...to be loved by you (Ricardo). Literally. This is what he made me for Mother's Day. The glaze on top is made of out nutella. It was delicious.
I do want to backtrack a little bit because this has been a very eventful and fun-filled month. One big highlight has been the arrival of warm weather. It was 88 degrees today. I love it! Back in April Ricardo had 2 weeks of final exams so I took some PTO from work so he wouldn't have to worry about taking care of Russell in the afternoons. Russell and I took a short trip to DC to see the cherry blossoms with my sister, which was a lot of fun. It was so beautiful and my iphone pictures don't really do it justice.
Russell and his cousin Derek had a lot of fun playing with the blossoms and playing with each other! This is the first time they have kind of acknowledged each other, mostly by grabbing each other's faces, etc, but it was fun watching them interact. I realized how difficult it must be to have twins, because these two kept waking each other up during naptime because inevitably as soon went down to sleep the other one would cry and wake the first one up. Kudos to all you mothers of twins out there. I literally don't know how you do it!
Also in April we had some fun visitors come stay with us! My college roommate Carrie, her husband Andrew, and their cute baby girl London. Andrew served a mission for our church in Philly and has never been back so he was excited to see some old friends and take Carrie to see some of the local sights. We were able to go with them to do some things around the city and had fun just chatting and catching up as well. Russell loved staring at baby London. Carrie is a fabulous blogger and wrote all about the trip 1 day after she got home. See the details here.
After Ricardo finished finals it was nice to spend some time with him, especially because he came home from the library at 10 pm every night during finals. One Friday afternoon we went on a fun date to this tiny little local restaurant called Pepper's. It is literally the size of a large bathroom but the food is SO good! We got our food to go and then had a picnic at a park nearby. Russell had fun watching some little league.
Russell's last month of babyhood flew by. He learned how to walk 2 weeks ago and has been having so much fun walking around the house. He loves to walk to us, then fall into our laps and see our reaction. He knows it's a big crowd pleaser. He also has recently been insisting on feeding himself, which is endearing but very messy. He always grabs his spoon out of my hand and inevitably flings food everywhere, but is slowly getting better at landing some in his mouth. He is still obsessed with climbing up and down stairs and he quickly finds any steps everywhere we go. When I was at my sister's house he learned how to climb down the stairs backwards and now if there is ever even the slightest incline he will turn around and climb down it. There is a 1 inch drop off from our room to our closet and he turns around and slides backward on his belly to get into the closet. It is so cute. He does the same thing on the slide at the park. The big plus side of this is that he now knows how to safely climb off of the couch or our bed, where before he would just try to go headfirst and we would have to grab his feet and catch him because he is so fast.
He loves pushing his highchair and the kitchen chairs around
He likes to pose for pictures by throwing his head back
If you're still reading, good job! This is a long post. Mother's Day weekend was absolutely perfect. We had a great time. On Friday afternoon Ricardo had his white coat ceremony at school. This is to signify completing his didactic years and moving on to his clinical years in the dental clinic. So, he is halfway done with dental school. Yay! I was excited for the ceremony but also nervous about Russell sitting still because he usually does not sit on my lap for long periods of time anymore. But he did pretty well. Luckily my assigned seat was in the aisle and I did go stand in the back twice to try to help him get some wiggles out, but he sat still for most of the hour-long ceremony. He was highly entertained by all of the clapping and looked to his left and then his right every time the clapping started and got a huge grin on his face, like he couldn't believe all of those people were clapping at the same time. Then of course he would start clapping when no one else was. The ceremony was really well done and there was a little reception afterwards so it was fun to see Ricardo's school friends.
Afterward we drove to DC. We made a stop at a newly opened Cabela's in Delaware (for Ricardo obviously) and then had dinner at this cute family-owned hibachi restaurant in Maryland, which was delicious as well as entertaining. It was 8 by the time we got to dinner so Russell slept through the whole thing. On Saturday morning my sister babysat while Ricardo and I went to the Washington DC temple, which we always enjoy. It's so nice to be able to go together, thanks to Shannon for taking Russell to her kids' soccer games and entertaining him. He was wiped out by the time we got home around lunch so he slept and we played with Shannon's kids while Shannon and her husband went to the temple. If you have questions about Mormons and temples there is a lot of good information here.
