Xmas 2008

Well, we made it through another holiday with Nanna, GeeGee and PopPop, Gwennie, Corbin and I (and the girls - Ginger and Ruby). I think everyone had a nice time eating, chasing after Gwennie, eating, watching Gwennie run around the house, eating, sleeping, and more eating! Overall it was a great holiday and we are slowly trying to get the house back in order. Here's some pictures from the week and a video of Gwennie playing with her favorite gift

No No Duck!!

Today while Corbin was working, we (Gwennie, myself, Gee Gee and Pop Pop) went to the Lazy 5 Ranch to check out the driving tour and to feed all of the animals at the ranch. We hadn't crossed 2 feet into the ranch when Gee Gee tried to feed an Oryx (huge deer with big horns) and it decided to take the entire bucket of feed - good thing we had another 3 buckets to spare. We learned our lesson...roll up the windows quickly if you still want your feed for the rest of the tour!!! The emu and ostriches were also a little weird - their heads kept pecking on the windows and bobbing up and down. We figured if we opened the windows they might just jump into the car with us. We were a little nervous about feeding them but they seemed to be pretty docile. Gwennie liked the Lamas and Alpacas the most. They were very easy to feed and would let Gwennie (and everyone for that matter) pet them while they were eating.


After the tour we went to the petting zoo and Gwennie quickly learned what happens when you get too close to ducks. Not to fear....no lost fingers or toes, just a little sniffling, a NO NO DUCK and an unhappy Gwennie for a couple of minutes. The duck was not to keen on being touched so it let Gwennie know what happens when you try to mess with a hungry duck. As you will see from the pictures below, my parents tried out their new Christmas presents. I will post pictures from Christmas on our camera later.

Big Wedding/Holiday Weekend!

This weekend was a big family weekend. Our cousin Sara married her wonderful beau Mike. The wedding was a blast and Gwennie actually got to attend. She had so much fun and enjoyed hanging out with the family!

Sunday we headed over to the Burton's house for an early Christmas celebration. Lots of cousins, aunts, uncles and babies were in attendance. It was a little overwhelming but so much fun to see everyone and enjoy the holidays. As you can see the kids all enjoyed making gingerbread houses/cookies and testing out the frosting. Here are lots of pictures from the weekend.

Weekend Project

This weekend we decided to put up a "communication center" in the kitchen (nice fancy way of saying a dry erase board with a spot to charge the cell phone). Little did we know that we would need to drill holes in the wall to reach the closest electronic plug. As you can see from the pictures Corbin was a trooper and Gwennie decided to stay away and watch Wall-E. Here's some pictures from the weekend project.

The Search for a Christmas Tree and the Return of the Diaper Hat

This weekend my cousin Gini came up from Columbia to participate in the Christmas Bazaar at Christ Church down the street. Our good friend Jennifer also participated and overall it was a fun but exhausting Saturday!

Sunday we did the quest for a Christmas tree and as you can see Corbin was all about snapping pictures of Gwennie running through the trees. She seemed to have the most fun. After lots of shopping/walking/chasing Gwennie, we decided on a tree and decorated it last night. Here are some pictures from the weekend. You'll notice Gwennie is back on the swimmie diaper kick so we took a few pictures of that to use at her wedding years from now!

Thanksgiving 2008

For the second time we headed down to Neeces, South Carolina to meet up with Corbin's side of the family. As you can see it's a pretty large group and we all had a great time visiting, eating, watching Gwennie get into something and eating again!
Gwennie loves to play with Lily who was a very patient dog with all the patting/tail pulling Gwennie seemed to do every time she saw Lily. Ginger is not as patient and has now started just heading in another direction when Gwennie starts calling her name (Ginngerrrrr!!!). Ruby must have organized a toddler treaty because Gwennie seems to only pet Ruby and doesn't insist on running around pulling her tail.

Here's some pictures from the week including Gwennie sporting her new "swimmie hat". It's amazing what kids find to entertain themselves nowadays!

Cheese.....

This weekend Corbin and I picked up our Christmas present earlier. We decided to get a new digital camera and so far the pictures are great! Gwennie, Ginger and Ruby were our main subjects and by the end of the weekend I am pretty sure they were running in the other direction every time we took the camera out. Gwennie seemed to be into hats on Saturday and Sunday. She spent most of the weekend walking around with either a baseball cap or a winter fleece hat on her head. Here's some pictures from both days.

This weekend was pretty slow. Corbin was in NY visiting some friends and was back Saturday afternoon. Gwennie and I hung out with Janet, Andrew and Crawford Saturday morning and then headed to the park to work of some of her energy. Unfortunately Gwennie took a spill (which I still feel guilty about) and had a pretty big shiner all day Saturday. Luckily no trips to the hospital and she was back to her normal self after some lunch and a nap. Sunday Corbin and I decided the dogs were beyond dirty so we gave them both baths which took up about 2 hours of our morning after all the dirt was rinsed off. Here's a picture of the girls this morning. As you can see they aren't very happy that they can't play in the mud outside but we are going to try to keep them clean for a few more days.

