Christmas 2013

This year we went home to Maryland for the Christmas holiday. We spent two weeks with our families there and enjoyed every moment! The kids were spoiled rotten with all the attention from their aunts and uncles and grandparents and even great grandparents. I didn't take as many pictures as I should have because I was too busy reading THREE and a HALF books while other people entertained my children. It was glorious! 

While at home we spent a long weekend up at a ski cabin at Deep Creek Lake with Sam's Dad's side of the family. Sam got to ski for the first time in many years and the kids got to meet Sam's cousin's daughters that are close to their age and were very fast friends. 

Sam and I also snuck away from everyone for a night to a Bed & Breakfast in Annapolis which was a wonderful start to our New Year. We haven't yet found a babysitter in CT so date nights are few and far between these days unfortunately. 

This is the face LK makes when she gets flashed by the camera- haha! 

Pile on Uncle Colin! This went on forever...

Lanie Kate was thrilled that the appetizers at Uncle Colin and Aunt Gianna's Christmas Eve party were just at her level. 

Snacking and Pop Pop Christmas Eve

Colin and Gianna's Christmas Eve dinner party

Our little family on Christmas Eve

Lanie Kate is obsessed with "big-people" cups and Mom Mom is just the softie to indulge her

Quinn is infatuated with Uncle Kirk's long-time girlfriend, Andy ever since she played bubbles with him at the beach this summer. Watch out Uncle Kirk, you've got some competition!

Christmas morning at Mom Mom and Pop Pop's. Santa brought Q a Kindle Fire, a Ravens football helmet, the Planes movie, and a drum set. Santa brought LK a stroller, doll, and diaper bag.

Christmas morning at Nana and Granpop's. Santa's second stop for the Fromille kids! He brought Q a couple educational games, play dough toys, and How To Train Your Dragon. Santa brought LK a PB Anywhere Chair, a purse, two chunky necklaces, The Little Mermaid, and a couple board books by her favorite author. He filled their stockings with Craisins and Dried Mango- some of their favorite treats! 

Granpop set up his electric train display for Quinn and Q got to blow the train whistle. This display totally saved Christmas because when we arrived at Nana and Granpop's we were 45 minutes into the worst tantrum we have ever experienced over getting dressed {which required him to take off the football helmet}. When he showed up and saw the train set, the helmet was quickly forgotten.

LK insisted on wearing both of her new necklaces.

Carving the turkey breast with an audience.

Hoping for some turkey...

Master chef Nana. It was so nice to have someone else doing most of the cooking! 

Zia made Q and LK a hand painted giraffe growth chart. Probably my favorite Christmas present. My sister is so creative and an amazing artist and her gifts are always the best. She made me two sketches, one of each of our dogs. And painted a catamaran sailboat on a navigational map of the Bimini Islands {where Sam use to sail in college} for Sam. 

I am pretty sure we have a picture of my dad in some sort of goofy head gear for as many Christmases as I can remember.

Nana and Granpop totally spoiled the kids with presents and this little stand mixer and cookie cutter set was a favorite for both kids. 

Another favorite from Nana and Granpop was this little purse. LK got 3 purses for Christmas but this was by far her favorite and has barely left the crook of her arm since!

My fur babies snuggling

Q rocking out on his new drum set. Santa may regret this gift... ;)

There is a good chance that this will be our last Maryland Christmas for awhile and it was such a fun one full of family and great memories with the kids at this fun age. It even snowed after Christmas so Quinn could go sledding, which may be his favorite memory of all time- we sure hear about it enough now! We hope your Christmas was as full of wonderful moments and memories as ours was!

Happy Feet

My little dude is growing up so fast! I can't take it. Did I tell you that I totally got misty eyed the first time he kept his underwear dry and told me he had to go potty? Yea, I did. Before having kids I thought I would be so excited for them to get out of the toddler years and I laughed at mothers who teared up about their children growing up. And now, here I am crying over pee in a plastic Elmo potty! But I digress... I am on here today to write about another little growing up moment for Q :)

Have you seen the movie Happy Feet? If you haven't, you should. It is so cute! All the Emperor penguins are good singers and that is how they attract their mates, by singing their "heart song" and "a penguin without a heart song is hardly a penguin at all" according to one of the characters in the movie. Little penguin Mumble is born with dancing "happy" feet though and he couldn't carry a tune in a bucket and the movie is about him learning to be himself and others learning to accept his differences. This movie has replaced Q's long time favorite movie The Sandlot as his current favorite and he randomly throughout the day will waddle around the house stomping his feet really quickly exclaiming "I have happy feet mommy!" It's pretty darn cute, I must say.

