Universal sickies

Here we are another month past and I must apologize again for the long delay in between entries. Naturally I place the blame entirely on Morgan and the fact that she wears us out so much there is simply not enough time to sit down and write out an eloquent summary of her activities. Luckily we are doing an early bedtime tonight so I'll try and crank something out before I fall asleep.

Morgan is now at 17 months and very eagerly awaiting Halloween. It would appear that she shares the same affinity for this particular holiday as does her father. She has already ventured out to the pumpkin patch and takes great delight in pointing out (and screaming at) every single pumpkin in our neighborhood. She does have her Halloween costume so it looks like the 2 people who voted in out little costume poll will be the only ones allowed to see it. And Morgan has been practicing saying "trick or treat" along with a variety of other words and phrases. She also enjoys spinning, walking backwards, cleaning (natch), and putting a blanket over her head. She really is quite the little talent.

Morgan also had another big first just a couple of days ago - her first cold. Due to the fact that she's not in daycare and not around other young people we've managed to avoid this one little area for almost 2 years now. But yes, on Friday she woke up with a fever, stuffy nose, sore throat, and cough. Luckily her fever broke on Friday night while she was sleeping in bed with us - actually she was laying at an incline on top of me since she was having trouble breathing. I just know that I woke up very early on Saturday morning with both of my shoulders soaking wet from some sort of fluid that I don't really want to think about. As of today Morgan is just about back to normal - at least she was well enough to enjoy another Sunday of football (as well as running around with a blanket over her head). Actually today we have moved on into the super duper runny nose and projectile sneezing phase so that's been a real treat. Unfortunately for Morgan though the one weekend she decided to get sick was the weekend we were going to hit the zoo for Zoo Boo. I guess there's always next year.

I do apologize also for the lack of recent photos. It seems that the camera has taken up permanent residence in our car so I'll have to get on the photographer to bring it inside.

Vocabulary

We're running past the 16-month mark over here... and when I say running, I mean Morgan is literally running. We were supposed to be taking a nice leisurely after dinner walk to the playground and I was doing a jog just to keep up with her. But more importantly than that we have been working on expanding Morgan's vocabulary. We all know she is a musical genius when it comes to drums so I thought why not enhance Morgan's dictionary a bit with a few timely words of another subject matter. We practiced all week long and I am beyond proud to have been able to witness Morgan's big debut yesterday when she busted out with "touchdown", "football", "Heap", and "Flacco". Naturally she was wearing her favorite Ravens track pants while running around talking and watching the opening day game with me. And just to keep things well balanced after the football game we started working on saying "tennis" and "Roger" (though I think we may wait a long while before turning on another Serena match up).

Music appreciation

It is a forgone conclusion that Morgan will no doubt be a child prodigy when it comes to musical talent. So we've decided to fully embrace that fact with the hopes that she'll make it big as a famous musician and be able to support us so that I can retire early and become her manager. And also for Patrick to live out all of his musical fantasies through her. As I'm sure you've heard (and seen the photos) we have decided to get Morgan started out on the drums and then from there we'll move to other forms of noise-makery. Plus her uncle was a drummer back in the day and we used to put on rock concerts in the basement so it's all in good fun. She has become so proficient at playing the little snare and cymbal combo that Pat got for her that she's now moved on to expirementing with other household items that she can hit with her drumstick. So far she has mastered playing the floor, the bookshelf, couch, television, kitchen table, and Colby. Such a talent.

Of course in addition to making the music we have discovered Morgan's hidden talent of dancing. We've been trying out different genres of music to see what delights her the most. She loves Barenaked Ladies and They Might Be Giants (who wouldn't?)... Dream Theater is OK... anything on the Toddler Tunes channel is awesome... but I am super ecstatic to report that out of all of these none has garnered the most wiggles and head bopping then punk rock. So Morgan may have her father's ability to make the music, but she has definitely inherited her mother's awesome taste in listening to music.

August

Yes, so I must apologize to my faithful readers (all two of you) for completely dropping off the blogosphere, so to speak, for pretty much all of August. I got sucked (ha, I'm clever) into a rather addicting guilty pleasure which took up pretty much every single free night I had. But luckily I am completely done with that for the time being... until about November 20 or so. Anyway, I am back to focusing on Morgan and the rest of us and good thing too since we were actually quite busy this month.

