Happy Holidays!

It's been a busy and fun week. Vince is on winter break, Marcy's brother and his family visited from Wenatchee, and the whole Hewitt crew got together for Christmas Eve. Miles LOVED having his cousins stay with us for several days and we enjoyed seeing Christmas through the eyes of little ones.

We hope you all had a very Merry Christmas and we wish you a safe and happy New Year!

PS: If you hover your mouse over the slide show you'll see the photo captions. Enjoy!

December 2009

Some fun pictures from this month (so far):

Santa!

A visit with the big man himself...

Miles practiced his request in the car on the way to the mall. (There is big pressure to get it right when you're putting in your request to Santa.) He wants a big Optimus Prime to play with his big Bumblebee tansformer (check!) and a Transformers cartoon (check!)

Jillian woke up from a nap just in time for the picture! When we asked Miles what Santa should bring Jillian he suggested diapers. I think Santa may just be able to make that happen! (check!)

Happy Thanksgiving

We hope you are all well and finding reasons to celebrate today. To all our family and friends (near and far) we are so thankful for you...today and always. Happy Thanksgiving!

Love,
Vince, Marcy, Miles, Jillian, & Basie



PS: Here are a couple projects Miles did at daycare last week with Grandma Barb--it's his tree of thanks (trees, friends, food, toys, mom & dad, home, God) and a pine cone turkey.

Eight years....

Then...

Now...

Pretty lucky, I'd say.

Miles' Four Year Pics

Miles turns 4!

We asked Miles a couple weeks ago if he'd like to have his birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese's this year. He pumped his fist in the air while emphatically shouting, "YESSSSS!" Mind you, he's never been to there. (Actually I had never been there either...amazing, but true.) I guess it demonstrates the power of commercials because they have certainly influenced their target demographic! Anyway, we invited a few of his buddies to join us for lunch last Thursday. They played, they ate, they met the rat...they had a great time.

Jillian turns three months old.

We looked at some old pictures of Miles last night from when he was the same age....the similarities are amazing. The Caruso genes are strong.

Renton's "Boo Carnival"

The week before Halloween, there was carnival-type event for kids put on by the city of Renton. Miles liked jumping in the inflatables and playing games for candy prizes but he wasn't too sure about the dad who was dressed up like wolf to match his daughter's Little Red Riding Hood costume. We couldn't blame him--it was scary looking. Other than that, it was a great way to get into the Halloween spirit. And Miles loved giving his Iron Man costume a trial run.

October

Here's the fist of several posts coming your way....a few pictures of the kids being their cute selves during October. (Yes, I know I'm biased...deal with it.)

Jillian shows off her faux-hawk. (Yes, it does it naturally.) That'll be fun to tame when she gets a little older.

Miles tries out a costume from his new dress-up bin. Buzz is cool. (And costumes found at a consignment sale for cheap are just as cool!)

JillyBean and dad.

Miles really wanted to help Vince mow the lawn. Priceless.

Jillian is smiling consistently enough to capture on film now. We love her dimples!

Vince Hits the "Big Time."

This article is from The Barque which is the student newspaper at Bellevue High School. It only took 9 years to get around to selecting Vince for an interview. Enjoy the read. Anybody notice what is odd about the photo in the article?


(you can click on the image to enlarge)

Two months old!

Jillian is two months old today! Wow! She's giving us glimpses of smiles and showing off dimples on both sides. She's sleeping well at night, is growing like a weed, and will have her two-month check-up later this week.

Miles loves learning!

Miles has been LOVING preschool! He's been singing new songs around the house, making new buddies, and enjoys deciding what to take for show-and-tell each Friday. He even surprised us just this morning by announcing that the fist Jillian was making was the letter A and then went on to show us B, C, & D in sign language. Amazing!

His class focuses on a letter a week and does all sorts of projects with each. Here's some of his A, B, and C work:

Jillian's Birth Announcement

Thank you Jesca for helping design and create this awesome birth announcement for Jillian!





.

Welcome to the family, Ara!

Congratulations to Vince's dad and stepmom--Jerry and Alica. (Or, as we call them around here, Guampa and Guama.)

This summer they were finally able to travel to the Philippines to retrieve their new daughter, Ara. The adoption process has been long, with several bumps in the road along the way. And while it will still take a while longer for the adoption to be finalized, all news from Guam is that everything is going well so far. Ara is adapting to her new home and family quite well and Jerry and Alicia are busy and very happy to be keeping up with a three-year-old.

Ara will celebrate her 4th birthday on November 14.

And so it begins...

Miles started preschool on Thursday. He goes two mornings a week for 2.5 hours.

Vince was able to sneak away from his school on Thursday to join us for a celebratory lunch after Miles' first day. Miles picked Wendy's ("It's way better than fast food, mom.") and as we ate lunch we asked him about his first day. His classic kid response when asked what he did at school that day: "I don't know." It starts so young.

Oh, and here's a cute story from the first day....

We had to put together a “comfort kit” to keep at school in case of an emergency (extra clothes, snack, photos of the family, etc.). The kit was supposed to include a small toy, so I picked up a couple “Go Diego, Go” matchbox sized airplanes at the store on Wednesday. Unfortunately, Miles found them in the car that afternoon. He really wanted to play with them, so I let him have them for the evening but made sure he understood that they would go to school the next morning for his emergency bag.

On Thursday morning as we got ready to go to his first day I loaded his “comfort” bag into his backpack and he asked about the planes. I reminded him that they are only for an emergency. As we drove to school that morning he declared from the back seat, “Mom, I need my planes. It’s an emergency!”