How Time Flies!

This is a picture from when Gwennie was about a month old. Her Auntie Ashley knit this cap for her and on Sunday Gwennie happened to pick it up and tried it on. She had to really stretch it to fit on her noggin but Gwennie thought it was so funny so she wore it around the house.

Saturday Corbin headed to the UNC Football game and I headed down to Greenville, SC for a wedding shower for my cousin Sara. On the way I dropped Gwennie off to visit with her Great Aunt Nina and cousins Megan and Caroline. Gwennie had so much fun and also enjoyed a visit with Great Grandma Gary!

I also was so thankful that we have family close to take care of Gwennie. I got to enjoy catching up with the Aunts and Cousins at the Shower and Gwennie was so tired when she got home that she fell into bed and went right to sleep! Unfortunately I forgot the camera but here are a few pictures from Sunday

Halloween Gee Gee Fest

This week Gee Gee (Grandma Verna) came for a visit to enjoy Halloween with Gwennie. She also attempted potty training but about all we got was a kid that sits on the potty forever and then as soon as the diaper goes back on...she does her business! We'll tackle it again around Thanksgiving or Christmas.

Gwennie also had a Halloween party at school and given the fact that she always comes back with something on her clothes, I figured we'd make a second costume that she could mess up as needed. This was a feeble attempt at Tinkerbell. Friday night Gwennie donned the Cookie Monster outfit again and headed out to Trick or Treat with Stella (Ladybug), Charlie (Curious George) and Matty (Pooh). They older kids figured out the deal right away. After the first house everyone but Matty had Tootsie Pops in their mouths. Gwennie decided taking the wrapper off wasn't worth it so she ate the whole thing....wrapper and all. Mommy attempted to pry the sucker away but her death grip wasn't going to have any of that!

While we were piling them in and out of the wagons, Corbin accidentally spilled his beer on Gwennie's costume (never hold a beer between your arms and lean over to pick up your kid) and needless to say she smelled of pale ale all night. We called her Cookie Monster on the skids which got some funny comments from the houses. Gwennie didn't seem to mind the smell and was on a crazy sugar high all night because as soon as we'd head toward a house she'd break out in the giggles as she ran up to the next house. It was a great night and it ended with Gee Gee being the last house where Gwennie passed out and slept until 8 on Saturday! All in all a great weekend!

Daddy Got a New Ride and the Halloween Parade

On Wednesday Corbin called after getting the Jetta serviced to tell me that he was looking at a diesel wagon and wanted to potentially get one if they happened to come in. Guess what happened the very next day? Yes, we are now the proud owners of a Jetta wagon. The dogs are still getting used to the tighter quarters but they like it much more than the other car and seem to enjoy the enormous sunroof the most. I don't particularly like parking in another time zone so no one will ding the car but according to Corbin we will be getting some exercise for a while.

Saturday Janet and Crawford came over for the neighborhood Halloween parade. Crawford and Gwennie had a great time hanging in the wagon while the adults lugged them all around the neighborhood. The Jack in the Box seemed to be the big hit (although most kids cried over the mask but the nice girl in the outfit was quick to take it off while the kids were checking her out). Corbin and I thought the Phelps costume was a great idea and the disco baby was also pretty funny. Here are some pictures from the weekend.

SC State Fair Gridlock

On Friday I was perusing Face Book and noticed that Aunt Eileen (affectionately known as "E") was heading to the fair for lunch. As a junk food junkie myself, I decided we'd change our plans to go to the Apple Harvest Festival and called our cousins Gini and Russ Webb to see if they wanted to head over with us to the South Carolina State Fair (which happens to be in Columbia where they live). Luckily...Gini and I are all about the fried food and Russ/Corbin are all about people watching and football...USC was playing LSU the same day (at the same location) so they were planning on going anyhow.

We met up on Saturday morning and Russ' good buddy Wheels (he does have a real name but Russ renames all of his friends so all we know him as now is Wheels). Piled the kids, adults, double stroller and tailgating gear in the cars and headed over. The fair itself was great...Gwennie and I had a corn dog and some lemonade. Corbin decided to eat some scary chili cheese fries that I was sure would come back to haunt him later and Gini went with the ever popular Carmel apple with sprinkles route. Good think Alex (their 6 year old daughter) wasn't hungry because the adults were eating enough for everyone! Blythe (their 10 month old daughter) also got in on the corn dog action and we had heard about these fried Oreo cookies so we all were on a mission to find them. After about an hour of searching we found the stand and it was well worth it....might sound icky to some of you but we all agreed......YUMMY!
By 3:30 we were all full of junk, tired of looking at cows/chickens/sand sculptures and sick of losing money on the fair games so we headed back to the cars so Corbin, Gini, Alex, Blythe, Gwennie and I could head home. Russ and Wheels were staying for the game so they helped us pile all the kids/crap into the car and then we were on our way.....or so we thought.
We pulled out of the parking lot to the left, didn't move for 30 min so we decided to turn around and try the other way. Same thing happened to the right and we noticed these people were even more mad (because they weren't letting anyone in, had some scary looks on their faces and some were just getting out of their cars to walk up to see what was going on) so we figured we were going to be there for a while. After an hour of no movement we turned around and headed toward the entrance hoping that gate was open. No luck there...that gate apparently was closed up and the highway patrol wasn't letting anyone out. After about an hour and a half, Alex had enough and she had to go to the bathroom so Gini headed to find out what was going on and to let her poor child finally relieve herself. 30 min later Gini and Alex returned and we found out that the highway patrol was the problem. The fair wanted to open more exits but because of they weren't in charge of the streets, they were forced to leave the exits closed. So....Gini took matters into her own hands. Somehow she made friends with the head of security at the fair, got the number of the head patrolman and left him a colorful message on how much we were enjoying sitting out here for 2+ hours. Corbin and I were saying that "Crazy Gini" was coming out to make sure we were going to get out of there in record time.
Crazy Gini came through and after 2 1/2 hours and a few conversations with the police, they opened the gate, and we were the 10th person through and we were home 10 minutes later. Crazy got it done!!!!!!


