Livin' in the 'Hood'

I promised to post these pictures long ago, but I just got them from my neighbor! These were all taken at our cul-de-sac holiday party! Do you want to come live in our 'hood'? We are quite a fun and interesting group when we all get together! Needless to say, we all had a blast...especially with the fake mustaches from the white elephant gift exchange!

Scott with his fake stache!

Don our neighbor from up the street...I loved the pose!

The guys!

The gals with our unibrows!

Serious faces now ladies!

Trying not to crack a smile, but some of us failed!

Chuck E. Cheese's...Where a Kid Can Be a Kid!!

I can hardly believe it, but our good friends Kelly and Kyle's daughter Evie turned TWO this past weekend. I am not quite sure where the time has gone. It seems like just yesterday I was hosting Kelly's baby shower!! The scary thing is that Evie and Seville are only six weeks apart, so that means Seville is almost TWO as well! AHHHHH!!! Can't they invent something that freezes time...however, I would want to freeze Seville at about the 6-8 month stage, not the crazy, almost two, won't sit still for one minute, always saying NO to everything stage!

To celebrate Evie's special occasion Kelly and Kyle invited us to Chuck E. Cheese's on Saturday night for a little party! We all had such a great time! The girls had so much fun riding the rides and playing in the toddler area, and we loved playing with them! It is fun to act like a kid sometimes!!

We started out at the area where you can act like you are recording a TV show and you can see yourself on the TV. Seville and Scott were busy "taping"...

...while Hadley and Evie were busy dancing!

I only got them to stop for a split second!

Then Hadley took her turn behind the camera!

Then we headed over to the toddler area. Seville and Evie loved riding this bus. Evie loved singing along to the "Wheels on the Bus" song that it played!

There was a play phone where Chuck E. Cheese called you to say hi...

...and a merry-go-round that required parent pedal power!

Here is the group at dinner! I think Seville was saying "cheese!"

The birthday girl and her mom blowing out candles!

Seville meeting Chuck E. for the first time...she wasn't really sure what to think about him. Maybe next year!

The birthday girl eating her yummy cake! I can only remember what it was like to have a child that let you feed them...but even that is hard since I have to remember all the way back to Hadley. Seville has always been a do-it-herself kind of gal!

Back on the bus!

Seville was actually pretty good at pedaling this one herself!

Seville loved her goodie bag!

She also loved playing skee ball!

Both Evie and Seville could have spent the whole evening playing on the little toddler playground, which is funny since it didn't require any tokens! Seville liked going down head first...

...all the way to the bottom!

Well, there are not very many pictures of Hadley, but that is because she was off with Scott most of the evening. We kind of had to divide and conquer since the girls wanted to do different things. Hadley and Scott actually got enough tickets to get her a huge lollipop and a metal lunch box! I can still hardly believe it since you typically can only get junk with those tickets! She has had fun carrying the lunch box around and storing various things in it!

As Hadley and I would say...Good night, sleep tight, don't let the bed bugs bite!

Four Little Monkeys Jumping All Around

Last night we went to Monkey Buziness with the Imboden's and had a GREAT time!  The girls had a blast acting like monkeys on all of their inflatable equipment and jungle gyms!!  We were able to order pizza right there and it just worked out perfect.  These pictures didn't turn out so great, but I wanted to post them anyway!  The lighting was really bad in there, and I tried a new setting on my camera that I am not very happy with once I got them loaded onto the computer and saw them bigger, but I am sure it will only bother me! 

My BIG monkey!

My LITTLE monkey!

Everyone going up the big slide...

Jeremy and Gracyn coming down!

Seville had to have a "cack"...of course!  She is obsessed with "cacks!"  That is "snack" for those of you who do not speak "Seville"!

I took this from really far away, so the lighting is awful, but I just had to catch this little conversation in action.  I wonder what they were talking about?  Can you even imagine when they are teenagers!  

Hadley and Alyson going down together!

They would help each other get up the wrong way...

...and then go down holding onto each other's feet!

Can you tell she was having fun!

I made them do this, but I'm glad I did!

The baby girls trying to keep up!

Scott and Gracyn getting ready to go down the big slide!

Seville (and Jeremy behind) getting ready to go down the big slide!

A friendly game of air hockey!

This was a really fun jungle gym!

With a super fast slide!

Seville has been very into air hockey lately.  Whenever she sees a table she just has to play!

Rope swinging on the jungle gym!

Even the babies played a game of air hockey...they even scored some goals!

Tonight we went to Evie's 2nd birthday party and had a blast at Chuck E. Cheese's. I will try my best to post those pics tomorrow!  It has been a really fun filled weekend so far!  We don't have anything planned for tomorrow so we are just going to have a nice family day!

365 Challenge????

I've been thinking of doing a 365 Challenge...where you take and post a picture a day, but it just seems so daunting and I don't know if I could keep up. Plus, do I really have something to take a picture of everday?!?! However, I do think it could be really neat to look back on. Another blog I read is doing it and posted this tool today which would make it super fun and easy. Thought I would throw it out there for anyone else interested! http://shuttercal.com/ I am going to have to ponder this one for the weekend and then I will decide if I am up to the challenge or not! Have a great weekend everyone! We've got lots of fun things planned including going to Monkey Buziness with the Imboden's and going to Evie's 2nd b-day party at Chuck E. Cheese's!

Off to a much better start…

Like most people, I had a really hard time going back to work last week and was kind of in a funk! I am happy to say that this week seems to be off to a much better start! We had a really fun weekend and also got a lot accomplished. Yesterday we moved the furniture in Hadley’s room around again (and this time I like it!), performed labor and delivery for our 14 new baby guppy fish, posted all of the Christmas day pictures on the blog, did four loads of laundry, cooked a crock pot dinner and went shopping to get food for the next two weeks (minus small trips to the store for milk, etc.!) Now I feel ready to start my work week, and I think things will go much smoother!

