Highlights from Abby's year

A few pictures of Abby's year.  Love my girl!

Happy 5th Birthday, Abby!

First of all, let's get the obligatory...I can't believe my baby is FIVE out of the way.  Seriously, FIVE!?

She seems bigger and wiser and mature.  It is fun, exciting and sad all at once.

This is the third year in a row I have wrapped her lunch.  I love it and it still surprises her:).

The morning of her birthday we opened presents.  She picked out her very fancy outfit herself. She got some new earrings, a ballerina music box, and a pink microphone and speaker set- total hit!

Before school, Matt took Abby out for the breakfast of her choice.  She picked bagels of course!

 After school and work we all met up at Corvette Diner to celebrate the birthday girl in style.  They tied her hair in straws,served good, food and made sure our birthday girl had the time of her life!  The bonus was that the rest of us had fun too.

The balloon guy made Abby a great crown and Zack got a spiderman.

The cutest boys ever!

After  agrat dinner we had plenty of dessert to go around.  Abby was so excited to see the dessert!

May all your wishes come true, baby girl!

After dinner we played some games in the arcade.

When we got home we were greeted by a lawn full of penguins courtesy of Grandma Lori.  EBS, where my mom teaches, has a birthday penguin surprise fundraiser that she couldn't pass up.  Their mascot is a penguin and hard to believe Abby will be an EBS penguin next year in Kindergarten!

We all had a great day celebrating our favorite five year old... more to come on the birthday soiree. 

Let's Go Chargers!

My dad got us tickets to see the Chargers on December  8th.  We were excited to go even though we thought they were likely out of contention for the playoffs.  It turns out that they won the game, which was awesome, and then they have proceeded to increase their playoff chances.  WooHoo.  It has been a while since I have seen an SD team in any kind of playoffs. Go Chargers!

Matt and Uncle Mike

Matt and me enjoying a fun afternoon

I got some quality time with my dad catching up in between plays:)

How the Grinch Stole Christmas

 Since we had hear such great things about he play, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, we decided to take the kids.  Matt ordered tickets but we didn't realize until we got there that he got us front row!

We had a bit a a rough start getting there and got stuck in some traffic. It ended up being one of the few rainy days so we ran (thankfully the kids like to run) to the theater in the rain but it turned out to be so worth it!

We are planning to go back next year and just leave a little earlier:)

December Beach Days

We have had a beautiful month of December getting into in the 70s most days with only a few exceptions of rain this month.  Early December we took advantage of the weather and headed to the beach, which we don;t get to as frequently these days.  The beach is often cooler than it is inland so I prepared for a cold day but it turned out to be beautiful.  The kids played in the sand and we relaxed watching them in their element.  I did sneak in a few pictures..of course!

Later in the afternoon we noticed a big crowd down the beach so we went to explore and found a bunch of tide pools.  The  beach was big and open so Abby and Zack started running and finally Zack stopped but Abby never did... she is quite the runner and I had to pretend I was to catch up with her before she got consumed in the mass of people.  It was a great excuse for exercise but it will not be long before she will outrun me!

When we got to the tode pools the kids had a blast and Abby fell in the water but luckily was not bothered:).

On our way out to dinner we caught the beginning of a beautiful sunset.

Tis the Season

After we cleaned up from Thanksgiving we got out the Christmas boxes and put up the tree.  

The kids we actually helpful.  They put ornaments on instead of just taking them off this year.

After years of not having something that I liked to showcase the Christmas cards I finally just made my own.  I love all the cards that we have received so far... keep them coming!

 

The kids made snowman cards at G & G Hughes' House

 Buddy the Elf came back right after we put the Christmas tree up

Grandpa & Grandma Martin sent Matt's old train for around the tree.  Zack loves it!

Thanksgiving 2013

This was our first Thanksgiving in our house.  It has certainly been broken in with quite a few dinner parties lately.    Casey and Rob came over early which gave us an opportunity to hang out with them before everyone else came over.

We Skyped with Bill and Mar to start the day.

The kids blew some leaves

Abby and Zack helped make the cream puffs

Matt and Zack mashed the potatoes

My parents, uncles Mike, Damon, Ron and Andy all made it for dinner after some traffic delays.

The kids had a blast and loved having their own table.  

The whole crew

We are very thankful for all this year has brought and most of all our amazing family near and far!