Happy 1st Birthday to Our Little Luca!!

We are so excited and happy to have recently celebrated Luca's first birthday.  He's been through a lot for a little one year old, and we couldn't be happier and more grateful for the gift of our little baby boy.  He's growing up so quick, and we had a long birthday week of celebrations.  It started on his birthday morning with breakfast out at Kristen's for pancakes!  

I made him wear a dorky "king for a day" crown, and birthday boy ribbon

 We took the whole crowd, including Grandma and our Nannies Haley and Brittany

Then on Sunday we had a birthday celebration at our local Gymboree!  Tons of fun and games with our friends, here's Max giving some birthday wishes to Luca 

Vince's obsession of the day, a finger puppet monster

 Zoë had fun with Maris and Aaron rocking in the boat!

 Eric gets a ride around the gymboree room

 Luca explores the play tunnel!  

 Lucas was there in full force, so glad he's out of his body cast! (broken femur, not fun)

playing some games 

Nonna and Grandma clapping along on the side lines

why do kids go crazy over playing with parachutes?.... oh, cause it's so fun!

Luca wasn't sure about it at first

but he quickly joined in the parachute craze

getting the party room ready

 Lula hanging out in her purple tube

 Ok, maybe I didn't need to order a cake this big... but it was cute!

 Luca's smash cake

Keeping the lit up candle safely away while we sing happy birthday

 Time to have your smash cake buddy!

 having a little taste

 And it quickly gets out of control!!  

Happy Birthday Luca!  You'll always be our little baby, even when you're big and grown up.

On New Years and Wish Lanterns

This year I was so excited to celebrate New Years, as I was NOT on bed rest, and COULD have a drink!  We hosted a little party again, as we have for the last few years, bringing together other tired parents who also want to fall asleep right after the ball drops.

Our friends brought some wish lanterns, which I had never seen nor heard of before.  They proved to be the highlight of our evening, even after Mike lit our lantern and tried to send it off into the night sky... and it ended up stuck in our front yard tree and causing mild panic that we were about to have a fire on our hands.  In the end he got it out of the tree, but only after half of it had burned up.  So when it was finally free it floated pathetically along the snow covered ground of our frontyard barely able to keep enough heat to rise!  So much for our wishes for this year baby, lol!  Well, we realized we didn't need our wish lantern to fly up into the sky and send off our wishes... cause all our wishes have come true already ;).  

Ok, How many nerdy scientist Dads does it take to send off a bunch of wish lanterns

 everyone watches in anticipation

 there goes the first wish!

 meanwhile, little kids ran loose all over the neighborhood

     If you care to see the snippet I got of our wish lantern stuck in the tree, here's the video below, or click on this link: http://youtu.be/4XA0ERe7Hq8

Vince says hi!

Adam and Vince say cheese!

Zoë was a little skeptical of the 'fire lanterns', so Kathryn provided some comfort

Hi Talal!

 The party kept going late into the night, and Spiderman grew fairy wings!

 Everyone say cheese!

We are looking forward to a great 2013, and looking back over 2012 there is so much to be thankful for and so many good memories