My (30th) Birthday!

Yes, my 30th birthday has finally arrived! I had a great day. I went grocery shopping...alone! That's the best present anyone could ask for! haha! Shawn and the girls decorated the tv room and we had a yummy cookie cake. I'm not as upset as I thought I would be about turning 30. It's just a number. That's what my mom tells me. And my dad says- you can't stop it from coming, so why get upset about it. I think I agree! I had a great day and look forward to the next 30!

Shawn and the girls decorated the tv room with balloons, signs, party hats and noise makers. 

Arilyn kept blowing her noise maker at Ellie because she would try to bite it. Arilyn was laughing so hard! It was hilarious.

Addison saying cheese!

Whoa! It's a rhino Mommy! Arilyn was trying to put my birthday hat on!

Addison playing with the balloons. I think she's pretending to blow it up.

Mommy and Arilyn.

The girls talked Shawn into buying a pin the tail on the donkey game. This is Arilyn with the blindfold on. She has a red mouth because they stole a lick of icing from the cake already.

I think Arilyn was cheating- she put the tail right in the right place!

Mommy didn't do very good at all! I put it on his back!

Addison tried to play, but wouldn't leave the blindfold on.

Even with her eyes wide open, she put the tail on the donkey's face! It was funny!

Yummy cookie cake! It was SO good! And dinner was, too. Shawn grilled steaks.

Arilyn helping me blow out the candles.

And the party continues! This was actually the next day. Arilyn thought Ellie didn't get enough of her hat on my birthday. As you can see- Ellie is completely enjoying herself! Haha! Poor Ellie. She has to endure so much! Haha! She is a great dog!

New England Aquarium

Shawn's on vacation this week, so we decided to have some fun. We went to the New England Aquarium in Boston. It was a cold walk to the aquarium, but it was a lot of fun. It was a lot more crowded than we expected, so we ended up checking the stroller and had 2 kids on the loose! It was a lot of fun and the girls loved it!

This was a really neat penguin exhibit that covered most of the first floor. You could get pretty close to them. Definitely one of the nicest penguin exhibits I've seen.

The penguins were Arilyn's favorite part, so no matter where we were, she wanted to look over the edge at the penguins.

Addison pointing to some fish before we decided to ditch the stroller. She really didn't want to be in it anyway!

This was a really neat turtle carving out of wood. Addison liked it. I think she was just happy to be out of the stroller.

In the middle of the aquarium was a huge tank that went up all three stories of the building. There was a big circular ramp that went around the whole thing to the top and there were a bunch of windows that you could look in. This was one of the windows that the girls were sitting in watching all the fish swim by. There were a few sharks, a few huge turtles, stingrays, and a ton of other tropical fish.

Addison being silly.

Daddy & Arilyn

Mommy & Addison

This was so neat- the window we happened to be looking through was right below where the worker was feeding the turtle. We saw this plastic pipe come in the water and the turtle came then he hand fed the turtle. The girls loved it. It was so neat. The turtle was huge!

It stayed by our window for quite some time. Addison got a little nervous when it turned and faced her.

Arilyn kept saying that she wanted to see all the sharks. I think she was thinking about the Newport Aquarium and the shark tunnel. This aquarium only had a few sharks and I was able to get a picture of Arilyn finally seeing one!

Addison looking at the fish.

I thought this was funny. After a few minutes of looking in the window, Arilyn laid down. I guess watching fish swim is pretty tiring! 

We were getting ready to leave, so Shawn told Addison to say bye bye to the fish. She started waving then wanted to give them a kiss. It was hilarious!

This was my attempt at getting a picture of both girls. It's hopeless! 

This exhibit was on the outside- it had 5 or 6 seals. It was pretty neat. They were very active and swimming all over.

The girls enjoying the seals.

Random Pictures

Here are some random pictures just because I haven't posted anything in awhile. Enjoy.

I made brownies a few days ago and the girls really enjoyed them.

Addison has more on her face than actually made it in her mouth!

I'm sure you're all tired of me complaining about the cold weather, but really- I'm SO tired of the cold weather! We got a few more inches of snow a few days ago. Of course, we had to go play in it!

Arilyn insisted on wearing her frog boots and since it wasn't extremely cold I said ok. She found the only puddle and had a blast jumping in it.

I thought this one was funny because she's in midair. 

I put Addison down for her nap and when I came back to check on her this is how I found her. She's grown very attached to this bunny and sleeps with it all the time. I thought it was so cute.

Addison has become very interested in the potty lately, so I decided to bring the little potty upstairs and see what she thought. I haven't officially started the potty training yet, but it's coming. Right now she just sits on it for a few minutes. In this picture, she still had her onsie on, but she didn't care. And why she has the hat on- I have no idea, but she wore it all morning that day!

The girls have a small tent that we put up every so often and let them play in it. Arilyn had the bright idea to crawl completely underneath the tent. Arilyn had braids in her hair, so it didn't affect her hair, but when Addison came out I laughed so hard!

We bought Arilyn a bike helmet for this spring and she wants to wear all the time! We haven't gotten the bike yet and it's been raining the past 2 days, but she wears it! I guess she's worried she might get hurt doing her new hobby- playing games on the computer.

As I was brushing Addison's hair today I decided to try put it in a ponytail. It was so cute!

She actually left it in, too!

And here she is... our gimp dog. I think she had an ingrown hair on her elbow that was getting infected. It was a pretty big bump, so I consulted the doctor. Now if you don't know my husband, he is a picker and a squeezer. So he gets down on the floor to look at it and started squeezing it. All of the sudden it opens and squirted Shawn directly in the face- like a stream from a spray bottle. I lost it- I was crying I was laughing so hard. It was hilarious!! After I stopped laughing, I put some antibiotic cream on it and a Go Diego Go bandaid.

March... in Like a Lion!

The saying holds true in MA! It started snowing last night around 10pm and we got hit with 14 inches as of right now. We're supposed to get 2 to 4 more throughout the day today. I'm hoping that this is the last of the snow, so the girls and I went outside to play. They played while I shoveled the driveway. They loved it, of course!

The girls didn't believe Shawn last night when he told them at bedtime that in the morning there would be a ton of snow. They were so funny when they woke up today. As soon as Addison saw the snow she yelled "Nooo!" The 's' gets lost somewhere. Arilyn woke up and looked out her window and started yelling "Mommy! Come look at all the snow!" They were so excited- we were outside playing in it by 8:45am!

Our driveway and Shawn's car before I started shoveling.

This is our deck. Shawn's poor grill is buried!

Arilyn enjoying some hot chocolate after almost 2 hours of playing outside. We went to Target over the weekend to get her some rain boots. She didn't want the cute girly ones with polka dots. She wanted the frogs! Oh well. She loves them and wears them all the time!

Addison enjoying her hot chocolate in her outside jammies. (You can't see from this picture, but she has her ladybug rain boots on, too!)