Lauren is 11 months old

Lauren celebrated turning 11 months old this past Saturday. It is so bitter sweet. I am so happy to celebrate these milestones with her and yet feel like my time with her as a baby is rushing by so fast. She is as cute as a button and brings a smile to everyone she meets. I attempted to clean out the linen closet (yes, attempted...not accomplished). I found this robe my boys used to wear. I had Lauren give it a test drive for old time sake. She was so cute I had to take her picture.
Lauren and Mommy

I tried to do a little photo shoot with Lauren this weekend. I had her wear some fun holiday dresses. Here are some of the cute pics.

She is just so sweet!

Some fun facts about Lauren at 11 months:

*She crawls VERY fast.

*She is easy going, smart and fun.

*She loves to eat real food. She likes chicken, potatoes, pasta, meatballs, cereal, pancakes, yogurt, broccoli, peas, carrots, cucumbers, grapes, strawberries, blueberries. Well, actually, I haven't found anything she doesn't like to eat.

*She loves her bath. She crawls straight to the tub when we say tubby
.*She has 8 teeth

* She loves her brothers

* She squeals with delight when her brother get in the car at school pickup

*She gives great hugs and gently pats Mommy's back and arm. So sweet.

*She loves our 2 cats and yells "keeeeeeee" whenever she sees them.

*She sleeps through the night

*She is not a fan of formula but does like apple juice and water
*She has turned getting dressed into an aerobic work out for Mom.

*She stands and can bend done and pick things up with out holding on

*She took 1 step toward daddy.

* She babbles all the time

* She loves to play and loves to be around kids

* She knows the sign for all done

* She says numi-num when she is hungry

* Phil has nicknamed her "the vacuum cleaner" because she puts anything that she finds on the floor in her mouth. Anything!

Lauren is such an amazing addition to our family. We are so happy that she is home with us.

We love you Lauren!

Ginger bread Houses

Today we built and decorated gingerbread houses. The boys love to decorate them. It is a VERY messy project in our house. Lauren hung out at the table and had some graham crackers while we worked on the houses. We ended up building her a little house our of graham crackers and Matt decorated it for her. The works of art are (from left to right) Josh, Jake, Matt and Lauren



Matt concentrating very hard on roof design.

Matt, Phil and Jake decorating.

All my boys :)
Lauren hanging out at the table with us.

Lauren's 1st Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving! We are so fortunate to have Lauren in our lives and celebrating her 1st Thanksgiving with us. She is such a sweetie and her brothers are so great at helping take care of her. Last weekend Lauren was able to meet Phil's extended family. Here is a picture of Lauren having a chat with Diane and Sarah.
A picture of all the girls. Yes we have ALOT of boys in our family. We really cherish our girls.

All the kiddos on Phil's side:)

Miss Lauren trying hard to get a chance to climb up the stairs
at Nonni's house today. I love her little outfit. Thanks to Shelley from my book club for the very cute outfit.

Happy Thanksgiving baby girl!

Trick or Treat Fun

Happy Halloween from our Clone Tro0per, Anakin Skywalk*r, Harry Pott&r and Cheetah Ballerina.

Happy Fall

Matt's Great Game

***Caution: This is a post for grandparents****
Matt had a great soccer game today. His team won. Matt scored 3 great goals for his first ever hat trick. My friend J shot these pictures. They so capture Matt's excitement after goal number 3.

Although we do not have a picture of Jake playing soccer he too scored a goal today. Yeah Jake!

Not to be left out, Josh had a great baseball game this weekend. Josh was able to pitch 2 innings for his team. He got his first ever strike out as a pitcher and did a fantastic job.
Our boys had a great weekend.

Life with Lauren

I have been a very bad blogger lately. I have to say that life has gotten in the way of my computer time. That's a good thing though:) Here are some pictures of happenings around the house. Lauren LOVES our cats. She squeals with delight when either cat walks in the room. On her first day home she was not too sure of our furry friends. I do not think she had ever met a cat before. Here is Riley letting Lauren pat him.
Last weekend in the middle of October we got snow! This is definitely not the norm here in New England. Even though it wasn't super cold Jake just had to put on full snow gear. He worked hard on the 1st snowman of the season.

Lauren and I stayed indoors for the snow storm. You can see the snow flying outside her window. The snow flakes were HUGE.

Lauren spending some time in her garden

Lauren and Daddy hanging out in the toy/lego room. Phil was helping the boys build a cool ship and Lauren wanted in on the action
She tried her hardest to get into one of the lego bins.

The picture is for my cousin Tracy. Thank you for all the great gifts for Lauren and the boys. We had so much fun opening everything. We can't wait to see you all at Christmas

Thank you also to my great book club. I know everyone did not get to see what was in the wonderful basket so I took a picture.

I have more pictures to upload and share. I will have to make a separate post after all the sports today. I just wanted to get some new pictures of Lauren out.