Easter Fun

On Thursday we had a little Easter party with our playgroup at our friend Lindsay's house. All the kids loved playing with Laighton's toys and the mommies enjoyed some tasty cupcakes and cake balls. After an exhaustive boot camp the day before, I felt like I deserved a cake ball. Actually, three if I'm being honest. Of course we had to line the kids up on the couch for a photo opp, and much to our surprise, we were able to get a pic with nearly everyone looking in the same direction and no one crying! This was huge. It did not happen with out a monumentally humiliating rendition of all the mommies singing Wheels On The Bus. I would have died of embarrassment if anyone walked in and saw us taking pictures! I'm embarrassed even typing it.

After a restful afternoon snooze, Kennedy woke up asking for markers and paper. We colored for a little while before heading to the children's library for the remainder of the afternoon.

 Sugary sweets. 

 This toy Minnie camera was the hit of the party. 

There were a few feuds over who got to play with it. 

 Mason and his ladies.

Mason, Kennedy, Emily, Laighton & Hadley

Little cutie with a big bow. 

St. Patty's in H-Town

Hope everyone put on a little green and had fun celebrating St. Patrick's Day last weekend. I'm a wee-bit Irish (maiden name McMahon) and we celebrated the holiday as kids. My mom would set out Leprechaun tracks when we got up in the morning and maybe a little evidence of Leprechaun mischief from the night before. I will be excited to do some of these things for Kennedy when she is a little older. Probably by next year. I did make her (and a few of her little friends) super cute little shamrock t-shirts. We had a playgroup St. Patty's Day party on Thursday at Lizzy's with themed sweets and snacks.

Kennedy, Emily and Hadley having lunch on the patio.

 Kennedy handed out little treats to her friends. 

Thursday night we headed to Houston, with the Pfeiffers, to visit the Williams (who moved in December). The girls had a lot of fun playing together and we got a preview of what it would be like to have three littles. What a (cute) handful they were! We decided to cook out Friday night since we were venturing to a restaurant Saturday night. We set up the water table for the girls while the parents cooked and enjoyed adult beverages. Once we wore the girls out from splashing and running around the backyard it was time for bath and bed. Of course there were adorable and hilarious photo opps in the bath. I am sure the girls will just love these pictures resurfacing when they are teenagers!

Saturday we got up early and spent the first half of the day at the Houston zoo. It was a hit and the girls walked almost the whole time. I thought this would mean a marathon nap from them for sure, but Kennedy had other plans. She happily played with all Alex's toys while Em and Alex snoozed. We went to dinner at City Centre, an open air mall with a big turf area in the middle surrounded by restaurants. Kennedy, Emily and Alex had so much fun just running around the open space and dancing to the music. All the parents took turns sitting and enjoying their drink and running inteference between the girls and the gigantic water feature (that also contained sharp rocks and fire). Since Kennedy opted out on the afternoon nap, she climbed into her stroller around 7 and crashed.

Its getting more and more fun to do little trips like this now that the girls are older. Although they are all a few months apart in age, the age difference is getting less and less noticeable. They play really sweet together (most of the time) and seem to really enjoy each other's company.

Out of all 3 cameras, this was one of the only pics of the girls together!

Bathies!

Daddys and their girls. 

Twinkies. While Greg and I were chasing them both around we did get asked how old "our girls" were. 

Hugs. 

We've all got our green on. 

Williams, Hunters (minus a sleeping Kennedy) and Pfeiffers. 

Two Years As A Texan

On March 18, two years ago, we boarded a one way flight from JFK-DFW. I cried as we took off. It was hard to leave NYC, our apartment, our jobs and our awesome friends there. We had no idea what we were really in for moving to the Big D. The time has flown by and I guess its about time to stop saying that we are new to Dallas. We live here now and we really like it. We have awesome friends who have given us a big ol' Texas welcome. They've helped us find a place to live, shown us all the city has to offer, introduced us to new friends and helped us make this city our home. We love that we get to see our families more since we are geographically closer. There are definitely things we miss about NYC and I will take an east coast blizzard over tornado weather any day of the week, but overall, we are happy here.

When we moved to Dallas, we were coming from about a 750 sqft (thats being generous) apartment. The first night in our new house we thought we had gotten something that was "too big" for us. Ha! We have filled it out quite nicely and I even wish we had a little more space already. I think about if we had stayed in our Park Slope apartment with the baby (which would have been nearly impossible) and just laugh.

I was uploading some pics from our weekend trip with the Pfeiffers and Williams and had fun looking through old NY albums. I'll share more about our weekend St. Patty's Day trip later!

