This weekend the whole family was down for the count with a cold that kept us pretty much confined to indoors. We watched lots of Thomas, Horton Hears a Who, WALL-E and Ratatouille when Gwennie was awake but she pretty much slept most of the weekend away. Here are the only 3 pictures from the weekend when we were trying out pigtails.
w as well as to see a bunch of friends. Saturday morning we headed to Owings Mills to meet up with Alan, Heather, Ari and Matthew (this is him on the right). Ari and Gwennie had a great time playing together and Ari loves his new baby brother. Matthew is a great baby and loves to just chill in his bouncy seat. 
the left). Gwennie was so excited to see them and spent most of the day "rocking" Clare in the swing....with all of us close by because she wasn't really grasping the whole concept of "gentle'. Sunday we drove down to Vienna to meet up with Dave, Missy and Henry which I am pretty sure was the highlight of the weekend for Gwennie. Henry has a huge playroom outfitted with Thomas and lots of other toys as well as a drum set!!!!!! Henry loved to show Gwennie all of his toys and was great about sharing and teaching her all the ways of cars/trains and drums. We all had a great lunch, took a nice long nap and then watched Horton during dinner (yummy pizza) and then headed back up to Clark and Nancy's for bed. Gwennie was so pooped she passed out right when we got back and slept straight through from 7 PM until 7:30 AM. 
On Wednesday Gwennie's best buddy Ari became an older brother. Alan and Heather welcomed Matthew Shayne around 2 PM on Feb 4th. Matthew weighed in at a healthy 8 pounds, 8 ounces and is doing great. Ari is pretty excited about having a new buddy to play with. 
We finally had a nice weekend where everyone did not have to bundle into multiple layers just to go outside. Sunday was beautiful and as you can see from the pictures Gwennie and Corbin spent the afternoon on the tire swing. Gwennie also finally can reach the pedals on her Tricycle. Here are some pictures from the weekend.
This week GeeGee came for a visit and we decided to head to the Riverbanks Zoo in Columbia, SC. We met up with our cousins Gini, Blyth and Alex and everyone had so much fun! 
As you can see from the pictures, the snow finally fell last night so there is no school or work today! Gwennie had her first real experience playing in the snow and was so sad to go inside (Nemo bribery was the only way we could get her to leave the yard). Ruby also had a blast, Ginger on the other hand had no interest and could not wait to come back inside. Here's some pictures from this morning including Gwennie in her PJ's right after she woke up checking out snow for the first time. Pardon the crazy outfit. It was the first thing we could find in the closet!
This weekend Gwennie started her next round of swim lessons at Little Otters Swim School. As always, Gwennie loved the class and was not happy that the class ended after 30 minutes. 
Happy Near Year! As you can see from the pictures Gwennie and the rest of the family spent their New Years Eve with our neighbors Bragg, Michelle and Stella. Gwennie and Stella are thick as thieves and their favorite pass time is watching Nemo together while jumping on the couch (which they always do when we aren't looking....knowing full well we have told them this is not allowed). Needless to say the couch gets a pretty good workout when the two of them are together. They made it to about 10 PM and then passed out and the adults were soon to follow! On New Years day, we headed back up to the Lazy 5 Ranch with Corbin this time and he got a first hand feeding experience. We all agree that the Ostriches are just too weird/scary with their neck bobbing so we just threw the feed quickly and rolled up the windows before they infiltrated the car. 
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
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. 
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!
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.
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.
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! 
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! 
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.
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.
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.
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.
