family fun day

who knew the local feed store could be so much fun. baby chicks are so cute! mommy wants some for our new house (when we get it). we'll see...

shoe fetish....

every girls dream is a closet full of shoes. aubrey just happens to be starting her shoe fetish a little early. most days she will pick out which pair she would like to wear herself.... (and if they match) i usually give in. matt caught this scene while i was in chicago. he and aubrey sat in her room for over a half hour putting shoes on aubrey and her bear.

thank you philadelphia...and GOODNIGHT!

pop pop would be proud aubrey-girl! i mean, he's been playing for a long time... but i doubt he started at the age of one. between rick (he's the silly one in the photo), greg, aunt teri and your pop pop, you are destined to at least have the opportunity to take a whack at playing the drums (pardon the pun). you've got rhythm in your blood!

non-toxic, i hope.

so i have heard that the rule of thumb for painting with toddlers is "vanilla pudding with food coloring".... well, that doesn't sound like any fun. i mean, it's easy to wash off. you don't have to worry if they eat it. we decided to go for the real deal.... blue crayola paint. it was just as fun and she ate it anyway. the washing it off part was a little bit more difficult. the bath water was blue. but it all came off and we had ourselves quite a little adventure.

the accident

in an effort to keep my daughter from pooping on the floor before her bath, i put her on the potty and gave her a book (no i am not insane... there is no way i am attempting to potty train a 16 month old.) this was merely a convenience issue. anyway, as you are all familiar. if you sit on the "throne" and get cozy with a book....what usually happens? well, that was what happened. it was very exciting. i never thought there would be a day that i would be applauding poo.

making cookies

before i left for chicago last week, matt, aubrey & i decided to make a batch of chocolate chip cookies. aubrey loved stirring up the batter and getting to play with the eggs. matt made the big mistake of putting one egg in each of aubrey’s hand. now, if you were 1 years old and someone put something in each of you hands, what would you do? smash them together of course. we made a big mess, everyone was covered in flour….but we had a great time. it’s funny how the everyday is extraordinary when you do it as a family. nothing compares to experiencing all the firsts with you little girl. first cooking lesson…..check.

aubrey goes GLAM

people keep saying "she's not a baby anymore" and now i see it. that little girl that used to depend on me for everything is now pretty good at figuring things out on her own. i am anticipating the day that i find her sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor trying to pour herself a cup of milk, but actually pouring it all over the floor. (i think i saw that in a bounty commercial once.)

i know i kept waiting for the next thing, the first teeth, the first words, the first steps.... but now i wish i had a pause button. couldn't she stay this way for just a little while longer?

she still let's me rock her every once and while. she still laughs when i try to kiss her all over her face. she still wants me to be right there with her (sometimes). i like that...

our little princess

i cannot believe how fast our little girl is growing up. seemed like just yesterday her greatest fascination was trying to get her toe into her mouth and now she walks around the house with her little purse or her baby doll all wrapped up in a blanket. she'll sit and flip through every book in her box, she takes her time and looks at all the pictures. she will look at you and make the animal noises for every animal she sees. she can recognize a star in a book and will do the hand sign for it... she also knows diamonds (after all, they are a girls best friend). she is saying "hi" "daddy" "ball" and "dog" clearly. she loves to sit in her cinderella chair with a snack and some milk and watch elmo. given a choice she would want daddy to carry her, but wants mommy to hold her hand. she loves her friends at church and squeals as soon as she sees maddie, logan or christa. she loves to jump on mom and dad's bed after her bath (somewhat of a daddy/aubrey tradition now). she is starting to use spoons and forks when she eats... it still gets all over, but she's improving. she LOVES cheerios in milk with banana slices. (something we stumbled upon, b/c mommy ran out of eggs one morning.) she is definitely giving us a run for our money.... it's not as easy to keep tabs on where she is at any point in time. you turn around for a second and she's gone.... on to the next thing. it's been such a blessing to watch her grow, each day is a little different then the last and you never know what new thing she will surprise you with. we'll keep you updated. ;o)

shopping will never be the same

leave it to three moms and four kids to clear out an entire section of barnes and noble in less then 2 minutes. believe it or not i totally called the whole thing... as we rounded the corner of the bookstore to camp out in the section with the big comfy chairs. there they sat, unsuspecting of the tornado of diapers, milk cups and cheerios about to ravage their area. "watch how fast we can clear this place out" i said under my breath. the young salesman at the computer watched in awe.... it's as if we pinched all the children simultaneously. they all started to whine. aubrey pooped, logan pooped, jake continued to belch up sweet potatoes and maddie and i began to sing some little mermaid songs while she danced around in aubrey's green blanket. the old man was the first to fold.... he stood up took his books and left. the dad and son team stuck it out a little longer but eventually gave up. we made our little circle of chairs and strollers, handed out some of maddie's books and tried to imagine in moments of quiet that jen, april and i were the only ones there. then someone would cry or try to escape... back to reality.

