Join Laurie Berkner & Nickelodeon to Support the Children's Museum of Manhattan at Sunday Funday #CMOM

Yes you could stay home in your pajamas while catching up on your favorite shows with your lil' monsters over the weekend, but why on earth would you do that when you could just grab the kiddies and head to Sunday Funday at Chelsea Piers in support of CMOM? With that snowstorm behind us, I think it's time for some family fun for a good cause!

The Children's Museum of Manhattan has been a fun and educational resource to NYC families and visitors. All funds raised during this adorable indoor picnic event will go towards the cultural programming offered to 350,000 people a year, with free access given to 50,000 low-income individuals.  And for the second year in a row CMOM is hosting Sunday Funday for hundreds of families with children ages 0-12, who'll enjoy food, live entertainment, obstacle course, sports celebrities, costume characters, arts and crafts and so much more!

I'll never forget how much fun my oldest Cj and I had visiting their Eat, Sleep, Play exhibit as part of one of my Graduate Studies papers at CUNY Queens College while working on my Masters in Elementary Education. It was a phenomenal, interactive experience where we both learned a lot and CJ begged for me not to make him leave. Essentially last year CJ felt the same way about he and his little brother ending the day after a fun-filled afternoon of activities - thanks to Adam at DadaRocks.com for hosting a ticket giveaway we were able to attend the inaugural year and the boys begged me to let them stay just a few minutes longer. 

Take a look at our pics of all the fun we had last year: From watching Dan Zane perform to showing off their dance moves wit the Super Sprowtz (who we met on our first visit to the museum nearly 5 years ago) to shooting hoops with WNBA stars and getting their face painted - to say the boys had an awesome time is an understatement.

What's cooler than a life size game of Connect Four?

11 year old CJ has been a fan of Dan Zanes since preschool so it was fun introducing his little brother to some fun live tunes and to tell Dan how much they loved the show

  

A video posted by Danielle (@dellahsjubilation) on Apr 19, 2015 at 10:05am PDT

There was fun to be had at every twist and turn, even on the way to the restroom!

Mini basketball and football fans had the chance to hoop it up with alumni from our home teams and toss around the ball.

If you can't tell by his face it's definitely a great experience for the kids and a way for the grown ups to support a community establishment that brings smiles just like his to the faces of littles that visit the museum regularly.

So what are you waiting for? With a little less than 150 tickets left grab yours to support this wonderful Museum and it's programming, it's such a great way for the entire family to spend their weekend, especially as the weather gets a little colder and you need an escape from cabin! What would be a highlight for your family to see of do during Sunday Funday? 

Wilson Family Firsts in the 2016 Mazda 6 Grand Touring #DriveMazda

We were provided the Mazda 6 Grand touring to facilitate this review. No compensation was received and all opinions expressed are 100% our own. Thank You Mazda & Drive Shop USA!

We've been aiming to plan out local day trips as a family at least one Saturday a month as it's the only day a week we are all home together. With Six Flag's Great Adventures open for the first time over the holidays we figured testing out the  2016 Mazda 6 Grand Touring would be perfect. As a family of 4 we had such a great ride driving to New Jersey to check out Holiday in the Park and really loved a lot of features in this mid-size car that's also top 3 of mid-sized cars for affordability.

If you saw our post on the Mazda CX-5 then you know the boys were loving the solar red color that definitely stands out on this sleek car. They thought the pop of color on the Mazda 6 made it look like a cool sports car so to them it would be worth the extra on the price tag. The lean design and color of the car make it resemble a sportier vehicle but it's still perfect for families.

The Mazda 6 was named a top safety pick which was what made me the happiest about driving it around and named Driver 10 Best of the Year. In addition to those awards Here's a few things we thought were most impressive about this car: 

• An estimated 40 mpg on the highway - hubby only had to fill the tank once and he drove it almost daily over a course of 10 days for local errands and our drive to Jersey.
• Mazda advanced key-less entry means no digging  through the over-sized tote!
• Heated front seats - although it was unseasonably warm for December this feature of course comes in handy once the temperature drops at night or during season changes.
• Blind spot monitoring system, Rear cross traffic alert and Electronic parking brake// Smart City Break Support won me over in regards to keeping the family safe while traveling. If the Mazda 6 detects an impending collision it activates the break automatically, which is pretty amazing technology.
• The active driving display pictured below allows for the driver's eyes to stay on the road while glancing at the speed being driven.

                     

The boys had plenty of room in the back and were comfortable for the nearly 2 hour drive.

