The Pennsylvanian Cousins

10/23/2014

 

Alianna, my mom and I took a trip up to Philadelphia to visit and celebrate my niece Iris’ third birthday. Ali and I had not had a chance to meet my newest nephew Jack and niece Tahlia in person yet – they’re 9 and 8 months old respectively – so that was a big highlight for me. Ali’s highlight was playing with her cousin Iris and all of Iris’ toys. She also got to spend a morning playing with her cousin Eli. My brother and sister and I haven’t been together since last Christmas and I can’t remember we took a photo of the three of us. The morning before we flew home we went to a local farm with a pumpkin patch, hayride, fabulous muddy puddles, lots of farm animals and fields and fields of beautiful zinnias.

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Sugar and Spice

11/18/2013

Alianna has one cousin in Nashville, Eliza who is 5 months older than her. It’s such a blessing that they’re close in age and dear friends. They’re ying and yang, sugar and spice, opposities in many ways, and it’s so fun to see them playing together. They’re finally getting to the age where they don’t need so much supervision and my sister-in-law and I can sit back and chat while they play.

I grabbed my camera while these two girlies were having a dance party in Ali’s room the other day.

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Posted by mahlbrandt

Eliza is 2!

03/12/2013

My niece Eliza turned two a couple weeks ago and I haven’t yet shared the photos from her party. I was looking forward to doing a lot of testing with my new camera with all the cute little subjects but neglected to make sure my battery was charged. Oops.

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Ali and Eliza are good buddies. They talk about each other ALLTHETIME. Eliza is always asking for “Please See Ali” and Ali is always asking for “Ey-za.” These two cousins who are 5 months apart could not be more different in appearance and personality. They balance each other out wonderfully and I hope their friendship gets deeper and deeper as they grow up.

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Happy 2nd Birthday, Eliza! You make me smile. 🙂

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The party is over. Everybody get out of my room so I can chill out!

 

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Thanksgiving 2012

11/28/2012

I had a really nice Thanksgiving, partly because my sister and her family visited for 3 days and partly because I was forced to take a 4-day break from work during a busy deadline period because I had no place or time to work. And of course, also because of all the time with family, friends and delicious food!

It was a beautiful sunny, warm day so we took a walk down to our new house to show my sister’s family. Ali and her cousin Iris rode in the red wagon.

Jason and his brother Daniel finally had an opportunity to deep fry a turkey this year. They used a Cajun Butter injection. Oh my goodness…it was so good!

Both of Ali’s girl cousins were there for Thanksgiving. That’s Eliza on the left and her mom Aunt Ginger (Daniel’s wife) and Iris on the right. Iris and Eliza look like they could be cousins too, but they’re not related.

My mom also roasted a turkey in the oven with stuffing. My dad and sister Jessica carved it.

Clearly Jason was very excited about how the fried turkey turned out.

Papa (Jason’s dad) and Ali were intrigued by the turkey, too.

I didn’t take any pictures of everyone at the table this year. Boo. We had a diverse group of my family, Jason’s family and some friends … 18 people I think. After dinner, Ali and Eliza took a bath in the living room. (Not really.)

Self-portrait mode on the iPhone = a good trick to get a low quality picture of a toddler looking at the camera…

…and maybe even smiling at her cute self! Hi Eliza

Jason’s mom/Nana/Grandma K made Iris an owlie hat just like Ali’s but with shut eyes. So cute!

Piddling around behind a record store on Black Friday.

We tried a new hairstyle for Ali: pigtails! She looks so different!

Her hair looked absolutely hilarious when we took the piggies out.

After dinner my early Christmas present from Jason arrived in the mail. A NEW CAMERA!!! I’m so excited to start getting better quality pictures. I have a lot of learning to do but the good news is that I’ll be practicing a lot which means lots of pictures to share with you here.

My very first picture of the most easy going subject. A little dark but I was quite impressed that it could capture her tongue mid lip-lick without a flash in low light.

Cousins in matching PJs horsing around on the couch also made willing subjects. (Testing out the external flash on these ones.)

Ali giving Iris a big smacker kiss.

It was a wonderful, fun weekend! I’m already looking forward to Christmas break now, which will be spent at our new house. Yay!

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Posted by mahlbrandt

Cincinnati Visit – September 2012

09/19/2012

Besides checking out the Sign Museum, we also had some time to just chill out and hang out with our friends Sean and Renata and their crew. Their house is so cool! It’s like an MCM showroom. It’s fun to share that interest with them.

We also had a very important little dude that we were anxious to meet. Little Jonas and Ali are birthday buddies! They share July 20 and are one year apart.

Renata and her dad with Jonas. (Her mom was there also but not feeling well, so no pics.)

Ali and Olivia are very close in age and this is the first visit where they’ve really been able to play together. “Play” meaning mostly taking toys from each other…we’re working on sharing.

Ben has a special place in my heart. He was one of the first babies born to any of our close friends, right after this dear family moved away from Nashville. He’s a cool kid. My two favorite Ben quotes from the weekend:

1. Sitting around the table eating breakfast: “I have a lot of babies! Baby Olivia, Baby Jonas, Baby Alianna!” Yes, Ben, you have a lot of responsibility!

2. After his dad asked him if he wanted some coffee. “Noooo! I’m a boy! I’m not a man!”

A few more cuddles with our buddies before we left go to IKEA and then home to Nashville.

Good friends are a blessing from the Lord! We love you guys! Thanks for having us!

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Posted by mahlbrandt

Cousin Love

04/17/2012

Just a month ago, my siblings and their spouse and kids came to visit from Pennsylvania. Two weeks later, Jason’s older brother Steve, his wife Char and their 3-year-old Aiden came to visit, too. It was so wonderful to see everyone. The cousins met each other for the first time. They were very sweet together…lots of hugging and kissing going on. We went out to dinner and ice cream one night.

Char with Precious and Aiden, being silly at Oscar’s Taco Shop:

…and looking normal:

Uncle Jason and Aunt Martina with Aiden at Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams:

Another day we had a cookout at my in-laws house. I didn’t do a very good job of documenting the adults. Oops. The three cousins had fun playing together.

The three Ahlbrandt cousins looking sleepy together after dinner and afternoon of playing:

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Eliza’s First Birthday

02/28/2012

My first-born niece turned 1 on Friday.
It doesn’t feel like February 24, 2011 was so long ago.

On Saturday, we celebrated her birthday party out at my in-law’s house. It was a fun party.

Ginger makes the best birthday cakes.

Dan, Ginger and Eliza

Mmm… strawberry cake!

Aunties and couzies. Yeah, we’re nerds.

This sequence was funny. We were trying to get a good picture of the three 2011 babies together. Jaron started fussing…

Precious offered him her thumb. Works for her!

Jaron made a disgusted face. Precious looked at her thumb like What just happened? Eliza was impressed.

Three little buddies. Four months old, seven months old, 1 year old. Chocolate, Caramel and Vanilla.

Happy Birthday, Eliza! Glad we could celebrate with you!

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Posted by mahlbrandt

Cousins’ First (and Only?) Fight

12/26/2011

I’m going to be taking the rest of the week off from blogging but I thought I’d leave you with this little fight sequence I caught on camera over Thanksgiving of Precious and her cousin Iris. You’ll probably have to enlarge it to read the dialog.

I’ll see you back here on January 2, 2012!

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Posted by mahlbrandt