DC for Hannah's 4th Birthday

This weekend we made the trek down to DC to visit my brother and his family and celebrate Hannah's 4th birthday. For her party we took the metro downtown and went to the Natural History Museum to enjoy the butterfly exhibit.  It was so fun and the butterfly exhibit was beautiful.

Stella enjoying being a guest at her first birthday party.

 

  

  

The cake - it's Ariel, Hannah's fave.

  

  Waiting for the Metro on our way to the museum.

  

CJ and Hannah playing tag

  

  

Natural History Museum

Stella LOVES it when Hannah tells her secrets.

Like father, like daughter. Do they look enough alike?

Haydin grabbing a snack.

 

BUGS!

  

 

The Butterfly Exhibit

  

  

  

Happy Valentine's Day!

Our Valentine's days are always so special.  We just love the fact that it's a day to sit back, and celebrate the most important thing in our lives, love.  Every year we switch off who's in charge of the day and this year it was my turn...

Throughout the day, Mike received notes made of candy hearts telling him what we were doing next. 

 

We started the day with a delicious breakfast with petite palmiers - Mike's favorites.

 

Fun family gifts

  

Then we went to the spa and had a nice, relaxing couples massage.

  After our massage, we headed home and Stella took a nap while Mike and I made chocolate cheesecakes for our desserts for later.

We then got ready, headed to the city and dropped Stella off with our friends, Mike and Lauren and Mike and I got to enjoy a nice dinner at a great restaurant right in our old neighborhood. 

http://www.paradigmrestaurant.com/

When we got home, we put Stella to bed and enjoyed our cheesecakes (they were so delicious and low-fat too!) and the Olympics.

I love Valentine's Day and celebrating it with the most amazing husband and adorable daughter just makes it all the more special.

First night out with a real babysitter

Friday night was a very special night.  It was the first time that Mike and I went out on a date where we didn't have a very close friend or family member watching Stella.  We hired a babysitter from care.com.  She is a full time nanny and enjoys babysitting on the side.  She is trained in infant CPR and first aid, so we felt pretty confident in her.

We had so much fun.  Our friends, Mike and Lauren invited us to a Flyers game (Philly's pro hockey team).  It's been so long since I've been to a pro hockey game and we just loved it!

 

 

We always have so much fun with Mike and Lauren and we were so happy that we were able to get the night out.  Afterwards, we stopped in at our old neighborhood bar in the city, Charlies. 

All in all it was a great night and when we got home, Stella was fast asleep and Sam said she was great and easy.  Good news!!  Maybe we'll try it again someday.

Snowed in!

Yesterday morning, we woke up to a ton of snow on the ground and huge flakes were still falling down.  Mike checked his Blackberry and saw that his office was closed for the day due to snow... we got to have a SNOW DAY!  We haven't had one of these in years, it was so much fun.

Mike immediately hopped back in bed and we slept in until 9am, it was awesome!  We then made waffles, lounged around the house, played on the floor with Stella in our pj's, had a snowball fight while she napped, made soup, ate brownies and pretty much had the best day ever.  It was so nice to just have the world around us shut down.  There were no errands to run (because EVERYTHING was closed), no place to go... it was just awesome.  We had such a great time together and we are so grateful that mother nature decided to make everyone take a day off.

Weather Article

 

View from our back deck.

 Stella and daddy.

 

Play time!

  

  

Mike digging our car out of the snow (it snowed another 8 inches after this!)

  

  

More play time! Stella loves to have her entire basket of toys.  She digs through and pulls them all out, then plays with the best toy of all... the basket:)

  

  

  

  

Getting ready to go on a walk to get some fresh air.

 

Back in the warm house, look at those red cheeks!

   

View out of our front door

  

This is our next door neighbors car under a tree - she's not getting out for awhile!

 

The "February Fury"

It's true... the East Coast has been dumped with snow.  And they are calling it the "February Fury." Mike almost didn't make it home on Saturday.  We got 27" of snow at our house between Friday and Saturday night.  Stella and I spent the day, cooped up in the house, we were told not to drive and to just stay home by state and city officials.

The airport closed and all airports south of us were closed too (DC, Baltimore...etc.)  Mike's flight was first delayed and eventually canceled.  After spending 12 hours at the airport to find out it was canceled, they told him the next flight he could get on would be Tuesday!  He ended up going to a different airline and buying a whole new ticket into the Newark airport and catching Amtrak from NJ to Philly.  Stella and I could not have been happier to pick him up at 11pm that night - so glad he made it home!

Stella and I spending a snow day at home watching the snow pile up and keeping our fingers crossed that daddy would make it home.