Earlier in the month we decided to take our first road trip with Morgan (Rehoboth doesn't count) and headed up to Pittsburgh. Pat's grandparents and father are from that area and we did get a chance to drive by his grandparents old house. We stayed at a nice hotel right in the city directly across the street from both the Pirates stadium and the Steelers stadium. The Pirates had a couple of home games while we were there so we did some people watching at everyone coming to and from the games. The Steelers stadium, I'm happy to report back, is ugly.


Another comment on our hotel - it had a very nice restaurant where we enjoyed breakfast for the two mornings we were there. By our second meal every single waiter, waitress, and hotel guest in the place knew Morgan's name and took great delight in waving to her and making silly faces. We even had one waitress go so far as to actually go outside and stand in front of the window to make faces at Morgan from the patio. Of course that sort of backfired when one of the other diners thought she was making faces at him.

Morgan did exceptionally well of course at being in a new city. She enjoyed all of the parks and fountains and had to wave hello to every single bird, tree, and flower.


Naturally we had to pay a visit to the Pittsburgh zoo and aquarium. The good news was we got in for free. The bad news was we had about an hour to walk around and attempt to see everything before the zoo closed. Luckily Morgan was fine with us speed walking and still managed to wave to just about every animal (that was still awake).

After we came home from our weekend away (and yes, we're already planning our next road trip and no, I'm not saying where it's to), we enjoyed a night out watching cousin Kerry make her big marching band debut.


I'm almost certain that Kerry is concentrating really hard about the intricate marching pattern she's about to perform and not at all rolling her eyes and looking bored.

Morgan was so excited over the music she plopped on the ground...


But it was certainly no match for cousin Curt's level of enthusiasm over his love of marching band music...


Morgan was so impressed she decided she wanted to try marching as well...


And then decided it's much more fun to roll around in the grass...


After our night of music we naturally had to balance that out with sports. So Morgan and I took Grandpa out to see the Frederick Keys. Grandpa tried showing Morgan the finer points of the game...


Morgan even tried her hand at keeping score...


And argued with the umpires on a couple of bad calls...


But ultimately decided that the best part of baseball is the free cupcake you get when you happen to go to the game celebrating the mascot's birthday...


(I'm not sure why they served cupcakes for a dog's birthday party but whatever)

In the middle of road trips, music performances, and baseball games Morgan decided she was going to just start walking for real so that has pretty much taking up the rest of our time this month. One minute we're sitting and watching the news and the next minute Morgan is walking the full length of the living room without falling. Of course with walking also inevitably comes tumbling which apparently we had the first major spill today when Morgan decided she wanted to walk over her farmhouse instead of around it. One busted lip later and now she knows not to mess with farmhouse.

I should also point out that this month Morgan turned the big 15 months which means we had a doctor visit on Monday. For those keeping track Morgan is now 33 in tall and 25 lbs which means she is still freakishly tall with a big head. But otherwise is doing just fine.

Daddy's girl

For the past 14 or so months now the majority of people who see Morgan usually say that she resembles me in some fashion. Not that I don't mind these comments since of course Morgan is pretty darn cute - and we also do have the same affinity for making silly faces - but since no mention has been made of her looking anything like Pat I feel like I must try and prove paternity here that Pat is actually Morgan's father. So for starters I offer you Exhibit A -


Here you can clearly see they both have perfectly mastered the squinty sun in your eyes facial expression.

Moving on to Exhibit B -


Ok seriously, this is pretty darn cute. Clearly they have been spending way too much time together during the day for both of them to be sporting the same pool hair and devilish grin.

Finally, Exhibit C -


I do believe without a doubt this absolutely proves Morgan is a daddy girl. And obviously daddy is loving every minute of it!

Happy birthday Gangi!

Swimming and showers

To celebrate Morgan's monumental achievement of officially taking her first steps we decided to enjoy a lazy (and hot) Sunday afternoon at the neighborhood pool. Morgan had swim lessons back when she was about 7 months old and actually does enjoy a refreshing dip by holding on to either me or Pat. Recently though we got her one of those little floaty tubes that she can swim in by herself. We tried it out for the first time a couple of weeks ago. Ever since then she has loved it so much she has started putting it on the living room floor and sitting in it. We can take the hint so we got on our swim suits, scooped on the sunscreen, and headed down the block... with floaty of course.


We've learned that with Morgan it's best to head in the big pool first rather than try to do the kiddie pool. The water was a tad bit cold but considering it was about 90 degrees out it sure did feel good.


