bathroom pics

One of the things I love about our new place is all the windows. We get a lot of great light. The brightest room by far is our upstairs bathroom, it's very white and just gets direct sun most of the day. I've wanted to do a little photo shoot with Abs for a long time up there - but we've not had a lot of sunny days lately.

But, today we did, and I wasn't at work, so I plopped Abby on some towels and spent the next half hour clicking away. I love how a lot of these turned out. I took about 140 pics and cut them down to 13 for ya. Enjoy!

if you look closely, you can see her tuft of hair sticking up in the back.

she was just happy - just flapping her arms up and down for fun.

So I don't love the way this picture turned out exactly - but I HAD to include it because Abby makes this face ALL the time. She does this thing when she's crawling to you - she closes her eyes like that and makes noises like "bababa" or "phhffph" and sometimes she shakes her head back and forth like Stevie Wonder. It cracks us up.

Also - something I've never publicly acknowledged - but you can see Abby's trademark lip curl loud and clear here. She's always done that - since day one.

mommy AND baby under the towel - how silly!

I love this one - lip curl, teeth, baby blues, and peach fuzz - this is totally my baby.

another favorite of mine. nothing makes her instantly happy faster than peek-a-boo.

yeah, she's under there.

love her. :)

Thanksgiving

Blogging comes in phases, and I suppose when I have a vacation - I tend to spend my days doing other things like...well, I dunno, but I'm sure I've been doing something over the last several days.

Thanksgiving was nice. I, of course, watched the Macy's parade like I do every year and teared up about 100 different times between nostalgia and hallmark/folgers/whatever else commercials. I spent the morning making the yummy "Shachmut Salad" for that evening's meal. We were lucky enough to be adopted by some co-workers of mine. We drove down to Margaret's lovely home where we enjoyed the afternoon and evening with her and her husband and her daughter, Jenn and her mom, Pam and her 3 year old daughter Grace, and another teacher - Jeanine and her husband.

For the first time in a looong time, Abby didn't take her afternoon nap. We had to leave before she had a chance to fall asleep, so we were hoping she'd fall asleep in the car. But there was NO traffic and we got there pretty quick. We were the first ones there, so we let Abs explore for a while. Margaret had bought her a cool singing/dancing caterpillar toy that she really enjoyed (they spoil her up here too!). So after we got settled, we set up Abs' pack-n-play and put her to nap. Oh was she ever mad. She was spittin' mad. Luckily, Margaret's house is large enough that the chatter and activity drowned out most of Abby's screaming. About 20 mins later her screams of pure rage turned to cries of depression, and about 10 mins later she was asleep.

It worked out well, actually, since Kyle and I were able to enjoy dinner while Abby slept. Everything was delicious of course. Abs woke up towards the end of the meal and I brought her down. She had a few mashed potatoes and some dressing - but she really loved the sweet potato casserole...how could she not? It's like pure sugar.

After dinner, Abs spent the next few hours chasing the 3-year old Grace around the house. Grace made about 10 laps for every one of Abby's but they seemed to enjoy each other. Kyle and I enjoyed talking with everyone and the lovely company. We stayed for dessert and to chat a little longer, but soon we decided we had to get Abby back to bed.

I have a lot to be thankful for - but I was especially thankful for the opportunity to spend Thanksgiving with such lovely people when our family is so far away...and for the chance to give Abby a "real" Thanksgiving day.

Abby & Margaret

Margaret & Jenn

exploring Abby

after dinner daddy time

isn't it a lovely table?

The Brighton High gang

stray thoughts

1. I don't know why I always try to get sick before the holidays. I can tell I have a fever today - not enough to worry about - but enough of one to make me feel icky and tired.

2. I can't wait for Thanksgiving break - only a day and a half away.

3. Several of the babies from my birth board are turning one this week - and so the rest of us are soon to follow. I get really happy when one of the other babies reaches that milestone - and it also makes me panic a little bit.

4. I finally made invitations for Abby's party - I'm really hoping that they print well.

5. I had chocolate chip cookies for dinner last night. fail.

6. I'm secretly happy that the psych office asked me to turn some of my referrals back in because I "have way too many" I could have done them all - but it will be a big relief to have some of them taken off my plate.

7. I'm thankful that I have a job.

8. Working full time and going to school full time is hard (been there) and it's hard on Kyle too. I appreciate the sacrifices he makes for us - but sometimes I wish we could afford for him to work less - or not at all.

9. Abby makes me smile everyday.

10. My throat hurts and my head is hot. Ugh.

11. I gave in last night and turned on Christmas music. I didn't feel well, so I took a nap on the couch after Abby went to bed with the music playing. It was one of the most relaxing naps I've had in a long time. I think Christmas music is great.

