My Family's Thanksgiving

As with every year, we went down to Duck for the long holiday weekend. As also per usual, Ms. Peggy came as a babysitter and all of the adults went out to dinner. What was not usual is that my Godfather, Uncle Eliot joined us for the weekend and the meal. I think that he enjoyed it, I know that I did. We actually made our own TG meal on Friday, Daddy cooked a Turducken, and Aunt Beth cooked the rest. It was all very good, inspired really, glad that we have lots of leftovers.

My Brother's Newly Mobile Fall

As you can see, it's fall around the Vetrovec household. The latter picture shows Baby Whit as he is helping M&D clean up Meme's yard in exchange for some babysitting. The first picture is BW demonstrating his newly found mobility, albeit backwards. He tends to end up underneath things with his head sticking out. At least he's easier to retrieve in that fashion. He's not usually happy about it.

My Inappropriate Brother

I've been compiling this file on him for a bit over a month now. In that time period, he's proven that he is delightfully tacky, yet unrefined, by going to Hooters twice including flirting with the waitress one time. Also, he was immediately drawn to one of Daddy's big boy magazines that he found on the bathroom floor. For shame BW, that's Tara Reid, you can do better than that.

My Pumpkin Patch

Well, disingenuous as per usual, it's actually not my pumpkin patch, but rather that of Daddy's partner Jim in Caroline County. We took the cousins and arrived just as the hayride was taking off. It was not my first, although I must say I was not terrified of it as I was this time last year. It was Baby Whit's first time, but he handled it pretty well, just sat in Daddy's lap for most of it. They had a deal going on for $20 for 50 lbs of pumpkin. Seemed too good to pass up, so I just kept going back to the field for more. Apparently 3 pumpkins and 2 gourds can add up to 50 lbs pretty quick. Needless to say, we came home with quite a haul, so did EmmyChar. We're letting them season on our front porch for the time being, but M&D say that soon we will carve them and roast the seeds. Exciting times. I'll be sure to post a picture of that. Also, I have pictures of last weekend with the cousins, but I'll have to post them later, Google is telling me that image uploads are currently disabled for maintenance. What do you get for free these days?

My Tubby Brother Time

Well, it wasn't in the tubby ducky, but for the first time, M&D asked if Baby Whit and I wanted to take a tubby together. We both thought that was a grand idea. Daddy filled up the tubby with water and bubbles and away we went. I had a great time, Baby Whit kept slipping on the slippery tub and falling over, Daddy had to be quick on the draw to keep him above water. But as you can see from our happy smiles, it all worked out and we had a nice time.

My Brother's Baptism

Please pardon the extremely goofy picture of Daddy, it was taken with his phone by Big G who is normally a great photog, but must have been thrown off his game dealing with a phone with 4 megapixels versus the 40 that Big G's camera has. Anyway, just like me a couple of years ago, Pastor Pat baptized Baby Whit this morning to a congregation at Centenary that was made up of at least 10% of our family and friends. Afterwards, we had a lot of people over to our house for soup, fellowship and cocktails, mmmm! I'm glad to know that Baby Whit had no chance at limbo at this point.

My Daddy's Relay and my Ayla Rhoadsie

I'm pretty sure that I have mentioned my Daddy's relay that he does every year, but if not let me recap. Every year Daddy engages in a crazy 211 mile running relay that begins in southwest Virginia, and finishes in Asheville, NC. Per the website, it gains and loses a total of more than 36000 feet of elevation in the interim. If you hadn't guessed it yet, I think that my Daddy is crazy. On the plus side of crazy however is that Asheville resides an equidistant 6 hours driving time from Richmond and Cincinnati. Thus ensuring that our friends the Rhoadses will come see us. We had a ball in the mountains with my friend Ayla. I hear that M&D had a pretty good time with her parents Dan and Marni after Baby Whit and I went to bed. We're already making plans for a reprise on Memorial Day weekend, looking forward to it.

My Family Portrait

At long last today, I finally started back to school. Far be it from me to abhor school like some other children, Reveille makes it so much fun that I can't wait to get up and go. My teachers this year are Miss Katie and Miss Anne. They asked that I bring in a family picture to put on the bulletin board. That way if I am feeling sad and missing them, they can point to them and they will be near. Fat chance of that, M&D don't really come into my mind while I am at school. Anyway, we had Big G over Sunday night for dinner in exchange for some portrait photography. These are some of the better ones, dang it's hard to get everyone to smile and look straight ahead at one time. It must have been night night time for Mommy, she had trouble keeping her eyes open.

