Super Hero Birthday Bash!

Rhys is 2 years old!  When I asked him a couple months ago what he wanted to do for his birthday he said "cake, and, um, Spider-man?"  He's been obsessed with both these things for the past several months.  So we decided to throw him a Spider-man and Friends themed birthday party.  It was an absolute blast! 

 Practicing web-shooting skills before the guests arrive.

My good friend Natalie, knowing how stressed I get about preparing food for a crowd, volunteered her incredible catering talents and served up an unbelievable spread!  Thank you Natalie!  My sole contribution was adding the Spider-man cake topper to the delicious Costco cake.

 After enjoying the great snacks, David held a Super Hero training camp with 4 lessons- speed, agility, compassion, and strength.

After they raced, lifted balloon barbells, jumped over crepe paper, and gave each other hugs, they combined  all their practiced Super Powers in a race to rescue their mom with a great big hug.

Time for the race to cake and presents!

Every time I asked Rhys if he was excited for his birthday over the last month, he had only one thing to say "CAKE!" 

We couldn't believe how many wonderful gifts he got!  He was so excited about each one and hasn't stopped playing with them since!

It didn't take long for the crowd to converge- everyone wanted to help and be part of the surprise!  David had to crawl behind the table to get into the action!

We feel so blessed to have so many wonderful friends here!  It is especially hard to be far away from our family during big events like this, but our friends helped make this such an amazing birthday for Rhys, and for David and me too!  Thank you to all the Super Heroes who helped save the day!

And Happy Birthday to our incredible little Rhys!

Lazy Friday

Dave's been super busy lately and has a lot of evening classes this semester, so we haven't had much couple OR family time.  But he ended up with some free time this weekend and we made the most of it.

We went on a date Friday night, which consisted of sneaking pizza into the AMC at Lincoln Square, and then dessert at Magnolia's Bakery afterward--yum!!  Somewhere between the movie and Magnolia's, we realized that aside from the title of the harmless fantasy adventure flick we saw (Percy Jackson and the Olympians), and less dropping of the f-bomb on our way to the theater, we'd pretty much reenacted Lazy Sunday.  Nice.

Saturday, we took Rhys to Union Square to have lunch and get an umbrella stroller (Um, hello Mr. Stroller.  Where have you been all my life?).  As we were leaving the subway on 14th street, I realized that Richard Kind was holding the door open for David.  If you're like the 3 people we immediately texted about this and you just said, "Uh, who is that?" then,
A) That is why you will never beat us at Scene It, and B) He's this guy:

 Except he was with his 3 little girls and looked more like this:

Now, you may be thinking "What's the big deal?"  But we've lived in NYC for almost 2 years and the only celeb sighting we've had until now was when I got fooled by the wax figure of Morgan Freeman in front of Madame Tussauds.  Yes, if you must know, I gasped and got my camera ready and everything before I realized.

Anyhoo...after that, we saw a city bus pulling away from the curb, with it's LED display (usually where it's route/destination is posted)  flashing "EMERGENCY - CALL POLICE."  So, I did.  I'm guessing I either helped thwart a hijacking, or I got some poor bus driver fired for unwittingly flipping the switch.  I'm going to go with the former explanation so I can feel like an extra in Speed.

At this point, we realized it was WAY past Rhys's nap time (getting anything done in NYC usually takes about 5 times longer than you anticipate) so we decided to just let him skip it (yes, you heard me right- I can relax and be flexible, occasionally) and headed to Times Square to ride the Toys'R'Us ferris wheel.  The line ended up being really long, so we saved it for another day but still had a blast exploring the store.  Rhys enjoyed the magic demonstrations, visited Lightning McQueen heaven, had his face stroked by Geoffrey the Giraffe (yah...we thought it was a little weird too), had a roaring contest with the T-Rex from Jurrassic Park,

 The T-Rex, and our friend...um...Bill.  That's right, Bill.

*have you figured out yet that I forgot to bring our camera along on this trip?

and met your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. He was in absolute awe of Spidey.  It was so cute, and the guy was really good at getting down on his level and talking to him.  It was all Rhys could talk about for the rest of the day.  He kept pointing to this picture we got, shouting "Man! Man!"

 All he wanted to do was look at Spider-Man and talk to him; hence the "Why won't everyone stop asking me to look at the camera and just give us a minute?" expression on his face here...

After all that excitement, Rhys conked out in his new stroller on the way home.  This kid hasn't fallen asleep in anything but his own bed since he was about 6 months old. 

*This was also the moment I realized I had a cell phone camera.  C'est la vie.

Snowed In

The infamous "blizzard" of aught 10 swept in today with a gusto, dropping an unbelievable several inches of snow within hours!  Everything in NYC shut down last night until further notice, in mere anticipation of this unlivable amount of white stuff.  Being the seasoned Utahns that we are, first, we laughed.  Then, we laughed more heartily.  Then, we put on our boots and went out to play...

The Magic Box

So David's parents gave us an awesome portable DVD player for Christmas, and were kind enough to send it before we flew to Utah for the break so we could use it during the first flight.  

Now, like most parents, I cringe at the thought of my toddler engaging in more than a brief stint of educational TV per day.  I suffer from a serious guilt complex on days when I'm sick and have to plop Rhys in front of back to back episodes of Sesame Street and Super Why just so I can find time to puke.  But when it comes to a 6 hour plane ride across the country, smack dab in the middle of what would usually be nap time, I now say with a clear and happy conscience, "Bring on the virtual babysitter!!"

This is about 4 hours in...way past nap time.  THE most enjoyable flights we've had since Rhys was born.  Way to make frequent visits more likely, G & G Mason!