The Princess Party

Last week Makenna got to celebrate her birthday again with a joint Princess Party with 2 other cute little girls in our neighborhood who also turned 3 in November. (Last year we had a Fairy Tea Party with the same girls.) Makenna loves dressing up in her princess dresses on a daily basis, and so was thrilled to have an excuse to wear one of them out. She chose to dress up in her Snow White dress.

Here are all of the princesses and princes.

The 3 birthday girls are on the front row.

The kids had a great time making crowns, decorating royal doorhangers, playing pin the crown on the princess, eating cupcakes, and having a princess dance party.

Here is Makenna writing her name on the back of her doorhanger. She is SO "into" letters right now, and loves practicing writing them. She can write all of the letters in her name, plus a few others. She is forever asking me what letters different words or names start with, and always wants me to write down all of the names of her friends. I think that it is great that she has taken an interest in learning letters, and it is so fun to see her write her name. (We haven't started working on the last name yet...I think that will take a little work!)
Dancing/twirling/spinning princess fun

And of course no party is complete without a goody bad filled with delightful princess favors.

She's Three!!

Makenna's birthday was yesterday, and we had such a fun time celebrating with her. Here is how our day went.

7:37 am: Makenna begged us to open just one present. Blocks from Grandma and Grandpa Bailey, which were immediately put to good use.

8:30am: Makenna helped me make and decorate cupcakes. She did all of the sprinkles herself, and as you can see, enjoyed a few licks of the frosting.
12:00pm: Picked up our cute neighbor Lucas for an afternoon outing. Makenna was so excited to have him ride in our car.

12:20pm: McDonald's for lunch. (Can you tell Makenna likes Lucas??)

1:15pm: Makenna opened the present Lucas brought for her while in the car on the way to the Wonder Lab.
1:16pm: Showing off the lip gloss bracelet she got. (1:17-1:25pm: Putting the lip gloss on over and over.)

2:05:pm: Looking at the turtles and fish at Wonder Lab.
2:45: Playing in the water.

3:35pm: Enjoying cupcakes on the patio with all of the neighbor kids (and a few moms) when they got home from school.
6:29pm: Trying on her butterfly towel from Grandma and Grandpa Bailey.

6:32pm: Opening up her Doctor Kit from Grandma and Grandpa Pawlowski. 6:33-6:47pm: Trying out all of her new tools on her best patient...Daddy.

7:23pm: Showing off the mess that she made while mom and dad were cleaning up the dinner dishes downstairs. (7:25-7:40pm: Cleaning up the mess she made in her room.)

7:52pm: Eating her second cupcake of the day, after singing Happy Birthday, and blowing out her candles (twice).

7:58pm:Playing on the couch as a family right before heading upstairs to get ready for bed.

Family Photos

Our fabulous and VERY talented friend agreed to take our family photos at the beginning of last month (despite being 9 months pregnant). Unfortunately, Makenna and Hudson did not make her job easy. Makenna was totally camera-shy, and by the time she warmed up a little bit, Hudson was no longer interested in sitting still. Despite the kids being a challenge, she was still able to get some great pictures. (Like I said, she is very talented. You can check out more of her work here.) Here are a few of my favorites.

The Little Guy is One!

Today was Hudson's first birthday! I really can't believe that it has already been a year since he was born. Seriously, where does the time go??

Here are just a few things about this cute birthday boy:

*He has been walking for a month and a half now, and is starting to think he is really good. (Translation: he is starting to go a lot faster, which makes me nervous because sometimes his legs can't keep up with his body and he face-plants.)

*He has learned how to go down the stairs on his belly all by himself. I still use the baby gate sometimes, but I think will soon be packing it away.

*He LOVES the dishwasher, and heads straight for it anytime he hears it open. I usually have to wait to do the dishes when he isn't around.

*He loves all things BOY; especially balls, cars, dirt, and remote controls.

*He is saying a few words including, "Ma ma" "Da da" and "Muh" (more), along with a variety of other baby babbles.

Makenna was very excited about Hudson's birthday today. We sang him Happy Birthday at least a dozen times. She also helped me make his cake and cupcakes, and was more than willing to help Hudson open his presents.

Here are a few pictures from our small family birthday celebration:

Playing with one of his new toys.

(Thank you to the Grandmas for sending some great gifts.)

Playing with his birthday cake.

Reading books with Daddy. Happy Birthday Hudson! We love you!

