Christmas Vacation

Catch up time! I realized last night that I better get all the pictures posted from our trip to Puerto Rico before Christmas or else it's going to be a really, really huge post! Here is part one of two....more Puerto Rico pictures will be coming, along with the pictures of Sebastian's first Christmas! Many Christmas blessings to you all!

Sebastian and Daddy driving the golf cart on the way to church at Palmas del Mar.

Sitting with Abuela at Mass and looking cute as always.

Our family during Sebastian's first beach experience. Unfortunately, there was a tropical system in the area and it was very windy so the sea was too choppy to really go swimming. We still let Sebastian feel the sand and water for the first time.

When we set him down on the sand he didn't have much of a reaction. More than anything he didn't like the loud sound of the waves crashing, but he didn't mind the sand or the water. Maybe he'll be a little beach bug like his Mami?!

We went on a short hike to a lighthouse nearby where we took this pretty picture of the beach. Sebastian was not too happy because he really doesn't like loud noises and the waves were crashing and the wind was blowing. Since he was pretty upset, I decided to nurse him in my sling and that helped him not to wail so much anymore, but he was still not happy as you can see below...

I couldn't help but post this because it was so cute. He was not happy about the walk, but at least Mami was giving him is favorite thing... =) Too cute.

We also went in the pool for the first time. Sebastian was not very impressed with this at all.

Please get me our of here!!!

One afternoon we went to Las Cabezas de San Juan Nature Reserve for a tour. This is the beach by the entrance of the Reserve.

Touring the lagoon and mangroves. Sebastian plays tourist pretty well.

Outside the lighthouse at the Reserve in Fajardo.

After our tour we went to El Conquistador, one of the most famous hotels in Puerto Rico. The hotel is beautiful and the views are breathtaking. Here we are on one of the balconies. In the far back you can see the lighthouse we just toured, the lagoon and the bay.

Another day we toured the Bacardi Puerto Rican rum factory. We thought this would be good for his senior slide show... =) Too bad he wasn't wearing his Gator onsie.

One evening we went to a Christmas light exhibit in Guaynabo. The lights were a hit!

Sebastian playing with Great-Apapa (great-grandfather). Everyone said that Sebastian looked a lot like him.

Relaxing in the hammock at Playas del Yunque.

Hamming it up at the beach again.

With Daddy testing the waters.

The traditional coconut by Playas del Yunque.

We spent a morning at the rainforest (El Yunque). The waterfall was beautiful. On our next visit hopefully we can hike to the big waterfall and go swimming!

Abu (great-grandma) gave Sebastian his first Christmas present ever. It was a little dump truck that makes noises. He LOVES it! It's one toy he always wants to go after. He was so happy with this special present. Abu had a great time with her one and only great-grandson.

Cousins Olgita, Cristina and Camilo.

The day after we arrived from Puerto Rico, we met up with the Giammarinaro family for our annual Christmas outing. We all went to Celebration, a community owned by Disney, to have dinner and enjoy their festivities. Sebastian is now sitting in high-chairs at restaurants and he was enjoying his first teething biscuit here. He loves it! Anything that resembles food that we eat - he wants!

Playing with Daddy as we wait for the "snowfall."

Our family in the Florida snow - aka soap bubbles. Sebastian liked it though. He kept looking up and trying to catch the bubbles.

I'll have to post the remainder of the pictures later, along with Christmas pictures. Sebastian is so close to crawling. Right now he does this little "army scoot" on his belly and manages to get where he wants to go if he is determined enough. But otherwise, he just gets frustrated. We plan to go to my aunt Monica's for Christmas Eve and go to our parish's first outdoor midnight Mass. We're excited about it! More soon!

Greetings From Puerto Rico!

We are enjoying our vacation here in Puerto Rico. Today Sebastian had his first experience of touching the sand and ocean with his feet. He also went into the swimming pool for the first time. He really didn't seem to have much of an opinion on it, but the pool water was a little chilly for his taste, but as long as he was holding on to mommy or daddy he seemed to be OK with it.

We would love to post pictures for you all to enjoy, but we are visiting a beautiful beach house and left the camera cable that allows us to download the pictures at Cristina's Abuela's house. Next time we get internet access though we'll try to remember to bring it!

Happy Half-Birthday and Happy Thanksgiving!!!

We celebrated our first Thanksgiving with Sebastian this past Thursday and we sure do have a lot to be thankful for! Sebastian is growing and changing so fast and it seems like every day he is doing something different. The other day he discovered a new sound he could make, and today he discovered how to blow bubbles (or more like spit) by pursing his lips. He's also learned that when we laugh that he likes to do it too :)

We hope you enjoy these pictures from the past couple of weeks!!

