Memorial Day Weekend 2010

The mall:

The Beach:

The Park:

What more could you ask for?

We had a such a great time the Memorial Day Weekend that my writing simply can't do it justice so I'm just going to show some pics. Plus I don't have the focus or patience to sit here and try to be clever as my brain is no longer functioning at 38 weeks + pregnant. And by the way, I'm convinced this child is never coming out.

Does sarcasm/frustration translate through the internet?

Back to my fabulous weekend...

Monkey on the monkey bars:

Friends in the front yard:

What's wrong with this picture?

The Chase:

The Catch:

This is gonna be fun!

Up High:

The ginormousness:

Naked Computing:

Chillin on Southport:

To the Beach!

Summer weather returned to Chicago yesterday at a healthy 90 degrees. Given the chaotic weather patterns in this city, we had to take advantage of it while we could. Not sparing a minute, we hit the beach at 8:30 AM and it was already hot. In true Luke fashion, Luke immediately starting throwing his body around and rolling in the sand, making sure every square inch of his body was covered before we were even there for 5 minutes. In fact, Luke decided everyone should be covered in sand and proceeded to exfoliate my back by rubbing it with handfuls of sand. I've got a bunch of pictures here - take a look! There are also some of my big boy swinging on the monkey bars by himself!

The baby Zappia #2 headline of the week: Full Term - YAY!

So now that I accomplished my goal of making it full term with this baby, I'm ready get on with it! I was kind of hoping the baby would be born some time this week, but according to the dr. this morning, that isn't looking so likely. I've moved passed to waddle stage and my gait looks more like a swaying kind of motion. There is a full moon on Thursday though - a girl can hope!

Soon to be baby Zappia#2 headline: Please exit the womb!

3 Years Old

I'm posting a little late about Luke's 3rd birthday but better late than never! Ah- the old cliche "where did the time go?"is all too true - where did it go? How can the day he was born be 3 years ago already when I can remember it so clearly and vividly. Maybe sleep deprivation makes you forget time?

It took us about 3 full weeks to celebrate Luke's 3rd birthday- that's normal, right?!?!? I hope that it doesn't continue this way because the next birthday would take a whole month! Gma and Gpa were in town for the occasion (among other occasions) and we celebrated with a huge ice cream cake from Dairy Queen. And yes, we've been eating the ice cream cake for 3 weeks - a nice bonus. Luke's a huge fan of candles so everytime we got the ice cream cake out for the first few days, we had to light candles and have Luke blow them out. Luke is so incredibly spoiled, the gifts kept on coming - a guitar, "dingers" for the guitar, a drum, special model cars, giant chapstick, building blocks, clothes, a "skateboard" attachment for his stroller, money for his college fund, yada, yada, yada.

I took the morning off from work on Luke's actual birthday and daddy and I took Luke to his favorite indoor play place - Fantasy Kingdom. He basically had the whole place to himself and he definitely took advantage of that. He was beyond excited to go there and every time he asks now, he says he wants to go to his birthday party. The world is your playground, Luke.

When you ask Luke how old he is now, he proudly announces that he's "free," while holding up 5 fingers. Please, no one teach Luke the real meaning behind 5 fingers and "free," or the cops will be coming after me because I just broke your 5 fingers.

In other Zappia happenings, Mimi is in town this weekend helping us get ready for the baby. I'm 36 weeks and I've completed all of my lovely weekly shots so all bets are now off! I've done so much to prepare for this baby coming early that I will surely be distraught if baby is still cooking at 40 weeks+...my bladder and my ribs just can't take the beatings anymore. Today we we went to the zoo and ended up doing a lot more ride riding (carousel and train) than animal viewing. Plans for later include a trip to Target - yay, Luke's other favorite play place :)

Pictures!

33 Weeks!

We made it- yay! Cross your fingers, cross your toes, cross everything you can that we make it 4 more weeks to full-term. Actually, now that we've hit the first goal of making it to 33 weeks, I'll take each day as it comes. I can't say that I'm exactly comfortable these days but hey, it's worth it. By my estimate, this kid weighs 10 pounds already. I've had people comment that I'm hiding a basketball under my shirt but I tell them it's really a bowling ball. Clearly an exaggeration but that's what it feels like.

