Hughes News

Kindergarten

noreply@blogger.com (Kuparstwn) — Sat, 15 Feb 2014 00:43:00 +0000

I can't believe my baby is in Kindergarten!!

Here she is on the first day of school.

Myrtle Beach

noreply@blogger.com (Kuparstwn) — Tue, 11 Feb 2014 21:04:00 +0000

We took a last minute vacation to Myrtle Beach in August. Johnny's brother and his girlfriend were nice enough to give us the extra room in the condo they rented. It turned out to be kind of a bummer of a trip weather wise. The first day was 90 and sunny. The remaining days were never above 70 and cloudy or raining. We even left a day early. Also, my kids wanted absolutely nothing to do with the beach. Nothing. We still managed to have a little bit of fun though!

Obviously, Paige is not to be outdone when Mommy and Daddy pose for silly pictures.

t-ball

noreply@blogger.com (Kuparstwn) — Tue, 11 Feb 2014 20:29:00 +0000

Maris loves to play t-ball. I am so proud (and relieved) to not have to force this on her!

I was a catcher and I remember it being far more exciting than this.

Can't forget the cheering section! Little sparse that day.

Progressive Dinner

noreply@blogger.com (Kuparstwn) — Tue, 11 Feb 2014 20:08:00 +0000

We celebrated our 8 year wedding anniversary in June. We don't go out as much as we would like. And we have a pretty extensive list of "must try" CLE restaurants. So we thought a progressive dinner for our anniversary might be fun.

We started at Crop Bistro in the Market District. We got drinks and appetizers. It was awesome! (Kind of wish we'd stayed for our whole meal!)

Must have been feeling pretty dapper.

Ready to start a fun night!

We ordered Balsamic Popcorn and the Grilled Flatbread. Both were amazing.

Seriously, the popcorn was amazing...

Like really really good.

The building Crop occupies was built in the early 1900s as a bank. It's cavernous, but beautiful. Ask your server to visit the vault!

Next we went to Spice Kitchen & Bar in Gordon Square for our main courses. It was okay, but not what we had been hoping for based on recommendations from friends. Again, we wish we had stayed at Crop for the whole meal!

Dinner at Spice.

For dessert, we went to Rosso Gelato in Rocky River. What a little gem of a place! We'd never been before, but we'll surely be taking the girls back. We've had real authentic gelato (and lots of it!) in Italy. People who claim that American copy cats just can't get it right aren't lying. But this place was nearly perfect! Give it a try sometime!

For second dessert (what what?!) we went to Sweet Melissa. We got a triple chocolate torte and chocolate chip cookie dough cheesecake. Delish, but we probably should have stopped at one dessert location!

Too.Much.Dessert.

All in all we had a wonderful time and we both agreed that we'd like to do this again in the future! It's an easy way to try a bunch of different places while only employing* a babysitter for one evening. AND, I can't believe it's been 8 years!!!

*standard grandparent rates apply

The Themeless Birthday

noreply@blogger.com (Kuparstwn) — Tue, 11 Feb 2014 20:05:00 +0000

Being that it was her fifth birthday, I probably should have let Maris pick a theme. As it turned out, this was the most relaxed birthday we've celebrated yet!

Suuuuuper excited about a gift of Ken doll clothes.

And a real china tea set.

Happy birthday Maris. Your sister was too busy eating hot dog buns to be in the picture.

Happy Birthday Maris!

noreply@blogger.com (Kuparstwn) — Tue, 11 Feb 2014 19:55:00 +0000

Happy 5th Birthday Maris!

Our Princess

Chocolate peanut butter cupcakes

The mustache dress I made for Maris.

Classroom

noreply@blogger.com (Kuparstwn) — Mon, 24 Jun 2013 00:29:00 +0000

Maris lined up a few of her stuffed animals and dolls, plus one sister, to play teacher. School even included a fire drill!

Another Polka Dot Birthday

noreply@blogger.com (Kuparstwn) — Mon, 24 Jun 2013 00:26:00 +0000

We love polka dots! It's my favorite birthday theme. :)

How many does it take to blow out a candle?

