Hope

"On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord." - President Barack Obama 

As this historical day comes to an end I can not help but hope and for the first time in my life I feel inspired by a politician. I believe in this amazing country and am filled with pride at what I witnessed today. 

The Holidays...finally

It is hard to believe that it is already January 16, 2009. The time really flew over the holidays and I am profoundly sad that it did. Christmas was a blast this year and watching Elle discover the spirit of the season was truly a sight to see. She even said good bye to her friends at daycare today with a hearty “Merry Christmas" and I am certain she will continue with this for quite some time. Here is a recap of our holidays, hope you enjoy. 

We kept with our tradition this year and spent Christmas Eve creating our gingerbread houses in fierce competition. This year the teams consisted of Jane, Megan and me vs. Brian, Ted and Kassidy. My team was victorious, but if you'd like to cast your votes just let me know. 

We sent Elle off to sleep with my annual reading of The Polar Express and she actually made it through the entire story this year. 

As expected (unlike last year's pleasant surprise), Nammy and Poppy arrived into Newark, NJ on Santa's sleigh at about 1:30 Christmas morning. Though the flight was delayed, they were worth wait and were home with us for Christmas morning. 

Elle loved her gifts from Santa, but especially her dress up stuff. 

Miss Kassidy had a blast too, but mostly was stoked on her new room (more about that in another post)!

 Christmas dinner at Jane's was yummy and fun!

The rest of the week with my parents was supposed to be low key, but because Elle's potty training was a disaster...

...I tried to keep my folks entertained on their visit, so we hit up the Irish Famine Memorial in NYC (which is really cool and I highly recommend it)...

& Little Italy New York where we saw two of my sorority sisters, Laurel & Allison, 

 & Elle abruptly ended the evening by getting her first case of the stomach bug and began vomiting in front of a restaurant full of diners, a wild ride over the Brooklyn Bridge through Williamsburg, Brooklyn that I am certain was the high light of our visit together if not our lives (you had to be there) and a quick trip to the submarine base in Groton, CT...

... while Kassidy had her first skiing adventure with her Uncle Brian and Aunt Megan and by all indications is a "natural" and we can't wait to see it for ourselves and capture a photo for posterity. 

I am missing my folks as always and am so grateful that they spent another Christmas with little us in Connecticut. They spoiled us so while they were here and our house seems so quiet with out them. We are back to our busy schedules and I can not wait until we all can be together again

...and will be counting down the days until they can smother us all with kiss sandwiches!

Merry Christmas

From our home

             to yours....

Tagged by Jess

I am supposed to post the 6th picture on my 6th page of Flikr, but since I don't have Flikr I am posting my 6th picture on my 6th roll in IPhoto. 

This is my brother-in-law Brian and my two daughters. I assume Megan is taking the picture, as this was the first night Ted and I went out and they watched the girls for us. This was the first night they hooked us up and the favor of a date night out is always appreciated and they have yet to turn us down.  

My hero

I am very, very happy (more like ecstatic) to report that my husband captured the squirrel! We all awoke on Wednesday to quite the clatter in the attic and though Elle briefly thought it was Santa and his reindeer on our roof, her daddy realized he had won the battle!

 

Ted: 1 Squirrel: 0

Ahhh December...

Ok, Ok, Ok… I have been a huge blogging flake and really have no excuse other than laziness. Surprisingly, this December has not been that busy for us but now that Christmas is a little over a week away things are getting crazy.

A bit of a photo essay and some highlights of the month so far…

We’ve decked our halls both inside and out...

we’ve been enjoying light hunts on our trips around town,

 much to Elle’s dismay Alvin and the Chipmunks were not in our tree...

 we have a squirrel in our attic that has the girls in our home (Cali and Abby included) terrified and poor Ted just frustrated as the animal stubbornly won’t take the bait in our humane trap so we can set it free, 

we've had lots of fun playdates with Elle's favorite being the bounce house...

we had our first snow... & looks like there will be lots more in the next week...

we headed into the city for our annual trip to see the tree and it was so fun that we are heading back again this weekend...

and finally Elle and I are in potty training hell… I am determined to have it done by 2009 and though she has had some success overall it has been a struggle.

Maybe my mom has the magic trick, as my folks are heading East again for the holidays and will be arriving just before the stroke of midnight Christmas on Santa’s sleigh via Newark, NJ.

Thanksgiving

I know it is a week late but we had a fantastic holiday! Jimmy, Elizabeth and the kids came out and now I can happily say I have a memory with each member of my family in my own home and that is what I am most thankful for this year. While the week with them was more relaxing than entertaining, I am so happy that they all got a glimpse into our life here in Connecticut.

Some highlights from the visit are….they hit up NYC for a few days and realized there is never enough time to do it all, Ted deep fried his first turkey which by all accounts was delicious, we ended up at McDonalds after a failed attempt at lunch at “not so friendly Friendly’s”, showed them Yale, hit up Pepe’s famous pizza in New Haven and discovered some yummy canolis down the street, had an unsuccessful trip to the carousel but happily stumbled upon a cool Christmas light display which saved the day, checked out the Clark W. Griswold house down the street from ours, took the kids on tractor rides (as they are convinced our acre corner lot means that we live on a farm), set up our yard inflatable which also inspired John to promptly head to Lowes to buy two when they got home, watched Ted break his remote control truck about 25 times, I had a full circle moment when I took Caroline to get her ears pierced for her 12th birthday (which is today HAPPY BIRTHDAY CAROLINE), lots of bonding with Cali who has been more depressed than me since they left, I am pretty sure Abby (our very moody cat) bit or scratched each one of them at some point and the only real bummer was that though they all wished for snow they missed it by about 12 hours. Kassidy and Elle loved having their cousins to play with!

It was a very nice visit and I am beyond happy they finally made it east. I will miss them as always and though it will never be soon enough, I can not wait to see them all again.