Road Trip and blog catchup

Addie just LOVES traveling. Taking advantage of Steve's time off from work, we took to the road. First stop was a short one in Philadelphia. Erin and Dave were in town from Austin for a wedding so we met them for some cheesesteaks and giggles. Erin hadn't seen Addie since she was a month old and this was Dave's first time meeting her. We didn't have much time with them, but the time we did spend was full of laughter and fun.



Then we headed up to Uncle Doug and Aunt Alli's house in New Jersey. Grandma Joan and Grandpa Bob met us there as did Alli's family--her parents, her sisters and their families. Alli has two nephews--Colin (almost 4) and Christopher (same age as Addie! Just 4 days younger!)

Addie and Chris played really well together. Though inevitably one of them would want whatever toy the other one was playing with. See Chris eyeing the toy Addie's playing with?


And he wins this round of "Addie versus Christopher"


Doug and Alli got all the kids superhero clothes! Colin is Batman, Addie is supergirl (complete with cape) and Chris is The Flash. Unfortunately, most of the pictures we took that night were blurry--this one was the best of the bunch. But we guarantee, the kids were absolutely adorable!


We're down at the grandparent's house now for a few more days. The camera is acting up :( So we may not have documentation of the rest of the trip, but we'll keep you updated.

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We got so wrapped up in the Olympics video that we neglected to post some pictures of Addie that were meant to be posted.

So here she is visiting the tennis tournament! Addie's uncle Dan works at the Legg Mason Tennis Classic and as many of you know, I (Monica) have volunteered there most of my life.

To prepare her for the tournament, we dressed Addie in her preppiest outfit.


Introduced her to some of our old friends


And made sure she had lots of cuddling time with Uncle Dan, who was so busy getting ready for the tournament, we hadn't seen much of him lately.


Oh and remember the pile o' babies picture?


They're growing up!!



Note...not all babies in the first picture appear in the second and vice versa as some of the moms in our group added in after the first picture was taken and some moms who were there for the first picture couldn't make it to this particular playdate and one was asleep during the photoshoot...but disclaimer aside...they're cute, huh?

Now that the blog catchup is done, it's time for some blog ketchup!

2008 Summer Olympic Games

Addie's been working hard these past 9 months of her life in training, and it's paid off with 3 Gold medals in the Summer Games! To watch the video, click the link and type the password 'Addie' with a capital 'A.'




(yes, this is what we spend our time doing instead of finishing unpacking)



2008 Summer Olympics: Spotlight on Adeline Silvestro from Steve Silvestro on Vimeo.

90 seconds of silliness

We had Addie's 9 month appointment this week. She is now 29 inches (about 85%) and 19 lbs (about 50%) and is doing well on all accounts. She got two vaccinations and didn't even make a peep! No crying!

What is on Addie's list of accomplishments lately? She's an expert waver now--no more arm flaps, it's a very distinguished, almost beauty queen-esque type wave. She claps a lot, especially when she's proud of herself. She makes kissy noises when she hears kisses, and when we say "Blow kisses, Addie" and blow her a kiss, she'll kiss the back of her hand (still trying to capture that one on video).

But most of all, she continues to crack us up with her "talking" and her silliness:

9 months in, 9 months out

Addie is 9 months old! She has now spent as much time outside of me as she spent in :)

She's very mobile these days--pulling up on everything and scooting (yes, still scooting--not sure she's ever going to be an official "crawler" but scooting gets her around quite nicely!) all over the new place. We can't even dress her in dresses anymore because she gets stuck as she scoots around, so in this month's photo shoot she's sporting some overalls.


Here I come!


Breakfast giggles


Can you see the teeth? She also has one coming in on the top! The drooling has returned.


Addie's channeling Bono even sooner than Steve did.




We put her on the chair for the official month picture. After a few happy arm flaps...




...she was done with sitting and ready to get up and be on the move.


Do you want to read a book?


Okay...

...ooh, is that an ice cream cone?

um...if you're not going to give me real ice cream, I'm gonna do something else...


...off to explore elsewhere...

All moved in!

