Happy Turkey Day!

Wow, it's been months! Obviously, lots of things have taken place since the end of August. I am happy to confirm that I'm still having a boy, as seen on an ultrasound taken 2 weeks ago. 6 weeks to go before my scheduled c-section!

Justin is doing great. Two weekends ago we moved him into his new bedroom with his "big boy bed", and he loves it! It was a very smooth transition. He seems to understand that his baby brother will be sleeping in his old room sometime in the near future. He loves his bed, and sleeps great in it. The only thing is that instead of sitting with us for a few minutes in his chair before naps and bedtime, he now just crawls into his bed and doesn't want to sit with us anymore. I wasn't prepared for that and miss that special time with him. I guess he is growing up :( The good news is that he does not get out of his bed in the morning until we go in to get him. Although once he wakes up he has become more and more daring - doing belly flops and such and I get nervous so I don't sleep much longer anyway!

We had a lot of fun this fall, going apple and pumpking picking, and discovering Justin's new favorite past-time, bowling. I think his 3rd birthday party may be at the local bowling alley...the only problem I can foresee with this is that he won't want to stop bowling to have cake. I can just see the meltdown now...

This week is Thanksgiving, and we're looking forward to hosting our family for the holiday. Lots of yummy food! We have a lot of help though. We cook the turkey and some easy appetizers and sides, and my mom, sister-in-law, and mother-in-law will be bringing everything else. And hopefully I can use the "almost 9 months pregnant card" and get out of doing the dishes... ha ha.

Ali is doing well, she's just about 38 weeks and will probably go into labor during Thanksgiving dinner. She's in charge of bringing the mashed potatoes so as long as those get made, she can have the baby whenever. Just kidding Al! :)

This coming weekend we're looking forward to having some of our friends from UMass come down to visit! It will be great to see everyone, and most of them have not been here before. I'm glad we won't have to wait till next summer to see everyone, since getting out of the house with the 2 boys any earlier than that will probably be hard. One of the reasons I hadn't posted much this fall was due to the loss of one of our close UMass friends. It has been two months and we still think about him all the time. We miss you Craig. We are really looking forward to spending time with our friends this weekend as we are trying to see everyone from MA more often than once or twice a year.

So be thankful this Thanksgiving for everyone and everything positive in your life!

It's a BOY!!!!

Yeah!!! We are so excited that Justin will have a baby brother in early January! My ultrasound was yesterday morning, and the technician said everything looks good with the baby. What a relief. I have been so stressed out! :) I am finally feeling the baby move around and am hoping that now I can just relax and enjoy the rest of this pregnancy. Boys are the best!

We had a great long weekend up in Massachusetts. Justin got to spend lots of time with Grammy and Grampy, going to the park and the beach. We visited Kathleen and Adam and got to meet their adorable son Thomas, and took Justin to the carnival when we visited Erika & Tim and their son Colin. Also, this weekend is the first time in 13 years that I have not held my annual summer party in upstate NY. It would just have been a little too much for me to handle this time around, being pregnant and all. So our friend Tim had a little party at his house and a bunch of our UMass friends were there. It was great to see everyone.

I would have updated my blog sooner, but the Facebook phenom has pretty much taken over my life.

Where is the Summer Going?

I can't believe it is the end of July already! The summer is flying by (even though my pregnancy seems to be taking FOREVER). We have been really busy, mostly spending lots of time up at Trout Lake. Justin loves it up there, and I love just relaxing and not having to think about doing anything!

He is a bit more cautious about the water this year, he'd much rather play at the edge in the sand than actually go in and splash around. He loves to go out for boat rides on Pop's boat. And he has really warmed up to his cousin Julia, I think he secretly likes having her around so much!

We've also been going to a lot of Yankees games - we buy an 8-game package of tickets each year. This year they surprised us by throwing two day games in. So last Wednesday Chris went to work, and then around 10:30, Justin and I left and drove to Jersey City, where we took the ferry over to NYC and walked to meet Chris at work. From there we took a taxi to the #4 train station, and took the subway up to the Bronx. Justin was awake for about 30 minutes of the game, and slept on his Dad's shoulder the rest of the time. But he was really excited about his big adventure, and we're going to do it again tomorrow (even though it's completely exhausting!)