Sunday we took a trip to Costco for more Thomas (Namas as Gwennie calls him) DVDs as Corbin and I are sick of the 2 she watches over and over and came across the coolest Thomas toy ever which will be making an appearance around Christmas.

Here's the pictures from the weekend and a video of Gwennie raising the roof to the new Thomas song (they've made Thomas into a rap song which was pretty hilarious). If you'd like to see a moving rendition of the original click on Rich and Jess Christenson's blog done by their nephew Conner.

Back up in Baltimore

This weekend we headed up to Owings Mills to visit with Alan, Heather and Ari and also to attend our good friend Nancy's baby shower. The shower was really fun and since Clark and Corbin did the catering, the food was great! Sunday we headed to a farm to pick out a pumpkin. They had hayrides, pony rides and all sorts of events for the kids. Both Ari and Gwennie had a great time and were pretty tired by the end of the day. Then we headed up to have dinner with Clark and Nancy. As you can see from the picture to the left Ari and Gwennie made themselves at home! Here are some pictures of the weekend and a few videos

A Visit From Ashley & Weekend Project

On Friday my friend Ashley came down for a quick visit (3 hours to be exact) while she had a flight layover back up north. Gwennie had so much fun playing with her and was pretty mad when it was time for bed. Ashley and I both tried to put her down and she was not going for it! Finally after a few tears she settled down and Ashley and I headed out to dinner while Corbin stayed home on baby duty!

Saturday afternoon Corbin installed a chandelier I have had my eye on for a while. As you can see from the pictures we were a little nervous about the wiring but it all turned out fine.

Namas and Bob

Saturday was a big day over here. We headed up to a Day Out with Thomas in Spencer, NC at the North Carolina Transportation Museum. Gwennie is absolutely obsessed with Namas (Thomas) and all of the trains/tracks that go along with him. Those Thomas folks are pretty smart...the first tent you walk into is where all the "for sale" items are and they are so nice over there.....they put these cute tracks out for your kids to play with. And they are nice enough to put price tags on everything so that when your kid freaks out when you try to leave (and you are desperate to get your kid out of there spending less than $100), you can just pay for whatever she's clutching for dear life!!! Luckily Gwennie's hands are still small so she's only got a book that she carries around the house repeating "Namas" all day.

Bob the builder was also there but Gwennie seemed more interested in watching Thomas ride around. The life sized Thomas train rides around the museum was both Corbin's and my favorite part. They take you around the whole station including the round house and all the trains they are restoring/using at the museum. It was raining/cloudy all day but here are some pictures from our outing.

Ari's Big Birthday Bash

This weekend Gwennie and I headed up to Baltimore for Ari's 2nd birthday. As you will see from the pictures below it was a blast! Gwennie and Ari are best buds and have a great time playing together. Ari also got a new toy that you can check out in the video. As you can see Gwennie took matters into her own hands when Ari didn't put the petal to the metal!

BBQ and Rally Day

This weekend Corbin got up at 5 AM to do some crazy barbecuing. Because it was literally enough food to feed an army, we invited some friends over to join us. As you can see, the kids dominated the photos. Sunday Corbin and I went to Rally day at our church (which is basically just a BBQ after services with a bounce house for the kids to play in). Since it's one of the few times we dress up I figured a picture was in order!

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Beach/Mountain Vacation 2008

Well, we are finally back home again and everyone (dogs included) misses our vacation but we are all happy to be back! Get ready, this is going to be a long post with 2 videos and a ton of pictures.

Last Saturday Corbin headed up to Chapel Hill for the UNC football season opener with his friends Mark and Matt. Mark's wife Kristin and I headed to the Zoo for the day. Ben and Gwennie had a blast checking out the animals (and each other) Gwennie loved to walk over and pat the "baby", Ben (baby to Gwennie) was having a blast watching her hand him toys and give him kisses. It was pretty hot all day so we only made it to the Zebras, Ostriches and the Elephants. We also had a nice long stop at the Carousel for lunch so all in all it was a fun day and the kids were wiped out during the car ride home.