Well folks, we've moved! Friday August 1st was our big moving day and it went great. The movers were really nice. They started when Addie was eating breakfast and she rewarded their admiration of her with big well-rested smiles and waves from her high chair, which meant that they said hi to her each and every time they went past her. It made for a very fun morning. The moving of the furniture and all the packed boxes was done before noon! Of course, when you're only moving 10 minutes away, there's a lot of "oh, we'll just bring that over in the car" and so by the time we packed and moved *everything* and thoroughly cleaned up the old place, we barely got Addie's crib set up before it was her bedtime.

Unfortunately, all did not go without a hitch. I (Monica) was sick on moving day with a summer cold, which wasn't bad, but wasn't too fun either. When it was Addie's bath time we realized we had no hot water! We had to boil water on the stove and bring it upstairs to mix with the cold water to get her a decent temperature bath (we felt like pioneers!). We didn't have hot water until Monday night :( Luckily, our friends Joe and Renelle live just a few houses down and let us shower there, but it doesn't make life easy. When the plumbers finally came on Monday they informed us that a wall would have to be taken down to replace the water heater. Yay.
Then, Steve found mold in the basement and so we rented an industrial rug cleaner to clean ALL the carpets in the whole town house (which is, by the way, almost all carpet). That of course doesn't fix the mold found in the ceiling that they can't take care of next week. What else? Oh yes...this weekend one of our car's rear-view mirror came off---along with some of the glass of the windshield, so that's in the shop getting replaced as we speak. I can't think of what else happened, but despite all the craziness, we're in good spirits and Addie is adjusting well to the new place.

Here are some of our favorite pictures from the past couple of weeks:

Addie continuing to be extremely helpful at packing by having fun playing in boxes...


Mmm...tasty...


Last dinner in the old place...Addie practicing pointing with Daddy...we call it her "Sistine Chapel move."

Tofu and blueberries...dinner of champions. Can I have a bite?


Last bedtime story in the old place. Goodnight moon. Goodnight room. Goodnight noises everywhere. Goodnight old house!


Moving day! Guess who was exhausted by all the moving? And she didn't even lift a single box!


Here we are in the new place! This is Addie's favorite vantage point of the front door--she carefully watched the plumbers as they went in and out with the new water heater.


This is how I found Steve snacking on some watermelon right out of the fridge. Hey, you gotta rehydrate somehow in this heat!


Moving weekend was long and tiring...some cuddling/resting on the couch is the perfect prescription to recover!


I love my new room!!

The new neighborhood has a pool--woohoo! Grandma Silvestro came down to help us unpack and helped us try out the new cool blue water....so much fun!


Hey...whatchu lookin' at?

Packing

So...Addie's not too happy about the move--while she knows that there will be a whole new place for her to explore, the sound of the packing tape kind of scares her. Plus, all of the boxes everywhere are kind of hampering the exploring she still has to do here!


So we're bringing out all the fun toys to cheer her up...this little muppet is "Doonk," named as such for the noise he makes as he walks. Addie liked him and was intrigued to meet someone who doesn't say "bah bah bah" when they move.


We think Addie's going through a growth spurt--she's eating everything in sight!


The prospect of packing and moving with a lil' boo in the house is pretty daunting. Our cry for help was answered in the form of Grandpa Silvestro, Uncle Doug, and Aunt Alli--they came from New Jersey to help us pack and entertain Addie for us. Here's Addie cracking up at her Grand-daddio:


She's got her Grandpa wrapped around her little finger (don't worry, Pops, we all are!). ;)


Douggo and Liney share a secret...


"Oh boy!" Addie said when she found out we'll be up to Jersey to visit the fam in just a few weeks!

Playdates and scooting

My friend Elyse from my old job came to visit with her sister Ilana and niece Ella this weekend--the girls had a blast playing together! Ella is exactly two months older than Addie and showed Addie all sorts of fun tricks.

Elyse steals the girls away from their mama's

Ilana with the giggly ones.


As Ilana fixed Ella's dress, Ella leaned in to fix Addie's ;)


Ella and Addie eyeing the same toy. Since Ella has way more experience being mobile, she won


If Ella can cruise along the table, maybe Addie can? Nope...those feet stayed put, no cruising for Addie today


Addie has way more fun outside of the jumperoo than inside these days.


Getting SOO big

Hugs with Daddy at the end of a fun day

With all this talk of mobility, I'm proud to announce that Addie is officially mobile. Crawling, I wouldn't call it...but scooting, yes, she's definitely scooting.