuss when you miss their mouths and hit them in the face with it. Because you never know what little parrot is flying around and might repeat you.

3. Apparently, kids are not camera ready. Heather is notorious for spotting a camera a mile away and is always ready with her go-to smile. She's taught Brett the same trick and over the years, he's become a pretty good picture poser. Babies, however, will look EVERYWHERE but at the person snapping the picture.

4. Bottles make babies happy. So happy they throw up sometimes. Can't say the same hasn't happened to us a time or two, though.

5. Who knew that straws and spoons were such amazing play things at the restaurant table? Also, you should steer grabbing hands away from knives and fork and generally any other sharp objects.

And they say raising a child is hard...pu-lease, we've totally got this covered y'all!

Spooky Shopping

2011-11-13T21:17:00.000-05:00

Having recently hit a huge sale at the Baby Gap outlet in Vermont, we decided to see if lightening could indeed strike twice. The upside to living in upstate New York is that there are several outlets within an hour's drive of our house. A few months ago Brett stumbled upon a Gap outlet nestled inside a regular mall. We're not sure why, but we're not going to argue...plus it's only 16 miles from our house!

The Rotterdam Square Mall in Schenectady has probably seen better days, but offers TJ Maxx, Sears and K-Mart as it's anchor stores. The Gap outlet proved to be another bargain bin and we walked away with some good deals (look for them on eBay soon!). What we didn't realize was that we walked out the wrong door to get back to the car.

And you won't believe what we saw:

A freaking graveyard! At first we thought it might have been leftover Halloween decorations, but upon closer inspection, it was the real thing.

Heather did some digging and came up with the mall's history. Apparently, the mall sits on the site once owned by the Vedder family. Harman Albertse Vedder bought the land in 1672 and built a home on it. Around 1832, Harmens' great grandson Johannes sold the property to Colonel Daniel David Schermerhorn Campbell. Campbell promptly built a 26 bedroom mansion on the land...no word on if that was the original structure of the mall or not though.

Geez...didn't any of these people ever see Poltergeist?

Walter Mack & Hudson's News Debut

2011-11-03T14:52:00.003-04:00

As former newsies, Heather & Brett had to appreciate this little video Brett's sister Dana emailed us. Looks like our nephews, Walter Mack and Hudson, are dipping their toes into the business! (Hang in there until around the 1:50 mark to catch it)

And the UPrinting Giveaway Winner Is...

2011-11-02T23:33:00.000-04:00

With the help of Random.org and UPrinting.com, it's our pleasure to announce a big ol' congratulations to

Stephanie B.!

Just for reading I Heart NY Y'all, Stephanie has won the very first giveaway from UPrinting on our blog! Stephanie wins a free 16" x 20" rolled canvas print and one business day turnaround free shipping!

Special thanks to UPrinting for sponsoring this giveaway - thanks y'all!

Occupy Halloween 2011

2011-10-31T20:01:00.000-04:00

There is one holiday that Heather loves above all...Halloween! Decorations usually go up just after Labor Day (we have to get our money's worth y'all) and are immediately followed with the Christmas tree trimmings. And when our friends say "Halloween threw up in your house," they're not kidding. Take a look:

Barf, right?

Of course, there's a lot of planning that goes into the costume selection as well. We Heather takes a lot of pride in choosing costumes that aren't out of a bag...she likes things that make you think, or to put it simply, Halloween from the headlines. Check out some of our great ideas from year's past.

This year we recruited our friends Joe & Renee Belardo and set out to win the elusive $1,000 group costume prize at Vapor Night Club in Saratoga Springs. After much debate, we decided to go as....Occupy Vapor protesters!

Now, just to clarify...we were not really protesting, as some of the people in the club thought we were, or serious in the least about our 'political' statement. Can't you tell from our messages...that have glitter on them?

Unfortunately, Joe gave Brett the idea that he needed to have a drum...which he pounded on all. night. long.

It probably would have been really annoying if we could have stopped laughing as his unintentional Corey Haim resemblance.

In case you missed it on the news, the weather in the Northeast didn't really cooperate with Halloween this year.

The good (or bad) news: when there's snow falling, there's fewer slutty costumes to gawk at. Girls up North have to wear actual clothes for Halloween. Turns out, the guys don't.

Again competition was fierce in the costume contest. There were some really great outfits that we got...

...and some that we didn't? Halloween balloon girl won a cool $1,000 for that getup though...uh, what ever it was.

Our Occupy Vapor apparently didn't go over very well with the judges...but we figured that was just the man trying to keep us down. Plus, our arms were killing us after holding protest signs for an hour and a half before the competition began.

With big money on the line, folks brought their A-games. This light up robot cashed in $1K for best male.

The group costume contest was a bit sketch this year though...we read the contest rules online before hand and to enter the group you had to have three (3) people. But when they announced the finalist, there were several "groups" picked that only had two (2). The top ten was narrowed down to a top three and the audience cheered for their favorite.

The Harlem "Old" Trotters

These folks were all "Invasion of NYC"...with huge, crazy elaborate costumes!

and two (2) Lego guys.

Guess who won the grand? The two (2) Lego guys! Sure, they had great costumes, but they were missing their third person. We weren't mad that we didn't win, but we feel like Vapor judges should play by their own rules. After all, $1,000 is a lot of money up for grabs! Not sure if we'll be back next year...we're keeping our ears open to any other costume contests in the area.

...and are already brainstorming our costumes for next year!

Carving Up College Memories

2011-10-28T13:14:00.000-04:00

Even though both Brett & Heather went to decent sized colleges (20,000-25,000 students) it seems like our schools never get a lot of love. It's a bit easier to find apparel for East Carolina University and down right impossible to find stuff from Missouri State University. You might stumble across stuff online, but unless you're a home-towner, you're likely out of luck.

