Happy Birthday Cutie!

Happy Birthday to you,
Happy Birthdday to you,
Happy Birthday dear Anna,
Happy Birthday to you!

Build A Bear Party

Here's Anna giving her new friend "Snowy" an airbath at Build A Bear. Let's back up a little bit...



Yesterday Anna and I went to Build A Bear for her friend Erika's birthday party. First was ice cream and gifts at Red Robin. (I remember wanting one of these makeup-hair doll heads when I was younger.)



Our table was next to the bar...



Build A Bear parties are well organized, first you pick out a stuffed animal within a price range (decided by the person throwing the party of course). Each child gets to help stuff their animal by stepping on the stuffing machine pedal.



Anna thinks of a name for her bear while her bear is sewn up. She then chooses an outfit within a dollar amount alloted for each child.



What great keepsakes! I was really impressed with Build A Bear. It's a great place to have a party for a small group! I will post a close-up of Snowy very soon!

The Kids

Last Thursday I wanted to find something different for Anna to do while I took care of teething Sam.. The internet is a great resource for printables, Anna made Steve this Alice Party for his early birthday present.


Aren't babies proportions cute, I like how their heads are large and their arms seem short.

Valentine Orchids

A student from school gave me these beautiful orchids for Valentines... my teaching partner got the same ones as well. It was a pretty large box, as seen next to Sammy (in the Shrek ears)...


Here are the flowers out of the box. Again, Anna hamming it up. :)

Happy Valentines Day!

Happy Valentines Stevie!
Love, Mina

Innoventions

Yesterday Anna and I went for a brief trip to Disneyland, we did a lot of things out of the norm, more strolling, less rides... it wasn't so crowded, perhpas because people might have been expecting bad air quality from the Sierra fire. We didn't have the visible ash ("snow", as some students called it) as we did during the beginning of the week. Anyway, we went in Innoventions, a fun technology-filled exhibit. Here's where we entered...


You can interact with these large screen displays, and make the fish larger, smaller, sing a tune, draw a picture, etc. Really cool!


Wow, Atlas... Anna sure knows how to pose for a picture when she feels like it!

Birthday Card Preview

I thought it would be ok if to post the invitation Steve designed for Anna's birthday party, since he is already showing it to others on his video IPod before we've printed them out... I couldn't stop laughing when I saw it for the first time, it's just too clever! Anna looks ready to search for buried treasure! And I love how Sam is peeking out from the background, looking a bit confused.

Anna requested this "gold-hunter" party, it's a game she plays at school... ok, now we just have to plan the party that will live up to the hype!

New Camera!

Someone in the house is just as excited as me for our new compact Canon camera!



Someone else is thinking... ugh, do you have to take a photo every single moment I do something different?

Actually, both kids are under the weather with colds... so they are troopers for letting me take these photos of them.