Surprise!

Sunday was Mark’s birthday, and I had decided to try to surprise him with a birthday party.  He thinks his last birthday party was when he turned 21, so I figured it was about time he had another one.  It was a little hard to make all the plans and get everything ready while keeping it all a secret, but it was fun to do, and Mark ended up being really surprised.  I had my family and some local friends come over for dinner and hanging out, so it was fun to celebrate Mark and enjoy the evening with good company.  March is a busy birthday month for us, but now we’re taking a break from birthdays until May!

 

 

 

  

 

When Leprechauns Visit…

The visit of the leprechauns is a big thing in kindergarten.  All the kids are invited to make a leprechaun trap at home, bring it in to school, and the traps get set up in the classroom before St. Patrick’s Day in hopes of catching the elusive leprechaun.  Mark and Nina made hers with a trip line attached to the stick that holds up the top.  When the leprechaun trips the wire, the stick falls causing the trap to close, but somehow he managed to escape.  The kindergarten teachers encouraged the parents to continue the fun last night when the kids set up their traps again at home.  So, when the girls got up this morning, they saw the evidence that the leprechaun had indeed visited but escaped again!

He used the bathroom, got in the treat box, turned over couch cushions, and put the pots in the family room.  That naughty leprechaun!  Nina has figured out that Santa isn’t real and doesn’t believe in fairies, etc. but she believes the leprechaun visited. 

 

Lyla’s Party

Yesterday was Lyla’s first “invite friends” birthday party, and of course, it was a Cars theme.  She was very excited for the party, and we had sent her friends pit passes to invite them to the party.

Mark’s car was turned into Lightning McQueen (for as much as a Honda can resemble a race car).

 

The house was decorated with some of her favorite car characters for playing games, getting tattoos, and coloring road maps.  Lyla was ready and excited by the time her friends arrived.

 

 

The kids had lunch, then played tractor tipping bowling, fishing for car parts, playing “Mater Says” and coloring and putting together a car floor puzzle, but the favorite activity of the party was just plain old fashioned running and shouting.  I had the kids freeze racing to a few of the best songs from Cars, and they had a blast.  Who needs games and activities when running through the house and shouting is an option?

 

  

 

 

We finished the party with cake.  Lyla had requested a Mack truck cake, so that’s what she got.  We had a really nice time celebrating Lyla’s birthday with her friends!

 

Celebrating Birthdays

Last night the family got together to celebrate Lyla and Bo’s birthday.  My mom cooked a great dinner, and Lyla was very excited to get the birthday celebrating started early. 

One big excitement of the night was opening presents from my parents and Bo.  Lyla loves cars, and her favorite character from the Cars movie is Doc Hudson.  He isn’t sold in stores anymore, but she has been asking for one for about six months. She got one last night which was very exciting. 

Among other things, she also got a remote controlled Lightning McQueen which she played with all day today.

We had a really great evening enjoying dinner, celebrating birthdays, etc., but the highlight of the evening came when Nina put on a performance with Uncle Bo as her background dancer.  It took some serious coercing (on Nina’s part) and serious good uncle points (on Bo’s part), but Nina convinced Bo to be the dancer in her performance, and she taught him the moves she wanted him to perform.  We were literally in tears we were laughing so hard.  I fault the Apple company for the fact that Mark’s iPhone didn’t record what would have been one of the top blackmail videos of all time.  It was great!

When Lyla woke up this morning, it was time to celebrate the official birthday.  As with all good occasions in the Simpson house, it started with donuts.  Our only disappointment was that the bike we ordered for her didn’t arrive in time for her birthday.  We printed out a picture of it to give to her, but I don’t think that had much of an impact. Supposedly it’s arriving on Friday.

 

She did get a couple phone calls today which was very exciting for her.  (In this picture, she’s talking to Emme.)  After Nina got home from school, we spent the rest of the day enjoying the warm weather outside, then we headed out to Chick Fil-A for dinner.  I asked her what she wanted for dinner and told her that she could choose the meal for tonight, but her first choice was donuts for dinner. I did rule out donuts for dinner, but Chick Fil-A and cupcakes weren’t a bad consolation.  She’ll have one more day to celebrate this weekend when she has some friends over for a Cars party, so more fun awaits.  It’s good to be four!