We had dinner tonight over at the Callahan's who live across the hall. Some other neighbors also came over and we had a nice little dinner. Luke and Alec actually played nicely together with one small little head on collision resulting in two goose eggs.

In other news, We're gearing up for Luke's 3rd birthday. So far he's requested an orange classic car (to go with his green VW and his red Corvette) and some tattoos. We start em' off young here on the northside of Chicago with hot rods and ink.

And starting this week, I'll be predominantly working from home until the baby is born :) I normally work from home at least once a week but I'm glad to transition to doing it full-time for a little while and avoid the commute.

Wish me more weeks!

April

We've been having lots of fun in Chicago with a couple of visits recently from friends and family and some more to come shortly! We've also started preparing for the arrival of baby #2 who seems rather anxious to make an appearance. In fact, Matt and I had some fun this past Friday and did a test drive of labor and delivery. Ok, so we didn't want to do it but nonetheless we did a run through. Baby #2 is good for now but needs to relax already! Sheesh. The "new" Prentice Women's Hospital is a beauty -- quite different from the "old" Prentice where Luke was born.

Luke's been sillier than ever. He's completely addicted to the show Dora even though we've been limiting his viewing time. It's a good thing he has no idea that there are a lot of kids shows out there - thank you, DVR. He's also been enjoying his old baby toys that we've been pulling out - I think we might have some issues with him being possessive of them in the near future.

So in my preparation for baby#2, I've decided to use cloth diapers. Better for the environment, better for the baby, better for the wallet :) Mimi is helping with this effort by actually making the diapers - just like the ones you buy in the store but for 1/3 of the price! The first shipment should be arriving this week and I can't wait to see how they turned out.

Well that's about it for now...off the make more baby-prep lists!

32 Weeks:

Easter 2010

Yesterday we kicked off the Easter festivities with some egg dyeing and painting. This was no small feat with a toddler participant although it was ridiculously cute to watch. We started out using the egg dye and this worked out pretty well after we convinced Luke that not all of the the eggs had to be yellow and that he could use the blue and pink bowls. I'm not sure why, but apparently when I was in Target buying the egg coloring kit, I thought the paint and glitter kit looked like fun too. So next up was egg painting. Luke started out strong by painting just the top 5% of each egg. Then the paint turned into finger paint, but not the kind that actually comes off the skin easily. uggg. We finished the egg painting rather quickly but not before we added the glitter! Somewhere along the line, Luke thought the glitter was edible, but don't worry, we were able to stop him before his tongue connected with the egg. Saturday festivities, check! Onto Sunday...

The Easter bunny stopped by our house last night while Luke was sleeping to drop off some "presents and treats." Luke woke up extra early today (yay.) just to see if the Easter bunny took good care of him. I'm pretty sure that the presents won out for the most favorite Easter basket items. Who cares about M&Ms and lollipops when there's a bracelet making kit to play with! By 6:20 AM, we had already created two Luke size bracelets and by 7:00 AM the container of approx. 500 beads took a spill. Well, I should explain how the beads were spilled. The beads were in an open rubbermaid container inside Luke's Easter basket which was hanging from the handlebar of his scooter. Do you see where this story is going? After riding down the hallway with the Easter basket in tow, Luke abruptly stopped his scooter which fell over. Splash go the beads! Crawling around on the floor at 30 weeks pregnant picking up beads was fantastic! Nonetheless, I'm not delusional enough to think this won't happen again very soon.

After we got all cleaned up, we headed to M. Henry, our favorite breakfast spot. Uncle Nick came along and we had a successful breakfast. Luckily, the weather here in Chicago was actually spring like and we played in the front yard for a while after breakfast. We even did a little Easter Egg hunt with Luke. His favorite eggs were the ones with money in them - no surprise there!

Yay, I'm coloring Easter eggs!

Just call me Monet...

Egg decorating was exhausting, now I need to relax...

The Easter Bunny came!

Now that's a big egg...30 weeks big:

Declan loves babies...

The Egg Hunt:

Looking for eggs...

Found some!