. Ricardo is such a great uncle and his nieces adore him. The little boy had fun together too.
We drove back to Philly late that night. Sunday was Russell's 1st birthday, as well as Mother's Day. It's so hard to believe we have a one year old now. Last year on Mother's Day we were in the hospital enjoying our 1 day old baby.
This year truly flew by and has been so fun getting to know our sweet boy and experiencing life with him. He is the best. On Sunday morning we went to church and then came home to celebrate! Funny story, when we parked in our driveway Sunday afternoon I saw a lady in a nice dress walking down the sidewalk on our street. I went inside the house and then I look up and Ricardo is wakling in the house and this lady is right behind him, bascially walking into our house. We said hi and she asked us if this was "so and so's house." When we said no she was really embarrassed and quickly left. She must have seen us dressed up too and thought we were walking into whatever party she was going to! Ricardo made me chicken wings for dinner and then we let Russell open his presents. He's really not too interested in the act of opening up gifts yet but he did enjoy his presents as well as the boxes they came in. Thanks to my mom for always sending him great stuff. We let Russell have a little piece of cheesecake as his birthday cake and we FaceTimed with my parents and brother in Florida so they could sing to him too and watch him "eat" the cake. It shocked me that he didn't eat it because he will eat anything, but he definitely had fun spreading that cheesecake everywhere. He was such a mess at the end, but he had fun.
I just love how he's looking at Ricardo in this picture. So sweet.
Ricardo got me a toaster as my mother's day present, which I actually needed and wanted. I must be my mother's daughter because I called my mom and she immediately said, "wow, what a great gift!" Ricardo said when he told his friends at school about it they thought he was crazy. Oh well, I love my new toaster. We are so blessed and life is so good. Sometimes I try to move time forward in my mind so Ricardo will be done with school and we can move on to "real life," but lately I've been trying to just enjoy this time because I know life will just keep on getting more complicated as we get older. We are loving being a family of three. Now I need to go brainstorm ideas for father's day because mother's day was truly perfect.
I do want to backtrack a little bit because this has been a very eventful and fun-filled month. One big highlight has been the arrival of warm weather. It was 88 degrees today. I love it! Back in April Ricardo had 2 weeks of final exams so I took some PTO from work so he wouldn't have to worry about taking care of Russell in the afternoons. Russell and I took a short trip to DC to see the cherry blossoms with my sister, which was a lot of fun. It was so beautiful and my iphone pictures don't really do it justice.
Russell and his cousin Derek had a lot of fun playing with the blossoms and playing with each other! This is the first time they have kind of acknowledged each other, mostly by grabbing each other's faces, etc, but it was fun watching them interact. I realized how difficult it must be to have twins, because these two kept waking each other up during naptime because inevitably as soon went down to sleep the other one would cry and wake the first one up. Kudos to all you mothers of twins out there. I literally don't know how you do it!
Also in April we had some fun visitors come stay with us! My college roommate Carrie, her husband Andrew, and their cute baby girl London. Andrew served a mission for our church in Philly and has never been back so he was excited to see some old friends and take Carrie to see some of the local sights. We were able to go with them to do some things around the city and had fun just chatting and catching up as well. Russell loved staring at baby London. Carrie is a fabulous blogger and wrote all about the trip 1 day after she got home. See the details here.
After Ricardo finished finals it was nice to spend some time with him, especially because he came home from the library at 10 pm every night during finals. One Friday afternoon we went on a fun date to this tiny little local restaurant called Pepper's. It is literally the size of a large bathroom but the food is SO good! We got our food to go and then had a picnic at a park nearby. Russell had fun watching some little league.
Russell's last month of babyhood flew by. He learned how to walk 2 weeks ago and has been having so much fun walking around the house. He loves to walk to us, then fall into our laps and see our reaction. He knows it's a big crowd pleaser. He also has recently been insisting on feeding himself, which is endearing but very messy. He always grabs his spoon out of my hand and inevitably flings food everywhere, but is slowly getting better at landing some in his mouth. He is still obsessed with climbing up and down stairs and he quickly finds any steps everywhere we go. When I was at my sister's house he learned how to climb down the stairs backwards and now if there is ever even the slightest incline he will turn around and climb down it. There is a 1 inch drop off from our room to our closet and he turns around and slides backward on his belly to get into the closet. It is so cute. He does the same thing on the slide at the park. The big plus side of this is that he now knows how to safely climb off of the couch or our bed, where before he would just try to go headfirst and we would have to grab his feet and catch him because he is so fast.
