Thursday, December 31, 2009

Nora Dancing

One last post for 2009 to give our baby girl the spotlight. We haven't yet captured her rolling over on film, but here's a cute movie of Nora 'dancing'.

Christmas 2009 in MD

We finally reached the end of our Christmases with our Christmas gathering at Mom Mom and Grandpa Don's house on the 30th. It was Aunt Katherine's dream Christmas, she always wants to delay opening presents as long as possible, and this year the lateness of opening presents was beyond her wildest dreams. Not only did we wait till the 30th to celebrate Christmas on this side of the family, we didn't actually open any presents until after dinner. Despite the delayed presents, it was a lovely Christmas. Katherine and Lee were in town, Jen came with her friend Brian, Jeff made it (although Krysta was feeling sick), and Joe came over (but Holly was back in Texas). Nancy and Danny were out of town, but Christoper was there to represent the Smiths. All and all it was lovely Christmas.

(click here to see all the pictures)

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Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Chistmas 2009 in Iowa

IMG_8364.JPG At 8:50 on Christmas morning, Owen awoke, walked past the stockings and tree to his grandparent's kitchen and demanded a bowl of cereal. He promptly ate 2 spoonfuls of Cheerios and then declared he was going back to sleep, which he did, until 11:30. After another trip to the kitchen for some more cereal, he finally declared he was ready to open presents shortly before noon. 


It was actually pretty appropriate given the holiday has largely been a series of fits and starts. The weather meant that Cousin Caitlin (along with Uncle John and Paxton) had to come down Monday rather than Thursday in order to meet her god-daughter but that Auntie Ellen had to work. It meant that Uncle Bernie couldn't come at all. And it meant that Grandma Z's Christmas dinner for 18 was more of a Yuletide lunch for 8. 

But eventually gifts were opened, candy eaten, and visiting done including a playdate with second cousins Ethan, Simon and Grace. Owen and Nora got a lot of extra time with Uncle Dave and Aunt Kara and eventually Uncle Steve and Aunt Becky made it along with cousins Olivia, Maura & Sam.

X-Mas 2009 

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(click here to see all the pictures)

Sunday, December 27, 2009

Sledding in Iowa

Our original travel plans this year were drive from DC to Katherine and Lee's house in Cleveland on Saturday December 19, and to drive on to Iowa the next day. However, on Friday morning we woke up to a forecast that called for up to two feet of snow to fall in DC starting that night, so we amended our plans, quickly packed the car, and hit the road on Friday afternoon to beat the snow. While this was clearly the right decision from a travel perspective, it saddened us (well Allen and Owen at least) to miss the blizzard '09. According to our neighbors (who thought they were getting a great deal when we told them they could use our house for their family who were coming into town, but ended up having an extra house to shovel out) 18" of snow fell in our neighborhood. It surely would have been great fun to play with Owen in the deep deep snow, but as a consolation prize, we did get about six inches of snow in Iowa, and went sledding at the pond with cousin Kent, and later in Iowa City with Olivia, Maura, and Sam. All and all, Owen's first real sledding adventure was a big success.


Sledding in Iowa 2009

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Christmas Miracles

It was a momentous day: Nora rolled over for the first time and Owen had his first concert. Guess which one was captured on film (although in our defense, Owen's was scheduled weeks ago whereas Nora's was spur of the moment)?


Holiday Concert 2009 

Classroom 9 sang, "Jingle Bells," "Happy Kwanza," and "Spin the Dreidel." It was short and sweet, and I'm sure there will be many more to come, but this first concert of his was pretty cute. IMG_8203.JPG

Friday, December 11, 2009

1000! & the Potty Train

We just changed Nora's 1,000th diaper! She reached 1,000 diapers a full 45 days faster than her big brother. Supposedly girls potty train earlier than boys, so Nora might still have a chance of staying under Owen's lifetime total. Speaking of which, Owen is over 7,000 diapers now (7,386 to be exact), but I don't think he'll reach 8,000. He likes to say that he's, "on the potty train," and he really is doing a great job with what we like to think is the more critical half of the engine. In the last 48 days he has only had 4 accidents pooping in his pull-up! He is quite proud to tell us that, "we don't poop in our pull-ups, we only poops in the potty." On the other hand, he also likes to say, "we can pee in our pull-ups, or in the potty." With the drive to Iowa and back coming up later this month, we're not in a huge rush to get him out of his pull-ups, but after we're back, it'll be time for the potty train to really leave the station.

Owen Diapers 10-24-09 - 12-11-09

Wednesday, December 09, 2009

Trains & Trees

trains 


We made our annual trip to the U.S. Botanic Garden on Sunday to see the Holiday Trains, and I have a feeling Owen is going to be watching this movie a lot in the next few months ;-) If a trip to see the trains wasn't enough, we also met up with the Brad & Marlo and Andrew & Claire and their families for the Christmas tree lighting in the Brown's neighborhood. It was a bit too dark for pictures (at least with tired kids on our shoulders), but the tree was beautiful and the cookies were delicious. Not bad for a cold December day. 

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