Clearing out the phone...

I finally got around to clearing photos off my phone. Some of the ones below are from a while ago, and some are more recent (yesterday). Enjoy!

This is how old some of the photos are! (Required pregnancy pic)

Here's Vince going to his last day at TSC Child Care Center. It was a pretty emotional day for me, since they were so good to him there.
Here's a pic from our dry-run of camping. We set up the tent in the back yard. I think this was the only time Vince sat in the tent. There rest of the time he ran around or jumped on me.
Here's a pic from when we actually went camping. That's dirt on his face, not a black eye!
Here's Matthew trying to teach Vince how to play guitar.
Vince really enjoyed this push pop!
Pumpkin picking...
Zoë!
Vince got in there on his own. He needed some help getting out.
Here's the first snowman Vince and I made. The snow was perfect for packing that day, and it only took a few minutes to put it together.

Just One Good Picture Please!

How many snaps does it take, until you get one good picture with Grandma......

1

2

3

4

Apparently more than 4. We're still trying....

Gingerbread House Time

Making a gingerbread house with a toddler. Good example of an oxymoron, because it doesn't happen when the house and decorations are edible and sweet. I thought we'd try to make one this morning, we got about half the roof done and ran out of decorations because most of them were in Vince's belly. At least we got a few windows and doors on the house!

Lovin on little sister

Edaville Festival of Lights

A few weekends ago we went to the Edaville Railroad to see the festival of lights. This was our first year to see the amazing spectacle of lights, and it may be our last year as well. Apparently the park is up for sale, which would close down the lights for good.

We brought our neighbor kids along as well as a Christmas present for them, and with the hopes that Vince would want to ride on the rides if he saw his buddies on them. Our idea worked! Vince had so much fun on the kiddie rides. Unfortunately in our fit of getting ready and running out the door, we forgot the camera. So here's a few bad ones with my phone.

He still doesn't want to sit on a horse on the merry go round... so he's sitting with Daddy here

Another great family shot, with a pissed off Vince

All the kids...

Looking like this, Zoë got lots of attention from people

5 Months!

Zoë's 5 months old already, wow it happens so fast! Zoë, smile for the camera!!

The most fun thing is to watch the growing moments of actual interaction between Zoë and Vince. He's really gotten into the idea that he can make her smile and laugh... and when they laugh together at each other, it's the most amazing and sweetest thing I've ever seen.

Driving Lessons

When I was a little boy, my Mom would let me walk up to the corner of the street and wait for my Dad to come home. There was a little flat rock there that was the perfect size for a 5 year old to sit on, and I used to patiently wait until my Dad pulled up in his van. He would start backing the van down the street, and open the door for me to hop in. I would sit on his lap, put my hands on the top of the steering wheel, and we'd pretend that I was backing the van down the street.

Here's a picture from early September. Vince was getting the same driving lessons that I had from my Dad.

Bring On Christmas

We didn't waste any time getting into the Christmas spirit this year. By the end of Thanksgiving weekend we had our Christmas tree up, decorations out and scattered all over the house, Christmas lights up, Christmas cards ready to mail, and already visited Santa at the Enchanted Village over at Jordan's Furniture. I anticipated Vince's freak out at the thought of sitting on Santa's lap as he did last year, so we started talking up what he needed to do and that if he sat on Santa's lap and told him what he wanted for Christmas.... that he just might get it (if he was a good boy!). Well our talking it up at least got us a picture with him on Santa's lap, but as you can see he wasn't exactly thrilled to be where he was.


We brought the neighbor kids along with us, mainly for selfish reasons..... as they are great with Vince and Zoë and make our lives so much easier when they are along! They are becoming a regular part of our family! They are really great kids and we enjoy having them along.

Joe carried Zoë most of the time

Waiting in line to get in

Mary totally LOVES Zoë, and considers her as her little sister.

looking at all the festive decorations

Sharing popcorn after wards (from left to right: Joe, Adam, Beartla, Mary, and Vince) There was a mound of popcorn under that seat that was almost bigger than what was in the bag!

This is what you get when you try and have an 11 year old take the family photo...Zoë cut out of one shot, and Vince turning his head in the other

As I write this post, Vince and Mike are watching the 1964 version of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, as told by Burl Ives. Vince's first time hearing Rudolph's story... and he's totally enthralled. Yes, I think we're ready for Christmas over here.

