Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Sunday, July 25, 2010

More family fun

Alex's birthday visit! Bubbie has made an incredible room just for Ali in her house! It's awesome! We had a great time visiting and hanging out with all of Bubbie's friends.

Daigle Family Reunion

Here's a slew of posts about our recent family gatherings! We've been busy the last few months seeing family--what a wonderful opportunity for Ali to get to meet everyone! (And there are a lot of "everyones" to meet!!)

Here are some pics from our recent Daigle family reunion. It was hosted at Aunt Elaine's house, and as you can see, there was plenty of room for everyone to spread out and have fun. Enjoy!

Sunday, July 11, 2010

Grab Yourself Some Popcorn

...'cause it's movie time!

To lead off, let's take a look at Ali in her indoor-friendly wagon. A big thanks to G-Mommy for the ingenuity for putting this thing together! Not only does it entertain the munchkin for 10-15 minutes at a time, it gives us a good little workout in the meantime as well.


For the feature presentation, here is a series of videos we'll call "Alex and the snake." That's right. Snake. As in, there was a huge rat snake curled up on our window ledge yesterday when we got home from the family reunion (more on that in the next post!).

 While we respected the fact that it was simply snoozing on the refreshing coolness of the shaded bricks, we didn't really want it to stick around and think that it could seek the even more refreshing coolness of our indoor AC. Something had to be done, and we aren't a family that kills animals if we have any choice in the matter. So that brings us to the video saga of the snake catch-and-release. Enjoy!






'Tis true. Never a dull moment in the Chausovsky household.



Monday, July 5, 2010

Happy 4th of July!

First things first (I know why you all come here, and it ain't for me blathering on about our lives...):

Happy 4th of July from Mommy's Little Sparkler!
 

Okay! Now that we've gotten the requisite cuteness out of the way, onto the blathering part. We had a WONDERFUL 4th of July. In fact, it was exactly the blissfully perfect kind of day I imagined a year ago, when baby girl was still just kicking from the inside to the big booms of the fireworks. I imagined a fun-filled day spent filled with little baby giggles and family fun, and that's just what we had. We met up with some new friends at the lake by our house. Ali got in her fill of people watching and continued with her water-loving ways as she kicked and splashed (and attempted to eat rocks) around the lake. We have also discovered that she LOVES jumping in the water and "swimming" back and forth between me and Alex. We're so happy that she loves the water as much as we do! After she went to bed for the night, Alex and I grilled dinner on the back porch and watched the sun set, and then headed to our front porch, from the comfort of which we were able to watch the city fireworks show. It was a great show, and the best part was that Ali slept right through all the booms! Hooray! All in all a truly perfect day. What a charmed life I lead.

The other magnificent thing that happened this weekend is that Alex finally came home from his 2-week European business trip! The poor guy drove 3,000 miles in 10 days, across 5 countries. While he was driving across Europe, I was here figuring out the ins and outs of temporary single-parenthood. Luckily I picked it up pretty quickly and was soon operating with an efficiency I never knew I had in me! Even more luckily, G-Mommy and Granddaddy came in for the weekend, and G-Mommy stayed another three days, keeping Ali home from school and generally having a big ol' time. Ali was thrilled to have so much time to hang out with her grandparents . . . I even experienced the first time she turned away from me when I tried to pick her up out of their arms. Ouch. Even though that stung a bit, it warms my heart in an amazing way to know that she already has such a connection with them. 

I love this picture!
 

 Check out this big girl!

Even Uncle Eugene stopped by to visit us for a bit, getting to experience the fun of pool time and dinner time with Ali. 
These two always have fun together.
 
 

And while it was admittedly a bit nice to have some honest-to-God alone time during these last two weeks, it was even nicer to finally have Alex home!! He and Ali have been giddy with each other the last three days--those two are quite the pair.

So that's it in our little corner of the world. Our baby is awesome, loves the water, and sleeps through fireworks (even though Alex was about the call the cops on the celebrators if she had made so much as a peep). My husband is home from his trek across Europe. Our little family is happy. And that's all that matters.

I hope this Independence Day found you all with such simple smiles on your lips.

Happy 4th.