Sunday, November 25, 2012

Our Thanksgiving Weekend

 Our family returned from our extended Holiday weekend in Minnesota less than an hour ago.  After unpacking the car and throwing some laundry in the dryer, I sat down to first put together our Christmas card.  After filtering through many special pictures from our weekend with family, I decided there were a few I just had to share with the world!  We had an especially wonderful Thanksgiving weekend with family and friends.  As Vinnie grows and shows us more of his personality each day we are reminded what a blessing has been given to our family.  He makes each day so special and each holiday and family tradition a new adventure.  We look forward to spending time again in a month!  Please enjoy the pictures! :)

Cousin's playing on the iPad.

BEFORE the snow came a trip to the park and bubbles!

Olivia swingin'

LOVE!

Chips from Tommy.

Wild Woman!

Kisses from Grandma!

Lovin' some THANKSGIVING dinner!!!

Ella and Meghan.

Cuddle time.

Playing with grandma and all her fun toys!

Reading with Grandpa.

Bouncing!

Look at those Mustaches!!!!!

At the Macy's 8th floor display.

Checking everything out.

Not too sure about that Santa guy...

Not too happy to be with mom and dad...

...but loving on Grandma and Grandpa!!!

Saturday, November 17, 2012

Early mornings...

It is 5:50am on a Saturday.  I am up.  I have been up since 5am and awake since well before that.  Vinnie, is happily sleeping in his crib upstairs.  It seems that parenting makes you a morning person, regardless of your child!  Maybe I can squeeze in a nap with Vinnie this afternoon!  The blessing in my early morning is it gives me a little peaceful quiet time to myself...a very rare occurrence since our little man began walking. 

On this early morning I have been enjoying going through some of the pictures we have been able to capture on our new camera, so I thought I would share them with all of you.  Enjoy!

I know a lot of you are anxious to see this little guy on the move, so I've added a video of that on the end!

We are anxious to get through our two day work week and get up to Minnesota for some much needed FAMILY TIME next week!  Happy Thanksgiving!!!



























Sunday, November 4, 2012

Movin' Movin' Movin!

 Family and friends...we have a walker!!!  Just days after turning 15 months, Vinnie took his first steps.  And, he hasn't turned back since.  These days, he is walking (or at least trying to walk) everywhere.  It often takes a few attempts, with a break or two in the middle, but he gets there eventually!  We are so proud!

With his first steps and came a trip to the doctor for his 15 month well visit.  This trip came with some good news and some bad news.  Which would you like first?!?  How about the good...  This "little guy" is growing like a weed!  He is finally out of the single digits for his growth percentiles!  Here are his stats as of 10/31/12:

Ht: 30" - 20%
Wt: 21 lb 8.5 oz - 15%
Head 46.4 cm - 30% 

Those are some huge gains!  And we know why...this kid is an eating machine!  He loves to eat whatever mom and dad are eating, especially spaghetti squash with a meat marinara sauce on top...and of course FRUIT!  He cannot get enough fruit.  Now for the bad news...upon our well visit it was discovered that Vinnie had was in the early stages of yet another ear infection.  That makes 10 ear infections in his whole 15 months of life :( !  So, we have started down the path of getting tubes put in.  This isn't terribly bad news, as we now know we have a solution.  We were just trying to hard to avoid the tubes if possible.  The chiropractor works when Vinnie visits about once every week to two weeks, but with the office being on the other side of town, and a $25 co-pay each visit, that was just not cost effective either...and not really a long term solution.  So we have an appointment set up with an ENT on December 3rd and will go from there on scheduling the tubes surgery.

We couldn't let the visit to the doctor get us down, especially not when it was on Halloween...so we ventured home, ate some dinner and headed to our two favorite neighbors for some "Trick or Treating."  Vinnie also enjoyed handing out candy to the other trick or treaters with Daddy.  He loved seeing all the kids...so much, in fact, that he cried as each one left!



We are so enjoying this next new phase with Vinnie.  He is talking so much more and taking an interest into everything.  He has developed a love (or obsession) for Elmo and lights up whenever he hears or sees him.  On a recent trip to the mall he even rode on a Carousel for the first time...and loved it.  His new found mobility opens so many doors for play and socialization and he is just loving it.

We are all getting very excited for the upcoming holiday season and looking forward to spending time in Minnesota with family and friends!