Playgroups, Trucks and Easter

We hope that everyone had a blessed and beautiful Easter! Here are some updates from the past few weeks:

Sebastian and I went to go visit with my friend Jen and her son Finn. Finn is 8 days younger than Sebastian (Jen and I worked together at Scholastic Book Fairs for a while). The boys had a good time playing and the mommies had an even better time catching up. =) We took a walk to a park off of the West Orange trail and the boys had a good time swinging.

Mommies and Sons.

Both Finn and Sebastian love Elmo. Now this is a very intriguing phenomenon to me. Sebastian watches no television and his only reference of Elmo is the fact that his picture is on some of his diapers and a bath toy we bought him back in January or Elmo in a submarine. In the past few weeks, he will not get out of the bathtub unless he can take his Elmo with him. He plays with Elmo constantly and when we got to Finns house and he saw the Elmo book he went bananas. I've talked to other moms about this and they all just say the same thing...it's just the power of Elmo. (Note: Please do not proceed to gift Sebastian with Elmo toys...we really don't love him the way Sebastian does and it's just so much commercialization!!!)

Sebastian is turning into quite the little reader. We've been working more on our nighttime routine with him and here is Daddy reading books with him before bedtime. He certainly has his favorites and he likes to turn the pages himself.

By far, his favorite book is called I Love You Through and Through. Cristina has been reading this book to him since he was a wee little guy and now he just lights up when he sees it. He will even bring the book to me if he wants me to read it to him. He knows when the funny parts are coming up and he will laugh in advance. It is the cutest thing ever. I hope he grows up to love books as much as I do and I am so thrilled that this is one of his favorite things to do with Mami.

Playtime with Friends

Last week I hosted a 30th birthday for my good friend Julia. We had four mommies and boys over to play and hang out. Five hours flew by in no time after we ate our hearts out and talked about everything under the sun. Now Julia is from Australia and I know that she misses her country dearly so I wanted to make her birthday extra special. With the help of another Australian friend, we decorated my dining room with an Aussie theme and my friend Kirsty even made a typical dessert called Pavlova. Let me tell you...pavlova is like a gift from heaven. It was this delectable light-as-air meringue cake with whipped cream and fresh kiwi and strawberries on top. Embarrassingly, we devoured the whole thing telling ourselves that no one would know...well, now everyone does! It couldn't be helped! So much for losing the baby weight...

Julia with the Pavlova and her son Owen who was born the same day as Sebastian!

The boys playing at our house.

Sebastian and Michael pushing the truck around.

Sebastian loves this little chair at Abuelita's house. It was a garage sale buy and has been worth every penny! He loves to sit and listen to the chair sing and light up. Too cute!

On the Go...

Sebastian has finally discovered the joy of pushing things around. He will push his toy truck from one end of the house to the other and it's so funny to see him "walking" around the house like this. Once he hits the wall he starts to scream for me to turn his truck around. I'm trying to teach him to say "Mama" instead of screaming, and it's actually worked a couple of times, but more often he just screams. He also wants to push anything else that can be pushed around...this includes other toys, the laundry baskets and any type of chair. Whew...

This is a few days before he made the discovery and his Uncle Corey is pushing him around on the truck. He thought this was spectacular!

Big smiles!

Loving the ride!

Easter - Alleluia - He is Risen!!!

Keeping with our tradition, we participated in the full Triduum of the Catholic Church, our favorite time of year. We decided to attend Vigil, which in the Catholic Church is when we welcome new members into our church through the sacraments of Baptism, Eucharist and Confirmation. We have infant baptisms often, but it is at the Easter Vigil that we get to welcome kids, teens and adults. It is my favorite Mass of the year, despite it's generally 3 hour length, so we decided we would try to brave it with Sebastian. We took him in his best white PJs and hoped that he would fall asleep during Mass. Well, he had other plans. Our little party animal, knew this was a major party and was not going to miss a single thing. It was so funny because he was clapping and singing and raising his hands like he knew what was going on. He read his books quietly when it was time to be quite and was the most awesome (and only) 10 month old baby at the Mass.

Here Daddy is trying to get him to drink his bottle and fall asleep, but that is clearly not in his agenda...

Yeah, it's almost 11 pm and I am a happy boy!

The Giammarinaro's First Easter.

On Easter morning, we brought Sebastian out to the living room where the Easter bunny had left his basket. He knew about this new Elmo fascination so he had an Elmo basket filled with big plastic eggs and some plastic balls - both of which he loved. We also gave him a popper and a few stuffed animals. He seemed okay with it.

Sebastian discovering the whiffle balls in his Easter basket.

We went to Cristina's mom's for a brunch of arepas, eggs and fruit salad. It was yummy and we ate outside on my mom's new screened porch.

As you can see, we've been very busy and life will just get crazier once Sebastian starts walking. It seems like it will be soon, but really we have no idea. Please continue to keep our friends Steven and Betsy and Baby Andrew in your prayers. He is still in the hospital and although he is doing much better, they are still waiting to find out when his next round of heart surgery will be scheduled. You can keep up with them on their blog - the link is on the right hand side of our web page. Children are such an amazing blessing...such a precious gift of life. We praise God everyday for giving us the opportunity to raise Sebastian!