Ocean City!!

We had a fantastic, relaxing week in Ocean City. Highlights of the trip include:

Eating lots of delicious food:

Including Katherine's first bite of Mack 'n Manco's:

Playing on the beach (in her itsy bitsy teenie weenie yellow polka-dot bikini):

Lots of naps:

A visit from Sima, Mommy and Daddy's good friend from high school: 

Walking (and snuggling) on the boardwalk:

Katherine even took some baby steps of her own:

Playing with cousins:

Watching the sunrise:

Time to just play and be silly:

And of course, catching up on sleep!! 

The weather while we were in Ocean City was gorgeous-- sunny and warm, but not too hot! We experienced some craziness from Mother Nature, including an earthquake (felt by the whole Northeastern US) and had to leave early because of a hurricane evacuation for the East Coast.  We were extremely fortunate to make it home safely and without hitting any traffic. As we finish our vacation at home, we pray for all those in Irene's path and those affected by the storm.

We've enjoyed every second of our vacation, and although we're a bit sad to return to "normal life" this next week, we're extremely grateful to feel rejuvenated, and look forward to many more fun memories in Ocean City in years to come!

On the Road

Our vacation has officially begun, as we are on the Turnpike headed to Ocean City!! You can see we're off to a great start:

Hopefully Katherine will enjoy the ride, and if all goes well we'll get in around midnight tonight. We're praying for good weather,, safe drivers, and quality time.

Ocean City here we come!!

High 5!!

Katherine is 5 months old today!! Our friend from college met her today and commented "she's so small." It sounded funny to us, because everyday we comment, "she's getting so big!!"

Here are some smiley pictures of the happy girl for you to enjoy:

Lounging in her Boppy, fascinated by the top

Mmmm.... Carrots!!

"Whatcha lookin' at?"




Tomorrow is the start of our vacation, and we're ready to snap some great pictures at the shore! It will be nice to hit "pause" and enjoy watching Katherine grow up without the distractions of everyday life. :-)

News Report

There hasn't been any earth shattering news around here lately, but Katherine wants to share a report of our latest happenings with you:

The new Batman movie is being shot in Pittsburgh. There are different scenes all over town, and in the background below you can see we got to witness some of the filming prep. It's hard to tell in the picture, but they filled the street and many buildings on it with fake snow. We also got a quick glimpse of the Batmobile. It's been fun and exciting to see glimpses of the filming process, although sometimes it's a nuisance to deal with added traffic and detours.

Katherine and Buttercup get along quite well, and she truly feels like part of our family now. Here you can see them playing:

Katherine is usually quite gentle with Kitty, but we obviously never leave them to "play" unattended and are careful to make sure they get along. It's good practice for mediating future sibling bantering (in a few years). 

;-)

This weekend we got to go out to Uncle Dante's concert at the Cheesecake Caffe in Irwin, PA. We enjoyed some sweet treats and rocked out with Aunt Kari and Luke.

Uncle Dave's Mom, "Gran Koes" also has been visiting with Andrew and Alex's cousin Ryan. We've enjoyed seeing all the boys play together, and it's always a joy to spend time with extended family.

Katherine's food adventures have continued. She still only has rice cereal every few evenings, but we've started to sometimes add cinnamon to it. She gets a HUGE smile on her face when she tries, and loves the adventure overall. Unfortunately we haven't snapped any new pictures of her at mealtime, but we certainly will soon!

We've also been enjoying lovely weather for the last couple weeks. We haven't had our air conditioning on for over a week, and Mommy and Daddy have been training a lot for their half marathon. Hopefully the great weather will continue for our vacation in Ocean City, NJ next week!!! We're counting down the hours (right now about 113) until we leave for vacation, but still trying to savor every moment of our blessed life!

Yum-O!

Katherine has been extremely interested in what we're eating lately. It's getting challenging to hold her on our laps during meal times, as she usually tries to grab whatever we're eating, or pulls our hands (full of food) towards her mouth. As you can see, she's even begun to explore the art of cooking:

Checking out her kitchen play table we found at GG's church fair

We decided it was time to introduce some real food to her. She was pretty excited to dig in!

A drink I think!

As part of our pre-food adventures we introduced a straw cup to Katherine today. She actually managed to sip a bit of water out of it, and seemed relatively interested in it. We're thinking of letting her play with some rice cereal soon too-- more pictures are sure to follow!

Block Parties!

We're excited to announce a new adventure we're undertaking.... a party planning/ meal delivery business called "Block Parties." Mommy's always dreamed of being a party planner (after planning hundreds of events as a resident assistant in college), and Daddy knows how to make everything more fun!

We're beginning with a blog, centered around "celebrating life," and over the next few weeks we hope to expand into a full website with party planning tips. Soon we'll also start a meal delivery service where we advertise, cook, then deliver a themed meal each week. Eventually we hope to get into custom party planning and catering as well, but we're taking baby steps to make sure we don't overextend ourselves.

Although there isn't much to the site right now, you can check out our blog at: block-parties.blogspot.com.

We'll keep you updated as we grow-- and have no worries-- we promise to keep posting lots of blogs and pictures about our beautiful baby girl!! :-)