Gobble, Gobble!

How thankful we are this Thanksgiving!!! Not only are we blessed with good health and happiness and our two beautiful girls, but we were also invited to spend the holiday with some dear friends. Thanks to Jim and Jenn for welcoming us into their home. It was a great way to celebrate Kiersten's first Thanksgiving and Leah had so much fun playing with Bella and Olivia. Of course Zach was a perfect peanut too for only 2 weeks old! How fun, and How grateful we are to have such wonderful friends. Jenn's mom Gloria was so wonderful to sit and make the Turkey headband craft with the girls...we just had to get a picture and I LOVE that Leah has one sock on and one sock off. And as you can tell, by the end of the night Leah was all turkeyed out, ha! It was a wonderful day for our family and hopefully for your families too.

Big Things

Yep, Big Things have been happening around our house! I mean besides the roof and the hoards of company that we have had. But the roof is finally done, all of our company is gone and thanks to everyone for your concern after Mitch pulled the ULTIMATE "Mitch" and put the nail through his toe!!! Anyway, it finally happened! On November 20th Kiersten got her first tooth, YAY! We knew it was coming, we could see the white pressing up against the gums...we always try to remain optimistic without getting our hopes up too much. Afterall, Leah got her 1st tooth on her 11 month birthday exactly so we were elated when Kiersten got her first "toofer" at 8.5 months...YAY! Now if the rest of them would just start cooperating.

In addition to the first tooth, on November 21st we finally decided to be brave and let the girls take a bath together. Anyone that knows Leah knows that she can be a little rough, to put it mildly. So we were apprehensive, but she did great. They LOVE taking a bath together and it is certainly making things easier on Daddy since he is the one usually dishing out the baths. Leah was super excited when we finally pulled out her winter jammies with feet because now she has jammies just like Kiersten. Everyday they amaze me with how much they love one another. It's really awesome and I love having picture like this one to look back on and make me smile.

New York, New York

This past Thursday my mom and sis-in-law Cynthia flew out to my place for a girl's weekend and we did it up in style. Mitch took Friday off and so us women-folk hopped on the train at Princeton and headed up to the city. This trip was planned for weeks and I was so excited to have some "me" time. I hadn't been away from Leah in over 2 years and it was my first time away from Kiersten.

We started out with a "little" shopping in the Largest Store in the world...ten stories tall, Macy's! I LOVE Macy's...it is the real miracle on 34th street, let me tell you! I could spend days in there, I always find all sorts of goodies. But we headed back to the hotel around 5 so we could get ready for dinner. Our concierge made us reservations at a cute little Italian Restaurant called Arno. It was awesome, mom and I split a dish and still walked out of there full. We had a wonderful lamb ratatouile and calamari for starters, followed by a chicken and artichoke dish with the most delicious homemade pasta and a fabulous banana chocolate mouse pie for dessert. We were in heaven!!! Cynthia was quite adventurous. She had a lot of first at the restaurant. Her first Pinot Grigio, lamb, calamari, prosciutto, and mushrooms...She enjoyed it too! After dinner we hightailed it about 15 blocks to the Broadway Theatre, where we had tickets to see Promises, Promises. It was fantastic, Sean Hayes and Kristen Chenoweth were the leading roles and Molly Shannon was in it as well, she is ALWAYS hilarious! It really was great. A big thanks to my mom for treating us.

On Saturday we got up, packed our suitcases and headed out on the town again for some shopping. We went to Rockefeller Plaza and hit up a few stores, then kept on trucking down to FAO Schwartz...it was a zoo. Made a stop at LegoLand, the Disney Store and a few others on Times Square before heading back to...MACY'S! We shopped there for a few hours, hit up H&M and hopped on the train to head home. Penn station is always a zoo, but we made it on the first train and got home just in time for a wonderfully prepared dinner by Mitch, WHO happened to put a nail in his big toe while working on the rood on Friday. I hadn't even been gone 2 hours and I got a picture text of his big toe with a BIG Nail sticking out of it...I guess Air Nail Guns will go right through a shoe and a sock and a little bit of bone. Thankfully our friend Kathleen was able to come sit with the girls while Mitch went to the ER where they had to cut the nail out. I told my mom "I don't have to worry about my girls when I leave home, I have to worry about my husband." Overall, it was a fabulous weekend and I am already planning for the next one :)

8 months and counting

You will have to excuse my blogging hiatus. We have been doing a major project at our house that required a dumpster in my driveway for a week and the in-laws were here to help out. My father-in-law and hubby put a new roof on our house and what I was told was going to be a 3-4 day project has turned into a week + project with a change of flight plans for Grandpa Dave and a temporary loss of my sanity. By Tuesday I was jittery from all the banging and was quite certain I couldn't take anymore, but alas...it's almost done, and if I'm lucky it will get finished up this weekend while I am happily out of town enjoying my girls getaway in NYC with my mom and SIL Cynthia.

Onto the reason for the post...Yes, Kiersten is 8 months old. It actually happened a few days ago, but I have been delayed. She is really a happy baby girl and these two pictures capture her "happy" expression so well. I love these shots sans the bright red-Rudolph nose from the cold that we have been battling for a week now. No stats to report this month because there is a well-child check-up, but she certainly has a hearty appetite. She is especially fond of feeding herself finger foods. Sadly, we are done breast feeding. I didn't necessarily want to be done, but she decided that she was done and has REALLY taken to the bottle. She is just to busy and gets too distracted by big sister Leah to stay focused on the task at hand...so I sadly let it go. Good thing I have a freezer full of breast milk to get us through the next few weeks.

On October 29th, Kiersten pulled herself up into the standing position. I walked into the living room to see her standing at the fireplace happily playing with some of Leah's toys. The camera wasn't in reach, but I snapped a shot on my cell phone. She didn't stay up long. And wouldn't you know it, one week later on Nov. 5th I caught her walking holding on to the furniture. Any one want to place any bets that she will be walking by Christmas??? My little baby isn't a little baby anymore, she has gotten a taste of independence and she likes it!

Trick-or-Treat

Halloween has come and gone, but it sure was a lot of fun. Both of the girls seemed to enjoy getting dressed up in their costumes. First we took them over to our neighbors (Mike and Julie's) house. They always have extra special treats for the girls and then we headed over to our friend Shawn and Amanda's. Leah had plans to go trick-or-treating with their son Matt, and us mom's had plans to stay home with the little girls, Kiersten and Monica. So after dinner the Dad's and "big" kids headed out.

About the 5th house that Mitch took Leah too had a 6 ft. animated/automated Werewolf that had bright red eyes that lit up and his head and arms moved. I guess Leah ran screaming when she saw it. Mitch said it was FUNNY and I would have loved to see it...but she bucked up and eventually went to the door to get her treat. We tried to tell her the werewolf was nice because he gave her chocolate so thankfully she went to bed just fine but she was worked up. When they got home she told me all about the werewolf with big arms that were moving and big red eyes she even told me that she "runned, runned, runned" and that she was scared and was "Crying and crying" It was a hoot. We skyped with grandparents and Aunt Laura before bed and told them all about it and when she woke up Monday morning she was still talking about it...told my mom (Gigi) all about it on the phone. Thankfully I don't think she is scarred for life :) Hope everyone had a safe and happy halloween...already trying to plan costumes for next year ;)