Anna, star of screen, now star of stage

By K.J. Cardinal

Anna has long been a star on computer screens across the country, but today she made her debut on stage and it's official... she's a star there as well.

Ms. Katie's preschool class performed The Gingerbread Man at the Intel Mini Theatre at Hudson High today and Anna had the dubious honor of playing the Fox that (spoiler alert) gets to eat the Gingerbread man.

The Gingerbread man was played by none other than Anna's buddy Brynn. I'm obviously biased to my little girl, but I'd be a fool if I didn't recognize Brynn for her performance... she clearly stole the show.

Anyway, enjoy the play...

Merry Christmas

By K.J. Cardinal

Merry Christmas everyone! Today is sure to be the best Christmas of my life, thanks to these two little kiddos. I hope everyone enjoys time with their families because I know I will. Ho ho ho!

And... here's our "Christmas card" in case you haven't seen it yet. Enjoy!


[WATCH VIDEO]

Christmas Tree 2010

By K.J. Cardinal

Today we were able to continue our family tradition of cutting down our Christmas tree on Papa's birthday. The original Leo Cardinal would have been 95 years old today.

This year's tradition had extra meaning for us as it was the first time having a little Leo Cardinal of our own in tow to help carry on the tradition. Obviously Leo didn't have much of an active role in the process this year, but it was definitely a special occasion and his namesake would have been proud.

Anna, however, was VERY active in the whole process. She helped pick out the tree, helped cut it down and provided entertainment along the way.

We told her she could pick out whatever tree she wanted. At first she liked this idea, but then she was a little bummed when we informed her that she couldn't get this little sapling that she seemed to love.

In the end, Anna helped pick from the handful of full-size trees that we chose. It was a good compromise, but in hind sight, I kind of wish we would've gone with the sapling just because she was so cute posing with it.

At the end of the day, I noticed something that caught me off guard a little and left me a little teary-eyed. Behind where we parked, there was a shed housing an old Ford tractor.

Sure it wasn't the right color or the same model as Papa's old, red tractor, but the fact that a 50-plus-year-old Ford tractor was sitting there staring at me on this day brought back a lot of memories.

When I asked the elderly man that owned and operated the tree farm about the tractor, he was quite proud of his old machine that he's owned "forever" and still uses to this day to plow snow.

Talk about the most fitting way to end our annual tree cutting tradition. Little Leo was with us in body, but the original Leo Cardinal was also clearly with us in spirit. We miss you, Papa.

Anna the elf

By K.J. Cardinal

Well, Christmas season is officially upon us and Anna has become addicted to Elf the movie.

She definitely takes after her dad and Aunt Kate as she is quoting the movie already. Take a listen to these two little nuggets I captured: Buddy the elf | Cotton-headed.

I can't wait for Christmas this year, Anna is at the perfect age. And, work should slow down enough so I can catch my breath and actually update everyone on my cute kiddos. Stay tuned.

Andrew update

By Tiffany George

Part of my goal this new year is to post to the blog more often. I am shooting for twice a month, but we'll see how that goes! I really appreciate all of KJ's posts about our adorable niece and I want to share the cute stories of Andrew and Natalie too. Our new computer didn't have an SD card slot, so transferring pictures was a pain and held me back last year. Now that I got this snappy, very cheap USB converter, I don't have that excuse.

Enough about me! The kids are doing awesome. This first post will be a little catch up of Andrew.

Andrew is growing like a weed. He is just as adorable as ever, but most people feel he is taller. He loves to help out around the house. He takes out his own garbage from his bedroom, and usually takes out his bathroom garbage and our bathroom garbage while he is at it. He picks out his own clothes in the morning too. And he is good about letting me sleep longer, unless of course he is not sure which color pants to wear to match his shirt! He does helpful things like clear his plate and protect his sister all of the time. He seriously chose to use his Christmas money to buy his own cordless vacuum. He vacuums after nearly every meal, then empties the dirt cup all on his own. Outside in the winter, all he wants to do is shovel. He spends the whole time shoveling the walkway and driveway while we play. As you can see, Natalie was enjoying eating snow with Pete and I while Andrew slaved away on the walkway in the distance!

We finally did convince him to do some sledding, don't worry!

When he is not busy cleaning, he loves to do crafts.

