Gobble Gobble

Yes, a mere 1.5 weeks after we moved into our new house, we hosted Thanksgiving! Steve was on call almost all weekend, so we were lucky that the Jersey folks could make the drive down!

First, we needed a new dining room table that could fit everyone. Found it!


Addie helping Steve put those felt things on the bottom so they wouldn't scratch the floor. Addie loves helping her daddy :)

We decided to hit the Silver Spring Thanksgiving Parade last weekend. The view from up high.



Darth Vader float!


After awhile she got to be quite a shlumpy. We weren't sure if she was nervous from the noise, or just tired.

2 minutes into the car-ride home...we got our answer :)

Not only was Thanksgiving right after the move, but it was the first time I hosted and my first time cooking a big ol' turkey, so I was definitely nervous. Luckily, Gaga, Yaya, and Alli offered to bring food and I took them up on all of their offers, so there wasn't as much for me to do, AND we got delicious dishes from all over! Thank you, ladies!

It rained a lot early last week so to keep busy, Addie and I decided to make home made place card turkeys. First, we traced Addie's hands.

Then she made sure that they were perfect before moving on

Then we traced her feet. Now, if you're wearing footed pajamas, or "jamas" as Addie likes to call them, they've got to come completely off and you get to trace your feet in your skivvies!


Yet another costume change, timed to get dressed in real clothes because the basement playroom where we were doing the project was cold...brrr....

Then mom cuts out all the hands and feet, and Addie gets to play with glue!

The final product!

My first turkey! I followed Alton Brown's recipe which includes brining, so that was a big hoopla, but it was worth it. So juicy!

Poppy helping Addie cook her first Thanksgiving dinner too :)

General table pictures.



Burning off some of that stuffing dancing with Gaga

Then hitting the dress-up box for a fashion show. SUPER GIRL!

Ooh la la, the devil ;)

Davy Crockett goes drag :)

I am so thankful that Addie gets to spend time with her wonderful family!

And one thing that we are very thankful for--that Addie and our little boy will have a first cousin--due just 7 weeks after Indy! Woohoo! Congratulations, Doug and Alli!

How can anyone not be grateful for life when there's adorable faces like this one around?

Happy 2nd Birthday, Addie!

Two years ago we brought home this tiny little bundle of cute

You think she's grown up a bit??? :)

Because of the whole move thing, Addie's birthday celebration wasn't as big as last year, but this time she had two little parties. On her actual birthday (the 10th) we had a little celebration at home with just the three of us.

I put up some balloons and brought out the presents while Steve distracted her upstairs



And this was her reaction :)




She opened her presents...



And we went outside for breakfast since it was such a nice day.

Her friend Maya stopped by to drop off a gift and a hug before we moved.

In the evening, we decided to go out for dinner, even though Addie doesn't have the best track record at restaurants. Eh, she's 2 now, right? So we said "HEY, let's go to Generous Georges!" It's a pizza and pasta place with a ton of kid-friendly stuff hanging everywhere. We thought it would be perfect. And since Addie loves Curious George, I think she thought we were going to his restaurant :) So...then we pull up and...it's closed permanently and moved to outer Suburbia. Doh! So we say "Um, let's go to Noodles and Company which is conveniently close by" and Addie immediately starts screaming "GEORGES! GEORGES!" so Steve brilliantly says "Addie, it's called NOODLE GEORGES" and voila...she was happy :)
And so were we :) She behaved beautifully!
Then we went home and ate some birthday ice cream :)


So that was Tuesday and we moved on Saturday. And since the fam was all around to help us move, we had another birthday party for her on Sunday morning.

I think she was confused at first because...wait, didn't I already HAVE a birthday party?
But then she realized she was getting cupcakes :)
She blew it out like a champ! (she's been practicing singing happy birthday to herself and blowing out pretend candles for a month now, so she's a pro)
Singing her birthday song



Bib on...

Dig in!


He he he...chocolate....
All cleaned up and ready to open more presents!

Yaya and Poppy brought Addie a little girl's dream...a MASSIVE dress-up box!

Addie had a blast trying everything on :)



Everyone else joined in the dress-up fun too!


We call this Addie's "fairy pimp" outfit :)



And to finish off the birthday celebration, we measured her height again, which we hope to keep up every year on this beautiful poster (or at least until she passes 5 feet, which is as high as it measures ;).

Happy 2nd birthday, little one. You seem so grown up, but you're still our little baby!

All moved in and can't find the camera cord

Hi folks! Well, we moved into our new home last Saturday and thanks to the help of the fam (thank you a million times Yaya, Poppy, Gaga, and Uncle Dan!) we are at a really good point of being settled in! Of course, there are boxes still to be unpacked, but it's manageable and the house is very much livable!

Addie likes the new house so much that she has even said in the car "Addie go new house. NO old house." Unfortunately, I'd love to update the blog with her birthday pictures (oh yeah, she turned 2!) but I can't find the cord that would allow me to transfer the pictures from the phone to the computer. I'll ask Steve for help on the cord search tonight so it hopefully wont be too long that you'll have to go without birthday pics :) so in the meanwhile, here are some funny and cute things Addie has been saying with her ever-developing vocabulary and sense of language.