Hey, I can see our house from here.


Watch out Michael Phelps!


After the pool we headed back home just in time for afternoon naps. When we all woke up we decided what better way to finish off a hot summer day then to fire up the grill for some hamburgers. Now, we don't watch the local news much ever since the switch over to digital cable as we only used to watch the news upstairs in our bedroom and we only have cable on the television in the living room. So unfortunately we missed the report about a massive freakish thunderstorm heading right towards us. Luckily we had a sense something was coming.


Morgan and I practiced making our best surprise faces while watching the storm clouds come in and trying not to get hit by lightening.


Then for about 15 minutes we got hammered with rain, wind, and hail. It seemed like just another average storm until the deck table and chairs started flying towards the railing. And then the ladder we had standing up outside fell over. And the grill started moving. And water started coming in underneath our closed sliding glass door. And the power went out. Now I should say that in the four years we have lived in our house the power has never gone out once due to the fact that the power lines are buried underground. So this was new. Morgan and I whipped out the flashlights. Of course it was still light out considering it was only about 6:30 but you get the general idea.


The rain eventually did stop and Pat fired the grill back up to finish making our hamburgers. After a quick dinner we did what any other logical person would do in a situation such as this - grabbed the camera and headed outside to survey the damage. It seems like many of our neighbors had the same idea and we quickly had a block party going on. Of course I'm sure things would have been a bit more jovial if not for the bit of destruction that seemed to only affect our small little neighborhood.


That was not our house, thankfully. We seemed to come away from this relatively unscathed. Our neighbor two doors down however came out of her house only to find a piece of someone's siding wedged into her garage door. And then of course there was quite a bit of tree damage.


Here's our neighbor's house. Amazingly with all the trees knocked down we didn't see a single car hit.


And then of course there was the text message from my sister with a picture of their tree down across their driveway. They also had a fun little neighborhood party as everyone came out with their chainsaws. We too had chainsaws going on... all night long.

After our family walk we decided to postpone bath time considering it would have been a bit difficult to do in the dark and did our best to get ready for bedtime. Of course wouldn't you know Morgan really wanted to stay up and make the most of her first blackout. By this time it was dark dark... good thing we still had about a million wedding candles left over.


At first we tried sitting and rocking in the chair for a bit to calm down...


That worked for about 5 minutes until we decided we'd much rather make silly faces by candlelight instead.


Or maybe that was us yawning which would make sense too considering by that point it was 10pm... two hours past Morgan's bedtime. We finally gave in and ended up having a party in our room complete with flashlights and more silly faces. Amazingly we did manage to fall asleep despite the aforementioned chainsaws and 85 degree heat and luckily the power did come back on at about 3:30am. And wouldn't you know it, today there is absolutely no sign of any damage done except of course for missing siding.

So all in all just a typical Sunday in July complete with a trip to the pool and a tornado. And there you go Mom - that's what's happening in Maryland.

Today is any day now

Morgan has an announcement. After months of crawling, cruising, and climbing Morgan has officially made the big leap into walking. She started practicing earlier in the week mainly by standing and immediately flopping over to her eventual destination. But starting today Morgan decided today was the day to actually take a few steps... before then flopping over. By the end of the day she had progressed to standing, clapping, and then doing a quick power walk over to Pat. Of course that naturally turned out to be a lot of fun and someone decided she would much rather practice walking then go to bed. Though I think us getting caught in the rain during our family walk also contributed to Morgan's giggle fit. Apparently rain drops on your legs is quite ticklish.

One small step

The big question on every one's mind lately is when will Morgan start walking. I don't even get a "hi, how are you" on the phone from Grandma and Grandpa anymore. Instead I get "is Morgan walking, what did we get in the mail?" For the past few months now Morgan has been cruising along every single piece of furniture we own. We thought she was getting close to letting go as soon as she started cruising one-handed. But it turns out she still likes having some contact with a concrete inanimate object... except of course when she's holding onto Colby and walking around him. Then we were thinking that maybe by taking her to My Gym and seeing the other kids walk around might inspire her to take that first step. So far I think it's just encouraged her to crawl faster. And of course recently we've been practicing with standing up alone but that really only works if we trick her into not realizing we've let go and it usually ends with her plopping down on her bottom after about 2-3 seconds.