Annnnyway, we were at the park a couple of days ago and he met a little girl who was a little bit older than him and became friends. This is kind of a big deal with Q. He has lots of friends, but they are generally kids he sees frequently because they are my friend's kids. He is definitely not one to speak to strangers and generally prefers to quietly observe kids he doesn't know at the playground rather than strike up a friendship. But he and this little girl were having a legitimate conversation and making choices together about what they wanted to play. I was pretty proud of him.

I guess he must have thought this little girl was pretty special because at some point he busted out his mating call... his happy feet moves. She looked at him like he had lost his marbles and ran off to play somewhere else. Sorry Q, guess she wasn't your "one true love."

Quinn {2.5 year update}

This weekend Q will be two and a half.  Where has the time gone?  When did he turn into such a big boy?! I'm not gonna lie, I love this age! But I know it will be gone just as quickly as it arrived, so I'm taking a couple of minutes to document him as he is now, as a little big boy.

 It is rare to see him without a ball and a glove these days. This glove is special because it was his daddy's and both his uncle's when they were young. He still loves other ball sports such as soccer, golf, and basketball, but baseball is by far his current favorite. He went to his first MLB game with his Mom-mom and Pop-pop and Uncle Colin at Camden Yards back in April. The game started at 7pm and we expected he wouldn't make it too long past his typical 8pm bedtime but at 11pm after the game he wanted to Skype daddy to tell him all about it and ever since then not a day goes by without exclaiming "Go O's! Get 'em out!" at least a few times. {He actually use to say "get a mouse" which took us awhile to figure out what he was referring to ;) }

 Quinn also started preschool two mornings a week a couple of months ago and absolutely loves it. He comes home singing new songs and tells us all about what he learned and the art he created. His teachers report that he doesn't talk much which is pretty shocking to us because we can't get him to stop talking for two minutes at home. He loves his teachers and they report that despite his quietness they love having him because he is reportedly a very good listener and very well behaved {proud mama here!}. He also apparently draws the attention of the entire staff whenever he gets ahold of a soccer ball and shows off his amazing skills.

***

He is a very loving sibling to both his little sister and our dogs. He loves to throw the ball for the dogs and can often be found chasing them around the house trying to pet them. He is very sweet to his little sister and if she is fussing while I am busy he will go entertain her and is sure to let me know when she is upset. He doesn't love it when she gets into his toys or books but he generally will go get her a toy so that she leaves his stuff alone. 

One of his most impressive qualities that we notice the more verbal he is, is his uncanny memory. {He definitely got that from his father!} He is super observant and he will let you know if you skipped a step or put something in the wrong place or forgot to do something. On the mornings he isn't in preschool, he goes to the gym with me and always reminds me if I forget to take my glasses off and leave them in the car. And if you tell him the day of the week, he will tell you our schedule {based on what we usually do, not based on us telling him anything}. Me: "It's Tuesday Quinn." Q: "I go to school and we go to the farmers market. Get some strawberries!" {oh yea, he is completely obsessed with strawberries... he generally eats about a dozen before we even get out of the farmers market!}

***

He continues to love to read and we have been getting into longer books lately. He loves Curious George and Bernstein Bears books and Bible stories. Most nights we read straight from the Bible (ICV) with no pictures or anything and it is amazing what he comprehends. Awhile ago we read the story of Zacharias being told he was going to have a baby but he didn't believe the angel so he was made mute until John was born {Luke 1} and when we asked Q what the story was about he told us, "the angel put Zacharias in time out" which I think is a pretty fair summary!

He really is just the sweetest kid and it is pure joy being his mama. He makes me smile, makes me laugh, and warms my heart every single day with his songs, the things he says, and his constant requests for hugs, kisses, and snuggles. Like any toddler, he has his moments... {the current battle is whining} but overall he truly is a joy to parent and I am just trying to hang on to this sweet age.

Playground Fun

One of our favorite daily routines is going to the park after afternoon nap. One beautiful day I took the camera along. Despite the typical lack of cooperation from Quinn when it comes to pictures... I was able to take a few.