Sunday we piled the whole family (Corbin, Myself, Gwennie, Ginger and Ruby) and all of our stuff into the car and headed to the Outer Banks for a well deserved vacation. On our way out there we stopped by to visit with Harold, Allie, Nathan, James and Bennie (the dog). It was so nice to get to meet the boys in person. I can't believe how big they are now and Allie/Harold have settled into parenthood very well. They both are so calm and the boys are so sweet. They both just love to stare/examine their surroundings and are happy just about anywhere. Gwennie gave Harold and Allie a nice preview of what their life will be like soon enough....times 2!! Gwennie loved their sun porch, the stairs, Bennie (who was not to keen on an 18 month old chasing her) and especially giving the boys their pacifiers.

After our visit and some lunch we piled into the car again and headed to the beach. This was Gwennie's first time in the sand and she was like a cat to cat litter! She loved the sand and playing in the ocean. We at first thought that she would cry when the waves knocked her down but she just got up and laughed and went on her way. Between Gwennie and the dogs, I am pretty sure we took 1/2 of the beach home with us! Ginger and Ruby loved rolling in the ocean and were covered in sand for most of the week. By the end of each day the dogs and kids were so tired that they would all pass out around 7:30 and no one would make a peep until the next morning (which the adults enjoyed most of all!).

Here is some video of Ginger in the pool. She hates to jump in but as you can see the dog toy was more important than her fear of jumping! She loved using the stairs on the pool so we tried to make her jump off the end and you can see how that turned out...




Gwennie also got in on the action and loved to wash the sand off of her feet. We thought it was great (less sand in the house), but after she refused to leave the shower we realized we had created a monster!



On Thursday we headed home to unpack, drop off the girls and do a quick load of laundry before we headed up to the mountains for our annual Kanuga Parrish weekend with our church. Unfortunately I forgot the camera for most of the events (other than a quick snapshot of Corbin/Gwennie heading out for a hike). I wish I would have taken a video of Gwennie jamming out to the bluegrass band. She was an absolute riot and everyone came over to tell me as much.

Sunday we stopped over in Sparkle City to visit with Aunt Lynne and Uncle Bill. Unfortunately again I forgot the camera! We checked out their beautiful new house and went to visit Bill doing work on his farm. Gwennie loved playing with Belle and next time I will be sure to bring the camera so everyone can see how peaceful and nice the farm is.

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Girls Night Out...and Charlie!

This week I was up in Boston for work and got to meet the one and only Charlie (Kiki and Ted became new parents 3 weeks ago). He's such a good boy and apparently when Mommy Kiki went out to dinner he slept a full 4 hours that night! We all had so much catching up. I stayed with Addie, Ryan, Tyler and Alexis who is now sitting up on her own! When she's not playing with her feet (her new favorite toy), Alexis pretty much loves to be jumping up and down. As you can see from the pictures she loves her jump seat!

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Peas

So I am sure this might upset all the mommies that read this when I let everyone in on a huge secret. We all post that are kids are these perfect little angels and that life is just wonderful with a baby or toddler. Here's the reality....we are all nuts and liars! I write these posts about how great things are and what good things she does and in reality she probably just ate some dog food, turned over their water bowls, had a temper tantrum and then broke another remote control. We all pretend our kids are perfect (and they always are in our eyes)., but today Gwennie just achieved perfection and learned the magic word that is the key to mommy and daddy's heart....take a look! And then immediately after that you can watch her make another mess :-)

Back from AZ

We are back from Arizona (and for Corbin - India) and everyone is settling into normal life again. Corbin is very happy that he can get a cheeseburger and I am happy it is not 117 degrees out! Gwennie seems to be the only one missing the old times. Last night she was in no mood to go to bed and ended up playing in her crib until about 9 PM! This morning she slept in until 8:30 AM and we are pretty sure whe was wondering why Geegee and Grandpa weren't around to take a walk with her. We are hoping that sooner or later her internal clock will go back to EST, although the late sleeping has been great!

Here's some pictures of our last days in Arizona including one of Maria (our lifesaver!) who watched Gwennie while I worked, a "nude self portrait" and one of Ben and Gwennie giving each other a kiss goodnight when we went over to Ben's parent's house for a BBQ.

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Hanging Out with GeeGee and Grandpa

This week we headed out to see Geegee and Grandpa and as you can see they had plenty of toys and gear to keep Gwennie busy. She swam in the morning and at night right before dinner (and probably would have stayed in the water all day if we let her). We also visited the Phoenix Children's Museum and a local park but Gwennie seems to enjoy the pool more than anything else (probably because she gets to hang with her grandparents and the water is so warm)!

Here's a video of Gwennie playing with her new toy (turning wasn't really her thing) and another one of her swimming.







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Bubble and a Bug....

