Why Daddy Gets a Special Day

"Ha, ha. That is funny!"

"Ha, ha-ha, ha-ha. No, seriously, that is really funny!"

"Ahh, stop! You are CRACKING me up!"





What was so funny to Shannon? Daddy squirting water through his teeth.

Happy Father's Day, Daddy! You are the best daddy ever! I love you!

First Sleepover

Last weekend, Shannon had her first solo sleepover at Grandma and Grandpa's house. By the looks of this photo, it seems like it was a tight competition for who had the most fun.

It was the perfect excuse to bring out her very own suitcase... old school Care Bears from when Mommy was a little girl!

Family Fun in Cleveland

Can you believe that Memorial Day was really only 17 days ago? (I'm including that stat to make myself feel less guilty that it's taken me this long to get these pictures up!)

Our Memorial Days festivities took place in Cleveland this year. Why?

This guy graduated. (And for those of you who haven't known him since he was Shannon's age, this is Pat, my youngest brother.)

And this amazing lady (Jodi's Grandma Rose), she turned eighty! We celebrated her with a dinner that featured a poetic look back on those years, three generataions around the table, and some delicious food.

Some of the poetry was better than others. We'll just leave it at that.

Shannon enjoyed hanging out with her great-grandparents and seeing her extended family!

Ten Months

Here's the official shot...

...but here's the more telling one!

It has been a really fun month. She is learning something new every second. This month, Shannon has:

-Switched from 'schootching' to full fledged crawling.

-Learned how to go from crawling to sitting and sitting to crawling

-Figured out how to pull up on furniture

-Taken her first cruisin' steps along the table

-Finally started saying Da-da!

-"Started to sign" (I put it in quotes because I'm still not sure if I'm seeing because I want to. :) But I really think that she's done 'more' and 'light')

She amazes us with how much she's learning but she also keeps us laughing. Some classic Shannon antics these days include:

• Cracking up over the little piggy who went "wee, wee, wee" all the way home
• Imitating our stupid "huh-huh" laugh
• And my personal favorite: crawling over to the dogs' bowls in the kitchen, shaking her head "no" as she heads over because she knows that I'm going to say "Shannon, do we touch the doggies' bowls?"

Raise your hand if you think somebody might be getting some new teeth!

Love you, big girl!

Dear Zoo

Our Mother's Day plans included a trip to the zoo. This was actually Shannon's second visit... we first checked out the zoo on a warm March weekend with Marty.

On both visits, I've had so much fun pointing out the animals that fill the pages of her books. It strikes me as kinda funny that a peacock would be familiar to her because it's so exotic, but we read Polar Bear, Polar Bear What Do You Hear? alot!!!

Today we saw all sorts of bears, giraffes, zebras, elephants, aardvarks ("and if you are an aarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrd-VARK!"), camels, river otters and penguins.

(Love those curls!)

Also, they've got a nice petting zoo where we hung out with the goats and chickens, saw some cows and ponies and got to see what Shannon would look like as a rooster.

We'll be back soon!

Three Weekends of Friends

Whew! Hotel McGee has been busy this spring!


WEEKEND ONE: THE SPAIN GIRLS
We celebrated "Abril de Mayo" this year. Monica did an amazing job of capturing the good times we had so I defer to her much more timely and thorough blogging skills. I will include two shots here:

The Official Photo

What We Really Did Most of the Weekend

WEEKEND TWO: NOTRE DAME GUYS
Many of Chris' friends flocked to the East Coast to participate in a surprise birthday party for one of the Zahmbies. Suprise party in Delaware on Friday night and a pre-Phillies game barbeque at our place on Saturday afternoon.

(Only two of them stayed with us, I'm hospitable but not insane! Also, check out our bamboo grove in the background.)



WEEKEND THREE: OLD BUDDY MARK
...or should I say old buddy Mark who I failed to snap a single picture of while he was here. Oops. Maybe that will motivate me to get our butts up to NYC to visit him soon. Along with all of the other New Yorkers we should be hanging out with more often.

Thanks for all of the fun!

Daddy's Race

Philadelphia's Broad Street Run takes place each May. It's a ten-miler that starts just north of downtown Philly and ends up down south by all of the ballparks. It's a popular, flat and fun race (that I swear I'm gonna do...someday...) Chris ran it last year and decided to train for it again. He did great... ran it 1:16:05 this year. Here's the fake photo of him running it. For the second time in as many years, I missed seeing him "live."

Which is not to say that we didn't try! Shannon and I were out there rooting for him with the sign we made. (We traced her feet)

Shannon didn't run in the race, but she logged quite a few miles in the BOB as Daddy was training for it.

Way to go Daddy, we're so proud of you!