My Cajun Cousins

I know I have written about my cousins before, but not these cousins. For the first time, I got to meet my Louisiana cousins Elise, Lila and Bennett. Not sure that they are Cajun, but the alliteration seemed to work for a title. Anyway, they came up to see me, all the way from near the Red Stick. It called for an occasion to get the whole family together, so you can see several different incantations. On the far right, you can see me, Baby Whit, and my Cajun Cousins all sitting on a rock at Maymont, what a nice day. Middle is me with almost all of my cousins, except for Ellie and Emmy who couldn't make it. Far left is Mommy's whole family on her Pop's side. Lots of family this weekend, as Aunt Brooke says, "Family time is fun time!" I agree.

My Penance II

It's been a while since I've served penance, in truth, I've been a pretty good girl recently, I guess it's self flagellation from liberal guilt kicking in, because I feel bad about the hegemonistic and imperialistic ways of this country. Just kidding, I guess I've been listening to too many of Daddy's political rants again. We had Bebe the dog come over, and again I borrowed her crate. The middle one is a structure that we can't discern the use of in the park next to our house, but it works for a cage. And the last one is just me showcasing my pretty Mommy and cute brother.

My Brother's First Real Meal

About three weeks ago, M&D decided that it was time for BW to start going a bit longer in between nursing, and thus the introduction of solid foods! Here we are having the first real meal, yummy rice cereal mixed with breast milk, mmm, mmm, good! Sarcasm aside, BW seems to have gotten the hang of it and we have moved on to oatmeal, carrots, peas and bananas. I hope that he turns out to be as good of an eater as me.

My Moo Resurgence

No you're not seeing double here. What you're seeing is that I saved some of my favorite outfits (that I hadn't destroyed) for my little brother to come along. I must say, that while I was a bit chunkier (Thanks Jenny Craig!) at the time of this picture, I think that the resemblance is fairly uncanny. And just like Madonna, we both seemed to have struck the same pose.

My Belated Beach Post 2

Trivia bit for you: I always abbreviate M&D and never stopped to think about it. This week I learned a new fact, although that happens often for me. The middle symbol is known as an ampersand and it is actually the Latin script symbol for "et al" these days we mostly use it as "and" but it really means "and others". Anyway, Jeopardy moment done and all, on to your regularly scheduled programming: M&D decided that they needed some time away with the other adults, so Miss Peggy came twice and let them go out to dinner. These first two are from all of the grownups and there various outings to Elizabeth's and Blue Point. The other one is a present that Big G brought me, my very own circus tent. Sadly, Daddy mandated that we leave it behind in the owners closet to be a special beach treat. Maybe I'll convince him to bring it home the next time.

My Belated Beach Post

So, my constant readers may remember that I posted at least once from the beach, something about a drunk and ornery Meme, but I digress. It's taken me a while because I didn't get the pictures right away, but Big G brought over a CD with all of his greatest hits on it for me. I've gone through and picked out a few that I thought my readers might like. In no particular order, Baby Whit on somebodies lap doing a close up, my cousins and me riding the raft, my showing that I am completely impervious to noticing even the worst sand wedgie, and Uncle David and Daddy showing off how tough they are on the beach. There's more to come, so I won't expund too much on this.

My Baby Brother's Reign of Queens

I had to rename this particular reign of queens for two reasons, first off, I wasn't there, more on that later, and secondly, there have been so many of them that I don't even remember which one I'd be on anyway, and Daddy is way too lazy to go back to find his last posting on the subject. So anyway, a couple of weekends ago, M&D went to Colonial Beach to challenge the annual triathlon. I went to Meme's for the night. They did however take Baby Whit, and the male Vetrovec heir was quite the hit, but I don't really understand why. Daddy told me that was a conversation we wouldn't be having for quite some time. Just for some introductions, the first one is my Aunt Nicole, second is Scott, third is Daddy, the main attraction for the weekend, and the fourth is Alex. BW tells me that he had an absolutely fabulous and simply divine weekend.

My Guido Brother

This is my guido brother Baby Whit. I guess I need to give you some background on this. We finally joined a pool. M&D have started taking us to Planet Granite, which Daddy has told me ad nauseum, is where he grew up swimming. Anyway, as we packed off toward the pool the other evening, I happened to catch Baby Whit in his swim attire, with his jersey unzipped, I felt like he was bringing some Jersey to Planet Granite. Hence when I started calling him Guido. I'm glad Baby Whit didn't start his own blog, it leaves him unable to defend himself.

My Dancing Brother

This is baby Whit bouncing on Mommy's lap as she was talking on the phone. I guess he wasn't getting paid enough attention, so he went about trying to entertain himself. They say that a picture is worth a thousand words. A video must be worth a bunch more because I just don't have much to add to this.

