Happy Birthday Giada!

Yesterday was Giada's birthday party.  She is 3!!  I cannot even believe that she 3 already!!  We had a great time at the party.  Oddly enough this is one of the only pictures that I got of Giada.  The kids were so busy playing that I had a tough time getting pictures of them!

 Frankie was there enjoying the party.  He is getting sooo big!!

My kids have always loved Frank.  When Claire was little she used to snuggle into him and suck her thumb while she rubbed his ear.  And now Oliver has fallen into this too.  Maybe because Uncle Frank let him pull on the a paper flower for like 20 minutes.

Claire had a blast playing with the girls.

I barely saw Claire the whole time we were there.  Here she is focusing on the pinata and I believe she was developing her strategy for when the candy hit the floor.

 Jessica did a great job setting up the party.  Thank God the weather held out and it stopped raining for Giada's special day!

Oliver loved sucking on the package of a piece of candy from the pinata.

Oliver loves to be passed from person to person.  He likes to spend a little time with everyone.  Here he is hanging out with Alex for a while.

Nick did a great job cooking the chicken.

Claire and Charlie spent some time catching up during dinner.

Oliver, Ella, and Charlie.

Oliver hung out with Charlie for a bit too.  Charlie is so excited to have a boy around now.

Giada loved opening her gifts.

Oliver was all partied out during the presents. 

Here is Ruby, Jessica's sister in law's dog.  She is an English Bulldog and so sweet I can't stand it.  She reminds me so much of Pete when he was a puppy!  I can't believe that my 90 pound monster was ever that small!!

Overall it was a great party and I can't believe how big all of our kids are getting!!  Happy birthday Giada, WE LOVE YOU!!

Today we did NOTHING!  We discussed doing the landscaping or a few other projects.  Then we decided that today would be much better spent doing nothing but playing with the kids.  So after breakfast we all threw on our play clothes and headed outside for the day!  Claire wanted her hair like mine.  So I put it up in a ponytail and gave her a matching headband.

I made a sad attempt to take Oliver on our homemade swing.  As you can see, it did not go very well.  

 Oliver had a great time playing with the lacrosse balls in the grass.  Even though here it looks like he is making a boobie joke, he is really just hugging them :)

Oliver is starting to try to stand on his own now!  I cannot stand how old he looks!!! He only last a second but I am sure that soon enough he will be booking around the backyard on his own.

Oliver is doing so many new things!  He is eating all kinds of food (and A LOT of it).  He moans the entire time he is eating and LOVES food!!  He is babbling like crazy!  He says dog, uh oh (although most of the time he just does the uh), and Dada.  Looks like I am going to have two kids chatting away non stop!!

 Claire had a blast playing with Pete.  Poor Pete, he has really slowed down since last year.  Poor guy sure is gettin' old.  Notice the headband didn't last very long on Claire's head.  This is just one of the many ways that she sported her headband.

After a nice two hour nap (for everyone) we had a nice dinner on the patio.  To keep up with our "we are not doing anything today" theme we ordered in Chinese and enjoyed a nice paper plate take out dinner.

Here is our sapling.  We are trying to replant a tree.  I will keep you posted.  I am pretty sure Pete will step on it and that will be the end of it but we have high hopes for our new tree.