Grandma Marcia Visits Alice!

As we mentioned last week, we were so lucky to receive a visit from Alice's Grandma Marcia, all the way from North Dakota!  Grandma and Alice had a lot of time to bond during the week, especially because of Grandma's generous offer to stay with Alice every day so that Mommy could spend the entire week in the office without any interruptions.  We are so thankful!  It was a great week for everyone, and here are some fun photos of Grandma and Alice visiting, and a few with Alice's cousin Miranda as well.

We are so happy that Alice got such a great chance to visit with her Grandma, since those visits are more rare than anyone would like them to be, with such a distance between them.  However, we were equally happy to see that Grandma Marcia got a chance to be with her two favorite people in the world at the same time for a few days!

Finally, we wanted to share these two photos with you.  Alice has become such a great smiler and giggler lately, and we have gotten some beautiful photos of her, as a result!

Many thanks again to Grandma Marcia for making the trip, although, we know that it did not take too much convincing to get you here! We'd love to have you back anytime and look forward to seeing you soon.

Here is a link to all of the photos from the several photo shoots over the week with Grandma and her babies! Enjoy!

Vicky and Miranda visit Boston!

This past week, we have been so lucky to have Alice's Auntie Vicky and Cousin Miranda spend a few days with us.  (Grandma Marcia is here as well, but she deserves her own post, which we will post in a few days!)

It was especially fun to watch the girls visit, play together and get to know each other!  They are so cute together, and being only 7 months apart, they are sure to be great friends for life.

Back in June, when the family was here, Mommy and Alice and Auntie Vicky and Miranda took a similar photo to this one and it is amazing to see how much the girls have grown in the short time since:

Here is Miranda teaching Alice how to stand up at the ottoman:

Here is Alice playing with Miranda in her crib:

Here is Miranda, teaching her Mommy the funny face she was trying out this week.  Such a silly girl! :)

We had such a great time and look forward to the next time we see Vicky and Miranda.  In the meantime, we are all enjoying visiting with Grandma Marcia (and much appreciating the daily babysitting she is providing all week!).  Look out for that blog post and photos soon!

Here are some of the photos of our visit with Vicky and Miranda.

Exciting Halloween Weekend!

It was sad to see Bethany and CJ go back to California this past Monday evening, but we had a really fun visit with them.  As you saw in last week's post, we all dressed up for Halloween.  When Bethany and CJ left for a fun evening in Salem, Massachusetts on Halloween night, the monkey and her two bananas (and her Grammie and Grampie, as photographers) headed out for Alice's first trick-or-treating adventure!  Here we are visiting our neighbor's house:

It was really more of a reverse trick-or-treating adventure, since we brought our candy with us and handed it out to people who complimented us on our costumes.  It was a fun trip around the neighborhood (and a beautiful night out - it was windy, but around 70 degrees!).  Alice especially liked being carried around the neighborhood since she usually gets strapped into her stroller for walks.

Also on Halloween night, Alice tried her first vegetable (prior to this, she had tried only rice cereal in addition to her milk).  Appropriate for the season, her first "real" food was sweet potatoes.  She really enjoyed them!:

The Salem crew returned late Saturday night after visiting haunted houses, having fortunes told, and enjoying rides (lots of fun, it sounded like - with Halloween falling on a Saturday this year, the city estimated that Salem received 100,000 visitors that night!).

The next day, Scott made a full breakfast for everyone, and we all traveled down for a mini-vacation to Danny and Chris's house in Marion.  It was a really fun, relaxing getaway!  Here are Auntie Bethany and Uncle CJ spending some more time with the monkey:

Auntie Bethany and Alice really had fun together.  We have been so lucky to be able to spend so much time together this year, even though we live 3,000 miles away!

In Marion, the guys put together an amazing meal, with each one contributing a dish.  Here are CJ and Scott, working on their macaroni and cheese, and herb soup (which has now been dubbed "liar's soup" because of all of its mythical ingredients!)

Here is Danny, coming in from outside after grilling the steaks (that was his dish):

Auntie Chris also got in some fun cuddle time with Alice.  Here is a great photo of the two of them!:

It was a really great time, and we were so happy, as always, that Bethany and CJ visited.  We already miss them so much!  Can't wait to see them again hopefully soon!

Here are the rest of the fun photos from the weekend.