so good to be home

zack and thea and laura did such an amazing job while i was away last week. zack and thea bonded even more in every way. their closeness was so evident upon my return and i love watching them together. laura was great too, "distracting thea when she got sad," as she put it. she also sent me photos every day which i was grateful to receive!

here are a couple of my favorites:



laura loves putting funny hats and headbands on the girls and taking photos. thus, the following two pictures [is that a garter belt on thea's head??]...

oh canada

vancouver has been absolutely beautiful this week - blue skies, mild temperatures and gorgeous snow-topped mountains hanging over the city. i even have time to enjoy myself a little while i'm here [yoga classes and dinners out] but i miss my boo and little nuggie so much i can hardly stand it.

i wanted to share a text that i received from zack this morning:

everything good this am. princess up at 5am. this that what. xoxo we miss mommy.

thea points to everything now and says in rapid succession and with great emphasis i might add, "this! that! what!" it's totally a result of her saying, "this" and us responding to her by saying, "that" or "what" so now she's combined all three and made it easy for everyone. it's quite possibly the cutest thing i've ever heard and i can't wait to get home and hear it 1,000 more times.



dear zack: thank you for being an amazing daddy and husband-to-be. i appreciate everything you've done this week and always.

lions and tigers and grandma! oh my!

we had a lovely visit with carol last week and we miss her!! on monday we enjoyed a yummy ladies lunch at the hotel and the weather was so amazing that carol and a nekkid thea even waded into the pool afterward.





the hotel grounds had ducks everywhere and a pond with the biggest koi fish i've ever seen. thea was fascinated by everything, astounded to hear live quacking and had to be physically restrained from jumping into the pond, duck poo and all.





one of the highlights of the visit for me was our trip to the zoo! we're so lucky to have a world class zoo in our backyard and it was nearly empty when we went last thursday morning. my favorites were the lion and the gorillas. thea loved it all until she'd had enough and then, very quickly, it was time to leave.

here's a short video and some photos, all taken with my new iPhone, thank you mom and dad!









before we left the house zack had expressed concern over thea wearing her new shoes to the park, "blisters! she might get blisters!" which made me laugh but as it turns out our little girl wanted to walk everywhere. "strollers are for babies and i'm certainly not a baby anymore." so we spent a lot of time holding her hand, trying to keep her on track and slowly walking through the park. luckily for all of us, the shoes help up their end of the bargain and we avoided blister drama.







thank you for such a fun-filled week carol! we love having you visit and hope you'll come back soon. xoxo

the old man and the thee

papa titled this post, not me. taken as we were saying goodbye to my family on january 6.

bigger is better

while we were back east we didn't have thea's trusty tub so we started giving her baths in the big tub and she loved it. all of a sudden, the bath that had served us so well for the last 12 months looked painfully small and outdated. so, now we're back and it's time to retire yet another one of the items from nuggie's babyhood.

miss thee has always loved taking baths, but now more than ever since she can actually stretch her legs and move about. plus, more room allows for more toys!

maybe next year

nuggie was all ready to cheer on her beloved pats but, sadly, the game was pretty much over before it started and tom certainly wasn't terrific. she walked around muttering "oh no!" for the entire second half until we gave her some of my mom's homemade zucchini bread to pull her out of her funk.



in other exciting news, zack and i won our fantasy football league!! woot!

how ah ya?

i'm just getting back to posting after a long hiatus and although it's only been two weeks, it feels like forever!

thea added so many new words to her vocabulary while we were away and is a talking machine these days. we are now dealing with a little person - three conscious beings in our house, no longer two plus a baby - though sometimes it feels more like we're living with a parrot than a child. a very smart and persistent parrot who not only repeats everything we say with amazing clarity and accuracy, but also opens our kitchen cabinets and tears apart our house on a daily basis. on second thought, isn't that the definition of a toddler?

she also takes direction now [in fact, she's well on her way to being able to manage light housework] so zack and i spend quite a bit of time each day sending her back and forth between us with objects such as our phones, various remote controls, mail, etc. it keeps her quite busy and gives her a sense of purpose.

i'm in the process of uploading photos and will post more soon but wanted to share a short video of thea and zack's mom, carol. i'm not sure who we have to thank for this but i'm blaming my dad since he's been known to throw around a boston accent with little regard to the effect it has on others.