Ella turns 2!

Today is Ella's 2nd birthday and we celebrated by having her "Butterfly" birthday party at our church gym, which was the way to go!! We rented a bouncer, which everyone, especially Ella, loved. The kids also enjoyed roller skating and playing basketball. I think there was about 25 kids ranging in ages from 1-10 and I'm pretty sure all of them had a great time! And of course Ella had a blast. I still can't believe my baby is already 2!! She's growing up way too fast. She's definitely leaving the baby stage and becoming a toddler all too quickly. Oh yeah, she's even potty training.....No kidding. For the past week she has been running around the house in her "birthday suit" and tee-teeing on the potty every chance she gets. (She won't wear panties....she just prefers to run around naked, which is fine with me as long as she goes potty.) Today at her party she took her diaper off twice and went and tee-tee'd in the potty....YAAHOO! I hope she keeps this up and will be completely potty trained very soon!! Enjoy the slideshow of her birthday party!

10 Wonderful Years!

Andy & I are celebrating our 10th Anniversary today!! It has been a wonderful 10 years. I'm so lucky to be married to such a caring and giving man! Since our recent trip to New York was part of our anniversary celebration we decided we would keep it low key and just go out to a nice dinner tonight. However, my sweet man wouldn't settle for just that. He went a little overboard.....which turned out to be just fine with me. He surprised me with a beautiful bouquet of flowers delevired to our house and then came home with two beautifully wrapped packages. One was a beautiful chocolate pearl bracelet and the other was an addition to a previous gift. When Hudson was born Andy gave me an "add-a-diamond" bracelet with Brady's birthstone, Hudson's birthstone, and then mine & his birthstone with each birthstone seperated by a diamond. Well, today he come home with another diamond and Ella's birthstone added to the bracelet. Am I not married to the most WONDERFUL man in the world or what??? Andy always does a great job with our anniversary, my birthday, christmas, whatever the occassion he does well, so I had a feeling he would break our agreement and get me something anyway. So, I had a little surprise for him as well. He got a trip to the Indianopolis Motor Speedway for the Richard Petty Rookie Driving Experience. No, we're not die hard Nascar fans or anything like that, but last year Andy was able to go to the Brickyard 400 with some friends who live in Indianopolis and he said it was an incredible experience. Since then he's always talked about how he thougth it would be neat to get to do one of the driving experiences where you actually get to drive a nascar on the track. Well, in August Andy will be at the Indianopolis Motor Speedway experiencing the "Richard Petty Driving Experience". Happy Anniversary Baby! You are the best Husband, friend, father a girl could ever want! I love you!!!

My Beautiful Bouquet of Flowers

Chocolate Pearl Bracelet

Add-a-Diamond/Stone Bracelet

New York City

I'm a little late posting these, but Memorial Day weekend Andy & I went to New York. Our 10 year wedding anniversary is coming up and my birthday was May 24th so this trip was a celebration of my birthday and our anniversary. We had a great time, but were completely exhausted from trying to fit everything in to 3 days. We went to see The Lion King, which is absolutely amazing....a definite must see. We also went to a New York Yankees game, Dinner at the Rainbow Room on top of Rockefeller Center, Central Park, Shopping on Fifth Avenue and Times Square, Ground Zero, Battery Park to see the Statue of Liberty, and went to Brooklyn to eat pizza at Di Fara's. While waiting to go up to dinner at the Rainbow Room in the Rockefeller Center we actually saw Conan O'Brien as he was shooting a segment for his show. I was literally a foot away from him and he smiled and said "hello". Then about 2 minutes after that we turned around and saw Abe Vigoda - the grandfather in Look Who's Talking. We had such a great time in NYC. The weather was wonderful - sunshine with temps. in the mid 70's. You couldn't have asked for better weather. I'm already trying to figure out when we can go back just to shop, a few more Broadway plays, and of course pizza at Di Fara's. Here's a few pictures from our trip. There are very few of Andy & I together because we were so busy trying to fit everything in we just didn't stop and ask people to take our picture.


Rink Bar at Rockefeller Center

The New Yankee Stadium- opening 2009

Our view from the very top of Yankee stadium


Yankee Stadium

I think this is Derek Jeter batting? Maybe A-Rod?


Central Park

A view from Central Park

That's not us, but it is the same guy who gave us a
ride from Braodway to our hotel the night before!


The FAO Schwartz Guard

The Ferris wheel inside Toys R Us

A closer look at the Ferris wheel

A little blurry, but this is where we had dinner
before we went to The Lion King

AWESOME!!!!




The Empire State Building

Hey it's my b-day & I'm in NYC


Rockefeller Center



Engine Co. 10 across from Ground Zero

A view of the Statue of Liberty from Battery Park

I'm Back!

Sorry, I've neglected the blog for the past month, but we've been busy. I know we're all "busy," but I'm serious I've been going nonstop for the past few weeks with barely enough time to sleep. The week of May 15th was Brady's last day of K4 and Hudson and Ella's last day of MMO. Of course I was running around crazy that week getting things ready for end of the year parties. Not to mention we had birthday parties and ballgames. The next week we had ballgames, birthday parties, and sick babies. Then I started feeling bad....oh yeah, I forgot to mention that somewhere in my running from ballgames, to parties, to dr. appointments, I still had to do "household things" and, oh yeah, get ready for my big trip!! What big trip??? Andy and I went to New York for my birthday/10 year anniversary - more on that later. We got home last Monday and of course that night Brady started running fever. So I spent all week last week taking care of sick kids (again), recouping from the trip, washing a zillion loads of laundry, cleaning house, and tons of errands. Wouldn't you know that Friday evening I started feeling bad and Saturday I was miserable. Thank goodness I started feeling better this afternoon. After a relaxing Sunday afternoon, I'm finally back in the blogging world. Sorry, I've been a slacker, but hopefully I'm back on track. Here's a few pics from the past few weeks.

Brady's Field Day

Outdoor Fun:

Brady's last day of School