Christmas in Connecticut

My mom and dad and Tory came to our house for Christmas!  It was such a treat to get to wake up in our beds on Christmas morning.  We had a great, great time and they put up with all the snow and cold weather.

Nannie came with edible craft projects.  Lilly loved it!  She got to put the sprinkles on the chocolate-covered oreos and she really went to town :)

Pre-sugar overload meltdown

Tracking Santa's progress on Christmas Eve

We put together a plate of snacks for Santa and his reindeer.  Lilly insisted on tasting the milk before we put it out.

Settling in to read The Night Before Christmas and the true account of Jesus' birth

Sledding

Lilly went sledding for the first time!  We've had a lot of snow this winter and Mike got out of work early, so we headed to a small hill at the school next door.  It was COLD so we were bundled up like snowmen.  She liked it, but we probably took five runs (of 20 feet each) before she had had enough and we headed home for some hot chocolate.

Christmas Tree Shopping

Since were were going to be home for Christmas this year, we decided to cut down our own tree.  We went to a farm in Glastonbury on a sunny but bitterly cold day.  Mike and Lilly kindly let me look at just about every tree before finding the right one.  And they only complained a little bit :)

I think at this point they were discussing how it drives them crazy that I have to see ALL the options before making my decision.

Here it is!  Our tree!

Then I made everyone pose with it...

And by now Mike was frozen and just wanted to cut it down.

Done!

Visit to Hazleton

After our visit with Amma we headed to Hazleton to visit Mike's grandmother Clemmie.  She is so sweet and we love that we're close enough that we've gotten to see her several times since we moved to CT.  She showers us all with food and love and Lilly with lots of Tastykakes!

Lilly got to try out Clemmie's new massage chair and loved it.  Lilly's life is so rough that it took a while to work the knots out :)

Lilly had a REALLY strange love for Clemmie's magnifying glass.  She actually just thought it was cool to see her breath on it.

Reading together

Clemmie just treasures Lilly.  She's a lucky girl to be so loved.

We stayed in a hotel and when we walked into the room Lilly stopped in her tracks and asked "Whose house is this?"  It occurred to me that she hasn't stayed in a hotel, at least since she could remember it.  The weather was snowy and the roads were icy, so we stayed in and had a picnic dinner.  She was in heaven with her own little bed right next to mom and dad.

The last time

The week after Thanksgiving we headed out to Pennsylvania to visit my grandmother Amma and Mike's grandmother Clemmie (see the next post).  We had a great visit.  We got to spend a lot of time with Amma.  She watched Lilly play and they played together.  We caught up on everything going on with the family and talked about our little baby.  It was a beautiful time with her.  She told us that she was having a hard time breathing at night, but we thought it was just something that could be pretty easily cleared up.  She was in wonderful spirits.  I will treasure that visit forever.

Three generations of nosy women :)

She often called me her clone.  She called me that a lot that weekend.

Being silly with Lilly

Playing doctor.  Lilly pronounced her blood pressure good.

I am so thankful for that time and for my wonderful Amma.

A Little Home Improvement

We have an old, strange, but loveable house.  We've done a lot to it already, but there are probably still hundreds of projects remaining.  When we moved in we had these two "built-in" bookshelves in our living room.  They wasted a lot of space in the room and looked pretty messy when we had them full of books.  We also have quite a shortage of seating, so we decided to take them out!

Mike and Lilly inspecting the "backing" of the bookshelves, which was actually just ancient contact paper.  They also had fish-eye hooks holding up the shelves.  They were a lot less charming than they appear in the picture :)

Shelves are gone!

Walls painted, floor stained, Christmas decorations ready to come out

Our new seating area, courtesy of Ikea and some awesome Christmas presents!  (Our tree was here during Christmas, so we didn't get the new chairs until after the tree was down)

Happy Thanksgiving!

We stayed at home this year, just the three (five) of us.  We missed being with family, but we had a really nice day and had some friends over for dessert that night.  I decided to cook everything we usually have, so we had leftovers for days!  It was fun to get to celebrate in our house!

We got to use our beautiful French tablecloth from Aunt Janis

Our spread.  It was a ridiculous amount of food for three people :)

Lilly checking things out

My little goofball.  Do I look tired?  I was, early pregnancy was wiping me out.

Our little family - I couldn't be more thankful

Happy Birthday Mike!

I like to tell Mike that he's now in his mid-thirties because I still have another few months until I join him at 31.  Some pictures from our celebration:

Breakfast in bed!  Lilly wasn't in a particularly celebratory mood.

We couldn't find a babysitter so we brought Mike's favorite dinner home, complete with oysters.

Mike's birthday dessert pizza!  Lilly "helped" put the fruit on it :)

#2!!!

We haven't had a chance to tell everyone yet, but we're so excited that we wanted to share our news here... we're having another baby!  Rough due date is June 20th and we got to see the baby (finally) today.  It looks wonderful and was wiggling it's little arm and leg buds around - it was so cute!  Everything looks great and we are so thrilled.  We'd had a little trouble this time and I was days away from having to start taking Clomid, so we were just overwhelmed to find out that this one was on its way.

It's sweet little face is looking straight out, with it's head down to the right.

Lilly and Addie and their "Big Sister" t-shirts.  Doesn't Addie just look beyond excited? :)

I'm feeling pretty good so far, other than this horrible cold/sinus infection I've had for the last week and a half.  Some nausea, but not nearly as bad as it was with Lilly, so I'm grateful for that.  We'll keep you posted!

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween!  There's been great excitement all week in our house - Lilly's been asking since Monday if she could "go to" Halloween.  We took her out trick or treating on the early shift in our neighborhood and now we're handing out candy at our house!

Some friends of ours had a family-friendly Halloween rager last weekend.  Mike and I were Brad and Angelina with all six of our children attached to us.  Isn't the resemblance shocking??? :)

The Today Show

Tory's friend Jess came to visit her and they headed up to The Today Show this morning.  Tory has on a white coat and Jess has on a black coat.  I'm sure they impressed all of America with their strange dance moves.  If you're further west, she's on the segment from 9:15 to 9:20.

There they are, off to the right

And a close up

Catching up...

Sorry I've been gone so long, it's been a crazy month!  Please see all of our (backdated) activities below!

NYC!

Tory has moved to NYC!  We shipped her off on the train last Friday morning, then headed down to join her and bring some more of her stuff on Saturday.  Her apartment is great, we LOVE New York and everyone had a great time.  We're hoping to spend a lot more time there.  Some highlights...

A grouchy girl and a giant pretzel!

Sunday morning.  After church.  Central Park.  Live jazz.  Hot dogs and pretzels.  Awesome!  

Tory's apartment is what you might euphemistically call "cozy."  She hadn't finished unpacking, so we basically filled every square inch of the 375 square feet.

Lilly's "quarters" in the entryway.  I tried to ignore my overly-claustrophobic fear of a fire and the need for escape in the middle of the night.

Tor's INCREDIBLE view

Tory and Lil, taking in the city.  Actually I think they're looking at Hoboken, but close enough.

Action Jackson loved all the excitement

Finally getting to see my college suitemate Anne (Pants).  Ignore the fact that I look just a bit odd and focus on Anne and the Statue of Liberty!  Please!

Mike and Lilly and the Statue of Liberty

Saturday brunch at "Mad Dog and Beans."  Funny name, fantastic Mexican food!

For those of you who have known me for a long time - our old house in Bronxville (we lived there when I was four and five).  It looks quite a bit fancier than it used to, but it was so much fun to get to see it again.

Tory getting on the train to NYC in New Haven.  She always seems so thrilled that I'm taking her picture!