My Other Beachy Cousins

Sorry that I didn't write much from the beach. I was having such a good time that I could barely stop to think, much less take the time to write. So between that and my daily 3 to 4 hour nap, I'm just now recovered enough to return to my readers. Pretty much the highlight of each day was my bath with my cousins. Needless to say that there were many pictures snapped of us, but only a couple that are fit for the web, you never know what creepy people might be lurking out there. But I'm back, all my pale skin intact thanks to 50 SPF. I think I've finally been able to get the sand out of all my unmentionables, and sadly we won't be back to Meme's beach house for a while as it's rented out through the end of September. Back to life for me!

My Beach Post

Greetings from the beach. As you may have seen from my Facebook profile, I love my new bathing suit. What could be better than being a ballerina? So let me give you the run down; Daddy's on the computer instead of the beach, Mommy's on the beach, Aunt Beth is cooking and yelling for others to come near at their own peril, Uncle Dave has switched from beer to bourbon, and it's only 6.30, and Meme's drunk and ornery and working on her 4th glass of champagne or prosecca, I don't know which bottle they are on now. I'm having the greatest time with my cousins, they are paying me gobs of attention and I have spent equal time beaching and napping because I get so worn out playing with them. Baby Whit has been napping and eating regularly, not so much different than his Richmond schedule. More to report later...

My Beachy Cousin

This is my cousin Juddy. We spent a weekend down at Myrtle Beach together a couple of weekends back. Mommy took me down when Daddy had some philanthropic obligation, we went down to Pop's beach house. I had a great time playing with all of my family. Here's my very cute cousin who I spent a lot of time with that weekend. There just weren't that many little people for me to hang with, so I'm glad he was there to keep me company.

My Baby Movie

This is my baby brother Whit. He didn't think anyone was paying attention to him the other night, and I was secretly recording him. I can't see why people make such a fuss about him. It's not like he really does anything except kick on the floor.

My Mobile (Advanced) Brother

So this is my newly mobile brother Baby Whit, safely sequestered on his back. I wish I could show you pictures of his first crawl, but unfortunately, no one witnessed it, and therefore no photographic evidence. The evidence obtained was circumstantial at best, but Mommy believes that it happened. Mommy left Baby Whit on his belly, happily kicking away, while she stepped into another room to do something. When she came back a couple of minutes later, he had moved off his blanket, around the corner of the ottoman, and was unhappily face down in the Lincoln Logs I had left on the floor (which Mommy had told me to clean up, but I didn't). So apparently, at slightly less than 3 months, Baby Whit can crawl when he really wants to.

My Tent Revival

With my title, I might have extended a bit into hyperbole. Really, it was just a normal Sunday morning at church with a few special additions. There was going to be a picnic afterwards, and there was a bell choir, to which I was invited to come up and shake my shakers with the music (in fairness, Mommy told me I was going to get to ring the bells, I'm too young for the old "bait and switch"). As you can see from my video, what I might not have in rhythm, I make up for in enthusiasm. After church, we opened the doors up to the public and invited them in for a picnic. Someone off the street repaid the favor of a free lunch with stealing Mommy's iPhone out of her diaper bag in the nursery. Bad man, Daddy says that we apparently need to hand out some WWJD? bracelets on E. Grace St because somebody is not living up to his creed. I don't really get it, but I did what I normally do, I nod my head in agreement with Daddy because it's just easier that way when he's on a rant. We also managed to snap a picture of Baby Whit at the picnic, why couldn't they steal him instead?

My Many Faces of Stella

Over time, I've had many professional pictures taken. Baby Whit has not had any and Mommy was feeling a bit of inequity about that. So Mommy gathered up all of my modeling poses and hung them on the wall outside my big girl room. Aren't I cute?

My Reign of Queens 6

It's been a while since I've had a reign of queens, but fortunately Scott and Alan came over recently to dispel that stretch. They brought over a very late baby gift dinner. You may be thinking that Baby Whit is only 7 weeks old, how late could it be? Well, it was promised to M&D when I was born and it just got delivered. It was worth the wait though, the best lasagna that you'll ever have. Thanks guys, sorry you won't be joining us at the beach this weekend.

My Salad Days

Actually, these pictures were taken a couple of days apart, but there was a very distinct difference in temperatures. I decided to surprise Daddy as he came home from work the other day with my best rabbit impression. So on an 80 degree day, I put on my bunny hat, my pink mittens and grabbed some rabbit food to nibble on. Daddy was sure surprised when he got home that afternoon. The other picture came from a rainy, cool walk M&D insisted that we take. Rather than stay indoors, they decide to risk the wrath of child protective services by taking us out in the cold rain. At least Daddy wrapped up Baby Whit well before going out.