Monday, March 11, 2013

My Fourth Birthday! (Maryland Edition)

Back in Maryland, we had a party for my birthday that I invited all my friends from school to!

We went to the Imagination Stage's production of Seussical The Musical! Mom, Dad, and I had already seen it once, and we thought it would be great fun to take a bunch of friends to see it, too!

 We all got seats up in the balcony, and I got to sit with my friends...they all had a great time! A lot of them hadn't been to see a play before, and I was happy that their first one was such a great experience!

After the show was over, we went to a party room that the theater had for us, and got to have some lunch...


 Mom  and Dad did all the decorations themselves (It was a Dr. Seuss theme!) and Mom actually made some really cool things for the goodie bags, including replicas of the clover that Horton uses in the play! It looked JUST like the one onstage, and my friends LOVED them! Great job, Mom!



I designed the cake myself....it was delicious and made your mouth red, which was so funny!

My friends sang happy birthday to me, and then we all got to partake in this delicious cake! (WHAT!? Partake and cake?! This Dr. Seuss theme is making me rhyme!)
There was, of course, some silliness, lots of running around, and even a little bit of dancing....
On our way out, after all my friends had made their way home, I had a few quiet moments with Mom, Dad, and a balloon from the party...I played with the interactive bubble projection wall for a moment...savoring the last few minutes of an awesome party....

Wednesday, March 6, 2013

My Fourth Birthday! (Connecticut Edition)

My fourth birthday! Where has the time gone!??!

I was excited this year because Dad joined us for my birthday, having taken the day off to come up to Connecticut!

Uncle Mat and Aunt Mallory went nuts! They bought so much cool stuff for my party! It was a Spiderman theme, and they bought a huge banner with Spiderman (and a big number 4) on it!
They also bought me some AMAZING and ENORMOUS! Balloons! This thrilled me to no end, since I love balloons!
Not only did they get me some cool balloons, but they apparently bought them at a store that sold the strongest balloons EVER. We took these back to Maryland, and they lasted for more than a month after the party!
They also bought me a cake with balloons (one of my favorite things) and a Spiderman candle! (one of my other favorite things!) Uncle Mat and Aunt Mallory are THE BEST!
Lots of my family and friends came to the party! There was lots of good food (Not just cake) to eat, and tons of merriment to be had...
My cousin Hank and I gave a brief reprise of our dance number from Thanksgiving, but mostly I just socialized, opened some presents, and enjoyed everyone's company....
Everyone seemed to have fun, and nothing beats having a birthday party right after Christmas...everything is always so wonderfully decorated. :-)

Saturday, March 2, 2013

Celebrating Christmas in Maryland 2012!

So it's March 2013...and guess who's still talking about the end of 2012...that's right...THIS GUY!

What a busy Christmas season it was both at home in Maryland and up north in Connecticut with our families!

We'll start as it started in Maryland...we went out to the Christmas Tree lot as was customary to pick out our Christmas tree. After going to the actual Christmas tree place where you cut your own tree to get Gramma Mindy's, I saw just how different living in a city was for stuff like this...
We went to the same lot that we went to last year, where they had a whole bunch of tress cut down for you to look through and choose the one you like.
We marched through the stacks of trees, and I spend a fair amount of time trying to find the best tree....not only in general, but one that would be the best match for us.
Mom followed closely behind, making note of the trees that I thought might be possible contenders...she looks like she was having fun, right?
There are so many factors involved in picking a good tree. There's the size, the shape, the overall spirit of the tree.
I finally found one that was a little different than the type of tree we usually get (the needles looked a little different) but it really spoke to me. I did some careful, scientific measuring, and we set about getting the tree back home....
Once back home, I took on the task of untangling the lights. Even though Dad swears he packed them neatly (I have no reason to doubt him) they magically seem to get all tangled up again.
We also did a few tests to see if the lights were working, and if the colors were how we expected them to look...everything looked great, so Mom and I started stringing the lights on the tree.
We did a pretty good job getting all the lights put up in a way that enhanced the natural beauty of the tree we had gotten...
After putting some ornaments on, Dad helped me put the star on top of the tree. Looks like we were all ready for Christmas!
Gramma Debbie got me an advent calendar to help us count down the days until Christmas. You add a little cotton ball on each day leading up to Christmas, and when the snowman is all full, and looking all puffy and cute, Christmas is here! (I attached them all, except for the few that I missed when I went up to Connecticut early.


Gramma Debbie also got us some jelly decorations and snowman stickers to put up....since no one would be able to see them or appreciate them on our windows (we live on the second floor) we put them up on the glass doors of our book/DVD shelves.

I was pretty proud of how they looked after we were done! It really made the place look more festive...


At school, the holidays (and winter celebration in general) was in full effect! All of our bulletin boards were really well-decorated...


We made a lot of projects throughout the course of the holidays, and we got to both display them in class, and take them home when we were done!

The holidays, as always, mean a big party at school, and that means we had another song/dance/theatrical experience that was choreographed by our teachers...we sang some songs, did a dance, and had some lines in our story about animals. We all dressed up as animals (I decided against the facepaint, but I wore my chipmunk ears) and even though I don't love doing these shows (Unless I choreograph, and perform them on my own at my leisure) I still made it through. :-) I think we did a good job!

We finished the party with dinner and snacks, and when it was almost time to leave, we had a gift exchange....It was so much fun (and a bit chaotic!) having everyone in the circle opening their gifts!
I miss Christmas. :-(