Sorry about the delay in posting this week. Friday night Gwennie picked up a nasty stomach bug that she just got over yesterday and consequently so did I. We are both just starting to feel normal again. We also had a weekend visitor named Tucker. Tucker's parents Kristin and Mark were in Chicago at a wedding so we volunteered to have a doggy sleepover. Poor Kristin and Mark ran into every plane delay there is and did not get back until last night around midnight. Tucker was very happy to be back with his parents and the girls will miss his goofy demeanor. Here's a video of Tucker's reaction to bubbles.

For some reason Google Video refuses to work so click here for the video

The things you find at Costco....

Well, as most of you know, Costco seems to be the place to find ANYTHING. Today I found the first season of the Muppet Show. Hoping Gwennie would think it was cool, I picked it up and as you can see...she got her munamuna groove on.

Another Great Family Weekend...

This weekend was super busy! We had lots of family in town staying with us for both the Duncan/Webb Family Lake weekend and the Widespread Panic Concert. Russ, Corbin, Rachel, Parks and "Wheels" (poor kid's name is Hunter but Russ refuses to call him anything other than his "wheels") headed to the concert while Gini and I got a mommy's night out and saw Avenue Q at the theatre. Alex was an amazing help to Jennifer while she was watching Blythe and Gwennie. As you can see from the pics they all enjoyed bath time! Gini and I decided to get all dolled up but forgot the makeup part so please excuse our "au natural" look.

I don't know why but this is one of my favorite pictures from this weekend. I am sure most of you have no idea who this is in the picture but for those of you at the lake weekend, you know this is Uncle Robert in his "natural habitat". To the untrained eye one would think he's catching a few Zs. He's really just taking in all the conversations around him and resting at the same time. My theory on the Webb/Duncan family weekend is if you need to know something...ask Uncle Robert. He probably was "playing possum" as Lynne calls it and can tell you the scoop. He also tells some of the funniest stories out there so every conversation with him is a good one.

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Best Scam Out There...

So chalk this post up to me being cheap (and Gwennie not feeling great that day) but as much as I wish I could say it....Baby Loves Disco is not worth $12 per "walking person". Especially if they don't throw in a beer for mommy and daddy! Anyhow...we headed up to a bar in uptown with our neighbors (that's Stella in the pictures...Stella loved giving Gwennie kisses most of our pictures were an attempt to capture the moment) to check out this Baby Loves Disco event. Basically they clean up the bar, throw some hula hoops, noise makers and scarves onto the dance floor and this nice DJ plays 70's music. Downstairs they have goldfish, pretzels, fruit and juice boxes along with an area that they put some pillows down that they call the "yoga zone". As you can see from the pictures they will also paint your kid's hair a different color which takes about 3 washes to get out.

Gwennie wasn't really into the whole thing and was pretty tired so we only lasted about 2 hours. On a good note we did get a cool goody bag when we left so that was a nice surprise. Might be more fun when she's a little older. The kids that were 3 and older seemed to be having the most fun out there.

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Lots of Family and Sun!

Last week Grandma V (Gee gee now...Grandma was just too hard to pronounce) flew in to play with Gwennie. They had so much fun going for walks, shopping, going to the pool and playing dress up. Gee gee seems to think Gwennie needs a new outfit every time we leave the house so I am pretty sure she had at least 3 wardrobe changes a day. The good news is that Gee gee loves to to laundry so I didn't feel like I was constantly having a date with the washer and dryer. Gee gee also seems to think Gwennie is still 2 months old and loves to nap so whenever I noticed the house was quiet I'd check the bedroom and there they were...rocking in the glider. I think Gwennie appeased her because she liked having Gee gee around but was sick of nap time by Saturday!

Saturday morning we headed down to Sparkle City for the July birthday lunch with the Gary/Meek/Crawford side of the family. Great Grandma Gary, Great Aunt Nina, Great Uncle Bob, Grandma Nancy, Grandpa Bob, Megan, Corbin, Gwennie and I all had a nice lunch and then headed back to Great Grandma Gary's house where Miss Gwennie decided it was her job to check out EVERYTHING in the house. She was all over the place in drawers, rooms, hallways, grabbing magazines, books, and checking her reflection out in the television. The good news is that after all the running around she passed out as soon as we left the driveway and slept all the way home.

Sunday as usual we had breakfast with Miss Jen at the Pancake House (ergo the new bathing suit...70% off sale at Shower Me With Love...can any kid have too many???) and then headed over to the pool with our neighbors. Gwennie is obsessed with running through the water and has so much fun playing with the other kids when we are there. We think she's so popular because of her funny nature but really it's because she's armed with 20 buckets and plenty of beach toys. By the end of the summer we will probably be down to 1 bucket and a rake with the way kids run off with them. Corbin and I spend a good 15 minutes searching the pool to find any toy with "MEEK" written on the bottom :-) Needless to say by the time we are all home everyone is ready for bed!

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Miss Madeline Grace has arrived!

We are very happy to let everyone know that our friends Michelle and Michael Leichtner have a new daughter Madeline Grace. She's a wee little thing at 5 pounds 14 ounces but as you can see from the pictures she is a beautiful baby.

Driving Vacation up the East Coast!

