9 Months

Big Girl is 9 months old! She's rapidly becoming more and more mobile and harder and hard to contain! Very soon after Adrienne starting crawling forward, she started pulling up on everything she can get her grubby little hands on. Sometimes she'll even let go of things and just balance on her feet. She's loving her new found sense of freedom and independence but I am not loving all of the spills she takes! It's a good thing she has plenty of padding on that little booty! One of her favorite items these days is her brother's scooter. And yes, the fighting over toys has started already. Lastnight I had her standing on the platform of the scooter with her arms stretched up so she could get her hands on the handle bars. Quite a funny sight - she was so happy she was giggling. We, of course, did this while said brother was outside crashing his power wheels into various objects. Adrienne also loves playing blocks with Luke although Luke is quite stingy with howmany blocks she can have. So she settles for playing babyzilla and just knocks his towers down. I find much entertainment in watching them play together.

We have Adrienne's 9 month appt.on MondayAND Luke's parent/teacher conference so I shouldhave plenty of material to update you all on next time! Until then...

Our First Trip to Walt Disney World

To say that planning a trip to Disney World is overwhelming is an understatement because almost everything about Disney World is overwhelming. But kind of in a good way. It truly is a magical place unlike any other.

For our first family trip to WDW (Matt and I have been there before), we took a low key approach and I think it really paid off. We were there from a Tuesday night to Friday mid-day which was a good amount of time for us. Our Disney experience started off with a shuttle ride from the airport to the resort and I only mention this part because Luke was thrilled to ride on a "coach" bus with red velvet seats and drop down TVs. We arrived at our hotel, the Carribbean Beach Resort and immediately hit up the main building for some food. Luke found an arcade which we played in for a while after dinner then off to bed to get ready for the next day, our first day at the Magic Kingdom.

With every known baby product in tow, we headed off to the promised land. Once inside the entrance, we stopped quickly for some food...and I should mention here that ALL of the food was great-decently expensive, but always quality. Not having a specific plan of attack, we decided to go "left" at the first opportunity to do so, which meant we veered off at the circle in front of the main castle. Luke's first attraction was the Swiss Family Robinson Tree House which he loved. Next up, Aladin's Magic Carpets, one of our favorites. We did this ride twice, I rode with Luke once and my mom rode with him once. I was kind of shocked that they let little kid ride these rides only because growing up, I felt like I couldn't ride most rides until middle school, regardless of their safety level. Maybe it just sticks out in my mind that I was so small and couldn't ride the rides that everyone else my age could. Anyway, at this point, Luke started asking to leave. Yes, you read that right, Luke already wanted to leave the Magic Kingdom. He wanted to go back to his Beloved hotel with the fun pool. Well, of course, we weren't going to leave yet so we continued to torture Luke with more rides at the happiest place on Earth.

We did a whole bunch of rides, but my favorites were the Tea Cups and Space Mountain. I was definitely in a mission to make sure we did the Tea Cups. I'm not really sure why, but I had it in my head that we had to do the cups. Maybe I wanted to make sure we had the All American experience while there. Luke went with mimi and he made sure that they rode in a purple tea cup - it had to be purple. And even later in the day, I made my mom ride the tea cups with me, but I didn't make her ride in a purple one again. After about 3 hours or so, the kids starting dozing off in the rental strollers...it seemed so funny that we were at this fabulous kid place and they were riding around in strollers sleeping. So Matt and I took advantage of this and rode a couple of rides ourselves while my mom watched the sleeping beauties. The only ride that Matt really really wanted to do was Splash Mountain and it was the only one that I really really didn't want to do, naturally (I'm not a fan of big drops) . So Matt and my mom did Splash Mountain while I wondered around with the kids looking for a bathroom. After a few more hours and one MAJOR fit by Luke at the Race Cars, we decided to call it a day and head back to the hotel...music to Luke's ears.

Now don't get me wrong, I can see why Luke loved the pool, but seriously, he could have at least humored me with enjoying the parks a little more. So we spent the rest of the day at the pool - luckily the pool also had a bar that served Blue Moon. score! Later that evening we headed to Downtown Dinsey which was cute. We walked away from there with a mini mouse princess and a purple light saber compliments of mimi.