i put my new shoes on....

our dear friend mike did something special for us crazy old married folks. he gave us two tickets to a show at the world cafe that he was unable to use. it was a great opportunity for us parent-types to do something special and have a night out on the town. the band wound up getting lost on the new jersey turnpike and didn't go on until an hour after they were scheduled. but i am not complaining. matt and i got a chance to sit on the floor of the venue, people watch, talk, play with our camera and get out those much needed bathroom breaks.

chris thile and the how to grow a band played an amazing set. it was staggering to watch such amazing musicians. at one point my husband grabbed his hair and yelled "woah" when brian sutton tuned his guitar down, while playing, in order to hit some crazy low notes.

ok, so where do the new shoes fit in.... well, not that anyone cares but my mother in law found me the boots that i have been looking for all winter. did you ever get a picture in your mind (something you had seen or maybe something you thought up yourself) and everytime you went out to shop for something that picture haunted you and nothing quite measured up. my winter 2007 boots were out there somewhere i just had to find them... and finally did...AND i got to wear them out on saturday night for our date. it made me smile, oh and think of that song by paulo nutini "new shoes".

SNOWDAYS

Leave it to little girl to make a daddy melt when he walks through the door after work. Sure he just spent hours at his job, but that all is out of his mind when she pounds on the backdoor window as he makes his way up the driveway. Yes, he's exhausted... he just put in 8 hours, but he jumps at the chance to experience SNOW with his one year old. I am not sure that sledding was as exciting for Aubrey as it was for us... but she gasped at the sight of flakes falling from the sky and everything covered in white.

introducing stonewall jackson

this is the face i am greeted with each time i pull out the camera. hmmmm.... a pout. seems familiar. funny how the things you do miraculously show up in your kids.

can i help dad?

daddy's little helper

everything takes twice as long now days. what used to be an easy five minutes of unloading the dishwasher... can now take ten minutes or more. aubrey wants to help with everything. she likes blowing her own nose and taking the tissue to the trash. of course she has to walk there herself and she has to do it EVERY TIME she blows her nose. (which in the winter can be quite often.) our little helper assists with the laundry too. daddy's wet jeans are a little hard to lift into the dryer.... but she manages quite well with the socks. it's fun though watching her feel like she is a part of team o'malley. she makes us so proud.

you gotta see this

sorry this is a repeat picture.... but you just have to see this. i kept looking at the "state of the union" photo and couldn't help but think that it looked vaguely familiar to me. check this out.
april 2006......january 2007

the state of the union

no, not really... i just said to matt, "i don't know what to blog about?" he said, "how 'bout the state of the union." i laughed.... hmmm,ok. nevermind.

sorry we have been slacking on blogging lately. not sure why? oh yeah, i remember because i am not aloud on the computer after 7:oo PM. in attempts to cure my recent insomnia there are a number of things that have been put on the NO-NO list.... like "no coffee, no computer and no lists (to-do lists or otherwise). this is all to get me off to bed before 2 AM. so far, nothing is working. my poor hubby, i keep annoying him. last night, every time he snored i held his nose. the nights before that.... when he would talk in his sleep, i would talk back, trying to figure out what he was dreaming about. this would work until he would realize i was talking to him and wake up and then i would laugh at him. nice wife, huh?

anyway.... matt is working a lot. i am busy with mom stuff. we are praying hard about house stuff... and the aubs is growing like crazy. she is getting more steady on her feet and spent much of today walking across susie's living room and down the hall to chase josh. at one point she surprised all of us by just toddling across the room toward the kitchen with for no real reason at all (like someone standing across the room yelling "go, go, go!"). she just walked all the way across the room to the chair and stooped down to pick something up that interested her.
she loves to play ring-around-the-rosey, thanks to maddie mclaughlin who taught it to her the other day at jen's house. "all fall down" is definitely her favorite part. sometimes we get a preemptive "all fall down" and have to start all over again. she know where her belly, nose, eyes, ears and head are.... mouth is a hit or miss. for some strange reason she no longer knows what the cow says. probably omitted it from her vocabulary so that she could tell us what the airplane say. (thank you fisher price) WHOOSH!

