Friday, November 28, 2008

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday Uncle Danny!
On Nov 28th:
  • 1814 - The Times in London was for the first time printed by automatic, steam powered presses build by the German inventors Friedrich Koenig and Andreas Friedrich Bauer, signaling the begin of making newspapers available to a mass audience
  • 1895 - The first American automobile race takes place over the 54 miles from Chicago's Jackson Park to Evanston, Illinois. Frank Duryea wins in approximately 10 hours.
  • 1974 - John Lennon performs onstage at Madison Square Garden in New York City with Elton John, as a result of losing a wager that his song "Whatever Gets You Thru the Night" (which Elton also played and sang on) would hit #1 on the pop chart (on November 11). This would also be Lennon's final concert appearance.

Jocelyn's First Thanksgiving

I think Thanksgiving was a big hit for Jocelyn. She loves food, and she really loved everything that went along with Thanksgiving dinner. She had turkey, stuffing, corn, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, a roll, and even pumpkin pie with whipped cream! She ate so much!

Here she is right before she started to eat. She could see all her food sitting on the plate and is pointing to her tray...she wanted it on the tray, not on the table!
Grandma gave Jocelyn her first bites! And no, she wasn't drinking ICLight...


A piece of turkey on her nose
Yummy! Mashed potatoes!

Everything was delicious, and it was so much fun to be able to spend Jocelyn's first Thanksgiving with family! We have SO much to be thankful for!

Monday, November 24, 2008

Always Around the Holidays.

A streak of bad luck.

First, Todd and I finally make the decision to put in a new boiler. We felt better when the decision was made and the darn thing was in, even though it was a HUGE purchase on a tight budget. It's done (well, almost-a couple tweaks are needed that required the heating company to hire a chimney guy). We can't take it back and get our old one back...$cha-ching$.

Steve, our male cat, started peeing in our bathtub. FIVE WEEKS AGO. Ew! At first I was mad, and then I took him to the vet. After two weeks of struggling to give the darn cat two medications (that never helped him), secluding him to the uncarpeted areas of our house (basement and kitchen-poor thing), he spent a full day at the vet while they tried to collect a sterile urine sample which eventually came back negative. After this test, MET VET SOUTH dropped the ball on caring for our sick pet with unreturned phone calls and a lack of urgency in taking the next steps to helping our cat (I guess they were tired of trying to figure out what was wrong with him), we have finally discovered that the problem is bladder stones. All it took was one trip to a new vet(which so far I am SO happy with), a x-ray, and now we have a cat that needs surgery. Not cheap. Surgery is tomorrow at 8:30am. $cha-ching$

A flat tire. Todd and I take it to Sam's to (hopefully) get it fixed (rather than buying a new one) while we did some shopping for Thanksgiving dinner. A five hour wait. We don't have that time. We go home and Todd takes the car to 3 different places, all not having any time to fix the darn tire. While Todd is driving around a piece from the bottom of the car falls off (not completely) and is dragging on the ground. Now the car sits at the shop waiting to be fixed. $cha-ching$.

Not having a car today, I have to cancel the appointment I have at the vet to have a blood sample drawn from Steve for pre-surgery blood work. Having this blood work done the day before surgery is much cheaper than having it done immediately before the surgery. Jocelyn and I also had a 4:00 appointment at Studio M for the Strasburg Children photo shoot. Had to cancel that too.

Did I mention we have another car (a 15-year-old car), but that it is not reliable enough to even count on to start up. I could in all likelihood take it out, get somewhere fine, and then when we go to leave, it just not start. That would be fun with a baby. What would I do then? Hold Jocelyn on my lap while we take a ride in a tow truck? We are staying put.

I'm glad I already have a couple Christmas presents for Jocelyn. It doesn't look like much shopping is in our future.

I realize that these things, although annoying, are quite small, and it being the season of giving and thanks, I am looking at all the things I have to be thankful for and remembering that there are people out there who have much harder things to deal with and would be happy to trade their problems for a new boiler, a sick cat and a car in the shop. Sometimes it just makes you feel better to bitch a little. I won't let it ruin my holiday-that's for sure, and I will be thankful that we can handle these problems (kinda)and hopefully it will all be over soon.

But I still have to ask, "Why always around the holidays?"

Saturday, November 22, 2008

Todd's 27th Birthday!

Happy Birthday Todd!!
The best Daddy a little girl could ask for!
We love you so much!!

On November 22nd:

  • 1917 - In Montreal, Canada, the National Hockey Association broke up (on November 26 it was replaced with the National Hockey League).
  • 1968 - The Beatles released their 9th official album, known as The Beatles, or more commonly The White Album.
  • 1981: The day you were born. Where would we be without you?
  • 1986 - Boxing: Mike Tyson knocks out Trevor Berbick in the second round, becoming the youngest world heavyweight champion at the age of 20 years and 4 months.
  • 1988 - In Palmdale, California, the first prototype B-2 Spirit stealth bomber is revealed.
  • 2003 - The Heritage Classic, the first outdoor hockey game in the history of the NHL, is played in Edmonton, Alberta

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Happy Birthday!