I never know what kind of beautiful decoration I am going to discover when I come down from my shower in the morning. He got this cube of paper around Turkey Day and I think it is nearly gone. He would put a stamp on it, then tape it up all around the house. He would put them on the doors, on the handrail going up the stairs, on the hutch, on door knobs. You name it, he put it there. He also made about 30 of these into "cards" by folding them and stapling and taping them shut. He informed me that they were for people who didn't have enough money to buy cards for Christmas. He loves to make little cards and then he puts them in envelopes for family members. He often writes notes to his friend Wesley who moved to Florida. Stapling, cutting, and taping are a highlight of each day for him. He got a spin art machine for Christmas and he is very much into that too. Pretty much any art or craft is up his alley, be it moon sand, play doh, glitter or glue! And baking is just as fun!

He loves to spend time with Pete. One of their favorite Father-Son activities is going to the dump and cleaning out the basement. It is so adorable. Pete tells me that Andrew does the plastic all by himself :o) In the basement, he moves things around with Pete, asking Daddy where he wants things to go, then putting them there. He loves to play games with Daddy too! Elefun and Connect Four are two Daddy favorites.

Andrew is also very loving toward his mom at this age. Lucky me! He always needs somewhere between 104-153 kisses before bed each night, which I am happy to give. He randomly will tell us that he loves us and it just melts our hearts. He adores his sister and he is amazingly nice to her. He has so much patience for her nearly all of the time. As you can see, when we tried to get a Christmas photo, he didn't mind when she pulled his hair or laid on top of him.

They are so blessed to have each other.

He is doing great at preschool now. He goes two days a week and has finally warmed up. It took two months of him crying every day at drop-off, but that has stopped now. He has made friends there and he likes the songs and activities. One day when I picked him up from school he was wearing this headband with reindeer antlers on it and his nose was painted red. When I noticed that other kids were not wearing a headband, I asked Andrew why he kept his on. "I kept mine on because I thought you would like it Mom" was his response. Could he get any sweeter?

He is totally a real person now, and comes up with cute little human sayings and phrases all of the time. Things like "I don't mind", "we can if you want to, it can be your choice" are common around here. If we say something to Natalie like "don't put that in your mouth", Andrew will run right over to tell us that we shouldn't be giving her any ideas.

Christmas this year was extraordinary with the kids.

On Christmas morning, he just came into our room to snuggle like a cutie. Pete finally said "bud, do you know what today is?". It dawned on him that it was Christmas and he kept repeatedly shaking both hands as fast as he could. He gets very excited over every little thing, or as Meme says, he acts just as you would want a little kid to act! My favorite part of Christmas this year for him was Christmas carols. He learned nearly every Christmas song, and not just songs like Jingle Bells and Rudolph, but also Up on the Housetop, Jingle Bell Rock, and a ton of others. He would be playing by himself in the playroom and you could over hear him singing to himself. It was so sweet. The best part was when he would play his guitar with Papa. He would play and sing the whole time, observing how Papa moved his fingers so that Andrew could do the same. It was pricelessly sweet!

He has enjoyed his Christmas gifts immensely. His plasma car, a car powered by just moving the steering wheel, his new sleeping bag, his keyboard hooked up to our computer, hungry hungry hippos, his new keyboard, and this duck that hatched from an egg have been notable faves thus far. He also loved to dress up in all of the dress up clothes that Meme and Papa got him!

We celebrated New Year's with the kids by having special dinner and dessert. We went to Hannaford and they could pick out whatever they want. Here is Andrew displaying evidence of that. They picked out rotisserie chicken, and as usual, Andrew is wearing the cardboard piece/handle from the chicken as his party hat. His yummy ice cream went down quickly too!

Andrew also shucked his own steamed clams that Pete bought for me as a special treat on the eve of my birthday.


Our first trip on the Carousel during Christmas break!



Andrew cruising around the house on Natalie's new trike. He is giving the classic "no more kisses" face. He likes to joke with me about not giving me any more kisses, and this is just what he looks like when he does.

Both kids love their new sleeping bags. Here, Andrew was stripping down to put his jammies on, but got distracted by his sleeping bag in the process.

We are just so excited for the year ahead, as our kids provide us with endless joy each day. Stay tuned for Natalie's update in the comind days/weeks!

