Owen's Birthday!

I was about to post some pictures from Owen's party when I realized I hadn't even covered his actual birthday! I think Owen had a great day; he got special treatment at school, chose his birthday dinner (he settled on Pizza Hut) and celebrated after with cupcake and presents. We even saw a Browns player at the restaurant!

The birthday boy with his birthday crown and sticker

Pat and Owen enjoying some milk and pre-dinner placemat activities

Paige and I having a fun time on the other side of the table

Owen enjoying his pizza-yes, he brought his crown to dinner!

Getting ready to blow out the candles!

Happy Birthday Owen!



One!




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Three!




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Five!



Six!

Perfect Fit

It turns out that Paige was right. She can fit into a shopping basket at Target.

New Doll!

I can't sew but sometimes I forget that and try to do a project anyway! I wanted to make Paige a doll and thought this looked equal to my skill level - "Beginner". Now I know my skill level is more..."Pre-Beginner." It doesn't really matter because Paige was very excited about the doll and carried her around for most of the day before she forgot about it. I'll try again now that I understand some of the mistakes I made but I think it might be a little while before I bust out the sewing machine again.

Paige, Owen and Pat

Sometimes we do organized activities. Other times we do this.

Disney! On Ice!

Paige and I were given some Disney on Ice tickets for Christmas (thanks Lisa and Alex!) and yesterday was the big day! We knew she was excited because she had been asking pretty much every day when we would get to go see the princesses. She was in awe of everything and enjoyed it so much! Every time a princess skated out she would shout their name and every time a villain skated out she would shout "I don't like them!" (I haven't been able to convince her that the Beast is a good guy though...all of his shouting and growling at Belle didn't help the case and she's too young to watch the movie so...) 

Paige was not the only princess in the audience but I think she might have been the only Snow White!

Waiting for the skating!

Family Fitness!

It's not all that unusual to find Paige doing a workout video with me at home. It's even less unusual to find Paige and Owen running circles around me while I'm doing a workout video to see if they can get around me without getting in my way (they can't). Last night though, Owen's school had a fitness event for the whole family and we were able to participate together! We tried a lot of different things but they were both most interested in the obstacle course so we stuck to that area for most of the time. We stuck around for the raffle even though it really felt like we should go home and Owen won a prize! He was very excited and it was a nice way to end the night. 

(I didn't take any of these pictures, I just took them from the school's Facebook page...)

We were all concentrating pretty hard...

Part of the obstacle course! I remember playing with these horribly dangerous cup walker things when I was little!

We Like Food!

All of the pictures I just loaded on to the computer revolved around food! Here's what we've been eating recently...

Banana Sundaes! Sliced bananas, chocolate chips, sprinkles and raisins.

Paige ate lunch one-handed this day so she could feed her baby too!

This is the year I conquer making macarons! (I didn't make this one,  but it was pistachio-flavored and amazing)

New pasta fagioli recipe! Not as good as the one we usually make but Paige loved it!

Botanical Gardens

We took the kids to the Botanical Gardens on New Year's Eve. They were so excited about everything that they went through it all very quickly just trying to get to the next interesting thing! We looked at a lot of gingerbread houses, got up close with some butterflies and then Pat and I cozied up and listened to some live music while the kids played in a mini "tree" house. We also got to tour the children's garden (everything was covered in snow) while riding a train. I'm pretty sure we'll be going back soon...

Paige enjoying the mini tree house and slide



Butterflies!




Something was in there...




This reminded me of a less colorful Truffula tree!



One of the fancy gingerbread houses

Trains!

It's officially a holiday tradition. This was the third year in a row we made it out to see the model trains! We got there early in the morning and had the whole room to ourselves so the kids definitely made the most of it. They crawled through the tunnels, did the character scavenger hunt, and stared at the trains for a verrrry long time. Plus-they're adorable. See pictures below. And someone convince Paige to let me put pigtails in her hair again. (Past visits-2011, 2010) 



Paige found the tunnels pretty quickly.
(check out her tunnel picture from last year-shorter hair, same coat!)

 

They had stepstools this year so we didn't have to hold the kids up the whole time! Nice!



I'm pretty sure this picture is here because I can't get over Paige's pigtails...




This train got derailed and Pat fixed it. He knows how to do things like that. Super handy to have around.

 

They did the whole scavenger hunt like this! See? Adorable.



More cuteness.



New Year's Eve!

The kids didn't stay up until midnight on New Year's Eve but we still had our own countdown (a few times), drank out of champagne flutes, and threw lots of confetti around our kitchen (like last year!).



Getting ready to count down!



Getting ready to throw confetti all over the kitchen (and each other)!



It got wild and crazy. Owen took his shirt off apparently?



Happy New Year!

Happy 2013! Every year I recommit to a healthy lifestyle so I really liked the idea of Commitment Day when I saw it. It's a 5k that happens in cities across the country on New Year's day and the goal is just to get there and finish. Just be active! After discussing it, Pat and I decided not to mess with the logistics of getting there and possible weather issues and just do our own. We didn't go quite as far as the official Commitment Day but we did have a lot of fun doing our own. Hopefully our run/walk/jog/carry/throw snowballs New Year's day event will become a new tradition!