No room for a crib in this room! I'm sure Ikea makes a bunking solution for this kind of situation. 

Living room, kitchen, dining room, office and clothing storage. 

Where oh where would the pink retro kitchen have gone?

We shared this itty-bitty bathroom. O-M-G. 

If you have not had the (mis)fortune of witnessing the disaster storm that rolls through our bathroom every morning when I get dressed, you can't even imagine how this non-existant countertop looked. 

 Walking to the B-Q train one snowy morning in my trusty pink Hunter wellies. 

I will seriously take feet of snow over the spring storms here. That's what multi- terrain stroller tires are for. 

 Our old Park Slope neighborhood after a snow. 

Playtime At The Mall

It was rainy and gross outside yesterday so we met our friends for some indoor fun. We went to Northpark mall where we could have lunch and go to the children's library for a music class called Baby Bounce. I had stopped taking Kennedy to Baby Bounce when she started walking because she was only interested in the open space of the mall concourse. It was exhausting chasing her so we took a little break. We started a new music class at Kidville with Caroline & Emily, and it has been such a hit, that I decided it was time to give Baby Bounce another shot. She loved it and had a great time singing and playing with her friends.

After Baby Bounce was over, Caroline and I decided to take the girls over to see the ducks in front of Neiman Marcus. There are always a ton of kids playing here and I have never trusted Kennedy enough to let her near the water. She and Emily got to walk there (holding hands, of course) and loved having freedom outside of the stroller. They had fun chasing each other and we were happy to let them burn off some energy. Since the population at NP at noon on a Thursday is mostly moms with strollers, we weren't disturbing anyone.

 Window shopping. 

Getting to climb up and slide down the ramp. 

Green Paint

While Greg has been gone this week, Kennedy and I have been doing a little spring decorating. That meant it was finally time to take down the Christmas tree artwork we still had hanging in the kitchen. My friend Katie made this cute handprint shamrock, and I loved it so much I had to copy it.

Kennedy loves to paint and happily put on her apron and sat in the chair waiting and ready. Once we were done and cleaned up I was putting the finishing touches (glitter) on her masterpiece when I realized it was just a little too quiet. Its only quiet in this house when she is sleeping or getting into mischief. This instance was the latter. Girlfriend managed to score herself a lid full of green paint and was putting it on while saying lotion (or yo-shun). Risking green hand prints all over the sofa, I snapped a pic before whisking her off to the sink for clean up.

 Let's paint!

 Making finishing touches while...

Kennedy makes her own finishing touches. 

Just in time for St. Patty's Day!

20 Months

We're back! And we have pigtails! We took a little bloggy break while we went to visit friends and family in NM last week. It was a fun trip and I'll have more to share on that that later.

Kennedy is 20 months! Wow. It sounds so old, and I swear, overnight she turned into a little kid. Maybe its the pigtails and pink Adidas trainers that make her look so much older. This means in just four months she is going to be 2. Eek. Can't believe how fast this year has gone by. I may or may not still have a few party favors from her 1st birthday on the fridge...still.

At 20 months she is a non-stop ball of energy. Its go-go-go from the moment she wakes up until the time she finally goes to bed (plus a little nappy in the afternoon). She loves to be outside where she can run, jump and kick a soccer ball. She loves to dance, sing and play her drums. And she really loves to color. I can't even let her see a crayon unless I am planning to sit and color with her.


She has been eating pretty much any and everything she can lately. Breakfast and lunch have always been easy, but dinner has been a bit of a challenge until recently. Dinner has been made much easier with the introduction of dipping sauces. She would literally eat a dry sponge if it was dipped in ranch. Favorite dips include: ranch, red pepper hummus, teriyaki, ketchup, cream of chicken soup, guac and salsa.

She is still a great little communicator (ok, chatterbox) and can much tell me (sometimes in sentences!) what she wants or needs. She tries to mimic everything we say, which can be hilarious when she says things out of the blue like oh snap, how perfect and totally. It can also be dangerous...so mommy and daddy need to really watch their language around the little one.

One of my favorite things she does right now is talking to her imaginary lion in the backyard. It started a couple weeks ago and now she walks around saying c'mon lion and runs as if he is chasing her. Its hilarious. She likes to pretend she is an animal (doggie, rabbit, frog, elephant, etc) and loves to pretend she is the eating food pictured in magazines. She gets very serious and quiet when she needs to feed her baby a bottle. I can tell we are entering a really fun stage of pretend play.