Ainsley Feeding Her Daddy

Our First Snowday

Here are pictures from The Blizzard of 09' Cape May County Style. That means slightly more than a dusting of snow, but not quite an inch. You may be able to make a snowman, but it will be half snow, half dirt, with leaves sticking out of it and take up all the snow in your yard. If you live in Avalon, you won't even know it snowed unless you are special enough to have a front lawn or a blacktop driveway. Otherwise, it blends in with the pavement. Two or more inches of snow in Cape May County usually results in missed days of school and pandemonium.


Gianna is catching snowflakes on her tongue!



Daddy pulling Gianna and Ainsley on their new $2 sleds from Acme with Grandpa's extension cord.


Writing in the snow.



Ainsley sliding off the sled.


Our girls on the sled.

Gianna's version of The theme song to Hannah Montana! (Of course, if Miley Cyrus struck this pose, she'd end up in the headlines again..)

And...Gianna's practicing for a future in talk TV.

Happy Holidays!

Wow! Its been over a month since I last posted. That is a record for me...seems I've been spending all my time on Facebook. (For those of you on Facebook, you know what I mean...)

On December 16th, Gianna had surgery to place tubes in her ears. She has had ear infections constantly for the past 3 years and we are optimistic that this is the answer. The very next day she came down with a really bad cold and did not get an ear infection, which is a miracle. Ainsley, on the other hand, has had 5 ear infections since June...2 in November and 2 in December. The ENT is reluctant to put tubes in so soon, and wants to give her two more months to see if the fluid clears up.

Christmas was great. We spent Christmas Eve in Saddle Brook with family, and Christmas Day traveling between Carman and Lois and Rick and Lois. It was a hectic day, but fun! At one point it seemed that the presents were never going to end. The after-Christmas clean up is not going so well.

Gianna's big gift this year was her Geotrax Air Set. Unfortunately, Santa was at the firehouse at 2am looking for AAA batteries, while Mrs Claus frantically searched all the electronics in the house. Luckily, handheld solitaire and handheld sudoku required the same amount of AAA as Geotrax. Her other gifts included an electronic globe (for her facination with Earth), a ton of High School Musical items, which she loved, a Play-doh ice cream shoppe, Leap Frog Tag system, and games for her leapster...oh, and an mp3 player so I can have mine back (yes! she is only 3).

Ainsley got a train, a ride on pony that interacts with the TV, a musical zoo that she loves, a shopping cart, and a waterslide bath toy that is really neat.

I got a really nice digital picture frame from Kevin, and I got the same frame from my mom. I traded the frame for my most favorite gift of all - the new Keurig One Cup coffee maker (for dummies). It uses the little cup of coffee so you can't screw it up. Even Gianna made me a cup of coffee this morning! Kevin got a charger valet to contain all of his electronics, and an atomic timekeeping watch. I get him that every year because they don't seem to last very long.

Unfortunately, Santa forgot to fill Snickers stocking this year, but I don't think she was upset about it.

Here are a few highlights of our holiday, and as always, a slideshow of pictures. I always enjoy reading the comments and guest book, so don't forget to sign it!

Gianna's Christmas Play at Happy Day Nursery School.

Santa visited our house on a Firetruck!!

Gianna checks her stocking on Christmas morning.

Ainsley opening a present on Christmas morning.

Apparently Christmas was too much to handle for some of us.

Gianna and Ainsley's new present from Grandma.

Here are pictures from our Disney vacation. We had a great time, despite the freezing cold weather and sick kids. Gianna had an ear infection and a cold that had not cleared up with the first round of antibiotics, so she started her second round of antibiotics the day before we left (antibiotics make her crazy, so that was fun to deal with in Disney). After about 24 hours of being in Florida, Ainsley broke out with a 102 fever and screaming ear pain. The pediatrician was kind enough to call in antibiotics without examining her and she improved within 24 hours.



The weather during the first week was in the 60s. I had to keep doing laundry since we only brought shorts and t-shirts. We even bought sweatshirts while we were in Disney. There were only 2 days at the end of our 10 day trip that were warm enough to go swimming, so Gianna was disappointed. And of course, we had to walk past the pool to get to our room.

New Video of Gianna Swimming

Gianna is making so much progress in her swimming lessons, even though she says she doesn't like it and fights me on going. Here's a video of her diving to the bottom of the pool to retrieve diving rings. It's only about a 3 foot pool, but nevertheless, I was impressed. The video is grainy and blurry since I took it with my cell phone.

Halloween

Gianna had fun Trick-or-treating, but she has no idea that I threw away all the candy...well, at least everything that didn't have chocolate and peanut butter!










Take a look at some more pictures from Halloween and the Pumpkin Patch.

Here are some miscellaneous pictures from October.