Thankful

 For this.

We hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

World Prematurity Day

Every 30 seconds. Think about that for a moment. Every 30 seconds a premature baby dies. Which means that each year 1.1 million babies die. In 2009, our beautiful daughter Annaleigh was one of those 1.1 million. We will never forget her beautiful eyes, her quiet, intelligent looks or the way she felt snuggled in our arms. Prematurity stole our baby girl from us, but we are lucky enough to have an amazing son and daughter who managed to beat the odds and overcome their premature birth to grow into the happy, healthy preschoolers they are today. Still, their journey was not without struggles and their 95 and 99 days spent in the NICU will haunt us forever. No baby should have to fight to survive the way ours did, and for that reason we will forever be a part of the battle against prematurity. Join us today by spreading the word and helping gain support for the March of Dimes. Like "World Prematurity Day" on Facebook to find out more!

Charlie, one day old weighing 1 lb 13 oz. That's Joe's wedding ring on his tiny arm.

Charlie today.

Lily, one day old weighing 1 lb, 8 oz.

Lily today.

Annaleigh, June 27-August 22, 2009.

Halloween and growing up

Oh New Jersey, how we hate your weather right now. First there was Hurricane Sandy, which hit the Monday before Halloween. Given the beating that most of the state took (and the fact that many of our friends are STILL without power) we got off easy. There was no damage to our house and we only lost power for about 52 hours. And, thankfully, my grandmother and sister never lost power at their homes so my sister kindly stored our food in extra freezer so nothing went bad and Nana offered up her house to us so we had a nice warm, well lit place to take shelter. Hooray for family! And then, yesterday, we got a snow storm. On November 7th. Because, you know, Mother Nature hates us. We got several inches, but again, we are lucky compared to some other areas which got significantly more snow that caused people to lose power AGAIN. Not cool, weather gods. Not cool. But anyway, in between the hurricane and snow storm, we squeezed in Halloween. So what if we trick-or-treated on November 5th and it was freaking freezing? Charlie and Lily got to wear their costumes and had a blast.

I present to you Lily the Owl.

And Charlie as Thomas the Tank Engine. (Joe made that costume. How awesome is it?!? To say that Charlie loved it would be an understatement.)

Charlie and Lily trick-or-treated with their friend Grace. Grace is in their preschool class and lives just one block over from us and the kids both love her. As a flamingo, Grace added a little flare to our group.

The kids definitely weren't shy about going up to houses for candy. Charlie even walked right into a few, lol. And as we made our way down the sidewalks Lily kept flapping her "wings" and whoooo-ing while Charlie could be heard saying, "I'm Thomas. Yes I am" and "I'm just chugging along!" Ha!

MomMom was kind enough to stay at our house to hand out candy while we were gone, and when we returned she had some special treats for Charlie and Lily including socks, goldfish crackers, pretzels and Thomas and Dora DVDs.

Then Lily decided to give dressing up one more go and put together this fashionable ensemble of MomMom's shoes, purse and witches' hat.

In other news, this boy right here? He's potty trained!!! Halleluiah! One down, one to go. (I'm looking at you, Miss Lily...)

Due to good old Hurricane Sandy, Joe's school has been closed for two weeks. TWO WEEKS. So we decided to make use of his time at home and move Charlie and Lily from cribs to beds. Joe and his mom came up with the idea for this great Minnie wall hanging for Lily to go along with her new Minnie bed.

We saw this Thomas bed in Toys R Us and knew that Charlie needed it. My sister found a great deal on this one on Craigslist so I snapped it up.

Their first nap in the beds took place this afternoon and they did pretty well. No one got out of bed at least. My fingers are crossed for tonight!

And finally, I have to thank all of the people who contributed to Love, Annaleigh this week. The St. Peter's Foundation was in need of baby items for families who were suffering the effects of the hurricane. We put out the word through Love, Annaleigh and were overwhelmed by the amount of items donated to us - blankets, diapers, onesies, bibs, wash clothes, pack n' plays...you name it! A special thanks to our friend Betsey for organizing a collection in her area and delivering everything to St. Peter's. The kindness and generosity we see never ceases to amaze us!