The holiday lights show was fantastic in it's first year and it had such a great turn out., we really loved the holiday themed food and shows. We couldn't have asked for better weather to ride around in the Mazda 6 Grand Touring. For more information on price points, specs and more head to MazdaUSA.com and make sure you watch our video and mark The Holiday Lights in the Park at Six Flags on your calendar for next year!

In Pursuit of Magic: Reflecting on Reasons to Live in the Moment During the Holidays

I'm having a moment...With all that's going on in the world today, from attacks on everyday freedoms and innocent children, to just dealing with the struggles of the day to day I'll be the first to admit I believe in and seek out the magic of the holidays. During that time of year I put blinders on and sift through all the negativity to make sure my kids enjoy the holidays, and by no means does it mean by just anticipating the presents left under the tree from the Jolly man above but to truly revel in all the moments spent with loved ones and to count our blessings one by one before the year is out. Living in NYC what's not to love about that time of year? The lights, the stunning holiday window displays, skating under the Rockefeller Tree and of course standing on those insanely long lines to meet Santa. I live for those moments!

I must apologize for just sort of disappearing before wishing you all a Happy Holiday and a joyous New Year but the weeks leading up to Christmas were actually way more stressful than I could have imagined and I just never really got the chance to sit down in front of the computer to fill you all in.  But if you follow me on Instagram I tend to post little intimate blurbs from time to time as a quick way to get it all out. All of December I tried my darndest to keep up with the magic of the season even though I just wasn't feeling it, maybe it was the unseasonably warm weather (70 degrees in NYC on Christmas eve was just crazy), maybe it was just me coming down from a year of running around & 6 months of back to back event planning. A time out was needed and I just took it and ran.

Of course because of the stress ultimately a Crohns disease related flare up snuck up on me and has been kicking my butt since the start of the new year. But today something clicked and I decided to muster up some energy and to get back to writing but not before sharing my pursuit to keep the magic alive. Warning - this post will be lengthy, maybe a bit wordy but bare with me o.k, It's a rarity. 

The Accident that Put it all in Perspective:

On the 11th, an unassumingly normal Friday, I kissed the hubby and my 5 year old lil' monster goodbye as they headed off to school. Only to receive an anxiety inducing phone call from my husband to say that they were in a car accident just a block away from the main entrance for morning dropoff. Despite my husbands assurance that he and Tristan were fine, it was one of the most gut-wrenching pangs I'd ever felt and I was literally frozen in fear. You have to love the resilience of children because the only thing that was on Tristan's mind was that he got to ride to the hospital in a cool ambulance and during our brief conversation he said to me "We're OK mommy, but we definitely broke the car". 

What was even scarier to me was that I think I had a premonition about the incident the day before when I decided not to post a picture of Tristan in front of the car. He was beyond excited about showing his friends the red Mazda 6 we had on loaner to review and couldn't wait to show his friends how his new favorite sweatpants matched the cherry red new car. I was going to put a little anecdote after noticing the sticker highlighting the car's award for safety in the rear window about how most car accidents happen only within a few blocks from home, but for whatever reason didn't. All though both cars were pretty banged up we are all truly blessed that the other driver and my boys could walk away to tell the story. 

After that car accident my mission to revel in the whimsy of the "most wonderful time of the year" commenced full throttle, well slowly..... I'll admit we didn't put up our tree until the week before Christmas and it remained up as the first week of January rolled on by. Don't judge me! And some how I found myself wandering the aisles of Target one by one for last minute gifts the night before Christmas eve. All I knew was that this Christmas could have played out so differently had the accident been worse than what it was and I was just thankful that the hubby and his mini me walked away (the hubby a bit more shaken up then I'd ever seen him) without so much as a scratch.

Stop Knocking Santa - Go Ahead and Believe:

Imagine my frustration trying to be all jolly while my tween CJ starts tossing around skeptical questions about the "realness" of Santa. As the years pass I can see the idea of Santa slowly diminishing, it's not the first time he's questioned St. Nick and certainly won't be his last, until the truth comes out. I nearly went off on one of the hubby's co-workers who took it upon himself by whispering to CJ "the real deal" on Santa by having him question how Santa really gets in our NYC apartment without a chimney - but everybody knows Santa just takes the stairs from the roof, C'mon! 

Instead of answering him directly I've decided to tell him that believing in Santa is a personal choice and asked him "Do you want to believe in him?" I've read tons of blog posts and comments on FB where parents have gotten upset that their kids give all the credit to Santa for the cool presents under the tree, or the debates on whether the Santa their kids believe in is black or white and I just don't get the big deal. And you may not agree and that's fine, but to me Santa is just a symbol of childhood innocence and with everything our kids could be caught up in, the idea of this magical person bringing them presents at the end of the year is the last thing I'm going to be up in arms about. But you better believe mom and dad score points for awesome presents too!

