Football

ND may be 0-4, but the boys don't seem to mind. They still like football! Joey is still at the chewing on the football stage...we feel it may strike fear in his opponents.

MJ was intent on throwing the ball at the pole of this soccer goal. He was quite accurate at hitting it (albeit from a short distance). For those of you who know, Mario was quite into throwing footballs at targets when he was younger. Maybe MJ will take after his dad.

And for those who haven't seen it for themselves, this is what TV zombies look like.

Don't worry, the can is closed, but he seems to enjoy having it on his gums.

A few more pictures

I just had to throw this in. Michael with his baby Maria.

We tried to get Maria and Joey to sit next to each other. I think this may work better next time we visit.

Grandmama and Grandpapa with the grandchildren and great-grandchildren who were with them at church on Sunday. They have many grandchildren and I think 10 great-grandchildren (so far).

And this is just a cute picture of Sarah and her baby Maria.

More from NY

Here's Aunt Sarah with Joey. Can you believe she had a baby less than 1 month ago!

MJ had a great time at Grandmama and Grandpapa's house. We played a lot on Saturday after the Baptism. Early Sunday morning, Mario had to go to work in Cincinnati again. MJ had even more fun running around the house that his daddy has many fun memories playing in. I'm sure it would have been even more fun if they were both able to play together there. Before the boys crashed Saturday night, we managed to get a picture of us all dressed up and looking cute. (The boys were pretty crazy-tired at this point).

Uncle Luke road home with us (since Mario was at work on Sunday). He was great company, and it was nice to have another pair of hands to take care of the boys. He's at a Seminary at Mount Saint Mary's which we have determined is only 53 miles from our house, so we will have to see him more. Luke is Joey's godfather.

And here are Sarah and I with our babies. It was hard to get Maria and Joey awake at the same time.

Maria's Baptism

This is just a random picture of Joey playing with the mirror. It was cute how he was "kissing the baby" in the mirror. This was from the last day of my mom's visit (Friday) when she and I were working on altering my costume. We thought we could turn the mirror down to entertain him when we weren't using it for altering purposes.

Friday night, Luke arrived with Teresa and Mary Kaza to spend the night for our trip early Saturday morning. We drove to Rye Brooke, NY for Maria's baptism. (For those keeping track, our neighbor Kristin dropped my mom off at the airport Saturday morning...Thanks Kristin!) The Baptism went very well. The priest tried to get the kids involved (which we were worried about MJ having been woken up early and not napping all morning, but things turned out fine). Maria was just great for the Baptism. She fell asleep before it started and even managed to stay sleepy after water was poured over her. We have many pictures from the event, so here are a few to start with.

Here we are, the happy godparents and proud parents (Sarah and Michael Suarez) with Maria. For those who don't know, Michael is Mario's 3rd younger brother.

After the Baptism, Grandmama and Grandpapa Suarez hosted a reception in their gorgeous house in New Rochelle. Grandma and Grandpa Suarez prepared the party...and of course, it was a lot of fun.

Grandma's visit!

Last week, my mom came to visit from St. Louis. She arrived Tuesday morning and left Saturday afternoon. Our first adventure was to find her luggage which was lost in Chicago. This has happened before when my parents came to visit, and they got a travel vouchure which almost covered the cost of their trip. So we jokingly said it should happen again...and it did! It wasn't really a big deal... we got $75 for making another trip back to the airport. And she was only without her luggage for a few hours.

I just realized I don't have many good pictures from her visit b/c we also used her camera...I'll have to get some from her soon. Anyway, Our biggest accomplishments for the week were finding new shoes for MJ for the fall/winter, and making my Halloween costume. It is so great! My mom's camera has pictures of it, so I'll get those later.
Wednesday, my mom watched MJ while I took Joey to his last appointment with the specialist for his foot. It's pretty much corrected itself, so we don't have to go back again. In the afternoon, we rode bikes to a park... way to go Mom!
Thursday my mom watched the boys while I went to volunteer at first choice and then I enlisted her to help mail out some invitations for first choice.
Friday we were sad our visit was almost over, but we did some shopping and a lot of work for the Halloween costumes. I'm so glad she was able to take off and visit. We may sound busy, but she's even busier!

7 months

Sunday, Joey was offically 7 months old. Sorry I haven't measured him yet. I was lucky to even get this picture of him.

Below are a few pictures of MJ at 7 months and 7 months 2 weeks. I think Joey's hair still looks a bit more strawberry blond, and his eyes are definitely lighter blue. They definitely look like brothers, but not as identical as before, in my oppinion.

Time for the baby gate

Last week (I guess it was Wednesday) I was a bit scared for a minute, because Joey was no longer in the place I put him last. With an immobile child, you can place them on the floor and kind of expect them to be in that relative area when you get back. Joey has scooted and flopped and rolled in the past, but never like this. I was eating dinner at Tara's house and looked in the livingroom where I left Joey...and I couldn't see him anymore. He had moved a couple of yards from where I left him. Since then, he has been quite happy to roll and scoot to just about anything he wants. I haven't seen a full out crawl yet, which is strange. In comparison with MJ, MJ crawled about 5 days before he was 7 months old. Mario headed off to Thailand for a month the day before MJ turned 7 months, so we wonder if he decided he'd like his daddy to see him crawl for the first time. MJ was such a chubby baby. It was great looking back and watching videos of him crawling. It kind of came out of nowhere too, b/c he really didn't like laying on his stomach, and wasn't a big roller, but just loved to sit up.

And then there is Joey. He did this rolling move thing a couple of days before he turned 7 months old (like MJ and crawling). He loves to sit up, but also is fine on his stomach or back. And he rolls and rocks more to get himself around. Both did the sitting up to lunge move. So, when will Joey officially "crawl"? Hard to say, but, I can no longer put him down and really expect him to be there when I come back.

Joey thinks standing is the coolest thing. Mario got him up in this position and he was just so happy for a few minutes.

Looking back at MJ pictures made me think I should show a comparison or two. Both are quite chubby babies, though I think Joey is a bit more stretched out than MJ. The picture above is Joey almost 7 months, and below is MJ 7 months +1 week. MJ actually crawled over and pulled himself up to this position. It is so funny seeing such a chubby baby move like that. He was very determined. It's quite perfect that they are wearing the same outfit, if only I had them posed the same way.