Thanksgiving!

We had a fun thanksgiving this year!!! Great food, great friends

Occoquan

had a fun sunday in Occoquon VA on the Occoquon river. It is a nice little tourist town with great pies! Evie had fun seeing seagulls on the dock

Fun at the playground!!

evie's hand turkeys

ever since we taught her this she wants more more more

meow!

bunny!!

Early Christmas Gift from Gma and Gpa

these are the petits fours I got for Louie's birthday. There's a cute little doggy bakery on 8th street SE where I walk to go to work, so I stopped on my way home. He enjoyed them thoroughly.




We got a surprise package from Amazon - Evie's Christmas gift from Grandma and Grandpa Pollari...... So, this post is for them to see how she reacted when she got it and started playing with it.



It's a music, learning, and video interactive station. She was very excited to begin playing on it.
She had very little patience for waiting while the batteries were installed....

But once they were, she got to playing and dancing right away....

She also likes to imitate the dog on the game..it's funny

thank you Grandma and Grandpa!

Oh, also, Priscilla enjoyed the box it came in....

birthday boy

happy 10th old boy . we love u mucho

slide!

evie is a fully fubnctional slider now. 60 degrees and sunny today. mom got to play hookie from work, do some shopping, and hit the playground w/E. it doesn't get much better :-)

Empathy is not a dirty word.

We in this household think empathy is a very important trait to have. If everyone in the world had a healthy dose of empathy, the world would be a much better place. We are very proud to say that Evelyn is learning to be empathetic already!

It is unfortunate than an ignorant demagogue (who will remain nameless) claims empathy is somehow synonymous with hitler ... and leads to very bad decisions... like the holocaust...

As usual, this demagogue is wrong... Empathy is great to learn and great to learn early:
"Children who are empathic tend to do better in school, in social situations, and in their adult careers. Children and teenagers who have the greatest amount of skill at empathy are viewed as leaders by their peers."

Below is a video of Evie looking at a burn Roxanne got on the stove. I was so surprised the first time she saw it... I have never seen the look on her face before.. it looked like she was going to cry and she said.. "Owww-a" in the sadest voice I have ever heard. She was sad that her mommy had an owie. For a kid under 2, we think that is pretty special.

Countdown to Louie's 10th Birthday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Nov. 9th!!

Louie got his first birthday card ever!!! Thanks Nick Jessamyn and Elena for the card!

someone is an excellent artist!!

A better louie representation I have not seen!!
I am guessing on Louie's 10th Birthday he is gonna party so much he will puke!! (those of you who know Louie well also know this wont be much of a deviation from his normal daily activity).