Special Visitors

My grandparents are up for my parent's wedding and vow renewal. It has been a wonderful time of catching up and getting reacquainted. It is so important for our kids to get to know their great-grandpa George and great-grandma Nancy.

Hip Hop Bouncin' House

Saturday we went to our local indoor playground for a birthday party. The birthday girl was a friend of Chloe's from dance class, but Aidan and Brenna were able to tagalong. This is the first time we've been to this place and the kids were in their element--A giant inflatable obstacle course, a fifteen foot inflatable slide, a mini bounce house, a inflatable basketball court, a baby room, soft foam shapes to crawl over and so much more. All three kids were everywhere...













Not very many pictures of Chloe because she was everywhere. Aidan would run off and play with the big kids and than come find me, stick close to Mom for a little bit than head off to play. Brenna had a blast wandering around and playing in the under 3 room. That girl is fearless, she will climb anything. All three had a blast and I am sure we will be heading there again!

Brenna's First Birthday!!

A year ago today we were rejoicing in the birth of our precious Brenna Nicole Grace. We held her and cuddled her. Marveled at her toes and fingers. And imagined what kind of little girl she would grow up to be.


A year has passed, she has grown into an adorable, moving and grooving bundle of energy. We love every minute of being her parents. Each day shows us a little more of her personality and her likes and dislikes.

So today we say, "HAPPY 1ST BIRTHDAY LITTLE BIT, WE LOVE YOU!!!!"

We celebrated Brenna's birthday this evening with a few close family and friends. Brenna doesn't do great with big crowds (she is warming up a bit though) so we thought we would keep it simple. She had a blast! She just seemed to know that everyone was there to see her. She ate up all the attention and enjoyed it immensely.

The kids decorated foam visors and bookmarks with foam stickers. This is such a fun and easy craft and all the kids loved it. I even made a little hat for the Birthday Girl.




The adults had a great time visiting while the kids played. Brenna alternated between chasing the kids and getting attention from the adults.





Brenna was a natural at opening her presents. Her new thing lately is helping "put things away". As you can imagine I have been finding weird things in her dresser drawers lately. So she kept emptying the bags than trying to put everything back in. It was very cute. But towards the end she was more into playing than actually opening anything. But she did great, especially when she realized all the pictures were being taken of her. She even shoved Aidan out of the way so he wouldn't steal her limelight. =)














Of course after the presents came the cake. I decided since we were just having a small gathering of friends and family that I would just make a couple dozen cupcakes. So I made strawberry (I must admit I was tired of chocolate since that is all we seem to have at birthdays at this house) cupcakes. I used strawberry frosting and chocolate chips and made each cupcake top look like a flower. I left some flowers without centers so the kids could decorate them.


The cupcakes were a big hit and the kids couldn't wait to decorate them. But first we sang to Brenna who was a bit unsure about that experience. I think her shyness kicked in at that point.




Brenna did not need an invitation to dig in. She ended up having 3 cupcakes (we didn't mean to give her that many but she loved it). She would suck all the frosting off and than attack the cake. She ate them all and really didn't get super messy.





It was a wonderful evening! Brenna was so worn out from her birthday that she went to sleep with barely a fuss. This whole "Birthday Business" is exhausting, don't you know?!

Project Fair

Chloe's school does a Project Fair every spring. The students can pick anything to study, learn about or experience and than they make a project based on that. They have to decorate a three-panel board and the older students must write a report. This was Chloe's first year participating. We decided to do her project on our train trip. It would be easy for her to do and it was something she was excited about. So we kept souvenirs and pictures from our trip to use on her board. Chloe did a fabulous job. She received many wonderful compliments on her board and had many people contemplating taking their own train trips. Best of all she won a ribbon for her participation in the fair. She was so excited she received the ribbon. It now has a place of honor in her room.

Here we are with Nana and Poppa looking at everyone's projects.









Here is Chloe's Project...






Afterwards we went for ice cream to celebrate Chloe's ribbon and all her hard work.