A Bouncin’ Birthday!

This past weekend, Gigi celebrated her birthday with bounce houses!  We were joined by grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and a few close friends for some bouncin’ fun.  (As usual in blogworld, I’m not able to use all the pictures I took, because I don’t have permission from everyone’s parents to post pics.)

The birthday princess!  Am I noticing a royal theme here??

Grace and her Ariel cake…another one of Nanny’s masterpieces!

She has been excited about the bounce houses for weeks…but when we got there and encouraged her to bounce,  she was like, “Umm, no, that’s okay.”  The place was loud and intimidating!  But luckily, it didn’t take long before she joined in the fun!

Seamus was a maniac, as I knew he would be…he didn’t hesitate to climb to the top of this very steep slide and come barreling on down!

Time for cake!  Gigi and her BFF Ava.

Delicious!!

And just because I like adding in a flashback pic of the baby days…here is my baby girl!

And now she’s my big girl!  Happy birthday to my sweet, goofy, sassy, silly little girl!  I can’t believe you are three!

Take Two

So after the gross-out picture of my son chowing down on his extremities, I had to come back and share one of him acting gentlemanly!

Seamus’ school picture – Pre-K 2009-2010

Love it!  My handsome little man :-)

What He's Thinking

"Mom, check this out...I can EAT my FOOT!!!"

What I'm thinking: "GROSS!!!"

What She’s Thinking

“Mom, you seriously have no idea how hard it is to take care of all these KIDS.”

Why I Love the Northeast

Yesterday on the radio, the morning show DJ's were asking listeners to call in and give the best reasons why they shouldn’t just drop everything and move the heck out of the Northeast.

Not too many listeners were able to give good reasons for staying!  It was amusing listening to the show, but it never fails to amaze me how furious people get during the winter.

I’m sorry folks, but this IS the Northeast.  It is going to A) Get cold, and B) SNOW.  And probably snow lots.  I’m sorry, that’s just the way it is.  You know that pesky thing called the Equator?  We’re reeeaaallly far way from it.  So aside from global warming, I don’t see and end in sight.

Want to see the reason why I will never move away from the Northeast?

The sheer joy on these faces right here.

Freshly fallen snow, a nearby hill, and two brand-new sleds.

I couldn’t think of anything that could drag me away from this :-)

Our Christmas

Finally getting around to posting about our Christmas!  We had an amazing holiday.  The kids have been absolutely giddy with excitement through the entire month of December, and it was wonderful to see the magic through their eyes. 

 

Making gingerbread cookies for Santa was high on the agenda.

Christmas Eve mass – Seamus was asked by our church to bring the gift up to the priest to present to baby Jesus.  I only got this one pic, but the cuteness was almost too much for me.  He was so proud, and looked so handsome in his little suit!

Leaving out Santa’s cookies before bed, and pretty much bursting with excitement at this point!

Santa came!  Look at how nicely he piled the gifts under the tree!  But there was one gift that he couldn’t seem to squeeze in there…

You guessed it!  A six-foot-long pirate ship.  This thing definitely did not look this big on the box!

Grace was thrilled with all of her new baby doll things…

And Seamus’ excitement is evident as he opens a gift to discover Buzz Lightyear!  As soon as he saw him, he shouted, “This is my favorite toy EVER!” 

Two extremely happy campers on an awesome Christmas morning.

Then it was off to Nanny and Poppy’s for more of Santa’s surprises…

A drum set!

Princess Presto and Super Why capes!

Baby doll carrier and Spiderman costume!

So many great new toys!

Which of course, then caused Mommy and Daddy to start hyperventilating about where on earth we were going to put everything…but never fear, Ikea to the rescue!

You wouldn’t believe how much stuff these things hold!

I’m in love with them.  I’m weeping tears of joy just looking at them.  Ikea, we are eternally grateful.

Now, if they could only come up with a storage bin to hold a six-foot-long pirate ship…