We're home for the next couple of weeks, although I'd like to get back up to the lake for a few days before the end of August. I usually have a party at the end of the summer with college & NJ friends up at the lake house, but this year, for the first time since 1996, we're going to skip it. It will be a bit too much for me I think (plus, I can't drink, so that's no fun!) So we're going to spend a few days up in Massachusetts visiting our college friends, which I am looking forward to.

This weekend coming up is camping weekend, but I'm sitting out this one as well, and will bring Justin down to his cousin Evan's 3rd birthday party on Saturday.

I'm doing well, a bit tired from not sleeping so great, but I got to listen to the baby's heartbeat this past Friday and it was super strong! Can't wait to find out at the end of August what it is...I don't have a clue this time!

Birthdays:

Happy Birthday Kathleen!

Happy Birthday Evan!

Happy Birthday Caren!

Congratulations...To Us!

Here is a (fuzzy) head shot of the little bean growing in my belly. FINALLY! It's been a long road, but I had an ultrasound the other day, and am 13 1/2 weeks along. Saw a strong heartbeat (167), and the baby is looking great! We are very excited to give Justin a brother or sister in January 2009! (Although I'm not sure Justin will be too excited about it, especially so close to his own birthday).

We are thrilled!

Lots of Birthdays this week/end:

Happy Birthday Ryan!

Happy Birthday Liza!

Happy Birthday Jen!

Happy Birthday Joe!

Happy Birthday Christopher!

Happy Birthday Lou!

We Love You, Grandma

My grandmother passed away on Tuesday, in her home, at 8:30 in the morning, after suffering a stroke several weeks ago. What a fighter she was! 10 years ago, she suffered her first massive stroke. Yet she fought through it, did therapy, regained her speech much better than anyone expected, and lived a great life for another 10 years.

She lived outside Chicago, so I did not get to see her very often. I was lucky enough to have her live close by to me in NJ until I was out of high school, and I got to spend a week with her last summer, and she got to meet Justin and Julia, her great-grandchildren, for the first time.

My grandmother was one of the sweetest and strongest women I have ever met. I have memories of her that I will cherish for the rest of my life. She loved us all so much, and that's something that she always showed to us. I rejoice in the fact that I know she is now with her husband, her daughter, and grandson - she has waited a long time to see them again.

I love you, Grandma, and will miss you always.

Agnes Fennelly Place (Died June 24, 2008)
Agnes Fennelly Place, age 85, beloved wife of the late John Sheehy Place; devoted mother of John, Rosemary, Stephen, Agnes, Mary Matthews, James, Barbara Berg, Charles and the late Ellen Elizabeth; dear grandmother of 19; great grandmother of three; sister of Helen Reilly Buckley.

Summertime!

This is a picture of Justin from yesterday after he got a haircut. It's so short but he looks like such a big boy! And so cute.

He's been doing great. Getting independent! He's climbing ladders at the park now (as I watch in terror and anxiety). His dad is busy putting together his very own jungle gym in the backyard. It says 6-8 hours to put together, but I think it's more like a week or two at least!

We keep busy every day, whether we go to a park (we're always looking for new ones to try out), gymboree, visit Maggie, or play in the pool. Justin doesn't like to be stuck in the house for very long - he lets me know when he is sick of being inside, usually by throwing a temper tantrum.

His vocabulary continues to grow by leaps and bounds (if that's possible) - he speaks in full, complete sentences, and talking to him is basically like talking to a 5 or 6 year old. We've never had to deal with the tantrums that are caused by not understanding what he wants, because he's always been able to tell us!

I'm really looking forward to spending time up at the lake with him this summer. We went up for Memorial Day weekend and he had a ball. Ali and I plan to take some time up there with the kids, maybe stay for a week or so.

Other news: Chris and I celebrated our 9-year wedding anniversary on June 5! Wow. He set up a really nice weekend getaway for us down on the eastern shore of Virginia at a bed & breakfast that had it's own private beach. It was a wonderful, relaxing weekend, and the place was beautiful.

Also, congratulations to Ali and Tommy as they are expecting their second child in December!

We Need a Vacation (from our vacation!)

