Make sure to turn up the volume for the second video (of Caleb singing). The third video, it's hard to see because I can't zoom the camera out while I'm taping, but Peyton stands on her own at the end without holding onto anything.
Saturday, December 25, 2010
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
When in Rome
Well we were supposed to leave around 6am Friday morning to go to Rome, but we got a bit of a late start with the kids and didn't leave until close to 8am. The drive went smoothly, but when we got there we had a little trouble finding the apartment because of the way the roads are set up. We did find it though, and it was perfect! The apartment was a two bedroom with a pull out bed in the living room for even more room to sleep if needed. There was one bathroom, a kitchen, and a living room. We had anything you could need: stove, microwave, shower, and they even provided dish soap and scrubbies, little things of food or drinks, bath towels, it was like someone lived there all the time. Maybe they use it once in a while and rent it out on the side, I'm not sure, but either way it was perfect for us. Each bedroom had its own balcony, and being on the 7th floor, we had an awesome view. Being only a 15 minute walk (tops) to the Vatican, we could actually see it from our balcony!
Friday was our relaxing day. We had absolutely no plans, nothing to do, and loved every minute of it! We checked out the metro (which was not even 5 minutes from the apartment), walked down by the Vatican, and just wandered around "real" Rome. We checked out some cute shops, ate gelato, and took Caleb to the playground to play with all of the Italian kids. Saturday we dedicated more to "tourist" Rome. We took the metro to the Colosseum first thing in the morning. Caleb was about jumping out of his skin with excitement, since he was riding the train for the first time. It was so strange to walk out of the metro station and BOOM, there's the Colosseum right in front of you. Literally. We crossed the street and could touch it. Looking back to high school where we learn about these things, I never would've thought I'd be standing next to it one day, it was awesome! We booked a tour guide, which allowed us to skip the line, and got a tour inside. Afterwards, we walked around by ourselves for a bit and then went outside and took pictures. There were Roman guards dressed up all over the place, it was really neat. We took pictures of different buildings and structures around the area and grabbed some lunch from a little stand nearby. Since we had already been gone half the day, we decided to head back and check out the Vatican. This was the other highlight to Caleb's day, since he got to ride the train again. He started yelling at us every time he saw the other cars turning to go around a corner, he was so excited! When we got back, we walked around the outside of the Vatican, but decided not to go in this time because we'd probably spend a long time in there and the kids weren't too interested. Instead, we walked along the length of the Vatican walls down some streets, turned a couple corners, followed a huge crowd of people and stumbled upon Saint Peter's Basilica. WOW. It was beautiful. Michael and I both stood there with our mouths open because it was so amazing just to be there and see it all. There were a couple fountains, so that drew Caleb's attention. We took lots of pictures and walked around trying to see every bit of it that we could without going inside. It was already late afternoon and the line was too long to make the kids stand there (well make Caleb stand there...Peyton hung out in Mama's arms all day). We walked down to the river and saw a castle and lots of neat little shops. Someone had just gotten married and were taking some wedding pictures, and they had a huge fancy limo with roses taped all over it and a big bouquet on the front. People were stopping just to take pictures of it! It was about dinner time for us, so we walked back to a restaurant about 10 minutes from the apartment and ate some margherita pizza outside. We got Caleb some gelato, enjoyed ourselves until it was dark, and then headed back to the apartment.
Sunday we decided to make all about Caleb, so we took him to the Bioparco de Roma. For those of you who don't know what that is, it's the zoo! It's a really nice zoo...very clean, open, and has just about everything but penguins. It's bigger than the Rochester zoo, but not too big to where you can't see it all in one day. We spent a few hours walking around and saw every animal in there. It was hilarious watching Caleb run around with his little park map! Every time we stopped to see an animal he would check the map to see where we were, show us where we were, and then tell us where we needed to go next. There was a huge area with a pond for the birds, and it was just a big mixture of all different kinds. There were peacocks, pigeons, ducks, geese, crows, and I'm not even sure what else. They roamed half the zoo though, and had no problem getting close to people (especially when we sat down to eat lunch). Caleb hung onto the fence and must have clucked at the birds for at least 10 minutes, he was a riot! After we saw everything in the zoo, we let him pick out a couple things from the gift shop. He picked out a big glow in the dark snake and a bag of dinosaurs. Then we drove back to Naples, went to Auschan to buy some gelato and cones, and went home.