** scroll over "go, go, go!" for link to video **

fish?

This past Sunday Melissa and I decided to take Aubrey to see some fish. Since she has always loved to look at the fish in the pond in the back yard, we thought she might enjoy seeing lots of fish. Naturally we ended up in Camden (Baltimore was a little to far for a spontaneous jaunt). She was sooo excited! The first thing we saw was a little pool with rays and sharks that you could reach in and touch. She would have been in the water if I had let her. After a little while we decided to move on to see more, and she was so excited about the fish that she started to cry. We assured her that there was much more to see and she settled down as we came into the room with the OCEAN TANK.... BIG FISH!

She was beside herself.

Next we went to another place that was hands on... this time Aubrey was able to do a little more that just get daddy wet. Although I don't think she felt any different about touching a starfish than she did about touching a shell.

My favorite part was the HIPPOS! They are the most agile beasts I have ever seen (except for maybe Rick Wise, he's pretty agile... although he does not in any way resemble a hippo... at least not any more...never the less he's a beast.) This guy here was definitely showing how big and bad he was... the picture is actually a little bit deceiving. He was so close I could have smacked him on the nose. That was actually the scary part... the fact that I stood there and contemplated doing it... which would have been ridiculously stupid as he probably could have turned my hand into applesauce.

It was a great day... Melissa and I had lots of fun but the best part was seeing Aubrey's wide eyes as she discovered new things. Pretty standard dad stuff I would say.

what does the elephant say?

"THhhhhppppptttt"

I think it is supposed to be the trumpeting that mommy and daddy does, but it comes out a little more like spitting or blowing bubbles. Oh, well.... we know what she means.

cabin fever

after a long day of sitting inside i think it started to get to us all. after napping, playing with every toy possible, reading books and watching our videos.... we stumbled upon the most amazing indoor game. who new shredded paper could be so much fun. it may be the warmest january outside but inside WE HAVE SNOW.

saltines and gatorade

whoever came up with the BRAT diet was a genius. mostly because nobody knows what B-R-A-T stands for but whatever you fill in the blanks with it usually works. i've heard: bananas, rice, apples toast....bread, rice applesauce, tea....

bread, rice, apples toast doesn't really make sense because bread and toast are both bread?
whatever, i don't know.

the o'malley meals today consisted of jello, propel (for matt) & pedialite (for aubrey), chicken broth and finally (real food) chicken and rice for dinner. NOW... look at that, i gave them broth (that could stand for "B"), rice ("R" duh), totally missed the "A", and saltines are kind of a bread like product and i believe they are toasted so that could be "T" right?

in any event, aubrey has faired a little better than matt, he really got hit hard. probably God's way of making him stay in bed and get better (men are so stubborn when they are sick).

i took the opportunity to catch some daddy, aubrey photos since they were both so compliant today. ;o)

a picture of better days

today will mark the first day in our marriage where one of us has been forced to sleep on the couch. never in my wildest dreams did i think it would be me....

actually, it's my choice. i have managed to stay quite well this winter season. even though almost every one of our friends (and their entire household) has come down with THE VIRUS. however, matt and aubrey have not fared so well. my poor little pumpkins. i feel so bad. both are in bed.... hopefully sleeping it off. i am praying very hard that they are back to normal soon...and i really, really, really hope i don't catch this thing. well, off to the couch for me tonight.

christmas lost and found

sorry that these are way late.... we actually lost these photos, but thankfully were able to recover them. thank goodness for technology.

12/23

12/24

12/25

TOUCHDOWN

Fly EAGLES Fly! New Years Eve was a blast. Matt, Aubrey and I all got to watch the Eagles "understudies" beat the living tar out of the Falcons on Sunday night. Matt's mom made a great dinner and we spent time together as a family. After the game we watched a movie and turned on Dick Clark's Rockin' Eve just in time to watch the ball drop. I shouldn't really say WE though. I was the only one still up. I watched the ball drop. Yipee! Welcome 2007!

I keep asking people what their new years resolutions are and keep getting the same answer.

"I don't make resolutions...." Bummer.

I think mine would be.... This year I would like to learn how to golf, just kidding... I just heard some lady say that on TV last night. Um.... mine would be:

1)Train for Broad Street Run

2)Read at least one book a week

3)Exercise more and eat right....

I have a thousand things I would like to try, but if I started writing it all it would be a book AND I know I can't get it all done in one year, so let's not overwhelm ourselves here.