Thanksgiving Dinner

We cooked lots and lots of delicious food. It was just the four of us home for a relaxing Thanksgiving day. We had turkey (brined and grilled), mashed potatoes, honeyed carrots, broccoli puree, yorkshire pudding, cranberry salad, and gravy. Wow. As you can see from the photo, Emily's favorite was the cranberries.

Can you see them?

The little teeth are popping through!

Trick or Treat

A Pumpkin and A Princess

First tooth

Emily's first tooth came through this weekend. On Friday I thought maybe she had an ear infection because she was a little bit fussy and needed lots of TLC. But low and behold it was a tooth. Another milestone in the little one's journey.

Emily's working on crawling

She is getting very close; each day I think she is going to start crawling. She is just simply the most adorable, balanced and easy going child I have ever been around. Emily is our beautiful little sweetheart!

Girls with Grandpa Root

Aunt Sarah and Scott

We just finished a visit with Aunt Sarah and Scott this weekend. It was so good to see Sarah and know that she is back home. Sarah and Scott watched the girls on Saturday so that Brian and I could go to the OSU v. Michigan State football game. It was a beautiful day for a football game and we really enjoyed it (especially winning it). Today we spent several hours hanging out at Easton, an outdoor shopping mall and soaking up the sunshine. It was actually hot out!

Family shot

Well they are few and far between but I managed to dig up two photos with all 4 of us in it. The first, our adventure shot, was taking on our caving/camping trip to Kentucky in June in the Great Saltpetre Cave. Rachel loved the cave and wearing her headlamp inside and exploring. She did NOT love the bathrooms (port-a-potty) and refused to go in one all weekend, so we did the nature thing and she peed behind trees all weekend. That's about what I can remember from the trip - oh yeah, and it was about 95 degrees out and I almost melted.



Since you can't even see poor Miss Emily in the caving shot, here is a family shot with all of us - back in May Brian's cousin Chris Hart got married and we did get a family photo in while we were all dressed up for the wedding.

Rachel's 3rd Birthday

This is a little late in coming, but I wanted to share some pictures from Rachel's 3rd Birthday. We invited her friends from preschool and our neighborhood friends. In the end we had 10 children around the age of 3. The Party was held at Wendy's Gymnastics where Rachel has taken classes in the past. It was a ton of fun and all the kids had a fabulous time.
Rachel was a perfect gymnast and showed her friends how to do everything. They were allowed to play on everything for an hour, but about 10 minutes before the hour was up Rachel came out to tell me that "Mommy, I'm tired." It was a great birthday party.

Trials & Tribulations

Oh me - the nap time nightmare. We are at a hard place with Rachel and naptime on the weekends. All reports from the Lollipop Room are that Rachel has no problem at school taking a nap and usually sleeps 1 1/2 to 2 hours. Not so much for Mom and Dad. Today I thought - let's make sure she is tired and gets lots of play time including outside time. She helped me rake leaves and run around outside for over an hour. I wasn't really even committed to her taking a nap at all unless she started acting tired and cranky, which she did. Well it has been an hour and a half so far of upset ranging from kicking walls, loud crying "I want my Mommy!" and other lovely things like that. Brian just reported that she is now quiet but I really don't believe him to be honest. We will see I suppose. Sophie is coming over tonight for a sleep over, too so Rachel needs some rest I think.

Delaware County Fair

Tonight we enjoyed some yummy fair food and rides at the Delaware County Fair. Rachel and Sophia rode on the rides together. Rachel likes pink ice cream (big surprise).

American Natural History Museum

Dinosaurs are so cool

Coney Island

This place is a child's heaven. Perhaps a bit grittier than heaven...

Beach time

New York City!

We had a fabulous vacation visiting Aunt Cara and Uncle Joe in New York. We did lots of fun things while we were there - like visiting Coney Island, Port Jefferson, the Musuem of Natural History, and Jones Beach. But most enjoyable of all was spending time with our family that we miss a lot (especially Jordan the weiner dog!).

Rachel names

We think Rachel has an imaginary friend, Turbo. We had a snail in the fishtank named Turbo several months ago who is no longer with us. But Turbo keeps popping up in the weirdest places. Like Sunday when I took Rachel to Kroger and she drove the special kiddie cart and asked me to buckle Turbo in with her. Also Rachel named the succulent plant Brian bought her Turbo. We love to ask Rachel to name new things that come into our world. She is so creative with the names. It all started with the fish she named "Hundred Dollar" back in February that caught us by surprise. Now we have Sally, Naz, and Nemo in the fishtank. Such a delight to live with a creative and intelligent child like her!

the beach

Our family day at the beach was great. Rachel and Emily both loved the water and playing on the sand bar.