Thanksgiving Weekend

We had a nice weekend and a nice visit with Grammy & Grampy. Hard to believe Thanksgiving has come and gone and December will be here tomorrow. We visited a beautiful Christmas Tree Display at the town museum, which is affiliated with our town's library. The trees are all sponsored by local businesses and then decorated by local artists. You can vote on your favorite tree and people also place bids to win the decorated trees for their homes. It's fun to see what people come up with for decorations each year. Last year Laina chose the Disney tree as her favorite! This year her favorite was the all pink tree!

Here is Laina outside the exhibit called, Deck the Halls.

Laina and I both voted this one as our favorite. It was called In The Pink and it was all decorated in pink for breast cancer awareness. Very creative!

Here are Laina and I in front of the red tree.
Laina was tickled that we were both wearing red shirts and black pants.

On Saturday morning, Grampy joined us for Laina's swim lesson.

Laina kept looking over in the pool to make sure he was watching her.Laina finally let her teacher, Stephanie take her to work on some skills.
Stephanie has been trying to work with
Laina for 3 weeks and Laina won't let go of Daddy.
Finally this week she agreed to go with Stephanie.

Laina and Daddy having fun in the pool.
Laina is getting more comfortable in the water but would
still prefer to be in the dance studio, I think!

We ended the weekend snuggling in bed watching Lady & The Tramp.
I think that was my favorite part of the weekend!
Our cat, Zowie enjoyed the movie too.

Fun With The Grandparents!

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The Three Little Elves

I just couldn't decide which one to do so I had to post both. How can you resist such holiday silliness?!?!?

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It's That Time Of Year!

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Thankful

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone! We sure have lots to be thankful for this year. Most importantly, I'm thankful for this beautiful little girl, Laina, who lights up my life. I'm thankful for my wonderful husband who takes excellent care of Laina and I. I'm thankful for my whole family, I'm thankful for my home, I'm thankful that I'm able to work part time with Joe and stay home part time to enjoy Laina before she goes to kindergarten in a couple of short years. I'm thankful for my wonderful friends who are like family to me. I'm thankful for my sweet, snuggly kitties (Max is sitting on my lap as I type!). I'm thankful that this year, my father is not having open heart surgery next week and I'm thankful that my sister is not undergoing chemotherapy this week because last year that's what was going on for my family. I'm thankful we elected a new President and I'm hopeful for our future. I'm thankful for my blessed life.

Here are a few pictures of Laina in her Thanksgiving dress. My parents are visiting us this weekend and Laina is very excited to have them here. We will be having a delicious turkey dinner this afternoon. I hope everyone has a peaceful, relaxing day.

A Fashion Statement

At the end of the day when Laina gets home from school, she likes to get changed out of her school clothes and get into her PJ's right away (who doesn't love PJ's right). So today when we got home, like any other day, she headed upstairs to change her clothes while I stayed downstairs to start dinner. Well this is what she changed into....her Minnie Mouse PJ bottoms, white socks, black patent leather shoes and her fishy swimsuit cover up. Quite the fashion statement! She stayed like this all evening until bed time. She was rather proud of herself and told me she was dressed like a Princess. Interesting...


Then she decided her doll needed to get dressed too so she went into her drawers and pulled out clothes to get her dressed into, including socks and Minnie Mouse underwear. And of course...only in our house do our dolls wear Gymboree clothes!

Laina and her Cousins

Joe, Laina and I spent the weekend in New Hampshire visiting with Lyn and the boys. Our nephew, Ryan was in his high school play so we drove down to attend the play. Unfortunately only one of us could attend, since the other had to be home with Laina and I won the coin toss and got to go see Ryan perform. He did an amazing job! Ryan played Ralph Scumbo, a sleazy Italian Broadway celebrity manager in the murder mystery, Broadway Babylon. Apparently he had to rent "The Sopranos" DVD's and listen to Tony Soprano speaking to help him get the voice just right. He was so good. It's just amazing that he's all grown up now, getting ready to go off too college next year. How exactly did that happen?

Laina sure had a great time. She adores her cousin Cory and had a lot of fun spending time with Sean and Ryan too. Cory and Laina have spent more time together so she's most comfortable with him and when I told her we were going to visit him she said "my Cory?" I thought that was pretty sweet.