The next day we went back to Magic Kingdom but this time, there was double the number of people there than the day before...the first day of their peak season. We had a similar experience on day #2 in that we did some rides (and this time we did the race cars successfully with no fits!) but Luke still wanted to be back at the hotel. So after a few hours, back to the pool it was.

We concluded our Florida trip with my friend Kevin's wedding and for this we switched hotels and went to downtown Orlando. This hotel was not like the kid friendly Disney hotel but was very posh instead. Luke loved the deep purple velvet chaise lounge in our hotel room and designated the coordinating pillow as his caterpillar, Fuzzy's bed. Because this hotel was a Marriott hotel, and Matt still has his platinum Marriott status from his work travel, we had access to the concierge lounge. Luke and Adrienne were the only visitors to the lounge that made any sort of noise...but we didn't care and went daily anyway. Mimi watched the little people while Matt and I attended the wedding on the pool deck of the hotel with the reception in the ball room. All in all, it was a great trip and we did not love coming back home to the frozen tundra.

I think it will be a number of years before we do Disney again but I definitely think we'll be back there in the future.

8 months

Houston, we have forward crawling!

Big girl continues on her way (much too fast)toward toddlerhood now at 8 months. Most recently, she figured out how to move her little tank forward instead of backward in circles. She sits without the safety net, also known as the boppy, to keep her from tipping over backwards. She's trying to pull up on everything and really enjoys standing. I really think I could make a lot of money making an infant helmet notmeant for reshaping a kid's head (because they already have those) but for protection from developing motor skills.Adrienne tends to do a few tumbles a week as she overestimates her new found mobility.

Let's see, she's starting to make a run for her brother's toys, specifically his match box cars and the cars' garage. I certainlyforesee some sharing struggles in the near future - oy. Luke is still Adrienne's favorite entertainer and she just loves to hang out with him. Hopefully this is not just a phase.

Adrienne is eating table foods these days, she pretty much likes everything! She loves drinking ice water. We don't do juice in our house mainly because there are mostly empty calories in juice and because quite frankly, nobody here really loves it enough to buy it.

Well that's about it for now since I'll need to do a 9 month post rather soon :)

Lukey B Baby

I think I need to dedicate an entire post to Luke as there is just so much going on in his life these days! Because it is winter in upstate NY, we try to do as much as we can to get out of the house before we (and Luke) go stir crazy. On Saturday mornings, Luke heads off to gymnastics at Eagle Gymnastics center which is conveniently located about 5 minutes from our house. Each Saturday morning, the parent who is lucky enough to accompany Luke to the gym gets a real show and is sure to come home with some "Luke" stories. For example, last weekend, Matt was able to come home and tell me how Luke figured out how to beat the system of waiting in line for his turn on the vault. As it turns out, if Luke runs down the runway, jumps on the spring board and jumps just straight up and down and back onto the springboard (not onto the vault mat/pit), the teacher will send him back down the runway to do over. And this keeps happening over and over and over again until the teacher has figured out Luke's little game. On the floor exercise, an obstacle course is usually set up for the kids - we've noticed that Luke just skips the things he doesn't want to do and jumps his spot in line, again, beating the system. I'm going to chalk this up to Luke being a free-thinker as opposed to a rule-disregarder.

And what's even funnier than Luke's line avoidance, is his reaction to the other kids in the class. Luke totally gives a few of them the side eye! There is one little girl in particular who happened to be wearing a green sparkly leotard 2 classes ago and she pitched a fit in front of the whole gym - the kids weren't going in the foam pit at the end of class like they had the week before. Well ever since, she's known as "the green girl, the one havin' a fit." You know, because Luke's never thrown a fit before.

