They just don't make 'em like this anymore . . .

I consider myself a fortunate person to come from a large family because families like this aren't too common anymore. My father is the oldest of 8 children and I'm the 2nd oldest of 21 grandchildren. We recently gathered together to celebrate my grandmother's 90th birthday. All but 1 aunt and 2 cousins are in the photo. It's not too often that we all get together like this. What is more shocking is that everyone in the family lives in northern NJ with the exception of the black-sheep of the family here that lives in Pennsylvania! It was a great day to celebrate and get to catch up with everyone:
My dad and his brothers & sisters and their mom:

Why this photo? These little girls are 5 months apart in age. Amy, in the front, is my youngest first cousin. Grace, in the back, is my oldest first cousin's daughter. Happy 90th Birthday Nanny!

We will all get to celebrate together again at our cousin Elizabeth's wedding in November.

An apple a day . . .

Looks like we've created a new fall family tradition - apple picking! We woke up to the most beautiful fall day on Sunday morning and headed to Highland Orchards for some quality time in Evan's favorite place . . . "outside" (which he tells us about every moment that we are inside). As you can tell, he was happy to begin the day's adventure:
Trying to pick an apple with his father's help:Heading to see if there are more apples down the line:

And then they came back:

He loved walking in the tall grass, though it was difficult at times. I also love these overalls on him:

Next it was time to sample an apple. Evan doesn't like the texture of any fruits, but I had bitten all of the skin off and he thoroughly enjoyed just sucking on the apple. I'm really happy with how these next few pictures turned out:

And now Evan was probably thinking "that's enough of the pictures":

Those lips are too kissable:

A funky looking apple we found:

Heading down the path to check out more apples:

And now we're on our way home (one of the few pictures I'm actually in):

After we picked our apples, we headed to see the animals on the farm. And bought some cider donuts to enjoy on the ride home. I'm already looking forward to next year's trip.

No longer a baby :(

Has my baby officially turned into a little boy, or what? He is back to being a full-time daddy's boy:

He doesn't even walk anymore . . . just run:

And eats ice cream like a big boy:

And throws tantrums like a big boy:

Before I know it, we'll be taking him off to college :)

Cousins

I am long overdue for some blogging, but we recently had two get-togethers with my sister and her family. The first was in early August. Little Claire below is such a doll - a spitting image of her big brother, but with beautiful strawberry blonde hair. She also is a little more chubby than her brother at the same age - I absolutely love those arm rolls! And big brother Matthew is not necessarily always a fan of the camera but his face is just too cute in this picture:

The proud mama with her baby girl: Uncle Brian reading to the boys. This was the first time they really played together (or beside each other at least) and it was really cute. I am sure they will be up to all sorts of mischief in no time:

A few weeks later, my sister's family rented a house in Brigantine, NJ. We made a trip down for an overnight visit and full day at the beach. Evan was still a big fan of the beach, though he did get knocked down once by a wave and took a little convincing after that. I never get tired of pictures like these ones:

And yet again, these two boys were enjoying each other's company. Whatever Matthew did, Evan would copy . . . even if it meant jumping on the furniture against their parents' wishes:And yet another:

We spent the evening on the boardwalk in Atlantic City before heading back to Pennsylvania. It was quite comical because Evan prefers his buggy to a stroller. And in order to get from the parking garage to the boardwalk, we had to walk through a casino. Evan was being pushed in his buggy and people were stopping us to comment on his wheels. He loved the boardwalk and the ice cream we got to end the night. I'm sure we have lots more memories ahead of us just like these.

Eventful Week

It turned out to be quite the eventful week last week. It started on Tuesday, August 23rd, when a 5.9 magnitude earthquake hit in Virginia, which was felt all up and down the east coast. I was in a meeting when the building started shaking and, once it stopped, we all left to go outside. There was no cell service available but Brian was able to get word from Evan's school that it was closing so he went to get him. Then, all of 4 days later, we were facing a hurricane. Hurricane Irene was the source for lots of humor as she was named after my mother, of course. Our friend Ben put together this comical picture and posted it on facebook:

But Hurricane Irene turned out to be no laughing matter for the real Irene. Cranford got hit really hard - worst storm in history for the town. The Rahway River winds through the town, but couldn't hold the wrath of Irene. For those east-coasters who were saying this hurricane was all hype, you haven't seen the photos of Cranford.

This is downtown Cranford - you can see the water is up to the heads of the parking meters:

Another shot of downtown Cranford - the water is halfway up that building in the far right:This is my parents' street, about 6 blocks up from their house. This bridge you see in the middle and to the left was supposed to go OVER the river . . . in this case, the river went over the bridge:Just a random picture of a house I ound online - their fence was almost covered to to the top in water:My elementary school, which is a stone's throw away from my house. Not sure how that is going to be open in a week?

My parents had water fill up their basement from floor to ceiling. But they didn't even have it as badly as others, where water filled up several feet onto the first floor. Their power has been out since Sunday and they are being told it will be a week before it comes back on.