12. Wouldn't it be nice if plane tickets were free for everybody?

13. Abby really likes her nanny, and we do too.

14. I would give just about anything to go home right now and put on my comfy PJs and crawl back in bed.

15. I'm looking forward to Thanksgiving - we're spending it with several of my co-workers and I think it will be really nice.

16. Ok, that's all the time I can spare right now. Off to the next meeting. Have a great Tuesday everyone.

Kyra in Boston

Disclaimer: There are a TON of pictures with this post. If you don't have high speed internet, just open the page, go eat lunch - like go leave the house and come back in a few hours. If they're still not loaded - just go to bed and check again in the morning. ;o)

So, as mentioned previously, Kyle's twin sister, Kyra has spent the week with us. That in itself is great - add to that all the fun we've had, and it's been a super week! She's had the "luxury" of working from home this week, so Monday through Friday were still pretty busy for Auntie Kyra and she had lots of work to do. She helped us out by agreeing to babysit Abby a few days too - so getting work done was extra hard.

But finally, it was the weekend. :)

On Friday, she and Kyle and I all headed downtown to take Kyra to her first Broadway show, Avenue Q. Kyle and I saw the show last time it came to town and just loved it. It's the funniest thing you'll ever see. Seriously. So, we were all very much looking forward to it. We had Beckah (Abby's nanny) come over for the evening and off we went.

We thought the show started at 7 - but when we got there we noticed it was pretty empty. Turns out, it started at 8 - so we took the extra hour to grab a drink before the show together. We eventually made our way back to the theater and entirely enjoyed the next few hours of puppetry. If you ever get a chance to go see the show - you really should. We've all had the songs stuck in our head since. :)

inside the theater

waiting on a train after the show

twins are silly!

On Saturday, I let the twins sleep in and we had a late breakfast before heading out to the city. Kyra had already seen the freedom trail, so we opted to walk through the gardens and then along the Charles. I had a blast because I had all new stuff to take pictures of. :) We enjoyed the nice weather, the city scenery and the river. We let Abs play at a playground for a while before we made our way through the North End and found a tiny little Italian pizza place. So. Yummy!

It was a really fun day. Here are a few of the pics from our time around the city.

a rare family shot :)

we found this big pile of leaves and decided to let Abby play in it so we could take pics. As soon as she sat down, she started sorting the leaves and placing them in piles of her own. She was so preoccupied with her task that it was really really hard to get her to look up at us. This is as close as I could get.

some graffiti on the side of the Celtics mural building. I thought it looked cool...not that I'm endorsing vandalism. You shouldn't do it..but if you do - make it colorful.

Abby on the Charles

another random shot. X marks the spot?

Shachmuts!

These mirrors were on sale for enough money that we didn't trust Abby to her own devices - but she had fun looking at herself for a while anyway.

she'll do anything Auntie Kiki does. :)

Abby with Daddy in the Public Gardens

We stopped by the Make Way for Ducklings statues - but there were tons of kids taking pictures. So we just let Abby take this and a few other shots before we moved on. She wasn't in the mood - can you tell? The last time we were here she was 3 months old...

...and she wasn't in the mood then either. Some difference, huh?

If this picture doesn't convey just how beautiful of a day it was - I've got nothing else for you. Simply gorgeous.

and of course - my beautiful baby with her baby blues. I'm 100% in love with this face.

And that was Saturday!

We've had a pretty lazy Sunday. Mostly housework and groceries and such. Lazy - but still great. You'll be happy to know that I didn't find laundry or sweeping picture worthy. :) The weekend as a whole was a really good combination of activity and rest. I've enjoyed every second of it.

If you've finished this post - congrats. You can go to bed now. Have a great evening!

porch photo shoot

I have so many pictures from the last few days that I'm going to have to break this up into a few different posts I believe.

We've had some unseasonably warm weather lately. I think on Friday, it was in the 60s. So, we took advantage of the sun and warmth and had a little photo shoot outside. I love her little blue headband - and she wore it all weekend long. So here are a few of the, once again, hundreds of shots we took. It's hard picking what to show here - but these were certainly some of my favorite ones.

I can't believe this is my little girl. I'm so lucky to be her mom. :) Enjoy the pictures!

this is probably my favorite of the bunch

sit up straight

somebody wasn't thrilled about wearing her coat when it was so warm outside...

she thought the rocking chair was pretty cool

always interested in the camera

1...

2...

3...

4! :)

playing drums on the chair

teaching Tilly

before we went outside, we had some wii time. :)