2 "bubble heads"

 A common nickname for submariners is "bubble head" and this pic captures my husband the submariner and another little bubble head :-P

watching the bubbles float away

Bug!

 Quinn has been learning about bugs in preschool so whenever he sees one he takes on this {very studious} posture and checks it out.

Bella "pointing" for her ball

Of course the dogs come along and play ball in the grassy area next to the playground.

Winston ready to pounce

 Quinn loves to climb and play on the playground equipment but he was not keen on me taking his picture doing those things so I only managed a couple shots while he was trying to evade me. 

{Side note: He rarely cooperates for having his picture taken yet ironically he constantly asks to see pictures of himself. I have tried to explain the problem with this to him to no avail!}

Catching Up! {This Is Our Life Project}

I have been slacking on the weekly photography project with life getting busy as usual so I have some catching up to do. Mostly I just haven't downloaded pictures in ages... so here is my attempt at getting caught up. In the interest of getting caught up I have not edited any of these images even though they could use it... oh well!

Week 7: Negative Space, It's a Positive Thing!

Negative space is the blank space in a picture which you can use to compose a picture to achieve a desired effect. Here the negative space is the big blue sky.  I took the picture from below as Q was swinging at a baseball.  Playing baseball is currently his favorite thing to do.  He loves watching his baseball movie (The Sandlot) and goes out back to hit balls as often as I will let him. He can throw the ball up and hit it out of the air himself but he prefers when he can get someone to pitch for him. He's quite the slugger these days!

Week 8: Wild Card

Me and my girls <3 p="">

Nothing spectacular about this but it makes my heart smile- loves these girls!

Week 9: Out of the Shadows

Project "beach acclimation" is complete. From a child who use to hate sand and refuse to move if you put him down in it, he told us on our way to Carmel on this evening "I love going to the beach and playing ball with the dogs!" He even went so far as to dump a bucket of sand on his head gleefully... so I'd say we're plenty acclimated. Here, my friend Jenn who was visiting from Chicago was building sand castles which Q was systematically destroying.  Apparently you do not need to teach boys to act like boys... :-)

Week 10: Changes

Quinn took this picture :-) This is our first baby who is trying to get use to not being "top dog" anymore. As Q gets older, Bella has been trying to let him know who is boss {her according to her}. We have been working on teaching her that she is actually not in charge of the children and is therefore not allowed to "discipline" them when they misbehave, furthermore, she needs to actually be obedient to them... ouch... change is hard for this little one!

Week 11: Play

These are my boys playing! Q loves to help with just about anything we are doing and washing the car was no exception.  We've had gorgeous weather here lately so it was a good day for getting wet and playing with the soap and the hose. Winston dog is the biggest sucker for the hose- he goes nuts when we get the hose out and tries to bite the stream of water.

Blue Eyed Babies

It's 11:57pm on a Friday night... which is approximately 2 hours past my bedtime.

I had chocolate cake sometime around 8:30pm.

Which means my sugar high will be wearing off right about the time my kids are waking up tomorrow morning.

So in the mean time I'm finally downloading pictures that have been sitting on my camera and I just couldn't resist sharing this bright blue eyes! We're past due for an update anyway :-)

This little cutie is now 5 months old!  She continues to be such a joy. Happiest, sweetest baby I have ever known. So busy these days... rolling over tummy to back and back to tummy, "talking" constantly, and really engaged with her toys but still mostly enjoys engaging people.

This handsome fella keeps us laughing.  He is talk-a-tive! Has something to say about everything and is so expressive as he does so. He makes some goofy faces too and I just can't get enough of him at this age. He is super affectionate and is always clamoring for hugs and kisses which melts my heart. If his daddy and I are hugging he normally wants to get in on the love and will come over demanding hugs and we oblige him by making a "Quinn sandwich" which he has apparently picked up on because the other day when we were hugging he came running up to us yelling "sandwich! sandwich!"

Baking Up A Little Love

 My little man loves to help me in the kitchen. He sits on a stool at the counter and measures and mixes and cheers me on. So I had him do most of the work baking these Valentine's cookies for his daddy.  They are a family recipe that we make every year.

A little sugar

Lanie Kate supervising

Taste testing

The Finished Product

I am truly blessed to have so much love in my life on Valentines Day and every other day. 

I hope you all felt very loved too!