Christmas marred by collision

By K.J. Cardinal

Well, we had a weekend full of Christmas cheer planned, but this collision on Christmas morning really put a damper on things. Don't be alarmed though, both Maters are recovering nicely.



[WATCH MOVIE]

Christmas extravaganza

By K.J. Cardinal

On Saturday, Tiffany and Pete graciously opened up their awesome home to both the Cardinal and Denton sides of our family in one Christmas extravaganza in Northwood. As you can imagine, we had a blast.

First off, I just want to thank Tiff and Pete for doing this. Having one day where both families got together definitely helped us out the most as we didn't have to make two trips to two different destinations on two separate days like we've done in the past. I know it's a lot of work to host a party like that, but we definitely appreciate it. Thanks a ton.

Anyway, once again it was confirmed that Christmas time is my favorite time of year. Sure, I love the summers and being able to have work slow down and enjoy myself a little more, but there's nothing like spending time with our entire family during the holidays... especially now that there are so many little ones running around.

There were many highlights to the day... watching the kids open their presents, Yankee Swaps, FOOD, a big family photo with the Cardinal side of the family (see below) and many more. Throughout the day I was continually snapping photos and ended up with about 150 from the course of the days events. I am not exaggerating at all when I say that about half of them were of Natalie.

For those of you who have not met Natalie, you're really missing out. She's obviously as cute as a button, but there's this sweet innocence with Natalie that lights up a room and makes everyone around her happy. She just has a carefree attitude that is so infectious. I'm looking forward to Christmas day at Tiff and Pete's house again so I can see her in action.

While the little kids really stole the show at the party, I was also happy to not only see my grandfather, but to also see that he was doing so well. His Parkinsons has really taken its toll on his body, but his mind is still as sharp as a tack and he still laughs at my jokes, so he's clearly got his wits about him.

He's the only living grandparent that I have, but thanks to my Aunt Carol, I was also able to take some time to look back at my Mema and Papa. Aunt Carol very thoughtfully put together a scrap book of sorts for me, which features photos of my great grandparents and their lineage on my dad's side. I know I've stated it here many times, but my Aunt Carol values family and family history more than anyone I've ever met and her gift means so much to me. Definitely the biggest highlight of the day for me personally... thanks Auntie.

Christmas isn't here yet, but it's already been one of the best holiday seasons ever.

Christmas Tree 2009

By K.J. Cardinal

Once again we kept the Cardinal family tradition alive that my parents began many years ago as Anna, Sammy, Angie and I went and got our Christmas tree on Papa's birthday.

This was the first year that we've cut down our own tree as a family and I'm hopeful that we'll be able to cut one down each year. Definitely felt like more of a tribute to Papa in that regard because he would cut one down each year for us.

Anna wasn't into the cutting down process too much and when we brought the tree in she was rather unresponsive as well. But, once I plugged the lights in she opened her eyes real wide and shouted "Christmas!"

I couldn't have said it better myself.

After decorating the tree, all Anna wanted to do was sit in the empty box that we took the decorations and lights out of and cover-up like it was her little bed or something. Priceless as always.

Happy Holidays!

By K.J. Cardinal

Happy Holidays from our family to yours! Enjoy the holiday season.

Natalie, 9 months and a day!

By Tiffany George

Andrew has always been a cautious little boy, walking only when he was sure that he could do it, avoiding grass, being terrified of slipping in the tubby. This is what we have been used to for the past two years. Now insert Commando Natalie. Our little cupcake is as fearless as they come. She’ll grab a toy and pull it off the shelf with conviction, climb up onto the bean bag mountain with no worries about what may greet her on the other side, and let go while standing, no matter what she may tumble upon when she hits the ground. Natalie had two major injuries this week, but seems unfazed by them both. The first incident drew blood from her mouth when she saddled up to Andrew’s train table, then let go and took a header into the open drawer…OUCH. A few kisses and some chomping on a frozen yogurt in its wrapper did the trick. Two days later, she crawled over to Andrew’s dump truck, tried to stand by putting her weight on the dumper, and BAM…got clocked with the dumper right below her right eye. She has a mini black eye beneath that eye, but is still just as beautiful.


