A Winter Wonderland Birthday Celebration

My babies turned 3 a few weeks ago... Exciting and a little bit sad at the same time. They are turning into little people. They are more fun to be around in some aspects, because we can actually have little conversations, and they say the funniest things. But I miss my little babies too.
I'm big into birthdays. I love making them special. Their birthday party was the day after their actual birthday, so of course we had to do something on their actual birthday too... right?!
When they woke up and came downstairs, they ran through the doorway of streamers.

 And then mommy decorates the night before, after they go to bed, with fun balloons, streamers, banners, etc..

(A side note on the balloons... I went the night before to get the balloons when Andrew and his parents were finishing up the kids dinner and getting them ready for bed... it was in the middle of a crazy snow storm, so maybe they had let staff go home? But I went to the florist section, picked out the balloons and the kid says 'ummm... I was never trained on how to do this... I'm really sorry'  so basically he tells me that he doesn't know how to blow up balloons with the helium tank. So, I trained him, and blew up my own balloons, tied the ribbons, showed him how to curl ribbon with scissors, how to attach the weights... It was pretty interesting. But hopefully now the next time someone needs balloons and the regular florist isn't there, he can assist. ;)

 And it has become somewhat of a tradition to have a little cake for breakfast. (I mean, I figure... they are going to ingest the sugar at some point or another during that day, so why not make it really fun and have it for breakfast, and also give them some time to burn it off?) Well, whether I can justify it or not, that's what we do! We have a little birthday celebration right when they wake up.

A mini Elmo cake

Drew was trying to figure out how many 'fingers' he is now....

I think he eventually got it. Emma has a tough time with three fingers, she can do 2 and 4 just fine, but not three. So she will either be 2 or 4 until we can figure that out I guess.

These kids are lucky... they have 4 grandparents that absolutely adore them, and 6 great grands!

And even better, on their birthday they had all four grandparents here to take them out to dinner! Andrews sister Amy also came all the way out here from San Diego for the weekend to spend their birthday with them. She barely made it... because of the snow storm we had the day she was flying in.

Emma and both of her grandma's (Mimi & YiaYia)

Drew & Aunt Amy

Trying on Mimi's cheaters

Then... the next day was the Winter Wonderland Birthday Party!!

I have had to come up with 'gender neutral' themes for their parties until they start having separate parties (if they want to) Because I'm not sure if Drew would appreciate a princess party, or Emma a race car party; right now anyway. So last year was a Western Theme party, and this year was Winter Wonderland. It's also difficult to try to plan a birthday party in the dead middle of winter where it's cold and snowy. I think you have so many more options in the summer. But anyway, we did it, and we had fun... and that's all that matters.

Winter Wonderland Dessert table

Emma assisting Papou with his camera.

Love this girl. We have very similar lives (went to college together, got married at the same time, had kids at the same time, live close to one another), and we lean on each other a lot. So grateful for her!

Everyone gets a candle in their cupcake at this party!!

Me 'n my Mama

Hot Chocolate Bar

I hope the innocent smiles on these little faces never fade away...

Playing Pin the Hat on the Polar Bear

Eventually Emma agreed to wear the blindfold but at first she got mad when we attempted to put it on her, she just wanted to walk right up to it (eyes wide open) and pin the hat on. And, because it was her birthday, we let it slide.

Drew playing catch with his new baseball glove

I'm still trying to catch up... I'm a few weeks behind, so I'll try to post a few times this week. We'll see about that. If this week is anything like last, maybe not.

January: Bike Rides and Sleigh Rides

I'm still here. Even though I've been on a hiatus from my blog lately. The last few weeks have been even more busy than usual. I feel like that's always how my blog entries start. "I've been busy," but it is true. Our big news... is that we now have two THREE year olds! What?! I can't believe it! We're using it as much to our advantage as possible "Ya know, 3 year olds don't wear diapers' or '3 year olds don't do this, and they do that..' etc... We'll see how long that works out for us. I'm going to guess not for too long.
Since I'm oh... about a month behind, I will rewind a few weeks. Before it became winter over night and we had a bunch of snow dumped on us, we were actually having a beautiful January. The kids were able to ride their bikes outside -
Emma really started to get the hang of it. They got them for Christmas, and when they were trying to ride on Christmas day, Emma would get SO frustrated every time she tried that it wound end in a meltdown. But she is doing much better!

