Enjoying Baltimore Harbor during Mom and Dad's February 2011 visit

Addie looking out at Baltimore Harbor. She's being careful that the birds don't bite her finger :-) We had a fun day with Nana and Papa at the Science Center.

Sam LOVES her baths. Addie and Sam are big enough now that I can be around putting up laundry and other exciting things like that :-) and can listen to them in the background. They have a great time playing.

Neat thing is that we realized mom and dad came this exact weekend in February 2010. Here is a video of Sam from that visit. A lot happens in a year! Although some things remain the same, like the fabulous meal and conversation we enjoyed on double date with mom and dad at O'Leary's seafood restaurant.

Update on Grandma Snell

I think most of you know some of what is going on, but a few weeks ago Grandma Snell (the one that lives on the farm in IL) took a dramatic turn in terms of her cognitive abilities, eating and interest in much of anything other than sleeping.

Mom, dad, aunt jane and erin and roberto were all there for T-day helping out (along with aunts and uncles who live in IL) and yesterday the decision was made to take grandma in ambulance to emergency room because she was not doing well (not eating, not very responsive) and because it would help with the process of getting her into a place with more advanced care than the recently hired live-in care provider could give her.

When I talked to mom and dad late last night, grandma was showing a tiny sign of improvement since being in the nursing home. time will tell. Still not 100% clear what is going on. Seems likely that she may just be communicating that she is ready to be with Grandpa Snell.

I ask that she be in your thoughts and prayers for no suffering and integrity with living or dying, whichever direction she choses in these next few days. I leave Sunday-Tuesday to visit with her, unless I hear something drastic has changed before then.

I think we all are doing ok with this. She has lived a wonderful, full, rich and long life.  We are blessed she got to meet Luca (just last week), Sam and Addie. She knows she is loved and everything possible has been done to avoid her having to leave the home where she and Grandpa Snell raised their 4 kids and deeply impacted their grandkids. It has been a gift that she could be home for so long and now it is good to know she has a higher level of care that she needs.

The hardest part is going to be going to IL and not staying at the farm, a place so deeply connected to fond memories, smells, and childhood fun with my sister, cousins, aunts, uncles, and family.

Thank goodness for little ones who remind us that along with the pain of having to let go of certain traditions is the joy of forming new ones.

Love
Jess

Oh Christmas Tree Oh Christmas Tree

...actually the song we sing at nighttime here is Oh Tinkerbell Oh Tinkerbell, we love the way you fly. Oh Tinkerbell, oh Tinkerbell, we love the way you flyyy. We love your green and pretty dress. We love the way, you bring out the kid in us. Oh Tinkerbell, oh Tinkerbell, we love the way you flyyy.

We had fun continuing our Johns family tradition of cutting down Christmas trees! Check out the new and old photos! The tree smells wonderful.

Sam had a blast eating a candy cane and dancing in the car.

Addie working hard moving the christmas tree wagon.

Also enjoyed continuing our tradition of cookie baking with Auntie Julie and Uncle Bill. Check out those cute snowmen!

Pics from christmas tree trip 2009!

Pics of 2008 trip with Papa, same farm as 2010!



Samantha's first birthday

Samantha is one! We have had lots of fun celebrations, including a pre-celebration in Florida with Gammy and Gocky and a big partee at our house last night- house was filled with peeps.

It was like a college party minus the not-so-well behaved adults with the addition of happy kiddos running around with icing dressed up by Addie in either princess dressses or spider man (thanks to cousins Lala and Synnove).

Below is buddy Gavin, born 5 days after Sam last year.

We wish all of our out of town family and friends could have been here. But we might not have fit in the house :-)

Bugs and Princesses

Whew, I am feeling a bit of relief that our princess-dress loving daughter now also has a love for bugs! Last night she found a cricket and was laughing saying it tickled as she let it crawl all over her for about 20 minutes as she was winding down from our big partee for Samantha's first b-day. (Are you reading this and going thumbs up, great parenting, or thumbs down, gross! or both)

Addie also has a love for Stink bugs, which have made quite a presence in MD this season. When she finds them she is very careful and takes them outside to be with "their family."

I do draw the line at no high heals!
Love
Jess

Baby on the Loose!

So, I am on my way to NYC to meet up with best friend from college in NYC (so excited!!!) and am on a bus with free wifi ( I am on cloud nine already. How funny is that. Ahhhh, the things that become simple joys when you have kids). I digress... so, I was gone for literally one hour, and JC calls to tell me Sam is crawling, tripod style.

We totally thought she was just going to skip crawling and go straight to walking. The child HATES being on her stomach. But something clicked this week and its a whole new world. Guess she just needed me to get the heck out of the way :-)

Hope to send video soon but I stole camera for my first trip away since Miss Samantha was born, ALMOST a year ago come November 30. She's adorable as is big sis Addison, who, by the way, was chanting PUSSY cat (without the word cat) on the way to Lynnie's so we had to have a little talk about what this means. Hmmm. The situations you find yourself in and the things you end up trying to explain that you don't realize understand yourself.

Love
Jess

Blog Envy

...OK, I just tried to put a pot of coffee in the fridge instead of the egg nog. Hmm. No blogging NOT under the influence.

I just started our family blog in a very non perfectionist way. I have been trying to hold special memories in my brain, rehearsing them so I don't forget but then more happen. Time marches on.

So, a blog sure does seem like a great easy way to capture those things I keep meaning to write in a baby book. Plus, I have total blog envy (and mild feelings of inadequacy :-) when I see the updates from you all, tracking even charted growth if your my bro in law :-)

I hope to go back and retroactive blog (is that allowed?) but for now, I took 2 minutes to capture the sweet memory that our baby baby girl just drove off facing forward in Addie's old car seat. Is blogging supposed to make you cry. Hmm. no fair :-)

For those interested, it's
http://johnsfamilyinannapolis.blogspot.com/

Love
Jess and family