He loves pushing his highchair and the kitchen chairs around
He likes to pose for pictures by throwing his head back
If you're still reading, good job! This is a long post. Mother's Day weekend was absolutely perfect. We had a great time. On Friday afternoon Ricardo had his white coat ceremony at school. This is to signify completing his didactic years and moving on to his clinical years in the dental clinic. So, he is halfway done with dental school. Yay! I was excited for the ceremony but also nervous about Russell sitting still because he usually does not sit on my lap for long periods of time anymore. But he did pretty well. Luckily my assigned seat was in the aisle and I did go stand in the back twice to try to help him get some wiggles out, but he sat still for most of the hour-long ceremony. He was highly entertained by all of the clapping and looked to his left and then his right every time the clapping started and got a huge grin on his face, like he couldn't believe all of those people were clapping at the same time. Then of course he would start clapping when no one else was. The ceremony was really well done and there was a little reception afterwards so it was fun to see Ricardo's school friends.
Afterward we drove to DC. We made a stop at a newly opened Cabela's in Delaware (for Ricardo obviously) and then had dinner at this cute family-owned hibachi restaurant in Maryland, which was delicious as well as entertaining. It was 8 by the time we got to dinner so Russell slept through the whole thing. On Saturday morning my sister babysat while Ricardo and I went to the Washington DC temple, which we always enjoy. It's so nice to be able to go together, thanks to Shannon for taking Russell to her kids' soccer games and entertaining him. He was wiped out by the time we got home around lunch so he slept and we played with Shannon's kids while Shannon and her husband went to the temple. If you have questions about Mormons and temples there is a lot of good information here.
. Ricardo is such a great uncle and his nieces adore him. The little boy had fun together too.
We drove back to Philly late that night. Sunday was Russell's 1st birthday, as well as Mother's Day. It's so hard to believe we have a one year old now. Last year on Mother's Day we were in the hospital enjoying our 1 day old baby.
This year truly flew by and has been so fun getting to know our sweet boy and experiencing life with him. He is the best. On Sunday morning we went to church and then came home to celebrate! Funny story, when we parked in our driveway Sunday afternoon I saw a lady in a nice dress walking down the sidewalk on our street. I went inside the house and then I look up and Ricardo is wakling in the house and this lady is right behind him, bascially walking into our house. We said hi and she asked us if this was "so and so's house." When we said no she was really embarrassed and quickly left. She must have seen us dressed up too and thought we were walking into whatever party she was going to! Ricardo made me chicken wings for dinner and then we let Russell open his presents. He's really not too interested in the act of opening up gifts yet but he did enjoy his presents as well as the boxes they came in. Thanks to my mom for always sending him great stuff. We let Russell have a little piece of cheesecake as his birthday cake and we FaceTimed with my parents and brother in Florida so they could sing to him too and watch him "eat" the cake. It shocked me that he didn't eat it because he will eat anything, but he definitely had fun spreading that cheesecake everywhere. He was such a mess at the end, but he had fun.
I just love how he's looking at Ricardo in this picture. So sweet.
Ricardo got me a toaster as my mother's day present, which I actually needed and wanted. I must be my mother's daughter because I called my mom and she immediately said, "wow, what a great gift!" Ricardo said when he told his friends at school about it they thought he was crazy. Oh well, I love my new toaster. We are so blessed and life is so good. Sometimes I try to move time forward in my mind so Ricardo will be done with school and we can move on to "real life," but lately I've been trying to just enjoy this time because I know life will just keep on getting more complicated as we get older. We are loving being a family of three. Now I need to go brainstorm ideas for father's day because mother's day was truly perfect.
So, about the toaster... Did it need batteries? ;)
ReplyDeleteHey, I found your blog! Looks like May was a good month!
ReplyDelete