The last week of April we went on a cruise with some friends (and pretty much their entire family). There were 14 adults and 12 children, one that was 9, and all the rest were 5 and under. Sounds crazy, right?! Actually, we had a really nice time with everyone there, and surprisingly, everything we did with all the kids went much smoother than I expected. Justin really was great (although he threw a fit during dinner pretty much every night), but he played great with the other kids, and he was happy most of the day every day, and slept great at nights and during his naps. He was just in a pack-n-play on the other side of a curtain in the same room as us, and he can climb out. But he stayed in it every morning till after 8:30, and then he'd poke his head threw the curtain and tell us that he found us! One morning Chris got up because he noticed the sunlight coming in, and Justin was just sitting on the couch with the curtain pulled back off the sliding door looking out at the ocean.

Our room was small, but I liked it. It was very space-efficient. I am not a light packer, so a week away means 5 suitcases & 3 carry-ons. But we were able to hide all the luggage around the room so we never saw it until we were packing to leave.

We spent three really nice days in Bermuda - 2 at the beach, and one day going around the island - the zoo, the aquarium, the park, and shopping. It's a beautiful island. BUT I WILL NEVER GO ON A CRUISE AGAIN! I have never been so happy to see the muddy brown water of the Hudson River as I was the morning we got back. I was so seasick the first three days as we were travelling to Bermuda at the turtle pace of 13 mph in extremely rough seas (they even had to close the pool). And the staff on the Norwegian Dawn (Norwegian Cruise Lines) was the WORST. There was NO customer service, they ran out of everything, and it pretty much all-around sucked to be on the boat. One of the families we were with wrote a letter, with more than 50 specific incidents of things that occurred on the ship and how badly we were treated. I don't expect we'll hear anything back, but hopefully they heard from everyone on board. We weren't the only ones complaining...

The important thing is that Justin seemed to have a great time, and he did really great with all the other kids. He is slowly getting much better at being social. Although he has now decided to learn how NOT to share his toys. If another child tries to play with one of his cars, he will pile 30 cars in his lap and scream at the top of his lungs. I wish I could say that is amusing! We're getting into the terrible twos, although only a small part of each day is consumed by this, and occasionally we have a day without any tantrums.

Oh, and his favorite saying is "I'll give you 'what the hey'!" Sometimes he adds to this - "I'll give you 'what the hey' and a ZING-ZANG!". Something a little better that he has also learned is "Ti volio bene con tuto mio cuore" which is Italian for "I love you with all my heart". (Not sure if I spelled that all correctly). What a sweetie.

Hope everyone out there is doing well.

Congratulations and Birthdays:

Happy Birthday Jen!

Happy Birthday Cathy!

Happy Birthday Kerri!

Congratulations to Artie on his engagement!

Congratulations Kathleen & Adam on the birth of your son Tommy!

Happy 1st Birthday, Baby Julia!

My niece Julia Morgan turned 1 on March 27th, and we celebrated her birthday with a party this past weekend. I can't believe a whole year has gone by! She's such a cutie, and she really enjoyed her party. And REALLY enjoyed her cupcake.

Justin had a great time at the party too! I've seen a huge improvement again in just the past two weeks with other kids...he ran around at the birthday party, and didn't even seem to care where I was.

We finished Soccertots a few Fridays ago (thank goodness!). It was a cute last class though. Since it was Good Friday, all the dads were off of work and they all came to class. Justin actually seemed to have a decent time, so Chris really never got to fully appreciate what I went through every week as Justin would repeatedly try to escape the gym and run down the hall to the locker rooms. And at the end of the class he got a certificate and a medal! Which he wore proudly for the rest of the day.

Other cute things he's been doing: For one, he has a huge crush on his Auntie Jen, and asks about her every day. And yesterday he said that Aunt Ali is beautiful. Very sweet. He loves the ladies, this kid. He makes me show him my wedding album all the time and he always wants to get to the page with "all the ladies" on it (me and my bridesmaids). He's too much. Oh, and on Easter, we went into church, and he looked around and said "This is wonderful!" He amazes me!

Congratulations Chris & Jen!

My brother Chris and his girlfriend Jen got engaged on Feb. 16th - Congratulations to both of you! Jen, we are so happy to have you be part of our family (officially, anyway!) And Justin is very excited that his Auntie Jen will now be his real auntie!

Justin's had a pretty bad cold for the past week. He finally seems to be getting over it but still has a bad cough, poor thing. Grammy & Grampy are coming down to visit today for a few days, so Justin will have a great time with them as usual.

