Katelyn’s Kitten Birthday Party!

Katelyn loves to meow like Cinnamon, so this year’s birthday party theme was a no brainer - we had to do a Kitten Party! I found perfect decorations/serving ware with orange kittens on purple backgrounds, so here’s what we came up with. For snack, I served fish crackers from a “cat” dish, as well as made my own cat food by mixing rice crispy cereal with chocolate flavored crispy cereal. We bought headbands with cat ears for everyone and my mom made cat tails for the kids.

For entertainment, we can a cat food eating contest, we lined up the kids on the sidewalk on all fours, and they had to eat “cat food” from a plate without using their hands. It was so funny to watch!! And then we had the ‘Step on Kitty Tails’ game. The kids chased after each over in the back yard, trying to step on each other’s tails. We finished the party with fish-shaped sugar cookie decorating and some yummy cake. I wish I had the time to make the cake myself, but this time we had to by it. I wasn’t terrible impressed with the decorating that they did at Wegmans, but it tasted good :)

Happy 2nd Birthday to Our Sweet Princess Katelyn!

Today Katelyn turned two years old! Wow, that went fast! She’s no longer a baby but a true toddler!
She gets prettier every day, and her personally outshines everyone’s. She’s very determined and stubborn at the same time. She’s fun loving and a trouble maker. Her energy is contagious, you can’t help but be happy and smiling when you are around her. There are times when she gets moody, but overall, she’s only happy little girl! Her hugs and kisses are priceless!

This week we took her to see her pediatrician, Dr. Yia. Katelyn weighed in at 28 pounds (75%), 36 inches tall (95%), and her head measured at 18 1/4 inches (25%). Her head has always been on a smaller side, but it’s nothing to worry about, as long as she stays on the same curve (~25%) it’s normal.
She got her hearing tested, which was normal. She was really well behaved the whole time and she’s not a fan of going to the doctor’s office. She’s met or exceeded all of the milestones, and physically is one healthy kid! I’m proud to say that she’s only taken antibiotics once in her life, and hasn’t had any other sicknesses, other than little colds that she was able to beat on her own!!

She can express her feelings pretty well now, especially if she doesn’t like something! She’s stringing together sentences and repeating everything that Ashley says. We’ve also started potty training, she loves to pee like a big girl, but so far she's not pooping on the potty. She can count up to 20 with a tiny bit of help, and loves to color just like Ashley! She is still very active, so jumping and running are her two favorite things!

For her birthday, we all chipped in and bought Katelyn a giant bouncy castle. She and Ashley absolutely love it! They can play with it for a long time and it gets them very tired, which is not an easy thing to do.

Here are a couple videos and pictures of them in the bouncy house:

Tomorrow we are having a Kitten Themed Birthday Party for Katelyn, so today we had just a small cake for Katelyn. We sang happy birthday and she blew out her candles all by herself on the first try!

Father’s Day 2011

This year for Father’s Day we decided to visit Allaire State Park. It’s one of Mike’s favorite parks. They have a steam engine train that goes around the park and a historic village from the 1800’s. It’s very quiet and relaxing there. Ashley has been on this train ride here before, but she doesn’t remember, and it was Katelyn’s first ride at Allaire! Joan and David as well as Indira came along with us. After the train ride, we walked around a bit, bought a few cookies to share and had a picnic. Ashley and Katelyn got to run around and go crazy before we headed home for lunch. It was a perfect family day!

Happy 11th wedding Anniversary to Us!

Yesterday we celebrated our 11th Wedding Anniversary! Typically every year we have a big BBQ in June to celebrate this occasion, however this year we decided to postpone it until September. The main reason for this decision was so that we can celebrate Katelyn’s birthday with our closest friends which is only one week after our anniversary.

