Birthday Bash! (And other random things...)

We had some family come over to celebrate Lizzie's birthday (Tara and Michael and Mikey, Jon's Parents and Grandma, and Darlene and Justin). We wish that my parents could have been there too! After eating dinner, we started with the festivities. Here we are singing "Happy Birthday" to Lizzie.

"Blowing" out the candle...

Here are a bunch of pictures of Lizzie eating her cake. I decided to make Strawberry Shortcake. As you can tell, she liked it! (Although most of it ended up in the high chair, on her clothes, and on the floor!). :)

She was really thirsty after the cake! :)

After the cake, I had to give Lizzie a bath before she opened her presents. She was such a mess! Here are some pictures of her opening her presents from us. Notice the Christmas wrapping paper. Why go out and buy birthday wrapping paper when you have perfectly good paper at home? Besides, she doesn't know the difference...

We could have just gotten her an empty wrapped box and she would have been completely satisfied. Why do parents spend money on toys, anyway?

She loves this toy! It's this music-making table that teaches words, colors, numbers, etc. (In English AND Spanish!). And there is over 50 songs too...which is great because it makes it harder for me to get utterly annoyed with it! :)

We also got her this truck that can be pushed, pulled, or ridden on. We know, it's kind of a boy toy, but we just couldn't find anything like it in pink and purple! It makes sounds too (honking, the sound of the key in the ignition, and the sound of an engine running).

It moves kind of fast, so she is practically running when she pushes it!

The day before Lizzie's birthday, the Bernard's (our friends who live kitty-corner to us) invited us over for a short celebration of Lizzie's birthday. They gave her a really cute Little People Princess Carriage. Lizzie loves it (And so do I, of course. Aren't most toys for the parents enjoyment, anyway?). Thanks for the present!

Lizzie and I just finished a 2-week "parent-tot" class at a local indoor swimming pool. The teacher didn't teach her anything, and so it was basically like glorified bath time. Although Lizzie enjoyed it, I don't think that I would spend $33 dollars on a class like that again. I have heard that some "parent-tot" classes are really fun (they sing songs, etc.). But not this class! Oh well, it was worth a try...

Lizzie usually likes to wear Daddy's shoes, but she was a little grumpy in these pictures because it was her bed time...

Jon started teaching again this week. He is NOT a morning person, by any definition of the word. So I was a bit surprised to see him leap out of bed at 5:00 in the morning on the first day of school. (I guess that every kid at heart can't help but get a bit excited at the beginning of a new school year!). He looked so happy that I just couldn't help snapping a quick picture before he walked out the door. :) Needless to say, he returned to his usual self for the remainder of the week (barely making it to first period before the late bell!). Unfortunately, his school year started out a bit on the rough side. We're hoping that things will change soon...poor guy!

About a month ago, our neighbors (the ones we share walls with), had a HUGE flood in their town home. The water leaked into our town home and damaged the bottom part of the entire kitchen wall. As a result, the day after Lizzie's birthday, the "crew" had to come in and completely wreck our apartment! They built a plastic wall around the entire kitchen in an effort to dry out the walls and get rid of the mold. Our town home will probably be like this for at least a week and a half! We have absolutely no access to our kitchen...thus, thankfully, we are spending time and eating meals at my in-laws house. Thank goodness that they live close by! Because it's kind of hard to fully function in a mess like this!

What USED to be our cozy living room...

Yeah. Having the fridge and the stove right next to the bathroom is very appealing...

They had to take our window out, board it up, and then put this plastic tube through it. It's supposed to be doing something useful, but I'm not sure what! :)

We can hardly wait to have our kitchen (and our space) back! :)