On Saturday we went to Anthem to visit the Outlets there and to play on the HUGE playground nearby. It was a great morning....
Jake is now 10 months old and his walking has improved a lot in the past few weeks since he took his first steps - he can make his way across an entire room, but he's still very wobbly
This is Jake's typical big grin... he smiles so big that his eyes look closed and he shows off his two crooked teeth
Emma insisted on acting like a monkey when I took this picture... I have pretty weird kids
The day was made even better by Ben and I finally going to see Avatar in 3D that evening - What an awesome movie experience it was! Yay for play days! Hopefully there will be many more fun days like this to come, as Ben is starting Rheumatology tomorrow and will have all his weekends off for the month February - hooray!
What a great 3-day weekend we've had! Ben had Saturday off of work (yay!) and he had this brilliant idea to take the kids roller skating - it was seriously the best! Granted the kids aren't good at roller skating and Emma fell down more than she actually skated, but it was a lot of fun. It was just as fun as I remember it being (and the last time I roller skated was a LONG time ago). We rocked out to lots of Miley Cyrus, Beastie Boys, and Thriller. hahaha. It was great! I was even able to skate while pushing Jake's umbrella stroller around the rink - Jake couldn't believe what was happening, he was so excited! Of course, Ben and I took turns skating without the kids - needless to say, I'm not so good and practically ran into the wall a few times when coming 'round the corners. Ben, on the other hand, was zipping around and around like I might be after months of practice. He said afterwords that it came back to him 'like riding a bike'! Anyway- I think roller skating would make for the best girls night... don't you think girls? :)
Ben and Emma playing a rousing round of "fall on your bum when the music stops" (Emma was really good at this game!)
Becca hanging on for dear life ;)
Emma enjoying sitting out for a bit with an ICEE
DANCE PARTY!- When the skating session was over, they let all the kids go out there with their shoes on and dance... I think the kids were thrilled to not be falling over
That morning Ben made us all a fun breakfast - he really enjoys cooking and on his days off he likes to cook (awesome for me!). So to start our day we had delicious waffles and fruit smoothies. mmmm. He thought the kids would enjoy a smiley face of fruit on their waffles, but Emma just whined that she doesn't like bananas, and Becca whined that she doesn't like kiwi's. So we traded fruit around and everyone was happy. But look at that waffle... doesn't it just make you smile?
We like waffles in our house, so why not have waffles for dinner the next day? Ben's parents came to our place for Sunday dinner and as we did last year, we served them chicken and waffles. And once again, I was weirded out by what I was eating, but also couldn't deny that it tasted delicious... especially with plenty of maple butter drizzled all over the top. :)
Now that Emma has school Monday through Friday, I'm really appreciating the holiday weekends and any days that Emma gets to have off of school. It means an extra day that I don't have to get up really early and get us all dressed and out of the door first thing. So we took our time this morning getting ready and then we played some games. We played three rounds of Pretty Pretty Princess and somehow the person collecting the yellow jewelry always won. Here we all are in our moments of pretty princess glory...
Then we played memory. Turns out Emma's very good at that game (and Becca's not bad herself)... poor Becca though... she really got the rough end of the stick on this one ;)... watch the video and you'll see. hahaha! Maybe I shouldn't use the rule of 'if you find a match you get to go again'.
For lunch today, Ben's parents took us out to Pappadeaux's for a New Orleans style seafood feast. :) Recently I've been coming around a bit to some types of seafood, believe it or not. I had a delicious pan-grilled talapia today and I actually thought it was great! Good for me. :) At the end of the meal, the kids got their "kid-sized" ice cream for dessert - you should have seen Becca's eyes get wide when she saw what was just for her!
Jake and his cousin Adam... outside the restaurant - I thought this pic was pretty cute
After dinner Adam came to our house for a couple hours to play. It was a fun Martin Luther King Day!
We went to playgroup today and Becca was thrilled to get to feed the ducks (and birds). She told me on the way home several times, "I uv ucks!" (translation: "I love ducks!")
Well, it happened early just as I thought it would... Jake took his first steps today! I imagine he'll keep up mostly crawling for the next couple weeks till he better perfects his walking skills... and then I'll really have my hands full keeping up with this guy. Can you believe I have a 9 month old walker?!
In true Jake form, he does what he must to get some food... and then he takes off. ;)
Ben was on call at the hospital all night... so what do we do when the daddy's away?... we do manicures!
I love having GIRLS!
and we had CHOCOLATE CHIP pancakes for dinner
Usually Jake smiles really big when I pull out the camera... but as you can see, he was too busy eating (also, it is advised not to give children chocolate until they are one... but this is the third kid, so I don't follow rules like that anymore)
Needless to say, I ate too many... and now I have a tummy ache - but that is what happens when you leave a Susan unsupervised.
It's January! We decided to make snowflakes today (because in the Dangerfield homes, and Lee house, we decorate in blue and white... with lots of blue and white dishes in our hutches... and read books about snow and snowmen). We have to pretend likes it's wintertime, remember?! I really like these snowflake instructions. Since Becca isn't so adept at using scissors just yet, I had her tell me shapes that she wanted in her snowflake and I cut them out. When we were done making them, I sprayed them with starch and ironed them to flatten and stiffen them up.... and then we hung them in some of our windows. Free decorations! (hopefully not too tacky?)
My Jake man turned 9 months old exactly one week ago and today we took him in for his doctor visit. He's still growing big! He weighs in at 20.6 lbs (50th %ile) and is 29.5 inches tall (75th %ile). That's a whole 4 lbs and 2 1/2 inches worth of growing from his 6 month visit. And so handsome too!
I tried to make New Years Eve fun for the kids this year, so we changed a couple of our clocks ahead 3 hours... resulting in our midnight countdown arriving at 9pm. :) Nine o'clock is still rather late for our girls, so they felt like it was quite the special evening - We filled a time capsule with silly information about each of us and added some little random treasures inside... then we buried it in the backyard, with plans to dig it up in 2011! By the way, can you believe it's 2010?!! Where is my hover car? Weren't we supposed to have those by now? Seriously - I'm disappointed! Anyway, we rang in the New Year with Trader Joe's appetizers and sparkling cider, the kids banged pots outside (at 9pm mind you), threw balloons around, and we topped off the night by smashing confetti eggs on each other's heads. Definitely memorable!
Who's that weird guy peeking behind the table?
Using this idea gave me a jump start on undecorating my Christmas tree ;)
