Halloween

Mooo!

Miss Shannon trick or treated as a cow this year. (In McGee culture, 2008 is the year of the cow. :)We completed her outfit with some cowbells (from a race Chris ran earlier this fall) and her mooing cow flashlight gifted to her at her birthday by Marty.

What really pulled the whole costume together was Shannon's latest trick: knowing that a cow say moo. (Although we do miss her old answer/pronunciation to the same question... cows that say Moe.)

What happened to the Phanatic costume idea, you ask?

As World Series fever was sweeping through the city, we got the brilliant idea to make Shannon a little Phanatic (the Phillies' mascot). Unfortunately, we couldn't find green fur and the fabric spray paint suggestion from a nice lady at Joann Fabrics just didn't do the trick. So here's the costume as it stands today.

Gonna finish it and maybe we'll show it off at Opening Day 2009!

Alllllll the Way to Seattle

Just four days after arriving home from New York, we packed our bags again and headed to the airport. Our destination: Seattle. We were headed to see the Kuders: Bill, Katie, and Will. Chris and Bill were good friends at Notre Dame and our families line up perfectly. We were married three weeks apart, we had our kiddos three weeks apart and we're both expecting to new babies in the spring. (Who's guessing three weeks apart?)

The Kuders, Jalopy, The McGee's

The timing on our visit was not because we're looking to build our jet-setting reputation, hopping coast to coast on the weekends but (like much of our social life in the fall) because the Notre Dame football schedule. ND was going to take on Washington and we all had tickets.

It was a big weekend of firsts for Shannon: first plane trip, first time meeting Will and Katie, first ND football game. Squeeze in some golf for the daddies, a booze cruise for all of us, the 3 hour time change and preggo mama and you see why this was a blur of a long weekend!

Cutie-pie Will

Little Irish Fans

House from Sleepless in Seattle (We also saw Bill Gates' home but didn't get a pic...)

Awesome play area at Philadelphia airport... highly recommended! Terminal D!

Our rockstar traveller... she was so, so, soooo good. This was our early morning jammies flight.

Thanks for the hospitality, Kuders! We'll be back!

Mike and Hanna's Wedding

They're married! Mike and Hanna tied the knot on Saturday afternoon. The wedding took place in Manhattan and friends & family from all over the country came to celebrate.

Here's our little fam (with crazy hair since we didn't get around to snapping this shot until after the wedding back at the hotel).

And here are the full length versions of the ladies so you can check out the dresses (and Mama's growing belly).



Horrible lighting because the video guy was right next to me, but here's my parents walking Mike down the aisle.

Shannon was soooo good the whole weekend. She even managed to take her afternoon nap while the rest of us were enjoying the cocktail hour.

It was a f-u-n reception. One of the best parts was the photo booth they rented. They had their guest book set up right next to it with photo corners already in there so that after snapping your shots, you could paste your favorites right in.

Shannon thought the booth was super cool, but looked very angry in most shots because it had a really bright flash. I'll have to scan some and post them, umm...sometime...


Four generations of lovely ladies.

Shannon tore it up on the dance floor.

And she thought the dessert buffet was t-a-s-t-y.

But sadly, the wedding had to end... "oh no!"

Congratulations Uncle Mike and Aunt Hanna! We love you!

Fall Fun

There's a chill in the air. We're pulling on sweatshirts and putting away capris. We've logged a lot of hours watching College GameDay. Yep, it's Fall.

To get even more into the autumn spirit, we decided to check out Linvilla Orchards. What a fun place! Shannon had a great time checking out the pumpkins at PumpkinLand, playing on the playground and picking out some mums and apple cider to take home.

They had an awesome playground. Here's a clip of Shannon on the slide (check out her signing "more" after each ride.)

Phillies Game

Two good baseball things happened last week:

1. The Phillies made the playoffs
2. We got 4 tickets to Thursday's game

So our whole phantastic phamily met Aunt Kathy and Marty at Citizen's Bank Park. When we arrived it was about 70 degrees and our little fan was able to show off her Phillies "shirt" (which was a dress during spring training but she grew so much!).

Shannon was a big fan of ball park food (surprise, surprise).

She was intent on the action (when she wasn't on the stadium's playground).

We didn't get to see the Phantic up close that night, but you can enjoy some of his antics (and Marty's commentary) on this video clip. Ohh, that Phanatic...

When the sun set, it got chilly. So we bundled up.

Around the 5th inning/bedtime, she started to get sleepy so we pulled out Snugglepuppy....

...and by the bottom of the 6th, she finally gave in and fell asleep.

The Phils won that night and went on to win the division series. Woo-hoo!

Ed. note: I have to give photo credits to Marty for about half of the shots on this post. And go watch the Phanatic video, it's funny.

Shannon Walking!!!

We took this video on Monday... its amazing how much more progress she's made since then. She's pretty much walking all the time now and getting faster/more steady every day.

(Yay for Daddy who helped me figure out a much easier way to upload and edit video!)

Shannon's Special Shirt

Can you believe it?!?!

Our newest addition (Baby McGee Remix Edition, Baby McGee 2.0) should be here somewhere around March 19, 2009. We're thrilled!