"Good night and thank you for coming to my party"

Ben's birthday weekend started on Friday when Grandma and Grandpa J got to our house.

First we ate pizza and watched Clone Wars...which meant an appearance by Pirate Vader.

A good guy cake and bad guy cake plates.

"Happy Birthday to you, God's blessings to you"

Luke helped blow out 2/3 of the candles.

 Ben had plenty of gifts to open.  Star Wars toys.

 And remote control fire truck among other great gifts.

Saturday Ben and Luke had more pizza and watched movies with Aunt Lydia while Scott and I went out.

His actual birthday was today, Sunday.  He started celebrating by attending Sunday School for the first time.

Then McDonald's for lunch and climbing in the play place.  A quick trip to the fish store with Uncle Josh followed by an afternoon nap.  Then Ben got to help Scott make pigs in a blanket for dinner.

 Love that Star Wars apron!

It was then time for the birthday "campout".  We ate a very specific menu, watched...what else...Clone Wars, opened presents, ate cake, took a bath, and the boys are currently tucked into their sleeping bags watching more Clone Wars episodes and eating "chocolate lightsabers" (aka chocolate covered pretzel rods).

All in all Ben has throughly enjoyed turning 3.

Winter time is here....

We closed 2010 with a quiet family New Year's party where Ben ate his weight in chocolate.

We start 2011 with a visit from Grandma and Grandpa J and Uncle Kurt who came for a turkey dinner on New Years day and to watch the boys for us the following night while Scott and I headed downtown for Wicked.  

Uncle Kurt tried out Scott's new Madden game.

We've spent the cold evenings inside playing with Star Wars toys.  One night the boys decided to set up an epic battle....Good vs. Evil.

Good guys

Bad guys

Tough guys

Uncle Josh came to visit on another Tupperware tour and helped the boys set up the new fish tank.

We've added quite a few new pets to the tank (we've lost about half).  The boys love watching their fish swim around the dinosaur rocks in the big tank.

Since we've had a busy winter at work Grandma and Grandpa H decided to come to us to celebrate Christmas in January and the whole clan followed.  Uncle Jeff, Aunt Sally and Lydia stayed at our house and Uncle Matt, Aunt Jennifer, Cole and Mya stayed at a hotel with Grandma and Grandpa.  But they all hung out at our house for a big turkey dinner and some present opening.  We were so glad they could spend an evening with us.  It was great to see everyone.

Luke LOVED seeing his littlest cousin, Lydia.  She's getting so big and has such a personality.

All the cousins!  Lydia seems a little concerned...

The rest of January has been filled with dress up, battles, trucks, cars, Star Wars and snow.

ARRRGGGG!

Yes, Blizzard 2011 was a big deal in Chicago.  We had 12 straight hours of heavy snow.  Plenty of wind gusts to move everything around.  And spent 4 hours digging out our driveway.  We didn't even get to our sidewalks until a week and a half later.

Our car

The boys were SOOOOO excited to see all that snow.

No swinging today!

The gusts made a perfect circle around our magnolia tree

No getting out the back door

Our plow guy was exhausted

So was his supervisor

But the neighbor's new tree looked beautiful.

As we moved into February Luke had to make the treats for his school Valentine party so of course we had to break out the new Star Wars cookie cutters (thanks G&G H!)

Ben was so excited to try out each of the characters.  "Look it's Yoda!"

Luke made Millennium Falcons for the boys and heart shaped cookies for the girls.  He had a blast with the new cookie cutters.

I'm sure many of you saw the Darth Vader commercial during the Super Bowl.  What you have to understand  is that it was a very good representation of everyday life at our house.

 Pirate Vader!

Using the force

Needless to say there's never a dull moment around this house.