Wednesday, December 23, 2009
O Christmas Tree
I'm so proud of our first tree in our own house, I wanted to post a picture of it here. Of course, it would have been perfect to have had a picture of Philip posing adorably in front of it, maybe in the cute little Santa hat that I bought him (that he hates), but, after many futile attempts to make said picture a reality, I've realized that's just not gonna happen. Oh well. There's always next year!
Monday, December 21, 2009
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Digging Out
The snow finally moved out around 9:00 last night, much to our relief. But after a full 24 hours of snowflakes, there was (and still is!) quite a mess to deal with:
Phil got to work right away on shoveling our driveway which was a JOB. Thankfully, it wasn't completely backbreaking as our wonderful neighbor used his snow blower to clear our driveway from the back of our cars out to the road, alleviating a lot of hard manual labor for Phil in the morning. After a couple hours of shoveling, Phil finally dug us our car out of the driveway and we ventured out into town around 1:00. Much to our dismay, the major roads through town were a complete mess. They seriously looked as though a plow hadn't even touched them! Oddly enough, the only priority area seemed to be the parking lots at Wal-Mart and Target.
Upon returning from town we found that the plow had finally made its appearance. Unfortunately, it also threw a three foot wall of rock hard snow completely across our once snow-free driveway. Needless to say, Phil definitely got our money's worth out of our snow shovel today!
Here's a picture of our house all lit up against the winter wonderland!
We didn't get to do any playing today as the snow is still so thick. Apparently, a two foot toddler isn't much of a match for two feet of snow!
Phil got to work right away on shoveling our driveway which was a JOB. Thankfully, it wasn't completely backbreaking as our wonderful neighbor used his snow blower to clear our driveway from the back of our cars out to the road, alleviating a lot of hard manual labor for Phil in the morning. After a couple hours of shoveling, Phil finally dug us our car out of the driveway and we ventured out into town around 1:00. Much to our dismay, the major roads through town were a complete mess. They seriously looked as though a plow hadn't even touched them! Oddly enough, the only priority area seemed to be the parking lots at Wal-Mart and Target.Upon returning from town we found that the plow had finally made its appearance. Unfortunately, it also threw a three foot wall of rock hard snow completely across our once snow-free driveway. Needless to say, Phil definitely got our money's worth out of our snow shovel today!
Here's a picture of our house all lit up against the winter wonderland!
We didn't get to do any playing today as the snow is still so thick. Apparently, a two foot toddler isn't much of a match for two feet of snow!
Saturday, December 19, 2009
SNOW!
At this moment, the three of us are huddled indoors while outside our front door the world looks like this:
It's only 11 o'clock in the morning and supposedly the worst of the storm is still ahead of us. I'm just praying we don't lose power! Thankfully, Phil called in to work last night and it looks like he won't be going anywhere today either. The roads are horrible and making the normally 1 hour and 15 minute long trek to Fairfax today would not only be treacherous, but also take at least a solid 4 hours. Looks like we'll be hunkering down together in our warm and cozy home for the weekend! Hopefully by tomorrow we'll be able to go out and play!
It's only 11 o'clock in the morning and supposedly the worst of the storm is still ahead of us. I'm just praying we don't lose power! Thankfully, Phil called in to work last night and it looks like he won't be going anywhere today either. The roads are horrible and making the normally 1 hour and 15 minute long trek to Fairfax today would not only be treacherous, but also take at least a solid 4 hours. Looks like we'll be hunkering down together in our warm and cozy home for the weekend! Hopefully by tomorrow we'll be able to go out and play!
Friday, December 18, 2009
Then and Now
Philip at Christmastime last year:
Philip at Christmastime this year:
Back then I didn't think it was possible for my child to get any more adorable. A year has proved me wrong!
Philip at Christmastime this year:
Back then I didn't think it was possible for my child to get any more adorable. A year has proved me wrong!
Thursday, December 17, 2009
The Most Wonderful Time of the Year
Christmas is one week away and I think we're almost ready. We're nearly done with Christmas shopping, the house is decorated, cookies have been baked, Santa has been visited, and Christmas cards are in progress, but it still feels like there's so much left to do!
Christmas this year is such a contrast to Christmas last year. This time last year, we had just moved into our new house and sleeping on a mattress on the floor, surrounded by unpacked boxes. But it was still great to be homeowners! We didn't decorate too much, mostly because we couldn't unearth our boxes of holiday decorations, and we didn't get a tree. We also had a 3.5 month old baby who was still waking up several times per night, so we felt okay cutting ourselves some slack in that regard!
This year, Christmas has hit our house in full force. Phil did a great job putting up lights in the front and back of the house, our tree is ablaze with lights and shimmering with ornaments, and the rest of the house is peppered with holiday cheer. Preparing for Christmas has been especially fun for me this year. It's always been my favorite time of year, but being a parent has made it that much more joyful. It's so much fun seeing the holiday through the eyes of a child again and I'm having fun beginning our own family traditions with Philip, like going to pick out our Christmas tree, listening to Christmas music, watching Christmas movies together, and baking cookies to share with friends and family. And then there's the shopping! Needless to say, I've had a little too much fun shopping for Philip's first "real" Christmas now that he's old enough to actually observe and enjoy what's going on around him. But I'm still pretty sure that, of the two of us, I'm the most excited to see him open his presents this year!
