MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given. Happy Birthday, Jesus!

That's about as far as we got into the service before one of us, who shall remain unnamed (re: not Rob...not me) decided to take off running out of the church and down the hall screaming.

I'm sure Jesus understands. We'll try again next year. :-)

I'm sure I'll catch all kinds of crap for dressing her like this in about 12 years when she sees this, but we think she's the cutest little Christmas girl ever.

Merry Christmas!

Snow Day Updates!

Anna and I have severe cabin fever so off we went to play with Pierce and Stacy Adams. We tried like a zillion stores looking for sleds before my boss finally told me his wife heard on the news they're recommending laundry baskets tied with string. Sounds cheesy, but I think we're not even going to buy a sled this year. Laundry baskets were flipping awesome. I didn't get any pictures of the kids in them because I was busy with Anna yelling "PULL!" at me. We had a great time!

Snow storm of the century!

Oh My. So...there isn't too much I can say that you haven't already seen on the news. (Worst snow storm in 71 years), so I am adding pictures instead.

Here's Rob shoveling our steps for what I think was the 4th time yesterday!

We took Anna out for a little while, but the snow was coming down sideways so we came back in...she wasn't happy about that and kept trying to put her boots on to go out with Dad. (This made me feel awful!)

Today we woke up and the sun is shining. But here's the aftermath of yesterday's insanity. (Rob just dug out my truck AGAIN).

To give you people way down south an idea of just how much snow we got, here's my lovely assistant, Anna, standing in front of our deck. She's 33 inches tall.

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

The Christmas Tree

Our tree is up. It's somewhere in between the one found in Time Square and Charlie Brown's Christmas Tree...Still...Good luck finding something cuter than this....

Grandma Visit...baby Barrett

I'm running late on the posts (as usual) and I have more where these came from...we'll get there. Anyway, Rob's mom came to visit last weekend after Thanksgiving and I didn't get a chance to post pictures until today. Anna had a great time visiting with her Grandma :-)

And Anna got to meet her newest "little cousin" Barrett Poulos. She was even allowed to hold Barrett (with some help from his Mommy, Sarah and his Grandpa). Now every time we see a baby, Anna walks up and says "BABY!" and holds her arms out expectantly. She's going to be a great baby sitter one day....

That's it for now. Stay tuned for pictures of our Christmas tree (you had to know that was up by now...)

Happy Leftovers Day!

Hope you all had a Happy Thanksgiving yesterday! We spent this one at home- which is unusual for us. But it's the first one in years where we've had the opportunity to watch the Thanksgiving Day Parade and relax in our PJs. We missed the rest of the fam, but it was nice to bum around.

In other...strangely related news of things I'm thanful for, someone had a successful potty interaction on the day before Thanksgiving. You would have thought we won the lottery for all the celebrating we did! Way to go, Anna! You make me one proud mommy!

Last but NOT least: We're not that far removed from the USMC that we've forgotten about our troops. Thanks to those who are serving over the holiday season. You are in our thoughts.

yeah. That's what I thought.

Don't undermine the Mommy. I know when something is up with my little girl. Turns out she has walking pnemonia. Everything is cool and now she's on antibiotics so in 10 days she's all good. Phew.

Sick little girl, part 2

It seems that Anna is still feeling "blah". She just hasn't been herself, so we're heading back to the doc for a second opinion. (Re: after scouring the internet, psycho mommy wants to make SURE it's not H1N1). It's okay though, we have fuzzy owl pajamas.

Happy Halloween!

This was Anna's first year trick-or-treating! We didn't do too much, Rob took her around the block to the houses of neighbors we knew, while I handed out candy at home. She had a great time!

Our Little Chick!

Waldo stopped by for a visit before heading out to her party

Dad showing Anna what a cute little chick she is.

And last but not least, Kudos to the Pouloses for best pregnant costume we've ever seen.

Grandma is Spook-tacular!

Our poor little grumpy girl's day was made today thanks to Grandma T's surprise care package of crayons, cookies, barrettes, a sweater and purse. We LOVED it!!!

The barretts of people are supposed to be one of me and one of Anna (TOO CUTE). The dog is Scout and the Cat is Fury (Rob's cat when he was a kid).

Anna with her new crayons and halloween pictures (Note the cute halloween barretts)

Thanks Grandma!! Can't wait to see you after Thanksgiving!

Sick Day

Poor Anna has a temp today (she's teething, not sick sick) so I'm home playing hookie with her. My poor little girl!

I don't mind the extra hugs though....

PUCKUMS!

We took Anna to the "puckum" patch today (re: pumpkin) where Anna had her first pony ride (I was in mommy heaven considering I was really into horseback riding growing up)

And we did a maze with bales of hay....

and topped it all off with 'bird watching' with Dad-O.....Okay, looking at ducks through chicken wire. Whatever. Little kids are easy to impress. :-)

.

