Celebrate! Unity

Yesterday Unity celebrated her first Thanksgiving day. We usually spend the Thanksgiving holiday in New Jersey with my family. Unity had a blast with her Meme and Pop Pop, and numerous Aunts and Uncles. She spent most of the day showing off all the new things she can do!

We arrived in New Jersey on Wednesday night. We were uncertain how Unity would handle the 3.5 hour drive. She is so off and on with the car. We were lucky this time and she slept most of the ride. Hopefully the ride home is as calm. On Thursday Unity woke up as usual around 5:30am. Mommy and daddy experience no mercy regarding Unity's early morning schedule. She spent the morning hanging out with her grandparents and crawling all over their apartment. After which we all went to Unity's Auntie Mary's for dinner and festivities.

In the past month Unity has really mastered crawling. She is always on the go! We are really excited about this because she has been so ambitious about walking that we were fearful she would skip this critical step. About 2 weeks ago Unity has started to lift herself into a standing position. She stands up, turns around and proceeds to walk.. then quickly realizes that she does not know how to walk yet and comes crashing down. At this rate we are expecting Unity to have taken her first step by Christmas. Although we would like it if she waited a few more months.

Unity has also started to attempt words. She crawls around the house repeating "da da da da". She now calls me "adah" and will whisper it in my ear. She also waves hello and bye bye to people and attempts to say "Hi" though it is more like "hahhhh". She is also investigating the louder ranges of her voice and now realizes she can scream... unfortunately.

We are staying in New Jersey till Saturday night. We had a relaxing day today and Unity enjoyed a nice afternoon window shopping and watching Christmas carolers in Chester Village. Tomorrow we will try to get some time in with friends and then head back to Rhode Island at Unity's bed time.

Today was the first official celebration of the holiday season. As we celebrated with our little giraffe (Unity's costume) we enjoyed a relaxing seasonal mood and lifted spirits. This past week Unity has been busy with seasonal party's and spooky events. Halloween is one of our favorite holidays and today Unity celebrated her first Halloween with us.

Last weekend we took Unity to Roger Williams "Spooky Zoo". Spooky Zoo is an event designed for children. The zoo is all dressed up in spooky Halloween garb with themed events for children. Unity dressed up in her Halloween costume and enjoyed the fun crowd, live music, and of course her favorite animals.

Later in the week Unity attended her first Halloween party at Bellani. Bellani is where Jessica and I bring Unity for her weekly play groups. This is a great opportunity for her to interact with other children her age and for parents to collaborate about how they enjoy their children and what tricks work for them. At the Halloween party another girl was dressed up as a green fairy and her outfit made Unity laugh so hard. Every time the little green fairy walked by Unity would fall to pieces.

Today we spent the morning with a tasty breakfast and spooky stories. We finished our morning in East Greenwich where we caught the after of the communities Halloween parade. It was unseasonably hot today so Unity did not wear her giraffe costume. In the afternoon we all played in the leaves as the wind picked up and then in the evening we took Unity out trick-or-treating around the neighborhood. All our neighbors got quite a kick out of Unity and some had special Halloween gifts for her. Unity had so much fun walking from house to house in her giraffe costume. She was bouncing and laughing the whole time!

Unity ended her day playing with her new toys and watching The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. We have been slowly transitioning her to a later bed time all week with hope that she adjusts without pause from DST back to EST. After Unity fell asleep we attempted to light a fire outside to commence our Halloween tradition. But as usual in RI it was rained out. This is the forth year in a row that our Halloween has been rained out.

Unity had a great first Halloween! We are in full anticipation of the coming holidays and are excited to have Unity here to join in the festivities.

Fall is our favorite time of the year. The coming of Fall signals a drop in temperatures to more acceptable levels, a clearer / earlier dark sky for easier star viewing, Oktoberfest, the release of many choice brews, and the anticipation of winter starts to set in with a lurking inner excitement. Amongst many other things it also signals the start of the holiday season that makes everybody just a bit more festive.

Jessica and I have many Fall traditions and this year we get to introduce Unity to our fun Fall schedule. This offers a very unique perspective for us. Some of our traditions have been kept for over 10 years with just the two of us. Now we have a third member that will enjoy these traditions and make these traditions more enjoyable for years to come.

Unity has been enjoying the Fall a lot. She is not very fond of hot weather (like her daddy) and is welcoming the cooler temperatures. She is very mesmerized by the candles we have lit in the house and has begun to experience sitting around the fire on cooler nights. She is very interested in all the decorations which offer her a lot of new textures. We took her pumpkin picking at a local farm where she picked out her own pumpkin and we all spent an evening at the Zoo for the Jack O Lantern exhibit.

We are anxiously anticipating Halloween and the three of us have already picked out a costume for Unity. She is to young to be spooked by all the Halloween decorations everywhere but she is very interested in the festivities that surround the holiday and I am sure she will enjoy the season as much as Jessica and I.

This past weekend we took Unity to her first Oktoberfest in Stowe, Vermont. This is a tradition that Jessica and I have been doing for the past 7 years. This year it became Unity's tradition as well. After 3 days of dancing and singing it is clear that Unity loves a party.

This year our close friend Chris came to Oktoberfest with us. This made Unity's party that much more rockin. She loves looking at Chris and he makes her laugh super hard with just the slightest stare. We were surprised Chris wanted to take the 4-5 hour trek with Unity in the car but this was not nearly enough to deter Chris from Oktoberfest happiness.

We left RI on Friday afternoon and arrived in Stowe late Friday night. Unity does not like being in the car and gave a descent fuss on the ride up. Jessica sat in the back with Unity. This helped greatly. But now Unity knows Mommy can sit in the back with her and she demands it. On Saturday we met up with Mike, Liz, and Alexa Stolarz in time for the Oktoberfest parade. After which we made our way to the arena for the party. Saturday was beautiful weather and we had such a blast.

Unity loves to dance and bop around the house with different tunes that she has come to like. Well this just made her that much more into the music and dancing at Oktoberfest. Her feet never stopped the entire time. She became known amongst other attendees as the happy, dancing baby. Unity also has a thing for beer (*just like her daddy). I think the color of the beer in the glass draws her attention and she reaches for it as hard as she can. We don't let her drink beer *obviously but this sure drew a mix of looks from the other patrons. Some good and some bad. Bad beer drinking daddy!!

Sunday was not as crowded but was still just as much fun. After the party was over we went back to our lodge and hung out with the owner and some other guests around the fire. Unity crashed on the floor in front of the fire and we relaxed.

Monday morning we took Unity around the town. We took her to the Green Mountain Inn where Jessica and I had our wedding reception. Then we took her to Waterbury where we got married and spent some time at the local cider mill. After which we made our way home. Unity was so beat that she slept almost the whole ride home. This was nice and greatly reduced our travel time.

We look forward to bringing Unity to many more Oktoberfests in Stowe. It is always so much fun!