Duffy's Holiday Party

On the 18th, Duffy's class had a great holiday party. They made gingerbread houses, went skating with shoeboxes and had a snowball fight with balloons. I had a great time and loved spending some time with Duffy and his friends.

39 and holding...

For Stephen's "hold em" birthday this year, we started the day out right by making him breakfast. Duffy was my super helper and he loved surprising Daddy with homemade waffles. Happy Birthday Daddy. May this be your best year ever and may you stay this age for a very long time. We love you! Happy Birthday!

Santa comes to the neighborhood..

On the 15th, Stephen received the super Dad of the year award as he took Duffy and Lulu to the neighborhood lighting of the Christmas tree. Santa made a stop and it looks like the kids enjoyed meeting Santa and making sure he knew everything that they wanted for the BIG DAY! I love both Duffy and Lulu's expressions as they were sitting on Santa's lap.

Cute little elf!

Last Monday, we decided to get into the holiday spirit as Lulu was ready to wear one of her Christmas dresses to school. Here is a shot of our adorable little elf. Merry Christmas!

Secret Santa

As part of our annual tradition with our business school friends, we hosted Secret Santa at our house this year. I received a great gift and guessed it on the first try and even the kids got into the fun this year. Thanks for the shrinky dinks and decorating kit!

Portraits by Duffy...

As Stephen and I were busy getting the house ready for a recent party, Duffy grabbed my camera and took some shot of his favorite parts of the Christmas decorations.

Snowed in!

This morning, we woke up to about 10 inches of snow and it is still snowing. I'll post some pictures of our soon to be fun in the snow adventures, but I realize it's been awhile since I've posted. It's been crazy getting ready for Christmas, Secret Santa party, school parties, etc. Fun, but it's amazing how fast it goes by until the big day! So, here we go, some pictures of the past couple of weeks...

Ho, ho, ho...

Last night, we decorated our Christmas tree and had a great time doing so. It's so wonderful to pull out all of the ornaments and remember the memories associated with each of them. It's also our first Christmas in our new house, so we are excited to create many, many more memories in our home as a family. Here are some pictures commemorating the first tree decoration!

Let's bowl, let's bowl, let's rock and roll!

After our Christmas tree excursion, we were all invited to William's birthday party at a bowling alley! It was the first time for both Duffy and Lulu to bowl and they had a blast (and were pretty good).

Going on a tree hunt..

This past Saturday, we braved the cold, snowy weather to go get our Christmas tree. It is absolutely beautiful and about 8 feet tall. Here we are FREEZING as we went to go pick it out.


And while Daddy put it on top of the car to drive home, Duffy, Lulu and I warmed up in the car. Smart, aren't we!

Hello, Elwood!

After some great advice, this year we decided to bring Elwood into our home. Otherwise known as our "Elf on the Shelf". We have had so much fun following the adventures of Elwood from the North Pole to Lulu's room, the kitchen shelf, Duffy's airplane and back to the North Pole. Elwood, safe travels. We love you!

ZONKED!

I think the picture says it all. This is right before we were about to head home. Lulu headed into the TV room and was talking to herself (as she does often) and then just feel asleep on the couch.

Luluisms

For the record, I am know starting a file known as Luluisms. Here a few that come to mind.
1. Big Glubber. This is a term that she came up with and uses frequently. We even decided to scream Big Glubber if we saw any Christmas lights.
2. Oh Man, Not Again. This is an old one but worth documenting. She used it mainly last year but it continuously cracks me and all of the cousins up.
3. Johnny. Johnny is Lulu's new friend (imaginary) and comes up in conversation often.

I'll continue to keep everyone posted for Round 2 of Luluisms.

Watch out Duffy Waldorf..here we come!

And after swimming, Daddy took the kids to the driving range to practice their golf swing..whew, what a week!

Swimfan..

Barboo and Pops belong to a great club and we were able to take the kids swimming one day. Here they are prepping for the pool...

Growing up every day...(as Mama cries)

Turkey Fanatic?

One of the best outcomes of Thanksgiving this year was the realization of finding out how much Lulu loves to eat turkey. She decided that the dark "chicken" was best but I think my favorite was watching her stuff gizzards in her mouth and declaring YUMMY, YUMMY in MY TUMMY. Delicious, huh? The picture below is of Lulu the morning after eating turkey and milk for breakfast. Of course!

Thanksgiving Portraits

We had wonderful weather and we were lucky enough to spend a lot of time outdoors enjoying the warm weather. We were even able to take some portraits (some taken by Daddy and some taken by Duffy and Lulu) before we had Thanksgiving dinner. I'm not sure if they had more fun taking the pictures or eating Thanksgiving dessert.

Thanksgiving Prep and Pumpkin Roll?

Lulu had a great time "prepping" in the kitchen with Barboo and becoming a holiday helper. One of the other events of the week was the annual Pumpkin roll, whereby the Halloween pumpkin is thrown into the ravine behind Barboo and Pops' house. That's Pops' hand holding Duffy as he threw the pumpkin. What fun!

Happy Thanksgiving 2009!

For Thanksgiving 2009, we packed up the car and headed down to Williamsburg for almost a full week of relaxation, yummy food and wonderful time with family. We started out our "week" by heading to the outlets to do some pre-Christmas shopping. We didn't have much luck this day but we did manage to turn a day deemed boring by Duffy and Lulu into a fun adventure as they decided to "drive" our car in the parking lot. Barboo and Pops: Thanks for a great Thanksgiving. We had a blast!

I MISS DUFFY!

The one person who was even more sad to see Duffy head off to his sleepover was Lulu. Stephen and I tried to make a "big night out" for her by heading into Georgetown for dinner and cupcakes but she was way smarter than that. We did end up waking up around 3 am with Lulu crying "I miss Duffy." What's a girl to do?

SleepOVER

This past weekend, Duffy had his first "official" sleepover for a friend's birthday. He was super excited and had a great time. Of course, I slept with the cell phone by the bed all night in anticipation of the 3 am "come get me" call but he did great. We are super proud of him but of course, I'm a wee bit sad that he's growing up. I love you forever and ever, you are always in my heart!

We are....PENN STATE!

This past weekend, we decided to go to Jen and Charles' for the weekend so Duffy and Daddy could go see the Penn State vs Ohio State game. While the game didn't turn out as we had hoped, Duffy didn't know the difference. He loves the Penn State cheer, WE ARE....PENN STATE and kept saying it all weekend. We had a wonderful time with the cousins and loved spending time together!

Zonked..

After after a long weekend and daylight savings time, here is how the two best buds end up.

Trick or treat? Scary or spooky?

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

This year, Halloween was on Saturday so it allowed ample opportunity to get spooky scary. We decided to make some enhancements to Duffy's costume that proved to be well worth it. We had a few parties to go to and did some great trick or treating in the neighborhood. We had a great Halloween and loved spending time with our friends.