To say I took a break from blogging would be a gross understatement. I am a little ashamed that our last post was sometime in April or May. What is that, 6 or 7 months? Well, here is a little summary of catching up.
We ended up taking a job in Greenwich, CT. Dan works at Greenwich Hospital. In fact, the house we live in we rent from the hospital, which owns several houses in the area. This means that Dan's commute is a whopping two minute walk! In fact, I can see into his office window from the front of our house. That also means his staff can see whenever I leave the house at all. They keep Dan up to date as to what is happening over here.
Abigail will be one in two days. She isn't walking by herself yet, but she is working on it. She already has an uncanny connection with technology. One day she went over to the dvd player and pressed play, then sat back to wait for her video to start.
Alyssa will be three in January. She has a preschool class once a week that some of the women from church rotate hosting and teaching. She takes a gymnastic class called Tumblebugs that she absolutely loves. She is currently very into Mickey Mouse. And she has an annoying habit of calling me Marie instead of Mama. I think she thinks it's funny.
I have cut my teaching schedule back to one class a semester at Albertus Magnus College. I have also started a program called CMA, or certified movement analyst. About once a month for two years I travel down to the University of Maryland at College Park for an intense two days of training. It is hard to leave my family for that time, but the program and people are great, and I really enjoy it once I'm there.
The pictures that follow are a montage of Halloween. You will see our house, in festive attire, our little ladybug (Abigail) and bumblebee (Alyssa), and some great pictures of the Jack O' Lantern Blaze.
And here is a video of Alyssa interacting with her favorite Halloween decoration.
Alyssa loved hanging the streamers with me. Really, I love hanging streamers, and they always stay up longer than necessary.
Somehow we ended up with a bear theme for her party. It wasn't a conscious decision, but sort of evolved through the planning process. So, we had to have a bear cake, right?
And here is our little birthday girl.
Alyssa loved the streamers, but Abigail couldn't get enough of these hanging decorations.
One of our party activities was to read the board book, "We're Going On a Bear Hunt". And then we did go on a bear hunt! Abigail's teddy bear was missing, and we had to read and follow clues to find out where he was hiding. The kids really had fun racing all over the house. Although they were momentarily distracted when the search led through the play room...
Here is Abigail eating her piece of cake. I should have taken an after picture. She had frosting smeared all over. So cute! Or video would have been even better. I think it took her less than a minute to eat the whole thing.
Alyssa was great at "helping" Abigail to open her presents. All in all, it was a really fun party. We love you, Abigail! Happy, happy birthday.
