Libster's Third

Praises be sung! Blogger is letting me upload photos tonight which means for your viewing pleasure we have pictures of Liberty's third birthday. It was a pretty exciting day for her. She and Emmuska played nicely pretty much all day (a miracle around here - they usually have some sort of falling out at least once a day...). We all went out in the afternoon to pick up some wrapping paper - where I gave each of the girls a few dollars each so they could buy each other presents. They had so much fun picking things out for each other (or rather for themselves then showing each other what they picked out at which time the other would decide the chosen item would be the one they purchased). We made pizza for dinner and chocolate cupcakes for dessert which we were able to share with Liberty's best friend Abby - something she may have been more excited about than anything else that day...she really loves spending time with Abby.

 Three candles in her princess cupcake (decorated with a dress-up ring to make it princess-y). It's hard to believe she's already three!

She really got into blowing out the candles on her cupcake this year.

Of course it may have taken a few tries but there where a lot of candles! ;) I love how her arms got in on the action to help give her the bodily momentum to finally vanquish those flames. (Actually I love just about everything about this picture from the smoke rising off the candle to her puffed out cheeks and closed eyes - it just has so much fun and happiness captured in it that it makes me smile every time I look at it.)

Finally present time!

You can't see it here but this box housed a doll from her Grandma and Grandpa - the second she got it out of the box she named it Dora and it has been pretty much everywhere Liberty has since she got it. She absolutely loves her 'Dora Baby'.

Which makes this stroller she also got very handy.

That is until Samuel notices it has wheels and is meant to be pushed around at which point he's convinced that it's really supposed to be his and a territory battle ensues. Fortunately generally fights over the stroller are dwindling.

Emmuska modeling her present from Liberty - dress up shoes. Emmuska loves princess dress up stuff so she was very excited about these shoes.

I was really excited about how well the day turned out. Liberty had a great day and loved everything she got - there weren't any meltdown and I managed to make pizza and cupcakes. That's what I call a fabulous day.

Grumble

Blogger isn't letting me add photos to my blog. It gives me a message saying something to the effect that the feature I'm requesting is unavailable. Anybody experience this? Anybody know what to do about it? I've been trying to post pictures of Liberty's birthday for a few days but keep running into this error. I would love help/advice/input.

Sam-Attack Turns One!

I know this is terribly late (much like my ice cream sandwich post which I have been informed once or twice happened quite some time ago...) But I still wanted to share a couple of pictures from Samuel's birthday.

We didn't do a whole lot for his birthday but Grandma and Grandpa sent out the perfect toy for him to enjoy:

I opened the door to this rather large box a couple of days before Samuel's birthday. I pulled it inside and started to open it and was quickly rushed by three very excited children. When it was evident that Samuel was very interested in 'unwrapping' his gift I asked the girls to let him try.

Considering the truck is almost the same size as he is he did a pretty good job wrestling his gift out of the box.

Of course he had to give it a good visual inspection to ascertain that it was a well built piece of machinery...

Then he saw that I had the camera out so he had to put his inspection on hold to give me one of his grins - I'm beginning to think he and the camera have a relationship - you know the kind where the camera is hopelessly devoted to him and he is casually interested now and then but other times indifferent...yeah I know it's a timeless tale...

Then Emmuska pushed one of the buttons and the thrill of the truck was back - I mean what can possibly compete with truck noises in a little boy's world?

I mean could this boy be any happier about his truck? 

Probably not. 

 And of course we had to do some cake for his birthday. Samuel was very excited about this part of the celebration. He loved the cupcakes and as soon as one was finished he was off to get another one - sometimes by any means necessary. Let's just say Liberty might have lost a cupcake or two...

Happy Birthday Sam-Attack - it's hard to believe it's already been a year. You're getting so big and doing so much. I only hope I can keep up with you throughout the year to come.

Ice Cream Sandwich Day 2010

Some of you may remember that I discovered a worthwhile tradition last year in the form of Ice Cream Sandwich Day (you can head over to the blog post about it here). It was such a hit that I got really excited about doing it again this year - so I had the ice cream sandwiches already in my freezer and strictly forbade anyone from getting close to them until the appropriate date finally arrived, which if finally did. I was so excited about taking pictures of the fun we would be having that I didn't properly check my camera settings and ended up with a bunch of pictures that looked like this:

Definitely not as lovely as the pictures I captured last year. *Sigh* There was also the fact that the girls just weren't as excited about the ice cream sandwiches this year.

Thankfully I did manage to change my settings as still capture a picture or two of the girls enjoying their sandwiches.

While I didn't get the fabulous pictures of the rapt enjoyment over this little holiday that I had been hoping for I did manage to take a picture that I absolutely love. Of course my favorite picture for the evening wasn't one of the kids or anything I would have expected it to be but rather the one of this dismissed (rapidly melting) frozen dessert. Just goes to show that you never know how things are going to turn out and while something may seem like a complete bust you usually walk away with something - you just might have to change your perspective a bit.

Stuffed Shells and Breadsticks

We love to eat so limiting ourselves to a list of one or two favorites isn't something that we readily do however if we did have a list of our favorite meals Stuffed Shells and Bread sticks would definitely be on it.

It makes me feel like I'm eating out because it's something I never thought I'd be able to make - only it costs a lot less and tastes better than if I had gone out to eat (if I had someplace to go...my area is pretty limited on it's dining out options).

Of course part of this is due to the bread sticks...which are incredible. So good in fact that I can't seem to manage taking a picture of all the bread sticks before any of them are eaten. Somehow between pulling them out of the oven and aiming my camera a few of them manage to disappear - no mean feat as they are really hot at that point. I know this from experience. A lot of experience.

Point being if your looking for a little inexpensive extravagance in your life whip up some stuffed shells with bread sticks. It'll make you smile.