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Addie holding out her hand to her friend Oliver: "Come on, Honey"

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During dinner...about 6:00pm
Steve: Addie, did you have a good day today?
Addie: So far

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Holding up her new elmo slippers to Elmo on the TV
"Look Elmo! Elmo slippers! Look!!!!" (upset that he's not looking and/or responding)

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"Last night Gaga came over. Hi" (so what if Gaga had been there that morning, and not the night before, it's still a pretty good sentence, right? :)

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Walking around a furniture shop, Addie was in her stroller eating a snack. We weren't sure she was even paying attention, then we walked by the floor samples of kids' rooms and we hear...

"Oooh....cute bedroom!"
(such a girly girl!)

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(putting her head on my tummy)
"love baby"
(awwww....)

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Monica: Hey, Addie, do you want to feel the baby kick again?
Addie: Yeah!
(comes over and I put her hand where he had been kicking a second before)
Addie: (with a concerned look on her face). No kick. TV.
Monica: The baby is watching TV?
Addie: Yeah, Clifford.
(so now anytime I ask if she wants to feel the baby kick, she says "No. Baby watch tv")


There have been SO much more lately that have cracked us up, if I think of more, I will add to this post.

Addie is still a hot-tempered little girl who knows exactly what she wants, but she's also sweet and sensitive and already a good big sister. She loves her friends so much she talks about them all day (and performs medical checkups on them with her doctors kit when they're not even there, sorry Reese if you felt that shot from across the beltway).

Happy birthday, Addie. I promise that there is photographic proof that you turned 2 and survived the move :)

Love love love,
Us

Almost 2 and reminiscing

Addie turns 2 in less than a week and maybe because we have a move coming up (moving date November 14th) or because I'm pregnant, but man am I emotional about Addie turning 2! The other day, Addie and Reese were playing at Fort Ward park, a playground we frequent around here, and because I was looking through my cell phone pics earlier that day, I realized that the girls had played there in the same place exactly a year prior.

So I present to you:

October 30, 2008


Addie had just learned to walk the previous week or so, so she was still doing a lot of sitting back then
And October 30, 2009



And some more pics that Megan took on Tuesday at the same park




How is it possible that our girls are almost 2? I know that other parents have told me that time flies, but...wow...I had no idea :)

Halloween 2009!

So the story of Halloween 2009. As you probably know, Steve and I have been dressing as a theme for Halloween for all but the first of our 10 years together, from Homer and Marge, Mario and Luigi, Tigger and Pooh, Calvin and Hobbes, Mr. and Mrs. Incredible, etc. When Addie joined in the festivities last year, we continued the tradition as Yoda, Princess Leia and Han Solo

So since I'm pregnant this year, thinking it would be fun to incorporate the soon to be Silvestro in the costume, I came up with the following: Addie would be a cupcake, Steve would be a baker, and I would be an oven...with a bun in it :). I bought a cute cupcake hat from ebay and embarked on completing the rest of our costumes.

On the morning before I took the above pictures, I made the mistake of showing Addie the album of pictures of all our past Halloweens and she saw us as Calvin and Hobbes. See, though entirely inappropriate for an almost 2-year old, we read Calvin and Hobbes to Addie--she loves the pictures and the silly faces that Calvin makes. The minute she saw that pic...she became convinced she should be Hobbes for Halloween. "Addie! Hobbes! Hall-ween!" "No, Addie, you're going to be a cupcake." "Noooo....HOBBES!" So I spent the good part of a week trying to convince her otherwise, dressing her up in part of her cupcake costume (see above) and telling stories about Addie as a cupcake for Halloween, but the girl is stubborn, and there are a lot of battles in casa Silvestro and this was honestly one I did not want to fight. So a couple of weekends ago we found a cute and reasonably priced tiger costume, and this week I bought some felt and fashioned a stuffed Calvin doll so she wouldn't be just a plain old Tiger.

Before we dressed up for the day, we had some halloween fun at home. Addie's ever-faithful sleep companion Hiccup decided to join in the festivities and dress up too---in the clothes that her second-ever-faithful sleeping companion Oliver sometimes wears.


Addie with Hiccup dressed up as Oliver the doll

We went to a halloween party in the morning with friends from my mom's group, but with the crowds, Addie was in kind of a....mood :)


After nap we went to Addie's friend Wyatt's house to spend time with his fam & Reese's fam, and we hit Wyatt's neighborhood halloween bash.

Here's the official family photo at Wyatt's house


Reese as a Kangaroo and Addie

The dads at the neighborhood bash: Wyatt (also a tiger!) and his Daddy, Reese and her Daddy, and Addie and her Daddy

All in all we had a blast. We weren't home much to get trick or treaters, but we had some candy stashed away. Somehow (probably since we didn't actually go trick or treating--it was raining part of the evening and then it got too late) we got away with not giving Addie any candy, but then this morning, she saw the bowl and since it wasn't close to nap time, she got a mini reeses cup.

Addie's response. "Addie like it!"