My Big 7 Year Old!

We had a birthday at our house last week and I am now the proud parent of a big 7 year old girl.

Here is Lauren's Birthday in Pictures.

Yes, that is snow. We woke up that morning to a couple of new inches of snow. But since Lauren is so lucky, that just meant there was a Delay Start for school and she got an extra two hours to open and play with presents!

More snow shots.

The Birthday girl eating her special birthday breakfast!

She got some cute new t-shirts but unfortunately, it has been too cold for the short sleeves. She is still patiently waiting to be able to wear them.

Her fun new Hangman game she got from Jack and Lydia. We have had a lot of fun playing it.

She was very excited to get a new DS Game from Grandma and Grandpa Hobbs

She also got another new DS Game from Grandma and Grandpa Folsom

Jack liked trying to eat all the wrappings

The happy girl playing one of her new DS games.

That night we all went out to dinner at Red Robin where she was sung to and got a big ice cream sundae. She loved all the attention. And I love this goofy smile in this picture.

Digging into her sundae.

Some of the party - Miss Lydia enjoying her Macaroni and Cheese.

And Mr. Jack enjoying his fingers for a little while.

When we got home we still had to have Birthday Cake. Lauren wanted an ice cream cake and the only angel food cake I could find was Sams Club so of course, it was huge. So - we had one huge birthday cake for just our little family (which is why over half of it is still in the freezer).

I got big sparkler candles and she had fun trying to blow them out. It took awhile as you can see from the pictures.

She was excited to finally get them all blown out (these are the tricky kind that keep sparking back to life).

So there you have it. She had a really fun day and she deserved it because she is such a sweet girl. I always felt bad that Lauren was born first because she always wanted someone to play with her. And then the poor girl had to wait for 4 1/2 years to finally get a sibling but she is the BEST Big Sister! She is so good to take care of Lydia and Jack and she loves playing with them even though they are so much younger and can't always do what she wants to do. She loves school and is always so happy to go. This morning I tried to talk her into playing hookey and staying home and playing with us instead and she said "Mom, I need to go to school and learn. But I will play with you guys on Sat. and Sunday, okay?" She is becoming such a good reader. She and I love to get chapter books and we love to snuggle in bed and read them together. She is the best helper to me and loves to help me clean the bathrooms (especially when I let her put her swim suit on and scrub out the tubs for me). I just can't imagine our lives without this beautiful little red head in it and I am thankful everyday that I get to be her Mom.

Happy Birthday Lauren!

Dave and Tricia do NYC!

To celebrate our 10 year anniversary this year we decided we wanted to go and visit a city here on the East Coast without the kids. We thought about having my Mom come out and watch the kids so we could go somewhere for a few days but in the end we decided a day in NYC without the kids would be fun for us so that is what we did. We had a sitter come early in the morning and she stayed until after 10 that night and we had fun all day long. We had breakfast on our way into NYC which was a treat - I can't remember the last time we went out to breakfast (ok, I can. We go to TCEggingtons everytime we go to Mesa. YUMM!) Dave had already reserved a parking spot right near Time Square so we found the garage and we were off. First we jumped on the Subway and headed down to the Financial District. We visited the 9/11 site and saw the new buildings they are putting up there. The Memorial fountains they are building are supposed to be all done this year so it will be neat to go back with our kids when it is all done. We walked all over the Financial District and found the Trinity Church (the church in National Treasure where they go down into the catacombs) and got to see inside of it. We didn't take any pict. inside since they asked for you not to take pictures during church services and the day we were there was Ash Wednesday so there were long lines at all of the Catholic Churches we saw. We walked down Wall Street and saw the NYSE. I really liked walking around this part of the city. I had never been down there before and it is so different from the other parts of NYC I have been too. The streets are less crowded, the roads come in at all different angles and it was really pretty. We walked by Tiffany's and we saw the old Capital Building (before it moved to D.C.). And we walked over to Battery Park and looked out across the Hudson at the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. We were only down there a couple of hours because we needed to get back to Times Square so we could go to a matinee showing of The Lion King. It was in the Minsk Theater, right at Times Square. We hurried into a NY Deli, grabbed a sandwhich to share and hurried over to the theater. The show was really good and the animals in it were amazing to look at. I loved how the actors came right through the audience and onto the stage. It was really fun to watch. Then we headed over to Rockefeller Center and went to The Top of the Rock for a view of the City. It was cold and it was just getting close to dark so we hurried and snapped some pict. before we lost all our light. We decided not to stay and wait for it to get really dark but headed back down and visited some stores and went in and saw St. Patrick's Cathedral (the head of the Catholic Church in NYC). It was very beautiful inside too but again, we didn't take any pict. because of all the people there for Ash Wednesday. It ended up being a fun day and it was nice to not have little ones we were trying to lug around the city and who needed to find restrooms or food, etc. We will definitely leave the little ones behind again for another day to the city - we have already been discussing which parts of the city we want to go to next time and the places we would like to see (NYC Library, Chinatown, etc.).

