Vacation

I don't want to bore everyone with our vacation shots, so I'll try to pare them down to just a few (we took over 250, so consider yourselves lucky.) Overall, we had great weather, great company and probably too much food that we felt we needed to consume. Thanks to Mom and Dad for all their help watching the girls and allowing Jim and me to exercise together. As we pulled into our neighborhood, Catherine said: "Not this house!" Yes, why does the vacation week go so much faster than the others. -- Next stop? This fall to Florida to let Grandma and Grandpa Woloskie watch our kids. :-)


Grandma and Grandpa arrive. I think she has Jim's sprinting capabilities.













Anna tried peas when we got home.

Smiles

New favorite picture.

Happy 4th of July

Hope everyone had a great long weekend. Here are some pictures...

Mirror, mirror.

Aunt Kathy and Gary heading out on the jet ski.

Catherine went for her first motor boat ride and watched Danielle and Amy tube.

She and Ethan going for a ride.

Then it was time to relax.

Emery's Baptism

We went to Emery's Baptism on Sunday. It was very nice and we sat in the Friar's Chapel. As always, Uncle Dan did a wonderful job.

Nice picture of all of them.

Uncle Dan's "helpers"

We checked out the new votive chapel too. Here's the brick that all of us got Mom & Dad for Christmas.

Thanks again to "Camp Hull" for all the fun last week. I think we're still catching up on our sleep! :-)

4 Months Old

I took Anna to her 4-month appointment yesterday. She's 24 inches long and 12.7 pounds. That puts her in the 50-75th percentile for length and the 5th percentile for weight. For comparison, Catherine weighed over three and a half pounds more at her four month appointment; funny how they can all be so different.

I had to go to DC to work for a bit. Jim's mom flew in to help watch the girls. She now has Catherine talking about going to Florida so we can visit. Very funny.


Grandma "La-ski" (as Catherine says it.)

Kiss.

Nice picture of Anna and Aunt MaryAnn.

That's how I roll...

In my ever hip lingo, that is my new term. I used it with mom and dad at Mike's birthday and I think they are now hip to it too (more pictures to follow). -- Jim is out of town the next couple days, so I thought it would be fun for me and the girls to go to dinner. Catherine insisted on wearing the hat...

Working

Yikes, she needs to clean her desk. She's on the phone too! Is that really how I look?

Memorial Day Weekend

Hope everyone had a good weekend. We decided to brick paver the area just off the deck -- 350 square feet! It was a long process (with a couple suprises that made it even longer) but we're happy with it.
Before

After -- we still have to get a couple cut for the edges.

Everyone has to help with an effort like this.

Zoo!

We went to the zoo on Saturday. It was Catherine's first time at a real zoo (well, Anna's too.) :-) It was a lot of fun and they both did great. Big hits were "monkeys... monkeys eating... monkey breaking the tree" and "oooo, big bear!"

I would love to take them to the National Zoo, so maybe I'll need to combine that with a work trip later this summer. :-) -- Speaking of which, I hope Rosie had a wonderful First Communion and cannot wait to see pictures.

Last funny story of the week, Catherine has been climbing everything lately, and as a result, has been falling off everything lately. She fell hard on her butt on Friday and wanted me to kiss it to make it better. Somehow I didn't think I would get that request until her teenage years. (Also, glad to see that Terrie is having the same problem with Josh falling, and it's not just our "laissez-faire" parenting style. -- Now there are two words you cannot use everyday on your blog!) :-) -- Also, Terrie, we weren't ready to move Catherine to the big girl bed, but the thought of buying another crib didn't seem like a good one either.

Catherine with the polar bears behind her.

Us with a Gorilla climbing in the tree behind us.

Anna smiling at Catherine. We had a nice time.

Romantic Mother's Day

So, right before we were about to eat, our power went out. Thankfully, Jim was making most of the dishes on the grill and Dad had already blended our drinks. :-) But, as a result, we had a candlelit Mother's Day celebration. I hope Father's Day doesn't make us as challenged!

Big Girl Bed

Well, we made the transition. So far, so good. Catherine looks little in her bed, and Anna looks so small in the crib.




One of our IKEA purchases. I'm glad Shana talked me into this one.

IKEA

We (me, Catherine and Anna) met Kim and her sisters-in-law (and kids) at IKEA last weekend. Isn't that a cute picture of Grace and Catherine? This weekend we're going there again to meet my sister Catherine and Shana. This will be good, because I was too overwhelmed the first time to take it all in. I felt like the country mouse in the big city. The place is really something.

Anna is sleeping through the night! Knock-on-wood from 10:30pm until 7am she sleeps. The first couple days I thought the monitor was broken, but it is really true!

Excited to see my peeps in DC next week. -- Not all that excited about work, but seeing everyone will be fun.

Party

Catherine had a party to show off her new place -- I don't know what Tom and Jen are doing next spring break, but our house could use their help! :)

Nice picture of Dad and Anna.

Well, Heidi made the party, but where's Dan...

There he is!

Presenting...

UNCLE DAN! - I borrowed this from Kim's site. I told her that had I known he was being given such an introduction, I would have listened closer. :-) Rich and Jim had some funny comments too.

CATHERINE! -Our friend is a softball coach at Bowling Green. The necklaces are Catherine's idea.


ANNA! Just a cute picture of her. She's already two months old!

Happy Birthday!

What a weekend: Wednesday and Thurs "we" (read, Jim) tried to help Tom and Jen at Aunt Catherine's (until 11pm); Friday was dinner in Greektown with many of the Hull's and Miller's (We should all see eachother more, it was a lot of fun - sorry we didn't make it to the hockey game, but we looked for you on TV); Saturday was Anna's baptism and Catherine's second birthday; Sunday was a day of rest. "We" took over 200 pictures (read, Rich took over 150 pictures with our camera), so I'll just give some of the highlights. :-) (Thanks though, Rich, it will be nice to have all of those.)

Ken and Anna. You know it's not too late to have one more!

Cheers!

Hummm, I think Aunt Ann may have let someone try the cake.

Dancing with the Stars has nothing on Tom and Elizabeth.

Catherine & Anna

Jim's sister, Kim, created this video using some of the pictures we recently had done of the girls: http://animoto.com/play/iz7gAl3o5023QyfozlgPww You should see what she did with the birth announcement too.

Oh, and look out Aunt Ann. We're going to the hockey game this afternoon and we were debating about taking Catherine, because EVERY evening when we go down to watch TV she asks, "hockey?", "hockey?". Although it is sometimes then followed by, "Elmo?", "Elmo?" -- which I doubt is your second favorite.

Moms

Jim's mom came to meet Anna.

How cute is this?


Since the last posting we celebrated my mom's birthday. Tom and Jen got her a case of her favorite wine. I thought this was a great picture of it.


Isn't this a great photo too?

Cute pictures

Here are this week's latest cute pictures. Also, our friend's baby has been taken off the ECMO machine and is now "only" on a ventilator. This is good news, and they say that she seems like a strong-willed baby, so that is great too.



How's that for a smile.

Hard at work.