Mara’s Blog Influencing the world one day at a time since 2005…

This past Saturday Mara celebrated her birthday with a little gathering at Jump n’ Fun. This is probably her favorite type of place to hold a party, so basically she picked it out. However, we did have to select from a few choices of jumping establishment in the area and mom and dad got to make that choice. Although I do remember having to convince her that we couldn’t afford pump it up as a reason why we weren’t going there. Do you really convince a 4 year old?

The birthday girl is all smiles.

Ready to slide.

Nana and the kids.

Cousin Grace whoopin’ it up.

Everyone seemed to have a good time. After a possible melt down on the party hat situation (thanks Keith and Davis) Mara lightened up and was able to blow out her candles on her cake. After the jumping, they rush you through the reception room pretty fast so a quick bite to eat and the cake and we were out of there. Mara says, “thanks for all the gifts!”

Blow ’em out.

One of the items that Mara got for Christmas was a digital camera. It is probably one of the favorites of what she got. When she got home from NY, and we got that out of the package, she wasn’t able to put it down. She has watched Mommy take so many pictures she just wanted to do it on her own too.

She proceeded to take pictures of just about anything. She posed her stuffed animals for shots too. Here are some of her favorites.

Her new buddy Ansel.

Zeebee strikin’ a pose.

She was really happy with her Christmas tree shot.

First portrait.

Yeah, the quality isn’t very good at all. We knew that from the reviews we had read. But at this point, quality isn’t the fun. Taking the pictures and seeing them on the LCD on the back and then putting them on the computer is all the fun she needs.

I wish that I could say that you can click on these to see all the pictures she took, but you can’t. Sorry. The plugin we use to load photos and do the gallery on the website is a little broken right now and I need to come up with a new solution.

A fun Halloween is what Mara called it. Last night the kids got all dressed up for a night on the neighborhood. Mara’s neighbor Sophie and sister Allyssa were nice enough to come over and ask her to come out and trick or treat with them. Mara was nice enough to allow her Dad and brother to tag along. We all went out with some of the neighbors and made a run of it. Although the older children kept ahead of us, Mara and Sophie tagged along with each other bringing up the rear. It took a little while for Mara to travel up to the doors by herself, but she got the hang of it quickly. Campbell made only about half the doors. The kids were very cute.

Mara’s energy lasted quite a long time, and Dad’s arm was good enough to last just as long carrying Campbell, for all of us to go up a street or two in the neighborhood. The kids got enough candy to last them a little while.

Click through any of the pictures to see some more.

Madagascar theme going on here.

Sophie and me.

Review of the night’s take.

…and the kids are ready.

Although we didn’t get a chance to see RITchie (what… you don’t know who RITchie is?), the kids had a good time visiting Dad’s old stomping grounds up in Rochacha, Rochester, NY. It was alumni weekend and the last time there were no kids in the mix, and now there are.

Mara and Campbell really did an excellent job on the plane ride up. Pat and Ort were excellent hosts and the kids settled in nicely. The first day it was a trip to Strong Museum where the kids had a blast. They got to see Curious George and really got a kick out of that.

He’s so big!

The museum was extremely large and there really was no way for us to get through it all. We had to leave in the early afternoon because the kids were getting tired. However, that didn’t stop them from riding the carousel, seeing some fish, visiting Sesame Street, and seeing the butterfly exhibit.

The next day there was a lot of relaxing at the house in the morning. Campbell woke up at 4:30am! Later in the afternoon was the lacrosse game on campus and the kids got to see Dad play for the first time. Now they have some idea what those sticks are for in the garage, and why Dad tries to get them to pick them up and toss the ball around. Afterward, Mara said that she wants to play lacrosse. Lets see what she does.

RIT’s number one fan.

Wow! The turf does wonders for dance moves.

As always, click through any of the pictures or thumbnails to get to the full album. There are over 100 pics in there!

We have always wondered where exactly did Mara get her curly hair from? Mom doesn’t have curly hair, maybe its just a little bit wavy. Dad certainly doesn’t have curly hair. There isn’t a lot of history of curly hair in the family.

So, today when Lisa took some time to work Mara’s curls out of her hair, we saw for the first time what Mara would look like with her hair more like her parents. Dad came home to a surprise. Asking Mara, where did her curl’s go, she stood up and said, “no, my curls aren’t gone, my hair is just straight.” I couldn’t convince her that if her hair was straight, her curls must have gone somewhere. So I never got an answer from her where they went.

I like my straight hair!

Look at how long it is!