Lyn has three little doggies, Pheobe, Toby and Sadie. Once Laina got used to them (and they got used to her), they all played together nicely and Laina had a blast throwing the ball for them. She decided that Sadie (the white dog) was her favorite and tonight when I put her to bed she told me that "Sadie was the best dog ever!" (sorry Archie & Trixie!)

We also enjoyed a visit with Auntie Di & Uncle Dan who we probably haven't seen since Laina was about 8 months old. A lot of time has passed and now Laina is a real person and it was nice for them to see her...and her to see them as well. Uncle Danny has lots of great instruments which he brought with him. He participates in a drumming circle and he brought a few of his drums and other tribal instruments, which Laina really enjoyed. Lyn also has a piano so Laina had a grand old time striking up a tune.

Laina performing Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture (ok, just kidding)

Uncle Danny teaching Laina a songJammin' in the basement with Uncle Danny & Cory

Breakfast with Daddy, Ryan, Sean, Cory & Laina

Laina and Ryan playing with the doggies

Cory and Sadie (Laina's two loves)

Throwing the ball for Toby

Our Visit With Santa

Well we made it to the mall to visit Santa yesterday. We tried to go last week and when we got there we learned that Santa doesn't arrive until this week. So on Tuesday after dance class we got Laina all dressed up in her adorable Christmas dress again and headed over to see him. We talked about Santa A LOT in preparation. Laina wasn't overly convinced that she needed to actually see him in real life so I wasn't sure how it would go. She's not a big fan of Santa and she does not like it when he says "Ho Ho Ho". Her Christmas list this year consists of one item...a kitchen...a very particular kitchen...and she's very interested in getting this kitchen, so when I told her that she could ask Santa for the kitchen if we visited him at the mall, she decided she would do it.

So we got there and we walked up and she saw him sitting there and pretty much made a beeline in the other direction. So we sat on a bench and had a chat about Santa and she told me that if I asked Santa not to say "ho ho ho" to her then she would go up there. She really wanted to ask him for this kitchen. We had a deal....up we went and I made sure to ask Santa to please not say "ho ho ho". He was nice enough to oblige.

She s-l-o-w-l-y walked up to Santa, very hesitant to approach him and wanted NO part of actually sitting on his lap. She did decide she would stand next to him and we got her picture taken. The picture isn't one of Laina's best...she's not her usual happy self but its cute, her outfit is adorable and we have our first official visit with Santa under our belt. For those of you who check my blog regularly...you will end up with a Santa picture in your Christmas card so I'm not posting it here or that would ruin all the fun, right.

She did ask Santa for the kitchen which I was very impressed with. The only confusion came when she thought that after she asked Santa for the kitchen, he would give it to her right there and then. I guess I hadn't fully explained that after she asks him for the kitchen, she has to wait until Christmas morning to see if he brings it! Whew, glad we cleared that one up. Now she's all about Christmas getting here!

Weekend Recap

This weekend I had the pleasure of snuggling with this little sweety pie....

She has the best smiles and giggles...

Sometimes she would get grumpy when I held her so I would have to give her back to Mommy or Daddy....but Archie always loved to snuggle with me...he didn't get grumpy at all...

Then she would get happy again....

Unfortunately, this little girl was NOT happy that I went away....but once I got home on Sunday, I got smiles from her again....

I had a fabulous visit with Emily Rose...thanks Auntie Nee, Uncle Mike and Archie for sharing her with me!!!

Flashback Friday

This is one of my all time favorites of Laina. I love the Gymbo outfit, I love those sandals, I love the ocean in the background, I love Laina's pose, I love that it was taken on Father's day and I love that my daughter has an amazing father, but most of all - - - I just love that little girl.

Sean's Brush with Greatness

Back when President Elect Obama was campaigning to win the Democratic Nomination, he was at a rally that my nephew Sean attended at school. Here's a photo of Sean listening to Barack Obama earlier this year - my little nephew has met our next President! I think that's really cool! Seany is the cute little blond in the 2nd row with the maroon striped shirt and sweatshirt.

Our household was all a buzz during the election and Laina heard a lot about Barack Obama. Now every time he appears on television she says with a big smile "look mommy, Barack Obama!"

My Steelers Fans

Here are a couple of cute pictures of Joe and Laina taken a few weeks ago on a "Steeler Sunday" They went out running some errands together like this and they were greeted by many Steelers fans. Laina loves wearing her Steelers gear with Daddy!

My little super reader and her voca-BOO-lary lessons!