Christmas this year is such a contrast to Christmas last year. This time last year, we had just moved into our new house and sleeping on a mattress on the floor, surrounded by unpacked boxes. But it was still great to be homeowners! We didn't decorate too much, mostly because we couldn't unearth our boxes of holiday decorations, and we didn't get a tree. We also had a 3.5 month old baby who was still waking up several times per night, so we felt okay cutting ourselves some slack in that regard!
This year, Christmas has hit our house in full force. Phil did a great job putting up lights in the front and back of the house, our tree is ablaze with lights and shimmering with ornaments, and the rest of the house is peppered with holiday cheer. Preparing for Christmas has been especially fun for me this year. It's always been my favorite time of year, but being a parent has made it that much more joyful. It's so much fun seeing the holiday through the eyes of a child again and I'm having fun beginning our own family traditions with Philip, like going to pick out our Christmas tree, listening to Christmas music, watching Christmas movies together, and baking cookies to share with friends and family. And then there's the shopping! Needless to say, I've had a little too much fun shopping for Philip's first "real" Christmas now that he's old enough to actually observe and enjoy what's going on around him. But I'm still pretty sure that, of the two of us, I'm the most excited to see him open his presents this year!
Friday, December 4, 2009
15 Months Old
Little P is 15 months old today!
Boy, oh, boy is time flying now! If I thought the first year went by quickly, I can clearly see now that the second year is going to go by even faster! Philip has all but left all traces of babyhood behind him. In fact, when I refer to him as "the baby" now, it seems like a poor fit; he is most definitely a toddler! He's changed so much over the past 3 months. He's extremely mobile now. Walking, running, and climbing; he's absolutely keeping us on our toes. He's also becoming such an independent little person! Every day I'm amazed to see how much he is changing, learning, and growing, and it's so awesome to see his little personality blooming right before our eyes.
He's not really talking, per se, but he has a few "words" in his repertoire that we've decided to go ahead and count as his official words. He started with "dada", which he's been saying since this summer. Then he added "baba" into the mix, but hasn't used that much at all since he started drinking from sippy cups during the day back in September. Next came the long-awaited "mama" which he finally gave up last month! Granted, most of the time he saves "mama" for when he's angry or upset but I'll take what I can get! And, just the other day we were checking out in line at Target, and the cashier greeted Philip with a friendly "Hi!" Wouldn't you know it, our sweet little boy said it right back? We were beaming! Now he says it all the time when prompted. So cute!
He's also recently taken to signing! So far he knows the sign for "more" and for "milk." He learned "more" a while ago but I hadn't been practicing any with him for a while. Within the past couple of weeks I started randomly making the sign for "milk" when offering him his sippy cup and then, out of the blue, the other morning he signed "milk" to us (with both hands!) when we asked him if he wanted a drink. Genius, I tell you! ;-)
Even though his spoken vocabulary is limited, he still understands so much. All we have to do is give him the vocabulary for an object a couple of times and he retains it. What's even more adorable is when we ask him to find something, like his football, and he immediately stops what he was doing to go find it and bring it to us!
We couldn't be more proud of our little guy. He's healthy and smart and such a blessing in our lives. Life with Philip just keeps getting better!
Boy, oh, boy is time flying now! If I thought the first year went by quickly, I can clearly see now that the second year is going to go by even faster! Philip has all but left all traces of babyhood behind him. In fact, when I refer to him as "the baby" now, it seems like a poor fit; he is most definitely a toddler! He's changed so much over the past 3 months. He's extremely mobile now. Walking, running, and climbing; he's absolutely keeping us on our toes. He's also becoming such an independent little person! Every day I'm amazed to see how much he is changing, learning, and growing, and it's so awesome to see his little personality blooming right before our eyes.
He's not really talking, per se, but he has a few "words" in his repertoire that we've decided to go ahead and count as his official words. He started with "dada", which he's been saying since this summer. Then he added "baba" into the mix, but hasn't used that much at all since he started drinking from sippy cups during the day back in September. Next came the long-awaited "mama" which he finally gave up last month! Granted, most of the time he saves "mama" for when he's angry or upset but I'll take what I can get! And, just the other day we were checking out in line at Target, and the cashier greeted Philip with a friendly "Hi!" Wouldn't you know it, our sweet little boy said it right back? We were beaming! Now he says it all the time when prompted. So cute!
He's also recently taken to signing! So far he knows the sign for "more" and for "milk." He learned "more" a while ago but I hadn't been practicing any with him for a while. Within the past couple of weeks I started randomly making the sign for "milk" when offering him his sippy cup and then, out of the blue, the other morning he signed "milk" to us (with both hands!) when we asked him if he wanted a drink. Genius, I tell you! ;-)
Even though his spoken vocabulary is limited, he still understands so much. All we have to do is give him the vocabulary for an object a couple of times and he retains it. What's even more adorable is when we ask him to find something, like his football, and he immediately stops what he was doing to go find it and bring it to us!
We couldn't be more proud of our little guy. He's healthy and smart and such a blessing in our lives. Life with Philip just keeps getting better!
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