Happy Holidays!

December 2012

Season’s Greetings!  We hope that 2012 has been a great year for you and your loved ones.

It probably doesn't come as a surprise that much of our time this past year has been spent adjusting to life as a family of three.  Over the past year, we have watched Sarah grow from a tiny newborn to a talkative and mobile one-year-old.

Sarah is crawling all over the house now, which means she keeps us on our toes.  She likes to pull books off of the shelf and “request” that we read them over and over again.  She loves toys that play music while she bounces along to the beat.  She points at her puppets yelling “Puppet! Puppet!” until we take them out to play with her.  She eats a wide variety of table foods now but especially loves yogurt, fruits, and chicken (bawk bawk).  She practices eating with a spoon and fork each day and sometimes manages to get food into her mouth that way.

Julie returned to work in January.  Fortunately, she has been able to work from home and decrease her hours slightly.  This gave her the opportunity to work while caring for Sarah for the first few months, since Sarah napped for long stretches.

As Sarah became more active at the start of the summer, Phil took a month of paternity leave.  He and Sarah enjoyed going to the pool, looking at books at the library, and playing outside.

After Phil’s leave, we were thankfully able to hire Julie's mom, Joyce, to come to our house and care for Sarah while we work.  Gramma and Sarah have lots of fun together. They enjoy going to the pool during the summer, attending weekly story time at the library, walking around the neighborhood, reading lots of books, and playing with toys and stuffed animals around the house.

We have also taken Sarah on several trips over the course of the year.  During the summer, we went to the New Jersey beach several times.  Sarah seemed nervous about the waves but loved playing in the sand and even tried to taste it a few times.  We also traveled to Ohio to visit Phil’s extended relatives, who saw Sarah for the first time.  We also attended weddings for Phil's friends in Chicago and Baltimore. 

Unfortunately, Phil’s grandmother Gertrude Shilane passed away in March.  She lived a full life to age 90.  While her funeral was sad, it was also an opportunity for her descendants to gather for a few days.

We hope your holidays are filled with cheer and that 2013 brings good health, happiness, and many blessings to you and your loved ones.

Happy Holidays!

Phil, Julie, & Sarah Shilane

The Next Gerber Baby?

Vote for Sarah to be the next Gerber Baby!  You can vote here once every day through September 24.  Thanks!!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Trifle

Makes about 12 servings

Ingredients:

• 1/2 batch of brownies, cut into bite-sized pieces (they get really gooey in the trifle, so this would probably be a great way to use up some stale brownies -- if brownies ever last long enough in your house to get stale)
• 8 oz whipped cream
• Peanut butter sauce (melt 5 oz of peanut butter chips, 1/8 cup of milk, 1/4 cup of heavy cream, and 1/8 tsp of vanilla over low heat until combined, let cool). If you're a peanut butter lover, you may want to as much as double the amount of sauce
• 1/2 bag Reese's mini peanut butter cups, quartered for inside the trifle, halved for the top
• 4 fun-sized Kit Kat bars, quartered (or use a full bag of peanut butter cups instead)
• 1 package of instant chocolate pudding made according to their directions (the pudding shouldn't be too thin, so go light on the milk about 1/4 cup -- alternatively chocolate mouse might make the trifle particularly tasty).

Directions:

Layer the bottom with brownies, then chocolate pudding, peanut butter sauce, Reese's peanut butter cups and Kit Kat bars, and a layer of whipped cream.

Repeat the layers until you run out of ingredients or room in your trifle dish.

Refrigerate until ready to be served.


Note:

We didn't have a trifle bowl (see picture below), so we used a regular glass bowl.  If you're making this for a small number of people, it could be a lot of fun to make individual-sized trifles in wine glasses.

* Recipe adapted from Kari Goodwin's Peanut Butter & Chocolate Lover's Trifle

Happy Birthday, Daddy!!

Yummy carrot cake!

Sarah singing and playing Happy Birthday

Getting creative

Happy Birthday, Grandpa & Uncle Bill!

Happy Birthday from Sarah and her friends!

Happy Holidays!

December 2011

Season’s Greetings! We hope that 2011 has been a great year for you and your loved ones.

For us, 2011 has forever changed our lives. We found out early in the year that we were expecting our first child, due November 12. Then in July, we found out that we were expecting a little girl. The morning of October 11, Phil took Julie to the emergency room because of a pregnancy-related complication, and a few short hours later our daughter was delivered.

