Nola’s “new” china cabinet

04Feb09

Danny and Linda got here last week with a truck load of stuff, including this beautiful kid’s china cabinet that my great grandfather made in 1953 for my mother. Now three generations have played with it! Mama Lisa also sent some of the dishes that both she and I played with. In one of the drawers I also found one of my old smurf figurines. I think it might be brainy smurf, but I’m not sure. Do you think that means Nola will be brainy? She also sent a market basket full of plastic fruit, and a “Disney Princess” tea set. Nola has loved playing with all of this; she especially loves the plates and the broccoli for some reason.

And this one’s for you, Mama Lisa. The light is not good at all, so normally I wouldn’t post it, but since you’ve been so anxious to see pictures I’ll put up this video:

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Daddy Time

12Jan09

Snuggle time

Dru’s been off work now for a few weeks and Nola and I have both been grateful to have some time with him. Unfortunately his back acted up again, so he’s spent a fair amount of time laying on the couch (he doesn’t mind so much when he’s not in pain). As you can see, Nola’s made the best of this. She especially likes to lay down with Daddy and watch Sesame Street. She’s also taken to airplanes; everytime she hears one she says, “airplane!” and looks out the window (sometimes she hears them before we do). Dru found a show on the Discovery Channel all about the Blue Angels. Lately they’ve added that to their schedule; she loves it.

She’s also been enjoying her new chair that she got for Christmas from Mama Lisa and Papa Larry:

Learning to play the guitar with a ukelele

You know I'm going to take your money someday...

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Family Concert

31Dec08

Well, we’ve started a family band.

No, I’m just kidding; don’t get all excited. We have started getting Nola to sing though. She really likes it; she’s gotten pretty good at attempting the ABC song, but her fave is “Sing” from Sesame Street (of course). I haven’t captured the ABC song on video yet, but the other day she did decide to perform “Sing” for y’all. In order to jog your memory here’s a clip of the original…it also includes Luis singing in Spanish, which is really cool (Nola can’t sing it in Spanish yet):

Before you click “play” I just want to say ahead of time that I never said I was a singer!

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The Sesame Street Dance

28Dec08

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White Christmas

20Dec08

I heard it snowed in Mississippi last week. I was so happy for all of you down south, getting to see the beautiful fluffy snow, and then getting to watch it slowly melt away. Isn’t that nice?

Well, it doesn’t happen that way here in Massachusetts. No, it doesn’t just melt and let you go on your way. Instead, we have to dig our way out of it. Luckily we now have a third member of the family to help us do this hard work (and believe me, it is hard work!). Dru started Nola’s training session today:

You can see in these pictures that she was not very happy to be out in the snow, and was very happy once she got back inside with her crayons and saltines. To her credit, it was something like 15 degrees outside. Don’t you just love her little snow pants and snow boots? She’s way more prepared for the snow than I am.

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Raindrops on Roses…

08Dec08

These are a few of Nola’s favorite things:

1. Washing her hands at the sink — anything to make her look like a big girl. Everytime someone goes in the bathroom she says “wash, wash” and pulls the big basket (that’s as big as her) off the stool next to the sink. Then she picks the stool up and moves it over three inches to the sink. Then somehow she gets up on the stool and stands there waiting for the water to be turned on. That “pouty” thing she’s doing was a passing fad. She’s not doing that anymore, but I thought it was adorable. She did it when she was trying to get my sympathy, then one night I did it back to her and we both laughed. For about a week we had fun with it, but then she got over it.
2. Reading. She’s always liked reading, but lately it’s just, well, you know, repetitive. I love it and hate it. On the one hand, well who doesn’t like to read to their child. And we do want her to be a reader; both parents love books and all. But jeez. “Ree, ree” is what she says as she follows me around with a book in hand. One of her favorites right now (which I love) is Life Doesn’t Frighten Me, words by Maya Angelou and images by Jean-Michel Basquiat. At the end there’s a picture of Maya Angelou and she points to her and says “dat?” I say, “that’s Maya,” and she repeats, “Maya.”
3. Finally, sigh, it was bound to happen at some point, I just wasn’t quite prepared for the impact that little furry creature would have on our happy little household. Nola loves Elmo. Whenever I say to her, “sing the Elmo song.” She says, “la la la,” which some of you may know, is how the Elmo song actually goes. I have to say, she does love the rest of Sesame Street too. She gets very excited when the theme song comes on, and can say “Big Bird” and “Oscar.” Sometimes she can say “Cookie” and “Grover” too. But she kind of half pays attention to most of the show until Elmo comes on. Then she gets so excited, shrieks, and jumps up and down. He’s a serious celebrity.

This morning, I was chatting with a friend on the phone and I noticed some very small handprints on the television screen. How in the world did those get there? This evening I found out:

Needless to say, I put the kabash on this right after I took the picture. Perhaps we need to move that chair that currently sits beside the entertainment center.

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Spaghetti Kisses, or Nola Loves her Daddy

02Dec08

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Adventures in Mississippi

25Nov08

Well, it took me forever, but I finally uploaded some pics from our trip to Mississippi. I put them on my .Mac gallery, and will put them on Flickr also, since I’m still trying to figure out which one I like best.

Enjoy!

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Halloween 2008

04Nov08

Well, Happy Halloween…a few days late…we had a great day; thanks to Mama Lisa and Papa Larry Nola dressed up as a storybook princess. As you can see we had to “winterize” the outfit a little bit (you don’t have to worry about these things so much in Mississippi), but she was still adorable nonetheless. As you can see she wasn’t crazy about the hat, but whatever. We went to Erin and Amelia’s house for a fun party. Amelia was a super hero (Amazing Amelia), Matilda was a pirate, and Sam was a lion. I posted the pics on my .Mac gallery, which is a bit of an experiment for me. Let me know how you like it. Here are a few other pics just for fun (even though some are in the gallery).

Nola eating raw pumpkin seeds

Argh! Matilda the pirate (note the bird on her shoulder)

We tried our best to get a group shot

Amazing Amelia to the rescue!

Happy Halloween! … Now go vote.

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Pizza and Parade

23Oct08

OK, so maybe pizza isn’t the most healthy option for a 17 month old, but I needed something I knew she would eat, and the Upper Crust does make darn good pizza.  A week or two ago we went to church and decided to walk around Octoberfest in Harvard Square. It was cool and all but there wasn’t much to do for little ones. Nola was hungry and I didn’t have any food so we shared a slice of pizza and a greek salad. It made for a lovely picnic in Cambridge Common.

Then I heard the sound of music and wondered if they decided to have a parade for Octoberfest. Sure enough, it was the Honk Parade, the wackiest parade I’d ever seen. There were 30 or more small marching bands, most of them very good, all of them decked out in make-up, costumes, tutus, the works. There were artists with a beautiful ship made out of sheets, or a white bird on sticks. Then a one-woman band, then a group of kids on tricycles. It was so fun! I took a ton of pictures and loved watching Nola take it all in. This parade was way cooler than the Christmas parade in Meridian.

This past weekend my fam came to visit, and soon we’ll have lots of fun pictures from our time with them. We did some apple picking, clam eating, and donut eating. It was lots of fun; thanks for coming Mama Lisa, Papa Larry, and Uncle Paul!

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