Birthday Girl

He looks so cute the way he's all curled up when he's sleeping!



D turned 4 years old on Monday (4 years! I can hardly believe it) and we had a birthday party on Sunday to celebrate. She is very much into Barbies and princesses right now, so I wanted to get her a Barbie cake. Unfortunately, they cost $40 at the bakery at Target, which is a little out of budget. I searched online for how to make one and it turned out to be easier than I thought it would be. D really liked her cake and was very excited to have a new Barbie.





D opening some of her gifts. She is modeling the piggy backpack from the Yanez family and the Raggedy Ann doll my sister made for her.



Time to blow out the candles!



Grandma let cousin K and D eat the frosting shirt off of Barbie. Yummy!



D gave us a fashion show and modeled her new duds. She's ready for when warmer weather comes our way.









D loves her Raggedy Ann and wanted a picture of her before going to bed.



D opened more gifts on her actual birthday.





Steve and the kids decided to do an art project while I was out for the evening. Looks like they had a good time with the finger (and foot) painting.

Ballerinas, Princesses and Fairies (Oh, my!)

M had some strange sleeping positions this week. Notice his leg sticking out of the crib. Today, he apparantly wanted to get out of his crib instead of nap, so he decided to somehow get out all on his own (first time he's gotten out of his crib), open his bedroom door all on his own (first time he's opened ANY door), and go into his sister's room to wake her up. I hope this was just a fluke!



We went to Cabela's last Sunday. They have some amazing displays! The kids loved looking at all the animals.





D traded in her ballerina outfit from last week for this one, which she insisted was the princess outfit. If we called her a ballernia, she promptly corrected us. I overheard her asking M one morning, "Do you want to play with the princess today?"



That just does not look comfortable.



D and her J's. Good job!



D decided to trade in the princess dress for the fairy outfit. Ironically, this is the one ensemble she didn't wear the fairy wings with.



I can't remember where D got this toy from (Halloween maybe?). You blow into it and it makes a whistle sound. She just found it in her room and has been walking around with it in her mouth and whistling for the past two days. She is posing with the pink bunny the magician at Champps made for her. M had a blue bunny, but he promply untied it and let all the air out. I think it lasted him maybe 3 minutes. D has kept a very close eye on hers after seeing what M did to his.

Balloons and Ballerinas

D has worn the outfit in the picture below about every day this past week while we are at home. She changes for trips out of the house and eating meals, but that's about it. She calls it her ballerina outfit. The leotard we got off of Craigslist with her ballet and tap shoes, and the shoes were in a treasure chest of dress up clothes from a garage sale.





The kiddaloos on my b-day.




D and her H's.



D loves dressing up now, and couldn't wait to put on some princess dresses at her friend's birthday party. Here she is as Snow White.



M had fun with the balloons at the party.



D and the letter I.



D and M playing with some of the balloons Santa brought them in Colorado. Tragedy ensues at the end of the video.



D added the fairy wings, a birthday gift from her friend, to her ensemble.

Puzzles, Parties, Performances and Playing in the Snow

D and the letter G.



M just loves D's Candy Land King Candy game. He is so good at putting the shapes where they belong. It's fun because D and M will play this game together by themselves now. And M loves just playing with the shapes on his own. We noticed he seemed to do real well with the shapes and we gave him a shape puzzle to do--he did the whole thing on his own! Good job M.



Both kids have really been into puzzles lately.



It was Steve's birthday on Thursday, but he surprised me with a birthday party to celebrate my birthday. It was so great to see everyone there. Thanks for the nice surprise, honey!



M tries to fit into every car or vehicle he owns and "ride" in it. He actually kind of fits on this one because it's bigger, but even tries to drive his little matchbox cars. My silly, funny boy!



D's dance recital was Saturday afternoon. She and her class performed as Raggedy Anns and Andys to the song "Side by Side". It went much better than I thought it would. Her group did all of the moves, just not at the right time or in the right order, but hey, I give anyone, especially a three year old, credit for going on a big stage with bright lights to perform in front of a large crowd. The pictures are dark because they didn't allow flash photography.







Sunday after church, we went to see the snow sculptures for the St. Paul Winter Carnival at the State Fair grounds. They were really amazing--too bad some of them were damaged from the rain earlier this week.



Happy to be outside, even though it is C-O-L-D!





Going through the snow tunnel slide.







We went sliding down Snow Mountain. The kids had an absolute blast, and so did Steve and I watching them.







After our all-day snowfall on Monday, we went sledding in the backyard. D loved going down the hill, while M was content watching us. He preferred going down the playset slide.







D's first time making snow angels. At first she was mad that I made her lie down in the snow, but when she saw that she had made an angel, she made a whole legion of them in our side yard.