Grammy and Papa came to hit the zoo and water park with girls and enjoy our sunny 83 degree day.  Clara loves when Grammy visits, and can barely control herself when Grammy brings daisy.  Gwen squeaks and screams with joy around daisy and Clara provides all the words.  They both live, it seems, to see “aminals” (cats, squirrels, dogs, birds, giraffes, zebra, etc.), but daisy is definitely king.

Gwen is a climbing machine and her physical prowess continues, but she has recently picked up in the vocabulary department-we are now in double digits with agua and gracias at the forefront.

I hope to have a couple posts soon on our two weeks on the cape.  Stay tuned.

Oh, and Clara and Gwen if your reading this-your Mom and dad love you very much.

After the videos are more pics and videos from the playgrounds, malls, and other party we hit.  It is absolutely wonderful to watch both of them grow and live–enjoy it with us!

*post done by cell phone

I don’t have too many pics from this past weekend, but the few I have I’ll share!

We visited a whole lot of people in a matter of a couple of days.  Heather and Papa (Vic) took the girls on Thursday and visited the great grandparents in Brick, NJ.  I love that they get to visit them in the flesh so we can talk about them and tell stories when we are away.  Sorry to have missed that part of the trip.

On Friday I joined them at Chuck and Jaime Vernon’s house for Heather’s annual high school reunion.  Chuck and Jaime are such gracious hosts-each year we test their hospitality more and more!  On Saturday, the house was full of humans both little and big:

1.  Chuck and Jaime

2.  Cara, Brenda, Hailey, Patrick, and Tatum

3.  Heike, Brendan, Quinn, Ronin, Declin, and Cavan

4.  Heather, Darren, Vic, Clara, and Gwen.

We went crabbing, hit the playground, and the beach as well as swung on the swing on the porch, read books, rode some scooters, and kicked beach balls in the backyard.  Never a dull moment!

It was wonderful seeing everyone. Thank you.

*Another cell phone post.

The only video of the weekend!

I decided, today, that I will catch-up once I replace the computer, but for now I need to start documenting our family adventures.  This will be my first cell phone post.

This weekend was super hot in Boston so we spent our time cooling off at the water parks, relaxing in the indoor parts of the zoo,  and chilling in AC over at Clara’s friend’s house (Lorelei).

Clara and Gwen are becoming good friends and are playing with each other more and more each day.  I hope the pics and video show how close they are becoming.

We are almost to totally real food for everyone at the table and even some conversation.  Gwen has started eating real soup, yogurt, bread, and fruit.  She is crawling and cruising around everywhere (almost walking), uttering more noises by the day, and playing alongside of Clara [Remember, this post is for before February 21st!!!].  As for the conversation, Clara is starting to tell some short stories.  One of my favorite conversations occur when we are in the car after we pick up Gwen from “baby-school.”  Clara tells Gwen that we are in dada’s car and that we are going to see mama really soon.  Then she tells her that mama’s car is better and to not worry, because we are almost there.  Every day.

With all the snow days this past month, we have spent a GREAT deal of time indoors.  We are finding our groove mixing it up between forts, playdough, drawing, building wth blocks, cooking, and wrestling.  We have had a great time!

Next post will be a little bit of Grammy’s house mixed with our trip to Philadelphia!!  I’m playing catch-up.  Remember walking Gwen is coming soon!

We spent New Year’s Eve day on Cape Cod with Heather’s college friends.  It was great to see Gwen and Griffin together (about the same age) and for the older Clara to interact with one of Heather’s closest friends.  We spent our time inside running up and down the long hallway, playing with the 6+ other kids in the house, watching football, and catching-up on life.

A week later we got a huge snow that shut schools down for two days–about 18 in.  It was the first time we took Gwen and Clara out into the snow this winter.  Clara actually liked getting all dressed up into an almost sphere-like puff balland waddling through the snow drifts and in the steps of others.  Gwen was her usual chipper self and seemed to just enjoy being in the backpack and out in the world.

Enjoy!  I hope to have some video of the girls next post!!!

The first set of pics is H and Clara setting up our small, but beautiful tree.  We decided that the active and increasingly mobile Gwen might see a large tree as food, its shiny ornaments as toys, or think of it as a support that she can use to help herself standup (she is constantly trying to stand up these days).  The rest follow in chronological order all the way up to some pretty cool forts and a very quirky princess!

Here is the link to the flickr slideshow of our holiday!

For you facebook friends, I couldn’t resist reposting this pic I took with my phone.  I LOVE IT!!!

Nevertheless, we have enjoyed the past few weekends:  the girls and I playing in the park, the grandparents visiting us all, and the fam visiting with friends.  The friends and family below include Gail, Vic, Aunt Nancy, Bob, Maria, Bobby, Emma, Anthony, Karena, Zachary, and Ceasar!  We did a lot of living the weekends of November.  Next post: Thanksgiving!  See you soon.