Going to Rome made us fall in love with Italy all over again. It was such an awesome trip, and we really needed it! We can't wait to go back, and plan on making a couple more trips up there. We will definitely stay in that apartment every time we go, it was worth every penny and saved us with free parking in the area. We have TONS of pictures and a couple videos, so stay tuned and I'll get them sent out as soon as I can!
Friday was our relaxing day. We had absolutely no plans, nothing to do, and loved every minute of it! We checked out the metro (which was not even 5 minutes from the apartment), walked down by the Vatican, and just wandered around "real" Rome. We checked out some cute shops, ate gelato, and took Caleb to the playground to play with all of the Italian kids. Saturday we dedicated more to "tourist" Rome. We took the metro to the Colosseum first thing in the morning. Caleb was about jumping out of his skin with excitement, since he was riding the train for the first time. It was so strange to walk out of the metro station and BOOM, there's the Colosseum right in front of you. Literally. We crossed the street and could touch it. Looking back to high school where we learn about these things, I never would've thought I'd be standing next to it one day, it was awesome! We booked a tour guide, which allowed us to skip the line, and got a tour inside. Afterwards, we walked around by ourselves for a bit and then went outside and took pictures. There were Roman guards dressed up all over the place, it was really neat. We took pictures of different buildings and structures around the area and grabbed some lunch from a little stand nearby. Since we had already been gone half the day, we decided to head back and check out the Vatican. This was the other highlight to Caleb's day, since he got to ride the train again. He started yelling at us every time he saw the other cars turning to go around a corner, he was so excited! When we got back, we walked around the outside of the Vatican, but decided not to go in this time because we'd probably spend a long time in there and the kids weren't too interested. Instead, we walked along the length of the Vatican walls down some streets, turned a couple corners, followed a huge crowd of people and stumbled upon Saint Peter's Basilica. WOW. It was beautiful. Michael and I both stood there with our mouths open because it was so amazing just to be there and see it all. There were a couple fountains, so that drew Caleb's attention. We took lots of pictures and walked around trying to see every bit of it that we could without going inside. It was already late afternoon and the line was too long to make the kids stand there (well make Caleb stand there...Peyton hung out in Mama's arms all day). We walked down to the river and saw a castle and lots of neat little shops. Someone had just gotten married and were taking some wedding pictures, and they had a huge fancy limo with roses taped all over it and a big bouquet on the front. People were stopping just to take pictures of it! It was about dinner time for us, so we walked back to a restaurant about 10 minutes from the apartment and ate some margherita pizza outside. We got Caleb some gelato, enjoyed ourselves until it was dark, and then headed back to the apartment.
Sunday we decided to make all about Caleb, so we took him to the Bioparco de Roma. For those of you who don't know what that is, it's the zoo! It's a really nice zoo...very clean, open, and has just about everything but penguins. It's bigger than the Rochester zoo, but not too big to where you can't see it all in one day. We spent a few hours walking around and saw every animal in there. It was hilarious watching Caleb run around with his little park map! Every time we stopped to see an animal he would check the map to see where we were, show us where we were, and then tell us where we needed to go next. There was a huge area with a pond for the birds, and it was just a big mixture of all different kinds. There were peacocks, pigeons, ducks, geese, crows, and I'm not even sure what else. They roamed half the zoo though, and had no problem getting close to people (especially when we sat down to eat lunch). Caleb hung onto the fence and must have clucked at the birds for at least 10 minutes, he was a riot! After we saw everything in the zoo, we let him pick out a couple things from the gift shop. He picked out a big glow in the dark snake and a bag of dinosaurs. Then we drove back to Naples, went to Auschan to buy some gelato and cones, and went home.
Going to Rome made us fall in love with Italy all over again. It was such an awesome trip, and we really needed it! We can't wait to go back, and plan on making a couple more trips up there. We will definitely stay in that apartment every time we go, it was worth every penny and saved us with free parking in the area. We have TONS of pictures and a couple videos, so stay tuned and I'll get them sent out as soon as I can!
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Quick Peyton update
Peyton is starting to say "dada" and has also been sitting up by herself for a while now. She's growing up so fast!
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Saturday, May 8, 2010
Monday, April 26, 2010
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Link to Pictures
Here is the link to our pictures on snapfish. Since we've been taking here and there, we've just been adding to our original album we sent out to everyone instead of creating a new album every time.
http://www2.snapfish.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=3532691007/a=37864239_37864239/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/
http://www2.snapfish.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=3532691007/a=37864239_37864239/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Friday, March 19, 2010
She's here!!!