Today is Grandma Ka Ka's Birthday!
Happy Birthday!!

We hope it's the best yet!

On November 20th:
  • 1789 - New Jersey becomes the first U.S. state to ratify the Bill of Rights.
  • 1820 - An 80-ton sperm whale attacks the Essex (a whaling ship from Nantucket, Massachusetts) 2,000 miles from the western coast of South America (Herman Melville's 1851 novel Moby-Dick was in part inspired by this story).
  • 1902 - Henri Desgrange and fellow journalist Géo Lefèvre dream up the idea of the Tour de France over lunch at the Café de Madrid in Paris.
  • 1985 - Microsoft Windows 1.0 is released.

Thursday, November 13, 2008

Monday, November 10, 2008

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday Kim!!

On November 10th:

  • 1619 - René Descartes has the dreams that inspire his Meditations on First Philosophy.
  • 1792 - The White House: Construction begins by placing of the cornerstone.
  • 1938 - Kate Smith, on her weekly radio show, sings Irving Berlin's God Bless America for the first time.
  • 1940 - Walt Disney begins serving as an informer for the Los Angeles office of the FBI; his job is to report back information on Hollywood subversives.
  • 1951 - Direct-dial coast-to-coast telephone service begins in the United States.
  • 1969 - National Educational Television (the predecessor to the Public Broadcasting Service) in the United States debuts the children's television program Sesame Street.

Fun with Couch Cushions

The temperature is only in the 30s today...we have to find some way to have fun!

Sunday, November 9, 2008

10 Months!

I'm a day late, but yesterday Jocelyn entered the double digits of babyhood. She's now 10 months old. I can't believe that we will be celebrating her 1st birthday in 2 short months.

Jocelyn has become very independent in a very short amount of time. She has been crawling for almost a month now. She went from being very shaky up on her knees to an expert in very little time. Now, she can go anywhere she wants (well, until a gate blocks her way), crawl up the steps and pull up on any and everything. She's also cruising a little, taking steps while holding on to things. It will be interesting to see how long it takes for her to walk! Once she gets an idea in her head, it doesn't seem to take her long to master whatever skill she needs to accomplish her goal. This is why we (finally) have 4 baby gates up all over the house! She's been ignoring her toys lately, as she is only interested in trying to get places and into things that she shouldn't! She's always pointing at things, I think to get whoever is paying attention to tell her the name of what she is pointing at. She will respond with her own version of the name of the object.

Jocelyn has also been showing her refined tastes. Just when I thought she would eat anything, I tried to give her some of those microwavable Gerber-brand Toddler foods. She hates them! It's like she knows they are "baby food" and her taste buds refuse anything baby. She's much happier with Mommy's cooking, which I can't complain about. I hope it stays that way!

One thing that she does, that I just adore, happens when her Daddy gets home from work at night. We are usually in the living room and Jocelyn hears the screen door opening and turns herself toward the door. When the front door opens and she sees her Dad, she claps and smiles her biggest smile! It may have been a coincidence, but on Friday she also added "Dada" to her clapping and smiling! I think I actually saw Todd's heart melting right in front of us!

Happy 10 months baby girl! We love you!!

Friday, November 7, 2008

Finally!

The baby contest that Jocelyn won was finally announced on the studio's blog! There is a shot of Jocelyn at the bottom of the Halloween party post.

Thursday, November 6, 2008

A Visit!

Yesterday Jocelyn and I had to go to the new Tanger Outlets to get fitted for Jocelyn's upcoming photo shoot for Strasburg Children. While we were there we met up with her Great Aunt Nancy and Great Uncle Glenn!

It was great seing you!!

The Sweetest Thing

This morning I caught Jocelyn flipping through the pages on her Who Loves Baby book. Each page holds a picture of either me, daddy, grandma, grampee, mammy, or pappy. As she flipped through the pages, she quietly pointed her tiny finger at each face. She went through at least two times. It was the sweetest thing!

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Monday, November 3, 2008

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday (to Jocelyn's)Grandma
and Great Aunt Di!
(I bet you guys didn't know that Jocelyn's Grandma is a twin!)

On November 3rd:

  • 1493 - Christopher Columbus first sights the island of Dominica in the Caribbean Sea.
  • 1911 - Chevrolet officially enters the automobile market in competition with the Ford Model T.
  • 1913 - The USA introduces an income tax.
  • 1954 - The first in the Godzilla series of films is released in Japan.
  • 1964 - Washington D.C. residents are able to vote in a presidential election for the first time.
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