Gilden Goodness at 3 and 1

When we have cousins who live a mile away who have birthdays two days apart from each other, you can bet we're gonna have a weekendFUL of fun! We started Friday afternoon, October 12th, when big Joseph turned THREE years old!!! Before family-friendly Shabbat services, we enjoyed yummy gelato.

some extra snuggles and love outside the shop

On Saturday morning, Joey and Shayna hosted a spectacularly engaging birthday party at the local fire station. It is always fun to get up close and personal with these huge and powerful vehicles and the brave professionals who operate them every day.

The kids really enjoyed playing on an antique truck from the 1920's that had its original, manual siren.

vintage classic

We have been fortunate to visit several fire stations since I've started this parenting adventure, and I will never cease to be shocked and impressed by how much expensive equipment they let these young children handle freely.






The party continued down the street at Robinson Park for playground and pizza!

Birthday bud Joey pushes big cousin Ethan on the swing.

baby swing time

Birthday sibs were too cute enjoying each other and the celebration. 1-year-old Shayna wanted to make sure to soak up every last bit of frosting she could get.

After restful afternoon naps, the togetherness continued later that day at Chez Gilden. We enjoyed playing with some newly gifted toys and games.

Aunt Debbie and Uncle Jon got some quality time with the birthday girl.

Because no one had energy to do any cooking and we certainly weren't counting calories, we headed to our favorite playground restaurant for some final fun of the evening. The orange spinner was clearly a hit.


Clearly, we hadn't done enough fun things together, so there was more fun planned on Sunday, October 14th, big Shayna's official FIRST birthday! Gabi and Mommy headed to religious school for the morning while the rest of the clan headed to a pumpkin patch for some shopping.

Since Spencer wasn't so enthusiastic about the cute cousins' picture; he was removed for the happy one.

After religious school, Gabi got treated to special-Mommy-time at the pumpkin patch so she could choose her own special one. She certainly didn't shy away from picture taking opportunities.


Pumpkin, cousin, and birthday fun wasn't over yet! After resting during afternoon naps, we reconvened back at the home of the birthday kids and got our painting gear ready to go.

taking a break for dinner prep: baked pumpkin oatmeal

finished products

And last but not least, we had one final birthday celebration in the form of an ice cream cake. Happiest of Birthdays to Joey and Shayna! We were so grateful to have been able to celebrate with you!

Going to the Zoo, Zoo, Zoo

Gabi was off from school on the SAME day that Daddy was off work. (Read "DAY." Yes, Daddy only has ONE DAY off from work each week these days.) We took advantage of a rare opportunity for all 5 members of Team Cohen to spend time together and ventured to the Austin Zoo. We had a great morning and managed to stuff our faces with picnic lunches just before the huge thunderstorm rolled in.

Even though many animals were resting, we were able to observe so many neat creatures up close.

red fox

Galápagos tortoise

a tweet tweet

"Wassup"

hanging out with some kitties

pot-bellied pig (aka GIGANTIC pig)

It was time to feed some of the animals. We started with 2 bags of feed before a group of goats teamed up and snatched one - quite literally - out of my hands. Nevertheless, we enjoyed the experience!

Daddy provided the modeling for 'how to.'

Ethan was our first (and most) enthusiastic participant.

Spencer was very interested in watching the goats and sheep...as long as they didn't try to take the fun tiny balls from his hands.

Brave Ethan tackled sheep and llamas too.

Eventually, Gabi let herself try to get comfortable feeding.

a confusing relationship