4th Birthday Cupcake Party!

We celebrated Arianna's 4th birthday on Sunday with a cupcake party.

The "sweets" table with all of the cupcakes.





Pinata Time!


Grabbing all of the pinata loot:


Arianna and Bernie about to decorate their cupcakes.


Each of Arianna's friends with their decorated cupcake.

This collage created with Smilebox

Slightly shy during the happy birthday song


Typical birthday chaos during present opening


A birthday timeline


The birthday girl again, with yet another cupcake!

FOUR Years Old!!

Sneak Peak of the 4 year bash!!!

Weekend Recap

A few days later (as usual), but our weekend was so good, I don't want to forget!

Marty took Saturday off to play golf with some high school buddies. So this freed up a Saturday night (which has only happened 2 or 3 times in the past 4 years) so we went on a date! However, the best part was that Marty's sister, Erica, volunteered to take the kids overnight. (And for the record, a night without either kid has never happened in 4 years.)

Unfortunately, I didn't get many pictures, but here is a cell phone pic on our way to Erica's.





Obviously, Marty and I were ecstatic (we also thought Erica was slightly crazy for asking of this arrangement) and had a great time together.
But, more importantly, Arianna and Bernie were apparently fantastic at their first sleepover. Bernie had never slept away from home and Arianna only twice.

Erica said she'd do it again!! Success!!!

I'm also taking orders for anybody else willing to one up Erica. A weekend. A full week. We'll take whatever. I'll even dedicate a blog post about you too.


On Sunday, we had (3) free tickets to Disney on Ice. We decided that Arianna would enjoy it more than Bernie, so he stayed with Mimi and Papa. Arianna LOVED it and was reluctant to clap after a performance because she thought it meant the whole show would have to be over. We saw Mickey and Minnie Mouse, Goofy, and Donald Duck who were the hosts of the show. The performances were brief versions of Lion King (which we missed for being a few minutes late), The Little Mermaid, Lilo and Stitch ( I didn't care for this one) , and the 2nd half was all Peter Pan and Tinkerbell. Arianna's favorite was Tinkerbell and now decided that's who she wants to be for Halloween.

Overall it was great husband and family time.
Marty got a free seat to the Rays and Yankees game on Tuesday night (4th row!) to cap it off.
The Rays lost that night, but that's because I wasn't there with him.

P.S. Don't forget the comments are open to sign up for a few nights with 2 wonderful kids!!!

Thank You Aunt Lisa

For our butterfly nets!
Although we haven't been outside to catch anything yet.

My brother Josh and sister-in-law Ashley were here this week. They are transitioning from Wilmington, NC to Nashville, TN and made some time to visit their favorite Floridians.



We hit the beach, attended a Rays game, and went to Busch Gardens. I took 2 days off work and had to work the other 3, so Josh and Ashley had lots of intimate time with the kids during those days. Thank you for spending so much time with us!

(Most of the photos I got this week are from Busch Gardens since that is the most time I had available to snap them.)


Chugga Chugga CHOO CHOO! Riding the train around the animals.




The Safari at Busch Gardens - although Aunt Ashley shared some of her experience at the real safari from Kenya in April.


The lions, a piece of thick glass, and us! In the perfect spot that day.


They are some ferocious beasts, but so awesome to observe.






Josh couldn't wait to read the map so someone could snap his picture!


Duck watching.





Thank you for spending your week with us, even though we don't like to sit still much!


P.S. I couldn't forget the best picture from the week!

Dolphins, Whales, and Sharks Oh My....

I'm still having some computer problems, but I didn't want to forget about our Sea World trip we took a couple of weeks ago.

All week, we threatened the kids, that if they acted up we wouldn't go to Sea World. They were really good the whole week and even better while we were there. It was really a fun, fun day! LOTS of pictures to look at!

Arianna is mapping out our day.

Bernie runs out of the bathroom, ready to start our adventure!

The sting ray touch tank (for Camille).

Daddy pets a dolphin!

Waiting in the hot sun for the Dolphin show.

In awe at the dolphin show (excuse the dorky hats, but it's better than sunburn. I guess.)

Does this one need a caption?

On the moving ramp, waving to the penguins.

They really were excited, but a slightly hot and tired as well.

Sea Lion or Otter or whatever that kind is called.

SHARRRRRKS!

Looking at the pretty fish.

Shamu Stadium.

Did she forget that these are killer whales?

Shamu? They never even mentioned Shamu. Maybe all of their whales have the same name.

Cookie Monster

Paps - This is for you since you are always asking if Bernie has had any tricks up his sleeve.


The past couple of weeks, Bernie has finally learned to exit his crib by himself. Usually, when he gets up, I can hear him or he'll come get me, or even, sometimes he'll go wake Arianna up.

One particular day this week, I got up and started getting ready for work, but noticed they were "sleeping" a little late. Once I realized it was about 30 minutes later than the normal wake up time, I walked out of my room to scan the scene.

I noticed Bernie's door was open, so I knew he'd gotten up. But, Arianna was still in bed. So if he didn't come in my room and didn't wake up Arianna, where must he be????

I head towards the kitchen/dining/living rooms. Ohhh, Bernie is in the kitchen. On his tiptoes, reaching for the cookie jar.

He said he had one, but honestly, his face was too clean for chocolate chip cookie consumption.

Moral of the story - now the baby gate stays up at night too!