Aside from terrifying her mother with her free-spiritedness, Natalie has also accomplished many other milestones. She bangs on command, be it her tray or the toy box, and she can bang two toys together too. She has perfected the kung-foo swipe of the spoon when we try to feed her, always resulting in a heaping helping of baby food blown across her high chair. Now that she is learning to feed herself (puffs, banana, pear, watermelon, peas, carrots) she has a one-track mind. She knows that she can do it herself and that’s the way she wants it! I am so proud of these new tricks that she can do, but it is still sad to see the baby days passing by so quickly.


My favorite thing that she does is “reach, reach, reach”. She holds onto the finger of one hand with her other hand and puts her hands way up high above her head, on command. It is so cute. She loves it when we do it with her, and if everyone else at the table is doing it, she’ll look at you to say “come on, what’s your problem, hands up!” I guess we haven't caught the full reach on camera, but here is a shot of her getting into the reaching position...and get a load of those nice big new chompers on top!


She also loves it when Daddy does this little game with her, whereby he says “1,2,3” and then tosses her wet cloth on top of her head after she has been cleaned up in her high chair. She’ll just sit there, giggling away while the cloth remains on the top of her head. She leaves it there for a while before removing it, sometimes even when she can’t see! We can tell she is smiling by her cute little cheeks popping out of the sides!



She can easily pull herself up to standing, and is cruising along objects that she can find. Since we don’t have couches yet and I keep forgetting to get the walker from Meme & Papa’s house, she has gotten creative on her own. The other day she walked Andrew’s step stool from the bathroom, all the way across the kitchen and over to the peninsula, which served as her road block. She also loves to crawl over to the kitchen table and stand up underneath it. She is so darn cute when she does it, but she’ll learn that standing up under tables is not the best idea!


She also babbles a lot and has been making some mamamamama sounds of late. She makes ba sounds (which we tell Andrew is her trying to say brother) and ga sounds, and other nondescript cooing as well.

Natalie also loves gentle rubies on her cheekies. As you may recall, Andrew loves “tick ticks” from Meme and Papa on his arms and Natalie’s version of this is gentle strokes of her face. She nearly goes into a trance when we do it. I managed to snap this shot with one hand while stroking her cheek with the other.


The apple of her eye is still her brother, as he could probably attack her with a hot pot and she’d still smile at him. She constantly wants to get his attention, and is so happy just to have him look at her. He is very gentle with her 99% of the time, and for that other 1%, let’s just say I’m happy she’s learning to be able to defend herself :o)

Her favorite game is to play “gimme that”, whereby she holds onto an object such as a cloth, and we tug it away, saying “gimme that, gimme that”. She also loves to sip her drink and shoot it out of her mouth across her high chair tray, earning her the title of “watering can” or “sprinker” of our house. She also loves to nail her cup to send it off her tray so that Mommy has to quickly snag it, yelling “defense”.

Natalie had her first taste of the winter’s cold on Sunday when we went outside in the snow. I sat her down along a pathway that Pete had snow blown and she just sat there like the stay puffed marshmallow man! Her expression changed very little when she went for a cruise in the sled. I don’t think she really knew what to make of it, but she was content.

She has learned to dance as well, the head-bobbing, rocking back and forth kind of dance. She loves to dance whenever she hears music, or when Mommy sings. Andrew is constantly asking me to sing, so she gets a chance to dance a lot. Her favorite song is probably If You’re Happy and You Know It and she can clap her hands along with the songs now too! God knows I’m clapping too, because I’m the happiest Momma on Earth!

And here are a few Christmas photos that I just had to share. I know the season is a bit past, but they are just too sweet!

More Christmas videos

By K.J. Cardinal

Neither of these two Christmas videos are too earth-shattering, but they'll give you a feel for how great our holiday was because it's filled with so many kids having so much fun. Enjoy!

12 Days of Christmas

By K.J. Cardinal

Those of you that have been around my family over the holidays have probably witnessed and maybe even partaken in the Cardinal version of "The 12 Days of Christmas."

Sometimes my dad is playing it on his guitar, while others sing and dance along. Often times, people pick a partner and draw a specific number out of a hat.