Irene was just a big rain storm for us in Pennsylvania. I was fearful of the big trees in our neighborhood (which have a history of falling on houses), so I made us have a family sleepover in the tv room. Evan slept until 8:00 AM that day, so we are thinking of making it his bedroom :) After the storm ended on Sunday morning, we decided to try taking Evan out to dinner with some friends to Hibachi - a Japanese steakhouse where they cook on the table right in front of you. We have avoided taking Evan out to dinner for quite awhile now because he just doesn't like to sit still. We thought Hibachi would be perfect because it would provide him with mealtime entertainment. Oh boy was I wrong and don't I wish I had brought my camera. At Hibachi, they start the "show" with a big fireball on the griddle in front of you. The table across from ours began their dinner preparation and the fireball went up. Poor Evan started screaming crying, as though we were under attack. Half of the restaurant looked at him with humorous pity as he screamed and cried. When it was our turn, the chef kindly didn't light the fireball, but all of the quick action of the chef with the griddle still was enough to freak him out and more tears ensued. He quickly got over his fear once the fried rice was served, but I think Hibachi may have terrorized him more than anything else. We should probably stick with the normal restaurants for at least a little while longer as our sensitive boy can't handle it just yet.

Evan at 15 Months

Evan had his 15-month appointment on Wednesday this week. He weighed in at 26 pounds (68th percentile), measured 30.5 inches long (27th percentile) and his head was in the 50th percentile. He was not happy to be at the doctor's office after a few minutes and kept walking to the door in his diaper and saying "bye bye". I guess he proved to the doctor that he can talk.

Some of the new things Evan is doing these days include going down our entire flight of stairs backwards, starting to sleep on a pillow (though most mornings we find him on the other side of his crib), walking the dog (i.e. - holding onto the leash during our nightly walks), throwing MAJOR tantrums when he doesn't get his way (which usually is when we make him come in from playing outside) and overall just being silly. He sleeps like a champ (I am counting my blessings) and will wake up and sit in his crib for up to a half hour just entertaining himself. When he is awake, he is always trying to get our attention and not always in the best way. Sometimes he plays in the dog bowl and sometimes he bites us! We have begun the process of discipline by way of "time out". I sit him down and count to 10 - most of the time, he watches me count and then smiles at me. It takes everything my power to not laugh back. Contrary to what I had originally thought, Brian is much better at this discipline thing than I am because I hate seeing my little boy cry. Other than that, I think he is your average 15-month-old boy . . . he NEVER stops moving. And he LOVES to dance. Just put on music and he will spin in circles for you. We need to get that one on video soon.

And since I'm doing a horrible job at filling out his baby book, I figured I should document his vocabulary on here. He is up to about 25 words, which include: mama, daddy, papa, hi, bye-bye, up, leash, treat, doggie, Lily, cheese, shoes, Elmo, book, yay, ball, all-done, hat, more, balloon, car, keys, uh-oh, and thank-you (the cutest one of the bunch). Now, most people other may not be able to understand these words, but we can. He can also tell you that a cow says "moo", a horse says "neigh" and a dog says "woof". For a boy, I am guessing he's on the more verbal side (he does have his dad's personality) and it's amazing the speed at which he's learning new words.

Here he is being his silly self:

And trying his first full ice-cream cone, which he seemed to enjoy:

In the next few months, I'd like to teach him to eat with a spoon. He is great with his fork (though sometimes it's just easier to eat with his hands), but I've been the one hesitant to give him the spoon because I don't want to deal with the mess. I guess I'll have to start with that soon enough because it was one of the things the doctor asked about. Other than that, he continues to be our happy little boy.

Utah Day 4

Our last full day in Utah was spent at the Olympic Park, where a large portion of the 2002 Winter Olympic games were held. The pictures below can't do it any justice, but we opted to see a performance of the aerial ski jumpers. They go down these huge ramps, do up to 3 flips, higher in the air than you could ever imagine, and land in the pool. The only thing more impressive to me is that they have the courage to try this and land on the snow! Here are some pics from the show:

After the Olympic Park trip, we went on a scenic ride that took us up and over a mountain pass on a dirt road. We had rented an economy car, which was certainly not equipped for this kind of drive. Brian seemed to have fun with making me as scared as possible during this ride:

A beautiful birch tree forest:

And then we put our camera on some stranger's car in order to take a photo of ourselves. We were so high up here: Sadly, our trip to Utah came to an end very early the next morning, as our 4:30 AM alarm reminded us that we were on our way home on Sunday. We had a 4 hour layover in Chicago, so we opted to leave the airport, venture on the L-train and head to suburban Chicago to get some real, Chicago deep-dish pizza at Giordano's. I have been waiting and waiting to try deep-dish Chicago pizza and it was well worth the wait. I even have 2 pieces frozen in my freezer waiting for me on a bad day.

And one last note - thank you so much to our parents for taking such great care of Evan while we were gone! It was nice to be able to go away and not have to worry about how he was doing because we knew he was in your more-than-capable hands. THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!