The first cupcake, but defintely not the last

In a moment of parenting genius, we celebrated two things. E turned 10 months on Monday and I turned 31 on Tuesday. And because best friends are normally filled with "good" ideas, Colleen gave me 30 cupcakes to celebrate my birthday.

So I give you, 5 minutes of E eating her first cupcake.

SO CUTE! 

Our First Holiday Season

Chanukah came early this year. It started BEFORE Thanksgiving. Crazy? Right? 

So we celebrated. Duh. 

We lit candles each night - first time we didn't miss a single night. And Eliana was enamored with the candles. We lit them with dinner each night. She watched them the entire time she ate.  

We hope your holidays were as wonderful as ours. 

While Eliana and I are Jewish, Matt is not. So we celebrate Christmas with Matt and his extended family. 

Like I explained about Thanksgiving, Matt's family celebrates the weekend before. This was that wonderful weekend in December with 70 degree weather. So yes, Matt & Eliana are walking in the woods in a T-shirt. So we went to the shore to celebrate at Matt's uncle & aunt's house with the whole extended family. We got there early to spend some extra time playing outside in the park. Someone LOVES the swing!

We play games. Sometimes trivia. Sometimes funny. This year we played reindeer antlers. One team member had to wear nylons on his head with the toes cut off. And they rest of us filled them to make antlers. I'm filled with hot air, so our team won!

Unfortunately, we weren't going to be around on actual Christmas day. So we celebrate as a family on Sunday. We attempted to go to Church with Linda (someone's nap got in the way). And then came home for lunch and presents. We didn't really do presents for Eliana for Chanukah, so this was new. 

Eliana watched Matt intently as he "helped" her open her gifts. 

We have a favorite book around here. Nana found it while we were walking around NYC over the summer. Dinosaur v. Bedtime is a crowd pleaser around these parts. And Lauren & Phil gave us the next book in the series, Dinosaur v. Library. Let me just tell you ~ AMAZING!!!!!! We are in so much love.

Christmas is a strange holiday. I hate all the commercialization that has happened in the last few decades. I hate listening to Christmas music before Thanksgiving. But I love the actually holiday. I do enjoy going to church with Linda. 

And this time of the year will be very complicated in 2014. Eliana will be old enough to ask questions and wonder why we are celebrating both holidays. How do you say that everyone believes something a little different, but that is also really complicated. and that it's okay because we support each other's differences. And that we believe one thing and Daddy believes something different but we can celebrate all together. Wish us luck! 

We hope that your holidays were filled with family, love, and happiness. We hope that they holidays were exactly what you wanted from them. And maybe a little more. 

A Super Cute Sink Moment

Who needs words to explain this??? 

I don't think she likes bath time very much 

Seriously cute. Every time she takes a bath. 

Thanksgiving 2013

You know Thanksgiving is a big deal in our house. I mean, Matt's world almost collapsed the year we married because our wedding canceled all our Thanksgiving plans. We had to make an impromptu Thanksgiving on a school night in order to restore order to the world.

So like in previous years, we celebrated three times. But unlike those same years, I only cooked ONE TURKEY this year. Now if your remember last year, you'll remember the fiasco with trying to find a turkey. This year, I went into the store for my birds (I assumed I would be getting two again) and asked for 2- 15 pounders, and he came back with 2- 30 pounders! WHERE WERE YOU LAST YEAR?!?!?!?! for real.

Anyways. We went home and played with the bird. Her name was Bertha. You know I don't like fondling anyone I don't know. So names are important when you put your hands under the skin. Which is the first thing you should do with the bird.

Back to my story. Our story. Whatever. First Thanksgiving is always Friends-giving. An afternoon spent with our friends (duh), turkey, and drinking. It's amazing that a few years ago, the first year that we hosted this event, we were all up until at least 2 in the morning having a wonderful time. And in the four years since, I think everyone has left by 10... babies. What can you do. They change things.

Our next Thanksgiving was with Matt's family. It was nice to see all the family. All the Uncles & Aunts & cousins. (side note, why are adults capitalized and cousins not - or is that just me...whatever). Not important. I digress.

Matt's Grandmother was a genius. She had 4 boys. They all grew up and got married. And that's when his Grandmother demonstrated her genius. She decided they would celebrate major holidays the weekend before. That way on the actual holiday, the boys could be with their wives' families. No trying to decide which family they were going to celebrate with. Amazing. Thank you Grand-mommy. You made all our families happier places.

Our final Thanksgiving, is Thanksgiving. We try to spend Wednesday night with Linda, Phil, and Lauren. This year there was awful weather. It was one of those storms. So we didn't make it. We were sad to have missed them. Thursday we got up and finally got on the road. We stopped by Linda's for a hug and a kiss. And then we spent the next 7 hours making that 4 hour drive.


When we finally made it to CT, we spent the weekend hanging out with Grandparents & Great Grandparents. Aunts and Uncle. (again with the caps???)

Four Generations of Stone Women

This year we are thankful for:

• Eliana
• our health
• our families
• our friends
• not feeling like we had to give up our lives when Eliana was born
• making time for ourselves
• friends we have made through Eliana
• making smart decisions - for our family, for our stomachs, in our jobs
• how fast Amazon ships 

FIRST SNOW!!!

Oh snow! How I love you! Through a window. With a beautiful warm roaring fire in front of me.

December 2013

 Cuddling with my sweethearts!

 

We spent a lot of time watching Daddy outside and the dogs pee on the porch. 

She was intrigued. She enjoyed sitting in the snow. And then she touched it. And she no longer enjoyed the snow so much. 

I'm sorry for the radio silence.

And that's serious. I am sorry. I have missed you. I have missed writing. So, because I know you missed me back, I have decided to stop posting forever.























JK! It was a joke. Calmate! (that's calm down for the less language inclined, or reclined like I am right now). For reals. 4 posts coming by the end of January. Including but not limited to: Thanksgiving, Chanukah, Christmas, Cancun, and birthday cupcakes. Oh look at that. ITS 5! Oh yea and a couple of monthly posts. I think I owe you 9 and 10. Maybe even 8. Oh, man, I am horrible at this. How about a picture to make up for it?

Our First Halloween

OOOOOO. First Halloween has come and gone. And the pictures are tooooo cute for words!

We had two Halloween experiences.
First, with the Mommy Group!

Look at all those cute babies!

And then on Halloween. Amber came over with her little Monkey. So cute.

Can you stand the cutesness?!?!?!?!