This past Friday night we went to the mall with my Mom, Jon and the girls! We ate at Nordstrom Café (one of our favorites) and Gam and Grampa let Hadley jump on the trampolines again and took both girls for a ride on the carousel!

On Saturday we just played in the basement in the morning, and Hadley and I watched the American Girl 2009 movie about the new girl Chrissa! It was cute and had a lot of good things for Hadley and I to talk about…there are some real bratty girls in the movie who are very mean and we talked about how we never want to be like them and always want to be nice to everyone we meet! Of course the movie had a happy ending, so all is well that ends well!

On Saturday night Jim and Susie took the girls to Chuck E. Cheese’s, where they had a BLAST! We went out to dinner at Jose Pepper’s with our friends Dan and Jen. Lucky for us, Dan and Jen know EVERYONE at Jose Peppers and got our name at the top of the list and we avoided the 1.5 hour wait! We ate at a table and after dinner moved to the bar so we could keep talking and have another round of margaritas! Dan and Jen are such a fun couple and we had such a great time...they are so easy to talk to and we have so much in common! Any of you with kids know how nice it is to just sit and eat and talk and not be rushed to just get in and out as quick as you can and wrangle kids in between! Anyway, it was such a nice night and we can’t wait to do it again! We even got free dessert from one of their favorite bartenders!

On a funny note, there is literally a 1.5 foot height difference between Dan and Jen, and one of their traditions is for Dan to give Jen a piggy back ride as they are leaving Jose Peppers! Well, I thought it would be fun if I tried it this time, and it resulted in a cute pic!

Here we all are at Jose Peppers! Thanks Dan and Jen for a great evening out!

Christmas Day Photos

Well, it is a good thing this isn't a news blog because I am not very timely, but FINALLY here are some pics from Christmas day!  As you can probably assume, I took a TON of pics and even though there are a lot posted below it is still only a small portion of what I actually took!  

Seville, always the lover of snacks, immediately wanted to eat the candy from her stocking!

Hadley opening her "Kit" American Girl doll from Santa!  She wanted Kit so bad and instantly started hugging the box and screaming "Kitty Kit Kit!!!"

Grampa helping Seville open up her Bitty Baby from Santa!

Our girls with their new dolls!

Seville was so excited to play with her new baby!

Hadley, although a little under the weather, was having a blast with Kit too!

Seville has played with this Jack-in-the-Box at the bookstore and absolutey loved it so we had to get her one for Christmas.  I just LOVE the look on her face!  Totally priceless!!

Now look at her face and Gam's face!

Here I am NOT behind the camera and helping Seville get Bitty Baby dressed in her new dance outfit!

Hadley and Kit in their new matching jammies from Gam and Grampa!

Hadley in her new dance outfit from Mom and Dad! 

Gam with her "Hadley and Seville 2008" digital scrapbook that I made her!  94 wonderful pages of her girls...it took me FOREVER, but it was worth every minute!

Jon with his new drill!

Seville is ready for the snow...too bad we haven't had any since Christmas! :(

Hadley making her first batch of snow cones with the machine Grandpa John and Grandma Pat got her!

It worked really well!  It is going to be lots of fun to use this summer!

YUM!

Grandpa John reading to Seville.  I have never seen her sit still this long!

She looks pretty comfortable to me!

The girls were in for a big surprise at Grandma Sue Sue and Grandpa Jim's house.  The next four pictures were taken in sequence right when we got there!  I love the excitement of the girls as they get the first look at their playhouse!

Hadley was literally ripping the sheet off as quick as she could!

Seville's favorite part were the flower boxes...

...and the working door bell!

Grandpa Jim made lots of furniture for the inside...a table, two chairs, bunk beds for their babies, a changing table and plenty of storage!

Grandma Sue Sue painted the house inside and out, made a beautiful chandelier and two touch lights surrounded by jeweled flowers!

Seville was ringing the door bell all day long!

Seville with her new Care Bear from Uncle Craig!

Tea anyone?

Scott with his new white Oakleys that he wanted so badly!

Uncle Shawn and Uncle Craig in the adorandak chairs that Jim built!

Susie opening up her copy of the digital scrapbook I made!

Hadley's really neat bead set from Uncle Craig!

I had to throw this one in there to show the robe Hadley got...Kit has a matching one too!

The gang!

Seville with her new Bitty Baby backpack!

Uncle Craig always finds the neatest gifts and this cash register for Seville was no exception!

Scott in his new black blazer!  Lookin good, babe!

Craig with his new speakers!  Anyone need a DJ...just let Craig know!

I think this is my new favorite picture of Scott and Seville!

Seville taking a rest on Kit's new day bed!

Hadley playing with Bitty Baby's new bed!

Uncle Shawn...probably wondering why I am taking so many pictures!  J/K

Peek-a-boo!

Uncle Shawn was such a good sport playing with the girls!  He was in and out of that house a million times!

Grandma Sue Sue and Grandpa Jim rockin out with Jim's new dual Guitar Hero set!

Now the playhouse is filled with lots of new toys!

Kung-Fu Care Bear!

Gotta start them young with Cream brule!

Group shot!

One very tired and very lucky little girl after a long Christmas day!  

As you can see, it was another great Christmas!!  All of us are so blessed to have received so many wonderful things, but that isn't what it is all about!  Christmas is such a great time to celebrate family and friends and how important they are in our lives.  It is  a time to gather together and celebrate how blessed we really are...to have a great and supportive family, two wonderful little girls, fantastic friends, our health, a roof over our heads, food in our bellies and so, so much to be thankful for!  This Christmas was extra special because we took it a little slower and really tried to cherish every moment...it was wonderful!