Happy Birthday, Zach!

Hooray, hooray, hooray, hooray, today today is your birthday! Happy birthday to my favorite person in the whole world (don't worry, this is Kelly typing, not Zach). 

FUNcle Brendan

He wears funny glasses. He makes tasty paella. He plays on all of the playground equipment. (He also took Ella to "Chunky Cheese" for her birthday, but we sadly have no photos of that excursion.) Thanks, Uncle B, for a great visit! 

Dear Auntie Dana,

Thanks for letting us stay in your beautiful apartment in Chicago! You have so many pretty, pretty things that I can touch and try to eat.  It was fun to crawl in and say HI at 6:00 every morning! Sorry about the crying at night and the Cheerios ground in to your beautiful shaggy carpet.  Love, Mo  

Great Times with Great Grandmas

Catching up with some Thanksgiving photos! A major highlight of our Thanksgiving midwest trip was some quality time with Great Grandma (on the carousel with Ella, above), and Great Grammie (with Mo). Love you! 

Happy to Be Here

We just celebrated Moses' 1st birthday on Christmas. What a year it has been and how lucky we all are to know this little guy!

Here he is last year under the tree. And here he is this year under the tree, in a picture that will no doubt become a Birthday/Christmas tradition.

Here is Mo after devouring his birthday banana bread cupcake. The kid can eat and his first taste of frosting was no different. We had a quiet birthday dinner on Christmas and Ella got to blow out the candles for the 2nd time in a week and Mo got to rub frosting all over his face, like all proud 1-year olds should do.

And there he is...Moses "Happy to Be Here" H.P! Mo literally greets every new moment in life with that smile. Around every corner, he comes with a smile. Into each new place we visit, he comes with a smile. Each new person, animal, or large vehiclethat he meets, he greets them with smiles--and recently with a wave and a big "Hiiiiiiiiiiii!". Moses is more than just a happy baby, I actually think he is showing signs of being just plain nice. I think that when he gets older he's going to be the kind of person that people meet and say to themselves, "Wow, that Moses is so nice and thoughtful. You don't meet people like him too often." Just like his mom.

We're happy you're happy to be here, Moses. We're happy you're here! We love you and Happy Birthday big boy. Keep smiling!

I've Been Good All Year

See my shirt? I've been good all year (mostly)!  And i'm so cute.
Except for tonight when I spread cheese sauce all over my face at dinner. It was totally worth it!

Happy Birthday Ella!

How old are you, Ella? Oh yeah. FOUR!

For Ella's birthday we had a butterfly theme, including a beautiful butterfly cake. It was a true team effort. Kelly and Moses made the batter. They also frosted the cupcakes. I arranged the cupcakes in that butterfly shape...phew. Moses and Dewey helped by licking all the frosting off the floor.

Ella did a great job of blowing out the candles. Four, because she's four years old. One for good luck. And one more for symmetry, and for Moses, because she just loves him so much!

Thanks to all of our wonderful friends and family for helping to celebrate our big girl. Happy Birthday! We love you lots and lots and lots and lots.

That Birthday Moment

For thousands of years our greatest sages have asked this "age-old" question: At exactly what point in the day on a birthday does one actually become a year older? Midnight on your Birthday? Your birth minute? Hmmm?

Today is Ella's birthday and she joined the great sages with a theory of her own. Here goes: Ella woke up early, early this morning and was calling, "Daddy, Daddy..." Our rule is that you can't get out of bed until the sun comes up because you can't get out of bed in the middle of the night--and we pretend that all dark hours are "the middle of the night". So I went in to see if she was OK and decided to get into bed with her hoping that we could lay down a while longer and not get up so early. I figured if I excitedly wished her an early morning Happy Birthday I'd be ruined and we'd be up for the day for sure. So I didn't wish her Happy Birthday and felt kind of bad about it. So time passed, we snuggled, and we probably both fell asleep a bit. A while later Ella peeked out of her window, saw the sun coming up, popped up out of her bed and announced proudly, "I'm Four!". That was it. That was the moment. It was her birthDAY. She was just waiting patiently for DAYtime. I guess she doesn't yet get that the new day starts at 12:01 am. According to Ella, when the sun comes up, the day begins, and a year older you can become. That's it!

Happy Birthday little wise one. We love you lots!

Exactly One Year Ago...

Hello from Kelly, who just learned how to blog!
Anna just sent along this picture of Moses and his cousin Judah, taken one year ago. In case you can't tell, Judah's in the front.

Southern Girl in the Snowy Midwest

Ella was born on the coldest day of the year in Baltimore, and spent the next winter freezing in Cambridge... but she hasn't seen much snow since we moved to balmy NC.  We all got a snow fix in Ohio over Thanksgiving!

Thanks, Emma, Anna, and Kaitlyn for helping Ella build the snowman and snowbaby!

View from Seat 8A, O'Hare- Raleigh/Durham

We bought Ella a fancy new portable DVD player for all of our Thanksgiving travel, but she and Moses entertained each other the whole way. Check out the matching shirts. 

Hurricane Moses

And then when he naps, we clean up after him...unless we need a nap ourselves.