Baby Time!

Lara and Cathy ready to eat!
diaper cake...although it looks a little lopsided! :(

my festive table!

I even had candy building blocks scattered about to help set the mood and alleviate the hunger! ;)

Gayle (grandma!) and Lara in between games

Anne, Chris, Cathy, and Sue ready to get this party started!

I hosted a baby shower for Lara (Charlie's cousin's wife) last weekend. It was an intimate group but we still made it festive! I did a literary theme since Lara is an English teacher and we had brunch, played a few games, and opened presents. I guess it was timely because later in the week Lara had an emergency c-section! Mom and baby are great and even at 5 weeks early Baby Cooper weighed in at 5lbs 9oz and 18" long. I thought that was pretty good! We don't have any pictures yet since the 4 of us have struggled with a nasty head cold, I wasn't going to take any chances! Sophia is very excited to meet him however and spent a good chunk of this afternoon making him a valentine! :)

A Regular Snow Bunny

ready to play, Mom!
No mom, seriously?? You want me to walk in through the snow...really?

Ready, set....

...whoah!...

...pretty cool!

time to do it again!

snow angels!

snowball fight!!!

So I finally did my duty as a mother and took my child outside in the snow. We all know I wasn't chomping at any bit to get out there so although I didn't discourage it, I certainly didn't encourage it either! Wednesday, Sophia finally came up with the idea of making a snowman. Since Leo was asleep I figured I might as well do it now. We bundled up, luckily her snow clothes from last year still fit because if you remember correctly they were barely used! Anyway, we bundled up and headed out. The previous snow had been excellent packing snow but the 2" of fresh stuff was very fine and powdery...so no snow man. But, I made a small bunny hill to sled down and Sophia made a snow angel. She wanted to have a snowball fight but since we couldn't pack any snow of our own she started finding clumps of frozen snow tossed aside during shoveling and throwing them across the sidewalk yelling 'snowfall fight!' It was kind of hilarious. We ended up being out there about an hour and it seems that maybe Sophia has finally turned that corner and might end up being a normal kid who likes to play in the snow! ;) I used my time wisely and shoveled the majority of the driveway and the sidewalks. I forgot how hard that was, and there was barely any snow...I'm pathetic! Leo has no snow clothes so I'm hoping to avoid too many more tromps in the wild before spring and just for the record...I'm rooting for an early spring!

Winter Blahs

I mean, really?! Does this face sum it up or what!!

Poor Walter! This is after 5 minutes outside in the snow!

Here's the pile he left behind...like it literally fell off his body in clumps!

Leo practicing climbing up and down!

Sophia enjoying her Play Doh kitchen

Finally...friends! Sophia, Massimo and Luca played Pirates and Princess!

Hello, who's there?

I don't know what my problem is lately...I just seem to feel exhausted and behind on everything...bloggging, laundry, friends, ...life in general! I think it's got to be due to winter blahs. I detest winter. It's gloomy and cold and I'm ready for sunny and warm! I really think I could live in a warmer climate all year. People always tell me I'd miss the seasons, etc., but honestly I don't think I would. The weather has been better the past few days, although today is brutally cold again, but at least there's no snow! Although there are still huge piles of it on curbs and in parking lots, most of the snow from the roads, driveways and sidewalks has melted, so at least there's that. I'll try and post something exciting soon, but really, our life has been fairly dull! We've done a lot of playing at home and reading books. Sophia is getting really good at Candy Land and Go Fish. She does pretty well at Chutes and Ladders. She loves to do Play Doh and help me bake. Leo's new thing is riding Walter. One day last week I think I removed him from Walter's back about 15 times in a row. He will climb on and start bouncing up and down...poor dog! Luckily Walt has been pretty mellow about it, but I'd rather not press our luck! Other than that, he loves to throw the ball, and roll his cars back and forth and lately he's even been getting into reading. He will bring you a book but he usually doesn't make it past a few pages. It's progress though, so it's all good!

Completed!

It's no secret that I take way too many pictures. I know, I know, it's a sickness. I catch myself going a little nutty and sometimes I try and stop myself, and sometimes I do not. I do put a lot of pictures on the blog, but believe it or not, I usually try and use my editing eye. However, I have all these other pictures to deal with so I am getting really good at making photo books. I usually make a photo book for all vacations and each child has a photo/baby book plus I sometimes get deals for free photo books during holidays (this year I got Easter and Halloween for free!). Last year I started making our Hirner Annual Album with all the rest of the pictures. It really is fun to reminisce about all our events and fun times and it's a rather comprehensive gathering of people we know. So only one day into February 2011 I have completed and ordered Photo Book 2010! I started putting it together in about October or November. If I start too early I include way too many pictures (as it is, it's a bit extreme) because everything is so recent and fresh in my mind, so I've found that waiting makes it less crowded and easier to decide which pics make the cut. So, drum roll please....here are the stats for this year's book:

Pages in book: 120
No. of Pictures Used in book: 1,074

Here's where it just gets embarrassing...

Total # of pictures taken during 2010: 6,995
% of pictures taken that are used in photo book: 15%


Check out last year's stats if you're into comparing, and in my defense I think I did pretty darn well, comparatively speaking. I mean if you consider that this entire year I had 2 kids to document, whereas last year's book included most of the year when Leo wasn't even born yet.