So imagine my surprise when we're playing after dinner tonight and Morgan decides she's in an extra silly mood and wants to practice walking back and forth between me and Pat. First she takes one giant leap to the couch where Pat is sitting... of course, still holding on to my arm with one hand while reaching over to the couch with the other so that doesn't really count. Then it's time to turn around and walk back to me. She gets into position, surveys the scene, and prepares to make that first step. Except the big first step actually ended up being more of a forward lunge and resulted in a lot of silly giggles and smiles. Of course we had to repeat this several more times until the forward lunge turned into a backwards swoop. Ok so it wasn't an actual step but it was still pretty silly. And by the way, Morgan has the greatest laugh ever.

Happy birthday Uncle Scotty!

Looking good

One year ago Morgan was soaking up the rays and taking in the cool ocean air during her very first visit to the beach.


What a difference a year makes...

Little drummer girl

We've been saying for quite some time now that Morgan is incredibly gifted (and beautiful, smart, funny, etc). She knows what sheep says and almost cow and dog. She can wave hi and bye like a pro. She can clap and play peek-a-boo like nobody's business. And as of a couple of weeks ago she is climbing up and down stairs with lighting fast speed. And yes, any day now she is going to start running laps around the house. Seriously... any day now.

Today Morgan acquired a new talent that puts all of the above to shame.


Yes, Morgan is a musical prodigy... a genius if you will. She started out just focusing on the cymbals but as you can clearly see she has now advanced on to the snare, bass, and high hat. Her eye-hand coordination is spot on and her ability to lay down the beat is truly awe-inspiring. I fully expect Julliard or Peabody to be calling us any day now.

Here she is really feeling the music.


You'll have to talk to our manager and publicist for any additional copyrighted images or interviews.

A new milestone

For the past 14 months we have gone through our share of big firsts and grand milestones all while watching Morgan grow into the sweet and personable little lady she is today. We giggled at her first smile, gawked at the first roll over, and awed at her first time on the swing. Well we can now add another first to the list... the first time out. It appears that in addition to being all happy-go-lucky Morgan also enjoys testing the limits of what she can and can not do. And what she recently discovered that she can not do is stand up in the bathtub. I wouldn't mind so much, since she is standing up to reach the shower curtain to play peek-a-boo, but of course as I explained to her it is my job to say no sometimes. Actually I had to say no three times before finally putting an official end to bath time. We didn't do too bad though there was a tiny bit of fussiness during our one minute time out. Until of course daddy walked in and then there was a lot of jumping and laughing. So I guess you could say time out was a semi-success... especially since during tonight's bath time someone sat super nicely the entire time while eating her bath crayons. I guess we'll work on that next.

Cruising, crawling, climbing, and crashing

Due to the immense popularity of this blog not a month goes by without getting at least one inquiry as to what Morgan is doing now (thanks Mom). In order to answer that request, and the many more I'm sure to get, this entry is dedicated to showcasing Morgan's latest escapades.

First, I'm sure many of you know by now that Morgan is an expert crawler. She spends most of her days crawling behind the bookcase, chasing Colby, or exploring. While it is still her second preferred method of traveling (first is obviously hanging upside down with Daddy), she has now taken quite a liking to cruising. Now when she crawls it is usually to the next piece of furniture she can find where she is able to stand up and use to cruise around the room. Actually the wall works just as good. Lately she enjoys showing off by doing the one-handed cruise with the free hand used for pointing, waving, or swatting at Colby. We keep saying that any day now Morgan is going to let go with that other hand and start walking. Of course we started saying that about 2 months ago. But seriously, any day now...

Morgan is also becoming quite the accomplished climber (get that harness ready, Uncle Taylor). And of course with 4 flights of stairs in our house she has ample opportunities to practice. Occasionally she'll climb up one step just to show off to everyone that she can. But she has also been known to climb up an entire flight of stairs. Just the other day she climbed up the stairs into our bedroom all by herself but I think that was just because she recently discovered the toilet paper in the bathroom and the joys in unraveling the entire roll. Morgan has also started making the climb up into her favorite chair. Of course once she makes it up she doesn't always figure out she then has to turn around to sit down so it usually ends with Morgan standing and jumping in it until she points to me to get her down. Morgan is an expert climber-upper - it's the down part we haven't quite figured out yet.

