First Museum visit

We had plans to meet up with the Philadelphia McGee's in Baltimore for a trip to their children's museum, Port Discovery. Alas, poor Shannon had been sick all week, so the rendezvous was postponed. Addie had never been to a museum before, mostly because of my reluctance to deal with DC parking and risk Addie-inspired meltdowns in public far from home. Now that she's only napping once a day, there's more available time-windows in which to go on these little trips, so on Sunday afternoon, after her nap and lunch we headed out.

It only took us 15 minutes to get downtown, but took almost 25 to find parking. It was COLD so we bundled Addie up in the stroller and headed to...the National Museum of Natural History.

You know, the one with the elephant in the rotunda:

Apparently, Addie thinks the elephant needs a hat. :)


We saw the big whale and other sea-life as well as the dinosaur bones.

We found the Discovery Room where we read stories about ladybugs (check out the stlyin' ladyubg puppet on Steve's hand)

And looked at butterflies--one of Addie's current favorite animals.

Yesterday we got a heap of snow! Check back soon for the pics of Addie's first romp in the white fluffy stuff.

Helpin' out

Our fellow blog readers: I came across (through a friend of a friend of a friend--you know how it is) an opportunity to help a family adopt a little girl from Korea. They are raising the funds needed to bring her home. They're offering a great raffle, so while donating to help this family out, you could also win some cool prizes (it's really a win-win situation!). Steve and I decided to pitch in and support them and thought you may be interested in checking it out!

You can click on the raffle link above or go directly to their blog:
http://asisterforthebean.blogspot.com/

Best of luck to the family!

How Addie celebrated the Inauguration of our 44th president

The inauguration of President Barack Obama started at around 11:30am Eastern Standard time--precisely the time Ms. Adeline Eve went down for her nap. We were a bit bummed that having a child meant that trekking into downtown DC for the festivities was just not a viable option (it was below freezing yesterday and where on earth would we change a diaper?), but being in the same metropolitan area gave us a little sense of the excitment and electricity in the air.

Steve didn't have to go in to work until the afternoon, so while we celebrated the making of history by watching it from the warmth of our living room couch, a little someone was dreaming of strawberries, butterflies, and baby dolls (that little TV on the bottom is our video monitor).




A couple more.....

Our little Ms. Sassy Pants.


Peek-a-boo!!!!

Monica's Parenting Tip #43493

Monica's Parenting Tip #43493:

Don't teach your child that you can see a playback of those short video recordings video you take of your adorable little one on your digital camera.

Because one day, when you're trying to capture their 14-month old shots to record how beautiful and grown-up they are, you get anger that you're not playing those videos. Instead of toothy smiles (she has 12 teeth now!), you end up with this:

and this...
and this...

and this.

Happy 14 month old, my darling little cranky-pants :)

You've got a Friend in Me

Addie loves her baby friends! Megan and I discovered that Addie and Reese had the exact same outfit, so we couldn't resist...as tickled as we were by our "twins," the girls didn't seem as thrilled about it :)

And this week Addie has been able to put a name to a face besides Mama and Dada. She looks at a photo of Reese and says "Eese"

My friend Beth was celebrating a birthday last weekend and her parents, sister, and brother-in-law came to help them celebrate. We had the honor of watching Beth's ridiculously adorable and well-behaved niece Abby for the evening. Abby and Addie (say it 5 times fast) got along so well together! They played together, dined together, and bathed together. During dinner they had the cutest conversation with each other:




And because I can't resist that smile...here is Adeline herself, all cute and cuddly :)

A year in review

So this movie was started LAST YEAR (it's fun saying that now that it's 2009) and it had an estimated finish date of Addie's birthday.

Wellll.....things got busy and this got put on the back burner, but...beter late than never, right?

Happy first year, Addie! We love you!!

Winter Holidays--Adeline Style

The end of each calendar year brings in a slew of holidays and their accompanying festivities. Addie has one Jewish parent and one Catholic parent, so she gets to celebrate both Hannukah AND Christmas, the lucky duck. We were able to spend time with family, eat delicious traditional foods, indulge in treats, and get fun gifts.

We've also had a few extra parties in between. My wonderful Moms Group (seen in such posts as "halloween party") hosted a cookie exchange party and Addie thorougly enjoyed hanging out with her baby friends.

While the moms exchanged cookies and gabbed, Addie formed a rock band with Chase...


...tried to help organize another "pile o babies" picture...which thoroughly failed due to the babies' increasing mobility (but isn't Wyatt's santa outfit adorable?)...

...and convinced Chase to break into the Mommies' cookie stash. Yum! Too bad for the babies we got it cleaned up before the others got wind of the conspiracy.


The first night of Hannukah led us to Grandma Eva's house where Addie snuggled in with Uncle Dan in front of a football game...


...opened some fun presents...

...oohed and ahed over the calendar we made for Grandma, starring Adeline herself...


...and waited excitedly for the delicious latkes (which were, of course, fantastic).


We got Addie 8 little presents which she opened up on each day of Hannukah (okay, most of them we just handed to her...and we did forget some days--surely in future years "forgetting" a gift won't be as easy), but she loved them!

Here she is hugging day 2's gift--a little stuffed monkey. Gotta love the Target dollar aisle!



Then it was onward and upward--we drove up to New Jersey to celebrate Christmas with the Silvestro side of the family. Uncle Doug and Aunt Alli hosted at their house, so we bundled up, packed up the car and headed up for the fun!


Doug and Alli have all the comforts of home that a baby needs. They have their own portable crib, they've covered all the outlets (thank you!), and they even have a super-cool Batman hooded towel for Addie (and Alli's nephew Chris) to use on visits.

Addie got to explore her stocking on Christmas Eve.

And we found her hiding in Doug and Alli's crazy huge stocking (yes folks, it's 4 feet long, and it was FILLED with their presents for each other


Christmas morning was fun, cozy, and filled with fun gifts!






After a few days, we headed south to Gramma-san and Poppy Silvestro's where we got to catch up with the extended Silvestro clan...


...be snuggled and kissed all day long...

...and got even MORE cool gifts, like this tutu, which she clearly adores.

All this celebration and fun is wonderful, but it certainly tires a little girl out!


Happy Holidays to everyone and a Happy New Year. 2008 was an amazing amazing year for us and we want to thank each and every one of you who have followed our journey from brand new parents of a little itty baby to slightly more experienced parents of a curious, fiesty, expressive, vivacious toddler.

Love,
Monica, Steve, and Adeline Eve