Sarah Mae Shilane was born October 11, 2011, at 2:18 p.m. at Lower Bucks Hospital. She was 4 lb 5.7 oz, 17” long, and she had a full head of dark hair. Thankfully, she was very healthy considering how early she was born, and she should not have any long-term health problems. After we had a few brief moments to meet our daughter and to introduce her to Julie’s parents, she was taken to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), where she spent the first 10.5 days of her life. The nurses and doctors there took excellent care of Sarah and taught us how to care for our little preemie.

Each day in the NICU, Sarah made significant progress: breathing without support, regulating her body temperature, and learning to eat consistently without a feeding tube. On the tenth day, we found out that Sarah would be coming home the next day! Like most preemies, she had a tendency to breathe shallowly when in a deep sleep, so she was sent home on an apnea monitor but thankfully never had any episodes. A visiting nurse also came to our house frequently in the beginning to make sure Sarah continued to gain enough weight at home.

Sarah’s now two months old, weighs more than 7 lb, and is doing extremely well. She loves to cuddle, is generally quite happy, and sleeps fairly well during the night. We love every minute of parenthood with our sweet little Sarah!

If you’d like to see more photos of Sarah, you can find links to our online photo albums here.

Besides welcoming Sarah into our lives, we also celebrated several other special occasions this year.

In May, Phil’s sister Amy and Brent Phipps got married just outside of Washington, DC, where they currently live and work. We were both honored to be a part of their bridal party.

In July, in celebration of our 5th wedding anniversary on August 13, we went on a cruise and land tour of Alaska with both sets of our parents. Julie’s parents celebrated their 35th anniversary, and Phil’s parent’s celebrated their 39th.

Sadly, shortly after we returned from our trip, Julie’s grandmother passed away. She had been suffering from Parkinson’s disease for many years. We traveled with Julie’s parents and brother to Lady Lake, Florida, for the memorial service. All of Julie’s aunts, uncles, and cousins attended, including her cousin’s daughter who lives in Mexico and whom we hadn’t met in person before. In memory of Grandma, we taught the youngest generation how to play her favorite card game, Canasta.

For the first time in about 10 years, Phil, his parents, and his siblings got to spend Thanksgiving together. They all visited at our house so they could meet Sarah. Julie’s parents also came for Thanksgiving, and Sarah’s grandparents and aunt and uncles came to her naming ceremony the following Saturday.

We hope your holidays are filled with cheer and that 2012 brings good health, happiness, and many blessings to you and your loved ones.

Happy Holidays!

Phil, Julie, & Sarah Shilane

Sarah Mae Shilane

Sarah Mae Shilane has arrived!

October 11, 2011 2:18 pm

4 lb 5.7 oz

17" long

Here are links to photo albums of Sarah:

Hospital photos (Sarah spent 10.5 days in the NICU)

Homecoming through 1 month

5 1/2 week photo shoot

Naming Ceremony

Month 2

Month 3

Happy Holidays 2011

12 1/2 week photo shoot

Month 4

Month 5

18 1/2 week photo shoot

Month 6

Sarah's first trip

6 Month Photo Shoot

Month 7
Month 8
Month 9
Sarah's first road trip
Sarah's first trip to the beach
Month 9 photo shoot
Month 10
Sarah's first trip to the zoo
Month 11
1 Year Photo Shoot

Courtney's Baby Shower

Our friends Courtney and Tyrel are expecting their first baby, a little boy, in early September. Courtney and Tyrel were both graduate students in the Chemistry Department at Princeton while we were there. Julie and Courtney were in the same lab, and now they both work together at Light Knowledge Resources.

Surprise!

Some of the goodies:

Henry, about 9 months old

Henry & Harriet

Greg & Bill

Our Hawaiian Plumeria Is Blooming

On our honeymoon in Maui almost 5 years ago, we bought a plumeria stalk, brought it home, planted it, and watched it grow. It grew in height and sprouted a few leaves at a time, but it never bloomed...until now.

Chicago

Julie attended the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting in Chicago again this year, and Phil traveled along.

Once again, Phil enjoyed visiting the museums in Chicago, and we both enjoyed Chicago's deep dish and stuffed pizza! Julie also found time to squeeze in a visit to the aquarium.

Since we did a lot of the same things as last year, we didn't take too many photos this year. You can check out last year's photos, though, if you haven't already seen them.

We did take one new photo: Phil and yummy pizza!