Thanksgiving Weekend

On Friday evening we drove to my parent's house in New York for the remainder of the Thanksgiving weekend. My brother Joe from Florida and sister Anne from Virginia were also visiting this weekend, and it would be their first opportunity to meet Vince.

Overall it was a pretty relaxing weekend. Vince had fun with my parent's dog Maxie. Every time she came near him, Vince would start laughing hysterically. We should have taken some video of it, but we did a poor job of keeping the camera handy this weekend. We have to make sure to get some video during Christmas.

We left Vince with my parents on Saturday night, and Lisa and I went out to dinner with my brothers and sisters. My Mom was looking forward to spending some time with Vince. But by the time we got home, my Mom looked like she just had a run in with the devil. Seems like Vince decided to be a little fussy for a couple of hours, and my Mom didn't have the touch that Vince is used to.

We did take a couple of pictures at breakfast on Sunday morning. Here's Vince with his cousins Amelia (on the left) and Melina (on the right), and his Aunt Hilde:


Here's another picture of Vince and Melina, before Vince started to cry:

Thanksgiving

Since Lisa had to work the Friday after Thanksgiving, we decided to have a few people over for dinner. We had the responsibility to cook the turkey, which I have not had the opportunity to do before. Since I've heard that brining a turkey makes it really juicy, I gave it a try. Here are all of the spices, along with the sugar and salt, that I dissolved in vegetable stock the night before:


Lisa and I woke up at 6am to put the turkey in the brine. Here I am looking my morning best with the bird:


We submerged the turkey into a 5 gallon bucket and the brine mixed with ice water. We took it out after 6 hours and cooked it for about 2 1/2 hours. It was as good as advertised!


Here's a photo of Vince in his "My Little Turkey" shirt. He's happy because his friends Sylvie, Bibi, and Iman are coming over later in the day.


Here's a picture of everyone who came over on Thanksgiving. All of the food was delicious, especially the desserts! (From l-r: Sylvie, Beau, me, Amine, Iman, Bibi, Joc, and Katie.)

A Few Captured Giggles

My favorite thing to do these days is to try and figure out what will make Vince go into giggle mode. It certainly has not been consistent, and what makes him laugh one day may not work the next. He's only just starting to go into side splitting giggles, but when I hear his laughter it's like music to my ears. I mean I feel like it's the greatest thing I've ever heard... and that my kid has got to be the cutest, most talented, and most intelligent baby I've ever seen!

Here's a sample of a little bit of giggling we got out of Vince when we tickled his neck with a napkin

And here's a bit more of him laughing at our fake sneezes. Again, we think this is brilliant but also know that others may not be quite as excited.... I guess that's part of being a parent!

Vince Tackles Rice Cereal and Apples

Vince has recently been sucking down the bottles like a champ. He either has a hole in his leg where all the formula goes out, or his appetite is just getting too big for a liquid diet. In any case, he was in for a big surprise last week when I put a spoon full of rice cereal in his mouth. He started suckling on the spoon for a little bit, probably thinking it was a strangely shaped nipple... but it wasn't too long before he figured out it was food in a different form. Here are some recent photos and video of Vince with his new way of eating.

Here he is with the first couple tries, obviously stunned at this new experience

We were able to take a few classic shots with Vince's reaction to his first apples as well. He seemed to enjoy the new taste, but made a few faces that were reminiscent to what it may be like if we were to have put a juicy lemon in his mouth instead of sweet apples! It provided for about a good 45 minutes of entertainment for Mike and me. After a few bites of the apples he made it clear that he missed his bottle, so we gave up and he sucked down another 6 oz.

I swear, we didn't put lemon juice in these apples!

Vince: Lord of the Dance

Vince loves to kick his legs around as soon as his diaper comes off. It makes for a challenging time getting the new diaper on, but I have found that when he does his little leg dances that he reminds me of that Musical or play The RiverDance where all those dancers are kicking around but it seems their heads stay in one place. Here I've captured a few highlights of Vince's dancing career, this kid's got talent!

Here's a video of him cutting a rug on the changing table

Here's another video of him kicking it up in the bathtub. I happened to capture the nice shot of Mike almost losing Vince from his grasp as he lowers him into the tub.... but Alas he was fine. Disclaimer: yes, both Mike and I realize how dorky we have gotten about how we talk to our baby..... just try to ignore it if you can while you watch.