The First Night of Hanukkah

Hanukkah seemed to come around fast this year. We decided to break in the holiday in traditional style with menorahs, gifts, and a game of dreidel. Livia helped us light the menorah and say the holiday prayer.


At Sharyn's request I bought some potato latkes from Whole Foods so that we could give some to Livia this year. Unfortunately, the latkes were passed down the food chain from parent, to child, to dog. After devouring the latke Cassidy was in especially good spirits because she also got a gourmet dog treat for the holiday.


Finally, we topped everything off with a game of dreidel. This may go down in the books as the most unsuccessful game of dreidel ever. In fact I think someone needs to write a new Hannukah song about playing dreidel with your dog....

Thanksgiving in New York

These Thanksgiving photos are a little overdue, but just in time for Hanukah. We had a nice weekend visiting family in New York. We arrived on Thanksgiving day and spent the day at Grandma Marilyn and Grandpa David's house, with lots of cousins. Livia had her first meal on a tablecloth and spent most of the meal playing peek-a-boo by pulling the end of the tablecloth over her head. She thought it was hilarious and the rest of us did too. She actually stayed at the table, content, for about 45 minutes, which is a record I think. As Aunt Michelle would say, the experience was actually not totally unpleasant -- which can be unusual for big meals with Livia, so we were pretty happy. Livia LOVED Grandma Marilyn's turkey and ate a ton of it throughout the weekend.


The female cousins: Lauren, Sharyn, Livia, Maddie, Dani, Jacklyn, Jordana, Jillian


Dan and I are actually able to eat


Jacklyn reads to Livia


Lauren reads to Livia

On Black Friday we went to the Long Island Children's Museum. Livia loved exploring everything and she especially loved the life-sized lava lamp.

On Saturday we went into the city to the Children's Museum of New York, where we met Grandma Marilyn and Grandpa Howie. We stayed almost 2 hours while Livia explored everything. There was so much to see!

Livia loved the life-sized Lite Brite. She took out every single piece and stacked it upright. Here she actually managed to stack two pieces on top of each other while upright.

The mail truck was fun too

Some of these photo credits actually belong to Howie and to Amy Temares. Thanks for sharing! We had a great weekend!

Dan's nightmare

I have to admit, I am drawn to those ridiculous shows on Discovery Health where people unexpectedly have quintuplets or sextuplets. Dan hates these programs and cannot imagine being in that situation. When we were at the Long Island Children's Museum a couple of weeks ago, we got a brief glimpse of what it would be like to have 5 Livias.

Who needs toys?

Now that she is walking, Livia's favorite activity is wandering around the house and getting into EVERYTHING. She has little interest for being in the playroom with her toys. She is actually very adept at navigating the stairs-- going up and also turning herself around to go down on her own -- I think she climbs the equivalent of half a mountain every day. She loves to dump the clothes out of the dresser in her room, or to open two drawers at a time and transfer each piece of clothing from one to the other. Dan ended up putting locks on the tupperware/cup cabinet after the above incident. I wasn't too upset about it though because in the process of dumping everything out, Livia discovered a few of my favorite cups that I didn't realize we still had.

I know we are overdue for posting Thanksgiving photos-- but I need to gather some from a few different people and I haven't had a chance to do it yet. So stay tuned for Thanksgiving in New York!

All the World's a Stage...

One of Livia's favorite things to do is watch either Sharyn or me play with Cassidy in the backyard. The window in Livia's playroom (what used to be a dining room) provides an unobstructed view of the right half of our backyard. Livia will wait anxiously at the windowsill and as Cassidy comes bounding into sight Livia will burst into laughter or scream "Go, Go, Go". To really get Livia laughing though, you can play hide or seek with her by ducking under the window and then coming up again in another spot within the window's view. Cassidy even gets in on the act sometimes by barking and jumping at the window. To Livia, I believe, all the world's truly a stage, and all the men, women and dogs merely players. This clip gives a short taste of what it sounds like to sit with Livia at the windowsill while Sharyn and Cassidy play the part of actors in the looking glass.

Walking!

No new photos, but an exciting week

It's been a very exciting week. Grandma Marilyn and Grandpa David arrived last Monday night, just as Livia was going to bed. She was excited to greet them at the front door until Cassidy knocked her over (Cassidy just could not contain her own excitement, which is about 10 times greater than any human is capable of) so once again, Livia started screaming as they walked in the door. Oh well-- she was content for the rest of the visit though. Dan woke up in the middle of the night and realized that we had no power-- he woke me up to tell me this, and we soon realized that we had no internet or phone either. This seemed suspicious to me because we have never lost power in this house, even with many crazy wind and rainstorms, and it was barely even drizzling. I started to get really worried about some sort of Election Day conspiracy to prevent people from voting, so we were relieved to learn that it was only a very local problem. Dan even went to the two local polling places to see if they had lost power and needed help. Our power came back on at 10am, but the day's excitement didn't end there. We went to the Museum of Life and Science, where Grandma and Grandpa got to see Livia play and climb a lot. Later that afternoon we went to Gymboree, where Livia displayed her playing and climbing skills once more. Grandma was so busy taking pictures that I didn't get any of my own. But Livia slept through the most exciting part of the day-- the election returns! Not only did Obama win in a clear race, but he even carried North Carolina, which was pretty exciting over here. At the end of the week (Saturday), we met up with Steven and Dani Temares, who were in Raleigh for a travelling soccer tournament. Livia got to watch her first soccer game, and she even got to kick (and mouth) the ball at the end of the game. She spent the entire two hours walking the sidelines while holding only one of our hands (previously she needed to hold two hands). She is much steadier than she was even a few days ago, so we think she will probably start to walk in the next couple of weeks. We are both excited and nervous for this to happen. The anticipation has Cassidy going through a "stress shed" (if I was posting photos now, you would see a clump of dog hair).

