Aidan's Birthday Party

 Swimming, playing in the sandbox, and MarioKart were the top activities of the afternoon. Congrats to baby Noelle on her first successful trip in a pool! Dessert was a Dirt Cake as well as Frrrozen Hot Chocolate, a recipe from Serendipity in NYC (thanks to Jane for the book!). BTW, did you know that jello doesn't set when you add Swedish Fish to it? Neither did I. Oops!

I am especially appreciative of my mother-in-law, who always thinks of all the things I don't, and whom is far more talented at hosting a party than I am.

Thank you also to everyone who made it out to celebrate with us; we had a blast!

Happy 2nd Birthday, Aidan! Happy 30th Birthday, Chad! Happy ?? Birthday, Kathy!

Happy 2nd Birthday to my sweet 'lil boy, who is growing up so quickly! Shockingly, there are no photos of his birthday party, aside from the cake (the first picture was taken about a week prior). The reason? Well, first you need to know that Chad and his mom, Kathy, share a birthday the day before Aidan (we almost had 3 generations on 1 day; instead, Aidan was born on my grandparent's 50 wedding anniversary). Anyway, us kids got together to buy Kathy a new toy: specifically, a Kodak Zi8 Pocket Video Camera. So of course, we celebrated Kathy and Chad's birthday, too, and then got to use said new toy. Eventually I'll play around with the footage we shot, and see if I can come up with a few pictures. For his part, Aidan greatly enjoyed his Pirate ship cake and was actually really into opening his presents. All of his presents, in fact. He EVEN said thank you! We're so proud of him!

In continuation of his birthday celebrations, we spent Monday evening (his actual birthday) in Hudson listen to MN Orchestra play in the park. It was nice to listen to music while chasing Aidan around the park. He was riding his Strider bike and I got a lot of good comments on it. Today, celebrations culminated with a trip to the Como zoo with Alan. Favorites were the sea lions (which I incorrectly identified as seals, which is now what Aidan calls them...oops), giraffes, lions, and emperor tamarins. A great day was had by all!

And now we are thoroughly exhausted!