Happy Birthday to You Maggies!

Today you are you

That is truer than true

There is no one alive

Who is Youer than You!

Happy Birthday to our darling girl. It's hard to believe that you are one today, that this tiny little bundle has grown into such a big girl bundle! We love our baby girl to pieces, more every day. You are our cuddly, smiley, laughing, talking, wiggling, crawling Maggie-o. We love you!

Love, Mommy, Daddy and Henry

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we've had...

a lot of this....

and a lot of this.....

and a lot of this in the month of January and February.

Feel so bad for my sick babies who have been alternating between flu, colds, and ear infections. Someone in my house has been sick since January 21. So far five trips to the doctor and they say "thanks for keeping us in business." I wish that weren't the case. I'm thankful these are all minor illnesses but I wish my babies could just shake the colds they keep passing back and forth and are gracious enough to share with me. So far, Gabe has been spared and we need him to be our doctor - he's done a fantastic job keeping the house running and everyone as happy as possible. Although I'm not minding all the cuddles I'm getting and giving to all my babies; it would be nice to get everyone's moods back to normal. Last January and February were filled with gallbladder, low birth weight and bed rest, this winter with all the sicknesses we can squeeze in. I want to douse my house in Lysol. Here's to spring coming soon and clearing all this junk out of the air!

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Hand-me-down clothes

Henry, February 8, 2009

Maggie, January 27, 2012

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ah-quar-mum

That would be the AQUARIUM. A tough word when you're three and a half. TheCincinnati/Newport Aquarium to be exact. Gabe had a night trip to Cincinnati for work, so we tagged along. And we appreciate him giving up a quiet car ride and a full night's sleep in order to spend some time as a family! We made it a water themed overnight trip and swam in the hotel pool and went to the aquarium. This kids "soaked" up their Daddy!

After a little bit of a rough night sleeping in the hotel - including Mommy hiding under the covers with the laptop to pretend like she was going to sleep! - we headed to the aquarium with Aunt Allison.

First up, the penguin parade! This crazy penguin guy danced with the kids before the aquarium opened, and this was the first time Henry has been really excited about a character and pretty willing to go up to him.

Dancing with the penguin before the parade.

The term "parade" itself was a little misleading. We thought the penguins would actually waddle around, but it turns out they just bring the three penguins out in a stroller with the kids walking behind them. A little anti-climatic, but Henry thought it was great.

Then on to see some fish - Henry really loved Nemo and Nemo's daddy. And Maggie found her own fishy friend. This little fish really did love Maggie, as she kept swimming over to say hi to Maggie. And Maggie squealed, smiled and kicked her little legs. She definitely wanted to touch the little fish and didn't understand the glass stopping her. She loves fish and it's so fun to see her get excited about them and interact with things more now!
The big tanks are pretty cool - they had a huge old sea turtle with a damaged foot

And lots of sharks swimming around

This doesn't even look real but man look at those teeth!

At one point the shark came swimming towards us with his mouth opening and closing. Henry was pretty scared and buried his face in my shoulder. But what was even more scary were these scuba divers. They were cleaning the tank and when they saw the kids gathered they swam over and waved. Henry was petrified, poor guy! I tried to explain that they were people wearing masks to help them breathe but he thought the masks made them too scary. Even later asking him what he thought of the aquarium he said "I didn't like the scary guys, the scuba divers." No SCUBA for him any time soon

Making shark faces with Mommy and measuring yourself against a shark was less scary

Me and my fish loving baby!

We were at the aquarium a few years ago when we first went to Cincinnati and Henry was only one. It was good to be back, was a whole new experience for him, and we had our little Maggie with us!

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Top Chef Masters: Shawnee

Top Chef Masters: Shawnee, 2011.

Girls vs. Boys.

The Parameters:

Girls' secret ingredient for the boys: pumpkin

Boys' secret ingredient for the girls: coconut - that turned out to be rotten :(

Competition parameters - cooking for 30 friends at a holiday party

Costumes: Cute matching aprons. Boys, where's the picture of your cute matching aprons?

Allez cuisine!

I know, that's Iron Chef, but it's really just like what she's saying here!

Whoa, wait a minute, what's everyone cooking?

Boys' Menu: Pulled Pork Nachos with Tomatillo Sauce, Spicy Shrimp Po Boys, Vanilla Ice Cream and Pumpkin Cookies

Girls' Menu: Japanese Beef Rolls with Ginger Lime Sauce, Artichoke and Roasted Pepper Risotto, Truffle Bar

We were awfully busy in the kitchen (read: all day!) so we didn't get to take many pictures during the cooking or even of the finished dishes, but some highlights:

The boys roasted tomatillos for their salsa, and it was de-lish!

Mushroom cluster for the Japanese Beef Rolls

Pretty Truffle Bar with Toppings

(coconut, pistachio, peppermint, cocoa powder, almonds, toffee)

And since us girls are the Top Chef Masters that we are, we cooked a few extra dishes to supplement the heavy hors d'0euvres menu:

Peppered Candied Bacon

Panzanella Bread Salad

Cute Cheeseball Snowman

Winning Dish - Japanese Beef Rolls with Ginger Lime Sauce!

Overall Winning Team - Girls!

Next Battle - 2013

Bring your aprons!

Hungry yet??

Thanks Allison for some pics! :)

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Thunder Up!

I've never been to a professional basketball game, and Gabe has been to only one. So while in Oklahoma, we took advantage of some Grams babysitting (thanks Grams!) and headed to the Thunder/Mavs game. We had top row seats in a huge stadium. I was *just* a little scared.

Our view from the top

The atmosphere of the game is really exciting, with lots of cheers, songs, and things to pump the crowd up. I'm not a huge basketball fan - I don't understand a lot of it - but it was really fun to watch! And a fun date night for us. I practiced with my really zoomed in camera to try to capture some fun action shots.

This is my favorite

The end of the game was really exciting, as the Thunder made an a-the-buzzer three-point shot. Amazing! And Thunder Win!

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Fun in Oklahoma

Continuing to try to catch up from our Christmas trip in Oklahoma. Besides all of our Christmas festivities, we had a lot of fun doing some non-Christmas-y things too.

Just a few minutes from Gabe's small hometown, there's a really cool Children's Museum. The Jasmine Moran is actually getting ready to welcome it's one millionth visitor. If you're ever in Seminole, OK, Kids Town is a lot of fun! The kids had a lot of fun fixing cars with Grandad

And Henry is following right in his grandfather's footsteps with a love of grocery shopping :)

This bubble room is really cool - Henry landed one on his head!

Maggie giggled and giggled! I love this picture!

There is a really cool climbing structure that is a huge next probably two stories tall. Henry and I had a blast climbing all the way to the top together and sliding down. Then, we were really impressed when he did it again on his own. When we've been to other museums with similar structures, he's been too intimidated to do it, let alone on his own. Pretty proud of his maturing!

Maggie was satisfied and tickled with the little slide

Henry also spent some time romping in the woods behind Gabe's house with the dogs. Hurry up Indy!

Brown Dog stare down. Cuties

We also had a great time swimming at the YMCA a couple of times; they have a really fun indoor pool that is great for kids with water sprinklers, a water slide, and a dragon slide. This is a big hit with Henry! Unfortunately, I forgot my camera both times, but the mental pictures are great :) Maggie also had some tummy time at the pool in the very shallow end, and she did wonderfully and stayed on her tummy for a long time, and got herself spun around 180 degrees for the first time. More on her progress toward crawling later.

Hard to believe we squeezed in so much fun in such a short time!

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