Well we are back at home now and I can honestly say that I don't think Corbin and I will do another driving trip for a while. Gwennie was actually great! She loved to check out the rest stops and entertained herself or slept most of the way there and back. We started on Tuesday night and headed up to visit Gwennie's godfather Clark. Clark and Nancy are going to have a baby in December so Gwennie is great practice for Clark, Nancy and Morgan (who is very excited to be a big sister). Gwennie was all over the place checking out the house. Her favorite places were anywhere near Bristol (the cat), Trout & Brooke (the dogs) or climbing up the stairs; which scared both Corbin and I...especially when we would find her at the top of the stairs laughing at us because she was up there before we noticed (or blinked an eye). Thursday Nancy and I went shopping while Clark, Morgan, Corbin and Gwennie headed to the park to play. Clark and Corbin got their cooking grove on Thursday night and the rest of us got to enjoy all of the food!

Friday we headed over to Gwennie's godmother Heather's house. Heather, Alan and Ari all welcomed us by putting the pool out for Gwennie to play in. As you can see we barely made it out of the car before Gwennie was running into the water. Luckily we quickly changed her into her swimsuit before she was soaked. We then headed to their friend's house for a barbecue which was lots of fun. All the kids were testing out their new swing set and Corbin and I have decided the recycled tire rout is the way to go for playground mulch! Gwennie and Ari were so excited to go down the slide and by the end of the night were pretty exhausted so we headed home to give them a bath and put them to bed. As you will see from the pictures they got their second wind in the tubby. Saturday we took the kids to get some pictures taken and then Heather and I had a girls night and went to the movies. Sunday we all headed over to the Baltimore Farmer's Market to check out the produce and local fare. Then around noon we headed home and are happy to be back in Charlotte.

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Long Week....

It has been a long week over at the Meek household. Monday Gwennie and I flew up to Boston for work and we had planned on spending the week with the Weiss Family. Unfortunately on the plane ride up I noticed a couple of bumps on Gwennie's hands and feet and quickly realized she had Hand, Foot and Mouth disease. Typically this isn't that big of a deal but everyone has that story where someones kid was so sick they couldn't eat and Alexis is still only three months old so we checked into the Sheraton and shortened our trip to Tuesday night. Thankfully Addie and Gladys did some babysitting for me so I could still work at our office. Addie took some cute pictures and video of Gwennie at the pool in her green swimsuit. When we got home the rash had spread to her back and tummy so just to be safe we headed to the ER where you will see that the cure to Hand, Foot and Mouth is Popsicles :-)

Saturday we all headed over to swim lessons with the rest of the kids from the "Parent and Tot" class. This was Gwennie's second time at lessons and she's already swimming like a pro. Corbin was a great cameraman and took lots of good pictures and videos of Gwennie in action. Saturday and Sunday we were back at the pool at the "J". Unfortunately we didn't take any video but Gwennie now goes completely underwater and loves to play around in the pool. The best thing about the pool....Gwennie sleeps in until 9 AM on Sunday mornings!!!

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Jeremy and Page

Yep...another great family weekend. Page and Jeremy were married on Saturday. Friday we all headed to the rehearsal dinner where we noticed a bunch of equipment in the front of the room. That is when I was told it was a Karaoke party as well. See the video below (sorry...it was pretty dark in the room) of Jeremy and his groomsman performing their own rendition of "Total Eclipse of the Heart". Between that and Mike (who will be marrying our cousin Sara - Page's younger sister ) doing Elvis' version of Dixie, overall it was pretty hilarious!

Saturday morning the Aunt's hosted a nice bridal brunch with all of the women in the family as well as all of the bridesmaids. Between the beautiful flowers and great food, we all could not wait for the main event. Saturday afternoon, we all headed to the wedding and at 6 PM Page and Jeremy were husband and wife! We all had so much fun!! As you will see in the pictures there are a whole bunch of people in the family. Between all the aunts and uncles and cousins and kids....it was an enormous picture....and a GREAT time! Then on Sunday Emily and Bill hosted a relaxing brunch with close family and friends.

I had a couple of pictures from Friday morning with Gwennie included in there, sorry about that!

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Happy Father's Day

This weekend was a busy Father's Day. Saturday Corbin golfed all day with his buddy Matt and then came home around 2 PM and decided he was going to work on his short game in the back yard. Of course with the dog poop and high grass, he had to make some adjustments so he dusted off the lawn mower (we got a service around the third month of living here and since then Corbin has forgotten how big our yard is) and attacked the backyard. By 3:30 he was almost in cardiac arrest so after he finished the yard, Corbin decided it might be smarter to watch golf instead of playing!

Sunday we headed to brunch at Pike's Soda Shop and then headed over to the JCC Aquatic Center where Gwennie was in her element! She had so much fun playing in the water and swimming that we can't wait for her to start swim lessons next week.

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Here are a couple videos from the weekend

Rachel and Parks Are Married!

