Happy Mother's Day

Today is my first Mother's Day as a Mother. I woke up to the sounds of my beautiful baby girl babbling happily in her crib and immediately felt grateful. Grateful for my mother, Eva, for Steve's mother, Joan, and for all the other mothers in the world who have demonstrated what it means to be a good mother so that I can be the best one for Adeline that I possibly can be. I hope!

This year, more than ever, do I understand the feeling of immense love, of devotion, of the sacrifice of a mother that I have seen before, yet never fully understood until now.

When I went to Addie's crib and saw her smiling face as she grabbed her toes with delight, I knew immediately that I am the luckiest person on the face of the earth.

Happy Mother's Day to all the mom's in the world, but especially the ones who have helped me, Steve, and now Addie, to become who we are today...

My mother and little me



Mom with little me and little (Uncle) Dan



Tiny little Steve with his mama




The mama-san with little (Uncle) Doug and Steve



Proud Grandma Joan with tiny little bundle of Adeline



Grandma Eva singing to Addie during her first hour of life





And thank you, Adeline Eve, for picking me to be your mom.


Happy Mother's Day, to all the mothers--past, present, and future.

Happy Half Birthday to Addie!

Yes, folks, time sure does fly when you're having fun! Addie is 6 months old today. That means HALF A YEAR. Whoa. As usual, she and I spent the morning deciding on an outfit for her photoshoot, finding out she has already grown out of the outfit, picking another, drooling incessantly on that one (she's queen of droolage) and finally settling on a third outfit, putting it on quickly, and snapping away at those smiles.


Here's a slideshow to see how much she's changed and grown!




Other funness these past weeks...

Mom, please don't tell me my feet are going to be this big someday?


My roommate from freshman year of college, Megan, came to visit with her adorable son Sam.

Here is Addie getting a smoothie with her adorable friend Reese (also featured in the pile o' babies photoshoot)

Addie just couldn't let her half-birthday go by without seeing her daddy, so she woke up when he woke up for work--at 4:45am. Yay. ;) If Steve looks a bit tired to you that's because he is...in the last month he's taken a neurology test, done a presentation on autism, studied for and taken Step 3 of the Board Exams (Two 8-hour tests in front of a computer) and not had a full day off at all. Oh and he still works 70-80 hours a week. Today he's working from 6:30 am until about noon tomorrow, he may or may not get a few hours of rest in there.

Despite it all, he's still the most amazing and present father ever. He comes home and immediately rolls up his sleeves for bathtime. Between these two, I'm the luckiest mom ever.

bye!

Addie's first meal!

How do you know when a baby is ready for "solid" foods? Well, the American Academy of Pediatrics currently recommends starting a baby on solids at 6 months of age to prevent food allergies (their digestive system is stronger at that point). Everyone else and their mother tells you to start them on rice cereal at 4 months because (and they say this part in a whisper) "it helps them sleep better at night."

Some books say that there are indications that a baby is ready to eat. One is that they can sit up on their own. Check, Addie's right on top of that. Another says that they start being interested in your food and want to reach out and put it in their mouths. Well, if we go by that milestone, then I'd say that Addie is just about ready to be started on cell phones, remote controls, and just about everything in the house she can get her hands on, by the way she puts everything in her mouth.

We decided to start this week, when she was about 5 and a half months old, just because Steve's crazy work schedule doesn't allow him to be home much before bedtime in the next month...and "those books" also say to start them on a new food earlier in the day so in case there's a food allergy, you're not in the ER all night long. Don't you love how scary these books make life seem? Yeah...it's grand.

Anyhoo...dutiful bloggers that we are, we recorded Addie's first meal on video. See below. The still photos are from her second meal. By her third meal (which was yesterday, and Grandma Silvestro watched via webcam!) Addie was quite the pro and got a lot of the food actually in her mouth! I know this won't be the case when she actually starts to feed herself, but we were impressed. She's definitely gonna be a foodie like her mommy :)

Enjoy the video!

Road trip photos!

Addie and I drove up to Philadelphia (or rather....just outside of it) to visit the McGee family and celebrate the second annual Spain-Girls reunion. Jodi, Alexandra, Brette, and I spent a semester abroad in Madrid, Spain our junior year. Here are some photos of the gang and our shenanigans...

Group photo! From Left to Right: Jodi, Shannon, Alexandra, Addie, Me, Brette


Addie sharing a giggle with Alexandria


Brette and Addie having fun. Brette and Alexandra were AWESOME with the girls--we were so lucky to have extra sets of arms to help with and cuddle up to the chicas.


Wait...are you my mom?


Wait, no really, you look like my mom...


Here let me take a taste...Okay, *you're* definitely my mom.


Jodi and her husband Chris help Shannon and Addie dance to the coolest music ever..."Swing...baby Swing....baby swing..." it became the theme song of our weekend.



Addie and Shannon had a bath together! We'll surely be bringing these photos out when they're teenagers.


So in our tub at home, all we had was a lone rubber ducky for Addie to play with. The night we got home, I scoured her room for water-safe toys so she can bathe every night like Shannon! Though I can't say we can rival a floating cow...mooooo......


Must eat as many toys as possible!


Adorable!


After the girls went to bed on Saturday night, we busted out the margaritas and played Guitar Hero. We literally rocked.


Brette helping Addie say hello to bulldog Sadie


Shannon and Addie played so nicely together!


Shannon, Alexandra, me and Addie


Alexandra then stole Shannon away for an extra cuddle


Shannon is doing so many fun things! She's just about ready to crawl and eats all kinds of real food. We love seeing Shannon who is 4 months older because it gives us hints of the months to come with Ads.


Thanks for having us, McGee fam!

More from the Danielle files

When I wasn't feeling well earlier in the week, Steve took Addie to meet up with his high school friends Danielle and Andrea at a cool coffee place with outdoor tables. It was a gorgeous day out and Danielle snapped some great photos of the little bear. You saw one of the photos from the afternoon on the last blog post.

Here are more of the photos that Danielle took that afternoon. Danielle also provided the cute Addie commentary ;)


Hmmm....what are you crazy adults drinking over there...?


Ooooh, I think I wanna try some!


C'mon Dad, gimme that coffee - I can't reach!


Pretty please??



Addie and I took our first road trip just the two of us and we hit Philly this weekend to visit the McGee family and our Spain crew for our second annual reunion. We had SO much fun! Stay tuned for pictures recapping the fun!

Summer weather=cute dresses.

Photo credit: Danielle Esposti

We headed out this afternoon for an Addie photo-shoot. We took a ton of pics, here are some of our favorites, but you can see the entire selection at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/stevesilvestro/AdelineLovesNature

Addie's got some new tricks...

I've been trying desperately to upload a video of her newest trick all weekend and something just isn't working. So you'll just have to settle for some still shots of Addie---SITTING!

Without falling over!!

She woke us up ridiculously early on Saturday morning just to show us her new trick.


Look, Ma! No hands!


Why are you guys so excited? What's the big deal? It's like I've been doing this forever!



She's also now a world-wide web video conferencer.

Here she is batting her lovely long lashes at her great-grandfather in Sydney, Australia via webcam!


And getting some grandma lovin' isn't new, but it's still fun!


We're training Addie to help us fold laundry


Here's Addie telling Uncle Dan the history of Passover


Bathtime is way more fun when you're sitting up. Note the calmness of the water...


...and now the crazy waves created by the little boo....splish splash!

All this "growing" and "developing" apparently tires her out. G'night!