Jingle Quack!

The presents are wrapped, the cards are sent, the out of office message is on, and the packing is done (well, half done).  We are off to Telluride tomorrow on a ski vacation that we have been looking forward to since July.  The last couple of weeks have been manic but all worth it when I think of the down time we are about to enjoy in the snowy Colorado mountains.

Bring on the wine, good food, and most of all the powdah!

I leave you with Hank sweetly singing his rendition of a Christmas classic....hope you all have a very merry Christmas! 

Santa baby?

A few pics from our visit to Santa this Saturday.  Santa came all the way from the North Pole to Hank's school book fair.  It all started out just fine with Hank and Gus enjoying story time with the school librarian.  Once their big moment came with Mr. C, Gus has second thoughts.  Hank managed to get in his request for a "fixed zube tube" (the worlds most annoying toy which had recently broken much to my relief) and a silver bell (inspired by the polar express) in spite of his brother's protests.  

Thanksgiving and then some...

Time is flying and I haven't had a chance to put up a post about Thanksgiving - I can't believe that Christmas is less than 3 weeks away! 

We headed out to the cabin for the weekend to host Matt's sisters, Katie and Alice, and their families for Thanksgiving.  Sadly, Alice and her husband Brian had to turn around early in their road trip to deal with an urgent health issue, which was the right thing to do.  We missed them none the less but are glad to hear that things are on the mend.  Katie, David and the kids arrived on Tuesday and we came up Wednesday afternoon.  Just as we arrived it started to snow which was lovely!

Camp Kelly in the snow. 

The weekend was filled with lots of hikes around the lake, trips out in the canoe, fishing, chopping logs, watching movies and eating TONS of good food.  After Thanksgiving dinner, the kids had the brilliant idea of disposing of the turkey carcass in the lake.  Uncle Matt led the team down to the waters edge and Harrison launched the bird into the drink.  Country living!

Harrison and Hank taking selfies on Uncle Matt's camera.

William and Maggie teaching Gus about Tucker.  Or was it the other way around? 

This shot is blurry, but that's only because of the kid's speed.  Future Gretzky or what?

Log chopping, a favorite activity. 

The view from my morning walk around the lake Thanksgiving Day.

The Bells left Friday and we stayed up for the weekend to relax and enjoy the house.  The ski hill opened on Friday and Hank went skiing in real skis for the first time.  We are trying to prep him for our
 trip to Telluride over xmas when he will be put in ski school (wooohoooo - finally!).  So far, so good!

Skiing phenom! 

Gorgeous sunset Saturday night.  This is view from our living room. 

Saturday morning, we were sitting in the main room and out of the corner of my eye I see a bald eagle fly by and land on a tree right by the lake in front of the house.  This is not a common occurrence. Woodpeckers, yes.  Bald eagles with 5 feet + wingspans, no.   Then I noticed that many of the lake's resident Canadian geese were hanging around down there too.  All too soon, the reason became apparent.  It turns out that geese and eagle really like Thanksgiving turkey too.  Somehow the carcass had made its way to the shallow area in front of our house the birds were all trying to get a piece. Not to toot my own horn or anything, but the turkey this year was pretty damn good. The eagle hung around for a while and was fascinating to watch so we may try this method of rare bird attraction again.

Our friend the eagle. 

Sunday, we rushed back to the city to try and get the house all dolled up for Christmas and just like that the holidays were in full swing.  You can see our full Thanksgiving album here.  I'm in LA right now visiting my new little nephew Greyson and my old little nephew Hayes.  We'll be decorating their Christmas tree tonight.  When I get back to DC tomorrow we'll only have two weeks before we leave for Colorado...counting down the days!

The littlest elf of all. 

One proud big brother! 

Hope you all had a nice holiday and are enjoying the most wonderful time of the year.  Mwah!

Post script:  I am now back in DC by the hair of my chinny chin chin.  The ice storm made for a treacherous landing but God bless the pilots at Alaska Air for getting me back to DC (and not diverting the plane to Boston which was plan B - would have been wicked awful).

Photo Round Up

Couldn't resist putting up some cute pics from the past week.  Don't tell the kids but we skipped the actual night of Halloween and went up to Bryce for a long weekend...

"Are you kidding me with this costume?"

Scrum-diddly-umptious! 

The Nursery class at the Halloween parade.

How did Hank get so big!?  Out fishing with his dad...

Hank is in to being gross right now, not cute.  

Cooking in our underwear, socks and a floral apron, natch. 

Two cute boys in a chair. 

Hank LOVED his fishing rod. 

Hank and Dad in the canoe on the lake. 

Happy Halloween!

From Tigger & Pooh! 

This was the one and only picture Hank would pose for...I couldn't get one of both of them together!

Get in my belly! 

I'm not sure what is funnier than that little face in that costume.

Doing crafts at the Halloween party at Dad's office. 

Le blog shutdown est fini!

Well, I warned you that we were busy this Fall, but I don't think even I was prepared for the level of nuttiness we have brought upon ourselves.  Apologies for the lack of  posts of late - I am recommitting to le blog tout de suite!

So lets see, what has happened since I last wrote? Hank continues to enjoy school and seems to be thriving. His vocabulary is out of control and his personality is, let me say, strong.  He has more energy than any person in the history of mankind.  

Gus is liking his playgroup and is as close to walking as you can get without actually doing it.  He practices all day long running in circles around the house with his walker.  He does his best to keep up with his brother. Gus is also quite chatty for a 14 month old.  He points to things he wants and says "this" and says "hi ya", "bye bye", "see ya later",   and "I love you".  We are constantly taken aback by the words coming out of his mouth. 