My fabulous polka dot cake. LOVE how it turned out!

Look at this adorable picture my children took with their aunt and uncle.

Literally 37 seconds later...

We did eventually get a good one. Even with the nose picking. Hey, I'll take it!

Happy Birthday, Paige!

noreply@blogger.com (Kuparstwn) — Sat, 22 Jun 2013 17:00:00 +0000

2 years old!

Happy birthday, you crazy kid.

We love you!

Disney World (Day 7)

noreply@blogger.com (Kuparstwn) — Sat, 22 Jun 2013 16:30:00 +0000

Time to go home! We had just enough time to get some shopping done at Downtown Disney and grab lunch before catching our flight home.

I shopped. The girls and Johnny took silly pictures with Lego statues.

(not Legos)

When the plane landed in Cleveland, it was 6 degrees. 6! I clapped when the pilot announced it and everyone else on the plane kind of glared at me. :) Welcome to Cleveland, folks! We're so glad to be home.

Disney World (Day 6)

noreply@blogger.com (Kuparstwn) — Sat, 22 Jun 2013 16:00:00 +0000

You know when you get to the end of a trip and secretly you just kind of want to get home to your own bed? I know I was at that point, so I'm glad we ended our trip with another stop at Magic Kingdom. It's such an amazing place and the girls just loved it. We met more characters and did Maris's favorite ride ("The Little Town Ride" aka It's a Small World) a few extra times, then had our best meal of the trip, a sit down dinner at Be Our Guest Restaurant.

At the end of Belle's Enchanted Tales. That smile was worth every stinking penny.

So fun!

Hands down best character interaction was Merida. We hear Tianna is good too but we didn't meet her this time.

Paige's favorite part of the whole entire trip. Meeting Beast.

Disney World (Day 5)

noreply@blogger.com (Kuparstwn) — Sat, 22 Jun 2013 15:30:00 +0000

Hollywood Studios here we come! We tried out the Toy Story ride (fun!), saw a variety of shows - Indiana Jones, Beauty and the Beast, and The Little Mermaid, and met some of the Disney Jr. characters.

Lunch was at Min & Bill's Dockside Diner. Um... hotdogs in a pretzel bun and you can select a milkshake for your drink at no additional charge? Yes please! We had a sit down dinner at Mama Melrose.

Excited to meet Jake!

I'm a dork, but I love those city backdrops!

Maris adores the Muppets. She was excited to see them at HS.

Disney World (Day 4)

noreply@blogger.com (Kuparstwn) — Sat, 22 Jun 2013 15:00:00 +0000

The Animal Kingdom was fun. The only other time I had been to Disney World, my family opted not to go to AK. It was exciting to see something along with my girls that was a first for all of us.

We loved (loved!) the Lion King show. There is a dino playland that the girls enjoyed tremendously. We were sad to miss the Nemo show. Each time we tried to get in, it was already full for at least one show. I guess we'll just have to go back! Lunch was our sit down meal of the day at Tusker House where we dined with Mickey, Daisy, and Goofy.

This is one of my favorite photos from the trip. They're all, "We're BFFs now Mickey!"

Disney World (Day 3)

noreply@blogger.com (Kuparstwn) — Sat, 22 Jun 2013 14:24:00 +0000

Unfortunately, the weather on our trip didn't improve a great deal. January in Florida is not as nice as you might hope. That wasn't stopping us though! We headed to Epcot on day 3. The whole Nemo section was a big hit with the girls and the World Showcase is one of my favorite things at Disney!

Our sit down meal for the day was the Princess Breakfast at Akershus Royal Banquet Hall in Norway. You can imagine this was a giant hit. The adults of the Hughes family are big breakfast fans and one or two of the children might be into princesses.

I look incredibly excited to meet some princesses!

Poor Paigey with food in her teeth.

Ariel sans fin.

How many times can one family meet Mickey? As many as you want at DW!!

We actually tried to get Paige to nap on day 3. A big disaster if you ask me, as it messed everyone up. But Johnny and Maris had fun taking pictures around the hotel.