Peyton McGuire was born at 5:14am Sunday morning the 14th. She was 6lbs 11oz and 20in, and is absolutely perfect! Check out snapfish or facebook for pictures.
Monday, February 1, 2010
Monster in my belly
Since no-one can see it in person, I tried to capture the baby moving and kicking again on video. In the 3rd video the baby's moving around a lot at first, but then doesn't move until later in the video after I push down on it (because it felt like it was pushing up into my lungs) :-)
Sunday, January 3, 2010
The End of 2009.....The Beginning of 2010
Happy New Year! We hope everyone had a wonderful holiday and safe traveling. Let me try to catch you all up on what's been going on without writing a novel!
Thanksgiving turned out fantastic. Michael had to work Thanksgiving day but had the whole weekend off, so we celebrated Friday instead. A friend of ours came over with Michael after work Thursday and he spent the weekend with us as well. For dinner we had turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, corn, green bean casserole, applesauce, and bread with butter. For dessert we had homemade apple turnovers, pumpkin pie, chocolate rum cake, rice crispy treats, and cupcakes. Our friend (Jeremy) brought over the game Mario Kart for Caleb to play, along with the steering wheel, so he had such a great time playing games with us! We spent all weekend stuffing our faces, playing games together, and just hanging out and enjoying ourselves...it was such a wonderful weekend.
The base had a tree lighting ceremony for the big Christmas tree they had set up. Caleb's teacher set it up so that the class all met up at the library and walked over to the ceremony together. Caleb also gets so excited when he sees his friends outside of school! The Navy band was there playing music, there were various groups of children singing Christmas carols for the crowd, and they had refreshments. I'm not sure how many grades participated, but Caleb's class was one of the classes that made a "Christmas card" that was set up on display at the ceremony. It was a huge poster with all of their hand prints and presents with a child's name on each one. Apparently it was a contest as well, and his class won second place (which was the same prize as first place)...so all of the children and parents get to take an ITT trip together! We haven't found out where or when yet, but Caleb asks about it all the time he's so excited!
Jenna came December 18th and stayed with us until the 30th. For those of you who don't know who Jenna is...she's my best friend that I have known since preschool. It was so great to see her and have company from home for the holidays! Unfortunately we ran into a lot of problems when it came to making plans and getting off the base to explore with her because the Navy picked that week and a half to screw with Michael's schedule and call him in for unexpected meetings and work...but we still had a wonderful visit and got to spend a lot of quality time together! The weekend she got here we took her to Pompeii to explore, got harassed by a scary old lady trying to sell us stuff, and then had her experience true Italian pizza at a little restaurant. Because of all the unexpected switching around and shit the Navy was pulling, that ended up being the only trip we got to take while she was here. We spent a wonderful Christmas together, and then Monday night we went out to dinner at a nice Italian restaurant to let her experience a real Italian dinner. We all tried a dinner and dessert we'd never tried before (mostly because we didn't know what it was when we ordered it...being that it was in Italian haha) and had a phenomenal night! Tuesday was Jenna's last night here, so we got a babysitter and us grownups went to see Avatar, which we all thought was a really good movie. All-in-all it was a great visit and we really enjoyed having her here!
Seeing as how Michael's schedule got switched, he ended up having to work Christmas day and the whole weekend. So we celebrated our Christmas Eve on the 23rd, and did our Christmas day traditions on the real Christmas Eve. Our friend Jeremy managed to get Christmas Eve off so he came over to spend the holiday with us as well. Our Christmas Eve tradition is a big seafood dinner...so we had fried calamari (I actually had to clean and prepare the fresh stuff...so that was a new experience!), fried shrimp, baked clams, gnocchi, green beans, corn, applesauce, and we baked up a ham. It was SOOO yummy! For dessert we had mississippi mud and Christmas cookies. I let everyone else pick what kind of cookies they wanted and we ended up with chocolate chip, peanut butter, cut outs, and peanut butter blossoms. Next year I think we'll shoot for something new! Caleb went nuts over all of his gifts...he definitely made out really good this year! He got lots of toys like cars/trucks/tractors, action figures and transformers, a pirate ship, games, kitchen playdough set, etc. He also got lots of new clothes, two pair of sneakers, art easel, football, baseball bat/glove/teeball kit, and a bike. He got a really neat clock from my friend Jenna that not only shows the time but will also say the time for you when you press a button. It also glows red or green depending on how you set it up...so that your child will know when it's time for them to get up and when it's time to sleep. There is also a game that helps them learn time, but we haven't tried out that feature yet. This was a great idea considering the fact that Caleb asks what time it is about every 10 minutes throughout the day...now instead of asking us we'll just hear his clock telling him all day long! The couple that I babysit for also bought a vtech camera for Caleb that takes over 400 pictures, lets you do fun little edits, and also has games. We can hook it up to the computer and upload the pictures, so I'll have to get to that one of these days so you can all see the world through the eyes of Caleb! I know there are other things he got, but I can't remember it all to list right at this moment!
