3 months

Joey is 3 months and 1 day old today. I weighed him on our scale which came up with a weight of 20 lbs. This scale rounds to the nearest pound, so it could be off by several ounces, but that's a rough guess. Suprisingly, the scale also tells me I'm at my pre-pregnancy weight, which is a nice suprise. I was hovering around that plus a couple of pounds, but I figured it was close enough. I also tried to measure Joey's height and I think he's somewhere between 26.5-27 inces. We have another big Suarez baby!

MJ had fun playing with his cousins again today. We drove down to Manassas to see the Kazas. My mother-in-law and some of her children were also there. Mario just loves playing with aunts and uncles. Sadly, I forgot the camera so I didn't capture those fun moments. However, here are a few pictures of Mario helping me clean up after dinner. He's getting closer to the idea of sweeping, but still not quite there yet. At least he's not swinging the broom in the air anymore.

Only 4 pictures

For some reason I'm only able to upload 4 pictures at a time, oh well. But while I'm at another post, I'll have to mention this. Are fears hereditary? Ask anyone in my family and they will confirm that I had a big fear of my basement growing up. I couldn't be down there alone, and would only venture to get something if someone was at the top of the stairs. Well, I've known for awhile that MJ would prefer not to be in our basement alone (which is totally above ground, so I wonder if I can even call it a basement). Recently, he has really started to scream in terror if he's alone down there for too long. And he will cautiously go down there to get a toy saying "It's OK" which is his way of convincing himself that he can do something he's afraid of. Other times he wills say "Mommy help, I'm too scared".

3 months old

First off, Joey is 3 months old today. I totally meant to weigh and measure him, but that didn't happen. So, we'll try that tomorrow. At least I got one picture of him. This was while we were eating lunch (see story below) and I look over to find this cute little baby flirting with me. Well, maybe not really flirting since I'm his mom, but you get the idea.

Today was "Big Truck Day" at the Philomont Community Center. Philomont is a small town about 40 minutes from our house ... way out in the country part of VA. We'd never been there before, so this was quite an adventure. But we had a fun day. We hung out with all these big cars and trucks for an hour, had a picnic lunch, and played at a nearby park. Then, according to plan, which doesn't always happen, both boys fell asleep on the ride home and took nice naps once we got back. MJ really had a great time, it was hard taking pictures, video, holding Joey, and spotting MJ all at the same time, but it was fun.

Brothers Reading

Yesterday, Mario wanted to read books to Joey. I think they both enjoyed it. Joey likes to grab onto things and I guess he was kind of tickling MJ, b/c he kept laughing and talking about Joey's hand. Sorry to have so many pictures from the same event (I have even more) but it was just so cute!

Monday May 7th

A friend of mine was watching Mario while I went to volunteer at First Choice. She has 3 girls and now she is going to volunteer while I watch her children. The oldest is in K and not with us yet. They love running up and down the hill behind our house. I was smart and brought a camera with me this time to catch the cute moment.

That afternoon, we decided to paint. Mario is able to carry that heavy bucket of paint supplies on the table behind him. He sure is strong! And today, he didn't eat paint. It made the clean up much easier.

Catch up - 6 days

Man, I've been behind on my updates! I've selected several pictures from the last 6 days which I meant to post seperately, but instead will be in one big post.

I'd been meaning to post that Joey and MJ are certainly different sleepers as babies for quite some time. For over a month Joey has consistently slept 6-8 hours straight at night. This is quite strange to me b/c Mario got up quite a bit a night, but he was in bed with me most of the time so I really slept well. Also, MJ would sleep in with me until 10 or later, so that was quite nice for a first baby. Joey would rather get up once at night, but then appear quite awake at 6am. This happened this morning, he slept from 9:15-4:45 and then got up at 6. He seemed to be hungry again so I fed him and he slept some more until 7:45. All babies are different I guess.

Mario likes to stack his cars in many places. This particular morning, they were all on display on the tops of these chairs.

Joey gets tummy time and I usually lay on the floor giving him encouragement. MJ thinks it's funny and likes to help me cheer Joey on "You're so strong, Joey!" He's a good big brother.

We are so happy that our cousins the Franzonello's are back! This is Mario's friend Tony who is almost 4. They also have a new baby Xavier who is 1 month, so he and Joey get to be buddies.