Halloween

I meant to post last night, but after a week FULL of Halloween activities, it was nice to sit and do "nothing" for a change. We had a great time celebrating, and loved having lots of activities to keep us busy, but are also ready to resume our more relaxed schedule...at least for a little while.

Our Halloween activities started on Monday night when we carved pumpkins as a family. I should clarify and say that we carved A pumpkin. We opted to let Makenna decorate her pumpkin with stickers and markers rather than carving it (although she was very interested in using all of the pumpkin carving tools). John isn't such a huge fan of the pumpkin-carving tradition, and I think would opt to use stickers and markers too if I would let him. Apparently he thinks gutting the pumpkins is gross, and that it smells; which may be true, but how can you not carve pumpkins??

Hudson seemed to agree with John about the pumpkin guts

On Thursday all of the older kids were out of school for Fall break, so we organized a little neighborhood Halloween carnival with a cake-walk, sugar cookie decorating, pumpkin paper craft, and donut-eating contest. It was rather chilly that day, but the kids didn't seem to mind too much, and enjoyed all of the activities.

Hudson loved dancing and clapping to the Halloween music with the kids

Decorating paper pumpkins
Us moms even got in on the donut-eating contest.

On Friday evening we attended the Kelley Kids Halloween party up on campus, and then on Saturday the party continued at our Ward's Chili pot luck, and trunk-or-treat activity. Makenna wanted to dress up as Dora for Halloween this year, so we decided to corrdinate our costumes as a family.

Makenna was Dora the Explorer. Hudson was Boots the monkey (Dora's best friend). John was Swiper the fox, and I was Abuela (Dora's Grandma).

The only people who really "got" our cosutmes without having to explain them were families with kids ranging from ages 2 to 5. In fact, John was quite a hit with the kids that age. At one point had a group of about 10 kids running around him trying to swipe his tail.


After our Ward's trunk-or-treat, we hurried home to do some trick-or-treating around the neighborhood. Even though the official Halloween trick-or-treating for Bloomington wasn't until Sunday evening, lots of our neighbors welcomed trick-or-treaters on Saturday night as well. Makenna had a blast, and of course ended up with way too much candy...oh well, I guess I will just have to help her eat it :)

Homecoming Weekend - Part 2

On Saturday, we went to the IU Homecoming Football game with some of our friends. We enjoyed some great weather, good football (IU won), and WAY TOO much junk food. Makenna loved having her friends to hang out with, and I think also noticed briefly that there was a football game going on. Hudson slept for half of the game, which was a blessing. And John and I enjoyed cheering for the same team. (When we came home we turned on the NE vs. TX game...not a fun game in our house.)

Makenna rockin her new shades.
The girls (...plus Ben)

Me and the Hubby

Homecoming Weekend - Part 1

Can I just say that this 2nd year of MBA School has been SO much better than the 1st. Not that the 1st year was bad, but John was just really, really busy, and I was very, very pregnant, and we were adjusting to a new town, new schedules, and a new life.

Now, John has more free time to spend with us, I have a cute 11 month old instead of a big belly, and instead of trying to adjust to a new town, and new friends, we are just trying to create as many fun memories as we can with our friends, and take every opportunity to enjoy the fun activities that Bloomington and IU have to offer, knowing that it is going to be over all too soon.

This weekend was Homecoming weekend here at IU. Last night, we went with some of the other MBA families to the Homecoming Parade. We weren't sure how kid-friendly it would be, but it turned out to be a really fun parade, and a really fun night.

Makenna spent half of the parade watching with her hands over her ears (it was pretty loud), and the other half scrambling to pick up any candy that was thrown in her direction. She was pretty thrilled with her pile of candy by the end of the parade.

A portion of our group

Hudson wasn't quite sure what to think of the whole thing, but seemed to entertained. The highlight or the parade (for me at least) was when John ran out in the street when a group of Irish dancers were walking by and did a couple of dance steps with them. The dancers got a kick out of it, as did our group of friends.

On our walk back to the car after the parade, Makenna got side-tracked by all of the leaves on the ground. Bloomington and especially the IU campus are just beautiful this time of year.

We decided to stop and let the kids (mostly Makenna) pick out some pumpkins on the way home.

Hudson just walked around "ohhing an ahhing" and pointing to all of the pumpkins.

Today we went to the IU Football game...post to come.