Can I have more eggs?

75

It actually happend and it happened in March! Ok, the last day of March but it was 75 degrees in Chicago today! Ahhhhhh, so warm. All the neighborhood kids and parents ended up in the front yard after work as usual. I'm sure all the other residents on the street think are building is the "kid and dog" building. Sometimes it does look like a circus out there but it's really fun to be able to socialize without leaving the front yard.

Not all that much to update today. Luke is anxiously awaiting the Easter Bunny this weekend because the Easter Bunny brings "presents and treats." We did have some pre-Easter treats today since both g-ma and mimi sent some fun treats in the mail. My next post will likely be soon as we'll need a post-egg-dyeing update and photo shoot.

Until then, here are some new pics...

Tea time with the kitties:

Baby Zappia at 29 weeks:

Guitar Hero:

The lumber jack:

Marco Island

Ahhhh, that was a nice vacation? Can we go again next week?

We started out as the whitest family in the state of Florida, so much so that we actually looked a tad on the blue side. We finished the week on the pink side and with vitamin D levels not seen in our blood for some time. So many stories to tell, so little room to fit them in, so much of my memory lost to baby brain. I think I need to categorize my stories.

Funny:
I'll start with the rental car. Sounds like a strange topic, right? Luke was really into the rental car for some reason - he really, really liked it. He now thinks that Avis is a person and still asks if he can ride in Avis' car. Avis has a friend and customer for life in Luke.

Next up, the toilets in the airport, strange topic again you say? No pun intended, the super powerful, man-eating, auto-flush on those toilets scared the sh*t out of Luke. So much so that he kept asking to "pee in the grass?" everywhere we went so he could avoid strange toilets. Such a boy - making his mark all over Florida.

So we went to the zoo one day and they house all of their primates on these little islands on a man made lake. To see the primates, you have to go on a little boat ride. This means waiting in line to get on the boat. After waiting for 30 minutes in line, our boat is about 50 yards from returning to the dock to pick us up and Luke decides he has to pee. Oh the joys of a potty-trained toddler with a bladder the size of a grape. Poor Matt had to sprint with Luke to the closest bathroom and luckily they made it back on time to get on the boat. While on the boat, the tour guide asks everyone to be kind and not yell or make any gestures to the monkeys. So what does Luke do at the sight of the first monkey? He starts repeating "ee ee ooh aahh ee ee ooh ahh," while doing the classic monkey movement of placing your hands in your armpits and flappig your arms up and down. Of course, we couldn't help but laugh but it was slightly embarassing.

We had a Michael Jackson "This is It" dance party in our room. Luke felt the need to wear his sunglasses during said dance party and this made him look like Stevie Wonder instead of MJ.

Cute:

Luke is a total beach bum. He would live on the beach in a tent if he could. The weather was not super warm so the windy beach was rather chilly but it didn't stop Luke from staying out there as long as possible. Every time we asked him if we could go back to the pool/room/restaurant, he'd say "Not yet, I'm still playing." Also, everytime he found a seashell (which as you can imaging was rather often) he would say "oh, here's one!"

In the pool, Luke was a fish. He even learned to voluntarily go under water - woo hoo! That's a huge pool milestone! The cute part is how we got him to do it. We played "Pock a Posy!" What is Pock a posy, you ask? Well it's actually Ring Around the Rosie to you and me :) When you "all fall down," everyone goes under water. Luke enjoyed Pock a posy so much and we did it so many times that we had to take breaks because we were getting so dizzy.

Salt. Ok, not sure if this is cute or irritating. Luke had a special little red truck he took everywhere with him, including restaurants. While waiting for our food to come, Luke made it "snow" on the truck which means he emptied out entire shakers of salt onto this truck. One guy passing by our table thought this was quite inventive. I'm sure the waitresses loved us.

Well enough with Luke stories. All in all, we had a fabulous time. Mimi helped us keep Luke occupied and we made her go to bed by 9 everynight which she's not used too. I guess that's what happens when you share a room with a toddler. We've decided that we need to build vacations into our schedule and budget because it's such an awesome time and brings us such great memories for the future. This was one we won't forget!

Here are just a few pictures: