Sunday, December 31, 2006

Our (other) New Year's Baby

Keely Smith celebrated her 2nd birthday yesterday by enjoying a peanut butter doggie ice cream treat called "Frosty Paws," stealing some of Gavin's toys and contributing to the general mayhem of our home.














Yummy!






Gavin took advantage of the excitement to make a break for Keely's water dish and splash away (something he's been trying to do ever since he started crawling) ... but he was captured before he could dive in!

Wednesday, December 27, 2006

Gavin's 1st Christmas!!!

The past few days have been a flood of paper, bows and toys for Gavin and his parents. It was a wonderful first holiday for him and for us as we watched him take it all in and got to spend time with family.

Hope you all had a wonderful holiday!







Here's Gavin with his gift from Santa, a little toy car that he likes to push across the floor...




Inspecting the box his gift from Mommy and Daddy came in...








Wrestling with "Bear Bryant," his new Teddy Bear that Tamma (his great-grandmother) sent from Alabama (Don came up with the name)...












Enjoying new bath toys from Mimi and Grandad in Colorado...













And trying out a fancy new bath towel from Grandma and Grandpa Price!

Pre-Christmas Lunch with Friends



Who is this woman?






She was our cheerful waitress at The Weary Traveler, where we gathered on Dec. 23rd to meet Sarah and Matt (en route to the Elberts in Milton), Jackie and Indy (on their way to Glen Haven from Ann Arbor) and Polly and John (who strolled over from Jenifer Street).

We had a great time catching up before everyone headed home for the holidays and throwing out not-so-helpful naming suggestions for expectant moms Sarah and Polly.


Friday, December 22, 2006

Get out your party hats...


...and take this time to celebrate with friends and family. We hope you have a fabulous holiday and look forward to catching up with some of you in the next couple of weeks. Hope Santa makes it down your chimney and you get a little time to relax and spread joy to those around you! Check back here soon for some tales from Gavin's first Christmas...

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Sunday, December 10, 2006

Not your grandma's rolling pin...

Each holiday season, I am involved in the preparation of Danish Kringle. It's a pastry-type dessert with date and nut filling, topped with frosting and more nuts. Yum. We only make it once a year, and I even have made it on my own before, but it's a project best tackled with at least one other person. My mom and I teamed up this year -- as we have since I moved back to Madison in 1999 -- but this year we had extra help in the form of a super-cool rolling pin. Shannon was kind enough to send me this gadget for my birthday. You pour cold water in one end and screw the cap back on and that helps keep the dough from sticking. In the words of Joyce: "Oh, this works great!"
We think this year's batch turned out even better than last year's. Sorry I don't have pics of the final product -- I forgot to charge my camera battery beforehand! It looks quite a bit like this photo I found on Google, if you are wondering what the heck it is.


Saturday, December 09, 2006

O Tannenbaum!




Thanks to Nat King Cole and Summer's Tree Farm, we were able to Deck the Halls today for Gavin's first-ever Christmas. We didn't have a tree last year because we went to Mexico. I didn't realize how much I enjoyed having one until we started putting it up. The tree was pre-cut, something we figured made more sense since Gavin was close to nap time when we made it out to the place. It also only cost $12 (!) and as Linus once said, all it needed was a little love (and two strings of lights).


Monday, December 04, 2006

Toss 'er back


Gavin made the most of his one-hour stay at the Famous Footwear holiday party for the children of employees ...


...he hung with the Clauses, opened his first-ever Christmas present (he liked the paper more than the toy inside) and paused for some liquid refreshment.

Friday, December 01, 2006

More of a Dog Yeller than a Dog Whisperer


If we've learned one thing in the last month or so, it's that Gavin loves dogs -- his dog to be specific. He gets a big grin when you either say "Keely" or "doggy." And we also learned the other day at Polly's house (check the link to The Sackmont Blog) that he has a special way with Fozzie the Border Collie.

Monday, November 27, 2006

"Save the cheerleader...


...save the world."

I wasn't planning on adding another TV show to what I consider to be my limited roster (Grey's, Top Model, How I Met Your Mother, The Office and Lost), but over the holiday weekend I ended up joining Don for a "Heroes" marathon and now I am totally hooked. It's billed as "a show about ordinary people discovering extraordinary abilities." I would call it highly entertaining with a dose of "ewww," especially when the cheerleader "regenerates."

Sure, it's a bit cheesy and way far-fetched, but it's definitely an escape, which is one of my top criteria for regular viewing. And it also features my "Alias" and "Felicity" fave Greg Grunberg. He was on Conan recently and when asked what superpower he would like to have he responded: "Super metabolism!" That's something we can all get behind, no?

Thursday, November 23, 2006

Rock and or Roll...


Gavin is thankful for...