She is becoming quite the little talker. We've expanded her vocabulary to hi, bye, ma, dada, dog, Colby, ball, duck, cup, baby, and of course her absolute favorite word to say - Curt. She is so talented, she can sometimes have an entire conversation saying nothing but Curt. She does know everyone else's names as well - of course the proper Morgan pronunciation for all of them is Curt. So thanks to cousin Curt for having an easy and fun name to say. We've also been working with Morgan on where things are. She knows where Mr. Fan, light, plant, plate, Elmo, Colby, and her belly are. We're still working on the other body parts. Right now she's pointing to everyone else's nose but her own.

Finally, we decided we'd get a head start on things and get Morgan signed up for class - a tumbling play class. Morgan is signed up for the summer session over at My Gym - a little tumbling play area for kids. We went there once for our friend Elizabeth's birthday party and had a lot of fun. So Morgan is going twice a week and meeting new friends and doing all sorts of fun activities. We actually had our first class on Saturday so stay tuned for more updates on that.

So as you can see Morgan is quite the busy little lady and we are doing our very best just to keep up. One thing I have finally found time to do is update our video section. I'm sure you all have noticed we have not have new video postings in quite a while. Well that has all changed today as there are about 4 new videos staring Morgan for you to take a look at. Including this one, which as you can clearly see, properly demonstrates all of Morgan's latest talents.

Happy Daddy Day!

For your amusement

Pat and I love amusement parks. We usually go to at least one every year. I think Pat even used to be a member of that roller coaster fan group - you know the group that rides every roller coaster in every amusement park all over the world. And I of course have a long history of attending theme parks with my family and various school groups. We can usually do just about all the rides except I have found I no longer have any sort of tolerance for the spiny rides. Pat primarily will stick to the roller coasters but of course when he does he must be sitting in the very front row no matter how long the wait. I can see his point - some roller coasters, such as the Big Bad Wolf and the Alpengeist are an absolute must from the front row. Yup, we usually do OK except for one notable exception.

About three years ago now we tagged along with Pat's family for the day at Kings Dominion as his dad was doing one of his music trips there and got us all tickets. We wandered away from the rest of the group, thoroughly prepared to brave the lines and hit all the rides. Except strangely enough neither Pat nor I felt like riding any of the rides there. I do remember going on the Eiffel tower and I think we might have done one other one but we mainly walked around passing everything by. Until we found ourselves in the kid's section where we planted ourselves on a bench and watched all the little kids and their parents enjoy the rides. And there you have, my friends, the exact moment when we both realized we were more than ready to start our family.

So fast forward three years to this -



Let's hope she likes riding the roller coasters as much as she likes driving cars.

Swimming with the sharks

This past week has certainly been quite the parenting experience. I'm sure we would have gone through this eventually. Frankly I'm shocked we made it for as long as we did before this happened. Yes, just a rite of passage that everyone at some point has to face and deal with. And when you do you either sink or swim. Of course I am speaking of the catastrophic event of everyone in the household getting sick at the exact same time. So, did we sink or did we swim?

Before we answer that question I guess I should share exactly what we were dealing with since we all had something different. Last Friday we took Morgan to an open house at our local My Gym to see what it was like before getting her signed up for a class. The place was jammed packed and not a lot of room for Morgan to get down and explore. Not that she wanted to anyway since she is currently going through a very clingy/separation anxiety phase. But of course that immediately changed as soon as the special guest arrived. Note to self: make sure every single outing always involves a personal appearance by Elmo... or any costumed character for that moment. The moment Elmo arrived Morgan got down on the floor and very clearly navigated her way through the crowd and planted herself right in front of Elmo so of course he naturally had to give her a big hug and high five. She had fun and I'm sure we'll be signing her up for their summer session however the very next day we noticed she had a bit of goop oozing from one of her eyes. That continued for the next couple of days eventually moving over to the other eye before finally disappearing altogether. Luckily she didn't seem too bothered by it but there was definitely a bit of extra holding and cuddling to help her cope with it.

Meanwhile Pat was struggling with a bit of a sore throat and some nose issues which may or may not have been related to allergies. I know he had a couple of rough nights during the week but other then some extra coughing he seemed to have gotten off the easiest of the three of us. Of course I on the other hand ended up with the high fever, the aches, the chills, the major sore throat, the stuffy nose, the hacking bouts of coughing, and the lost voice. None of which did I think gave the slightest bit of a reason to see a doctor until I suddenly lost my hearing out of my left ear on Friday night. The nice doctor asked me if I always had very little space between my tonsils and was the inside of my ear always purple and red. Luckily those antibiotics will cure just about anything.

