Happy Halloween!

Phew! I have five minutes to make it before November 1st rolls on in - HAPPY HALLOWEEN!



We had a great Halloween with our little fairy (or ballerina if she had her wings off) and spent the day celebrating with friends and enjoying tons of sweets. Mmmmmmm....

My personal favorite photo is of Claire and Daddy playing outside together, but there are tons of cute ones in the slideshow!



Enjoy the slideshow!

Nine Months Old

It's the ninth of the month and time again to celebrate Claire's "birthday." I find it hard to believe that nine months have passed since Claire joined our family, sometimes it seems as if she was just born and other days it's hard to imagine what life was like without her. 9 months of pregnancy seemed to take forever, how quickly time moves once a baby is born.

Here are some photos from today's early morning shoot. I'm trying out a white backdrop for easy editing in Photoshop at a later time - these were quickly edited in Picasa (lots of fun and free if you don't already have it).

Here's a link to all the photos and a slideshow is below. It's not quite as fancy as the 8 month slideshow but I'm sure you will all enjoy seeing Claire dressed up as a girly-girl in her sundress.

The wicker chair has some special significance in my family. It's from the wicker store my cousins Joanne & Antoinette owned and it's been a fixture at my grandparents house for as long as I can remember. The previous resident was "Wrinkles," the talking puppet who lived in it for about 20 years. My grandfather recently passed the chair along to Claire, who is thrilled to have another toy to pull up on.

Persistence Pays Off

Kim and I embarked on quite the adventure today - taking all four kids to the lake for a swim and a jaunt at the playground. After packing (which took ages because of the babies) we arrived at the beach. Nicholas was getting antsy and desperate to swim...and of course it started to rain. Did I mention that we had unpacked the car before it started raining? Well, after going through all the trouble to get to the lake, we decided to wait things out in the minivan.

Our plans for a leisurely picnic lunch were quickly changed to a style known as "cram it in fast before the babies swipe your food." Claire IS interested in food...it just has to be what I'm eating of course.

Our cars were parked near someone's home and this guy was getting quite the hoot out of us walking back and forth between the car and the start of the walkway with Claire in the backpack, twins being pushed in a double stroller and both Kim and I loaded up like pack mules. He nicely described us as "determined" to our faces...but I'm sure he was on the phone reporting to his buddies that there were are few "crazies" debating if they should take the kids to the beach in the rain.

Well, our determination did pay off. The rain cleared and we had beautiful weather for almost 2 hours. Kim and I (and our copious amount of baby junk) had the entire beach to ourselves. There was lots of splashing, fish chasing and even a bit of sand eating sprinkled in for fun. A slide show of the images can be found below, just click play. To view all the pictures full size - click here. Enjoy and don't forget to leave a comment about the cutest water babies around.

Introducing...Solids!

Claire finally got her first taste of solids on May 5 - I know, I know...I have totally been slacking on the photo updates.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, well here are some priceless ones of Claire getting her first taste of carrots and then bananas a few days later. Neither of them impressed her as you can see.

Things looked so promising at first too! Claire was mimicking our chewing motions and greedily eye-balling my plate for days. Dan was so excited to feed her, but Claire was much more interested in the spoon and container (go figure).

We even tried using our fingers to feed her since she was used to having those in her mouth. No dice. I'm assuming that eventually she'll eat (and walk, and grow some teeth...ect) so we're not pushing things too much.

Peaches seem to be a bit more her style though, at least she doesn't grimace! Here's a link to the full album and a slideshow featuring all the pictures is embedded below.

Baptism!

What an exciting weekend we had with Claire! Here's the online album with the photos from her baptism at Blessed Kateri, and a special thanks to Grandbob for playing paparazzi while Mom was otherwise occupied (hey look, Gina is in pictures for once!).

Father Albert seemed so excited about having two babies to "dunk." And DUNK he did, we and the other couple both opted for the full immersion baptism (more fun, and naked time...who can beat it?)

It was really a wonderful day and a great weekend. We had quite the full house with Kelly and Peter (our wonderful Godparents) and their three kiddos spending the night. That's right, one lap for every kid in the house. Here's a photo of our group:



Jack and Kaitlyn took advantage of the playroom at the church during Claire's baptism, but Chris (who happens to be MY Godson) "participated" with Daddy. Even though he was sound asleep, we just know he enjoyed things.

Speaking of sleeping - Claire managed to nap like a champ right through the second half of mass. This has never happened, even without knowing the words Claire usually "sings" along to everything at church. Even the homily :-)

Early Days with Baby

Can you see this? Leave a comment if it works!