For our anniversary we went to Bistro Ole is Asbury Park, http://www.bistroole.com. They serve Spanish and Portuguese cuisine and it’s a BYOB place! So, off we went armed with a nice bottle of wine from Finger Lakes!
When we got there, there was no wait, so we got to pick a table to sit at. It was a very friendly atmosphere; the owner of the restaurant was very loud and funny. He asked if we were celebrating anything, and once he found out that it was our 11th anniversary, he literally told everyone at the restaurant! We ordered an appetizer of Plantain Chips with guacamole. For dinner I got Mariscada en Rojo (Seafood medley in red sauce), and Mike had the Port a la Gitana (pork tenderloin with port wine, mustard and a cream sauce). The food was amazing, very flavorful, but not heavy.

About half our after we got there, the restaurant got very busy, and a couple came in with a older person in a wheel chair. The owner asked us to move to another table, since there were no other tables left that could accommodate them, so we gladly agreed. It was no big deal to us, but he told us that our dinner will be on the house and that all that we’d have to do was tip the waitress! We totally didn’t expect this, and then when they brought out our desert (fresh chocolate covered strawberries), the owner blew a whistle and screamed happy anniversary to us, and the whole restaurant sang happy anniversary to us!! It was a fun dinner, and we’ll definitely be coming back again! It was a memorable night :)

Indira and Dan’s Birthday Party

Indira and Dan share the same birthday, June 11th! This year we celebrated the two together by having a party for them at our house. The plan was to BBQ and hang out outside, but unfortunately, we got rained out. Of course that I didn’t stop us from having some good old fun! We had plenty of good wine from our trip to Finger Lakes. Mike and Theresa brought over their iPad to play some silly games like Angry Birds and Face Melter. Not to mention Dan’s friends that came over with their puppy dog! Ashley couldn’t be more thrilled to play with the dog, but Cinnamon wasn’t exactly happy. We had to keep them separated, dog outside, cat inside, and then switch. Cinnamon got very territorial and was very stressed about the dog. I suppose the lesson we learned is that there’s no way we could get a puppy as long as Cinnamon is around.
At night the weather cleared up and we were able to sit by the fire pit outside and have some desert. Ashley didn’t want to miss anything so she stayed up pretty late just listening to our conversations. This is her new thing, she’s very intrigued by the grown-ups’ conversations. It’s kind of cute, but we do have to watch carefully that we talk about.

Katelyn’s Room is Finally Done!!!

We waited a long time to decide if Ashley and Katelyn were going to share a room or each have their own. The more time passed, the more we realized that it’s best to keep them separate, at least for now. They are on somewhat different sleep schedules, and we knew if we want to continue with nap time, we had to keep them separated.

After about 6 months of shopping for furniture, we settled for a cherry wood furniture set from Thomasville (our favorite store). We ordered a headboard for the bed, a dresser with mirror and a night stand. I didn’t like the satin nickel finish knobs, so I replaced them with the girly clear ones. Since Katelyn is still in her crib, we can’t set up her “big girl” bed with the new headboard. We don’t want to rush, since she’s safer in the crib and we like that 

I painted the room, installed some cute curtains on pretty curtain rods, and also updated her closet to have a wall system for all her stuff. Katelyn’s room is now purple, with green and white accent colors, and the theme for the room is butterflies.

Precious

No words needed, these precious pictures speak for themselves..

Katelyn stashing her crayons in a rain boot


Ashley after stumping rain puddles on our driveway

Memorial Weekend Getaway to Finger Lakes, NY

Mommy and Daddy were completely overdue for a mini getaway. We couldn’t think of any better place to relax than going to the Wine Country in the Finger Lakes Region of upstate New York. We’ve been there almost every year since 2006, and it’s always been a good time!

The kids stayed home with Indira, and we drove up with our friends Irina and Vadik for two nights at a bed and breakfast for Memorial Day weekend. We visited our favorite wineries, petted the dogs at every winery, had some nice dinners, enjoys some beautiful views over the lakes, as well as stocked up with wine for the summer 

We found a new favorite winery, called the Thirsty Owl on Cayuga lake: http://www.thirstyowl.com/. We loved everything about it! It was beautifully decorated, good wine, it had a restaurant with a covered deck overlooking the lake with live music, and also it’s own lake dock! It was our last stop before we headed home, and judging by how great it was, it may have to be our first stop next time go up.