This was a big weekend in the Webb/Duncan/Blythe family. Our cousin Rachel married Parks on Saturday evening. Everyone was so happy to see each other and overall it was a wonderful family weekend. We kicked off the festivities at the rehearsal dinner at the groom's family friend's house (of course I forgot the camera!!!!). It was so nice of them to host such a fun barbecue. Then Saturday morning the men braved the heat - it was 100 degrees on Saturday - to golf with the groom. The women all headed to Rachel's bridal brunch hosted by her aunts on the Webb/Duncan side. Saturday afternoon we all rested up for the wedding and at 6 PM Rachel and Parks were married by our Uncle Robert. The ceremony was very touching..I am pretty sure I started crying around when the bridesmaid's walked down and was teary well through to the end.

We then all headed to the reception for great food and lots of dancing. We munched on some World Famous Calabash Chicken (if you haven't tried it...find a Fatz Cafe now!), shrimp, grits, crab cakes and hands down the best wedding cake I have EVER had). I am actually going to get some in a few minutes (thanks Eileen!). I think one of my favorite stories of the night was when Rachel leaned over to our cousin Clay and said "You didn't tell me it was going to be THIS MUCH FUN!!!" I'd have to agree...as wedding's go, this was one of the best. Unfortunately my camera was acting up so I only have this blurry picture of the bride and groom. This picture of Rachel and her mother Eileen is one of my favorites.

Sunday Aunt Lynne and Uncle Bill were so nice to host a family brunch. We all headed over to their house, tired, bleary eyed and very hungry! Lynne and Bill did not disappoint...the food was marvelous and we all stayed around to recap on the wedding and how much fun we all had.

I'd like to also thank Aunt Nina for watching Gwennie on Friday, our good friend Jennifer for driving down and watching Blythe, Gwennie and Jackson on Saturday, the Aunt's (Anne, Louise, Susan, Emily, & Lynne) for having a wonderful brunch, Eileen for hosting a fun wedding and Lynne/Bill for letting us all hang around the house well into Sunday afternoon.


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For those of you that aren't from the South...this was my first real southern wedding...let me rephrase that..this was my first Clemson wedding!! As you can see from the video below, school spirit runs pretty deep in the family!

Big Reunion Weekend & Biting?!?!?!?!

This weekend was a big big weekend. It was our first time both leaving Gwennie. Nanna Susan took very good care of her, Gwennie was so happy to play with her and loved having a new face to show around the yard.

Corbin and I headed up to Vermont for my college reunion. As you can see from the picture on the left, my closest friends all drove and flew up to hang out. Overall we all had so much fun and can't wait to see everyone again.

Monday Gwennie went back to daycare and one of the kids decided to give her a love bite (twice). At first I was pretty upset and was scheming on ways to get dental records of these kids so I could figure out who the "biter" is. I had a nice heart to heart with Addie's mother Gladys (thanks Glad!) and she reassured me that as much as I want to hunt down the biter's parents and give them a piece of my mind, these things happen and I need to think about how I would feel if Gwennie is the biter. I know they will take good care of her at school and they are watching for repeats so this will not happen again.

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Memorial Day Weekend

This weekend we headed to the lake with our cousins Russ, Gini, Alexandra and Blythe. Gwennie was completely enamored with baby Blythe and Alex was such a great big sister/cousin. She was such a help and loved to play ball with Gwennie. As you can see both Gini and I were busy with the kids so we didn't get a chance to get anywhere but behind the camera. Overall it was a wonderful weekend and we are looking forward to seeing them again in 2 weeks at Rachel's (Russ' sister) wedding.

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Another nice weekend....and more birthday cake!

We have been enjoying all of this warm weather (with a few thunder storms here and there) outside in the backyard. On Saturday our neighbors hosted a pre-birthday barbeque for their daughter Stella's 2nd birthday. As you can see from the pictures, Gwennie loves vanilla cake with chocolate icing...just like her mommy! Here are a couple of funny videos from this weekend.

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Mother's Day

We had a nice Mother's Day weekend at home with just the girls. Corbin went to a concert on Saturday and came back Sunday to make dinner for us all! Gwennie also just got a new slide that she loves to play on. Before I could even get the whole thing put together she was jumping on the slide and trying to climb up the back! Here's some video of Gwennie playing on the slide.



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Ready for the Beach!

This weekend we got Gwennie a new bikini (they will smock anything these days!) and set up the sprinkler and you can see from the picture that Gwennie absolutely loves the water. She's got swimming lessons starting in June so I can't wait to see her swimming around in the water! I also have a cute video of her cracking up with the dogs as they tried to get a drink.

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The Beebee and the Baouulll

Gwennie started talking a few weeks ago but we weren't sure if they were actual words. She's been saying "dog" sort of and "no no no no no" (I wonder where she got that from!) for a while now but she never actually put a word to objects until last week. Here's a video of her saying "baby" and "ball"

Two Peas in a Pod, a Goose Egg and What We Think About Duke!

This weekend Gwennie and I headed up to Rocky Mount to visit with Allison and Harold Pine who is about to deliver twin boys (the peapods or the boys as I like to call them) in a few weeks. Allie's shower was beautiful and those boys will be very well loved not to mention well set up with clothing, toys and gear! Gwennie played all weekend with Allie's nephew Brian. Brian's parents (Bobby and Wendy who all flew in from Florida) unfortunately had a bad case of a stomach bug so they were out of commission all day. Great for Gwennie though because Brian was a wonderful playmate! He loved to follow Gwennie around and they were both very happy to have someone around the same size to hang out with.