Family dinner date night... my favorite! I love spending a Friday or Saturday night with my little family, going to dinner (having a night off from cooking) and enjoying the company of my favorites.

The kids are really into getting sprite if we go out to dinner, in 'big kid cups', or 'Brite' as they call it.

They usually like to color while we're waiting for dinner. This was Emma's drawing of a person. A smiley face with legs and arms, and notice the arms have some fingers at the end... and the smiley face has a little hair. She also attempted shoes. We thought it was pretty impressive! And, since this is sort of our 'virtual' scrapbook/memory book... I thought I'd throw it on here.

Emma and Drew like to take pictures with my iphone. So, Drew actually took those pictures of him and I. Not too bad! At least he got us both in the picture!

I found Drew in his room playing IN the diaper box....  Something about boxes, these kids LOVE them. They like getting in them, pushing and pulling each other around in them.

Andrews parents and sister came in for a long weekend for Emma and Drew's birthday. The big # 3!

(Birthday post coming next)

His parents had just made it in the day before, and then Friday it decided to become the Chicago winter we are used to and dumped several inches of snow on us!

When I got home, I bundled the munchkins up in warm snow gear and we went out to play in it! Play in the 'no' as they would say. Neither of them pronounce the 'S' at the beginning of snow for some reason.

These were actually their brand new heavy winter jackets from 'Marney' (my Nanny) that she had just sent them as part of their birthday present. So they were able to try them out right away!

I was playing around with some photo editing on a couple of these...

Em kept picking up handfuls of snow and throwing it up in the air.

Emma & Papou

Drew was so excited to sled that he literally sled out of our garage and down the driveway! You can see his tracks. He hit the ground slidin'!

Such a girl. More concerned about the snow stuck to her gloves than anything else.

Papou multitasking - pulling the sled and on his phone! He was probably trying to make sure that Amy's flight was going to get in that night. That was a close call.... She wound up getting detoured to St. Louis and had to wait there for a few hours until they felt they could get back up in the air and land in Chicago.

Drew is definitely our snow kid out of the two of them. Emma is much more hesitant when it comes to snow and sleds, etc...

Emma was ready to go inside and was cold and Drew probably could have stayed out there much longer.

We brought them inside, got into warm and cozies and had a snack.

Drew watching TV with his Papou.

We can't wait to have another good snow day to try out their new sleds and snow tubes that they got at their birthday party! They actually got a few really neat sleds and tubes... I am pretty excited about it myself. ;-)

Coming up next... The Big Birthday!

By the way... I would also like to say, that last year my resolution was to blog, and to keep it up on a somewhat usual basis to be able to keep track of what we've done through out the year and how the kids evolve, change and grow. Boom! A New Years resolution that I stuck to!! A Success.

It was really for our close family and freinds that don't live local, to be able to easily keep up with the kids, as this stage of their lives they change so quickly and do new things every day. And the last I looked we had something like 8 or 9000 page views.

Welcoming a New Year. Happy 2012!

Happy New Year!! (I'm a week or so late, but... as always, my excuse is - busy.)
Reflecting on 2011, We are fortunate enough to say that it was overall a pretty good year. Aside from a few standard bumps in the road along the way, this year provided us with great opportunities, the creation of lasting memories, lots of laughs and giggles, family time spent together, and we have learned so much from our kids. Here's to hoping that 2012 brings all of us a year equally as enjoyable and fortunate!
Life is what you make of it. Regardless of the circumstances, you are responsible for your reaction, attitude, outlook and approach to each situation you encounter. You can choose to make your own experiences as enjoyable and memorable as you wish.
So for a little catching up where I left off...
The last two weeks of the year I spent a few days at home with the kids. It was a mixture of a day or so off, a few days working from home, a few days in the office... but it was nice. One of the days we met friends of ours at 'Monkey Joes', one of the indoor play places that the kids love to go to.

Emma after coming down the big slide.

She surprised me, every chance she got she would run to the back to this huge slide and go down it with no fear - with all of the older kids. There weren't any kids her age doing that slide.

