We-Haw's Birthday

**We-Haw is what Amelia calls my sister. It started out as Ah-Hee, then it went to He-Haw and now it is We-Haw. No one is sure why.

Friday was my sister's 25th birthday! She came over to visit the kids and I. We went on a walk and ended up at the park :) Amelia could have stayed there all night swinging!

Joey had his first taste of playground fun in a tunnel!

We stayed at the park longer than we thought so we ordered pizzas for dinner. We seem to end up doing that almost every time Kim visits us...

Saturday afternoon we had lunch with my parents and Kim to celebrate her birthday as a family. We went to her favorite, the Mongolian BBQ in Stillwater. Joe sat in a high chair for the first time!

After our late lunch we went to a park in Bayport that we used to go to as kids (Jason did too!) Amelia is getting braver and braver at the park. This was the second day in a row that she climbed a rope ladder, alone!

Joe had his first taste of swinging. He thought it was great!

After the park we went back to my parent's house for cake and ice cream.

After cake Amelia and my dad fed the animals outside and then went to the school playground down the road. They were gone until dark. In fact, they were gone so long that we went out looking for them, fearing that something had happened! Everything was fine though. They were taking their time walking home and looking at the stars.

Sunday afternoon we went over to Jason's sister's house for a grill out with their grandma and a couple of their friends. Everything was so good! Liz puts out a good spread every time we are invited for dinner. We had to get our shopping done for the week on our way home so we didn't stay too late but we had a good time visiting!

All in all we had a busy weekend! It went by way too fast.

Birthday Weekend

I should preface this post with this - I completely failed at taking pictures this weekend! Amelia is at a point where she doesn't really want her picture taken most of the time so I just didn't try as hard as I normally do. It wasn't worth upsetting her on her birthday!

Saturday night we had dinner with my family at Yarusso Bros Italian Restaurant. We had never been there but it was a hit! Amelia had about half a loaf of bread with butter and a good chunk of her spaghetti. It was the most I have seen her eat in one sitting in a long, long time - so it must be good!

In addition to dinner we did gifts and had cake and ice cream with my parents and sister.

Sunday we had dinner at Jason's sister Liz's house. She did tacos - which were delicious! After dinner Amelia opened gifts and I think she was more excited about all the tissue paper than anything :) Gifts were followed up with cake and ice cream!

Amelia's cake and cupcakes were Dora themed which she loved! I loved that the Dora/Diego cake had Dora and Boots figurines added...so we have spares now! We had the same toppers on my birthday cake last year and they are one of Amelia's favorite toys now. Boots got lost one night last week and bedtime was impossible until he was found.

This third birthday weekend was low-key and that is just fine with us. Jason and I have been very drained of energy the past few weeks. Our work schedules are not allowing for adequate rest and it's been taking it's toll on us. Thank you to our families for planning and executing everything this weekend! We appreciate it more than you know.

Three Years Old

Today Amelia is three years old...but it is technically her fourth birthday if you count her day of birth... Our weekend is full with plans to see family and celebrate this little girl. She is a handful, there is no doubt about that, but that only makes us love her more.

Here is a walk down memory lane:

Happy Birthday, Big Girl! Can't wait to see what this next year will bring us!!!

26 Years

Last week was my 26th birthday. We celebrated it a little early so Jason could join us! We had dinner with my family and they got me an ice cream cake! I think the design on it was a little more for Amelia's sake...


Yep, I had a Dora cake this year :) Jason had it personalized...



The following night I had a taco pizza with Jason's sister before she left for Mayo. On the night of my actual birthday my dad wanted to do dinner so we had half-price schnitzel and appetizers at a local German restaurant.

The Twins/Brewers game earlier in July was my birthday present from my family but they also got me a Coach purse. Now I am cool like my mom and sister ;)

I don't feel like I have aged a ton in the past couple of years but at the same time I feel like time is flying because Amelia is getting so big so fast! It's funny how my age seems to stand still but to me she is aging so fast!

Two Years Old

Friday Amelia turned two years old! She got a few presents from my family on her actual birthday including this new princess kitchen:


We had dinner out with my family at Boca Chica and dessert at Izzy's in St. Paul.

Saturday we had a little birthday party for Amelia at my parent's house and my family and Jason's family came. Both days I had Amelia dressed up in the same birthday dress she wore last year. It was a tad short so I threw some leggings on under it and it was pretty cute!


I was pretty impressed I got two years of use out of the dress since it is size 18-month!

Amelia was so funny opening her presents. She would just empty the bags but throwing everything over her shoulder:


Auntie Lisa (one of my best friends) started to fold tissue paper and after that Amelia brought her every single piece and helped her smooth it out so she could fold it. Kids pick up on every little thing!

Auntie Kimmie got Amelia her first trike and We took turns pushing and pulling her around on it and when I stopped to get her picture on it she made sure I knew she did not like that I stopped pulling her:


She can be so demanding sometimes. We definately are entering the "terrible twos."

Amelia had a big cake and cupcakes. She tried so hard to blow out her candle on her cupcake:


We had to give her a little help. After all the work blowing out the candle she didn't even want to eat it! She picked sprinkles off and that was about it!