Work has been very busy for both Matt and I, but all in good ways.  I've been doing a lot of events for UrbanSitter and just started my project at Discovery working on Animal Planet this past week.  So far so good! 

In between work and school we've managed to fit in a few other things.  We finally found a weekend cabin in the area we've been looking at in the Shenandoah Valley for almost a year so I've been busy trying to get that all set up for us to start enjoying.   We took our first overnight boat cruise with the kids back in September which was surprisingly nice.  I don't think we're ready for a big time week long sailing vacation but Matt and I were proud not to have lost anyone overboard. 

Matt and I took a little trip a deux to cape cod at the beginning of October which was desperately needed.  Three days of relaxation, sleeping in until 8, having a beer with lunch, oh my,  it does a body good. 

Throw in a couple of family visits from the Mailloux clan, including hosting Thanksgiving and you have can see what I'm talking about.   It was great to catch up with Nana and Papa and to see Aunt Whitney who is a busy bee herself getting ready to wed "Uncle" Ryan.  We'll lose the quotes in a year Ry guy. The only folks missing were the Mailloux-Cohens.  Chanel is due in 3 short weeks with baby boy number 2 and was not able to travel.  This little one will make for four boy cousins under the age of 4 in gen 2.   Can't wait for the family vacations!  We might as well just go to a 24 hour all you can eat buffet for a week when they are teens. 

Anyway, this was a good talk, but I've got things to do.

Highlights below and pics from the sailing trip are here:  Sailing Trip

Gus in a rocking chair about to drop that baby! 

Hank at school doing an art project (much of the pastels have ended up on his nose)

Matt and Hank on the maiden voyage of our new canoe.

Hank, Aunt Whitney and Jingle the Husky Pup helping to make Thanksgiving dinner. 

Gus the sailor

The look on Hank's face is classic.  Poor Gus sees this more than once a day! 

Gus' first time at the wheel

Just happy to hang...

Back to school

We are catching our breath after the rude awakening of moving from the relaxed pace of summer into the frenzy of fall. Hank started school last week at Washingtonian Episcopal and has been really enjoying it so far. Not a tear shed yet over being dropped off! He has even taken the really big boy step of staying at school two days a week until 3:30pm in stride. I'm always so proud of Hank when he enters a situation that for many kids (and, er, parents) is fraught with anxiety with such ease. Like, "yeah, this is a new school with new teachers and classmates. So what? Stay here all day? Eat my lunch here? Nap here? No problem!"  He is truly a big kid now.

First day of Nursery!

For his part, Gus started a playgroup this week. He will go three days a week with either moi or his nanny to enjoy playing with other kids, singing songs and learning how to be a social being.  We went mMonday and he had a blast. I wasn't able to get him to stay still for long enough to get a good shot of him! 

Work for both Matt and me has picked up considerably now that everyone is back in the city (although you would think it was still summer around here with the weather - it is 95 degrees today).  We are both buzzing around like busy bees trying to get on top of it all.  It is both invigorating and slightly overwhelming at the same time.  We just need to get through September and then I think we'll be able to relax a bit. Bear with me and my intermittent posting during this busy time.  Here are some cute shots of the brothers Kelly to get you through the drought. 

Glamorous Gus

This is how Gus plays with his baby...

Cape Cod 2013

This post is long overdue - I've been meaning to write this for some time now but we've been quite busy since we got back.  And now school has started and it isn't even summer anymore and I have been paralyzed by my procrastination.  I guess summer just got the better of me this year, and I think that's a good thing.

Cape Cod this year was our best trip yet.  We had the luxury of going for two weeks (our longest vacation since our honeymoon 6 years ago) and an added super bonus: we brought along a babysitter to help out with the kids.  These two factors meant that we actually. got. to. relax.  Hallelujah!

We drove up the East Coast and stopped to spend the night at our friends' the Heravi's house in Larchmont, NY.  An adorable suburb of NYC, they live in a sweet house near a sailing club, a pool for the kids and are surrounded by other families with young ones.  We don't get to see them very often since we had kids but we always have fun at their place.

After a fairly uneventful but loooong drive to the Cape, we arrived.  We spent the first week in Orleans, which has become a familiar town to us given that we've stayed there for the past 3 years. We had our friends, the Wolff's, join us for the first week, along with their two kids, Patrick and Addie.  Hank was doing his best to keep up with these older kids and it was fascinating to watch him try to hang with the "big guys".  We hung out by the pool, took a boat out a couple of times to do some seal spotting, checked out a baseball game and went to Nauset Beach.  The weather was pretty good, except for a day or two of rain but overall it was a lot of fun.

The second week we decamped to Brewster, a sleepier and smaller town than Orleans.  By that time the Wolff's had left us and we were on our own to just laze about as we pleased.  And we did.  We spent most days sitting by the pool, but had time here and there to check out the Brewster Flats (a very shallow beach on the Cape Cod bay side that's great for kids) and do some fun and unheard of things like shopping! Naps, lobster rolls, beer in the middle of the day....god am I missing those days this week.

It was an awesome vacation with good times had by all.  I can't wait to do it again next year.

Some pics below for your pleasure...those of you who want to see them all can click here: https://lafamillekelly.shutterfly.com/pictures

Everyone was a naked nudey at the Heravis...

Hank and Charlotte going for a drive au naturel.

Family boating time...

Daddy with his little ones

What a handsome Gussy...

King of the castle

Sigh

Double sigh.  That is a real sunset that we saw.  In real life. 

Hank napping on Daddy, napping on a float in the pool. 

A Gus in the wild.