The Cousins are Coming!

 We had a nice impromptu Presidents Day Weekend when Shannon scored some cheap flights for some of her crew to come and visit us.  Seanie and Emilee were the only actual cousins in tow, and while we missed Andrew & Alex, we still managed to have a good time.  And, I am not sure where we would have squeezed them in the van anyway.  As it was, we drove a couple of places illegally over the seat limit, with some of our skinniest folks on the floor.

 First stop, Sam Adams Brewery Tour.  Emilee & Elliot shared an ipod headphones on the tour.  Some of them ate the toasted barley that was passed around ...some of me at more of it b/c it tasted good!  The guide told us the medium toasted one is an actual ingredient in GrapeNuts cereal.  I knew I liked it.

 Visiting the actual Sam Adams on our Freedom Trail walk...which was better in concept, but at least it ended at Ristorante Saraceno in our own private wine cellar for a stellar Italian feast.  Below, Seanie &  Emilee fell in the Lobsta pot.

 Candlepin Bowling!  Julia is a bowling demon!  Despite having her little hand smashed a couple of times by the ball return, if we set her down anywhere, she toddle-raced to the balls and would steal one to carry and drop down the lane.  Then she would follow it toddling down the lane.  Seanie on the other hand is the only real bowler amongst us, and he did a great job.

 Aquarium!  Yay!  on President's Day.  Boo.  SUPER crowded, but we managed.  Touched sharks (Samantha broke out in hives), chased turtles, and darted around in the dark.  Unfortunately, the best pictures are like this...just of the backs of everyone's heads.

 Pre-losta dinna snack for Julia.  She and Emilee had a grand old time with Emilee feeding her.

Our first Lobster dinner at home!  Where we weren't going for chowda.  And, we cheated too, since we had the lobsters steamed and picked them up.  It was essentially a no-cook dinner, with the exception of the home made sweet potato fries...so why did my kitchen look just as bad when it was done?  Lobster was on Seanie's agenda for the weekend and we did not want to disappoint.  He worked the hardest at shelling his lobster, picking out all the little legs.  When we were clearing...we noticed, he missed the tail!  A nice big reward to find after all that hard work.  Ben and I had to work on Tuesday, so Kass got them off to the airport.  Wish they were around this weekend too!

Julia is 1 Year Old - Happy Birthday!

Julia is 1 year old already!  Here are some pictures from her celebration.

Happy 4th Birthday Samantha!

It is birthday central around here!  Our little sunshine turned 4 yesterday.  We had her "truck" party on Sunday.  On Monday she took cupcakes to preschool and on Tuesday, she got to pick dinner and have ANOTHER cake.  Don't think we are stopping there either...because we do it all with Julia tomorrow.

Samantha picked "Trucks" as her party theme.  Ok.  We can work with that.  On party day (Superbowl Sunday no less), she wanted to wear her blue princess dress with her cape to make her a "golden princess".  All I want is to be able to make one of those princess cakes where the skirt is the cake...but no, it's trucks.  And why the princess?  Well, she does love to dress up.  Ben watches "This Old House" with them every morning waiting for the sun to come up and there is a GMC truck commercial that ends with a truck pulling a parade float with a princess on it. Maybe that's what we were going for.

No matter, we love Sammy's theme and jumped into it with gusto.  We made her a pink pinata and then we made her a pink truck cake.  Both are the result of me trolling google images to piece together a combo of what is cool and what I can actually pull off.

Poor Sam has no idea what day is her birthday and she couldn't wait for it to get here, and now she thinks that it is a week long.  Fine by us.  Incidentally, for her dinner, she chose:  noodles, plain, no sauce; with sweet corn and baked beans.  She turned down going out for chinese for this, which I secretly loved.  Though, I did sneak some tomato sauce onto my plain noodles.

Pinata on the table.

Candy frenzy

Racing trucks

In PJs for dinner on actual birthday.  Because all this celebrating is fun!