10 months

kate is 10 months today.

had a little photo shoot in the back yard. :)
pretty soon she will be a year old. sigh.

to the 'burgh and back

jesse, the kids, and i just returned home from pittsburgh, where we spent a week visiting with friends and family. it seemed like we didnt stop for a minute. even when the kids napped, there was always something to do or somewhere to be.

saturday we spent the day celebrating gramma mclane's birthday. we were joined by aunt michal and cousins ryan & lindsey, who travelled from state college, pa to spend the day with us. uncle kevin and aunt brianne were also there (taking some great pictures of the cousins!)

gramma, lindsey, and kate

jacob and ryan

sunday we spent the day relaxing with jesse's family- gammie and pappie, uncle josh & aunt heidi, aunt joey, aunt rachael, and great-gramma "Gi-Gi".

jacob, pappie, and uncle josh

the pié family

monday we ventured to the pittsburgh zoo with aunt joey, my cousin emily, and her kiddos silas and phineas.

kate and her 2nd cousin, silas, who is 1 month older than her

tuesday, aunt brianne treated us to a day at the pittsburgh children's museum where they had a special Bob the Builder display (aka jacob's dream world). we couldn't get a good picture of jacob, we was moving so fast from tractor to tractor!

aunt brianne and kate

kate enjoyed bob the builder too!

jacob, trying to steal a tool from Bob

jacob obviously doesn't know how to read yet :)

tuesday evening we enjoyed a chaotic dinner with high school friends- 6 kids under the age of 6, and only 6 adults, 3 of which were trying to cook dinner! it was good to see you all- as crazy as it was! and delicious fajitas, julie! :)


on wednesday (the highlight of the week for jesse and i) we left the kiddos with gammie and pappie for the day and headed up to cook forest state park. we went on a 10 mile canoe trip down the clarion river with jesse's brother and his wife heidi. it was such a peaceful, relaxing day. we had a wonderful time with josh and heidi. thank you guys for being such great hosts! i was so mad at myself for not getting my camera out even once that day- it was so pretty there. :(


thursday and friday were more relaxed days, but we still kept busy. we went to the playground, had lunch at chick-fil-a, and visited uncle kevin and aunt brianne's warehouse, 80stees.com (where you can get great t-shirts for the kid in us all! and if you want 15% off your order, just enter the coupon code cjp121980).

even though we had a great time in the 'burgh, it is good to be back home. jacob proved himself capable of napping in a real bed while we were there, so tonight we switched his crib over to a toddler railing. we are anxious to see how he does. so far, so good.

a conversation with daddy

kate and daddy had a long, interesting conversation after dinner tonight. wish i knew what they were talking about!

moustache monday

who would have known i'd be using the word moustache on my blog for the 2nd time this month? but since this day only rolls around but once a year, i had to commemorate the occasion with a blog post and a couple great pictures.

moustache monday is an official holiday for the guys who work in the AiG/Creation Museum art studio and fabrication department. if you are a facebooker, you can read about it here. my husband just happens to be one of the coordinators. oh yea...they are pretty serious about it.

this poster was created by one of the artists and participants, james "the laminator" de leon

jesse and i both agree that he looks just flat out creepy with a moustache. it was shaved off within 5 minutes of him being home this evening. :) but it gave them all a good laugh!

this was kate's reaction to daddy's 'stache :)

(it's a smile, not a scream ;) )

teething

i find it so appropriate for kate to finally be getting her first tooth this week, because this was the week that jacob and i ventured to the dentist. i was having tooth pain and jacob was complaining of ouchies in his mouth, so we both paid a visit to dr wallace. turns out my tooth pain was not from my wisdom teeth (which ARE coming in- so bizarre for a 28-year old to be cutting teeth!?) but rather it was what the dentist called "popcorn-itis" -a piece of popcorn logged in my gum, causing a bit of infection. gross, i know, right! he said it's common, so i will hold onto that, knowing that i am "normal". :)
and jacob's mouth pain was not a cavity, which i was dreading. but he too, is cutting his last set of molars and the dentist said that is what was giving him pain. (side note- jacob did not make it easy for dr wallace to look in his mouth to find this out. it was only after 5 minutes of pursed lips and clenched jaw that jacob began to cry, which opened up his mouth nice and wide. oh the torture to be had at the dentist's!)

a package is delivered

i panicked while mowing the lawn this afternoon. i turned around and an unfamilar pick-up truck was in the driveway. panic quickly turned to relief, as i realized it was just the petersburg postal delivery lady. relief quickly turned to joy when i considered that she only pulls into the driveway when she has a package to deliver. a package?!? for MEEE????!

