So close...

...And yet so far away!

(I don't know if this video link is working...I'll try and resolve it, sorry. But you can view it here)


(Especially if you keep pushing yourself backwards!)

Guess who's 6 Months Old Today...

Who, me??

Ellie Takes Manhattan

It'd been a long time since we took a nice road trip (since the trip to the Eric Carle Museum of Picturebook Art back in June), so we decided to take a spin down to the Big Apple.

Ann's cousins, Fred and Toni, were generous enough to let us stay with them at their house in Mahopac, NY (about 3.5 hours by car from Boston).

We had a great time visiting with Ann's (and Ellie's) cousins (Pete and Chris) and their families. Pete and his wife, Melissa, have three children: James (3), Hayden (2), and Ella (4 months old). If you remember about a year ago, we went down to New York to celebrate Chris and Kaiti's wedding. We spent Friday night with them.. going out for dinner to a great sushi place and hanging out around their home for desert (freshly-picked blueberries baked into a homemade pie).

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Toni, Fred, and Ellie

Ellie meeting her new cousin Ella (with her mom Melissa)

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Saturday morning we got up early and took off for the train station with Chris and Kaiti. The train pulled out of the station at 9:21 am and we were off to New York City... first stop: The Guggenheim.

"No, mom, I'm pretty sure we want to head Uptown for the Guggenheim."
(Ellie helped get us around the New York City subway.)

Everybody enjoyed the special "Frank Lloyd Wright: From Within Outward" exhibition at the museum. Even Ellie -- she tried to grab a few of the models, but we kept her at a safe distance.

Picture time in Bryant Park

After the Guggenheim, we met up with Ann's good friend from Santa Barbara, Phil (now living in Brooklyn) and hung out in Bryant Park enjoying the views of the Chrysler Building and Empire State Building

Ellie was too worn out for her picture in front of the Chrysler Building -- but woke up to enjoy the train ride back to Mahopac. Ellie absolutely loved the train rides, watching everything out the window.

It was a great weekend. We wished we had more time in NYC and with Ann's cousins. Next time we can take Ellie to FAO Schwartz...

Yummy...Solid Foods

Ellie has started mixing up her diet a little bit with the addition of some solid foods. We started a couple weeks ago with rice cereal and then folded in bananas. Ellie has since had some oatmeal cereal, avacados (didn't go over too well) and prunes.

I had wanted to wait until she was 6 months old, but she would get so upset when we were eating dinner. She really was ready. Immediately she took to the whole solid food thing. And she's not that messy of an eater (its all relative).

She has breakfast and dinner with us. The solids aren't meal replacements yet, just supplemental and adding a little variety. So far so good, except the avacados. But we'll try those again.

Next on the menu...carrots (if we can get her to wake up long enough...)

Open up those Golden Gates...

...California here we come. Or actually we already went and we're back in Boston.

Last weekend we took a long weekend and jet setted out to Santa Barbara for some quality time with grandparents and great-grandparents. We had a great time, and Ellie was a rock star.

Ellie with Great-Grandma and Great-Grandpa Van

Four generations of Calvetti (apparently I didn't get the memo to wear pink!)

Not only did she sleep the entire 6-hour flight out to CA (and back to Boston) but she was charming, and full of smiles and giggles for her great-grandparents, extended family, and friends. We took red eyes both to and from CA so the plane took off right around her bedtime and she had her own seat so things were definitely in our favor for the plane travel.

Ellie also experienced a lot of firsts:

• Her first airplane ride
• Her first restaurant highchair
• Her first time to the beach (the sand...not her favorite)
• Her first trip to the zoo (the gibbons were her favorite)
• Her first time seeing a real life caterpillar (a Monarch butterfly caterpillar no less)
• Her first piano lesson

Although it wasn't a restful vacation for us at all, we had a great time and really enjoyed seeing my side of the family.

Ellie and the entire maternal side of her family (except Aunt Susie, but we can photoshop her in).

Only a month until we travel to Chicago so she can meet the Harrer side of the family! I'm sure Ellie will be a rock star then too! She truly is an awesome kid!

5th month photos

So, I finally got around to posting photos from Ellie's fifth month on our flickr account. Things have been so busy that it was almost a month before I uploaded the photos from the camera!

There are some great photos of Ellie. It's amazing how much she has changed in the past month.

We are currently out in California visiting my parents and my grandparents. I'm sure we'll have some great stories and photos to share when we return.

Enjoy.

5 months old

I'm so excited that I can sit for my monthly dolphin photo!

and I got my highchair yesterday...although my mommy says I have to wait another month until I can have solid foods (she's afraid between starting foods and travelling it'll be too much for me and I'll stop sleeping again).