{catching up}

Wow. Sorry it's been so long since I've posted, but we've been busy as usual. Here are the highlights from Thanksgiving....

The whole gang was here and everyone helped out with dinner. Aunt Debbie made a yummy pecan pie (big Gerard's annual request) and Grandma made her mushroom and barley risotto. Grandpa helped Gerard make his turkey cookies (and sample a few candy corns in the process).




And as usual, we all might as well have been invisible to Gerard once Grandpa arrived. Now don't get me wrong, he loves spending time with Grandma and Aunt Debbie (and with Mommy and Daddy, to a lesser extent) but there's just something about Grandpa. Perhaps it's that Grandpa wrestles with Gerard. Or plays ANYTHING he wants. Or plays ball in the house even though Mommy says not to. Whatever the reason, Gerard just LOVES Grandpa.




Here are some other pictures from Thanksgiving:








And since Hanukkah starts tomorrow night, we've been playing Dreidel and tomorrow we're going to make latkes with Ami G's secret family recipe (don't worry, I'll never tell!!!) I'll take some pictures and post them when I can.

That's about it for tonight. I'm tired....

{a quick post}

Just a quick post to say hello. We're having fun with Aunt Debbie and she's helping out a lot. Gerard barely lets her sit down before asking her to play something else with him. It's so cute. Tomorrow she's going to watch both kids while I get my hair cut in the morning. Good luck, Aunt Debbie!

Anyway, here are some pictures....

Some outtakes from our holiday card photo shoot:


Morgan sleeping on her tummy for the first time last night:


Another quick living room photo shoot:

That's about it for now. Have a happy Thanksgiving!

{life goes on}

Thanksgiving is coming up and despite Grandpa's death, we still have much to be thankful for....

I made the turkey and Gerard did the feathers. All of a sudden he said to me, "I want to use lowercase letters." And he did! And only the "a" in Morgan was backwards (that's the brown feather on the right that you can't really see in the picture). I was shocked! He must really be learning at preschool, because I haven't practiced any lowercase letters with him.


Speaking of school, here are some of Gerard's latest masterpieces:

This Indian corn was made by tracing his hand. Isn't it cute?

Morgan is eating better. She's polishing off her mushed up carrots like a pro, and is only slightly less enthusiastic about mushed up peas. I'm actually enjoying making her baby food instead of buying Gerber. It's fun and not really much work at all. And since she seems to be so picky, I can adjust the texture and consistency to just how she likes it.

She's also sleeping a little better. We've got to work on getting her to soothe herself back to sleep when she wakes up, but other than that she seems to be getting the hang of it. I went in to check on her yesterday during a long nap, and she had her little foot propped up on the rails of her crib:




And Big Gerard discovered the greatest Hanukkah book! It's Lemony Snicket's The Latke Who Wouldn't Stop Screaming; a Christmas Story.

It's actually quite funny and very appropriate since the story starts at the only house "...not decorated with flashing colored lights at this time of year." That's us!!!


Gerard is becoming quite the little artist. Here is a self-portrait. That large "thing" under his face is his chin and that little "thing" on his chin is his "bump". He has a little birthmark that he calls "his bump". Sometimes he seems really aware that it's there and picks at it, and other times he'll forget all about it. It must've been on his mind when he made this picture of himself. (And just as a reference point, here's a picture of "his bump".)




Darci found a really cute idea for Thanksgiving cookies so Gerard and I tried them out yesterday. We used Pillsbury Ready-to-bake sugar cookies and store bought frosting so these were really fun and easy. Gerard is going to make them for Thanksgiving dinner.





And finally, Aunt Debbie is coming today for a whole week!!! YAY!!! We're all very excited.

In case I don't have time to post again while Debbie is here, I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving!

{thank you}

Thank you to everyone for all the kind words. Grandpa would have been 92 on Friday. I imagine he's somewhere taking long walks and speaking in long fluent sentences. He hasn't been able to do either of those things in quite a while and I know he missed them both....

{a tribute}

{rome wasn't built in a day}

...and it is taking just as long for Morgan to learn how to eat solid foods, but she IS making progress. The other day I cooked up some carrots and mashed them up with a potato masher. She seemed to want the carrots since she willingly opened her mouth for more, but I thought most (or all) of it ended up dribbled down her chin. Well wasn't I pleasantly surprised the next day to see carrots in her poop! (I know, it's not often you hear of someone excited about the contents of someone else's poop, but this was exciting!) So, since she obviously ate at least some of the carrots, I gave it a try again. And again she seemed to like them. So today I cooked up some peas and mashed those. She seems to like food with a bit of texture. My guess is that we skipped over the pureed stage and moved right on over to the finger food stage. I'm not complaining! I'll let you all know if I see peas in her diaper tomorrow!!!

I also took a few random pictures of the kids today. Morgan wore her "pants with attached socks", better known as tights, again today. Doesn't she look like a little princess?

{the portrait series}

Here's some of Gerard's latest artwork. I like to call it his portrait series:



I'm not quite sure why I have such mean-looking teeth, but I figure it can't be that bad since he gave himself the same smile. And that is an accurate representation of my hair lately. So unfortunate....


And at the risk of being too excited too soon, guess what Morgan ate today? My little girl who refuses to eat baby food ate APPLE. Not baby food. Not applesauce. Pieces of an apple. Little Gerard and I were sharing one after dinner and she was really eyeing it, so I put it up to her mouth and she actually tasted it. She tried to eat it, so I broke off a tiny piece, put it on my finger, and she opened her mouth, moved toward it, and ate it. Chewed it and everything. Swallowed, even. She had several pieces! Then she wanted to hold the apple. That made me nervous since larger pieces could break off, but I let her do it for a while. YAY, MORGAN!!!!!







And finally, big Gerard saw the surgeon today who said that everything looks good. His wounds are healing nicely and he can go back to work (light duty only) next week. Little Gerard was really hoping that he'd be able to wrestle with Daddy starting tomorrow, but I guess that will have to wait. According to the doctor that might have to wait another 4 weeks. Yikes. I'm going to have to start wrestling with him!

Well that about wraps things up here. Keep your fingers crossed that the apple thing wasn't just a fluke. I'll let you know how it goes tomorrow!