joy suddenly turned back to panic as i see jackson trying to jump into the passenger window. "no, jackson!!!"

ah, it's ok. mail lady assured me "it happens all the time." i sure hope so. how embarrassing. good boy, jackson- you were only protecting mommy while daddy was at work. :)

turns out the package wasn't for me....although addressed to me, it was full of shirts that my aunt sandra had picked up at a garage sale for jacob. thank you aunt sandra! jacob (mommy) loves them all! and to answer your comment- no, i don't have have the same garage sale clothing phobia that my mother has. most of jacob's clothes have been worn by other boys before they got to him...i think it's a smart way to shop!

tis the season for salsa

Mmmmm. gotta love this time of year. humidity is at it's all-time high. temperatures peak at 90 degrees. and tomato gardens are in full production. :) which means my kitchen is the happiest place to be...it's salsa time!


jalapeno, onion, cilantro, lime, bell pepper, garlic (sorry i didn't include you in the picture, garlic). everyone ready to be chopped into deliciousness?


ahhhhhh, give me some chips, i'm going in for a dip....

it's settled

ok, jesse and i have decided that kate looks like neither one of us. who does she really belong to? we want to know.

elbows and moustaches

you're right. they have nothing to do with each other (except for if you are really coordinated, you can touch your elbow to your moustache).

update on Lee and his elbow:
his surgery went well yesterday- the dr was able to fix everything and even hopes to have Lee start moving it somewhat tomorrow! God has been so good to the Nordines - from an orthopedic dr at our church who was able to perform the surgery, to the way the church family has gathered around this family with prayers, encouragement, and help with meals and yard work! you can read candace's update on her blog this morning.
(for those of you who don't know, lee is a good friend of our's and the husband of candace, who was formerly jacob and kate's babysitter. we've been praying for lee, who fell on sunday and broke, fractured, and dislocated his elbow.)



and on a sillier note, we had a little fun with the kids the other night at dinner. jacob was inhaling his sour cream (atop his quesadilla) when we noticed his sour cream moustache. we didn't want kate to feel left out, so she got one too. i guess you could say that jacob wasn't thrilled about us photographing his moustache, but kate was tickled about the whole event.

he must be faking it

we were convinced that jacob was teasing us as he limped around this morning, babying his right foot. but after 5 minutes or so, we were pretty sure that his 2 year old mind couldn't have held on to it for that long, and we knew something was wrong. we checked his leg and foot thoroughly for ouchies, a bite, a splinter, swelling, any kind of pain whatsoever- to no avail. an hour later, as jacob was no longer trying to walk but now crawling everywhere he went, is when we were worried enough to call the dr, who told us to head on into his office, he wanted to check it out for himself. so after jacob's nap we headed to the dr's office. we were quite baffled, as was the dr, since jacob seemed to have no pain, but would still not bear weight on his right leg. jacob even crawled around the exam room floor. (jesse and i were sure that we would get to the dr and jacob would miraculously be healed- you know like when you take you car to the shop and suddenly it doesn't make "that noise" for the mechanic). the dr diagnosed it as toxic synovitis and said the only treatment was ibuprofen. well, it seemed to do the trick. jacob got his first dose at the dr's and by the time we were home he was walking much better, and after dinner he played as if nothing had ever been wrong. i did notice the ibuprofen must have started wearing off by bed time, because i saw a little bit of limp. another exciting, exhausting day in the life of jacob benjamin pié. boy was he thrilled after dinner when he got to enjoy the sucker from the dr's office!

so we've notcied a lot more interaction between jacob and kate recently. she will giggle when he giggles, and he will squeal when she squeals. they go back and forth and it's pretty darn cute. he hasn't really paid much attention to her in her 9 months of life, but now we are starting to really enjoy watching the brother-sister relationship as they become more aware of each other.


she studies her big brother as he does everything- she has even been so bold as to try to share a toy with him (aka steal it out of his hands). jacob has started "mothering" her as she is now getting into things and places in which she doesn't belong. "no katie pie. no touch!" where has he heard that before??!
here's kate this morning playing with her brother's guitar


(sorry- her face is a little blurry- i never claimed to be a photographer- i am more of a point-and-shoot kind of a gal)

and here is baby-zilla, knocking down the beautiful road that jacob (aka mommy) built

"maybe brother won't see me if i try to grab that block over there."


on the 4th of july, it rained all day and we never got to use our sparklers. we found them last night and daddy and jacob enjoyed the sparklers for a bit (a 12-pack's worth of time). jacob was loving it!