Pie Noon and Other Thanksgiving Fun

We hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving and lots of yummy food!
Our fun tradition of Pie Noon continued this year with our biggest group of relatives yet! I think the total count was 23 people...in our house! Luckily, the weather was gorgeous so after the many many pies were consumed, folks went outside to play football and then a little basketball. it was such a great time! 4 of the 6 Dutilly cousins now live here with respective spouses and children so that filled out our numbers quite a bit! Martin's brother and his family were in town and joined the fun as well. The first photo is just a small shot of Pie Noon and then i had to throw in a shot of the football game (is Dan about to tackle Anna? what a bully! hee hee)...and one of those of us who opted not to play :) (that one's for you Aunt marj!) Sharon stayed out of the fray for this part of the day and hung out with Namom.
Sharon enjoyed the pies and then we had dinner at my parents' house and she ate her entire plate of food! Saying "yummmy" all the while...and then had MORE pie. Yay Sharon!
Today we did some shopping (believe it or not, i've come to love it every year...i used to laugh at Black Friday shoppers, but now i love it for some reason...). And then RJ spent a long afternoon and evening chopping and splitting wood (the sole way we heat our house). he's been long looking forward to when Sharon is old enough to lend a hand with this chore. He gets very sore from constantly leaning over to pick up pieces of wood and so Sharon was able to help him today for the first time. she was VERY proud of herself and took her job very seriously. in this shot she is handing him wood but it's a bit of a blur. Maybe by next year she'll be able to help even more!

dancing!!!

So, Sharon had her first dance recital this Saturday!!! Grandpa Baer drove all the way from Florida to come and watch and boy did Sharon enjoy having him as a playmate! he would try to sit for a moment and Sharon would come and grab him to come play again...very fun.
Anyway, back to the recital. I expected Sharon to freeze up in front of the audience and in the big performance space and she did :) Her volunteer was great and made sure she had fun, but anytime Sharon would look out and hear clapping or see the people she would just stop whatever she was doing. Very cute! She did heartily participate in the jumping part of the dance though, with a huge smile on!
While i wish that she smiled in her picture with Grandpa Baer, that expression pretty much captures her overwhelmed feeling for the whole ordeal :)

In other news, we've switched seizure meds again. We have loved the one she's been on that is temporary but have known that it won't last. So we're in the process of getting her off her first med and onto this next one. It's always a rough time when meds are switched: seizures can occur more often in this time and also the side affects can come through (with this new one, Sharon gets pretty dizzy and loopy after taking it so we have to watch her really closely when she's up and around). Of course our hope is that this new one will do the trick and not have negative side effects so that we don't have to change again....time will tell!
Thanks!

Sharon is going to be a big sister!!!

So, it's time to start spreading the news....Sharon is going to be a big sister in June 2009! She of course doesn't know this yet...we'll wait quite a few more months before trying to explain to her the strange concept of "baby in mommy's belly, your world will never be the same, share all your toys, your parents, etc etc"...She's going to be VERY excited though. She absolutely LOVES babies and is going to be a fantastic big sister!
So, people have questions and here are some brief answers to the ones i get asked most often:
No, we will NOT be finding out if it's brother or a sister until he/she is born.
Yes, this was planned and we are very happy (we really wanted to wait long enough to give Sharon a chance to be mobile and have a chance to really be the "big sister" so we think the timing is wonderful)
Yes, i am sick as can be and do NOT like being pregnant at all. If you knew me with Sharon, i was very sick for 7 months so we'll see how this one goes but so far it's not looking good...RJ is having to pull triple duty by working, cooking, and basically taking care of things while i avoid things food-related...
Yes, we will be having a planned c-section for obvious reasons.
YAY! Should be very fun and i'm just praying that i get a relief from being so sick so that i can really enjoy this time with Sharon before it gets more crowded :)

Theatre buff?

So, Zac, my mom, and myself just completed a run of "The Sound of Music" (my mom and i were nuns while Zac was Friedrich, one of the VonTrapp children). It was a big production and i hoped that Sharon might be able to tolerate a little bit of a matinee just so she could see Zac on stage and maybe be able to watch me as a dancer in the party scene (picking out my mom and I among the nuns was nearly impossible!). RJ brought her in hopes of making it to intermission before having to leave (dark theatres, strange people, costumes, noise, all are things that scare Sharon quite a bit). Well, i just about fell down when i walked down the aisle (singing in latin as a good nun would) and saw her there after intermission! She actually sat through the entire (very long!!) show!! Rj said that EVERY time Zac came on stage she'd say "Daddy, daddy, ZAC!!!" I'm so proud of my little theatre girl!!!! (and of her daddy for sitting through a play he hopes never to have to watch again! Ah well, you win some, you lose some!)

Happy Halloween!

So, this year's theme was the Wizard of Oz...
We had Glinda, the Wicked Witch, the Lion, Toto (in the basket!), Dorothy (oh yes, that's RJ...check out the ruby slippers!), and in the background we had uncle Jason as the Twister (as only he can pull off: dressed in a long robe, doing the twist!)
Rose's friend came along as the cat.
Sharon really enjoyed herself this year and has been carrying around her bucket of candy since Friday night. Luckily she's more interested in carrying it than eating the candy :)