Like I said I'm sure this was bound to happen sooner or later but I have to say I think we managed things pretty well. Now what happens when we all come down with the flu? Well that might be a different story to tell. But for now we swam.

Here comes Morgan... there goes Morgan

Morgan is cruising. A lot. She no longer wants to crawl. Which is slightly annoying since she can't officially walk yet. So right now she's just moving from furniture to legs to toys to cabinets, etc. Until she gets to the bottom of the stairs which she then proceeds to climb up. Yes, Morgan can climb up stairs. So we'll climb up the stairs and hang out in her room for a little bit until it's nap/bed time. And of course when we go in to retrieve her from said nap/bed time we are naturally greeted with a little lady standing up peering over the side of her bed with a big smile on her face waiting for one of us to pop in. Yes, Morgan is getting herself up in a standing position by herself. Notice though that I did not say Morgan is standing up by herself... that part we're still working on. We have gotten her down to only using one hand to hold on to something but she's still a little hesitant to let go with that other hand. Of course on the few occasions we've managed to trick her into letting go she's actually done quite well at balancing herself for a good 5 seconds or so. But at the rate she's going I have no doubt she'll be running laps around the house before the week is up.

Hi, mama, dada, up, dog, growl

What do these things have in common you ask? As of right now they are all part of Morgan's current vocabulary. Actually the growl is more of what she does not exactly a word she says. And depending on the situation she can also say puppy, papa, pop pop, pat pat, or poopy. We're also working on Colby but right now it comes out just as the "by" part. I don't think it matters too much now because Colby always knows when Morgan is talking to him, or not talking to him as the case may be. It hasn't happened too often yet but there have been a couple instances of Colby getting a little too eager to take Morgan's yucky vegetables off her tray before she is ready to officially offer them to him. Of course Colby always tries his best to make up for it by graciously carrying one of Morgan's toys upstairs for her so she has something to play with in our bedroom when she wakes up in the morning.

Morgan's other favorite activity to do these days, besides playing with Colby and talking, is waving. She learned how to wave a few months ago but she has really mastered her technique as of late. At first it was more of a clenching of the fist and usually directed at herself at not at her intended target. Now it's developed into an open two handed emphatic shake usually accompanied by enthusiastic bouncing up and down. We're debating as to whether or not she's actually waving or just performing a jazz hands routine. Either way she is all too willing to engage every person, animal, and object in a jazz hands/wave-off. Usually the people will wave back to her, the animals will kiss her, and the various objects will just stare at her but we're hoping for a reaction one of these days from Mr. Fan.

Happy birthday again!

This time it's for Pat though Morgan did have her 1 yr checkup today at the doctor which, coincidentally enough, is the day she was due to be born one year ago. I remember being really excited about that because I though it would be neat for Morgan and Pat to share birthdays. That's ok because once every 6 years she and I can share a special day together.

Back to our day today...

I had off from work again today since I had scheduled Morgan's checkup for today and it usually goes pretty long. Morgan is quite the social butterfly and was waving to everyone in the office including the very nice nurse who in about 30 minutes was not going to be so nice anymore. She waved to the doctor when he came in and showed off by doing some walking, talking, laughing, and raspberry blowing. She got a clean bill of health and a big thumbs up from the doctor... as if we were expecting anything else. For those of you keeping count she now weighs 22lbs and is 30in long which puts her in the 50-75%. She's also now tripled her birth weight. Everything was going peachy keen until said mean nurse came back in and had the nerve to give Morgan 4 shots plus a finger prick for a blood test. Poor baby girl (although Pat was the one who was looking a bit pale). But she survived and enjoyed a nice sticky lollipop for her suffering.

Afterwards we all came home and took a much needed nap. When we got going again Morgan and I had a special afternoon planned for Pat for his birthday. For some reason Pat loves fish and loves the rain forest so we naturally treated him to a visit to the aquarium. Everyone had fun with one little lady in particular jumping up and down and waving to every single fish in every single tank, including the sharks. Unfortunately we missed the dolphin show so we'll have to go back again for that. After the aquarium we headed back home where Morgan enjoyed some quality time with her cousins and Pat and I enjoyed a night out where amazingly we did talk about things other than Morgan (although not much).

Pat did ask a silly question about some sort of sugary cake-like treat for his birthday. I guess he's already repressed our near burning down house experience from the last time cakes were made. I'm pretty sure I've learned my lesson and will quite possibly give it another go... with the fire extinguisher safely within arms reach.