Amelia got a lot of great stuff for her birthday including new clothes for this spring/summer that we are anxious to wear! Auntie Liz got her a little suitcase which was perfect to bring home all her new clothes in.

That's really all the pictures I have to share. I didn't get any of her with family members because after presents and lunch she dragged her Nana to her bed and pretty much asked for a nap. So, the guest of honor slept through the last half of her party which meant no pictures really!

Lisa, Kim and I went bowling with Amelia in the evening. We thought we could get Amelia in on the bowling but she pretty much just liked walking out to the lane and then back. We'll take her again and hopefully she'll be more interested in it since it won't be a totally new envoronment for her. That means we'll have go sometime soon!

Online Again!

I haven't been online in nearly two weeks. Wow! We don't have Internet at Grandpa's and I just haven't been able to get on at my parent's house except for banking and bill pay.

We haven't been up to much. We celebrated my dad's 60th birthday with dinner out and cake at home. I tried to get a picture of his cake with all the candles but he blew it out before I got a chance:


That's what it looks like after sixty candles are blown out.

Amelia wore a wild outfit for grandpa's birthday:


Look at those pigtails!

We've been playing around the house a lot. Amelia uses this little stool as a goofy chair all the time:


We have been having a bit of a heat wave (thirties and even forties!) so I took Amelia outside to play yesterday. She thought it was the best!


I haven't taken her out much this winter with the weather we have had the past few months. It was just too cold for her!

A Birthday, a Wedding and More

We have had a pretty full weekend! Yesterday was Jason's 27th birthday and we had a wedding to go to in the afternoon (my friend from Buffalo Wild Wings, Molly) - but not before we slept in...thank you, Amelia! The wedding we went to was at the historic courthouse in Stillwater and it was so beautiful!


Molly and Nate's girls were their flower girls!








The ceiling in the banquet hall was so, so pretty!


After the wedding, Jason and I went for a walk in downtown Stillwater since it had cooled down.


After that we went home and went to bed early!

Today we all had lunch together for Jason's birthday and gave hime his gifts. We all chipped in and got him a new iPod! Amelia enjoyed the ribbons from the wrapping!


She actually put this on her own head!

After lunch my mom, sister and I went and got mani/pedis. It was my first and I think it turned out pretty nice:


This evening we have been playing some Wii bowling and sitting around. Everyone is pretty tired after this weekend!

Quarter of a Century

Today was my 25th birthday. I am now a quarter of a century old! I worked bright and early this morning at 4 so it has been a long day for sure!

I had lunch at Shanghai Bistro with Jason, Liz, Marie and Jordan since I had a free entree coupon for my birthday. Liz works there and signed me up! The coupon is good for up to $20 and our server told us to not waste the free money on a $4 lunch and he ordered us a huge appetizer platter!


What a great idea he had! There was so much food on here and it was all so good! We also had a cake there because Marie was nice enough to make one for us all to enjoy!

We spent the afternoon at grandpa's house and this evening Amelia and I went to dinner at Boca Chica with my family. It was tasty, as usual. After that we went for ice cream at Izzy's where they have Amelia-sized cones! Kim also made a Milky Way cake for us.


My family had some nice things for me including a GPS since I get lost so easily and some new jammies!


Amelia was more interested in the wrapping materials and her Mardi Gras beads than anything :)


I think we all had a pretty good night and I am now officially another year older.

A Normal Day

This afternoon we went to Burlington Coat Factory to find me a belt and Amelia left with some new sandals and these new sunglasses:


We got her to keep them on a minute or two so we figured she needed them. We'll see how she does with them this summer!

Other than our errands this morning, we have spent the day playing. You know, the usual:





We do have one thing to celebrate today, this guy turned 4!


Happy 4th Birthday, Ludo!

Auntie's Golden Birthday

Last night was a late night. Amelia was up until nearly midnight! She cried and cried when we put her to bed and when we would go in after a while, we found this:


We would let her out, to burn off energy, and she would just rub her eyes. She was so tired but was fighting it so hard!

Today Amelia, Kim and I spent the day together. We had lunch in St. Paul at Cossetta's (yum!) and went to Como Zoo and Conservatory to celebrate Kim turning 23. Amelia had a great time at the zoo!


Here is a collage of some of our favorite animals that we saw today:


Anyone else see a pattern? Amelia loves big cats. One thing I was glad to actually see for once was this guy:


It is so hard to find the wolves usually but not today! I used my zoom and got in close enough for a blurry, but decent, picture.

After walking through the zoo we headed to the conservatory. I was excited to go to a particular part, the "sunken garden". Guess what? It was closed for a show change today! This was the best view I got:


I snuck a photo when a worker was bringing in more flowers. I was pretty bummed!

Before we headed home, we stopped in Stillwater to take a peak at this year's flooding:





You can see that the water is so high that the lift part of the bridge has been raised and the bridge is closed!

Once we got home Amelia had some fun outside:



She loved the ball I got her at Wal-Mart:


Once our parents were home from work, we all went for a birthday dinner at the Mongolian Barbeque. After dinner Amelia got a bath in a big girl tub for the first time!


We have another bug day planned tomorrow so I should hop in the shower and get some sleep!