Alia and Uncle Monkey

Birthday Party - Video

Here is some video from Alia's birthday party today ....

Alia's 3rd Birthday Party

We celebrated Alia's 3rd birthday at home this afternoon with 3 of her closest friends. A few months back Alia requested a "Dora" party for her birthday and I happily complied (with the help of Miss Jamie, of course). Since then, she has become much more interested in Thomas the Train than in Dora, but was still very excited about her Dora party. We started out by doing some exploring outside (luckily, the weather was dry), then we played Pin The Tail On Swiper, we ate dinner, enjoyed cupcakes and opened presents. Overall, I would say that the party was a success. The kids all seemed to have a great time!

Alia all ready for her party and awaiting her guests

Daddy, Alia and Mommy on party day

The table all set up for the kids

Outside on our exploring walk - I made a map and Jason helped me plant little surprises at each point. The kids had little backpacks to collect their surprises and flashlights to help them search and explore.

Everyone gathered around as we open up one of the boxes to discover our surprise

Kaylee, Carson, Alia and Nick

Alia playing "Pin The Tail On Swiper"

Alia requested back up while blowing out her candles.

The most beautiful (almost) 3 year old little girl in the world!

One very happy little boy that he got to have a cupcake too!

"ALIA"

Guess who can write her name all by herself?

Alia totally surprised us by picking up a crayon and writing her name this afternoon! I'm thinking I might cut it out and save it in her baby book :-)

(I should note that the "Max" you see on the left hand side was written by a grown-up.)

Swim Lessons

This morning we had our final swim lesson of this session. The next time we take swim lessons, Alia will be in Catfish 1 all by herself with no Mommy or Daddy. On the last day of class, the kids can go down the big water slide with their parents if they want to. Alia was not remotely interested in doing it! Max however, really enjoyed it and even went back for a second turn! We were lucky to have Uncle Monkey in town for the weekend working the camera for us :-)

The "Get Ready For Bed" Dance

Alia invented this silly dance one night and it's really caught on :-) First you brush your teeth, then you comb your hair and then you fall asleep!

Children's Museum

This morning Alia, Max and I went to the Children's Museum for the first time in quite a while. It was a whole new experience for me having two fully mobile children there ... and no stroller. I was exhausted after just two hours. As you can tell from the pictures, Max absolutely loved it and couldn't really control his excitement. The water play area was the big hit!

Photographic evidence of Max struggling to control his excitement!

Splashing and splashing and splashing

Max was just tall enough to enjoy this little spot.

We had tons of fun at this water table. Alia is getting to the stage where she really enjoys putting in the little dividers to see what happens and Max enjoyed watching the boats float down the different paths we made. We got to the museum early and so had this area all to ourselves the whole time.

The dig pit is another one of our favorite spots.

Max did a much better job shoveling the "dirt" rather than eating it this time!