...and the presents keep on coming...

Evie's birthday started with a bang - Hurricane Irene kept Mommy and Daddy up most of the night, but luckily the next day we had power, no flooding, and lots of sunshine. Ba and Opa came over that night to celebrate one last time.


Evie had many presents to open - she was excited about her pink piggy bank which Opa intends to fill with many dollar coins.

Evie also got her first battery-operated Rosie train (for lazy kids who can't push trains around the track - just kidding!).


Evie needs to take a break halfway through the present extravaganza on Ba's lap.

Evie blows out the three candles on the traditional Baskin Robbins ice cream cake. She had kindly set the table for everyone and even helped cut the cake! "I get the first piece," she reminded mommy when it was placed on a plate.


The family poses for a picture... Ellie looks like she's ready to celebrate her birthday already!


Evie loves that hammock!

To end the night, Evie took some practice swings on the t-ball set given to her by Uncle Dave and Aunt Casey. We hear that Stanny has quite the throwing arm so we're just a couple of summers away from our first wiffleball games!

Evie was also very excited about Annie and Clarabel - finally reunited with Thomas! What a fantastic third birthday!

Evie monkeys around for her birthday

Evie had a delightful time celebrating her birthday with her friends at JW Tumbles this Saturday. Luckily Hurricane Irene wasn't due to hit DC until later that night, so we dressed up in our raincoats and rainboots to brave the storm. Everyone had a delightful time running and jumping around, going down and climbing up the slides, and "freeze" dancing.


Evie and friends Izzy and Greta enjoy jumping on the trampoline. Wow, they're getting some air!

Mason and Katie found some giant bouncy balls to play with.


Carson, Sam, and Molly all wish Evie a loud happy birthday to her delight.

She looks happy as a clam and is ready for her next adventure.

The kids - Evie followed by Ava, Addie, Mason, and Greta - wait in line to walk up the shaky slide.

Whee! Evie enjoys her ride down the zipline!


Ellie found all the activities to be quite interesting, keeping her big eyes open during the whole party.


We break for pizza, fruit, and frozen chocolate bananas. Mason was a big fan of his juice box.

Levi, Carson, Izzy, Connor and little Charlotte all enjoy their food. Ba provided the beautiful flowers.


Daddy made this delightful monkey cake (Evie helped with the eyes, nose and smile placement).


Evie prepares to blow out her candles while we all sing Happy Birthday!

At the end of the party, Evie happily hands out favor bags to her guests and thanks them for coming. Whew, what a day! While Evie is taking a nap to recover at home, we got some cute pictures of Ellie who found Daddy's antics quite amusing (below).




She must be teething because she enjoys munching on her fingers these days!

A wonderful birthday party for Bebe in Spring Lake

What a lovely couple of days the family had in Spring Lake this weekend! We were in town to help do a little attic cleaning and packing and then finish with one last party to celebrate Bebe's birthday. Evie got in some beach time which she was delighted about! Here she is helping put water into the "pool" (a big hole created by Uncle Wally).

Yikes! The waves were big but Evie didn't mind getting splashed too much. When asked what she liked best about the beach, Evie's answer was, "The waves!"


Molly and Evie enjoy some quality time rolling around in the sun.


The girls were in much need of a bath upon their return home and loved the fancy sink bath!

Whee! Ellie hams it up for the camera with a big smile.


On Saturday we had a big bash for Bebe. There was wiffleball and cake! Bebe thanked everyone for coming before she and her helpful grand kids blew out the candles. While she was talking, the kids got a little impatient and started digging their fingers into the frosting. Whoopsie!

Daddy presents the Beanie cup to Gable Hall, the official name of 701 Third Avenue, aka the McDonald family homestead for 31 years.

Aunt Amy's and Uncle Karl's Baby Shower

To end the weekend we had a lovely baby shower for Amy and Karl on Sunday. We were joined by many friends and relatives. We all had a great time decorating onesies, catching up with family and friends, and eating lots of delicious food!


Uncle Karl holds up a great onesie painted by cousin Kevin. There were quite a few artists in the family that were uncovered through this activity.

Amy and Karl cut the cake!

Amy holds up the baby's first bikini, but daddy Karl looks a little dubious about letting his daughter wear that!

Here is a more conservative Christmas outfit admired by Amy and her mom Becky.

Elinor's Christening Celebration

This Saturday was a special day as little Elinor Genevieve was baptized at Our Lady Queen of Peace surrounded by her loving family. Her godparents, Uncle Karl and Aunt Amy, traveled from Florida with Amy's mom, Becky, and we were also joined by Ba, Opa, Bebe, Popi and Great-Aunt Dellie. It was a lovely service and celebration dinner.


The family poses for a portrait. Ellie was so peaceful throughout the service, and only complained once when the water was poured on her head. Like her sister before her, Ellie is wearing Popi's christening gown from when he was a baby!


Godfather Karl draws a cross on Ellie's forehead while Father Tom watches. While we got it right this time in terms of asking the church for a "baptism" for Ellie, instead of "health and happiness" when Evie got baptized, we accidentally first drew crosses on our foreheads before Father Tom reminded us we should do it on the baby instead. Whoops.


Evie was a little *too* excited as she could not sit still during the service. While Ellie was being baptized she was running around us. Luckily the priest was a little understanding about it.

Hooray! We present Ellie to the congregation. Aunt Amy stands proudly by (with baby Foelsche cheering in her tummy) and Karl holds the baptismal candle.

After the mass, we headed over to Trummer's on Main, a great restaurant in Clifton. It was actually the site of the Hermitage Inn, where we had our wedding rehearsal dinner back in 2004, so it was a nice trip down memory lane. Ellie slept in Daddy's Baby Bjorn the whole night.


Aunt Dellie and Becky enjoyed the delicious food and wine.


The Foelsches pose for a picture in front of the wine cellar and in front of Ba's beautiful flower arrangement.

Evie called it a night around 9:00 p.m. She crawled in her stroller and was out. She missed the best brownie sundae ever which Daddy and Mommy enjoyed immensely.

Evie explores the zoo via art camp!

This week Evie has been getting her hands dirty (literally) at art camp, where the theme has been all about animals in the zoo! Here she adds some green "leaves" on the tree mural that was used as the backdrop for their performance on Friday. She came home with many, many masterpieces to add to our art gallery.

The week culminated in a performance to the families on Friday - here is a sneak peek of their rehearsal. Each day they focused on a different part of the world and the animals that lived there. I can't tell what she is trying to be here, though...

Then the big day came! Evie is not a big fan of getting her face painted so she got a turtle on her hand instead. She also seems a little nervous as she was biting her fingernails a little, despite being "so excited!" as she called out to Mommy.

Evie gets ready to start. She was the youngest kid in the class but held her own. One of the funniest moments seemed to be when she loudly protested when another child got too wild with waving his arms to stop hitting her. It was pretty funny.



In the play, the kids were zookeepers who traveled around the world to find animals to bring back to their zoo. Evie paid attention for the most part and could act like most of the animals. On their stop in Africa, they had an obligatory dance to the "Circle of Life".


Evie wobbles like a penguin at their stop in Antarctica.



I'm not quite sure if Evie's exaggerated yawns were supposed to be another animal or if she was expressing boredom... but she seemed to love jumping like a kangaroo!