Last week, as Mom is in Florida, I had the pleasure of spending a day with my nephews while Joe and Amy went to work. I spent the morning with Brian as Justin was in school. Brian is basically into climbing up onto everything at this point – chairs, tables, boxes, toys, me AND he seems to be completely fearless. Once Justin came home from school we had lunch together and played with cars and blocks. Then – nap time. I put Brian down and then Justin and I read a little bit before his nap. Justin loves books and he told me about each one he and Amy had taken out of the library, before picking one for us to read together. After the naps we went back to the blocks until Amy and Joe came home. It was a really fun day – they are such good kids – but I’ll admit, I was pretty exhausted by bedtime :)

For anyone who hasn’t heard the fabulous news, Peter and Maria are expecting twin girls this coming spring! A few weekends back Maria’s mom threw her a baby shower at the Hotel Marlow. We had a great brunch, and got to visit and catch up with family and see all the fun gifts people brought for the twins. Peter dropped by towards the end of the shower in time to help with some gift opening. In the photo above he is modeling a quilt that Chrissy made. We are all very excited for Peter and Maria and can’t wait to meet the newest members of the family. Click on the photo above to see the pics from the shower.

This past Saturday we all got together for a pizza dinner at our house to casually celebrate Aaron, Peter and James’ birthdays. With the family continuing to grow our focus has shifted some from each other to our nieces and nephews (and we’re not complaining). We spent the evening playing legos with Justin, chasing Brian (who somehow manages to be everywhere at once), trying to get Alice to smile and getting updates on how Maria is feeling. We feel pretty lucky to have family as friends. Click on the image above of Peter, James and Alice to see the album of photos from the evening.

For Aaron’s birthday, I surprised him with a weekend trip to New York City. As an additional surprise I asked his mom to join us and meet us there. Unfortunately due to weather on Friday night, her flight was canceled, but she was able to get on an early flight Saturday morning and arrived to surprise Aaron before we went out to brunch. We did lots of good eating while in New York. On Friday night, Aaron and I returned to Artisanal, a bistro we’ve been to before that has fantastic cheeses. Then on Saturday we had brunch at Sarge’s, a Jewish deli and dinner at Mario Batali’s Babbo (Babbo was Aaron’s final surprise. Getting a reservation at this place was quite a challenge). Finally, on Sunday we had a yummy pancake brunch at a Sarabeth’s. While in New York, we did do things other than eat: we walked around the city, visited the Empire State Building and Central Park. Check out the album of photos from our weekend. It was a very successful weekend (if I do say so myself), and a seamless birthday surprise. Hmmm, what will I do for next year?