Dave in front of Trinity Church

NYSE

George Washington's statue in front of the old Capital Building in NYC.

Statue of Liberty



The Bull statue in the Financial District



Times Square

Outside the Minske Theater


Photo taken at the Top of the Rock looking out towards Central Park

Dave with the Empire State Building over his shoulder.

You can see a small glimpse of Dave's favorite building in NYC - the Chrysler Building

Snow Days

This winter seemed to dump a lot of snow on Eastern Pennsylvania and here are some pictures to prove it.

The snow was so deep in our backyard that Lydia couldn't walk around. She just stayed in this one spot and played for about 30 - 40 min. She finally got so cold she wanted inside immediately!

Lauren liked exploring all the new snow though.

My least favorite thing to do - get the kids dressed in snow gear.

Look at all that snow we shoveled. And yes - it was WE who did it. We have two shovels and let me tell you - that snow can get heavy. Dave was really wishing we had a snow blower by the end of the winter.

Our poor mailbox was getting close to being covered.

Lydia warming up after her fun in the snow


And Lauren decided that she needed to eat a big bowl of snow (with snowcone syrup on top of course)!

January was really the worst month of all (which was surprising to me since in Iowa it was usually Feb. that was the killer). But in all we have had 7 snow days (that doesn't include late starts or early releases). Our school district is interesting too because they don't build any snow days into the school year (why not, I will never understand) but instead they start tacking days onto the end of the school year as well as taking away holidays. So far this year they took away a holiday in Feb. and they took away 4 out of our 6 days for Easter Break (basically spring break here) and we still have to go to school for an extra two days at the end of the year! The crazy thing for us this year was that Dave is the Early Morning Seminary Teacher so if school is cancelled, there is no seminary and if school has a delayed start, there is no seminary. The problem was that the school district never decided to cancel or delay school until about 5:30am. By that time Dave was up and ready for seminary (just incase it wasn't cancelled or delayed) and then once it was cancelled, he would hurry to text all the seminary kids to make sure they were aware and by then you are awake (unfortunately) so you might as well start your day. One time they did cancel the night before which was a nice treat to be able to sleep in.

The McKay's Came to Play

Lauren (6), Megan(5), and Anne (6)

Way back in Jan. our good friends, the McKay's, came to play for the day. We met the McKay's almost 6 years ago when they moved to Iowa City for an Orthopedic Residency. Anne and Lauren are just a couple of months apart in age and have been good little buddies. Jess and I got to know each other better when we were visiting teaching partners and when we started a little preschool for our girls. Over the years we have had many, many play dates, parties, dinners, lunches, park outings, zoo trips, museum days, etc. So it was lots of fun to have them come and spend an afternoon playing with us and eating dinner with us. The older girls picked up like no time had passed and Jess and I got to sit and chat the day away. Thanks so much for coming to see us and we need to do it again soon!