Our Little Monkey's First Birthday!

Berkeley, my first and precious little son, turned one on New Year's Eve. I took the day off from work to spend this day with my family. I was much more emotional that I had anticipated on this special day; by far my little guys 1st birthday was much sweeter to me than any of my own birthdays. I reflected a lot about the day he was born and the enormous amount of responsibility and love I felt for this new baby. I was really ready to become a mother; throughout my life many close circles of friends have given me nicknames about being motherly, as I always try to take care of everyone. Maybe that is why I became a social worker. However, I was really excited about becoming a mother. Shortly after Berkeley was born a friend in my church told me that she had never seen any one transition so easily into motherhood. That really meant so much to me. This past year I felt such a smooth transition into motherhood, it has felt completely natural and happy. I really love being a wife and I especially love being a mother. Berkeley has brought so much joy into our homes. Each night Christian and I lay in bed and just talk about the adorable things Berkeley does that day and discuss how we can help him in his development. We are completely smitten with this little guy and want nothing but the very best for him.
In preparation for his birthday, I thought about what a one year old would love more than anything for his birthday. I thought that Berke would love to wake up to a kiddie pool full of balls, like a McDonald's Play Land (but much cleaner). I was right. This kid crawled straight from the other room straight into the pool of balls and never wanted to leave. Believe me when I saw that balls were all over my entire house (which meant this was a occasional and short lived kinda toy), but it was worth it, because Berke was in complete bliss!

He was also pretty pleased with his new Red Rider Wagon his Grandpa Bill sent him. He loved it when he daddy took him for a ride around the house.

We got him this adorable chair, but as you can see, it was not exciting at all with a pool of balls right next to it. I do have hopes that he will grow to love his chair.

The previous night, C and I baked some pumpkin bread, in the morning we wrapped it up with a note of Thanks and brought it to the nurses and doctors in the Labor and Delivery at Cambridge Hospital where our little guy was born. We had such a wonderful experience there and without their help we wouldn't have our beautiful little man now.

After that we ventured out in the snow to get Berke's 1st year pictures taken and to run a few errands. When we got home, we had a lot more fun in the balls. This kid was seriously in heaven. That night we had a few friends over for homemade pizza and cheesecake and played some games. Then we watched J Lo dance in a really awful looking full body leotard and watch the ball drop in Time Square.

We had a little Birthday Bash for the little guy on Saturday. Christian and I stayed up late the night before decorating this monkey cake. It only took us 4 hours to decorate; neither Christian or I had EVER done anything like this, so this was a MAJOR accomplishment for us. I think it turned out pretty well.

Like father like son.
This is so true for Christian and Berkeley; they love to work on the computer together. If Christian is playing the piano, Berke crawls right over to him and wants to be on his lap, he has a huge obsession with the piano right now. If Christian is fixing something or hanging something on the wall, Berke has to be there checking out his tools and playing with his own tools. It is pretty adorable how he wants to do everything his dad is doing right now. ADORABLE!!!

Here is mommy and Berke right before the big party. Oh, how I love this boy.

I think the best gift from his party was this life size Teddy Bear that our neighbor Agnus brought him. Berke loves eating his nose and giving him CPR, it is funny stuff.

Berke got sung to and got to eat his birthday cupcakes, which he was much more interested in smashing up than eating. It was a wonderful first birthday for our little monkey.

So there it is, we survived the first year and luckily so did Berkeley. His birthday was a big event and now it is over and we begin the 2nd year of his life.

Happiest Birthday Big Boy!

Look Who's 1!

Berkeley William Gentry
turns 1 year old
12/31/09

Hip Hip Hooray

Julia + Jed
Engaged at last

Last week, after what seemed like FOREVER, Jed finally pulled himself together and proposed to the beautiful and talented Julia. I couldn't be more happier for this adorable couple, they really are a wonderful pair.
Jed, you are such a lucky man, and I know you know this. Julia is not only beautiful, intelligent, funny, awesome, classy, and stunning,but she will do anything for the people she loves; I know this first hand. Thanks for making Julia so happy, you are really a wonderful catch for her. I cant wait to watch you grow and learn as a married couple.
CONGRATS!
Love you guys!

Birthday Bash for Enzo

Berkeley went to his first birthday party for his little pal, Enzo. Enzo was turning 2, he is one of my co-worker's Sebole's son. Berke especially loved playing with Enzo's dance and talk to me Elmo (there are so many kinds out there, who really knows who this one is?) Berke was entertained for quite some time with this red friend.

Enzo was very excited to eat his Birthday cupcake, this is a serious two year old birthday cupcake as you can tell. It is obvious that Enzo loves cupcakes as he couldn't be more excited to dig in.

Berkeley enjoyed playing with Sebole.....

Enzo was not quite as thrilled about his dad playing with another baby.

Happy Birthday Enzo!

Berkeley's 1st Christmas

As I looked back at last Christmas' pictures, I realized I was super pregnant and little did I know this adorable little guy would be joining us just a week later. What a difference a year can make. This year Christmas was so much fun; even though Berke is too young to understand the concept of Christmas and Santa and Baby Jesus, he does get excited when he starts playing with new toys and books.

Santa set up Berke's Leap Frog Pad on Christmas Eve, Berke crawled all the way from the other room once he saw this, pulled himself up on it and played with it for a good 20 minutes. There is just so much to do, so many colors and fun sounds. It was pretty adorable.

