First Christmas

Gage spent a relaxing Christmas Day here in Sugar Hill with her mom and dad after a wonderful Christmas Eve with Gran, Grandaddy, Aunt Lindsey and Uncle Nathan. She loved all of her presents (and the wrapping paper!) and is in love with her new doll and the assortment of musical instruments that appeared beneath the tree. After a breakfast of eggs, grits and toasted pound cake (the best, you've got to try it!), we all bundled up and headed up to Cannon for some skiing. Although the lifts are closed on Christmas, we thought it would be fun to hike/skin for a ways and ski down for Gage's first ski. She was toasty and warm in her Ergobaby and Katie carried her up and skied down with her. She loved it and laughed the whole way down. Here are some pictures from the big day as well as some from Christmas Eve. We hope you have all had a wonderful Christmas and will have a happy New Year!

Our trip to North Carolina for Thanksgiving was great! Gage had a chance to visit with all of her aunts, and spend some good time cuddling and playing with Mere and GF. Rich and I were worried that she timed her first tooth with the trip - but all in all, the flights weren't too bad, and the drooling and crying were minimal. Gage is getting her first skis for Christmas (size 60 cm) that she can stumble around on in a few months and she was trying them on today (we were banking on the fact that she wouldn't remember them after we wrapped them up). We'll be in NH for Christmas and will eagerly be awaiting Gage's first visit from Santa. Here are some photos (sorry we've been negligent in our "uploading" duties) documenting a wonderful November! A special shout-out to Adelaide, Gage's first friend. They had a great time playing together in Greensboro and she was nice enough to try and teach Gage how to play the recorder but alas, Gage has our musical genes and just drooled on it.

Happy Halloween

I'm going to be a cow for Halloween...



Or if it is cold... a big blue blob!

stairs

Morning exercise






Phew... hard work.

Just for fun - hat head!

Joe the Plumber?

Fall Days (literally)

Here is a great example of foreshadowing by Katie. Be sure to watch until the end!





Fear not, Gage was neither harmed nor injured during the filming of this clip! Our apartment, while not blessed with modern appliances or attractive paint schemes, does have some very cushy carpets. We're enjoying some great fall weather in Deerfield and Gage has been enjoying the falling leaves and then trying to eat them!

She Crawls!

After a few weeks of fumbling and stumbling around the living room (sometimes covering a staggering 4 ft in 10 minutes!), Gage has put 2 and 2 together and started crawling today! She won't do it on command but put Luca's dirty, slimey tennis ball out in front of her and she's off! This certainly isn't the most sanitary object but the only one she really wants to gum. Below are some early videos and hopefully we'll have some more footage later in the week.

on the move

It's been a busy week...
I learned to wave bye-bye and to clap hands...
Just can't figure out this crawling thing.

I"m happy sitting



and even standing



Tried the crawling thing though


and just get frustrated


Soon!

A full house!

14 new housemates at the Calhoun's! The students are back and classes are underway. It has been a very busy last week with orientation and we are (all three) looking forward to a more routine schedule. A couple of photos from the last two weeks. Happy September!

A day of summer in August!

A day of sun meant a trip to Squam.

Gage loved her first dip in the lake. It is back to being rainy and in the 60s though today but we are finishing up our last minute projects (today, adding mulch to our backyard) before thinking about our return to Deerfield. It has been a busy August. Gage visited with Newt, Jess, Noah, and Maya and we got in some hikes, runs, bikes (thanks to Gran's babysitting Tuesdays) and Rich and I finally finished staining the deck. We even played got to play some hockey each week and Rich's photo (beautiful form thanks to his lovely coach) made the front page of the local sports section. The deck presented us with our biggest challenge though. It needed 24 hours of no rain and a day of successfull napping. ...it took till August but it is complete! We plan on visiting Carly in Maine before returning to work the day after labor day but other than that it is time to think of packing up and heading south to Mass. :( We will miss our NH summer.

July happenings

Apologies to all intrepid readers for our lack of updates as of late. We have all been enjoying a bunch of visitors and the lazy days of summer in NH. Gage and Katie are doing great and say hi to all. Here are some photos to make up for the lack of substantive news!

Luca love

Luca entertains Gage! A short but fun video. (We're back in Mass for Gage's xrays tomorrow)

Gage and Obama, Gage and Linds, and Gage and Gaga

Another whirlwind couple of weeks in the life of Gage. She welcomed Auntie Linds and UNCLE Nathan (so cool to finally say that for real) at their wedding and was grins for all the fam. She ate her first solids, and got to visit with her cousins, Alexis, Conner, and Cole all week at our house in Sugar Hill (although she will have to wait a year before she's all the way up the climbing wall with them). She got in her first hike in the Whites with Nel and Matt, lounged with Gaga, and cheered for Obama at her first political rally in Unity, NH. She was a trooper. We actually wondered if her smilie-ness all day long in Unity was almost a bit freakish ...we'll take it! Check out the photos and video.






(This is Rich now) We had an awesome time traveling south to the Obama/Clinton rally and the spectacle was something to behold. I hope the following helps you get a sense of the festivities. What was especially neat was having an Obama official grab us off the bus, bypass a line of over a thousand people and escort us through security to get in to the event because Gage was with us!