Ahoy Matey's - Captain Ryan's 5th Birthday

From October 9, 2011 
What a great day we had yesterday at Ryan's 5th Birthday party.   We had the party at the same park as last year right near our building and this year, we had perfect weather, great guests and one very happy birthday boy!  Both Ryan and Dylan (and some of the adults) dressed up for the occasion and it really helped get everyone in the spirit. 

 The party kicked off with all of the kids going on a treasure hunt to find pirate gear - we didn't want Ryan and Dylan to be the only members of the Pirate Crew so I made 5 treasure boxes and maps of the park and each kid had to find their own treasures (a bandanna, a pirate sash, a pirate bracelet, an eye patch and some doubloons).  I think everyone had a blast and by the time they were finished, everyone looked like a pirate!!!

When they completed the treasure hunt, everyone got to pick between a wooden pirate or a wooden pirate ship to make an art project or some chose to run around the park playing "Ryan and the Neverland Pirates"

Another activity at the party was the tattoo station headed up by Uncle Michael - Kat von D better watch out because Michael had lots of repeat customers. The tattoos were a HUGE hit

 I think I am going to have to watch out for Dylan when he is older with that tattoos though because he ended up having a full sleeve of tats by the time the party was over, lol

Next up:  pizza and cake

It was pretty cute - they could have sat anywhere in the whole park and they all ended up sitting right on top of each other.

After some pizza and cake, it was time - time for what always seems to be the most popular part of the party: the pinata.  The pinata was huge and by the time everyone had a few whacks at it, there was still only the slightest dent in the side.   One of my favorite pictures from the party was from pinata time - Jay asked all of the kids who wanted to hit the pinata first and of course everyone rose their hand.  Then he asked, "who is the birthday boy?" - I love how excited the birthday boy is and how loud his brother yelled "It's Ryan's Birthday" - that is Dylan, front and center.

Some (or one) of the bigger "kids" decided to help out too. 

When we finally broke open the pinata, the candy was everywhere and the kids were screaming.   Almost all of them just grabbed whatever they could and ended up with overflowing bags - Ryan filled up his entire pirate hat!!  

We had such a great turn out between Ryan's friends and our families and I feel so lucky that so many people came to share in Ryan's special day.  Thanks so much to everyone for making this day a huge success.
 

Ryan - Happy Birthday!  We love you very much

xoxoxo

52 Week Project - Week1 - New Year

I have never been a fan of New Year's Eve - it always seems like I end up thinking about being another year older, all of the things I wanted to do that I didn't, resolutions that I didn't meet etc.   This New Year's Eve was different though- I decided to leave 2011 behind and not dwell too much.  January 1, 2012 is a fresh start and brings 365 days worth of opportunities to have fun, be happy and fulfill some goals.  

Like every other year since I have had this blog, two of my goals for the coming year is to be more consistent with writing on the blog and improve my photography.   My amazing new laptop will definitely help with that and so should the 52 week project I have decided to do.   After following some photography blogs last year, I have convinced my sister and cousin to create blogs and join me in this project - for each week this year, we will have a theme and will post our photo interpretation of the theme.  

Welcome to the 52 week project Week 1 - New Year

Wishing you all a New Year filled with love, luck, health and happiness

I hope that you will follow along with my project and I also recommend you follow Erika
and Karen's blogs and see what they come up with each week.   Also, I hope that we will all stick with the project because I think it will be fun and I am selfishly happy to have other blogs to read.

And because I can't just post one picture - here are some more.  We had a pretty fun new year's eve - we spent the night with Grandma and Papa (who were nice enough to watch the boys so Jay and I could go to Michael and Jasmine's house for a bit) and the boys were still awake for the countdown.  



You would have never known that it was midnight by how wild and wide-awake the kids were and the only reason they finally went to bed is because we made them.   

As for the New Year's photo shoot for week 1 of our project- I had come up with the idea almost immediately after I convinced E and K to do the project with me.   I thought that we got some pretty cute shots from the day



 

(wish i could figure out how to put these side-by-side)

 We also got some pretty good outtakes - can you spot the problem?  lol

 Of everyone, Dylan hated the photo shoot the most - he wanted no part of it until he realized that he could throw his frame when I walked away and that he would get a reaction from everyone.

 

 It is amazing that the frame did not break but when I saw how hard he laughed and how funny he thought it was, it was hard not to laugh too.  Also, I am positive that this was not the first and will not be the last thing he tries to break this year

and with that, 2012 - Here we come!!
Happy New Year

Christmas 2011 with Pickle Tony

This Christmas season, we were lucky enough that our elf, Pickle Tony came back from the North Pole for the second year in a row to keep an eye on us. Like last year, Pickle Tony kept watch over us all day and went back to the North Pole each night to tell Santa about our behavior. This year, Pickle T was pretty funny and was a bit mischievous - one day he brought our tree, another day we found him in a bowl of cheerios, he drank my coffee and fell asleep on my cup and another day we found him hanging from a hook in the bathroom. 

The boys had a blast each morning running around to see if Pickle Tony came back and where he was.   The sillier the spot, the more excited the kids were.  Nothing topped Pickle Tony's final prank though on Christmas Eve morning.   Somehow, he followed us all the way up to Grandma and Papa's house and when we woke up, we found this:

So of course, we headed right to the bathroom and Ryan couldn't believe his eyes!!  

Somehow when Ryan was sleeping, Pickle T turned Ryan into Rudolph!!  Dylan was not happy that he too had a painted nose and he immediately tried to rub it off.  Ryan on the other hand thought the whole thing was hilarious and must have told the story 10 times about "pickle tony snuck in while I was sleeping and put lipstick all over my nose and now look at me - how do you think he did that? Do you see he is holding lipstick?  Where did he get that from?"
 

Pickle Tony left us the day after Christmas and we definitely had a good time with him while he was here.   We are guessing that he had a good time with us too and thought we had good enough behavior to make the "Nice List" since Santa spoiled us all rotten on Christmas!  Pickle T is a great part of our holiday traditions and we all hope that he will be back again next year.