Samantha's first blog

Second biggest snowfall ever!

markmyers | December 20, 2009

Well, the snow has finally abated here, leaving a record 23.2 inches (58.9 centimeters for our European friends)! According to the news, this is the second largest snowfall we have ever received in this area. We shoveled four times yesterday and again today, taking turns for almost three hours. Here was the view from our back door this morning, ugh:

The streets were mostly empty, I feel bad for those who left their cars out there:

Our house looks nice in the snow, I will have to try to take some pictures at night with the Christmas lights on:

After we got through the drudgery of shoveling this morning, we of course had to take Sam out for a little while. She didn’t know what to think! She looks ready to play though!

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While we were snowed in today. . .

markmyers | December 19, 2009

Today we got a crazy amount of snow. There is already12 inches or more on the ground and the latest forecast is calling for 15-25 inches. It the most snow before Christmas we have ever seen. Since we were snowed in, we took some time to take a nice little family Christmas photograph. Once again, Sam comes through with a little smile for us :). Tomorrow we will take her outside for her first look at snow, we can’t wait!

I like this one too, she is blowing some bubbles for us.

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Sam’s first sleepover

pamelamyers | December 19, 2009

Last night, Sam had her first sleepover! Mark and I went to an Anonymous 4 concert in Philly. It is something we have been doing every year for about 8-10 years, we think. We really love Anonymous 4’s music. They tour every year about a week before Christmas when they have a concert at St. Mark’s Church on Locust Street. It is such a beautiful way to celebrate Christmas. So, despite knowing we would have Sam, we bought tickets this summer. The concert didn’t start until 8:00 pm so instead of picking Sam up at my mom’s house at about 10:30 at night, we thought it made sense to just let her sleep over. We picked her up early today because of the snow and when we got there, she was all smiles. My mom and Joe had a lot of fun watching her and said she was good as gold! She slept like a log and was a happy, fun baby the whole night. Mark and I missed her so much, but it is good to know that she can do a sleepover anytime! We need a night to ourselves once and a while (a date night of sorts), so it was good for everyone. We were just glad to get her smiley little face back!

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Thanks Sam!

markmyers | December 17, 2009

Our little Sam just gave us the nicest Christmas present we could ask for. We wanted to take some Christmas photographs of her but weren’t sure how she was going to be. I’ve really been enjoying taking most of the photographs on this blog but this time I wanted to do something special. I took my time setting up a nice studio shot in front of our Christmas tree with two umbrellas with strobes on light stands and had my camera on a tripod with a remote release. Pam lamented that I can never take photos like a normal person but I think she will now agree that the results were worth the effort 🙂 Pam dressed our little model up in a really cute dress that Aunt Barbara sent us (thanks!) and we then hoped for the best. As Sam can’t yet sit up on her own, Pam acted as a “puppetmaster” of sorts and held Sam up by keeping one hand on her back under her dress! The lengths we will go to in order to get a good photo….

The session started out a little slow until Pam suggested we bring out Sam’s favorite Christmas decoration, a little snowman that lights up and changes colors. Joan has one at her house and noticed that Sam really likes it so she bought one for us. Well, we turned that snowman on and Sam turned into a little smile machine! The first one here is our favorite but we like the other ones too!

Here’s the guy who brought out all the smiles. Thanks Mr. Snowman!

We couldn’t have asked for a better model, and she works for free! Thanks Sam!

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Ravioli Day 2009

pamelamyers | December 13, 2009

Every year for as long as Mark and I have been together we have upheld a tradition started by his Grandma Mancini — the making of ravioli for Christmas dinner. She was a true Italian grandma in the best sense of the word. Every time you were at her house, she was trying to feed you! She cooked all the time, and was always happy to share with her family. I am really glad I got to spend the time I did with her before she passed away. The whole experience of making the ravioli wouldn’t be the same if I didn’t know what Grandma Mancini was like.

Mark and his grandma were very close, so it is really important to Mark to keep this up every year, and it has become something that we all look forward to every year, not even so much for the food that comes out of it (which is yummy), but for just spending the family time together. We have a lot of fun kidding around and talking despite the fact that it is a lot of work — we make not only enough ravioli for dinner on Christmas, but enough so that we can all eat them a few times after Christmas. I think every year it winds up being around 500 ravioli or something crazy like that. We were all looking forward to making them this year with the babies around. Everyone gathered at our house — Rich (the dough maker), Sandi, Krista, my mom, and me (the fillers/ravioli makers), and Mark and Adam (the rollers) to start making the pasta! It went really well, despite the fact that it seemed every few minutes someone had to bail from the ravioli making to tend to a bored/hungry/tired baby.

Here are some pictures. This is us before we got started, and turned into a floury mess…..We can’t wait until next year when our little munchkins can eat the fruits of our labor!