Do the Penguin

Our little super star had her very first dance performance this past weekend. It was a big weekend for G and she was ready for it! She has been practicing and having a blast in dance class and now it was time to show her stuff. We knew she would be all about the dance but we weren't quite sure how she was going to do in front of the crowd. To our surprise, she was fine with it! She did a wonderful job, we are so proud of her!

Here are two videos, one from each night. I wish I had captured the full song but you get the gist. Gloria is too funny, she keeps asking when she is going to do the dance performance again. She is bummed that it is over! Ha! We might have a little showgirl on our hands. :) If you have any trouble with viewing the videos here, you can visit our Video Album to see them there.


The clip is from the first night. She is standing next to her BFF who seems to be having a very silly time up there! haha Gloria was also very focused on staying on her mark, too cute!


This is from the second night. You can tell Gloria is a tad tired for this performance. She had a very busy weekend!

Dance in the Rain

"Laugh your heart out, dance in the rain, cherish the moment, ignore the pain, live, laugh, love, forgive and forget, life's too short to be living with regrets."

Not sure who said the above quote but I liked it so I thought I'd share.

We have two pretty amazing kids! Their joy makes us smile every day. Here are two videos of our happy kiddos. Please excuse the orientation of the one I took of Leo. Not sure how I managed that one, oh well. :) If you have any trouble viewing the videos here, visit our Video Album to check them out.

Leo is truly one happy guy! This is just a short clip of how smiley and joyful this kid is. He spends most of his day giving us these wonderful smiles and giggles and chattering away! He really gets going towards the end of this clip.



As you know, Gloria loves to dance! We went to The Festival of the Hills earlier this month (in the rain) and enjoyed the fun things it had to offer. This is a video of Gloria and her cousins, Olivia and Ella, cutting it loose while listening to the band. They had a blast dancing and getting soaked in the rain! :)

Our Little Gymnast

Gloria started gymnastics a few weeks back and boy is she loving it! I got her on video doing one of the circuits they have been working on. It took Gem no time at all to catch on to the routines and get right into it.

I love the part in the beginning where she shows the teacher her nails! haha We had painted them with glitter nail polish a few days earlier. She is such a girl!

Check out the video here or visit our Video 2011 album.

More updates to come! :)

Rockin' it on the Midway

Here is a video of Gloria rocking out to some music while we were waiting for a ride. She was busting a move but then got a little camera shy once I was trying to catch her on video. She did loosen up a little bit though. :) You can view it here or visit our Videos 2011 album to see it.

Gloria and Leo

I'm still working on getting the birth story written and uploading more pics but in the meantime, here is a video of Gloria getting to know Leo the day he was born. She is so in love with her baby brother! :)

Our Little Graduate!

Last night was Gloria's graduation ceremony from the toddler room. Gloria is transitioning from the toddler room, also called the Orange Room, into the next room called the Green Room which is more preschool based. We are so proud of Gloria! She has had such a great year with the Orange Room and we know she'll do wonderful in the Green Room this year! We are sad to loose her teachers, Miss Emily and Miss Janet, but she will have some new, wonderful teachers in the Green Room!

The kids from the Orange Room put on a show for all the parents. They were all too cute!! Gloria really got into it too. She did such a great job!

Below is a photo and video from last night. Gloria is all decked out in her dress that her auntie "wawen" gave her. :) She was so excited to dress up for graduation!

There is also a video of one of the dances the kids did for the graduation. I'll post a few more videos in the Video 2011 album too.

There are a few more photos in our June 2011 album if you want to check them out. Gloria was excited to have her Gramma, Papa and Grammy there too!!

Vacation Bliss

We are at the end of our vacation today and we are so sad to see it come to a close. We had an amazing week together as a family! We stayed most of the week at Tom's uncle Frank's camp. We enjoyed the weather, the sounds of the river, the lack of a schedule and lots of R & R. I told Tom that we need to spend more time by the river. It has a very calming affect! Especially on Gloria. I couldn't believe how much the three of us were so mellow the whole week. It was the greatest feeling! Tom fished while Gloria played by the river and I even got to read two of my Real Simple magazines! I haven't been able to read them since March! haha

We didn't stay at the camp the whole time. We did make a day trip to the "beach" at one point. We also headed to Mike and Tony's in Colrain for pizza. So yummy!! On Friday, it was fun to have Tom's cousin Kerri and her girls join us on for a sleepover at the camp. The girls had a blast playing together! We enjoyed having them visit. We did dinner together, played by the river (got soaked!) and roasted marshmallows!

We also got to enjoy Tom's birthday this weekend at the camp. We were bummed out that it rained all day on his birthday but we made the best of it. I think Tom was just happy to be relaxing, what better way to celebrate a birthday?!

We just love going up to the camp for our summer vacation. We hope to be able to do this for years to come, if Frank lets us. :) Big thanks to Frank and Prescilla for letting us use their camp! We appreciate it so much! We've made some pretty wonderful memories during our time there!

One special memory for us is Gloria practicing her bike riding skills. Tom and I bought her a balance bicycle for her birthday this year. The idea behind this type of bike is to teach a child how to balance on a two-wheeler which then helps them transition to a real bicycle easier, without having to use training wheels. We brought the bike to the camp and Gloria got LOTS of practice! She loves it!