We survived... and so did Morgan

Hard to believe but it has now officially been one full year since Morgan arrived. And lo and behold she is still here, not too embarrassed by us (yet), and as happy as can be. And of course more importantly, we're still here too. Morgan is developing quite the little personality. She's definitely got my sense of humor and laugh and Pat's silliness. And Colby's fondness for kissing (Morgan does a full open mouth kiss right over top your mouth... it is really the best thing ever except when she decides to close her mouth and bite your lip). She is getting super close to walking. She can now walk by herself when holding on to furniture and just the other day we caught her getting to a standing position. And even more amazingly, Morgan is able to operate fire engines, boats, and cars all by herself. Keep reading...

To officially celebrate Morgan's 1st birthday we enjoyed the week at Rehoboth. The weekend of Morgan's birthday (and Mother's Day) was also the official opening of Funland so Morgan had her first amusement park experience. And yes, we are already checking out Sesame Place for later this year. Morgan's birthday first started with a special dinner over at Grotto's pizza where just about every worker in the place came out to sing Morgan a special birthday song.


She got a special balloon and settled in to nosh on some pizza. At the end of the meal Morgan and I both got a special treat of some Grotto's Gelatto. Let's see how that went.

Here's the first bite...


Thinking about it...


Success!


Afterwards we strolled over to Funland and spent the rest of the evening on fire trucks, boats, cars, swings, balloons, and the carousel.


The rest of the week was spent relaxing, shopping, and general goofing around. The one thing we did not get to do was spend some time on the beach as it was still a little too breezy for that. Morgan and I did sit and have a snack in the sand however someone decided she didn't like the sand between her toes and was clinging on to my head just so she wouldn't get her feet sandy. I think that was just because we didn't have her beach toys with us so we'll try again later.

We're getting ready to kick off Pat's birthday week starting tomorrow and then of course we have a whole new year to look forward to!

The big day

It's official... we no longer have a little baby girl. At least we will no longer have a baby girl in 3 days. But according to the party we had last week we no longer have a baby girl. And seriously, who could have possibly planned a more adventuresome, action-packed party then us? For those of you who didn't attend, and for those who did, here's a recap of how things turned out.

For starters, the party began its planning phase a few months back when Morgan and I went on a scouting mission looking for the perfect location. We decided on a pavilion at Centennial Park since it's a nice park and the pavilion we selected was right next to the giant playground. Plus we thought if anyone got bored (like that would happen) they could venture off hiking or do some paddle boating. With the location out of the way we started planning the day. We had quite the itinerary planned... I even had a spreadsheet. I also baked a test cake (cake #1) to make sure Morgan approved (she did). The morning of the party Morgan and I were going to wake up and head into Baltimore to participate in the March of Dimes walk. We would come home, Morgan would nap, and I would pack everything up to head to the park. Morgan would wake up refreshed and ready to party and away we would go. Yes, it truly was the perfect plan... on paper.

What actually happened: I spent all day on Saturday preparing all of the food, packing up decorations, and putting the finishing touchings on a few crafty items I had made. The last thing I did for the day was about 8pm when I prepared an absolute masterpiece of a birthday cake (cake #2). This was truly a work of art. Not having a cake stand I carefully arranged the cake on 2 paper plates, sat it on the stove, and covered it with a deep metal bowl so as not to mess up the frosting. I called it a night and we all went to bed.

The next morning, the day of the party, started out exactly as planned. I woke up early, got dressed, and went downstairs to prepare Morgan some oatmeal for our big walk. Well anyone who has made oatmeal knows that you really need hot water so naturally I grabbed the tea pot, filled it with water, and put it on the stove to heat up. Also one to multi-task I then went outside to grab my walking shoes and the mail. As I was outside I started hearing a beeping noise. Naturally I assumed it was coming from the neighbor's house and didn't think much of it. Unfortunately the neighbor wasn't doing anything about turning off the beeping and it continued until it finally dawned on me that it's coming from our house and it's actually the smoke alarm. So in the house I go, up the stairs, and into an extremely smoke-filled kitchen when I come to discover that the burner I turned on to heat the water for Morgan's oatmeal was directly next to the burner I which I had so delicately placed Morgan's birthday cake (on paper plates) the night before. Pat was awake and apparently had already put out all flames (yes, we did have actual flames). We went up to make sure Morgan was ok only to find out that she had managed to sleep through the alarm and all commotion we were making. So we had to wake her up and spend the next half hour huddled up in the basement - the only place in the house not currently engulfed in smoke and carbon monoxide poisoning. Needless to say we did not go on our walk.

