the year in pictures

january

february

march

april

may

june

july

august

september

october

november

december

meeting ayla

Stefanie, Adam and Ayla came over tonight. This was Matteo’s first time meeting Ayla. He was initially a little wary but quickly warmed up to her. He kept trying to touch her and hold her hand. I think they’re going to be good friends.

camp – day 2

Even more kids showed up today! The local prep sports writer is also going to write about the camp in his weekly column, which will run later this week.

Matteo came too. Here he is with the varsity team captains.

makeshift blanket

I forgot to put Matteo’s blanket back in his crib with him when he woke up at 5 this morning. (He still likes to sleep with his legs lightly swaddled.) When I went to check on him at 7 this is how I found him, poor little guy.

camp – day 1

Matt’s basketball camp started today. There were more than 40 kids there! They’ve raised a lot of money already and hopefully will raise even more selling the rest of the shirts we ordered. I signed the kids in this morning and it was really fun to look in the gym and see all these kids lined up wearing our shirt. We pulled it off!

words

john lennon, father

From the current issue of Esquire:

“I go to the park on Sundays. And I see men pushing babies. And it’s beautiful. They don’t know that John was the first one to do that. The very first one. No man would be caught doing that before John.” – Yoko Ono

not a fan of bedtime

Since Matteo started crawling, sleeping times have become a real challenge. He doesn’t want to go to sleep because he knows there is this big, new world to explore. This is just the beginning, isn’t it?

christmas books

Matteo loves books and received some really great ones for Christmas. Here he is with Matt on Christmas morning reading one of Mo Willems pigeon books. He’s pretty into it, don’t you think?

I read on someone’s blog recently (I can’t remember which one) about their family’s Christmas tradition of leaving a book at the foot of their kids’ beds for them to wake up to every Christmas morning. I like the idea of a child’s first Christmas gift always being a book so I’m starting this too. This year we couldn’t leave a wrapped book in his crib since Matteo eats any kind of paper he can get his chubby mitts on. But because he does try to eat paper, our inaugural Christmas book was an Indestructibles. He LOVED it. It really is indestructible and the illustrations are gorgeous. I highly recommend these to anyone with a baby about this age who is eating everything in their path.

I got Matteo Mama and Baby, I couldn’t resist. The last picture is a brown-haired mama and a blue-eyed baby, just like us. Awww.

smith island cakes

A couple of years ago Matt and I were home visiting my family in Maryland when we discovered the joy that is the Smith Island Cake. Smith Island is a tiny island in the middle of Chesapeake Bay that is only accessible by boat and where the residents still speak with an English dialect. It’s also known for making chocolate cakes with anywhere from 8 to 15 layers in them.

Already a big fan of yellow cakes with chocolate frosting, the Smith Island cake quickly trumped all chocolate frosted yellow cakes that came before once Matt had a bite of its many-layered deliciousness. After our trip I learned how to make it myself. While tasty, mine doesn’t have quite the same professionalism as the ones made back in Maryland. My version has been dubbed ‘The Chocolate Bomb’ by friends, not just because of its contest but also because of its appearance – for some reason mine always turn out kind of round. Here is one I made for Matt’s birthday last year. See what I mean?

ANYWAY, the point of this story is my mom sent Matt an authentic Smith Island cake this year for Christmas. Now THIS is how a real Smith Island cake is supposed to look with properly stacked layers.

And the taste? Beyond delicious. If you want to know what I mean, you can order one for yourself here.

Thanks Mom!