Thanks, Nana :-(

About the only thing worse than this toy is the fact that Piper can now work it by herself.

Laundry day

O Christmas Tree

Tonight we decorated our Christmas tree, Piper's first. She was very interested in what we were doing, as you can see in the pictures. We are so blessed to have her to join in this tradition with us this year!

Thanksgiving

We had a wonderful visit back home, although it was too short. I don't have many pictures because Piper is taking so much of my time that I don't have a spare hand to snap photos. But here are a few!

Sitting with Nana and Lyndie

Lyndie's typical look at Piper

And I'm off!

Piper spent lots of time with her Grandad

He even got her to sleep!

The new picture at the top of the blog was taken at a Christmas tree farm in North Carolina where we chose our tree. Piper had the eagle's perch to pick out the perfect tree!

Now that we're home, I'm subbing and Piper is going to the school daycare. Here she is entertaining Mary Clark, my friend Ashley's little girl.

Coming attractions

Tam-Tam gave Josh and I our big Christmas present early--a Flip video recorder! I have already had lots of fun with it and can't wait to capture so much more of Piper this way. Here is a quick video I took of Piper and Lyndie playing with their Nana at cousin Ian's birthday party.

Can you tell she's the daughter of an English teacher?

Boston

Josh, Piper, and I travelled to Boston this past weekend to visit some of Josh's college buddies and attend the Harvard-Yale football game. To say I was nervous about Piper flying would be a gross understatement. I don't think I slept at all the night before our flight out. But she could not have been better behaved. I nursed her on each take-off and fed her puffs or graham crackers on landings. In between she slept a little and played alot. We got compliments both coming and going on how good she was (and how cute she was).

Once we got to the city, we stayed at the home of one of Josh's Harvard buddies. He was already out of town for the upcoming holiday, so we had the place to ourselves. That was so nice! I was so thankful to be able to let Piper crawl around his place instead of a nasty hotel room. We had dinner out with Derek and Sara (Harvard friends who now live in NYC) and then crashed that evening since we'd all been up since 4:30 that morning. Well, I should say Josh and I tried to crash, but Piper was way off her routine and did not want to sleep soundly. All of her good plane behavior came with a huge price as she was up at least once an hour all night. We finally pulled her into bed with us, something we NEVER do, and that helped a little.

After our rough night, we headed out to The Game on Saturday morning. We were stupidly led to believe that the weather was nice because the forecast for the day was 50 degrees and sunny. Unfortunately, we didn't know that the wind would be whipping around at 15 mph and our seats were in the shade! It was definitely the coldest 50 degrees I've ever felt. Piper stayed warm enough, though, and even slept through most of the second half. And Harvard was victorious! The game was actually pretty good, a vast improvement over the last game I attended. You'd think those boys came to college for a reason other than football :-).

On Sunday we travelled to Chinatown for one of Josh's favorite culinary experiences: Dim Sum. It's kind of like Chinese buffet on carts, but the food is totally different. I would never want to go without a native speaker with us to tell us what all the food is. Again, Piper slept through most of the cultural experience, but when she woke up, she got her first tastes of Chinese food, and from chopsticks!

We took the subway and busses everywhere we went. Piper fit snugly in the baby carrier my sis-in-law Sarah Beth loaned us. It was a lifesaver!

These last two pictures were taken at Walden Pond, the pond where Henry David Thoreau lived and wrote for two years. We obviously got there after sunset (which, incidentally, is 4:15!), but we able to sneak down to the shoreline. It was very surreal for this former English teacher.

On the way to Walden, Piper started playing peekaboo with us. We finally had a chance to capture it on video when we got home today. Isn't she the cutest?!