It's been awhile

It's been awhile since we've posted about our family, but it hasn't been for lack of stories.... more like too much was going on. In no particular order:

- we were robbed: we believe we left our minivan unlocked in our driveway, 2 Saturdays ago, we were heading out the door and realized a wallet and 2 cell phones were gone. Not all bad - we were up for new cell phones with our plan anyway. So, we got upgrades... just annoying and a sense of personal invasion .... who does stuff like that anyway?

- Joey is a happy walker and climber. And he definitely likes to go for dangerous or breakable things. He's a big fan of electronics. Fortunately, he hasn't broken anything yet. It's fun to watch him solve problems. He already knows how to get himself up and down stairs. But 2 weeks ago, he realized he could get a toy downstairs with him by tossing it down a few steps, crawling down, and then tossing it down a few more.

- MJ is just so fun to watch grow up as well. He made pancakes a few weekends ago (hence the picture below). He continues to be a sweet big brother. The other day when he woke up earlier than Joey and I. But coming into our room to call Mommy, he tiptoed in and rubbed my back to wake me up. I guess whenever he wakes me up, I remind him to be quiet if Joey is sleeping. It was definitely a much nicer way to wake up.

- We all got colds again. Joey began wheezing with the cold 9 days ago. He's had 3 colds in less then 2 months and had breathing trouble with all of them. So, on top of our usual nebulizer and short term Orapred treatment, he will be taking Singulair once a day as a preventative measure to keep his bronchiole tubes from closing when he gets a cold. They won't say he has asthma yet, as he could grow out of it. But I don't want any more colds that could add to the trauma in his lungs. Poor guy.

- As a result of Joey's cold, we've been at the doctor a lot. The last time we went, MJ was ready to be a grown up. He told me he was going to put Joey in his carseat and drive him to the doctor so I could stay home. I told him he wasn't 16 yet and couldn't drive. So, he told me he was 16 years old. He insisted on pushing Joey's stroller through the office. And while we were there he played doctor with all his toy doctor equiptment. When we left, he gave us all a squirt of hand sanitizer.

- Just last week I tried to upload pictures to our home computer and learned that we had some issues with that drive. Mario set up our computer in a very safe way using different drives for the operating systems and our data and our pictures. It just happens that bad luck has struck, and the hard drive with all our pictures crashed. It is beyond Mario's skill to recover, so we are going to hope that either Geek squad or the online sources we found can get them back. I usually back up our pictures relatively frequently, but I think the last back up I made was July 2007. YIKES! We had been meaning to get some sort of system for backing up our computers awhile ago. I guess this was the incentive we needed to get it done.

Thank you Suarezes

We got Joey's birthday present from the Suarezes and opened it on Sunday. He is very excited about the bear, especially once he found the ND shirt.

We just spent a lovely day at the Kaza's house. Tabitha was so hospitable as usual, and I really feel I should have done more. Here I had a pregnant woman feeding me and allowing my children to wreck her house. It just wasn't right. Sadly we don't have pictures, but the boys had so much fun with their cousins.

Ups and Downs

Last Friday was an "up" in the morning because it was a gorgeous day and the boys and I went to the park. Joey had a blast since I finally let him crawl around on his own. He did a great job climbing up the stairs and sliding down the slide backwards (this is his safe technique for all downward sloping things). I was quite pleased that he didn't try to eat any mulch.

MJ was harder to photograph since he was in constant motion. He made a few friends at the park and they were playing some serious imaginary games.

Friday evening was also an "up" as far as we could tell, because we all picked Mario up from the airport earlier than he anticipated being home. However, this late pick up, led to parents quickly rushing sleeping children up to bed and leaving the door to our minivan unlocked. So, Saturday morning as we headed out to home depot to check prices for potentially fixing up our new home, we learned that Mario's wallet and both of our phones were missing. Yep, they were stolen. This was of course a big "down". This led to a very busy day of taking care of that business. We also checked out the major renovation house that we were thinking of buying, but probably won't right now.

The "up" from our phones being stolen was that 1 week ago, they were up to be renewed with the "new every two". So, we both got new phones! Yay! But since I never bothered saving my contacts from my phone, I'll have to enter them all again - boo!

And another accomplishment worth noting is I think we can officially say Joey is walking. It is hard to define that line. Is it the first wobbly step on his own? Because that was a long time ago. Is it when you can coax him to take 3 steps between adults? That happend a few weeks ago. Well, now he seems to like to stand up and take a few steps on his own... that surely counts. Finally!

Final Beach

Mario and my dad both had to return for work on Monday and had early morning flights. We decided to cash in some free point to stay in hotel rooms near the airport in Orlando. The dads took a shuttle to the airport, and my mom and I had a casual morning. Then we went to Downtown Disney since I hadn't been there. MJ got this new Doc Hudson toy which I LEFT in the condo. We were rushing out Tuesday afternoon to catch our flight. I had MJs backpack packed with his favorite toys to use while we were traveling and on the plane. Yep, I left the whole bag there! I think Bobby can send it to us next week. I'm impressed with how well MJ is handling his lost new favorite toys. I think he only asked about them once today, and didn't even whine about it.

I set the camera on the stroller with a self-timer to take this one.

Monday afternoon after the Orlando trip, we headed to the beach one last time. It was quite cool that day and late in the evening. We could see the "shelf" that is formed by the tide. Joey crawled straight toward the water and when he got to the shelf he turned around to back down just like he does on the stairs. It was so cute!

And here are MJ and Joey Tuesday morning amidst the chaos of my Mom and I packing and cleaning up. They entertained each other pretty well.

Beach 4

I wanted to try to get the family on the beach picture, but really did it at a bad time. It was later in the day, windy and cold. Maybe some other time...

I forgot to mention that Joey is taking a few steps on his own. I guess we should call it walking, but he has yet to really take off across the room. He would like to prove that he is a great climber. He climbed up this step-ladder by himself. Papa took advantage of the Kodak moment.

Oh, and here are MJ and Joey waiting for the cake.

Uncle Bobby and sweet baby Caeli.

Joey's First Birthday!

Our little Joey is now 1 year old (as of Saturday Feb 9th). Who wouldn't like to celebrate their birthday at a beach? Thankfully, we were able to get him to a doctor on Thursday, so after a few doses of his medicine he was happier for his birthday. His first activity as a 1 year old was to play catch with Daddy.

Here is the crew who celebrated with Joey on his birthday.

And, as I promised myself, I asked Mario to decorate Joey's cake. (We were unable to get it out of the glass this time - a few tools short in the condo kitchen). Mario did 90% of it, but made sure we all contributed to the icing in some way. Even MJ added a squiggle for his brother.

Mmmmm... chocolate cake!

Beach 3

There are several pools in Ocean Village (where the condo is) but this one is closest and heated. Sadly, infants aren't allowed in the big pool. This didn't seem to bother Joey who loved the baby pool. It was the perfect depth of water for him to kneel. He could even sit without getting his head underwater.

Here are Joey and MJ totally interested in baby Ceali who is beingheld by Aunt Suzanne. They really liked Ceali a lot, and I'm sad they were too sick to really hang out with her.