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.