We returned back with 4-5 cases of wine (12 bottles each) which hopefully will last us through the end of summer. If not there’s always the Wegman’s Liquor store, which sells some of the Finger Lakes’ wines :)

Preschool is out!

Ashley’s school year has ended! I’m so glad she got to do this preschool program. She’s gained a new level of self-confidence, became less clingy, made a lot of new friends and learned a lot of basic skills like cutting with scissors, writing letters, etc. We got a giant book of her art work and crafts from the year, along with comments from student teachers on how she’s progressed. Also, Ashley got to attend her first Prom and her first ever graduation ceremony!

Mike and I, Joan, Chuck, Uncle Dan and Aunt Theresa got to watch Ashley’s graduation. (Indira was sick, and my mom had to work.) She wore a yellow cap and gown outfan awesome picture montage of all of the kids during the school year, then the kids got their graduation certificates,it and marched proudly down the auditorium aisle and on to the stage to the band playing. Ashley stopped to give me a hug on the way down. The student teachers prepared and sang and danced to several songs that they’d been practicing. At the end they served refreshments and food for everyone that came and we got to take some pictures with Ashley’s favorite teachers. Miss Jane was Ashley’s favorite from day one, and unfortunately she’s a senior and won’t be there next year when Ashley repeats this program. We exchanged our contact information will try to stay in touch.

After the ceremony we returned home for lunch and some home-made strawberry cake. I asked Ashley what kind of cake she wanted, and she was very specific: “Strawberry cake with fresh strawberries in the middle”. So that’s what I made her, a strawberry Bundt cake with fresh strawberries in the middle, drizzled with strawberry glaze, served with some whipped cream.

Here are some pictures from the graduation:

After lunch, everyone went home, and we went to the beach. We found out that taking Katelyn to the beach is a liability! She's not afraid of water at all, so she kept running straight into the ocean! It was a lot of fun, even though we had to watch Katelyn like hawks!

I taught Ashley’s preschool class!

One day this month I volunteered at Ashley’s preschool to do a lesson on Gardening and Vegetables. I called it the “Vegetables are Good for Me” lesson. I’ve never taught preschoolers or kids in a classroom setting before, so I made sure to have the whole thing planned out, and rehearsed in front of Ashley, Mike and anyone else that would listen.

I brought in soil samples, potting soil, planting containers, tomato plants, nasturtium seeds, and a giant bowl of fresh veggies for all to try (along with some ranch dip). I taught the kids about how plants grow, that they are living things like us and need air, sun, water, food, and space to grow. We checked out different soil samples (sand, clay, compost), and then headed outside to plan tomatoes in planters for everyone to take home.



After the plants were planted and watered, we headed back inside to talk about different vegetables. I brought in carrots with green, celery, peppers, sugar snap peas, asparagus, grape tomatoes, cucumbers and radishes. Everyone got to say what their favorite vegetable is, and then we sang the “Vegetables are Good for Me Song” that I found online that goes to the tune of “Old MacDonald Had a Farm”.

The words went:
Vegetables are good for me, E-I-E-I-O
And so I eat them happily, E-I-E-I-O.
With a carrot, carrot here, and a carrot, carrot there,
Here carrot, There carrot, Everywhere carrot, carrot.
Vegetables are good for me, E-I-E-I-O

And then we repeated the song with everyone’s favorite vegetable! The kids really liked it!
After this, it was snack time. The student teachers cut up the vegetables that I brought in for the kids to try with the dip. You could tell who eats veggies at home and who doesn’t. Only a few of the kids tried stuff, and I’m proud to say that Ashley cleared her plate (minus the Asparagus, which I ate for her).



Afterwards, the kids made me a giant thank you card with pictures that they took from the day. It was really cool! I plan on doing this again for Ashley’s class next year.