Gobble, Gobble...

and this is just what we did! What a relaxing Thanksgiving we had - the morning started off with a run (had to burn SOME calories before inhaling all the delicious food), a trip to Starbucks (if you even know me a little bit - I am addicted to coffee - especially from the 'bucks) and a fun Macy's Day Thanksgiving Parade viewing on the tv. Jack & Reagan loved all the amazing floats & HUGE balloons - Buzz Lightyear was a HIT!


Matt and I have started a little tradition...while preparing our Thanksgiving Dinner, we sip Bloody Marys ( yum! ). Gotta love traditions! :) - see pic below

It was our first attempt at preparing a turkey and it was a success!!! Yea!

Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving...

Reagan wearing her pilgrim hat she made at school

SO proud of the turkey - turned out VERY tasty!

Jack doing a turkey dance!

Matt & the bloody marys - cooking up the stuffing!

A HUGE thank you...

to my friend, Lauren! As we say in Boston, she's WICKED talented and was kind enough to take pictures of my crazy kids last Friday morning. We had planned for an earlier date...a fun photo shoot outside at the beach BUT gotta love New England weather - of course we had to reschedule and it was just plain COLD. So we made it work here at our house...and if you have a chance to check out the pictures, it went really well!

I have to give a shout out to my friend, though...she is truly gifted, a very talented photographer here in Boston. She shoots weddings but as you can tell, does an amazing job taking pictures of little kids who are hard to contain!!! :) If you ever find yourself surfing the 'net, check out her website b/c again as we say in Boston - she is WICKED awesome!!!! http://www.personkillian.com/!

The pictures are all posted on the website below:

http://www.collages.net/

user id: JR

password: 8535

xoxo, Erin

Knock, Knock...

A future comedian??? Who knows, but Jack is really into Knock, Knock jokes! And a BIG thanks to Nana & Papa for his new joke books, he is sharing his funnies with everyone!!! His favorite right now is:

Jack: "Knock, Knock"
Anyone else: "Who's there?"
Jack: "Boo!"
Anyone else: "Boo Who?"
Jack: "Boo? Are you a Ghost???"

We really have to credit his teacher, Lyni, for introducing him to knock, knock jokes...they share alot of them during lunchtime at school! It is so cute...even if most of them don't mean anything!

From the mouth of a 4 year old...

Jack practicing his sign language!

The world has such an interesting spin when you look at it as if you were a 4 year old...and many of you Moms would agree with me when I say that I sure do love what/how those 4 year olds think of us!

Setting: In the car after a crazy morning at home. Running a few errands with the kids.

Jack: Mommy, where are we going?

Mom: Well Jack, we are dropping off some stuff to a few of Mommy's friends

Jack: Do you know where we are going?

Mom: I do, Jack! Why?

Jack: Because Mommy, you are so smart.

Mom: Well, thank you Jack. That is so sweet of you! Why do you think I'm smart?

Jack: Because you know everything!

Enough said...I think that represents my year-end review from my "boss" and I'll take it! :) Do you think I'm getting a raise????

Throwing in the towel...ALREADY!

Okay, so the official Day #1 of potty training for Reagan did not exactly go as planned. When our little potty princess woke up this morning, Mommy was all smiles & politely guided Reagan to the bathroom to relieve herself after a LONG night (wish it were a little longer - darn those early morning risers!). But no, the scenario did not happen like I had hoped it would...little Miss Reagan screamed and kicked on the floor of the bathroom as I was trying to convince her to just sit on the potty. argh! Okay, 1 attempt down and many more to go but I was NOT giving up!

And so after several (read: 5 tries) attempts at sitting on the potty in the morning, I just threw in the towel! Of course the final straw was when she was watching "Sid the Science Kid" (our new fav show!!) and let the floodgates go...it actually sounded like the faucet was turned on! And do you think she even blinked once while watching the show??? NO! I couldn't believe it - both Jack and I looked at each other and looked back at Reagan...still no response from our little pee-pee princess!

Take a look at her potty chart - she LOVES Dora so I thought she would love it! And please count how many stickers are on the chart...it represents how many times that she just sits on the potty ( the M & M's are for when she goes!!!!)...do you see just 1 sticker? Do you understand now why we just called it quits and will wait for another time when she is more willing to actually sit on the potty? ha!

The life of a 2 year old...isn't it sweet???

Bring out the new undies...

it's potty-training time again! Oh yes, Miss Reagan has stated that she is done with diapers and insists on wearing her new undies (which include pictures of Dora & Disney princesses). So today was our first official day of no diapers...and we only had 4 accidents and 4 outfit changes! No biggie! :) We are ready for day #2...I think! :)

All is quiet in the house...

and I am VERY worried what I might find in Jack's room! :) This morning, as I was brushing my teeth & washing my face (because a shower was out of the question!!! ha!) - I noticed after about 3 minutes there was no fighting, screaming, crying, etc. coming from Jack's room. The kids had been tearing up the house all morning and running around like little rascals...so when I realized that they had been very quiet I was nervous!



But when I walked into the bedroom, this is what I found: Jack & Reagan sitting together in the train table storage bin reading books. And Jack was even reading to Reagan...so very sweet! I stood at the doorway w/o them noticing for several minutes - just taking in the sensitive way Jack was reading the Dinosaur book and the gazing look Reagan was giving him! It almost brought me to tears...aaaahhhh, all their constant fighting was almost (note, I said almost) erased from my mind!



please disregard the clumps of black hair on the rug...yes, Ellie is going through a shedding phase right now! fun! (hint: sarcasm there!)