After it was safe to venture upstairs again we managed to get our first look at the destruction to the kitchen. Our front right burner is completely destroyed but more importantly than that, so was the cake. Although I must admit, aside from being a tad chargrilled it was still pretty darn tasty and possibly salvageable until Patrick pointed out that it's also full of chemicals from the fire, melted paper plates, and destroyed metal bowl that was covering it. Of course, said metal bowl also served to trap the flames coming from the cake and funneled them through the stove. So I did what any other logical person would do in this situation - waited until Morgan and Pat were napping, rushed out to the grocery store to pick up a couple ingredients, and promptly made the cake all over again (cake #3). Luckily I managed to recreate the cooking conditions almost exactly from the night before (minus the time change) and am happy to say cake #3 turned out just as good, if not better, as cake #2.


Ok, so that covers the fire (Pat is right, it is laughable now), the carbon monoxide poisoning, and 3 birthday cakes. But of course there is more to this day than just that. I failed to mention that for the past week we have apparently been having end of the world type weather where it has rained, strike that... poured every single day. The entire week I had been carefully monitoring the weather report and every day the weather for Sunday was supposed to be clear and in the mid 60s - perfect weather for a day at the park. Until we get to about Friday where all of a sudden the forecast has completely changed to Sunday being all showers and now in the low 60s. We all know we can handle cold weather outside but unfortunately rain is a different story. So come Sunday morning, in between setting off the smoke alarm and nearly burning down the house, I did happen to notice that it was raining and rather hard rain at that. Luckily we had a backup plan and my sister immediately put her family on DEFCON 1 alert as they scrambled to get their house ready. We notified the guests and all was saved.

Let's see, I'm forgetting something. Oh right - Morgan's little girl friend who was scheduled to attend unfortunately developed a rather unexpected case of pneumonia a few days before the party and sadly was forced to stay home (probably for the best considering the day's events up to this point). Luckily she's doing much better and hoping to schedule a make-up play date soon.

So fire, 3 cakes, end of the world rain, venue change, and pneumonia. Yup, we sure know how to handle a party. Fortunately Morgan didn't really seem to care too much that plans were changed and had a wonderful 1st birthday party. She also made a killing in presents and enjoyed some pretty darn good cake - of course you would hope so considering it was the 3rd time I made the same cake. Thanks to all who came out to celebrate and you can rest assured that I am adding a super double emergency plan tab to my planning spreadsheet for next year's party just in case we have an earthquake, hurricane, or tsunami.

Such a little lady

I know everyone is eagerly awaiting a recap and photos of the big birthday party we had on Sunday and I assure you, it's coming. After all, how could I pass up the opportunity to relive Morgan's day consisting of a fire, possible carbon monoxide poisoning, nonstop pouring down rain, three birthday cakes, last minute venue changes, and guests breaking out with pneumonia. Well rest assured it's a day we won't soon forget and the story will be coming soon. In the meantime sit back and enjoy a nice refreshing apple juice.

Fun with food

Now that Morgan is getting a bit older (and as we get more daring) she is finding meal time quite enjoyable. We have just about graduated completely from baby food - we just have a couple more jars we're trying to finish up - and pretty soon Morgan will be on whole milk. She already loves drinking water out of her Abby Cadabby straw cup. You may ask what does a typical meal with Morgan look like. Well here's a fairly accurate representation.

First, she sits and waits patiently for her food to arrive. Usually she'll make faces at Colby who by now knows what's coming and takes his place at the foot of Morgan's chair. More on this in a minute.



Then, she'll conduct a careful and thorough examination of her food to make sure what we have given her is indeed edible.



She'll manage to get in a few dainty and ladylike bites before...



... she decides she really needs to see all food items laid out in front of her in order to be able to fully appreciate the meal.



Morgan really takes her time savoring each bite.



Naturally she declares every meal a rousing success and shows her approval through the timeless art of clapping.



A little bit of cuteness here and there...



... followed by a small case of the sleepies. Eating is hard work!



And we finally wrap things up with Morgan showing off her kind and generous side by offering to share her delicious dinner with her best friend Colby.



And because no story would be complete without the classic embarrassing photo to share 20 years from now...



Though, in Morgan's defense, not every meal features her picking rubbing her nose.