Sweet Adeline

Nothing's sweeter than watching your son make sweets with sweet Adeline.

Thanksgiving 2010

Nothing says Thanksgiving like...

A compare-the-baby-to-the-turkey shot! Remember Rock's? Or Addy's?

While dinner prep was wrapping up, my family was oh-so-cute.

I always say that no Thanksgiving meal is complete without sweet potatoes. We had Kelly's grandma's sweet potato casserole.

Well, some people did. Thanks to Louisa I am still dairy free so I made some sweet potato pancakes.

But I think Louisa had the best sweet potatoes of all. At least I'll take her word for it.

My apologies to Addy. I promise she is there behind Sarah's head. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Hiking

On Thanksgiving morning, all the adults (accept Juju who kindly watched the babes back at our mountain house) went on a hike.

Nothing says "ready for adventure" like propping your foot up on an "Old Appalachian Trail" sign.

After I got my leg down, we were off!

The terrain was pretty rugged, and we almost lost Fix...

But thankfully, we had Kelly as our veteran hiking guide. He can free climb like no other.

We had a few questions about what exactly was growing on the rocks and what exactly caused the geography of the mountain behind us but our questions were never answered.

Check out that view!

Check out this view!

After all that strenuous posing and more than a little walking, we were exhausted. And very hungry for the Thanksgiving meal!

Photo Shoot

On Thanksgiving Eve we traveled to Wintergreen Resort to celebrate the holiday and Rocket's birthday.

Sarah was really kind and arranged for a photographer to come and document the event for us. The only major bummer was that Zuni was missing from all these festivities. Didn't feel the same without her.
Anyway, here are a few of my favorite shots. Rocket and Juju with all the crazies.

The Barnetts. In one of the few pictures where Kelly isn't talking!

Beautiful Barnett Babes!

Another group shot.

Rock and his favorite mommy.
Louisa and her favorite mommy.
Rock and his favorite daddy.
Louisa and her favorite daddy.

A couple models we bumped into.

All the dudes.

Mother and 3 of 4 daughters.
3 of 4 daughters.
And this would be the best one we got of the four of us.

Most of the Fix family shots turned out like this. Lovely and awkward, no?

At least we still love each other!

The Big Day!

We gathered for Rocket's birthday on the 23rd.

I'm not going to say how old he is...

But these candles may or may not stand for a decade each.

Mall Train

Two kids I know were pretty excited to ride the mall train with Juju.

Louisa was so excited she mauled her brother. Unfortunately, she was too little to ride, but as you can see here...

The other two enjoyed it thoroughly!

November Birthday Monday Night Dinner

After our exhausting time at National Harbor, we went to Juju and Rocket's house for Monday Night Dinner with all the crew. That's 10 adults and 7 kids.
I think Juju wins hostess of the year for having all of us over! But it was for a good cause -- to celebrate Annie, Rocket and Marty's birthdays!

These three people have enriched my life more than I could possibly express here. Clip (on the left above) was equally grateful and showed his appreciation by blowing out their candles for them.

ICE!, Potbelly and Peeps

When Bethany and Addy and Sarah came in town for Rocket's birthday week, we took them to National Harbor. I had heard about ICE!'s Grinch Show and I knew Rock and Addy would love it.

I hadn't heard that it was a bajillion dollars to get in. Since we are trying to be frugal these days we sent Rock (3 and under were free) in with Sarah and Bethany (who were willing to pay) and Addy while we (me, Fix, Juju and Louisa) wandered around the Gaylord National Hotel.

Apparently the exhibit, which was made of 2 million pounds of ice, was pretty awesome and the slide was a big hit with Addy.

But Rock was not interested. In the slide or in anything else. Glad it didn't cost us anything for him to see something that was apparently so incredibly awful to endure.

Of course, when he was reunited with Juju, he was all smiles.
And although Addy had enough energy left to stand...

ICE! exhausted other members of our party so we went to Potbelly for nourishment and revitalization.

Louisa has decided that her diapers and wipes case is the greatest thing in the world. She carries it around like normal girls hold their favorite doll.

With food in our bellies, we made our last stop at the Peeps store.

We got hats. Rock and Addy could hardly believe their good fortune.

Vanity thy name is Rock.

Now did you appreciate Addy and Louisa's matching outfits? Juju bought them and we planned it so we could take a cute coordinated cousins photo. But we neglected to do this before meltdown time so this is the best we got. Sorry Juju.