Isabel-ly

I've been slacking on the belly pictures, so here is the latest from 28 weeks. As you can see Isabel is a growing girl. Her movements continue to amaze me...she seems to be a strong little girl and not one to sit still :).

And here is Gizmo helping me to test out some of the baby stuff we already have. I was organizing Isabel's closet on Saturday when I came across this and decided Gizmo might like it. Well, he liked it a little too much and didn't want to get out. Geoffrey let out an "oh no" when he first saw me, offered to take the picture and then told me I was never to put Gizmo in it again.

Cookie Baking & Pierogie Making

Over the Christmas holiday we were joined by my parents, who drove up from South Carolina on Thursday. After shopping for supplies on Friday, we started to work on cookies Saturday evening. We made a double batch (about 10 dozen) of my Aunt Kathy's almond cut-out recipe...soo good :). Here are some pictures of the fun we had cutting out the cookies and baking them.


Dad decided mom needed a Christmas tree on her head :). While doing the cut outs we started to hear sirens coming down the street and I screamed "Its Santa!" Last year I was caught off guard by a town of Vienna ritual, in which Santa rides around the town on his fire truck passing out candy canes. We all ran outside to take a peak. Have I mentioned how much I love living in Vienna :)

Sunday morning after fueling up on donuts, we started to work decorating the cookies. We had some very creative cookies and they tasted oh so good.

Geoffrey crafted a hippo in honor of the mother of his child. It looked pretty good I must admit. He even gave me the honors of eating it.

Christmas Eve day we made Pierogies, a Ukranian tradition that has been going on for quite some time. It was great having the whole family involved and sure made assembly the pierogies go by quickly. We all agreed though that a double batch was not nearly enough, as the best part of pierogies is eating them as leftovers the following week!

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

We awoke this morning to a dusting of snow on the ground...and the snow continued for most of the day. Although it made for a pretty nasty commute, it gave me an excuse to head home a couple hours early to avoid the evening traffic. I spent the afternoon sewing a Christmas tree skirt, baking a batch of yummy molasses spice cookies and decided to snap a few pictures to capture the beautiful winter weather combined with our Christmas lights.

At this point we had about 2.5" of snow. Around 8:30 tonight it was closer to 4"...not quite enough to have work cancelled though.

It definitely looks like Christmas inside of the house! The stockings have been hung and the tree decorated with an assortment of Christmas ornaments we have both collected over the years. I have to admit, my favorites are Geoffrey's Hallmark airplane ornaments. At one point, a plane was on the top of the tree, and today he showed me that 2 others were performing aerobatics!

Yes, there are 2 little dog shaped dishes at either end of the fireplace, with the words "Santa Paws" written on them. Its the doggie version of a stocking. Speaking of dogs, its time for the pugs to get in their crate and the mom to get some rest.

Hope everyone is having a great Christmas season!

"would look good in the blog"

This was the title of the email Eric sent out this evening, along with the attached 2 photo...and since it is the Christmas season, I figured why not :). Although VT just fell short of making it to the national championship game, we did defeat Boston College to become the ACC champs. As usual, Geoffrey and I headed to Kevin & Eric's condo to watch the game. After being tied with BC after an ugly first half, Kevin switched his jersey from white to maroon and told me to put his extra jersey as well saying "it will probably fit you." (thanks Kevin). Who knows if it did the trick, but we'll certainly all be wearing the maroon jerseys in January for the Orange Bowl.

The boys were so confident VT would win, they bought champagne and had it chilling in the freezer for a post game celebration.