In addition to his weekly gymnastics class, we are often seen floating around the YMCA pool on the weekends. Well, when I say we, I really mean Luke and Matt. Luke is quite the little guppie, bobbing under the water and wiggling all around. He still likes to play "pock-a-posy" or ring around the rosy as the rest of us call it. When we all fall down, Luke dunks himself under water. The last time I went swimming with him we played so many times that I got dizzy.

Luke's other favorite inside winter activities include scooter/cozy coupe races down the hallway, jammin' on his guitar with daddy, baking (specifically brownies with G-ma and cupcakes with mimi), painting, playing with his blocks, harassing the cat, acrobatics on the couch, and last but not least, playing his drum as loud as he possibly can.

And as for outside winter activities, sledding is the clear favorite, but he also enjoys snow shoveling, trash removal and kicking snow. I do have to mention this one funny story from last weekend. Matt and Luke were heading out to get a pizza for dinner (the in-house cook doesn't work on the weekends) and Luke had a brownie that he was taking with him as a treat in the car. Luke went around the car to the door where his carseat is located and when Matt came around after him, he found Luke face first down in the snow kicking his feet. Apparently he didn't use his hands to break his fall because he was still holding onto the brownie with both hands when Matt picked him up. Clearly the boy is dedicated to his brownies.

And here is the big man himself!

7 Months

I guess all of my begging and pleading for time to slow down has not worked. bummer. My little chunk hit the 7 month mark this past Monday and apparently it has urged her to be mobile. Well, she's not really mobile yet, but she's thinking about it and practicing daily. If you put her on the rug with her toys, she'll be in the middle of the room on the hardwood floor within a few minutes. And that poor little nose has had some unfortunate meetings with the wood lately. I bet that I could become a millionaire if I produced and sold baby helmets - there are certainly enough nervous nilly's out there that would buy one. Kind of like really mini bike helmets.

At 7 months, we're experimenting with food. I use "experimenting" as opposed to "eating" because I'm not confident that much of the food makes it into her mouth as "eating" would suggest. Some days she likes food and other days she most certainly does not and she'll let you know with a very disgusted look on her face. So far, the fruits are not much of a hit but luckily the vegetables seem to go over better. Her favorite food by far is avocado followed closely by squash. And we'll through in Mangos as the 3rd most popular. Adrienne is still a huge fan of nursing so she gets most of her nutrition through milk still.

It seems that with each passing month, Adrienne gains new nicknames. Most recently, I've been calling her a gremlin because she's been making these low guttural noises - they are very funny but different than grunts. If she is in fact a gremlin, she's way cuter than Gizmo.

Here she is folks - sorry, no sign this month:

Christmas 2010

Whew! I'm only now writing this post on January 10th because it has taken me this long to recover from Christmas. Let's just say that I've been putting away Christmas gifts for days and I am still not done. As predicted, Luke and Adrienne received an astronomical amount of gifts. Everyone was unbelievably generous to them. One might think opening gifts with a 3.5 year old would take about 5 nanoseconds but with Luke, it takes hours. He was very distracted by each toy he opened and he wanted to sit down and play with it right then and there - forget the rest of the gifts. At least he fully appreciates each gift even if it takes a little longer. As for Adri, she enjoyed the wrapping paper as if it were one of the best things she's ever discovered - and maybe it is. She has an entirely, and I mean entirely, NEW wardrobe. Our games of dress up have been super fun - well, for me but I think she's getting a wee bit tired of it. She receive a "plumpy" baby doll and we all got a chuckle out of that. We actually had 2 Christmases because we celebrate with both the Hajjar and Zappia sides of the family. And boy does Luke enjoy doing it twice! It's good to be the first and second grandchildren on both sides :)

We took our tree down which was a little emotionally difficult for Luke. He thinks we should keep the tree up "the whole time." This is his new phrase. Quite frankly, the tree had to go asap because I was tired of the cat launching himself at it and Luke using our dainty glass icicle ornaments as drum sticks.

So the tree is down, the cookies have been devoured and the kids are back at school. 2010 was quite a busy year for us with a new baby a move half way across the country, a new job for Matt, preschool for Luke and so many other milestones. Thanks to everyone who helped us have a successful year and welcome 2011!