To our dear friends Andy and Alli Louthain - Happy 10th Anniversary! Congratulations! We love you!!!!

Winter Wallop

So do I sound like the Weather Channel? They make their titles so dramatic, Winter Wallop 2009! But a wallop it was and it was so fun! I don't remember ever seeing so much snow in one storm, all in about 24 hours.

This was looking out my front window on Saturday night.

I though this looked so cool. Although, now I'm just feeling bad that we don't even have a cover for the grill. No wonder it's falling apart...

I opened my backdoor this morning to see this much snow above the door.

Dan spent over a half and hour digging out his poor little Honda.

This is actually a ruler and a half and there's still snow above it. Don't ask why I have a half a ruler.

We had a great time on a little walk this afternoon.

Adventure Aquarium

We were also able to go to Adventure Aquarium in Camden, New Jersey right across the river from Philadelphia. This was the first aquarium I've ever been too, so I don't have anything to compare it with, but IT WAS AWESOME!!!! We loved it! We didn't allot nearly enough time.

Danny got to pet real baby sharks. But since he has issues with getting clothing wet, this wasn't his most favorite thing.
This sea turtle was HUGE! It was so cool. It was much bigger than the ones I've seen in real life in Hawaii.

This was the highlight of the trip!! I could have stayed at the hippo exhibit for another hour, at least! There were two of them and it was so fun watching them play and swim with each other. This may be admitting my ignorance, but I had NO IDEA that hippos swam like this! It was incredible. They had this 20-ish ft. display window to watch the hippos underwater. Danny and a few other little kids would run from side to side following the hippos every movement, squealing with delight. He made a little girlfriend there, Mary Jane. They wouldn't leave each others side after that, so we hung out with her mom for the rest of the afternoon while the two of them ran around, held hands and had fun together! I loved listening to them talk to each other. Mary Jane is about 9 months older than Danny, so she spoke really well. I had no idea what Danny was saying sometimes, but it didn't matter, they communicated! It was really cute.

Here is his little girlfriend!

Sesame Place

Just north of Philadelphia, there is the cutest little amusement park, Sesame Place. It's geared for little kids, so both of my kids were able to do just about every ride with us. They had the greatest parade and some awesome shows. The characters made it so exciting for both Danny and Kate. I'm surprised how much she got into it. Now, she LOVES watching clips on www.sesamestreet.org and will go to the computer, even when it's off, and point and grunt. That means she wants to watch Elmo, and she wants it now, or else I will hear some serious screams of discontent. She is the loudest baby I have ever known. My mother-in-law likes to define this characteristic as just being "assertive." But regardless of what you call it, she still is a bit of a drama queen. And we love every bit of her!

Dan captured this most amazing action shot! This was Elmo's flying fish ride. Danny got to push a button and it would fly high. When he released it, we would start to fall. This was at the beginning of the ride, so you can see Danny was still getting the hang of how to push the button.

And I captured this action shot on Elmo's Peek-a-Bug. I was promptly reprimanded by the 16-year old ride attendant over the quality PA system that cameras were not allowed. Whoops!

Notice the character hedging in the background? There's Elmo, Big Bird and Snuffy.

Golfing with Daddy

Thank you to my awesome father-in-law, John, who took these great pictures! He is such a talented photographer. This picture makes his swing looks pretty good, though I HIGHLY doubt he hit the ball.

Danny LOVES his uncle Matt, almost as much as driving the golf cart.

Celebrate Good Times!

We are celebrating a momentous occasion in our house today. Danny has improved by leaps and bounds in the toilet training efforts recently and today was the first day he had no accidents AND told me that he had to go "number two." I thought this day would never come. I am one happy girl, I mean, mom.

** I hope the following doesn't sound crude and immature, but I don't know how to talk about it other than using these words. **

I don't know if there is a connection with this, but two days ago we started putting Danny's toys in time out when he had a poop accident. He would always be playing with something when it happened, so I decided to put the toys he was playing with in time out. He was told that he could get them out of timeout when he went "poo poo on the potty." Accidents happened two days in a row, but today in the midst of the craziness of getting dinner ready with the missionaries, Danny told me he needed to go, and he went! I was ecstatic about this HUGE accomplishment and he was so excited to take his toys out of time out. Now if we can just keep this ball rolling...

Kate's Party

So I realize she's only one, but it is her first birthday! I enjoyed throwing a big party for Danny on his first birthday, so I wanted to do the same for Kate. And I have been having a lot of fun with cakes, so this is an original Rebecka creation.

I made two cakes in cookie sheet pans, made a delicious pudding-y icing for the center, then cut the cakes into the shape of a one. Then I frosted it with a homemade butter cream icing. For the blocks and letters, I colored fondant and rolled it out, then cut out the shapes I wanted. Just to cover up my icing "issues" I placed Skittles around the perimeter of the cake. If I were to do it again, I don't think I would have used the Skittles. I don't know if it needed anything around it, but I definitely would do something different in the future.

I love this picture, because Kate had three of her cousins AND her brother, all 2 and 3, desperately wanting to help open her gifts. They were so excited they couldn't help but rip the paper every once in a while. Or a lot in some cases.

One happy birthday girl.