Anyway, the book should arrive in about a week, so be sure to check it out the next time you're over!

Catch Up!

We've tried to ease back into reality slowly. It has been fairly low key considering I'm usually pretty darn busy. We've moved at our own pace and done what we've wanted to do. Here are a few pics from the last week or so. I caught a few of the kids just being kids and playing in the new room. It's nice to have the shelf set up for easy access to Sophia's toys.

Leo loves to climb on the couch and sit like Daddy, even when Daddy isn't home! It is so cute and he will literally traverse over pillows and people to get to his spot!

We met Luca and Francesca at Little Monkey Bizness...all of them needed to get the wiggles out!

peek-a-boo, Mom!

It's hard to get good pics through that darn mesh, but Luca and Sophia were having a ball bouncing on the "swings"

Later in the week we hit an indoor playground at the mall

Saturday night we went swimming! Leo is really getting into the slide!

double trouble coming down fast!

I had to try and get a shot of that hair! It looks so cute when we comb it after the shower! Charlie keeps telling me to cut Leo's hair because he has 'Trump' hair, but I'm not giving in yet...I think it's adorable!

Sophia having her dinner post-swim! It really is a good plan we have set up; shower, pajamas, dinner, go home!

Real men do housework....

...without their shirts on!!!!

This video is from Little Monkey Bizness...Leo wore himself out on that slide and it was the first time he attempted one by himself! Go Leo!

Fun in the Sun!!

Our beautiful and gigantic ship!

Our state room--we absolutely splurged for the one with a balcony!
It was perfect actually because Don and Shelly and our new friends, Mike and Diane, and us were all in a row so we opened up the balcony separators to have happy hour!


Our friends Ken and Chad who donned bath robes and captain's hats the first day as we set sail! It was hilarious actually and they got lots of laughs from fellow sailors.

Okay, since I'm an equal opportunity poster I had to include this one for those of you have seen me dance. It's a sad, sad sight and it's even sadder that Charlie got a picture! ;) They didn't call me "Elaine" for nothing!

A view of St. John

we took the ferry from St. Thomas to St. John and visited the most perfect beach although it was a near death experience getting there in the back of a pick-up truck up winding mountain roads! See below...it may look like we're smiling but really we're just trying not to freak out!

This shows a very small portion of Charlie's scratches from the Eco-Death Hash. Luckily he didn't get stung but his arms and legs had the worst scratches of the group.

Charlie tried out the ship's surfing and boogie boarding

I preferred to stay in the sun with Shelly and Beth

Don and Shelly at dinner one night

Beth and Russ

luckily all 6 of us had the same table!

I didn't get in the pool once, but I hit the hot tub every day!

A Red Dress Run is a traditional Hash event so on the last night everyone busted out their red dress finest. We got lots of looks and lots of questions, especially in the dining room, but it was fun! This picture is off all the KC hashers (minus Russ actually)

Here's a picture of our whole group. There was 30 of us which seemed like a good number because we could get to know just about everyone by the end of the week.

So I know it's Thursday but I've had a long week since Sunday!! :) It's hard to get back into a real schedule that doesn't include lounging and eating at my will, not to mention transitioning back into snow and ice...blech! This past week Charlie and I were able to take a cruise without our children...can I get a whoop whoop?!

For a number of years now Charlie and I have frequented the local Hash House Harrier group and although we love to hash, the kids have put a bit of a damper on our outings. Well this year we were notified of a Hash Cruise event and it was an offer we just couldn't refuse. Luckily we have some super amazing family members who were able to watch Sophia and Leo so Charlie and I could get away. Charlie's sister, Anne, and his mom, Sue, stayed at our house for the first part of the week and then took the kids over to my mom's house to finish up the week. I left presents for the kids to open each day and we called in about once a day too, although for the first 4 days Sophia was just too busy to talk to us! LOL! The kids did great and Charlie and I had just an amazing time!

We boarded Royal Caribbean's Freedom of the Seas and set sail from Port Canaveral to Coco Kay, St. Thomas, and St. Martin. The island weather was perfect and I literally forgot it wasn't summer back home...big mistake! ;) Anyway, our group of Hashers was mostly from the US, one couple from Scotland, but we were closest with two couple friends we see regularly. It was great traveling with them again! Beth, Shelly and I went to Vegas last spring and decided that we're excellent travel partners since we have usually the same agenda, although I think I shop too much for them, so we signed on for more fun with the cruise. On board the ship we did a couple hashes plus there was a "hash" scheduled for St. Martin that was such a disaster it was later dubbed the Eco-Death Hash. Long story short it was a nightmare when 15 hashers got lost in the jungle with no trail and no water for more than 3 hours! Luckily they all made it out with nothing more serious than scrapes and wasp bites and everyone made it back aboard the ship, although it was a bit touch-and-go for a while!

We're really hoping that maybe (maybe??!) this could become a yearly trip for us and if not with the group then definitely something without the kids. It was so nice to reconnect with my darling husband and just be together. It was just so fun...one person even asked us if we were on our honeymoon!