Bring on the Brenks

On Wednesday, Megan and her 18 month old son Andrew arrived in town for a nice, long visit.  Megan was my first and best friend in London, and we hadn't seen each other since we both moved back to the States last summer.

We visited playgrounds and a children's museum, went to story time at Barnes & Noble, played at Gymboree, took walks into town, read stories and played with toys.  After the kiddies went to bed, Megan and I cooked  together, ate our weight in ice cream, and caught up on old times.

A few shots from their visit

At the Children's Museum

Andrew's favorite toy at our house - Jason's shoes

Hey!  Wanna read a book together?

Look, I'll show you how

Where's Andrew?  I think Claire needs to work on sharing

Whatcha doin' Aunt Ashley?

Reunited :)

Claire and I LOVED having them around - the house feels so empty and quiet now. 

The First of Many

Vacations!

Last weekend, we drove up to Vermont for a ski weekend at Stratton Mountain - Claire's 1st Vacation!

Sadly, only Jason's skis and boots made the trip.  I had planned to ski, but after throwing my back out the week before, there was no way I was going to be able to.  Claire still won't take a bottle, so it was going to be difficult to get many runs in in between mealtimes, but I was prepared to give it a go.  Instead, Mom and I hung out together, did some shopping, and enjoyed playing with Claire.  She's pretty much the best consolation prize!

We spent our evenings sharing cocktails and dinner with Mom and Dad's friends, Mark and Janet, and their children and grandchildren.  Their condo was bursting to capacity with the 5 of us in addition to Mark and Janet's group of 12, but we had a great time. 

Mommies

Roughly 3 weeks ago, I e-mailed two Moms whose profiles I saw on a Meetup.com mommies group I joined before Claire was born.  Their babies were born within days of Claire, and I thought it would be nice to form a playgroup.  Luckily, Amanda and Stephanie were enthused about the idea too.

We had our first playdate 2 weeks ago, and the second one just yesterday.  Stephanie has a daughter, Rowan, who was born Dec 3 and Amanda has a son, Wesley, who was born the day after Claire on the 7th.  Stephanie and Amanda are great, and the afternoons always pass by quickly when we all hang out.  It's nice to have people to talk to while feeding and changing diapers, and in my case, any company is entertainment for Claire.  We hope that when our kiddos are older, they'll like each other too.

Claire and Rowan hanging out together on Rowan's playmat at our first playdate.  Wesley is always sleeping - he's quite the party animal, so no pictures of him yet.