A couple weeks ago we had our first taste of winter weather for Florida. We went out for a walk one night after dinner and Sebastian was hamming it up in his stroller.

Last Saturday we went on to a corn maze near Zellwood with some friends. We left Sebastian with his Nana and Papa. We didn't think he was quite ready for 2 hours lost in a maze.

This picture may seem familiar. It's actually one that was taken the day we brought Sebastian home from the Hospital. Since he turned 6 months last week, we took another picture (below) to show how much he's grown.

Sebastian at 6 months.

Now this is a crazy story... About one month ago, we went out to dinner at a local restaurant. While we were there, I ran into a family that I've met a few times. The lady's daughter is my god-daughter Angelica's best friend in kindergarten. She told me that she was meeting some friends at dinner that have a baby about the same age as Sebastian so she would introduce us since we all live in the same area. I said, great! When we finish with dinner I go over and introduce myself and this is how the conversation went: (I promise, there is a reason to this long story!) OM is the Other Mom

CG - How old is your baby? OM - This is Owen and he's 5 months. CG - Wow, Sebastian is 5 months too! When was he born? OM - He was born on May 18. CG - No, way, Sebastian was born May 18! What hospital? OM - Florida Hospital CG - Oh my gosh (Paul walks up at this point) this is crazy.

Then it hit all of us - We saw you in the waiting room at the hospital waiting to be induced! The husband recognized each other too. It was crazy! Then it got even crazier.... We had spoken in the waiting room so we knew we had the same OB.

CG - Well, what time was Owen born? OM - Oh, I had a c-section, he was born around 1 am. CG - Sebastian was born around 2 am - you were the reason I had to wait to get him out! The nurses wouldn't let me push because my doctor was in a c-section! OM - This is too crazy, we had to trade contact information so we can get the boys together and get to know each other. (She writes her name, phone and e-mail on a coaster and hands it to me.) CG - I look at the coaster and then look back at her because believe it or not, the e-mail address looks very familiar. I had just started a group at church for moms and babies and moms had to e-mail me to get directions to my house for the meeting. So I ask her - do you go to St. Maximilian Kolbe Catholic Church? Did you e-mail me about the Kolbe Baby Group? OM - Yes! Yes, yes! CG - Well, you are coming to my house this Tuesday!

So, that's the long version, but the gist is that it's crazy we ran into each other again and already we are becoming good friends. We've been going together to story time and then we went to the zoo the other day (pictures below). Julia and Owen also invited us to their home to celebrate the boy's 1/2 birthday last week. It was very cute to see them together!

Sebastian and Owen on their 1/2 birthday.

Once Sebastian turned 6 months we started giving him a bath in the 'Big Boy Tub'. I was pretty excited to get him out of that little bucket we were using, but the bathtub is definitely a challenge. We are still getting the hang of it.

Sebastian took his first trip to the Zoo last week with his friend Owen. As you can see he wasn't too enthused. I think he thought the whole thing was a little weird...

The Wednesday before Thanksgiving Nana watched Sebastian. This is him giving his newest "I'm so cute and I know it" smile during lunch.

Daddy and Sebastian playing.

The Giammarinaro/Reine Families

Tyler had such a great time with his little cousin on Thanksgiving!

He can't wait to get his hands on that Thanksgiving plate!! Sweet Potatoes, Peas and Mashed Potatoes. YUMMY!!

The day after Thanksgiving we continued our tradition of picking out our Christmas tree. It took us a little time to find the best place to get it, but it was well worth it!

Food Time Fun!

Sebastian is really getting the hang of this eating thing. He is usually pretty calm and lets you feed him, but sometimes he really gets into it and he wants to drive the spoon himself. This makes it interesting - it's amazing how fast a 5 month old can move! The other day, he was eating in his big boy chair and he managed to swipe the full spoon away from Daddy and the big glob of sweet potatoes landed smack dab in the middle of his face. He thought the whole thing was hysterical! It also made for a very cute picture. =)

My brother Daniel and his new fiancee (congrats, congrats!!!) Emily were over at our house discussing wedding plans but Sebastian kept stealing the show with his cute little antics. Here he was also talking at the top of his lungs as he tried to eat his toes.

This weekend, Sebastian and Mami sported Mami and Me matching colds. It was miserable. The colds started on Sunday and Sebastian hardly slept on Sunday night so I didn't get much sleep either. This was especially bad because I didn't feel well to begin with. And I was just getting over this nasty 24 or 36 hour stomach virus that had attacked me over the weekend too. So I called in sick to work and we spend the day being sick. My mom came over to help out and made me soup. Thank goodness for moms! Sebastian is better, but still stuffy - hopefully it will only last a couple more days.

