Christmas 2011 (Calvin Cleans Out!)

Since the new house has lots of room, and Phil's parents sold their house in the city, both Christmases were at our house this year. My family had slept over so we could be up early to open presents. The fireplace we have is gas and doesn't really have anywhere to hang stockings, so we had to get a little creative. Phil found some stretchy cord things in the garage with hooks so we hung our stockings from the stairs. Mandy and Calvin are having some laughs in the middle of a tickle-fest.

Every year we always say we're not going to buy too many presents, but somehow we end up with tons of presents under the tree. It probably doesn't help now that we have the 2 babies - Calvin and Maddy. You just can't help buying presents for them. Although it should be noted that all the presents on the right side of the tree were for Christmas later that night with Phil's family. Calvin looks very overwhelmed by all the presents - either that or plotting which one he can open first. He was actually pretty good, and only managed to rip open 1 present the whole month leading up to Christmas and it was for him anyway.

Phil is helping the little ones go through their stockings. Maddy looks very interested in whatever Phil is holding.

Calvin got a book called "Calvin Can't Fly". As soon as he opened it him and Maddy got to work reading through it together.

One of the bigger presents was this pop-up princess tent that my mom got for Maddy. An empty tent - so simple and yet sure to provide entertainment for hours.

Even Calvin wanted to play inside.

One of Maddy's other presents was an activity cube, which is just a giant wooden block that has different things to do on each side. It was Calvin approved - he helped us do baby testing on it before we wrapped it to make sure Maddy would like it. Calvin's showing her all the different activities. Ok, so not really, but at least he's not fighting her for it. That's progress!
As we were wrapping up, Than, Michael and Van came by to say hi. Are those matching sweaters?


Group picture time! (Me, Calvin, Phil, Tam, Maddy, Mandy, Mom, Than, Michael and Van)

Later that evening Phil's family started to filter in. Different house this year, but still LOTS of food!

Everyone barely fit around the dining room table. I guess we're going to need a second table for next year...
Even Calvin joined in with the eating, although it was getting past his bedtime. I wonder what he's thinking about...
You could definitely tell he was getting tired though. And apparently the adults were talking too loud...I'm not sure who taught him to do this...


As usual, with Calvin being the only kid on Phil's side of the family he cleaned out this year in presents. There were 2 big presents. The first was a chalkboard/drawing board from his great-Aunt. We'll keep this packed up until he's a bit older - no chalk or crayons for this guy yet.
The other big present was a battery powered Mater from Phil's cousin, Kevin. Calvin can set inside and just push a button and Mater will drive around. It provided a lot of entertainment for the rest of the night.


Calvin was a little unsure at first, but I think he enjoyed it. He even got a little Dare Devil on us and attempted to drive while standing on the seat like some kind of stunt man. Phil was laughing so hard the camera is shaking.

We had a couple of desserts after Calvin went to bed. One of them was a chocolate peppermint cheesecake that Phil's sister, Winnie, made. It was actually pretty good.

World Trade Center & Long Island

The day after Thanksgiving we headed out into the city with Phil's cousins to walk around. We walked through the financial district and took a walk through the ground zero area to see the progress being made on the new World Trade Centers.

All of the cousins and Calvin (Me, Lucia, Phil, Alex, Lea, Wally and Kevin).
We had to go up some stairs to bypass all the construction. Kevin put in some effort to carry Calvin up the stairs. And then we realized there was an elevator...I don't blame him for the pained look, Calvin's heavy these days...

We passed through one of the financial buildings and Lea and Calvin admired the indoor palm trees.

Where is everyone?

Calvin's first encounter with New York City pigeons.


After such a busy day, Calvin passed out pretty easily in the car.

In the evening we headed out to Long Island to visit one of my old college roommates, Le. She took us to one of the Tanger Outlets near her house to walk around and have dinner. They had an ice rink setup, which seemed pretty nice.

After dinner we headed back to my friend's house where Calvin got to play with Le's daughter, Mai who's 3 already!
Mai is so sweet. She always stops to make sure Calvin is ok.

Thanksgiving 2011

Thanksgiving as always started out with a light brunch with my family. Phil's mom and his sister ended up joining us this year. Our first holiday in the new house.


Not too much food, but we have to keep it light to make room for Thanksgiving dinner.
After brunch Calvin tried working off some of the Thanksgiving food early by pushing cousin Maddy around in the toy stroller. Maddy got her "Queen" wave down.

For dinner it was on to Phil's Aunt Chan's house. Calvin got to meet up with some of the cousins. Here he is with his biggest fans, Lucia and Lea.

They always love to measure Calvin against the turkey - it's no contest this year though. Calvin -2, Turkey - 0.

This year the turkey was covered in bacon.

Lots of food...

And more food...
Baked bree! Yum.


Lobster salad cups


Calvin took center stage with his dancing.






All of the dancing and eating is starting to catch up with Calvin.
Dessert time! Don't even ask how many desserts there were...too many to count.


Lucia even made a flaming green tea birthday cake!



Calvin is too full from all of the eating. Time to wheel him home....

Westlake & Jayden!!!

Ok, I'm back. And now we're up to November...I'm sure I'll actually make it to 2012 at some point...

Back in November I had to head back to Ohio for work. It's tough being away from Calvin for so long, but it gave me a chance to visit our good friends Steve and Rebecca, and their new baby son, Jayden! I think Phil is still jealous that he still hasn't gotten a chance to meet Jayden yet. He is so adorable, and just holding him makes me think of when Calvin used to be that small. I don't think Jayden liked me very much though - he seemed a little cranky when I was holding him.


Now he is back in mommy's arms. I think I see the hint of a smile. ^__^

This is one of my favorite pictures of Jayden and Rebecca. They're not looking at the camera, but

I also got to go out a few times with some coworkers. One of the places I got to try was a new restaurant in Crocker Park called "B Spot". I went with a bunch of the team leaders from my department as part of a team building event. I think the B stands for burgers and brats. They also have some tasty (and strange) milkshake flavors available - alcohol optional ^__^


The burgers seemed tiny by normal standards, but they were just the right size for me.

Halloween Parade

For Halloween we dressed Calvin up as a monkey. When we first bought the costume we had Calvin try it on to make sure it fit before we cut the tags off. He was super excited when we first put it on him. He kept trying to eat the banana attached to his wrist or grab his tail.


The weekend of Halloween we met up with Maddy and Van for a Halloween parade they were having downtown. It wasn't really a formal parade - just a place for kids to go and get candy and show off their costumes. Different stores and banks had little tables setup in a few of the parking lots off of Main Street to give out candy to the kids. We didn't let Calvin take any of the candy though.


Van was dressed as a fireman (just like his daddy), and Maddy was dressed up as Uma Thurman from Kill Bill - complete with samurai sword!


Calvin and Van got the best seats. They could probably see the whole parade from there.


They even had a guy there making balloon animals - actually more like balloon swords or heads on a stick...


Calvin was very happy with his balloon. He loved it so much he kept trying to steal everyone else's too.

That was the first annual Halloween parade. Hopefully they have it again next year. Maybe next year we'll even let Calvin actually eat the candy, but I guess he'll have to fight Phil for it...