We've been trying to teach him to listen to us. For the most part he really is a very easy child to deal with. But he does occasionally act like the "terrible" part of the terrible twos! I started to make him go into the corner when he throws things. Sometimes he gets pretty upset, and he'll cry and say he's sorry, but other times he thinks it's a game. And the other day he was in the kitchen and I was in the family room. I could not see him, but I could hear him. He threw something, said "What's the rule? No throwing!" and then whispered "Get in the corner" and I heard him start counting. I had to see this for myself! Sure enough, he had put himself in the corner and was counting to ten ("One, two, three, five, six, seven") I wouldn't believe it if I hadn't seen it!

Say A Prayer

This is a picture of a house right outside my cousin's neighborhood in Oxford, Mississippi (yes, the car is upside down on top of the house). She was home, huddling in her closet with her dog when the tornado ripped through her town. Apparently it sounds exactly like a gigantic locomotive driving directly through your house. According to her neighbor, who was also home and was watching, the tornado destroyed the homes on the street in front of theirs, which is up a little hill. As it came down the hill towards their homes, it bounced when it hit the hill and actually lifted up off of the ground and went OVER their houses. Sometimes, you get really lucky and God is watching out for you just at the right moment.

Here We Are!

I know, I've been missing in action for about a month. Sorry about that, but when you are busy chasing a two year old EVERYWHERE, there's not much time for blogging.

We haven't been up to too much different than we had been - gymboree, playgroup, and soccer. I did find out about a cool place around here for kids that is a big indoor playplace and giant jungle gym. Cousin Evan came up last week and we went there for a few hours. Justin yelled when he saw that Evan was going to be sitting in the car with him, but once we got to the place and they played for a while, Justin was even calling for Evan when he couldn't see him. That is HUGE! A huge improvement. And poor Evan just loves Justin, all he wants is for Justin to play with him. We're getting there. At the end of the afternoon Justin did say that he had "so much fun with Evan", and he talked about him during the rest of the week. So we're definitely making progress. We went back there yesterday since playgroup was cancelled, and on this third visit, Justin was comfortable enough to play in the jungle gym and even go down the big green slide by himself, which he did about 30 times. Seriously.

He also had his first "real" haircut (not counting the crappy one he got at the mall) - he looks like such a big boy! I have pictures on my camera, but haven't transferred them to my computer yet.

Not much else, I had the flu all weekend and the Patriots lost the superbowl. In a way I'm happy for the Giants and Eli, because they get such a hard time from everyone, but since my husband and son are Pats fans, it did stink to watch them lose the biggest game after going 18-0. And, if the score had stayed 14-10 (Pats), we would have won a nice chunk of change. But everything can change in 36 seconds I guess. At least we still ended up with a little money in our pockets. Too bad I had already spent it :).

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, & Happy Birthday!

Wow, a lot has happened since I last posted! December and January are very busy months in our household. Since the last post, we hosted Christmas Eve dinner at our house, which was great. We had a really laid back Christmas Day at my parents' house with my family - Christmas was awesome again this year, and my parents and brothers and Ali & Jen all outdid themselves and we had a great time exchanging gifts and hanging out. After that, we came home and had a wonderful gift exchange with Chris's parents, and then we went to a late dinner at Chris & Jen's house. It was a great Christmas (as usual!) Justin didn't quite get the whole Santa and present thing this year, but he loved having a Christmas tree up in the house and all the lights on the houses on our street. He still asks "What happened to the Christmas tree?" every morning when we go downstairs for breakfast!

We also had a nice New Year's Eve - we went to a party at our friends' house and had a great time, and rang in the new year playing bowling on Joe's new Wii. I kicked butt! Apparently I am a much better bowler on video games than I am in real life.

This past Friday was Justin's 2nd birthday! I can not believe he is two years old already. It has flown by. What did I do before I had a kid? I don't know! He really is amazing though. He talks so much, it is unbelievable. I (along with other playgroup moms) have noticed that he talks a lot more than other kids his age. He speaks in complete sentences, can tell you what he wants, and can tell you how he's feeling, which is amazing. And he is the happiest little kid, he just has so much fun every day. He had 3 parties this week, so I am a little bit over all the planning...on Wednesday we had a party with his playgroup friends - all 14 of them. It was a bit insane at my house, but the kids had a great time. Justin is getting better with the socialization, but he still doesn't love having so many kids over. He has actually verbalized that he is scared of other kids. I'm not sure why, but I'm hoping he'll outgrow his fear soon. I do a lot of things with him that involve socializing, and we see the same group of kids at least twice a week, so I'm sure eventually he'll get past it.