We had a very quiet, alcohol-free New Years by ourselves this year. Not that we don't love and appreciate having company over, but we decided to take a little break and have some "us" time! The Italians out in town started shooting off fireworks in the afternoon. Around 11pm New Years Eve they kicked it into high gear! Michael and I have never seen anything like it in our lives, not even on tv. It was a grand-finale that was spread across the entire horizon in a 365 degree circle around the base....miles and miles in every direction...and it lasted nonstop until close to 2am. There's no way I can describe how awesome it was.
Not much else has been going on. The past couple months we've been busy with the holidays and lots of company over all the time, so things are just slowing down and going back to normal now. Caleb has been out of school for 2 weeks, but he finally goes back tomorrow. Michael is getting switched back to working nights the middle of January unfortunately...but hopefully that means he'll be switching back to days not long after the baby is born. Keep your fingers crossed for us. I'm 29 weeks pregnant and feeling pretty large and uncomfortable already! The baby is quite the feisty one, always kicking and punching and rolling around. Lately it's taken to shoving it's arms and legs so far down and to the side it feels like it's almost sitting on my hip bones! We are starting to get pretty excited for the big day and can't believe how fast it's all going by. I also spend a lot of time playing piano again, thanks to my amazing husband! It's so funny because I'll be practicing piano and Caleb will go play his drums at the same time and he will get all excited that we're playing music together!
We have decided to take a little family vacation for the last time before the baby is born. The 15th we'll be driving up north and staying at Camp Darby. The 16th we're going to a ski resort but just plan on spending the day sledding with Caleb and playing in the snow together and having fun. The 17th we're going to go to Florence and experience everything we can there, and then we'll come home on the 18th. We are SO excited for this trip...it has been long overdue!
I uploaded what pictures I have right now onto snapfish and am sending them out. We apologize that a lot of the Christmas pictures came out blurry, but we've been fighting with our camera because it seems to have a mind of it's own sometimes. It's not the best but it gets the job done most of the time. We love and miss all of you, and we hope you are all doing well and keeping healthy! We will send more pictures and update again after our trip up north. Ciao!
Thanksgiving turned out fantastic. Michael had to work Thanksgiving day but had the whole weekend off, so we celebrated Friday instead. A friend of ours came over with Michael after work Thursday and he spent the weekend with us as well. For dinner we had turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, corn, green bean casserole, applesauce, and bread with butter. For dessert we had homemade apple turnovers, pumpkin pie, chocolate rum cake, rice crispy treats, and cupcakes. Our friend (Jeremy) brought over the game Mario Kart for Caleb to play, along with the steering wheel, so he had such a great time playing games with us! We spent all weekend stuffing our faces, playing games together, and just hanging out and enjoying ourselves...it was such a wonderful weekend.
The base had a tree lighting ceremony for the big Christmas tree they had set up. Caleb's teacher set it up so that the class all met up at the library and walked over to the ceremony together. Caleb also gets so excited when he sees his friends outside of school! The Navy band was there playing music, there were various groups of children singing Christmas carols for the crowd, and they had refreshments. I'm not sure how many grades participated, but Caleb's class was one of the classes that made a "Christmas card" that was set up on display at the ceremony. It was a huge poster with all of their hand prints and presents with a child's name on each one. Apparently it was a contest as well, and his class won second place (which was the same prize as first place)...so all of the children and parents get to take an ITT trip together! We haven't found out where or when yet, but Caleb asks about it all the time he's so excited!
Jenna came December 18th and stayed with us until the 30th. For those of you who don't know who Jenna is...she's my best friend that I have known since preschool. It was so great to see her and have company from home for the holidays! Unfortunately we ran into a lot of problems when it came to making plans and getting off the base to explore with her because the Navy picked that week and a half to screw with Michael's schedule and call him in for unexpected meetings and work...but we still had a wonderful visit and got to spend a lot of quality time together! The weekend she got here we took her to Pompeii to explore, got harassed by a scary old lady trying to sell us stuff, and then had her experience true Italian pizza at a little restaurant. Because of all the unexpected switching around and shit the Navy was pulling, that ended up being the only trip we got to take while she was here. We spent a wonderful Christmas together, and then Monday night we went out to dinner at a nice Italian restaurant to let her experience a real Italian dinner. We all tried a dinner and dessert we'd never tried before (mostly because we didn't know what it was when we ordered it...being that it was in Italian haha) and had a phenomenal night! Tuesday was Jenna's last night here, so we got a babysitter and us grownups went to see Avatar, which we all thought was a really good movie. All-in-all it was a great visit and we really enjoyed having her here!