Here comes Drewbie!

Ciera!

Aside from Emma being a little out of focus in this one, I love what's going on in the background. Drew and Ciera are laughing hysterically.

It was good to see them.. they actually moved to Michigan in the last year and were back visiting for the holidays so we were able to get the kiddos together.

For New Years Eve, Andrew and I had a hotel room downtown, we went to dinner and then went to the House of Blues to ring in the new year! The kids spent the night with my parents. They went out to dinner with them and then had a sleep over.

The view from our hotel room -

and, in the other direction -

The balloon drop at midnight

And, my munchkins out to dinner with Mimi & Pop...

New Years day we went with friends of ours to the Syracuse/DePaul basketball game.

For Christmas one of Emma and Drews presents from our nanny were these castles.

 They were able to color them and put stickers on them... and they had a blast playing with them while it lasted. Unfortunately since they consumed a good part of our living room we couldn't keep them forever. Plus even though they were made of pretty sturdy cardboard these kids did a number on them over the course of a week or so. But it was really funny to listen to them playing with them. They would invite one another into their own little houses. Sometimes they would pretend it was a restaurant and take eachothers orders.

Monday (The day after New Years day) Andrew and I both took the day off and had a 'fun day' with the kids. Most companies had Monday off... And actually I believe most of our company did but not us. Due to the nature of insurance claims, the days that most companies have off sometimes end up being our busiest; and at the very least require us to be available.

We actually took the day off as a 'recuperation' type of day because our week and weekend especially was so busy that we figured we would need that one extra day before going back. But who were we kidding?! Recuperation or relaxation with 2 toddlers?! Ha.Ha.

But that's ok. We had a fun day. We took the kids to RainForest Cafe. We thought that would be fun for them at their age. Unfortunately we didn't realize that it was the last day before schools went back from winter break so it was slightly INSANE but thats ok!

In the car

It was really really cold that day. They were bundled up!

Making eachother giggle.

So we got there and there was an hour wait. An hour?! Seriously. But, whatever. It's attached to a huge mall so we had something to do to kill time. I absolutely hate those kids play areas in the middle of malls. Not only are they obnoxious (and can just about give anyone a migraine after hanging around it for more than a minute) but I have a feeling they are germ infested. I usually avoid them at all costs. But for some reason that day, we let them play in it. Ick. It was so insane I could barely keep track of where both of my kids were at all times.

It was raining behind our table for the majority of the time we were eating... specifically behind my chair. So I wound up getting kinda wet. The kids thought it was really cool. They were a little bit apprehensive about the thunder and lightning. When one of the thunderstorms ended Drew said "well... that wasn't so bad."

Its funny to hear some of the things they come out with. Yesterday Drew was jumping on his bed and I came in and told him to stop, and his response 'Well... That is going to be a problem."

I also overheard Emma and Drew talking yesterday and she was bossing him around (as always) and then it ended with 'Drew... do you 'stand me?' I'm assuming it was 'do you understand' but it was just funny.

Drew is also into the -'I've ever seen!' to the end of statements. For example 'That's the coolest thing I've ever seen!" Or 'Thats the biggest I've ever seen!"

They say so many funny things every day and I really should start writing them down because we laugh so hard when it happens but then I forget a few days later.

This morning I was asking them what they wanted for breakfast and Drew said he wanted fruit snacks. I told him he couldn't have fruit snacks for breakfast... but maybe later after breakfast I would consider it. He wanted to know why he couldn't... I proceeded to tell him that he can't put fruit snacks into his belly first thing in the morning, he needed breakfast first. His response was "Why? Because then I'll turn into a monster??"

Yeah. Seriously. Where do they get this stuff? Scooby Doo was on last night and Emma continued to assure me that 'the ghosts were just 'retend' they are not real. Just 'retend' ok mom? So no be scared.'

Hugs.

We were hanging out one night watching TV... getting ready to head up to bed and Drew said 'Hey Em, let's take hugs.' and they hugged. It was cute. Poor Drew is on his tippies and still trying to reach her. Emma has definitely sprouted over the last several months.
In just two short weeks, I will have THREE year olds! Where does time go?!