On Friday we started Soccertots with some of the kids from Justin's playgroup. He wasn't that into it, but it went okay for the first day. It definitely could have been worse, so I'm not complaining. And this morning he asked to go play soccer, so he must have enjoyed some of it! That night I had dinner at the house with our family, and thanks to Grammy and Grampy for bringing Justin's birthday dinner (delicious lasagna!) I made a molten chocolate cake that actually came out pretty good - I doubled the recipe and was sure that I had ruined it, but it ended up being delicious. Justin loved it, so that's all that matters!

Today was his birthday party - another 30 adults and 12 kids...wow! I was a little stressed leading up to the event but it was a really nice day and everything went smoothly. Justin had a great time playing with his balloons. Again, he didn't socialize much with the kids, but had a great time with his grandparents and cousins. He didn't nap today, so he was out for the night around 7pm. Hopefully he'll get a good night's sleep.

It was a busy week, but it was worth it!

Visit with Santa

On Saturday we took Justin to the town firehouse to visit with Santa. As you can see from the picture, Justin wasn't too excited to be anywhere near Santa Claus! But he did get some cool cars as a gift.

Find that Christmas Spirit and Donate to a Good Cause

http://www.friendsofwill.com/

Last year I wrote a post about my friend's son who is fighting Neuroblastoma. It is a whole year later, and Will is now 3 years old, and is still fighting. Despite having had radiation therapy and numerous rounds of chemo this year, Will is still growing and thriving. His tumors have not grown, but they have not gotten smaller, either. He attends school and yoga, and is a really happy little kid. He also has a new baby sister!

A former co-worker of Will's dad ran the Boston Marathon in honor of Will last year, and raised over $75,000 for a trial at Children's Hospital Boston. This year, the money is going to the Magic Water Project, which is a non-profit organization formed and run by parents of children with neuroblastoma.

Children with relapsed neuroblastoma are, for the most part, deemed incurable. The Magic Water project is working to change that.

How is everyone doing with their holiday shopping? I am having a tough time! I have most of my gifts purchased, but there are a couple of people I'm having a difficult time with. I try to always buy gifts that I think the other person would really enjoy and appreciate - a lot of thought goes into my gift-buying! It's just a little difficult sometimes to pick out that "perfect" thing.

We decorated our Christmas tree yesterday, and Justin was thrilled when he woke up from his nap and saw it. He loves the different colored lights and all the ornaments. We tried putting his play-yard up around it to keep him from touching everything, but now he just likes to go inside the gates. He actually yelled at me when I tried to just take them down and put them away - he wants to leave them up.

I think he's been feeling a little under the weather this past week - for the most part he seems fine but he has thrown up twice since Friday and has been very picky about what he'll eat. I thought he was just being difficult but maybe his stomach is bothering him. Today he has eaten cheerios, applesauce, and a fruit bar. I made him some soup but he wanted nothing to do with it, and in fact got so upset when I tried to give him one spoonful that he ended up having to take a nap early. Not sure if it is the onset of a stomach bug, or the onset of the terrible twos! Right now he is playing happily at the kitchen sink, making a mess. I probably should not give in to him as much as I do lately, but it's hard not to. I have a hard time dealing with the screaming that ensues! The other day I wouldn't give him a pen (not unreasonable!), and it was 2 hours of yelling until I put him down for an early nap. He usually can be easily distracted by anyone else and will forget all about whatever was upsetting him, but that doesn't work for me. Oh well! For the most part he's a perfectly happy little boy and a joy to be around (when he gets what he wants! ha ha)

The Christmas cards I sent out should be arriving today. I had to use the picture that's been posted up here for the past week, since the day I was going to take the picture for the card, he scratched his face. So we went with what we had, which was a really cute picture, anyway. Then I took a picture of him by our tree the other day, and it was such a good one, so I used it for my return address labels, since it should have been the one for the cards, but it was too late. I think this is a shot of what he's going to look like when he's 5 - he looks like such a big boy in this picture!