At school, the kids learned a new set of words throughout the week. They spent the week learning the words and then on Friday, Amanda gave them a paragraph filled with the words they learned during the week and the kids had to use a highlighter to find the words they recognized. This week's words included girl, boy, mom, dad, cat, bed, ball and boo. Laina got all the words right. It's amazing to me that she's beginning to learn how to recognize words and it's fascinating to watch.


Laina is a very inquisitive little girl. I know this is very typical for a three year old but to live through it can be stressful! Every day brings a new round of rapid fire questions from Laina. Usually it revolves a lot around who purchased various things in our house, i.e. "who bought my sink", "who bought my washing machine", "who bought my crib", etc. Then there are the questions I get while we're driving in the car, i.e. "why do they have a swing set", "why don't they have a swing set", "who is following us", etc. But the topper tonight was at the dinner table when she asked "where do babies come from".......eeeekkkk! Joe and I just looked at each other with a big "gulp" in our eyes. Luckily while I was fumbling in my head trying to figure out the appropriate answer, she moved on to the next question and I never had to answer it. Now I'm working on the answer so I have it at the ready the next time it comes up!

Flashback Friday

A lot of blogs I read feature a "flashback friday" every week and I think its a neat idea! Recently Laina has been asking to see pictures of herself as a baby when she didn't have any teeth (yup, she had her first official dental cleaning this week which has led to a lot of questions!!!). Since we've been looking back at old pictures I thought it would be fun to start my own flashback friday.

A Big Day!

Whew, what a night! Joe and I stayed up way too late watching the election returns, with glee. This morning, Laina asked me who won and I was very happy to be able to tell her that yes, Barack Obama is our new President. I know she doesn't quite get it yet - but its never too early to begin talking about it. I'm so elated that during the very first Presidential election of little Laina's life, we elected a Black President. Powerful stuff!

Here's a picture of Laina checking in on the election returns - - - OK, just kidding...she's really just practicing typing letters on my laptop!

What A Glorious Day!

It's 60~plus degrees today AND we get to elect a new President!!! Does it get any better? I don't know about everyone else but I'm feeling pretty happy today! Laina went with me to vote today. I've been explaining the election to her as best as I could, on her level. This morning I showed her on the news where they were showing Barack Obama going to the polls to vote today and I showed her Michelle Obama and their two little girls and I told her that she was going to go vote with me just like Obama's little girls had gone with him. Later during the day in the car Laina asked me if we were going to see Obama's daughters when we vote. I thought that was pretty good logic. I love that it's Laina's first Presidential election. It's very exciting stuff. She keeps telling daddy that I'm an Obama Mama. I brought her into the voting booth with me and showed her how you vote and she helped me pick which people to vote for (ok, just kidding). She told me on the ride home that she hopes Obama wins first. I said me too, Boo...me too!

Here is Laina right after we voted sporting her "I voted today" sticker.


And just in case you didn't see Google's homepage today - I had to post this. LOVE IT!

Our voting location happens to be at a school so Laina lucked out with the beautiful weather and got to enjoy some playground time. She's so independent on the playground equipment now. Where I used to worry she would take a false step and land on her head, I now just sit back and enjoy the fun!

I love this shot. This particular playground has the crazyest slides. Its hard to tell from the pictures, but they are super steep slides. This shot is only blurry because she's ZOOOOOOMING down the slide!



If you haven't voted yet....get out there and DO IT! It's too important not to! Go Obama!

Laina Dances to "Little Boxes"

One of our all time favorite children's singers is Laurie Berkner (thanks Karla!!!). We own quite a few of her CD's and listen to them all the time. Well one day last year, Joe and I were watching the show, Weeds on Showtime, which is an adult show about a stay at home mom/drug dealer. Last season, every week they would have a different artist sing the opening theme song, "Little Boxes" so this one day the theme song begins and Joe and I look at each other and say "is that Laurie Berkner singing???" It was so funny to us that this wholesome children's singer was singing the theme song to Weeds. So, of course I had to download it off of itunes and its become one of our favorite songs. Laina loves dancing to it and asks to hear "Boxes" all the time. At the very end of the video you can hear her say "can you put" and what she's asking is "can you put Boxes on again".

Here are Joe and Laina dancing to "Little Boxes". Laina is a fabulous little dancer - - and Joe's pretty darned sassy too! Enjoy!

More Fun With Photoshop!