A look at the future

Micah and I had a lunch date a few weeks ago. I took this photo of him with my phone. Does he look 16 or what?!

Stairs

This is where we find Celia...all.day.long! Our stairs are a bit funky for a gate so the bottom two are always open. She learned how to get down but we pulled out some old rugs to pad the stone floor just in case.

Usually she has this face because she is so proud of herself or thinks this is the height of fun or both.

Updates

Jan 30 - Celia decided to show off while skyping with Grandma Jane and Grandpa Dennis and stood up for the first time. She hasn't stopped since.

Feb 1 - I am another year older and still super thankful for my wonderful husband and beautiful children. Noah made me a card and present. The present was 4 different colored paper airplanes. We had a contest to see who could throw them the farthest. Noah won most of the time. Shawn and I went out for a date night. Celia came along and while we were shopping decided to take her first 3 steps. She knows how to celebrate a birthday! :)

Super party

With the football obsession in our house being at fever pitch we couldn't let the Superbowl pass without a little fun. Noah's buddy from school, Nate, is a Patriots fan so Noah has declared he is too. The boys also love the book "Family Huddle" about the Manning brothers so there was a little indecision on who we would root for. We started our Superbowl party by making a sign to cheer on our team.

We decided on mini pizzas for dinner and Shawn had the idea of making a football number on them with pepperoni. Cute. However, both boys said they don't like pepperoni so I had to do my best at making a 2 and a 5 out of sausage. If I squint I can see it! :)

Celia was interested too.

The boys were pretty into the game. Is wasn't too long until they were playing their own game with dad though. Thankfully they don't really know when the game is over because by halftime the sandman was calling their names.

A month for love

In the past I have not been a big fan of Valentine's Day. I got engaged on Valentine's Day because Shawn thought it was the one day I wouldn't be expecting it. He was right and teases me about saying, "You wouldn't do something cheesy like ask me on Valentine's Day would you?" a few hours before he did, in fact, pop the question. Anyhow, now that I'm a mom I see it a little differently. I adore the idea of a time spent focused on loving each other and doing something sweet for the special people in our lives. I found these small mailboxes and decided that this year we are going to have a small surprise in the mailbox each day until Valentine's Day. Just a little something extra to help focus on loving more.

Year of the dragon

Noah has been learning about the Chinese New Year at school and the Midtown Global Market was celebrating with a festival. I took the kids and Shawn met up with us. The boys crafted dragons, had their names written in Chinese and saw the dragon dance. I'm so happy we went, a stellar night.

Fortune cookies.

Baby with balloon equals happiness.

Listening to music while waiting for the big performance.

Making dragons.

Each dragon made a trip around the market. The yellow was closest to us. The kids inside were maybe teenagers. Amazing!

We rounded out the evening with a trip to the ice cream booth. Of course.

Photo courtesy of Micah. Not bad I must say.

When we got home Noah and Micah had to recreate the dragon dance.

back in the day...sort of

One night during a family dance party I played Jump by Kriss Kross. It was a favorite song of mine in seventh grade. I told the boys that the singers wore their clothes backwards and they found the idea rather appealing. This is how they recreated the look later.