Growing up Fast

Alyssa has recently begun to mandate what clothes she wears. One day she found a shirt of mine, and insisted on wearing it. It actually looks pretty good on her, almost like it was meant to be a dress. Here she is modeling it for me. She didn't want to take it off all day long. It is so sweet that she wants to wear my clothes. Someday she really will be grown up enough for them to fit her. I hope that day doesn't come too soon.

Our New Baby Girl

Meet our beautiful new baby girl.

Abigail Ivy was born on November 18th at 8:50 pm, on her due date. She weighed 8 lbs 7 oz.

We love getting to know her.

She is intrigued by our furry family member, Sophia.

She is what we call a snoozer, sleeps all day and stays awake at night.

Her grandparents came out over Thanksgiving to meet her. We are so glad to have her as a part of our family!

An Ode to Friendship

The first week of November, Dan had to go out of town for about five days. Since this was about two weeks before our baby girl was due, I was pretty nervous about being at home by myself. My friend Kristine flew out from Utah to spend the week with me so I wouldn't have to be all by myself.
One of the things that we did was visit old Wethersfield outside of Hartford. Every place has some kind of bizarre things, but I think that only in New England would you get a display like this. Historical figures as scarecrows.

Here are Alyssa and Kristine's daughter, Katey. This was Kristine's first trip out to the East coast, so I wanted her to see as many quintessential New England things as possible.

It turns out that most things in Wethersfield were closed because it was Monday, so we went up to Hartford. A lot of things in Hartford were closed, too, so we took a walk down by the capitol building.

Here are Kristine and Katey. She made my week without Dan fun, and like she has so many times before, she supported me. And she didn't complain when our planned trip to New York was canceled by false labor. In fact, she laughed at me for feeling badly about it. Love ya, Kristine!

Strawberry Banke & Portsmouth

On a recent interview in New Hampshire (or New Hampster according to Alyssa) I had a chance to visit Strawberry Banke. Now a museum, it was the first settlement in the state. The oldest standing building was built in 1695. It is the dark brown house on the right of the picture below, next to the flag.
Below is a peek throught the entrance of the children's garden at Strawberry Banke.
The town is now Portsmouth. Below is one of the current houses. I was fortunate enough to be in New Hampshire at the peak of fall foliage.

Below are pictures of a church in the middle of town and one of the main streets. If you are ever in southern Maine or the New Hampshire coast it is worth a stop to look at the shops and architecture.

Halloween Fun

Halloween happens to top Dan's list of best holidays. Unfortunately for him, this year he was leaving for conference on top of having a very pregnant wife. While we always seem to have grandiose plans for celebrating Halloween, we fell quite short this year. But we were still able to do a few things to make the holiday special for Alyssa.

We asked her for several weeks before acquiring a costume what she wanted to be for Halloween. She consistently said "a doggy". When asked what mommy and daddy should be she also said "doggy". Dan and I didn't dress up, but we did have an adorable little dalmatian complete with tail.

This is Dan's handiwork. Several months ago he bought a cupcake decorating book for me. It is safe to say he has used it more than me. He made these werewolf cupcakes for his fellow residents and for his Sunday school kids. Everyone was notably impressed. Some people didn't believe he had made them.

Here we are at the ward trunk or treat. I think she was annoyed that we kept asking her to say trick or treat. But she did like the decorations, and of course, the candy.