Thanksgiving

This year, Thanksgiving involved a very brief trip to New York to spend some time with Mike's family. We packed up the car and kids on Wednesday morning, and we were back by Thursday night. Mike's sister Donna worked hard again this year to set up an excellent assortment of all the Thanksgiving traditions including (but certainly not limited to) turkey, ham, stuffing, potatoes, and home made apple and cranberry sauce (my favorite). I couldn't get out of working on Friday, which meant driving back on Thanksgiving eve. It was a bit difficult to have to leave everyone and get in the car for a 3 hour drive, having the turkey coma feeling. It was a short but nice trip.

Here we have a Thanksgiving Turkey (Melina) and a real life Pilgrim (Amelia)

Zoë getting some girl time with her cousins

Me with little Zoë and Hilde with her cute little turkey

This Thanksgiving marked the first brother sister bath for Vince and Zoë! We are thankful for bathtime

click here to see more photos from Mike's brother Charlie: Thanksgiving 2010

Getting Crafty (with recipes AND cookies)

Last week I had the idea to finally use the train shaped cookie cutter that my mom had bought for Vince a while ago; so I decided to whip up some sugar cookie dough, invite the neighbor kids, and get Vince into the spirit of art by setting up different colors of frosting for him to "paint" the cookies with. Now some of you may know that when I decide to bake something, I usually decide to throw in different twists while following the recipe, usually to try and make it a bit healthier, or substituting this for that because I don't have a certain ingredient, and sometimes just because I downright don't want to follow directions. My husband is constantly amazed by this because he always says to me "if there's a recipe you should really follow and not diverge from, it's things that you are baking!". Apparently it's super easy to mess up baked goods/items if you don't follow the rules exactly, but for some reason I've had mostly good luck when diverting from baking recipes.
Anyway...... back to our cookies. To make a long story short, my sugar cookies turned out a bit healthier than normal because I decided to use whole wheat flour and (too much) flax seed, but that was canceled out by the ridiculous amount of walnut oil I used to fix the dough (mind you: walnut oil, flax seed, and whole wheat flour were not part of the recipe). At first this concocted mixture didn't want to roll into a dough because the whole wheat and flax made it too dry, but it was nothing that 1/2 a bottle of walnut oil couldn't fix! The cookies turned out great I swear...

It took a bit of coaxing to get Vince to cut out the dough

But he was totally on the ball with painting the train cookies

beautifully decorated trains

Then again, after Thanksgiving we had a chance to make some gingerbread men because Mike's mom gave us a gingerbread man baking pan. This time I gave in and just followed the recipe that the pan came with. No 'fixing' needed.

Vince ate the leg and arm off before finishing up his decorating job. poor little gingerbread man!

The ever popular tie-dyed ginger man

Welcome little Lucas!

Last weekend we went to visit our friends Beth-Ann and Jason, who just welcomed Lucas Owen into their family! At just over a week old, Lucas is an adorable little snugly newborn. We immediately put Zoë and him together for some photo ops. Lucas made our little Zoë look like a not so little baby anymore! Instead she looks like the jolly pink giant with a balloon head!

Let's put our heads together (Zoë 4 months, Lucas 1 week)

their hands entwined... the start of a beautiful friendship

We tried to get them to look at each other but nevertheless, got this adorable shot

I think Zoë's voracious appetite is definitely helping her grow up quick. The rest of our visit consisted of her trying to see how much of her fist she could put in her mouth... this is what she looks like most times now when you glance over at her. How much fist can I fit in my mouth!

4 Months Ago Today....

Zoë is four months old today, and when Mike and I stop and think that we have an almost 2 and 1/2 year old and a four month old, we both look almost dumbstruck; as if we've missed the last 3 years of our lives and are just trying to catch up. How and when did all this happen?

It's been so amazing, wonderful, difficult, and tiring(lack of sleep is probably why we don't remember it all)..... but raising little ones and watching them grow and learn is something we are so grateful to be able to have the opportunity to do.

I can't help but always compare Zoë to Vince, in terms of how easy she was as a newborn compared to Vince (although Vince wasn't that bad either). It seems that she has been so much easier than Vince, but sometimes I'm not sure if it's because she's the second child. It's no doubt that she gets to sleep a lot easier than Vince did, and will sleep longer hours in a row (which is nice!). She's also much more of a little piggy than Vince was! She'll drink up milk in half the time it took Vince, he would be so difficult to feed and it took forever! In general she's a pretty laid back and chill little girl. It's so fun daydreaming about the things we'll do when she's older, the shopping we can do, the girlie things like getting our nails done and such (of course snowboarding with her has always been in there too). All these daydreams sort of caught me by surprise because I didn't even want a little girl at first!!

Here's our happy 4 month old

Here she is just minutes after the first photo... she's SO cute when she's falling asleep!