Addison & Isla

Sunday, March 25, 2012

Weekend Recap

This weekend was so much fun with the girls. We had beautiful, warm spring weather here so we spent a good portion of the weekend outside - literally ALL day on Saturday at the park, then a couple hours on Sunday afternoon. In between trips to various parks we sang show tunes (they're both little hams!), danced, cooked together, spray painted branches for our soon-to-be "Easter Tree", raked the yard together (they each have their own little rakes) and even cleaned out toy bins and made a Goodwill donation together. Addison was SUCH a great big sister all weekend long, helping Isla wherever she needed it and just being so sweet and caring in general. Everywhere we went people ooohed and ahhed over their spunky personalities, good manners (i.e. "hello", "thank you", "nice to meet you", "have a nice Sunday"), VAST vocabularies and uncommonly outgoing nature and social skills. It's weekends like this that make it all worth it! Love my girls!

Their new favorite movie is Annie! Anyone who knows me, knows that this thrills me to no end. I have loved Annie since my Dad took me to the Broadway show when I was 5 years old. After that Kaili and I would watch it at LEAST once a weekend if not 2 or 3 times. We knew every song, every word and put on plenty of our own Annie shows. Come to think of it, Kaili and I were really into the Broadway shows...Bye Bye Birdie, Oklahoma, South Pacific. Ahhh memories. I digress. Anyway, the girls are learning the songs from Annie and you'd better believe I'm right there with them belting out the tunes. They love Miss Hannigan - go figure.

An after-park bath

Sharing

Woo-hoo! Isla's battle cry down the slide

A bit cautious over the bridge

Last weekend I took Addison to see The Lorax with her friend Kellan and my friend (his mom) Nicole. They loved it! Little did we know it was a 3-D show. She actually did a great job of keeping the glasses on.

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Baseball Baby Shower

I love a good party. I love to HOST a good party. Most of all, I love to host a good party for a great person. Last Friday I had the chance to do that when I had about 20 people from work over for a baseball/sports themed baby shower for my sweet-as-pie co-worker, Janell. She's due with her first baby boy on none other than my birthday - April 15th! I hosted one work shower here before, and since I go all out and spare no detail, there were many hints that it would be great if I could do it again. A lot of work for a gal with not a lot of time, but I love it and gladly offered up my "services" ;). I started to poke around with Janell as far as colors, etc. that she was going for in the baby's room because I knew it would be a well thought out plan. She comes from Merchandising at Target, so is very sassy, fashionable and appreciates quality and fluidity in aesthetic. In other words, she's as picky and anal as me when it comes to things looking just so. Janell sent me a few pics of baby boy's room, which is all Pottery Barn and a vintage sports theme - navy blues, reds, white and brown. She and her husband are big sports fans so I went with that and veered towards baseball as the sport of choice. My vision resulted in a pretty cute bash that was highly enjoyed by all. My awesome co-workers pitched in with food and drinks, games and prizes. Janell had 3 showers and gushed that this was her fave by far. But the best part was when DJ brought Addison and Isla over towards the end. They rushed in and literally hugged, kissed, amused and amazed everyone with their socially outgoing personalities. It was a great way to end a super fun afternoon.

I didn't get a good picture of the whole table cloth, but essentially I had a white table cloth and placed a navy blue piece of fabric down the center as a runner. To the runner I glued different ribbon, as pictured below. It turned out SOOOO cute! So if anyone ever needs this...let me know, as it's tucked away in a drawer now!

Veggie cups with dip in the bottom - much cuter than a veggie tray. These were a big hit

Janell's husband (who also works at Target) sent me a bunch of pictures of himself and Janell as babies/toddlers, which I put in frames and placed around the party. She almost cried when she saw them! Probably mostly because she couldn't believe Chris executed it without her knowing. ;)

Caprese skewers

Fruit tray

Drink station

Horrible picture, but was adorable in person. I hung sports related onesies with clothespins across the living room window. Made a great little gift for Janell to take home as well.

Picture of her hubby in the background with little chocolate "balls" in the dish

Baseball cupcakes from my friend Cade who literally makes the most heavenly cupcakes on the PLANET! Randomly, he was Debbie Gibson's personal assistant and just released his own album. So weird, I know! I told him he better keep on trucking with the cucake biz!

http://cakesbycade.com/index.html

I displayed baseballs in different ways throughout the party area

Yum - dessert tower!

When my boss was struggling with what she was going to bring, I gently "suggested" cookies decorated as baseballs and mitts. She laughed at me and told me I was nuts, but then ate her words when she saw how delicious and cute they turned out. :)

I didn't get any great pics of Janell, and she would KILL me if she knew I posted this, but here is the mama of honor. Love her!

Sunday, February 26, 2012

Christmas in March!

Although I don't have pictures at the moment, today marked the largest snowfall we've had all year - and to think it's almost Easter! Crazy MN. It was a literal "snow day" in which schools were closed, people worked from home (me included) and the ploughs were out everywhere. Well, it's about 4pm now and it's almost all melted! So much for a white winter. Addison was out at 6am building a snowman while DJ shoveled the driveway. A fun way to start the day!

A couple of weekends ago we went to check out the melting snow sculptures that were created at Theo Wirth Park near our house. The area is really cool with a fun tubing hill and miles of cross-country trails. Although the girls are a bit too young for the tubes we think they'll be good and ready next winter.

Snow sculptures

The girls were "ice skating" on the frozen puddles

This past weekend we celebrated Cassie's 4th birthday and Isla REALLY enjoyed the cake

Cassie loves all things mermaid so Heather (her mom) made this really cute cake with an Ariel doll on top. Addison and Isla were OBSESSED! Now all Addison can talk about is having an Ariel cake with a rainbow crown for her birthday. And Isla kept pulling me into the kitchen to say "I wanna see my cake mommy"

Then there were the 2 little chihuahua puppies that Isla became attached to. Again, it was "look at my puppies! So cuuuute!" I had a great video of her saying this, but my iPhone ate it or something. Trust me, it was adorable.

DJ's birthday was this weekend and we celebrated with a day of FUN!!! We kicked it off with some family gym time, then bagels and coffee with the girls and an impromptu manicure for Addison. After we dropped them off at Ba and Nana's we headed out for a delicious lunch, saw American Idiot (Rock opera of Green Day's album) at one of our favorite theaters, grabbed a drink and then met up with friends for dinner. A great day!

The set of American Idiot after the show