Ah, The Mind of a 4 Year Old!

Tonight at dinner, Ethan offered the following prayer:

Bless mommy and daddy.
Bless the food that it will be good and that I will get BIG...STRONG...MUSCLES!
Bless my airplane that it won't fall apart.
Bless Spiderman that he will feel good and happy and get lots of rest.
Bless Santa that he will give me LOTS of presents.

It was all we could do to not crack up. It was so stinkin' cute.

On another note, here are some pictures of Ethan from his first preschool field trip to the grocery store. (Sorry the pictures aren't great. They were taken from my cell phone.)
His favorite thing at the grocery store is getting to see the lobsters in their tank. So, as you can imagine, getting to see them up close and personal was a real thrill. He couldn't quite work up the guts to touch it though - even though their claws had rubber bands on them. He wasn't about to take the chance!
Each child was able to scan some items and work at the check out. The woman in this photo gave the tour and taught all the kids to scream MOO really loud. Then she had them stand behind the milk section and scream MOO to scare the customers buying milk. So cute! The day concluded with cookies, juice and a sticker. What more could a little guy want? :)

Totally LONG, RANDOM Blog Post

Since I'm still catching up, I thought I'd just lump a bunch of stuff together that is totally random but fun.

CIRCUS: Last week we went to the Ringling Bros. & Barnum & Bailey Circus at the Meadowlands with Ethan, Nicole, TJ, Pat & Brittanie. I think it was our first outing with just Ethan (luckily my mom was willing to watch the babies). We had a great time but we weren't sure what Ethan was thinking. Twenty minutes into it he asked, "Is this going to be longer?"..."When are the motorcycle guys going to come?"..."Is Grammy still at our house?" Just as he was about to start playing the fishing game on TJ's iPhone, the motorcycles emerged - just in the nick of time! The highlights for him were the motorcycles, pirates, and the "superhero's" which were completely random and bizarre, but superhero's nonetheless. We had a really fun time!



5K: This is the third 5K I've participated in but the first one I've actually run. The first one I did was the Revlon Run Walk with my sis-in-law Kimberly. We learned quickly that if you weren't in the front of the pack, you were walking. So, I made the goal in January to train to run a 5K and hopefully lose some baby weight. The weather had been perfect all week, and then, of course, the day of the race, it POURED. We were wet, soggy, cold and exhausted, but we did it! This is a picture of my buddies that I ran with (Heather, Melanie, Kristy & me). After running this, I SERIOUSLY have no idea how people run marathons. Amazing!
SKIING: For those of you who know my Blake well, you know that he has become slightly obsessed with skiing. We recently were hammered with snow - yielding about 2 feet. Blake was going crazy because it was great skiing conditions but he couldn't drive because the roads were a mess. So, he decided to get creative and did a few runs from our backyard to the front. Desperate times call for desperate measures I guess!
MINNIE & MICKEY: Nicole & TJ brought these t-shirts back from their last trip to Disney. I thought they were so cute on the babies that I had to get a picture.
PROJECT: My latest project has been trying to figure out what to do with the huge space above our fireplace. So, I saw this idea on a blog and tried to recreate it. It's basically a picture frame with bead board behind it that you can hang wreaths on. The fun part is that you can just switch out the wreath depending on the season/holiday.
ST. PATTY'S DAY: We celebrated St. Patty's day by going to play group, delivering sugar cookies, and making shamrock shaped french toast. Here are my cute kiddos in their green. (Let me just say - it nearly impossible to get all three upright and looking at the camera at the same time. This was the best I could get before the babies started sliding of the chair!)

If anyone needs a great sugar cookie/frosting recipe, here you go. These always get rave reviews and you seriously can't go wrong with them. Super easy. Super yummy!

Sugar Cookies:
3/4 c. butter
1 c. sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
Beat ingredients together well. Then add:
2 1/2 c. flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
Chill dough for a couple of hours. Roll dough and cut out cookies. Place on ungreased cookie sheet and bake for 6-8 min. at 400. (Don't let the edges get brown.)

Icing: (I love this recipe because the icing is glossy and smooth)

1 cup confectioners' sugar
2 teaspoons milk
2 teaspoons light corn syrup
1/4 teaspoon almond extract
assorted food coloring

In a small bowl, stir together confectioners' sugar and milk until smooth. Beat in corn syrup and almond extract until icing is smooth and glossy. If icing is too thick, add more corn syrup. Add coloring as desired.

LAUGHING BABIES: Ethan LOVES making the babies laugh. Grant was really on a roll in this one. Addison is a much tougher audience. :)

Birthday Boys!

Okay, I'm a little behind on blog posts lately. I lost my memory card reader and kept hoping it would turn up (which it never did). So, we finally bit the bullet and got a new one. Needless to say, I have some catching up to do!

On Feb. 7th we celebrated our little E-unit's 4th birthday. At first he wanted a Buzz Lightyear theme but we couldn't find much with that so he quickly changed to Lightning McQueen. Here are some pic's and some of the best video clips from the day. So fun!

Playing with the balloons. Who knew they could be so much fun. I would slide them along the floor and he had to jump over them before they touched his feet. Great game!

Lightning cake. Remind me next time to just order a Costco cake and call it good. This cake had a million different colors. Ugh!

Blake was in charge of hanging balloons and streamers. I'm pretty impressed, actually, with his decorating skills. Not bad!

New bike! The thing that stinks about having a February birthday in New Jersey is that he won't be able to ride it for a while still, unless he rides around the basement!

Another b'day gift - firefighter costume. This kid loves dressing up into cool guy outfits!

Poor Blake - he doesn't quite get all the hoopla that Ethan gets on his birthday. He did, however, get his favorite lemon bundt cake. Yummy! Happy 32nd Blake! Thanks for being the world's best husband and daddy!

Here are a couple great clips from Ethan's birthday.

Ethan's sweet birthday wish. We've never even talked to him about making a birthday wish so this was completely off the cuff. So sweet!


After several whacks at the pinata only yielding a few hershey kisses at a time, we decided to give the pinata a little assistance while Ethan wasn't paying attention. This was the grand finale after about 10 long minutes of whacking! There's nothing cuter than a little boy who gets a pinata all to himself!