The Zoe and Silas Show

We have a lot to be thankful for this Thanksgiving. We have good jobs, wonderful friends, and our family members are healthy. I am so thankful because my entire immediate family has been to Boston in the last 3 months. I miss them very much and have been so blessed to have everyone visit in such a short period of time! My mom was here for 2 weeks in August, My sister (Auntie Phee-Hee) & her husband (Uncle Jim) were here at the beginning of October, My step-dad, Dave, visited us in mid-October, And my Dad & Mary were here last weekend! Derek's family lives nearby and S&Z get to see them regularly. Our nanny, Julia, brings so much love and joy to our house. She has become part of our family over the last year & she loves Zoe & Silas soooooo much! Best of all, we have two adorable little turkeys who keep us on our toes... HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!!!!!!!!

My friend and co-worker, Kristine, cuts hair at a salon in the South End neighborhood of Boston. If you want a great haircut at an Aveda Salon, book with her at Moxie Star Salon! I am so lucky that she also does kids' hair and she even makes house calls. Silas and Zoe's hair has gotten quite long, so we finally decided to "book" their first hair cut. With the holidays coming up, we figured it was time... Silas went first. We put him in his booster seat in front of Sesame Street cartoons playing on the computer. He did awesome!!!! You can see how long his hair was in this picture, because the left half is cut but the right half isn't!!! Awwww, Big Bird! This was their first Sesame Street viewing experience and it worked like a charm! Here's the finished product (sorry, Kristine, that I didn't get a better picture!). Zoe was next. We were a little worried about how she would do since she can be *a little* high maintenance sometimes, but she was sucked into t...

We have had a great visit with my Dad and Mary this weekend, and we will be sad to say goodbye to them on Monday. We were just hanging out playing after dinner and I shot this video. Zoe is getting more steady with walking, which you don't see until a little ways in. Silas has started "knee walking" to try and keep up with his sister :) Their relationship is so fun to watch, playing and laughing at times and driving each other nuts at others.

Derek started playing a blanket game with S&Z recently, where he lies on the floor and covers himself with the blanket. They love to hog pile him and check him out under the blanket, laughing the whole time. My dad and step-mom, Mary, are in Boston visiting us this weekend. Grama Mary started a new blanket game and I was happy to catch it on video!

My friend Lisa is a professor at UMass-Amherst, which is about a 2 hour drive from Boston. We've been lucky to have her visit us so many times over the last year. Most recently, we got to spend the entire day together on Friday. Lisa is an awesome amateur photographer, and she took a bunch of pictures while she was here. Unfortunately we didn't get any pictures of S&Z with Lisa, because she was always the one behind the camera! The pictures are priceless, such a beautiful snapshot of a typical day for us. Never has a meal been photographed so intensively as it was on Friday. I gave them pasta with meat sauce that they fed to themselves. That equals one big mess! Silas loves to put his hands on his head very dramatically when eating, and he got all kinds of positive reinforcement from us on this particular evening. Monkey see, monkey do of course! We love you, Lisa! Thanks for sharing in our chaos :)

Zoe & Silas got SO many awesome birthday presents!!! Our family and friends are very generous and S&Z are so lucky. I was just downloading pictures and thinking about writing thank you notes and thought I would post a few highlights. We got some great wooden musical instruments! Wendy & Dave along with their twin girls, Sydney & Ivy (who were wearing the adorable tiger & lion costumes in the previous post) gave us a drum & rhythm set. Both Dave & Derek are drummers so the dad's are keen on music! Iris, Steve & baby Peter gave us a xylophone that goes perfectly with the rhythm set. Timery, Steve & JB gave us a tunnel. We had played with one at Sydney & Ivy's house a few months ago and thought it would be fun to have one too. It's amazing how such a simple toy can be so fun! It reminds me of building forts when I was a kid. Ricky, Heidi, Holly & new baby Kylee gave us a baby doll. It is S&Z's first doll and they just love it...