Happy Halloween!

We carved the pumpkins earlier this week. One of them is my style and the other is more typical of Dan. Can anyone guess? (Hint: this is actually a trick question).

On Halloween morning, Livia wore her special bib, which was part of her birthday gift from Abby. It was a great way to start the day.

I took Livia to the Museum of Life and Science. It had nothing to do with Halloween, but there's not much going on most Friday mornings, so it seemed like a good place to go. We recently became members there-- it's a great museum with lots of cool exhibits and a mini zoo outside, but Livia's favorite part is the baby play area. She especially loves the tunnel and slide.

Halloween eve was very non-eventful for Livia. She started getting really really tired around 6:15 pm. We tried to take her to our next door neighbors' house, but they weren't home yet. So Livia went to bed just before 7pm and didn't even see any trick-or-treaters. Cassidy, on the other hand, saw all 120 trick-or-treaters that came to our house. Cassidy dressed up as a dog with devil ears and a vampire cape. Her cape actually looked just like the one that Alexey wore.

Here Cassidy is enjoying her special Halloween treat.

Livia did wear the costume briefly before going to bed. The only thing she wanted to do in it was to chew on a spoon from her kitchen set.

I tried to get a photo of Livia and Cassidy together but this was the best I could do.

Dan and I always argue about getting enough food (for Halloween and also for parties, etc). I insist we have enough, Dan worries that we don't, and usually we compromise and get a little more and end up with way too much. This year I was insistent that the 6 bags of candy and 50 frosty certificates would be enough. Our first trick-or-treaters came at 7pm, but we literally had 100 people come over the next 40 minutes. Dan raced to get more candy as we were running low, and I literally ran out of candy and shut the lights for a few minutes. Then he got back with 5 more bags, and we only had about another 20 kids come over the next 45 minutes. I will admit that I was wrong this year-- oh well. But we still ended up with lots of leftover candy that I didn't want around, as usual. This is what everyone saw as they came to the door. I was waiting on the steps, and I stepped outside to hand out the candy so that Cassidy wouldn't jump on anyone and Livia wouldn't wake up. Cassidy only made 1 little girl scream. All the kids liked Cassidy's costume. Livia slept through the entire thing.

Yesterday we went to my friend Sherri's house for the Horizon baby/toddler Halloween party. There are 5 people in my 20-person office who had babies in 2007, so there are lots of kids around the same age as Livia (ranging from 10-18 months). Unfortunately my camera ran out of memory so I could only get a couple of shots. Livia did wear her cow costume and I dressed up as milk. We all had a great time and Sherri, Mark, and Caitlyn were wonderful hosts as always. Here we have the Taylor family (Kevin, Melanie, and Malachi the dragon).

And here is Mellisa with Maya the duck

And the answer to the pumpkin carving question (if anyone really cares) is that Dan actually did both of them, but the simple face is definitely much more my style, as I would never have the patience to research pumpkin designs, print out a pattern, and spend 2 hours (with some frustration and swearing) trying to get it just right. But I have to say that it's the most beautiful musical pumpkin that I have ever seen.

Unintended consequences...

This past weekend we hired someone to move the piano from the playroom to the living room. Livia had been banging toys on it and throwing things, so we were concerned that it was only a matter of time before it would be ruined. We had to rearrange the living room a little to fit the piano against the left wall. This required moving the couches back a little. It didn't seem like a big deal at the time, but I forgot that one of Cassidy's favorite spots was the carpet behind the big couch. Yesterday I walked into the room to this sight. Now Cassidy can no longer stretch out unless she can tolerate her paws touching the wood floor. Poor Cassidy-- Livia didn't even mean to torment her with this one. I felt so bad for Cassidy that I took Livia to a specialty pet store this morning so that we could buy a Halloween cookie for Cassidy after all. We still have a lot of love and respect for Cassidy here.

Fall Fun

In our typical last minute fashion, we decided to go get pumpkins yesterday. We bought a big pumpkin and a little pumpkin, and we received a big watermelon for free. Here is the obligatory photo of Livia with the pumpkins and hay. We plan to carve the pumpkins-- hopefully we will get to it before Friday.


