Holiday Recap + A Baby

As always, I am behind on blogging. Having 2 kids isn't helping me catch up either. I've been working on this post since Thomas was born. But before I get to that...let's recap Russell's last few months as an only child. 

We enjoyed a beautiful (and warm!) fall. It was nice to extend our time spent outside. We even had some great park days in December without coats!

     For Halloween we had a church party on the 30th and on Halloween night we enjoyed Chipotle and trick or treating with friends. Russell was a lion but didn't like to wear his hat. We were lion tamers but people got confused because our lion was kind of hard to identify without his mane. At least I attempted a cute family costume. He loved trick or treating this year but did not want to give away any candy. He was afraid we were giving away his hard earned candy so he wanted nothing to do with our trick or treaters. Oh well..

     He loves the seasons and wanted to play in every leaf pile we ever came across.

  On Thanksgiving we went to the parade downtown which was great. We saw Daniel Tiger and other favorites so Russell was thrilled. It wasn't too hard to find parking and it wasn't too cold so we were all happy. We had a potluck dinner with friends and Ricardo made his first turkey and I made pies. We also did some black Friday shopping and got a new blender which we gave ourselves for Christmas.

Ricardo's birthday consisted of breakfast crepes, a lunch date for Thai food, and a church function at night that I was in charge of. He was a good sport and helped me pull it off without complaining that it was his birthday.

   December was fun-filled and busy as it always seems to be. Although this was the first year Ricardo had no finals to study for, so that was a nice change. I had to work Christmas Day so we celebrated everything a day early. Every year gets more and more fun celebrating holidays with Russell. There was much more anticipation for Santa Claus this year and Christmas morning was a lot of fun.

My sister's family came down for a few days for New Year's and we enjoyed seeing the cousins interact. Each time they get along better than the time before. We continued our tradition of fried food for New Year's Eve Dinner and also added smoothies in our new blender. Unfortunately no one took pictures of the occasion, but it was a lot of fun.

January was spent preparing for the arrival of baby. Over Ricardo's break from school he helped me organize the whole house, including the basement, which for some reason made me feel more prepared to have a baby. Nesting is real! We had no snow all winter and then of course, a massive blizzard was forecasted to arrive 1 week before my due date. I was happy not to be working that weekend because I hate driving in snow, but I was so nervous about going into labor. It was definitely the craziest storm we've ever had in 4 years here.

  Ricardo made this igloo in our front yard. He and Russell were both sad when it melted.

   Russell loved playing in the snow and we all enjoyed this last day together as a family of 3. Who knew I would have a baby the next day?

On Monday I went to work and I started having contractions in the afternoon. I was wary to go to L&D too soon since I was sent home with Russell when I thought I was in labor and ended up having to come right back. By 7 PM I was sure this was the real thing so I had Ricardo meet me at the hospital. The midwife was not impressed with my story and didn't even really want to check to see if I was in labor ("you don't look like you're in labor"), but luckily she did because Thomas was born that night.
He has been a great baby so far (after subtracting his first month of life when he unfortunately caught 2 colds-being born in the winter is rough!) and Russell adores him, which was such a pleasant surprise. I thought he would be a lot more jealous. He loves to give him kisses at every opportunity and often talks about how cute he is. He has definitely made the adjustment to 2 kids a lot easier, though it is definitely crazy at times.

Ricardo went to Haiti for a school trip for 10 days in Feb/March so we took Russell out to lunch and bowling the day before he left. Russell had read about bowling in a Curious George book and was so excited. It was a lot of fun. I was nervous about being alone with a newborn and Russell for 10 days but we all survived and probably all appreciated Ricardo more when he came back. :)

We've had a few unseasonably warm days and have spent as much time outside as we can. Russell got sunglasses and loves them.

Just hanging out with Ricardo's dad.

In March we went to DC for our niece's baptism. It was a really fun weekend spent with cousins. 

Just hanging out with Grandpa.

After we came back from our trip, Ricardo's brother came to visit with "my other cousins" as Russell says and we had fun showing them around Philly. My sister-in-law planned some cute things for St. Patrick's day, including green milk and "leprechaun cereal" and gold coins, which Russell is still playing with. 

We enjoyed all of our favorite Easter festivities, including dying eggs, an Easter egg hunt, and lots of chocolate. Most importantly, Russell was able to tell us this year what Easter is truly about ("Jesus died and then he came back to life!") We are so grateful for our Savior and the blessings of Easter and the Resurrection.

Last weekend we went to an event promoting our soon to be dedicated LDS Temple here in Philadelphia. We went to the Academy of Natural Sciences museum for free (so fun!) and then enjoyed the temple lights at night. We are so excited this temple is finally almost done and will be dedicated this fall.

 That's all folks, hopefully I will post again in sooner than 6 months time.