Were you wondering where we've been?

I have no good excuse... but I'm here today!
Anna and I are chilling out on the couch watching Nick Jr. Rob's out on his boat.... life is good. We have no real updates (which is why I haven't blogged), except to say that now that our house didn't sell, every realtor in the area is dive bombing us with letters DAILY on how they could sell our house, they're SURE of it! We're so over the house (not) selling. The last thing we want is more people walking through it on a daily basis just to 'kick the tires'. Ugh. Okay, so that's really all i have to say. Glad we updated? Yes, we're still alive, no we have nothing interesting to report! Back to nick jr.!

Happy Anniversary.

Four years! Did any of you think we'd actually make it?

So today's our anniversary, and like any old married couple, we're spending it at home watching a movie and making fruit dip for a pot luck at work tomorrow. A far cry from Valentine's day in Ethiopia or dancing a tango at our reception, but after the week in Italy, we're totally cool with low-key. And maybe we're still a bit jet-lagged. Or just getting old.

Here's to four more years (at least) of putting up with (umm..I mean adoring) eachother...love you Honey!

-Rob

Positano, Italy!

We just returned from an AMAZING family trip to Positano, Italy! I'm having a tough time figuring out which pictures to post (I have over 400 and that just my camera...yikes), but here are a few of my favorites... THIS is a view of the city from the boat.

And this is the view from my the window of the villa. (un. real.)
Here's Dado (Anna's name for Dad) and Anna backpacking aross the Amalfi coast in Ravelo. (Spelling questionable)

A view from our kitchen. Kudos to Rob for figuring out the night shots.

Family pic at our favorite restaurant "the Three Sisters" the night before we left.

Rob and I in Capri- the land where you can afford NOTHING!

One more view from our balcony at night. The views were just amazing.

this is our balcony. Much wine, pasta, and good times were had here this past week!

Family pic while touring Positano. By the way, if you happen to visit there and have a child, bring the backpack, not the stroller. There were so many steps that we ate whatever we wanted all day and STILL lost weight. Crazy!

Anyway, I have a zillion more pictures but I don't want this to seem like I'm making you watch home movies so I'll stop there. Sorry we couldn't bring you, but we have a TON of Lemoncello (which Positano is famous for) so stop by and have a drink with us.

Anna's so thoughtful...

Elmo gets thirsty too, y'all.

Shakedown Cruise (Rob's update)

So - we took the boat out on its first run yesterday afternoon. When we bought the boat, we thought, 'Yeah, we can totally handle this. Piece of cake.' - Not so much. Little did we know that Star Class boats are basically the Formula 1 racecars of the sailing world - and, much like a jealous highschool cheerleader - are ridiculously fast, high maintenance, very sensitive to insults, and generally unforgiving of anyone that doesn't know what they're doing. We're glad we got away from the first cruise with just a snapped jib halyard (one of the steel cables that brings a sail up and down) - other than that, it was awesome!

Though her formal name is 'Glorious Amateur,' we already think, given her bratty disposition and British origin (she was built for the British Olympic Sailing Team), the nickname might be HMS Intolerant.

There was a juniors sailing dinghy regatta going on most of the afternoon at the racing club as well, I didn't know kids' sailing was a spectator sport, but apparently it is. A whole gaggle of proud parents were set up on the docks, lawnchairs and coolers everywhere, watching their kids tack and gybe all over the harbor (and knock their little boats into eachother on occasion)...Look out Anna - I'm already signing you up for juniors sailing class!

The picture isn't us, but just to give you an idea of what a Star class looks like underway...

The sure do grow up fast...

So, we have a trip coming up that involves a plane. We're a little nervous about being "those parents" with the screaming kid, and since the plane ride is 7 hours long...we thought maybe we'd look for ways to keep Anna's attention.

A slew of parents have spoken and basically we came to the conclusion that we needed a DVD player for the trip. We tried it out today on the way to visit my grandparents in Delaware. I don't know where our little 1 year old went, but some teenager sat in the back and ignored us for 2 hours (both ways)

Please note the rockin' headphones. They're toddler headphones, but they're tigers on each ear. I can't get over the cuteness.

Arrrrrrgh you a Pirate?

So, Yesterday was National "Talk Like a Pirate Day" and while I usually avoid 'piratey' things, a coworker of mine was having a little shin-dig at Howl At the Moon. And let's face it, Rob and I are never too cool to make a$$es of ourselves....

Here's Damian, our party (animal) coordinator. I didn't post other pictures because I don't know how the rest of the group feels about being on the net. You'll just have to imagine it. Imagine "awesome".