Happy 3rd Birthday! {And New Year's Eve}

Happy New Year's Eve to all...but more importantly, Happy Third Birthday to our gorgeous baby big girl.

This morning Bella & I ran off to dance class, where she received a special gift from Ms. Kim. It was a cute handmade photo frame with her name and some cute "dance" embellishments. Inside was a picture I had taken of the two of them at their Halloween party.

After dance class we made a special trip to the local donut shop for Birthday donuts. We scarfed down some donuts and then headed to the park for a while.

Happy 3rd Birthday Arabella Emma!

LOVE THESE TWO!!!!

After the park we headed off for a Birthday lunch chosen by the special girl herself. We ended up at Godfathers. {Note to self: Never eat there again, I'm sorry but two MEDIUM pizza's, an order of breadsticks and 4 drinks should NOT cost over $35.00.}

Watching Mickey cartoons on the iPhone while waiting for our pizza.

Our $36.00 Feast!?!?!?!

The big girl then took a nap and hung out with Mommy until 10:30 when we woke Daddy for work. I then sent her off to bed...It was quite the day.

Happy Birthday to my gorgeous girl. We've enjoyed seeing your personality develop over the past year and we can't wait to see what the next year holds for you. Love your Mommy & Daddy!

Whatcha Think?

Testing.... I just "upgraded" my blog look. So what do you think?

Look who showed up....

For Christmas Santa left Evan a brand new green Rody horse. Today a stranger showed up and we just had to take her in. I'm mean, it's only fair that Arabella has a horse of her own right? Well, it's really her birthday present, but we figured she could have it a couple of days early so the two could quit fighting over the one horse.

It was friendship at first sight. These two have been inseparable.

2012 Project 365

http://bobbisharpphotography.blogspot.com/

Boys...

Boys are weird. Boys are disgusting. Boys are hilarious. Boys, you just can't explain them.

I checked on him before I went to bed and found a pile of stuffed animals...underneath a near naked Evan on top of the covers. Apparently the animals were keeping him warm. Silly Boy.

The First Snow

Stationery card

Gallery Greetings Holiday Card

Turn family photos into holiday cards at Shutterfly.com.

View the entire collection of cards.

Halloween

**I'm not a fan of indoor, flash photography... and the subsequent pictures after this were hilariously terrible. It involved Evan crying which in turn caused Spencer to cry, which in turn caused Arabella to become overly concerned. >.<

There are no words for how difficult it is to get both of my kids to look at the camera at the same time, let alone trying to get individual photos. Someday? We'll see.

Dance Class & Halloween Party

Recently I started taking Zumba classes at The Studio. It's a tiny little dance and glee studio and I really like it. I like the owner and the environment. I take the 8am, Saturday class, and following my class is the Mommy & Me dance class. So a couple of weeks ago we decided to see if Arabella liked it. Not only did she like it, she loves it. So we signed her up. It also helps that our friend/neighbor advised us to skip gymnastics for the local classes you pay for 45 minutes of class and they stand in line that majority of the time and get to do 5 "tricks." Doesn't sound like much bang for the buck at this age. Just another reason why I love this class.

She's almost too tall for one of the exercises they do, but she is on the older end of the spectrum compared to her class mates. Anyway, this past Saturday they had their Halloween party. Until now, I hadn't taken pictures of her in action and I'm glad I caught her on "film" finally.

Daddy left her crown at home. :/

She loves somersaults and is the only one in class that can do them by herself.

She's a bit tall for the bar, or as she calls it "the monkey's bar." She loves it none the less.

Nothing like trying to get 10+ kids to line up in a "choo-choo train."

Another favorite of hers is the parachute.

Of course we had to get the obligatory picture with Snow White {aka Ms. Kim, instructor/owner}

Bella definitely loves dance class, and we've found it a rather awesome bribe tool when it comes to food related quarrels. I have a feeling she'll be advancing and sticking with dance class.

Pumpkin Decorating 101

There's nothing more fun than Pumpkin Carving? Well I'll beg to differ. Last year I let Arabella assist me in carving her first pumpkin...she wasn't a big fan of it. Or at least she didn't like the texture of the pumpkin guts. So this year I opted for a less messy method thanks to Tar-jay.

A while back I spotted some awesome glittery pumpkin stickers while wandering the Halloween section and scooped them up while I could. Arabella had been begging me for more than a month to play with these stickers and finally she got her chance.

After breaking into the stickers and laying out our foam faces we had to have a little fun with the parts...

And then we got down to business. Evan of course had a little help (in case you're wondering) and Arabella, well she would have used every last sticker on her pumpkin had we not stopped her.

After what seemed like hours of decorating, we were finally done.

And then, for a brief moment, we lost Arabella but I think I found her. ;)

Pumpkin Patch

It's that time of year again. Arabella has spotted every "pumpkin patch" at every local store multiple times. So we packed up and headed to the nearest pumpkin patch down the road from us. There's just something about picking out your own pumpkin from the field... I guess I love the idea of it because I don't recall ever getting pick out my own pumpkin, other than at the local grocery store.

It was mid-day so none of the "fun stuff" was happening. The kids didn't care as they were excited for Daddy's wagon ride...

Arabella was the first to spot her pumpkin. She quickly exited the wagon and proceeded to struggle to pull her pumpkin from it's vine. Daddy ended up busting out the old pocket knife and helped her out. Not too long after that Bubba found his pumpkin as well.

We continued on so Mommy & Daddy could pick out their pumpkins too. Arabella was adamant that we have larger pumpkins as only the kids are allowed to have small ones. Silly girl.

It was a semi-short and sweet trip. I believe we may stick with this pumpkin patch as a family tradition. Next time we'll try to schedule it when they have the hay rides going. Arabella was super excited to get her pumpkin home because it really needs "something."

To be continued...