Then we headed back to Epcot to have dinner (counter service at Tangierine Cafe in Morocco). And we tried to stay for fireworks, but the girls were so tired, we just headed back to the hotel!

We were trying to take funny pics in each country. Here's the gang in France saying, "Oh La La!"

Morocco

Disney World (Day 2)

noreply@blogger.com (Kuparstwn) — Sat, 22 Jun 2013 14:16:00 +0000

Day 2 was spent at the Magic Kingdom. We met a host of princesses and characters, experienced some Clevelandesque weather (80 in the am, 60 by the afternoon), and tried out some rides. We ate our counter service meal at The Be Our Guest Restaurant and our sit down dinner was at O'Hana in The Polynesian Hotel.

We probably could have turned around and gone home after this. M's trip was complete.


When you meet Ariel in her grotto she says, "Say Bubbles!" for pics and "Splash ya later!" when you leave. Hilarity for a 4 year old.

She loved the Dapper Dans!

Disney World (Day 1)

noreply@blogger.com (Kuparstwn) — Fri, 21 Jun 2013 19:06:00 +0000

Disney.World.

This trip was a year + in the works. It was a secret, which added all that much more stress. We didn't tell anyone but a handful of people because we were determined that Maris would not find out until the day we left. It worked, but next time I think we'll just tell the kids ahead of time!

Day 1 was spent traveling down, checking in, and a quick trip to the Magic Kingdom for some adventure and then dinner. We ate at Whispering Canyon in the Wilderness Lodge.

Main Street at Magic Kingdom

Wilderness Lodge

Final Stop on the Crazy Christmas Train

noreply@blogger.com (Kuparstwn) — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 18:50:00 +0000

Johnny and I were barely standing and the girls were in rare form by now, but we had one more stop. We traditionally enjoy Christmas Day dinner with my mom's side of the family down on the farm.

On the day after Christmas, Maris woke up at 8:30 and Paige slept an hour past that. Johnny had taken the day off so we let the girls play with their new toys all day. It was the best thing we could have asked for after our whirlwind Christmas!

Oh and it snowed a little bit. Finally!!!

Just a little blizzard.

Small children don't feel cold, right? They would have stayed out there for hours!

Crazy Christmas Train - Stop 4

noreply@blogger.com (Kuparstwn) — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 18:39:00 +0000

Are you tired yet? We were!

Santa spoiled the girls again this year. No matter how much we plan on him cutting back, he keeps showing up with gobs of gifts.

Both girls were so funny. They wanted to really inspect each and every gift if not open it right up and play with it. It took hours to open the presents.

Coming downstairs in the morning!

She looks excited to dig in!

This one was a big hit.

Santa always brings Erie a gift too. This year, a dinosaur bone.

LEGO ornament

A make-up doll was the one thing she asked Santa for.

Well good morning, Sleepyhead!

Paige was very excited to get her own chair just like Sissy's!

It was a nice relaxing Christmas morning!

Crazy Christmas Train - Stop 3

noreply@blogger.com (Kuparstwn) — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 18:15:00 +0000

The Campana Christmas Eve is my favorite holiday tradition! We eat spaghetti and shrimp and drink wine. Cousins exchange names and adults don't exchange at all (save for a quick 'exchange game') so there are very few gifts. My parents really did up the Italian theme this year. I loved the table settings and green/white/red colors everywhere. The adult exchange game was Italian themed. Everyone brought fun gifts made in Italy or from Italy.

Paige with cousin Katelyn

Maris with cousin Kelsey

Me and my dad

Now that is a good looking bunch of people! Campana cousins (minus 7 first and 4 second cousins)

It was such a fun night!

Crazy Christmas Train - Stop 2

noreply@blogger.com (Kuparstwn) — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 18:04:00 +0000

Grandma Molly and Grandpa Corey were hosting the Campana Christmas Eve (Stop 3) so they came to our house to exchange gifts instead of our usual plan of going there. Paige was slightly more interested in opening gifts when there were 5 people watching her instead of 30. Just slightly.

