Hanging out in South Bend with Aunt Kerri and Uncle Eric

We spent the week before Thanksgiving in South Bend at Kerri and Eric's house.  It was fun to see their house all decorated, get a glimpse into their normal lives, and just get to spend time with them.

Compared to our house- Kerri and Eric's seemed like a zoo to Samantha.  We all know who is going to teach her about animals.  Here Samantha meets Junior, the bearded dragon.

After her encounter with Junior we had a little bath :)

Bath time is getting a little harder!

On Tuesday we visited Kerri and Eric at Notre Dame.  Eric works in the same building where Kerri has her lab.  Kerri's office wasn't all that interesting- you know typical grad student desk in the basement, but Eric's space was a bit more interesting.  Here we are with the little fishies and froggies- those are the technical terms of the lab animals of which Eric takes care (Kerri and Eric are rolling their eyes at me right now).

To continue the Martin family animal trend- Rocky- Kerri and Eric's part-time dog came and visited on Tuesday night.  He was great with Samantha.

Also we are obsessed with blowing raspberries these days when we should be smiling for pictures.

Oh and waving- Samantha does lots of waving these days.

While I was putting S to sleep, Andrew tried his hand at baking- delicious snicker doodles!  How did I get a husband that was so talented in the kitchen!

And we enjoyed the snicker doodles while playing a game of Dixit- and Henry came to join us for it.

It was very snowy on Wednesday so we spent some time snuggling inside- what a tickly and smiley little nugget!

You can't see them all in this picture, but she now has six teeth that are almost all the way in!

We tried Samantha outside for a few moments- it's really the first time she had ever experienced snow, and she definitely didn't know what to make of it.  

P.S. This is the snow suit I wore 29 winters ago.

Still snowing- South Bend got just under a food of snow while we were there.

She loves her Daddy!  (and seriously loves riding on shoulders these days)

And Wednesday afternoon some special visitors showed up- Nana, Granddad, and Lanie- who had driven twelve hours all the way from New York to be with us for Thanksgiving!

We celebrated Andrew and Eric's birthdays that night- both of them have birthdays in the ten days before Christmas!

Samantha also got a few presents from Nana and Granddad to prepare her for Christmas.

Unsurprisingly she was more interested in the wrapping paper than the presents.

We had a lot of fun on Thursday- but I'll tackle Thanksgiving in my next post.  On Friday we spent the morning touring Notre Dame's campus. Someone was happy to have some company in the back seat.

We braved the cold for a little bit.

The golden dome!

Back at home and crawling around- very busy little girl!

With Aunt Kerri :)

And with Nana!

Miss Samantha loves her grandparents!

(And this is what Lanie does when we pay attention to Samantha- moping in the corner)

And here's Samantha's parents being ridiculous.  White person eyes?

Asian eyes?

Happy baby!

Oh and she's clapping a bunch now- so cute!

Love this family!

Visiting the Martins

Just as soon as we had arrived in South Bend we headed out again- this time to celebrate Thanksgiving a little early with Eric's family in Decatur ,Indiana.  The Martins were so gracious to host us last minute, and we enjoyed getting to take part in their holiday festivities!

Sisters and husbands :)

Someone woke up from her nap!

Eric's family

And someone was very tired - she slept both ways on the two hour drive to Decatur!

Thanks for having us, Martins!

Chicago

Last weekend we headed to Chicago for the wedding of Carolyn Pichert, a dear friend from Princeton with whom I spent a summer working for Vida Joven DR many years ago.  It was a bit of a shock to get off the plane and immediately feel like winter had arrived, but we heard the East Coast also had a cold front go through while we were there. 

We arrived a day early so that Andrew could do some stuff for work, and while he had a meeting on Friday, Samantha and I spent some time in the Evanston public library.

And I had some lunch with this thoughtful little one.

After Daddy's meetings we spent a few moments walking around millennium park and the loop. Too bad it was too cold to go farther!

On Friday night we had deep dish pizza at Lou Malnati's with Greg and Jeanette and their son Jeremy.  Andrew and Greg have spent a lot of time together (in person and on the phone) as part of Manna's board, but we had yet to meet Jeanette or Jeremy, who was born in August.  It was great to hang out with the whole Lee family!

On Saturday, Kerri and Eric drove in from South Bend to watch Samantha while we went to Carolyn's wedding.  They stayed busy looking at the fish in the lobby at our Embassy Suites.

And eating lunch at Chick-fil-a with this proper little lady.  (Side note- I'm so pleased with Chick-fil-a's accommodations for little ones- they had a kids meal that had little pieces of grilled chicken and fruit and stick on placemats so that kids can eat off the table while using their high chairs- way to go Chick-fil-a!)

While Samantha was in good hands we headed off to Chicago for Carolyn and Blaine's ceremony at their church.  The ceremony was absolutely beautiful- we sang two or my favorite hymns and Dr. Timothy Keller, basically our favorite deliverer of sermons ever and Carolyn's uncle, gave a profound and thoughtful homily.  And of course there was the gorgeous bride at the center of it all!

The reception was at City Winery.  Because it was a brunch reception on a very cold day, Carolyn and Blaine planned donuts and cider for the cocktail hour- so perfect!  We loved catching up with some Princeton people we hadn't seen in a while. Here I am with Natalie and Emily.

And with my handsome husband :)

And as part of the reception, Hahna's extremely talented husband, Wendell, played some music for everyone to enjoy.  Take a listen!

And a shot with the gorgeous bride!  Love you, Pichert! (Can I call you that still?) Can't wait to spend more time with you and Blaine soon!

Visit from the Finn-Santanas!

Katie, Steven and Maddie came to visit his past weekend.  It's nice to have Katie and family only a car ride away, after years of flying back and forth across the country to see each other.  The last time we saw them was for the wedding, so it was good to have more time to actually chat and just be with their family.  

Just like the last time we hung out with the Finn girls, Maddie was awesome with Samantha.  Unfortunately, this time, we couldn't get the younger cousin to stay still in Maddie's lap.

Despite Samantha's inability to sit still, she really showed this time how much she loved her older cousin. On Saturday morning the girls were up bright and early so I had an hour to watch them play in their pajamas, and I loved seeing how Samantha wanted to do everything Maddie was doing.  

Later we headed to Princeton to show Steven the campus, while Andrew played in an alumni tennis match.  Katie and I had some moments of nostalgia walking around campus and showing Steven and Maddie where we lived and studied. It definitely made us miss all the people that used to be around campus, though.

Maddie with "Oval with Points."

 The whole family :)

 Maddie knew how to keep a hungry and tired Samantha happy- seriously best big cousin ever.

 Outside Colonial- one of us really doesn't like the sun in her eyes!

Back home and post-nap Samantha wanted to show Maddie how she likes crawling around the living room- Maddie happily obliged even when S crawled away.

Some cute parents.

On Sunday after church we headed to the local playground- we found some scary two headed monsters there!

One group pic right before they left (photo courtesy of 6 year-old Tyler next door who is an iphone pro- notice the shorter perspective).

Miss you Finn-Santanas!  Come back anytime!!!

Around the house in November

Even though we've been gone for most of the weekends in November, the perk of not working is that I'm at least home during the week. Samantha has been busy like always even when we're around the house.

She has discovered the magnets on the fridge.

And we can't leave shoes on the floor anymore.

Our favorite food these days is clementines- Daddy is an expert clementine peeler for our Samantha- expert clementine eater.

She has also started sleeping in this weird folded position.

Playing in the bedroom.

Just lounging.

And playing :)