Chuck E. Cheese's

Abbie with Bob the Builder

Sophie with Uncle Phil

Sophie, Abbie, and Phil went up on the little stage where you can be silly

Abbie had a nice birthday. We didn't do anything too exciting during the day. Sophie and I made her some iced sugar cookies and she opened a gift from us. That night, we met Uncle Phil at Chuck E. Cheese to celebrate and eat pizza. It was a rainy, messy night so Nana and Paw-paw didn't get to make it. Abbie loved sitting on the rides but didn't like for them to vibrate. She enjoyed the carousel and climbing through the tunnels with Sophie. Phil also introduced her to air hockey. It was sweet because Abbie couldn't quite climb up the steps to get into the tunnels. Uncle Phil encouraged Sophie to help push Abbie up each step since she wasn't quite tall enough. Sophie did that several times even though Abbie weighs a good portion of her weight. They had a blast playing in the tunnels and coming down the slide. It's not very expensive to take Abbie to Chuck E. Cheese since she doesn't care about most of the rides. =) Happy 2nd birthday, Abbie!

Bowling Mania

Paw-paw Tom, Sophie, Abbie and Mimi

Matt and Sophie

Sophie's in her bowling position

This past Monday, since Sophie was out of school and Matt's parents were in town, we thought it would be fun to go bowling. A nearby bowling alley has special lanes for kids that are shorter in length and they use smaller balls. They can also put up the gutter guards. I have been wanting to take the girls and try it but I wanted to go when someone else could go and help me. Mimi bowls in a league so I thought she would enjoy going with us and teaching Sophie how to bowl. Well, we all had a great time! At first, Abbie just wanted to monitor the bowling balls at the ball return but then, she wanted to be a more active participant and actually drop the ball herself. That made it interesting. The adults all bowled in the first game so we let Abbie have a turn too. I think Sophie really enjoyed her first time bowling! We'll definitely have to go again soon though you have to keep a close eye on Abbie.

The night before, the adults had also tried Wii bowling which was a lot of fun too!

After we bowled that morning, Mimi & Paw-paw Tom had to eat lunch and head to the airport for their flight back to VA.

Abbie's Birthday Party

Andrea and Abbie

Abbie's ready to party!

Aunt Martha (or Aunt TaTa as Abbie pronounces her name, ha-ha)

Abbie says, "now this is what I was waiting for-cake and ice cream!"

Don't you just love Abbie's b-day outfit? Her Aunt Martha gave that to her so that she could wear it to the party. I think Abbie was quite proud of her tutu and tights! =) In the last week or two, if you asked Abbie who was having a birthday she would say, "me" or hold up her hand. It was really cute that she knew her birthday was coming up. She loved opening all of her gifts, her food (especially dessert and playing with our friends int he neighborhood who came. Thanks to all of our family and friends who came and made Abbie's birthday special. Next time, I'll try to do better about including all of you in the pictures.

Let's Get Ready to Party!

Mimi gives Abbie a "makeover" the night before her b-day party-really she's just pretending to put make-up on but Abbie doesn't know that!

Sophie enjoys playing with play foam for the 1st time!

Abbie tries it out too-fun stuff (as long as you don't try to eat it like Abbie was going to do at 1st)

Abbie had a Minnie Mouse theme for her birthday-I just loved the cake that Emily made!

Yesterday, we celebrated Abbie's 2nd birthday-whew time flies by! Her actual birthday is January 21st but we celebrated a little early since Matt's parents were coming in for MLK weekend. We mostly celebrated with family but included a couple of others. I forgot to take pictures of a lot of the people who were there, her gifts and the decorations (whoops) but I did get some pictures. We had one of Abbie's favorite dishes-spaghetti casserole alongwith salad and garlic bread. Then, we dug into the best part-dessert! We had the adorable cake shown above with ice cream. I had also made some Minnie Mouse shaped sugar cookies (which Sophie helped decorate) but I conveniently forgot about them until after the party. There was a lot going on with almost 20 people at our house to celebrate, food to cook, etc. The girls enjoyed playing with some play foam as the party got started and then after we stuffed ourselves and finished opening gifts, the kids enjoyed playing with our tunnel system which we had set up in the play room. Abbie really enjoyed being the center of attention!

Winter Fun

Sophie playing out in the snow

Abbie-the little fashionista (just kidding)-I just have to laugh when I look at this picture!!

Well, I know it's been a while since I posted. We haven't been extremely busy. I just haven't been taking a lot of pictures or done any blogging lately. It's been really really COLD here. We've had a couple of snow days this week but we've still managed to get out and go some. I bought some sleds hoping for a really good snow. The ironic thing was that the day I was prepared for it, we didn't really have much snow on the ground but the next day, we got more snow (of course the girls had gone to my parents to spend the night so they weren't here to sled). Also, we found out that my parents had old sleds in their storage shed so we brought them to our house. Then, when their girls were at their grandparents house and could have sledded, they didn't have any real sleds. =) It's always hard to plan for snow but at least we got some that they could play in a little bit!

Matt & I have been having fun with our new Wii, for me-mostly the Wii Fit. We had some friends over for dinner and a game night while the girls spent the night at my parents house and it was so nice to get that break. We rarely get to do game nights anymore because the girls go to bed early and I love playing games!

Abbie is still a character. She mimics just about anything that Sophie does. We went to Pump it Up recently where they have the inflatables and Abbie loved it. Sophie is somewhat fearful of going on the big slides and needs a lot of encouragement (usually) even to go with me or another adult. This time, we all climbed up (we went with some friends). Abbie showed no fear of climbing all of the steps independently with me coming a little ways behind her. After the first few times, she actually slid down the huge slide all by herself and LOVED it. Thankfully, after the first time on the slide, Sophie loved it and wanted to go again (it wasn't her first experience on it ever). She always wanted someone to go with her though. Not Abbie though.