They got Cabbage Patch dolls that look just like them. They were very excited!

Maris loves (the idea of) barrel racing. So cool that my parents found this barrel racing set!

Crazy Christmas Train - Stop 1

noreply@blogger.com (Kuparstwn) — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 17:56:00 +0000

The Hughes family Christmas in which Maris picks up every cousin she comes across, Paige wants to spend 100% of her time going up and down stairs and 0% of her time opening presents, and Maris gets her first black eye. It was fun though!

Maris with three of her cousins.

Do you know how hard it is to get this many people to look at one camera?

Christmas Activities

noreply@blogger.com (Kuparstwn) — Sat, 12 Jan 2013 19:32:00 +0000

We got into the spirit big time this year.

First, we had our North Pole Breakfast. The girls were so excited to see our elf on the shelf, Christopher, had returned!

Christopher had lots of fun this year.

He built marshmallow snowmen.

And colored pictures.

And wished hard for a white Christmas.

Next we visited Santa at Petitti's.

We love our Petitti's Santa.

We made projects.

Felt Christmas tree... "so they have one to decorate and they leave yours alone!" Yea right.

You'll never guess which belongs to Paige.

We had a playdate Christmas party. Wow, everyone is getting big!

Missing just one. Easton was camera shy that day.

We headed to Tower City for Mr. Kringle's Inventionasium. What a neat way to visit Santa. They really do a great job of making it special and exciting. Johnny and I are known to pinch our pennies, so we weren't thrilled by the cost. Paige was free, but adults pay full price. I would much rather have paid for Paige and either been free or discounted myself. All I did was walk around and make sure my kid didn't pull ornaments off the trees. Not worth the $16 it cost Johnny and I to get in, if you ask me. The girls loved it though and that's.what.counts.

Brainstorming

In the Grow Snow Laboratory. Okay this part was cool.

Count the Hughes family as ready for Christmas!

September - November

noreply@blogger.com (Kuparstwn) — Sat, 12 Jan 2013 02:17:00 +0000

So, I guess it looks like I just sent Maris off to school and sat around eating bon bons until now. We did do a couple exciting things since she headed off to her second year of preschool.

Maris had her first trip to Cedar Point. She was brave enough to try the small roller coasters, but really she prefers the rides that stay level and just go around in circles... slowly.

Grandpa came along because we heard he liked roller coasters too.

Then we had our annual trip to Amish Country. That trip should be quarterly, at least. They have these peanut butter sandwich cookies with peanut butter filling that are the size of my hand. Anyone reading this is free to bring me one of those at any time. Tangent, sorry.

Thanks Aunt Elisabeth for the fun bonnets! (Paige was totally into prairie life.)

All of a sudden it was Halloween. Halloween itself wasn't much fun. Anyone local will know that's because our area got a little secondary Superstorm Sandy action. Somehow Lake Erie contributed and we ended up without power for 44 very long hours. The plus side to this was when Trick or Treating was postponed, that meant Uncle Dan and Aunt Vicki were able to come along!

Practicing her princess wave.

Rapunzel (not that she needs the wig. See above.) and a ladybug.

Uncle Dan and Aunt Vicki visited for Uncle Dan's 30th birthday!

Next it was Thanksgiving.

Hughes genes rock.

Then we had the week where Johnny grew out his mustache. Hey, it's worth mentioning. It was a big deal around here. Maris was NOT a fan.

It was pretty fierce.

See, we weren't just sitting around doing nothing!

First Day of School

noreply@blogger.com (Kuparstwn) — Mon, 03 Sep 2012 12:25:00 +0000

Maris started school last week. She was so excited to go back and I'll admit I was looking forward to it myself!

Coordinating shirts for the first day of school.

Swim!

noreply@blogger.com (Kuparstwn) — Sun, 02 Sep 2012 12:22:00 +0000

Maris took a round of swimming lessons this summer. The sessions are two weeks long. The first week, Maris refused to get in the pool. By the end of the second week, this is what we had!

We are so proud of her!!