Last month we went on a farm tour up in Creedmoor. I never posted those photos but they fit well with this theme, so I will include them now.


Livia got to see some pigs for the first time


She also got to ride on a tractor

She loves to swing very high and fast

In the spirit of getting ready for Halloween, we wanted to remind Livia and Cassidy of how they spent the holiday last year. Livia was too small for a costume at only 6.5 pounds, but she did wear this very large (size 0-3 mo) onesie. We actually still have this chair -- yesterday Livia was climbing on it to try to pull the books off the top of the bookshelf after she succeeded in dumping out all the books on the bottom shelf.

Cassidy enjoyed this very special cookie from Kate last year. She better hold on to this memory because unfortunately for her, making a trip to a doggie bakery is not at the top of my urgent things to do list for the next few days. Sorry Cassidy, but we will make sure you have some other special treats -- and I'm sure Livia will feed you something yummy from her highchair.

Tonight we decided to try on Livia's cow costume. At least if she refuses to wear it on Friday for trick-or-treaters to see or on Saturday for the baby Halloween party, we will have these photos.

This is what a cow climbing the stairs looks like, in case you were wondering...

Walking... with some help

Just wanted to give you a sense of what Livia is like as a one-year-old. She is getting closer to trying to walk, though she still needs a little help.... but today she figured out how to use the push toy to get where she wanted (thanks, Grandma Mari and Grandpa Howie!).

Livia's 1st Birthday!

Livia turned one on Thursday! At the request of Grandma Mari, I documented Livia's birthday and am including a timely post. First, Dan and I rushed into her room when she woke up and sang Happy Birthday to her in the crib. (We did not record this part -- I have a new policy of not singing in front of anyone else after an embarrassing family incident a few years ago.) Livia came downstairs to a balloon on her highchair. She quickly figured out how to pull the string down so that she could reach the balloon part, and she enjoyed playing with it.


Next, we went into the playroom, where her gift from Dan and I was waiting. It was the Fisher Price Laugh and Learn Kitchen. The gift was a big hit!




When Livia got bored and went on a journey into the living room, we read one of her new books, "Where is Baby's Birthday Cake?" Then she decided that she would rather look at it herself.

Cassidy came down for a dance party.

After a quick nap, we headed out to Gymboree. We are taking a class there and Livia LOVES climbing on everything.

She also likes playing with the balls and scarves, though she can get very intense about it.

Next, we met Daddy for lunch at George's Garage. We used to meet Dan at this restaurant when Livia was a newborn and would sometimes sleep in her carseat carrier (though other times she would scream through lunch). Now she is a big girl-- she sat in the highchair and fed herself cheese and melon.

We went home for another quick nap, then Isla came over for a playdate. Livia received lots of birthday phone calls from family and friends. She especially enjoyed the birthday wishes from Bat, Blankie, and the rest of Gabriella's toys who all had their own separate birthday greetings. It turns out that Blankie has the same birthday as Livia, so we want to wish it a Happy Birthday as well. All in all, it was a great day!

This afternoon (Saturday) we celebrated Livia's birthday with some of her playgroup and the Book Group babies/toddlers (most of my book group was pregnant at the same time so we have kids roughly around the same age). We had 7 babies/toddlers over, along with their mommies and some daddies. It was the most people that we have had in the house at one time since Livia was born. Cassidy had her own party at Camp Bow Wow -- she may be able to handle Livia, but we thought that 8!?! babies would put her over the edge. It took Livia about a half hour to warm up to everyone, but then she did great! She was happy to share her toys with everyone.

Some of the babies got along especially well. We may have some really early matchmaking going on. Abby and Ben really enjoyed playing with Livia's new kitchen toy.

Jake and Isla preferred the Infant to Toddler Rocker. That's not the only thing they have in common-- they are both due to receive younger siblings on February 25!

Sam, the youngest of the group at 7.5 months, took it all in from Amy's lap.

Livia told Sam that he had a phone call from Obama's campaign. Sam didn't want to take the call because he already is in contact with Obama on a regular basis (Sam's daddy took a leave of absence from his job to work for Obama's campaign, so he wasn't able to attend the party).

Callie was in deep thought about something. Maybe her own birthday, which is coming up in a little over a week.

A family photo of Paul, Rachael, Jake, and baby #2 to be

Time for cake! Kaden, the big kid of the group at just over 2, was excited for this part. Livia did really well-- she didn't even cry when everyone sang!

A family shot

Livia went right to work on eating her cupcake. No lesson needed, and none saved for Cassidy. She devoured the whole cupcake in about 2 minutes flat.

All the cake and attention was very tiring.

After everyone left, we ended the night with a bath (though Livia was surprisingly clean after eating the cupcake without a bib-- it made me realize that she really can get all the food in her mouth when she wants to). With all the excitement of the party, Livia forgot that she needed to poop. She started to go in the tub, but I scooped her up and sat her on the toilet right in time. It was a perfect end to the day.