mimi and papa

My parents came in town last weekend and we had a great time, despite the terrible weather. Mary, along with all of us, have been pretty under the weather lately, so excuse her sick little eyes. :) Amazingly, she was happy as a clam being dragged around all over Boston.

We did a lot of shopping, playing with Mary, eating and a little running. My dad and I were supposed to run a half marathon together.... they really wanted to see Mary, but the race was a good excuse. Sunday morning we get up at 6am, drive half way there and stop to see just how hard it was raining. We ended up getting breakfast and driving home. Yep, we just skipped our race! I kind of felt like a wimp but it was my 10th day of being sick and I was certain that 13 miles in 39 degree, rainy weather wouldn't help. But, the next day was beautiful and we did our 13 miles around the Charles River. It was a good time. Our big goal is the Disney Marathon in January... and we won't skip out on that no matter what the conditions are... right dad?!?!



We love when mimi and papa come to visit! Thanks so much for coming and come back soon. Mary misses you already!!



p.s. nice spandex, dad!

Peek-a-boo

a few more firsts

Mary just turned 6 months last week, and it's amazing to see how quickly she's growing and doing new things! We're a little late in getting these posted on here, but we'll make up for it with a few posts this week.

Last Sunday night, Mary sat up all by herself for the first time as I was feeding her before bedtime. She actually lasted a solid 2 minutes on my lap without me steadying her. Here are a couple pics from this momentous occasion. It kind of came from nowhere for us; we haven't exactly been diligent in working on this with her. Thankfully, Mary will not be held back by our negligence!



The next day Mary experienced the next stage in babyhood- eating solids! I'm still not sure why we call rice cereal "solid," but whatever. Here are a few pictures and a video from the big day.

Mary has gotten a bit better at eating, so she isn't wearing her cereal like she was a week ago. It's an exciting time for us, but also a little sad that we're moving out of the newborn stage and into the "eating goop and threatening mobility" stage. Our little girl is growing up!

As I said above, we'll try and get a few posts up this week since we've been really slow the last few weeks.

Fun with Mary

We're well aware that we've been negligent in keeping this blog up to date. We still haven't posted pictures from Mary's first overseas excursion, nor have I updated anyone on my trip to Kathmandu. Sorry about that. As an apology, we post this video Lisa shot just a little bit ago of Mary and me having fun together. We hope this satisfies you until we get off our duffs to write something. Thanks!

working from home

I started tutoring again last week... I will be working four days a week but just a few hours each day. It was sad to leave Mary, but I knew that she was in good hands with her daddy. Since Mary has a long morning nap and is often content to sit for hours, Danny is able to work from home and he usually can get stuff done. I walked into the house on Thursday and was met with this cute sight!




A funny thing about the Bumbo seat is that her thighs are almost too big for it. She gets stuck everytime and we have to pull it off of her. Personally, I LOVE her chubby thighs... and hands for that matter. Her thighs in action... oh, and disregard my weird face, I'm not sure what I was doing but she obviously was not entertained.




Lastly, here is Mary in her monthly picture on the brown ottoman: 5 months, followed by her 2 month, just for some comparison.

He's getting old...

Well, at least he thinks he is. Danny turned 30 on Tuesday!!! He has talked about his birthday month, week and day for awhile now... even last night he said he should have icecream after dinner because it is his "birthweek." 30 is rough, I guess... I won't know for awhile.

We're not really big on birthdays, but I tried to go all out on this one (all out for us, that is). So, I surprised Danny and picked him up from work on Monday. I walked in and told him I had a new picture of Mary....

He didn't get it. But, after I told him that Mary was with Karen (his sister, thanks for babysitting!) because we were going to the game... he was VERY excited! He loves the Pats and he has never been to this stadium. So, we get to the car and I have another surprise... buffalo chicken dip and a cold pepsi. I asked him what he wanted for his birthday dinner a few days before and he said buffalo chicken dip and ice cream. He's really health conscious.

Anyways, the game was awesome and we had a great time! If you haven't heard, the Pats were down all game and scored 2 touchdowns in the last two minutes to win... it was pretty exciting! Something that is very typical of us is forgetting our camera... we get into the stadium and want to take a picture only to realize we left it in the car. Luckily, our friend Veda was there and we met her at halftime so we could document the special occasion.

Lastly, a note about how I got the tickets. EBAY! I had never done it and after a long tutorial from my brother, Luke (Thanks!) and the use of his account, I won some tickets for less than face value... and was able to afford them with a little help from Danny's sister, Kim (Thanks!). It is quite the rush... I missed the first three I bid on because of user error, but I finally figured it out. I have decided that it is best for me stay away from Ebay. I ended up finding some pink baby converse for Mary and a few things for myself. Don't worry, I have yet to connect a paypal account to my name, so I won't be doing any spending as of now.

Family Picnic

We still have a lot to update on this blog. Lisa mentioned our trip to India, and I may need to post some pictures from Kathmandu at some point. But, to be honest, we don't have the energy at the moment to put all that together.

But we do have energy for a quick post of pictures from our first family picnic. We went out to downtown Boston on Friday night, right on the water, to celebrate our reunion. I got back from the other side of the world Thursday night and we thought we'd take a night out and enjoy the wonderful fall weather here in Boston (yes, we know it's not technically fall, but it sure feels like it).

We packed our dinner, brought drinks (ah, Pepsi, how I missed you), utilized the picnic bag Kathryn gave Lisa as a bridesmaid gift and went on our merry way. The only thing we forgot... a blanket. Oh well, you win some, you lose some. Nothing a park bench can't solve.

The first pic is of the 3 of us, as you can see. It doesn't do justice to the size of my "missionary beard," which has since been shaven. It was taken by some friends who were on a date at a nearby restaurant and stopped by to see us (identities will remain anonymous- you know who you are).






The last pic may be our new favorite of Mary, you really gotta love this girl. (Oh, and thanks for the hat, Meghan!)