Happy 4th Birthday, Lyla!

It's hard to believe this little girl is four years old already!  Her funny sense of humor, her love for her family, and her sweet heart have brought so much joy to our family over the past four years.  We love you very much, Lyla!

Here are some of our favorite pictures of Lyla throughout the year.  You can click on the collage to see it larger. 

Date Night

Last night was our date night for February (even though it was technically in March).  Mark was taking Lyla, and I was taking Nina.  We started out at a local brick oven pizza place, then Mark and Lyla went out to look at big girl bikes for her birthday, and Nina and I went out for ice cream and accessories.  We went to Ben and Jerry’s, and Nina got a chocolate dream – chocolate ice cream with chocolate fudge and brownie pieces.  We talked about school and friends over ice cream then went accessory shopping. 

 

Nina was allowed to pick one accessory, and I think she made a great choice!  Here she is with it today after a bath and a haircut.

After I gave the girls haircuts, Mark took them fishing at the pond.  He caught this 5.3 pounder and Nina took the picture with his phone.  Nice fish and nice photo!

Hotels Joining the Fight

Simply being aware can make a big difference in the fight against child sex trafficking...  http://edition.cnn.com/2012/02/29/travel/hotel-sex-trafficking/index.html

Still Here

It’s been awhile since our last blog post.  We’re still here – just haven’t taken many pictures lately.  The girls had a fun Valentine’s Day. Of course donuts for breakfast were involved, then heart shaped food for lunch was to follow. Later that week, Lyla got to go to her first “Lyla only” birthday party (that is a party that she was invited to without Nina).  She was so excited to receive the invitation in the mail addressed just to her, and it was cute to watch her party with just a bunch of other four or almost four year olds.  The weather has been quite warm still for this time of year, so we’ve spent a lot of afternoons outside playing, hanging out with friends, and making a trip or two up to Sweet Frog.

Speaking of sweets, I had the chance to be the Mystery Reader in Nina’s class last week.  The Mystery Reader calls in three clues about themselves which the teacher tells to the kids in the class.  From those three clues, the kids try to figure out who might be coming to read to them.  The way it works is they are supposed to keep their hand raised when the clues read applies to a person they know.  According to Nina’s teacher who told me about it, the first clue was she likes to take pictures with her camera (Nina raises her hand), then the second clue is she drives a Honda Pilot (Nina still has her hand raised as do a few other kids), then the last clue was she loves Mike and Ikes to which Nina shouts, “That’s my mom!”  haa haa.  I thought that was cute.  We’ll be back soon with more pictures and updates.

 

 

Letter of Thanks

Remember the Best and Worst Dress Contest?  Just today I received a letter signed from the President and Vice-President of the Force Film Foundation (the nonprofit organization in New York who I mailed our collection of dresses to for Jane).  They wrote on behalf of the Force Film Foundation thanking us for our generous dress donation that they received to be used toward the support of Jane Ngoiri and her children.  So, I just wanted to let all of you who donated dresses to know that they were much appreciated.  Hopefully Jane is making great use of them right now!

For those that donated and would like this information – the dress you donated is deductible for income tax purposes at its fair market value.  The IRS code places the responsibility for estimating the fair market value upon the donor.  Force Film Foundation is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization registered in the State of New York, Tax ID # 75-3250496

For Men Who Need Pointers on Valentine’s Day

Those that have lived with me any amount of time (my family, P, Mark) know that I love nature shows.  I especially loved the series Planet Earth, so one year Bo got me the whole series on DVD.  Anyway, this is an excerpt from an episode that I was re-watching again recently. I love this bird.  He is awesome.  If any of you men out there need some pointers for today, just take a few notes.  He has a plan, gets himself looking his best, he cleans, and then he puts on a show for his lady.  And Pops, spare me the comment I know would come from you that this video “is for the birds!”     Happy Valentine’s Day!