1) Daddy buying him this cool T-shirt

2) Spending the week with Mimi, Granddad and Aunt Kate

3) Trying lefse for the first time
4) Teething biscuits and Baby Tylenol

Happy Thanksgiving to one and all!!!

Saturday, November 18, 2006

Thursday, November 16, 2006

Team Pam


We'll be TIVO-ing "The Office" tonight and while the hilarious antics of the employees of Dunder Mifflin is reason enough to watch, it's the gripping story of the Pam-Jim-Karen love triangle that really has my attention right now.

I am on board with this blogger's take on the situation:

WHY I'M ON TEAM PAM

Okay, I get it: Karen is cool, and Pam is not. If I had to be friends with one of them, I would probably choose Karen because Pam's low self esteem and inability to make decisions would get on my nerves. It's not that I hate Karen -- that episode where she plays World of Warcraft (update: OR WHATEVER) with Jim and Ed Helms did a lot for her otherwise boring glamour-gal image, and convinced me that I shouldn't have been so quick to dismiss her as one of those girls who owns more handbags than books. BUT, there are good reasons why I know more Office fans on Team Pam than on Team Karen:

Reasons to Root for Pam:
1. Pam is the underdog who needs to be brought out of her shell, while Karen is a sophisticated vixen who, despite admitting to being "into" Jim on last week's episode, would probably lose interest in him as soon as she got him. And, as it's been annoyingly mentioned in every interview with (the awesome) Jenna Fischer, everyone has an "inner Pam" or whatever, and rooting for Pam to unlease her "inner Karen" is much more interesting than watching Karen chew Jim up and spit him out.
2. And most important: JIM. LOVES. PAM.

Go Team Pam!

Want to weigh in? You can even order T-shirts here (wouldn't it be cute if they came in baby sizes?): http://www.zulkey.com/diary_archive_111306.html

Friday, November 10, 2006

Let it Snow!



OK, so I admit the sight of all of this white stuff coming down was a little bit depressing (especially considering we have yet to rake our lawn) but it all went away when Gavin got a good look at our winter wonderland, followed by a snowy walk with Keely bounding through the park like a wild horse on speed.


Not adding this one to my baking arsenal


So I'm on the Williams-Sonoma e-mail list and this beauty popped up in my inbox today: the "Stadium Bundt Cake" pan. I don't know, it kind of seems like they might be running out of ideas for stuff we can actually use, or maybe I need to do more tailgating. My apologies to anyone who has purchased said pan or whose first thought when they saw the picture was "Cool! I could really use one of those!" Oh, and please forget this post when in a few years I somehow end up making this cake for Gavin's birthday.

Wednesday, November 08, 2006


Just because... we enjoyed a beautiful day in the sunshine at Olbrich Gardens. Thanks for snapping this one, Kari! Posted by Picasa

Monday, November 06, 2006

Monday, October 30, 2006

Sunday, October 29, 2006


I'm 8 months old!!! Posted by Picasa

Saturday, October 28, 2006

What in the world...?

Stay tuned for the big reveal!!!!

Fun in the Florida sun



Gavin and I tagged along with Don to a work conference in Orlando... our hotel was near the Disney parks, but we decided Gavin was a bit young to take in all of the hoopla so we just hung out by the pool, took walks and enjoyed the sunshine (and his naps finally allowed me to read my book club book for this month called "Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette wore to the revolution," interesting stuff about how she used clothing to achieve power but her devotion to clothes also ended up being her undoing. One thing I learned: she never said "Let them eat cake," that is a myth apparently). It was hard to come back home to the rapidly approaching winter, but we are glad to be home, too!

Sunday, October 15, 2006


Thanks for the cool jammies Aunt Kate! Posted by Picasa

Monday, October 02, 2006

Wedding weekend in New Jersey



We spent the weekend in New Jersey for the wedding of Don's brother Chris and our new sister-in-law Kathy! We were so happy to help them celebrate and really enjoyed meeting some of their friends we had heard so much about. We had a great time seeing family we don't get to see often and Don had a great toast as the best man.

We also went to see Don's hometown of Bridgewater, N.J., where we drove by his two old houses, his church, the A&P where he bagged groceries and the schools he went to. (Gavin missed out as he was napping in the car). It was Gavin's first plane ride and he did pretty well considering we did not have direct flights and he was especially worn out on the way home after the busy weekend. We learned a lot of things about traveling with him that will help us in the future! And when we got home, he was so excited to be back and see his room and his toys and his dog, he was squealing and giggling with delight : )

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Go Big Red!


It's never too early to start building that school spirit...

Bucky Badger admired Gavin's style and gave him some tips for doing push-ups and the polka. Gavin pondered how much cool stuff there is to learn between now and the fall of 2024 and whether Mike Leckrone will still be directing the Marching Band then.

Wednesday, September 20, 2006


bottom teeth! Posted by Picasa

Top teeth! Posted by Picasa