Here are two videos. The first is Gloria's first time taking her bike for a spin. You can tell she is a little hesitant on how to use it. The second video, taken only one day later shows Gloria's progress. She was all about trying to put her feet up and go fast! She loved going down hills and couldn't get enough of this bike! We are so proud of her progress already!





We'll have photos and more stories soon from our vacation. Until then, enjoy your week!

Pura Vida!!

What a week it has been! I've just spent the last 5 days in the most beautiful place...Luna Nueva, Costa Rica. An unforgettable experience!! Pura Vida means "Pure Life" or "Full of Life" in Spanish. Costa Rica is truly "Full of Life!"

It was a week consisting of a mix of work and play. Mostly play but definitely some productive work. I had the pleasure of going with my department at work. There were 13 of us all together between the Creative Department and Marketing.

I have a lot of photos in addition to many of the photos that other fellow co-workers took. It may take a while to get through all of them but hopefully I can post them soon.

In the meantime, I wanted to share a video of Gloria I had taken yesterday playing the drum I bought for her in Costa Rica. She is quite the little performer! She just lights up my life! I had a wonderful week but it was so nice to come home to my amazing husband and little girl! I missed them so much!

Sing-A-Long

When we had our Christmas gathering at Tom's parents house, Gloria decided to end the evening with some singing. She puts on quite a show! Her back up singers need practice though...we didn't seem to know the words that well! haha

To view the video, the password is gloria

Jingle Bells from Ruthie McDonald on Vimeo.

Dancing Fun!

I caught Gloria dancing in her bedroom to one of her CD's a few weeks back. She was doing all the steps to the birthday bee bop song. :) You'll have to turn up the volume so you can hear the song.

Dancing Queen!

Gloria has always loved to dance! Lately though, she wants to dance all the time! We love to dance in the kitchen together in the mornings and evenings. We have the sound track to The Lion King and every day she says "Please play Lion King?" :) I came home from work one day to her dancing and decided to take some video of her. It was so cute! The video is sort of long but she puts on quite a show. She even tries to sing in the end! haha She also spends a lot of time dancing in front the oven because she can see herself. :) She is our little performer!

Doe a Deer

One of my favorite movies is The Sound of Music. One of my favorite songs from that movie is "Do Re Mi." I've sung it to Gloria since she was an infant. She loves it! She knows the song pretty well. I've made several attempts to get her singing the song on video but haven't had any luck. This is the best we've got so far! :) She starts off with a few other songs before "Do Re Mi" which are cute! It doesn't help that Tom was making faces and getting her to "shake her hair," distracting her during her performance! Trouble maker! haha

Violin Pop Star?

When you think of pop music, generally the violin doesn't come to mind. Not for me anyway. Take a look at this you tube clip. I love this artist, he is super talented! The artist is Paul Dateh. He is the only one playing all the pieces of this musical montage. He does each piece separately and then puts them all together for the final piece. So cool! I am now addicted to listening to his music! :)

Turn the volume up and Enjoy!

Once Upon a Time...

Gloria has a book that her Grammy Irene gave her with all sorts of short stories in it. They are all Disney stories and a good number of them are princess stories. I happened to catch Gloria reading her own fairy tale one day. :)

In this clip, she keeps saying "Once upon a time, girl lived in the wa wa (water)." Obviously The Little Mermaid story. :)

You Have to Believe!!

This is one of the cutest things I've ever seen! You have to watch this video of this little girl who believes wholeheartedly in Fairies. Its too sweet! She calls herself a "Fairy Scientist!" LOL I love love love the imagination of a child! I wish we could retain a little bit of that magic as adults. :) This is a long video but well worth watching. Its just so cute!

Birthday Girl!!

Gloria had such a very nice birthday on Friday. She spent the day with her Gramma and Papa at Look Park (since daddy and I had to work), got to ride the train, see the animals, play at the park, etc. A perfect day for a toddler! :) Later on in the evening we had our families over for cake and ice cream. What a fun time! Gloria was overjoyed!! She loved having everyone there. She is a very loved little girl.

I have a lot of photos to post but for now, a video will have to suffice. This is a video of us singing happy birthday to Gloria. I made a small "smash" cake for her very own. It had a pink monkey on it. :) We thought she was going to dig in more than she did. She was just such a lady about it. Too funny!

Some Big Shoes to Fill

A recent video of Gloria trying one of daddy's shoes on for size and a little of her just being her funny little self. :)

Our Irish Princess

This is overdue but I still wanted to post this. If you haven't checked out our video folder already, here is a video of Gloria on St. Patty's Day. She was just too cute! I tried to get her to say "Happy St. Patrick's Day," which she did but in her own Gloria way. :)

I Love You!

Lots of love going out to you all today and every day!!

Here is Gloria's little Valentine's Day dance to Michael Franti And Spearhead's "Say Hey (I Love You)" We were just finishing up breakfast when this song came on and Gloria started dancing. Turn up your volume so you can hear the song in the background. Gloria sure busts a move this time! Basically, I set the camera up so Tom and I could dance also, haha! A fun start to our Valentine's Day weekend yesterday:)

Dancing Queen!

We have so much fun with our little girl! Here is another recent video of our little GEM. Her and Tom were grooving to the music on Sunday morning. Somehow, Gloria has started to do a dance that looks very much like the moon walk! We seriously don't know where she learned it from, its too funny! We have quite the little dancer on our hands! haha Maybe she gets it from her father:) You'll see some of his sweet dance moves in the video too. He's going to love me for this! lol