Unfortunately Gwennie bumped her head on the patio table so she has a nice goose egg in all of the pictures. She was such a trooper and only cried for a few minutes. I was so proud of her (and felt awful that I could not prevent it).

Corbin stayed back at the ranch and had a full house with our friend Matt and Michele's dogs Tarleeh and McCauley. Ginger and Ruby were a little out of sorts that their house was taken over with new playmates. McCauley is a 115 pound chocolate lab and Tarleeh is a chow/black lab mix. Both love to roam around the house and bark at thunder. Needless to say the storms from this weekend kept everyone (including Corbin and I) awake. We also thought McCauley wasn't took keen on Gwennie - lots of barking and growling so we had to watch him....until he figured out that Gwennie was a constant source of snacks! He now thinks she's the greatest thing ever!!! McCauley enjoyed crackers, cheese, pears and whatever else Gwennie happened to feed him. Overall a great weekend....here's a video of one of our favorite tricks McCauley does.

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Sunday Mountain Afternoon

Sunday we spent the day up at the mountains with the Fisher family. As you can see from the pictures, they dogs were very sad to leave. Ginger and Ruby enjoyed running around and swimming in the river. Unfortunately the fish don't particularly like the pooches so Andrew and Corbin really didn't catch anything.

Here are some pictures from yesterday

Motherhood...

Monday I headed up to Boston for work and had dinner with Addie, Alexis and Parrish. Alexis is such a good baby! She just checked out the mall and all the people cooing at her (yes...this child is really cute!). During dinner she played in her stroller and after Addie and I headed home where Alexis took a bath (kid loves the tubby) and she went right to bed. The next morning Gladys (Addie's mother), Alexis, Addie and I enjoyed coffee and some "playtime" until I had to go to work.

Overall, I can't wait to see Alexis (or Pookey as Grammy calls her) again. She changes/grows so much every month!

Here are some pictures from the weekend with Gwennie being pretty inventive with some blocks and my time with Alexis, Addie, Parrish and Gladys
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Warm Weather

As you can see from the pictures, it is finally starting to get warmer so Gwennie is sporting her new summer attire. We are all ready for summer (but not the bugs!).

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What we learned at the zoo....

We headed over to two different types of zoos while we were in AZ. The Phoenix Zoo and the Wildlife World Zoo were both pretty interesting. The Phoenix Zoo is much more of a natural habitat zoo where the animals are pretty far away and you stroll through a large area. They had a great carousel with all sorts of cool animals and a big pond that people scooted around in paddle boats. Gwennie really got a kick out of the baboons and also seemed to enjoy checking out the the animals on the carousel more than anything else.

Then the next day we went to the Wildlife World Zoo near my parents house which was much more of a close encounter experience. As you can see from the pictures, some of the areas had birds right in frontof you and they weren't scared of anything! This pictures was taken in one of the bird exhibits and after this bird almost landed on the stroller, we decided we were all set with wildlife! My dad and I strolled over to the lion thinking they would be a few yards away....more like a few feet! The animals areas are RIGHT next to people and most of them like to hang out right in front of everyone. A lioness literally was giving us the stare down checking out Gwennie (probably for lunch!). Gwennie really enjoyed this zoo more because the animals were so close and she could almost reach out and touch them. We figure since we got there right when it opened and they were feeding the animals, they were more interested in people. She also loved the small mammals area where all the little monkeys were hanging out. I tried to take a few pictures but the reflection with the flash didn't really work out too well. One of our favorites was the Giraffe feeding area. I have a video of my dad and Gwennie feeding them but as you will see, my dad wasn't too keen on a large blue tongue darting out at him! Gwennie on the other hand thought it was hilarious!

Gwennie also liked the children's petting area...which was basically a bunch of goats, lamas, deer, chickens and turkeys (the turkeys were in a cage...they liked to bite!!!). The goats were like garbage disposals...they tried to eat everything which included cameras, my shorts, Gwennie's fingers, shoes, socks and whatever else they could find. They had some coin operated feeding stations but you couldn't actually get any of the food out because the goats would rush over and stick their heads right in before you could actually get any of the food into your hands (smart animals).

My dad and I thought the best part of the zoo was when a girl decided she wanted to get a close up of a monkey with her cell phone and guess what happened???? The monkey turned the tables on her and grabbed the cell phone right out of her hands! So then she starts to scream at the monkey telling it to give her back her phone (at this point my dad and I can barely stand up we are laughing so hard at her). Finally someone from the zoo came down and basically told her that by the time they get the cell phone from the monkey it will probably be in two pieces but she could wait around and they would get to it sooner or later. Here's a video of the monkey beating the cell phone against a tree branch.

So.....what did we learn at the zoo? The goats and giraffes are very well fed, don't upset the monkeys and watch out for the birds!

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