Seeing as how Michael's schedule got switched, he ended up having to work Christmas day and the whole weekend. So we celebrated our Christmas Eve on the 23rd, and did our Christmas day traditions on the real Christmas Eve. Our friend Jeremy managed to get Christmas Eve off so he came over to spend the holiday with us as well. Our Christmas Eve tradition is a big seafood dinner...so we had fried calamari (I actually had to clean and prepare the fresh stuff...so that was a new experience!), fried shrimp, baked clams, gnocchi, green beans, corn, applesauce, and we baked up a ham. It was SOOO yummy! For dessert we had mississippi mud and Christmas cookies. I let everyone else pick what kind of cookies they wanted and we ended up with chocolate chip, peanut butter, cut outs, and peanut butter blossoms. Next year I think we'll shoot for something new! Caleb went nuts over all of his gifts...he definitely made out really good this year! He got lots of toys like cars/trucks/tractors, action figures and transformers, a pirate ship, games, kitchen playdough set, etc. He also got lots of new clothes, two pair of sneakers, art easel, football, baseball bat/glove/teeball kit, and a bike. He got a really neat clock from my friend Jenna that not only shows the time but will also say the time for you when you press a button. It also glows red or green depending on how you set it up...so that your child will know when it's time for them to get up and when it's time to sleep. There is also a game that helps them learn time, but we haven't tried out that feature yet. This was a great idea considering the fact that Caleb asks what time it is about every 10 minutes throughout the day...now instead of asking us we'll just hear his clock telling him all day long! The couple that I babysit for also bought a vtech camera for Caleb that takes over 400 pictures, lets you do fun little edits, and also has games. We can hook it up to the computer and upload the pictures, so I'll have to get to that one of these days so you can all see the world through the eyes of Caleb! I know there are other things he got, but I can't remember it all to list right at this moment!
We had a very quiet, alcohol-free New Years by ourselves this year. Not that we don't love and appreciate having company over, but we decided to take a little break and have some "us" time! The Italians out in town started shooting off fireworks in the afternoon. Around 11pm New Years Eve they kicked it into high gear! Michael and I have never seen anything like it in our lives, not even on tv. It was a grand-finale that was spread across the entire horizon in a 365 degree circle around the base....miles and miles in every direction...and it lasted nonstop until close to 2am. There's no way I can describe how awesome it was.
Not much else has been going on. The past couple months we've been busy with the holidays and lots of company over all the time, so things are just slowing down and going back to normal now. Caleb has been out of school for 2 weeks, but he finally goes back tomorrow. Michael is getting switched back to working nights the middle of January unfortunately...but hopefully that means he'll be switching back to days not long after the baby is born. Keep your fingers crossed for us. I'm 29 weeks pregnant and feeling pretty large and uncomfortable already! The baby is quite the feisty one, always kicking and punching and rolling around. Lately it's taken to shoving it's arms and legs so far down and to the side it feels like it's almost sitting on my hip bones! We are starting to get pretty excited for the big day and can't believe how fast it's all going by. I also spend a lot of time playing piano again, thanks to my amazing husband! It's so funny because I'll be practicing piano and Caleb will go play his drums at the same time and he will get all excited that we're playing music together!
We have decided to take a little family vacation for the last time before the baby is born. The 15th we'll be driving up north and staying at Camp Darby. The 16th we're going to a ski resort but just plan on spending the day sledding with Caleb and playing in the snow together and having fun. The 17th we're going to go to Florence and experience everything we can there, and then we'll come home on the 18th. We are SO excited for this trip...it has been long overdue!
I uploaded what pictures I have right now onto snapfish and am sending them out. We apologize that a lot of the Christmas pictures came out blurry, but we've been fighting with our camera because it seems to have a mind of it's own sometimes. It's not the best but it gets the job done most of the time. We love and miss all of you, and we hope you are all doing well and keeping healthy! We will send more pictures and update again after our trip up north. Ciao!
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