Snow Day

It was my first snow day ever!  Work and school were cancelled last week for a big snow storm that was supposed to hit.  It did snow...some, and we all enjoyed our day off!

Cohen threw his first snowballs...

built his first snowman...

stomped around with me in the snow

and got lots of reading time with Sterling (Brown Bear, Brown Bear....over and over and over)

I think I'm ready for another snow day! =)

Thanksgiving

Since we live closer to Jonathan and Val now, we spent Thanksgiving at their house.  I had to work the day before and Sterling had class, so we headed down Thanksgiving morning...arriving just in time for the big Thanksgiving meal!  That worked out pretty well.  =)  It was delicious!  Val is always such an amazing chef!  Thanks Val for all of your hard work!  Then we spent Friday playing at parks and hanging out.  Cohen wasn't too keen on his naps while we were there, so Friday he crashed every time we got in the car.  We also shared a room with him and he figured out he could sit up and see us. In order to save the entire household from being awakened I put him in the bed with us (which we have never done).  Needless to say, I think he slept decently, haha! He also had fun with Ella and Addy.  Ella was so good with him, always bringing him toys and playing with him.  We tried to convince to come home with us, but to no avail.  We headed back home on Saturday, but it was a nice little trip!  Thanks Jonathan and Val!

We went to a huge park, and Cohen just wanted to play in the leaves.  We figured it was fine, since he doesn't see much of that in the city now.  

I love Addy's face in this one.  As instructed, she's doing a great job of holding on to Cohen!

 Cohen asleep in our bed with Raffe (raf-ee...his stuffed giraffe) on his head.  

The Letter P.

This post is brought to you by the letter P.  Pajamas, Pink eye, and Pictures.  Cohen woke up this morning with Pink eye.  So, we stayed in our PJ's and I decided to update the blog with our latest pictures.  Since we moved to Baltimore I've been wanting to get some family pictures.  I really wanted to capture the "city-ness" in our family pictures...so I thought it'd be really cool to get graffiti in our background.  Well, in the safer areas of Baltimore there are a lot of murals painted onto walls, but to get real graffiti you have to travel to the ghetto (I was going to try to be politically correct, but it was taking too much effort).  We'll just say they are areas where I wouldn't want to stand outside for any extended period of time (or at all really), and I definitely wouldn't leave my camera out on a tripod.  In addition, I'd probably be mailing out Christmas cards with vulgar gang symbols on them.  So needless to say, I had to try to come up with some other type of "city-ness".  Turns out our back alley was a decent set up, and I think it's great, because it will remind us of our home in Baltimore when we look at our pictures in the years to come.

We found this shed and tree stump right in our alley!

We did get some not-so-city pictures at a nearby park too when we went for a picnic.

This boy loves stomping leaves! 

Halloween

Edgar Allan Poe is from Baltimore and was buried here.  The cemetary has a big church that was built on top of some catacombs (apparently that was the thing to do back in the day).  Each year they give Halloween tours and have people playing Halloween music on the organ.  Some friends watched Cohen and we went for our Halloween tour.  It wasn't scary (I thought it might be...you know, haunted house style), so that was nice.  At the end they had popcorn, apple cider, and Edgar Allan Poe readings.  I liked the food and cider and Sterling liked the readings...win win!

Waiting in line

Poe's grave

The catacombs 

Cohen's First Birthday

I can't believe he already turned one!  Sometimes it seems similar to my mission; the days are long but the weeks go by quickly.  When I look back at how tiny he was before I can't believe how much he has grown!  We decided to just have a small celebration since he really doesn't know any better and we don't have any family in town or anything.  I had to work on his birthday, but we made some cupcakes the night before and I decorated them when I got home.  He LOVED them (the eating part of course....I'm sure he could care less about how they were decorated)!  I don't think he really liked the icing on his fingers, so he held his hands out to the side and just leaned in with a wide open mouth.

After the cupcakes he got a bath and then we opened presents.  He has recently gotten into opening things, so he enjoyed opening the presents and loved playing with his new toys!  Thanks everyone for  all of the gifts!

Cooler than cool whip

Yep!  That's my sister...cooler than cool whip (a phrase she used many years ago and it just stuck; how could it not?).  So I've been procrastinating this post until I get pictures from Melica (which I have yet to request). I decided I should just go ahead and post what I've got and add more later. Melica came to visit me last month (hence the cooler than cool whip).  I was sooo excited!  We'd been talking about needing to get together and it seemed easier for me to go to Florida (she has three kids; I have one. She has a house; I live in a basement...etc). But she was a champ and came up to Baltimore for a long weekend; what a great sister I have!  (And a special thanks to Aaron for lending us your wife!)   We had a great time.  We picked her and Kinsley up in DC and went to the Museum of Natural History, came back to Baltimore and got some Home Slyce (yummy pizza), put the kiddos down, and pigged out on ice cream and hung out. The next day we spent at the aquarium and downtown and came home to do the same evening routine....put the kids down and eat way too much ice cream! Sunday we went to church and then in the evening we headed over to an arboretum nearby. There was lots of space for Kinsley to run around and some of the leaves were changing to bright orange (a pleasant sight for Floridians).  Sunday evening was...yep...you guessed it, more ice cream! Monday we went to a park nearby and then had to drop them off at the airport.   It was such a nice weekend and it was fun for Cohen and Kinsley to get to play together. She would run from one side of the house to the other and let him chase her. Unfortunately for him, she was running and he was crawling. When he got close she'd run to the other side again. Haha!  They stayed pretty entertained.

Trying to get pictures (both smiling simultaneously) at the Arboretum

Fall leaves

Melica was amazing when it came to getting Cohen to sleep.  He's our cuddly boy, and here you can see he's got his hands and feet on her.  :)

At the Aquarium.  Kinsley's taking a close look at the jellyfish.  haha!