What A Party!

Since MiniM.E.'s birthday isn't until tomorrow, we threw a party for her yesterday.

It was a lot of preparation (I think I always bite off a bit more than I can chew), but it was a huge success and MiniM.E. LOVED IT.  She'd been talking about it all week: "and there will be lots of people, and friends, and a cake with owls and it will be purple and people will sing Happy Birthday and I will sing Happy Birthday to myself and there will be presents and toys and I can open them..."  I think it lived up to her expectations.

There was, of course, the cake (which is why I have been such a bad blogger lately).

Uncle Billy and Auntie Jen came to visit:

There was a lot to get ready for the party... decorations, games, a corn bin...

MiniM.E. was too cute.  Her favorite part of the party was when everyone sang to her.  She'd been singing "Happy Birthday" for at least a week, so I tried to get her to sing while everyone was there.  Of course, being the smarty pants she is, when I said, "Okay, go ahead and sing," she looked at me and replied, "NO! Everyone ELSE!"

loving the attention

 Eating the cake was a close second...

Possibly tied with opening presents.

It was a lot of work, but I was so happy we threw her a party when she exclaimed this morning, "I want ANOTHER birthday party!"  

An Exciting Weekend

Last weekend we went sledding.  It wasn't our first time out, but it was, by far, our most successful.

Our previous trips were always cut short.  MiniM.E. wasn't happy in her snowsuit, or her mittens fell off and she wouldn't put them back on, or she had an unexplained crying fit, or-- worst of all-- one of us dumped her off the sled, face first, into the snow.

We weren't really expecting Saturday's sledding trip to be long lived, especially since we were meeting up with two other toddlers (and their parents).  The amount of time spent sledding decreases exponentially with each added toddler...

BUT, everyone seemed to have a great time.  And with the mild weather, we were out for at least a couple hours.

Looking adorable... though quite immobile...

Someone sees the sledding hill!

Not to happy to share

...or sit alone... 

Yep, that was fun.  More please!

Everyone at the top.

Riding down with Daddy

A long day of sledding led to a visit with even more friends downtown.  At that point, MiniM.E. was pretty "done" (which she signed repeatedly), but she was a trooper.  We wore her out!

Sunday we went to a fancy 1st birthday party:

... Guess I'll have to start planning MiniM.E.'s 2nd!!

MiniM.E. wasn't too keen on all the people and another baby getting to open presents.  At least there was a dog.

Today we started off our week with an exciting visit to a new baby.  MiniM.E. definitely isn't ready for a sibling anytime soon... she was extremely jealous.  But it was fun to see Baby O.

What a cutie.  Aren't they they best when they're sleeping?

So Busy!

I feel like the start of the holiday season for me is now MiniM.E. (and Bob's) birthday(s).  Which is awesome.  I LOVE the holidays.  BUT, I have to say, it's certainly a busy time of the year.

Which brings me to the topic of this post.  I think having a baby makes being busy even busier.  Because instead of having a giant list of things to do and having all day to do it, I have a giant list of things to do with only nap time to get everything done.  And with nap times having diminished to one nap of maybe an hour, that's not a whole lot of time.  I try to get things done in the evening too, but usually by the time MiniM.E. is asleep, I want to be sleeping...

So right now, MiniM.E. is napping, and instead of getting things done, I'm procrastinating by writing a blog post.  But I'll try to only procrastinate a little.  I'll just put lots of pictures and only a teeny bit of text...

Lately, its been cold in the mornings, which is usually the time we play outside so we've had to find other things to do.

watching the washing machine

taking long baths

playing inside

Fortunately, it isn't winter yet, and we can still play outside most days.

We also had a busy weekend.  We went to Poughkeepsie to visit our friends who just moved back from Germany.  We had a great time.  MiniM.E. seemed to enjoy herself too!

And yesterday, we took advantage of the nice weather and went to Sunnyside Gardens.

Someone's awake... until next time...