Then we started opening the crazy amount of presents from family and he just kept getting more and more interested in all these new devices he got to play with. Grandma and Grandpa Sorrels sent him this train which he really loved.

After opening a few presents Berke just wanted to use his toys to climb all over.

I believe it is fair to say that McDuff was THE most excited for presents this year. This dog LOVES ripping the wrapping paper off of presents. He was treated very well this year, with a new leash and collar from Santa Paws, then he got a squeaky heart (in his mouth in picture), two bags of treats, and two squeaky stuffed animals. He was in Doggie Heaven. Not only did he get to open his own presents but he was more than willing to help his little brother out with his, since he really wasn't picking up on the whole unwrapping thing too quickly.

Here we are so excited about this phone that teaches numbers, letters and music. Thanks Great Grandma Evans. (Why is it that most the toys he got this year make noise?)

As you can see Berke is stoked about this car/walker toy, he couldn't be more happy with all the loot he received this year. He got lots of fun toys, cute clothes and books. What a lucky and loved kid we have.

Christian and I were also very spoiled this year. Here is the family loot. Thanks everyone for all the thoughtful and wonderful gifts, we loved everything!

After opening presents and a Christmas nap, we all got ready and took a nice walk to CHINA DELIGHT for some Chinese Food. Berke and daddy are sure to be warm during this venture.

This year our friends the Hadley's joined us for Chinese food. It was really fun and stress free not to have to cook a big meal. Not to mention we still have not done the dishes from the Christmas Eve Party, so we really didn't need any more.

We ended the night by going to our friends Jeremy and Jeff's house for mingling and cookies. It was a wonderful holiday. We really couldn't be more thankful for our wonderful families who we miss dearly this time of year, our super supportive and fun friends who are our families out here. We are especially grateful this time of year to remember the birth of our Savior. We are in awe of his life and what he taught us. We only hope we can try to live more like him and always follow his teachings of love and compassion.
Merry Christmas to all!

3rd Annual Christmas Eve Party

We have stayed in Boston the last 3 years during Christmas. We have really enjoyed starting our own traditions and getting together with friends while family is so far away during the holidays. One of our favorite things we do during the holidays is host a Christmas Eve Party for those friends we have who also stay in Boston. Each year we have a different crowd, but each year we have a fabulous time.
We always start out with a delicious Italian dinner, including stuffed shells, vegetable lasagna, salad, bread, cheese ball, dessert, and oh soo much more.

Each year we read this Nativity Story, but this year we assigned some of our guest parts, and they all dressed up and did fantastic with their parts.

Above we see Joseph, Mary and Baby Jesus with the Wise Man, Woman and Child visiting them.
Below is our Angel, she is a shy little angel, but a cute one nonetheless.

Berkeley had the big role of a sheep this year, he was pretty cute. The shepherds did a great job watching their flock.

Then we sang Christmas sons while Christian played the piano. We had a pretty big crowd this year so it sounded nice. We then had our annual Yankee Swap and ended the night with chatting and getting ready for Santa to visit.

At the end of the night, Berke put on his Sponge Bob Square Pants Santa PJ's from Great Grandma Evans, they were pretty adorable. As you can tell from our family photo, the party wore the little man out!
We had such a great time and are glad we could spend the holiday with our friends.

It's Begining to Look a lot Like Christmas

The snow hit us this weekend. All the white flakes have found their way back to New England as history shows. All the town was a buzz on Saturday hearing about the storm headed our way, and after seeing the damage done in DC, I was anxiously awaiting the down fall. EVERYONE on Saturday was hustling an bustling around trying to do last minute Christmas shopping, get their homes filled with food, and do whatever errands they needed to complete before the storm hit.
The Gentry family was no different, Christian hit Market Basket up at 7:00 a.m. for groceries, only to find out they opened early at 6:00 a.m. and thus the parking lot was full. He was glad he went then however, as we drove past a few hours later, there were major traffic jams on all streets around the Market Basket. They had to have a cop directing traffic into the parking lot.

We also didn't want to miss what may have been our last chance to get Berkeley's picture taken with Santa. So we headed to Meadow Glen aka "Ghetto" Glen Mall for a visit with the Jolly Old Soul himself. This Santa was about as cute as they come; he was so sweet and patient with all the little kids going crazy. Berke didn't mind Santa at all. The workers instructed me to not let Berke look at Santa so he wouldn't start crying. Well it wasn't easy getting a good picture because as soon as Berke was sitting on Santa's lap, he started doing his ever famous rock back and forth. He looked at Santa a few times, smiled, no big deal. We finally got a smile out of him when he got to play with Rudolph, he gave him a little honk on the nose for good luck.
I cant believe this is Berke's first Christmas, cause he looks like such a big guy in this picture.
(Sorry about the quality, it is a picture of a picture)

What else should a family do on a snowy weekend? Well if you are Berke, you find great joy playing on McDuff's bed; it is so much better than his crib.

We also did lots of movie watching, we watch ELF every Christmas, it is a family tradition. We also watched Julie and Julia, totally loved it. I was hungry the entire movie, looking at all of that delicious food. Church was cancelled, so we basically stayed in our PJ's all day and were pretty lazy. We did get laundry and dishes done, so it wasn't a complete waste.

Hope everyone has a wonderful Holiday this week!