Elena is a 4 year old cutie!

Elena turned 4 on January 17th. We enjoyed a nice family birthday party. We went to SciWorks that day (despite Kevin being sick), and then had a nice evening at home with cake, a pinata, and pin the tail on Boots. Elena wanted a "Dora" themed party. She had a great day and was a happy (and spoiled) girl.

The Party:

Bethany drew this picture of Boots. Elena actually got the closest to pinning the tail on Boots. After we'd all had a turn, Elena had about 10 more. :)
Get that pinata, girl! We all had turns, and Granny had packed it with lots of goodies. :)
Kevin was so sick that day and wasn't very interested in the party, but he did tap the pinata a couple of times from his chair.
This was the cake that she asked for: Pink with red (red-ish) polka dots and flower sprinkles.

The Science Museum:

This was at the science museum. Elena loves doing everything with her Aunt BB!
Notice Dan in the background? He and my mom spent about half an hour in this one section of the museum working on a couple of different puzzles. My mom finally got hers, and Dan left convinced that his was impossible.
My mom (and Elena too) had fun pulling the intestines out of this giant blue-haired boy.
This is so my dad. When we left the Sci-Body section, I caught him putting all the organs back into the stuffed thing, so that the next people that came along could have fun pulling them out.

The Gifts:

Her first field hockey stick! She starts playing in two weeks. The university here does a free program for boys and girls age 4-11. She's very excited; it will be her first team sports experience. She was also thrilled to get a big fleece blanket with matching rabbit (from Abuelita and Abuelo), an awesome zoo duplo set (from Aunt BB), and a little chain-stitch sewing machine ("I got it at Ross" - Remember that jingle on the commercial?).
Here she is opening the sleeping bag from Granny and Grandad.
I just realized I haven't done a video in forever.

In our city, you have to be 4 to get a library card. Elena was excited to go and get a card of her very own just 2 days after her bday.

Post-Christmas Fun

More family fun while Dan was still on vacation!

Elena's January gingerbread house (they really go on sale after Christmas).

Dan styled Kevin's hair.

Bounce U was a ton of fun:

(Free) Transportation Museum: This was also Elena's second field trip which I never remembered to make a post about. So nice to kill 2 birds with 1 stone. :)
Moments before this picture was taken Kevin tried to jump through this little open window. He is so fearless. Luckily, Dan had a good grip on him. How can my two children be such total opposites? Elena got nervous even looking out for this photo.
It costs $1 to ride on this turntable as it spins around.

Pre-Christmas Fun

We loved having Dan around from mid-December to mid-January! He had a month off from school, and it was amazing having him around each day. It was great for him to be with the kids more, go fun places as a family, and to have help at home. I got to run errands without kids a record number of times! Here are a couple of the things that we were up to before Christmas:

Playing at the Children's Museum:

The Church Christmas party: Elena was one of the angels and we couldn't find her any wings at the stores that we went to. We were worried that they wouldn't have enough at the church, so genius Dan suggested that we make our own with stuff that we already had around the house: a couple of hangers, white fabric, a garland, and a glue gun. It was fun.

Didn't Dan do a good job shaping the hangers into wings?

This is how Elena dressed up her angel wings at home. Complete with princess dress, crown, and The Last Airbender Happy Meal fan.

Elena's preschool pancake breakfast and Christmas party. Kevin enjoyed himself too.

We were geocaching in Virginia before Christmas and I just had to have a family picture in front of the Ocean Breeze ape. We happened to be parked nearby, so we ran over for a quick photo-op.

I Love My Family!

We had a fabulously fantastic Christmas and it was the first time that we had been altogether in more than 3 years! That means that it was the first time that I was meeting my cutie little niece. I'll write more about our trip soon. While we were in Virginia, my mom's friend Connie Gentry took family pictures of us all. She did a great job and put up with a lot of crying. Both Kevin and Ariana were semi-sick and completely exhausted. Dan is holding Kevin in almost every photo because Kevin wanted nothing to do with anyone but his daddy. We were able to get some great photos though. Here are a couple of my favorites. Did I say "a couple"? I meant about 20. :)