This year I knew I wanted to skip the Santa Land maze at Macy's since CJ questioned why multiple families could go into those little houses within seconds of each other to see the "real" Santa. So I remembered seeing my blogger friend Kristin of My Strange Family posting yearly about visiting the Santa at ABC Carpet and Home and knew we had to see him because he was the most beautiful, authentic looking Claus I'd ever seen. So majestic with the rosiest red cheeks and a beard that looked so cottony soft it would make you shut your mouth for ever doubting he really existed. When I showed CJ the post he even said "Wow, mommy it's really him!" 

Another Trip to the ER Means Bring on the Holiday Lights and Hot Coco

 A mere week after the car accident, another premonition, this time owned by mother thanks to a Lifetime movie (that told the story of a family's loss of a child due to secondary drowning in his sleep) led us back to the E.R with our 5 year old. Tristan a completely fearless but novice swimmer, guzzled way too much pool water for comfort during his last swimming class. You couldn't tell him for one second that he wasn't an Olympic swimmer with that shiny medal swinging from his neck. But he also ended up with some what of a wheezy cough, that caused the hubby to wake out of his sleep as he ran to his bed one night. Top that with a slight fever that occurred earlier in the week and we ended up skipping our plans to attend a family holiday party and while dressed to the nines we drove off to the E.R. Completely amused by the irony Tristan smiled at the fact that he ended up sitting in the same bed from the week before and giggled while putting on a tiny gown that instantly made those pangs in my heart re-appear. How could I not have taken his coughs more seriously, what if something truly was wrong? But yet again my trooper, the little monster was perfectly fine and once cleared to go ended up having a melt down because we missed the party.

Remembering that our vlogger friend Betsy from ThatsBetsyV told us to check out a festive house in Jamaica Estates we hopped in the car in hopes that this fully decorated house would instantly make the boy's eyes light up! We're huge fans of the Holiday Light Fight show and this house that's only a ten minute drive from home was once a winner. And well deserving because it saved our night. 

By the time we finished watching the toy trains in the window and the toy soldiers dancing on the fences we were starved and headed to IHOP for hot chocolate that was bigger than the boys faces and of course they loved chowing down on breakfast for dinner!

Christmas Eve Service & Last Minute Guests Means a Clean House Full of Love:

It's been an entire year since we've had guests over to our tiny apartment, a whole freaking year. Nope, my husband's long time childhood friend Ty and my brother don't count because they could care less that our place was busting from the seams with boxes of products to review and seasonal clothes we hadn't had the chance to bring to storage. So Imagine how I nearly lost it when my parents decided they wanted to spend Christmas day with us. I mean I was thrilled but I had some major cleaning to do, deep cleaning that required washing walls, rubbing stains out of the couches and scrubbing toilets. I'm so thankful for their visit because it gave us just the push we needed to start of the New Year. We still have a ton of laundry to catch up on, which is supposedly bad luck to entire the New Year, well that's just fantastic isn't it? We can never get a handle on laundry so what will be will be. 

Attending church on Christmas Eve was all that my daddy wanted as a gift and it was probably the first time we'd all gone to a service as a family since we were kids other than for someone passing away. The evening's message was simply beautiful and resonated with all that was going on during the month "Out of darkness there will always be light." Celebrating being together, health and a new baby on the way (my nephew baby Quentin) was all worth praising. 

Having been so caught up with all that was going on the weeks leading up to the holiday, long hours at work and the kids in school, our tree ended up not being adorned with our star until literally Christmas morning because it's tradition that they do it with their daddy. 
The hubby whipped up homemade Belgium waffles while the lil' monsters opened their presents and us millennial children cracked jokes on the new generation of grandparents who gifted each other with gadgets and gizmos but couldn't figure out how to use them. 

 

Ringing in the New Year

With no desire to be among crowds of folks that were ready to welcome in the New Year, we just headed to a local Applebees and then finally made it to Dyker Heights to see the last remaining holiday decorated houses before heading home round 11pm. Did you catch the show on Fox 5? Well it was full of old school tunes that had the hubby and I dancing as cheesy as we remember our parents doing back in the day. New Years day was only a week before our grandmothers 83rd birthday and she was all smiles from our visit as she cracked herself up while taking selfies for the first time.

Year after year what always seems to ring true is the much needed time spent with loved ones and I'm blessed upon blessed to have been able to bid farewell to 2015 and to welcome 2016 with my family. Can't wait to see what the new year has in store, how did you live in the moment over the holidays?