Here is some other non-Sebastian related news:

My brother Daniel and his fiancee Emily at a little engagement party that we threw for them over the weekend. Paul said he was glad to welcome another English-speaker to the gang. =)

Cute picture of Sebastian and his Padrino (Godfather).

My mom and brother are getting daschound puppies! They are 6 weeks old brother mini-daschounds and are so cute! My brother's is the red-haired one, Speedy and my mom's is the brown and black one, Pancho. They are too cute!

Paul's cousin Amy in Michigan just had her twins on November 2. She had a boy, Ashton Patrick (6 lbs 1 oz) and a girl Madison Elisabeth (6 lbs 12 oz). That's a lot of baby! We wish them many congratulations and much luck as they went from a family of three to a family of five! We can't wait to meet our new little cousins!

Happy Halloween!

We've had a busy start to our Fall so far with many different activities. We had a visit to the pumpkin patch, a visit from Great Grandma, Sebastian's first trip to Sea World and Halloween! With so many pictures we figured we'd give this new slideshow a try, so we hope you enjoy!!

Be sure to turn up your sound because there's music!

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Rivalries

Tuesday of this week, my friend Jen and her little boy Finn came over for a visit. Finn was sporting his Ohio State onesie, so of course Sebastian had to represent in his Gator gear! The boys had a great time playing together. It's nice that they can be such good friends even though the Gators beat out Ohio State for both the Football and Basketball National Championships. :)

We also have some great video of Sebastian laughing, but due to technical difficulties we can't post it right now...check back later and we'll try to have it posted. OR, you can subscribe to receive email updates everytime we update the blog (the link is on the right under our email address).

Sebastian and Finn lounging on the couch.

Sebastian and Finn laughing on the floor together.

Now that the weather is getting cooler we pulled out some of Sebastian's warmer clothes. We thought this outfit was adorable on him. He had little pants to match, but a little incident presented itself after dinner so we had to improvise. The jeans looked really cute too. What can we say...he looks really cute in anything!! :) He's getting to be such a big boy!!!

We are all doing well and staying busy as usual. Sebastian is also trying out bananas now and seems to like those a little more than the cereal. Boy is baby feeding messy! We just starting working on some baby sign language with Sebastian and he seems to watch pretty closely, so I can't wait until he actually "communicates" with us for the first time. They say that usually by the time their one they may start signing back. We'll see! Also, we've been going to the Library for "Tiny Tales" every Thursday. It's a great 20 minute program with nursery rhymes, songs and of course, a story. Sebastian loves the songs, pays really close attention to the reading part and loves to see all the other babies each week. This week we played with a colorful parachute and most of the kids were pretty wowed. I think Sebastian has liked seeing bubbles the best though. I'll have to buy some at the store to play with. Below are some pictures of what we've been up to lately.

I opened my birthday present from Sebastian in the morning before I left for work. "He" made me a card with cute frog stickers on it and even signed it with an outline of his little hand and foot. It was soooo cute!

When I opened my present he was much more interested in the tissue paper and then in looking at something on the floor. Oh well! But his gift was this double frame with our picture and his little 5 month old hand print in plaster. I LOVED it! It's so special. You can tell I thought it was the best birthday present ever!

We had a birthday celebration with my family with birthday hats and all. I had to make sure Sebastian didn't grab the candles. He didn't like the noise makers too much.

We also celebrated with the Giammarinaro's. There are four October birthdays in the family so we just do one big party for all. My shirt sure is bright - I was supporting my Gators!

Sebastian and his Uncle Corey.

My best friend Sarah has a little boy too, Jackson (8 months). They boys are only 3 months apart and we try to get them together when we can. Last Tuesday I babysat Jackson on my day off which meant I had two babies to watch - Sebastian and Jackson. Jackson is crawling, very mobile and eating much more food, so it was interesting trying to juggle both the boys in their very different stages despite being so close in age. It's amazing what a difference only a couple of months can make! Sebastian loved playing in Jackson's exersaucer and Jackson would always pull up and play with him too. It was very cute! What great buddies!


Sebastian thought that Jackson was very entertaining. I could just prop him up on the couch (he is very, very close to sitting up on his own) and he would crack up laughing as he watched Jackson crawl around. I hope he was taking notes on the whole crawling thing!

Hi Mami!

He loves grabbing his feet now. When he has socks or a sleeper on he grabs at his feet like "where are my toes?"


I'm a happy boy! I love the smiles we get on the changing table.