This year, in the celebration of Halloween, we decided to make our own college memorabilia. One thing you can find online are pumpkin carving templates.

Argggh Pirates & Bears!

Ok, so it took us a while to saw through our frozen pumpkins, but we managed to get our campus pride patterns put on.

Just like college, our hard work paid off...and we managed to score some pumpkin pride!

...plus some tasty treats!

Snow Before Halloween!

2011-10-27T18:07:00.000-04:00

Guess what we got today in Albany??

A Conversation with Jesse Eisenberg

2011-10-24T23:41:00.000-04:00

Eisenberg & Davis

It was just a fluke that Heather stumbled across the article in the Times Union online newspaper announcing actor Jesse Eisenberg was to appear in a free theater performance this week in Albany and Saratoga Springs. Eisenberg, an Oscar nominee for The Social Network, performed in two productions of Theater of War, which presents readings of Sophocles' Ajax and Philoctetes. We're not really into ancient Greek drama, but we sure do like seeing famous people!

We got to see the Theater of War production in Saratoga Springs and were treated to performances by a great group of folks with imdb.com pages. We saw 24 actor Glenn Davis, Nurse Jackie and Law & Order actress Chinasa Ogbuagu and Mystic River and The Wire actor John Doman alongside Eisenberg.

The production of Theater of War is pretty heavy as it encourage audiences to consider the impact of war on individuals, families and communities. The emotional readings are followed with an audience discussion of the psychological injuries of war. We didn't really have anything to add to the conversation, but it was interesting and insightful to listen.

After the production wrapped up, we wandered around the Military Museum where the production was held. Of course, Brett had to read nearly every exhibit before Heather noticed Eisenberg hanging out by the exit. She inched her way closer and suddenly found herself in a line waiting to talk with the actor. By the time Brett noticed what was going on, we were just feet away from him!

Thankfully, the lady behind us in line snapped this memorable photo...

Pretty sure we're scaring the crap out of Jesse Eisenberg.

...and it gave us time to strike up a meaningful conversation with Jesse Eisenberg. It went something vaguely like this:

BG: She (pointing at Heather) was too scared to ask you how it was like hosting SNL?

(Heather looks mortified as she has just been sold out by Brett)

JE: It was great. Really fast paced and a lot of fun. It's like three days of just non-stop.

BG: Yeah, I heard it's crazy.

JE: Are you a big fan?

HF: Yeah, we really enjoy your work!

JE: Of SNL?

BG: Oh, that too.

JE: You guys should get tickets.

HF: We've tried.

JE: Oh, how's it work?

HF: It's a weird lottery system and I don't think we were picked for this season.

JE: Really? I had no idea.

BG: If we'd only had a host help us get tickets we wouldn't have had any problems getting in.

JE: laughs...Thanks for coming out tonight!

Leave it to us to strike up meaningful conversation with the guy.

Guess What We're Having?

2011-10-21T13:14:00.000-04:00

Giveaway: Free Canvas Print from UPrinting.com

2011-10-18T12:49:00.000-04:00

We're excited to announce our very first giveaway on I Heart NY Y'all! You may have noticed a few New York giveaways on Heather's blog on Albany.com, but this is a first for us here and it's just in time for the holidays!

Finding the perfect gift for someone can be tricky, but the folks at UPrinting have you covered this holiday season. The online printing company offers greeting cards, canvas printing and beautiful letterhead printing for your holiday greetings, all with a quick turnaround.

UPrinting is generously offering one lucky person a free 16" x 20" rolled canvas print (with 2" border or no border-your choice). Perfect for you holiday family pictures, right?? You'll also receive one business day turnaround free shipping! This giveaway from UPrinting is limited to US residents, must be 18-years-old to enter.

Here's how to enter to win y'all!

Mandatory Entry: Like UPrinting on Facebook & leave us a comment below telling us about it.

Optional Extra Entries: Leave a separate comment for each entry below to increase your odds of winning. (The below are worth one extra entry unless stated otherwise.)

2. Follow @UPrinting on Twitter.

3. Follow @iheartnyyall on Twitter.

4. Retweet this tweet on Twitter (maybe done once a day for one entry): Win #free canvas print from @Uprinting & @iheartnyyall. Contest ends 11:59 pm EST 11/1 http://tinyurl.com/3wpwdy5

5. Sign up on Giveaway Blogs.

Contest ends Tuesday, November 1, 2011 at 11:59 PM EST. Winner will be chosen by Random.org and notified by email. If you are selected, you will have 48 hours to respond to my email or a new winner will be drawn. Good luck!

* This canvas printing giveaway is sponsored by UPrinting, no monetary compensation was given to I Heart NY Y'all for hosting.

Coming Soon...

2011-10-03T09:26:00.000-04:00

Spring 2012

Pickin' and a Grinnin'

2011-09-24T20:23:00.000-04:00

It's fall in New York and that means one thing: Apples!

Did you know that apples are actually a member of the rose family of plants? (Along with pears, peaches, cherries and plums!) There are 100 different varieties of apples grown commercially in the US, with the majority of the crops found in about 36 states...and New York is one of them!

Apples tend to grow pretty well up here in the North because they blossom in late spring, minimizing frost damage. New Yorkers have been taking a bite out of the apple crop since 1730, when the first apple nursery opened in Flushing, NY.

Over the weekend we embraced the wonderful weather and went hunting for the perfect apples at our local orchard in Saratoga County. We went to Bowman Orchards last year and it was such a good experience we decided to go back!

They say Americans eat 19.6 pounds of apples every year....

...Good thing we snagged 33 pounds this year! The bonus: anyone who comes to visit us this year will receive a complimentary apple pie.