For instance, one year my dad and his buddy Freeman were "Two Turtle Doves". Every time that portion of the song comes up, they'd step into the circle and sing their part with alternate lyrics, while acting it out. I don't remember all of them, but I know they did "Two Neckers Necking". Just imagine two 50+ men with large beards necking...very sexy, especially when one of them is your father.

Anyway, in the video below, the Cardinal women put on quite the show with their traditional song and dance rendition. Keep in mind that this is the final verse... they did this for the first 11 verses as well. Enjoy!

A Cardinal Christmas

By K.J. Cardinal

Christmas for this Cardinal family was once again filled with lots of travel and lots of fun.

We continued the annual tradition of celebrating the holiday on Christmas Eve in Ludlow and Christmas day in New Hampshire. We again mixed in a stop at our house in Hudson to sleep here on Christmas Eve so Anna could wake up in her own house on Christmas morning to open presents here.

In Ludlow we planned to open gifts at 9 p.m., but things got pushed back a ways and by the time we got around to opening presents Anna was already sleeping on my lap on the couch. So, we woke her up to open up her presents, but unfortunately she was so groggy that she wasn't really into it.

The first (and only) gift that she opened in Ludlow was a baby Cabbage Patch Doll. As you can see above, she thoroughly enjoyed it, but she was gassed after just one gift and proceeded to sleep on my lap the rest of the night.

On Christmas morning, Sammy woke Anna up and carried her down stairs where Angie and I were waiting. Anna saw her rocking horse (AKA "rock, rock") and was psyched. We had a hard time holding off in buying Anna her "rock rock" for Christmas because every time we'd see one in the store she'd go nuts for it.

Anna also opened the remaining gifts from Ludlow on Christmas morning as she was now much more alert. Angie's Aunt Fatima got Anna this hilarious little outfit. We all liked it so much, that we decided to bring her up to NH in her new get up. Mink coat on Christmas? 'Nuff said.

The ride to NH was pretty uneventful and it actually saved us a few minutes since we were going to Tiff & Pete's new house in Northwood as opposed to Mom & Dad's up in Farmington. Tiff & Pete's new house is so great and VERY spacious, so we had lots of room to spread out and watch the kiddies open their gifts and whatnot.

Anna was more interested in playing with Andrew's everyday toys that were in the playroom and livingroom than opening presents. No one really seemed to notice or care that Anna wasn't opening gifts because we were all too busy watching Andrew be hilarious and Nat Nat have at the wrapping paper, bows and boxes.

Eventually Anna got around to opening her gifts and she got some really great stuff. My favorite photo of Anna from the day is the one at right. Anna opened up this cute hat from Gail (I'm assuming handmade?) then I put it on her and she felt the need to lay down on the tissue paper with it. I'm not sure if she liked the way it felt on her head or what, but it was pretty funny. Thanks Gail!

After eating the annual Christmas Day feast of Beef Whellington, we headed to Farmington for the night and to get ready for the Cardinal-Denton brunch the next day.

We usually have separate parties for my mom's side of the family and my dad's side of the family, but nothing really got planned by either side, so my mom stepped up and invited the entire crew over for one big brunch on Dec. 26.

At first I thought it was going to be pretty hectic with that many people, but quite a few folks couldn't make it because they had to work, so it wasn't too bad.

Unfortunately my cousin Billy and his family (Kathy, Samantha, Ethan and Kaeleigh) couldn't make it because Sam is in the hospital fighting off this nasty infection in her leg. This was a MAJOR bummer for me. Not only because Sam has been having quite the battle with this infection, but also because my cousin Billy is one of my favorite people in the world. Plus, I missed my annual photo with Ethan, which has turned into a pretty cool ritual... he's such a good kid.


Despite missing Billy's family, we still had a great time... as Katie mentioned in her previous post. It was great to see both sides of the family together and it was awesome to see that my grandfather was doing well. His body may be failing on him with Parkinsons, but his mind and sense of humor are still right on point. He always amazes me by remembering stories I've told him about Pack Network and whatnot and we got a chance to chat about that stuff for a while... I think my inner dork comes from him :)

So as you can see, Christmas was action packed over the span of just three days. We really had to squeeze everything in this year because I left for Hawaii on the 27th. I had a blast in Hawaii, but Christmas is my favorite time of the year because I get to hang out with family. Thanks Mom for setting it up so I could get to see everyone AND go to Hawaii. What a treat!