Opening Ceremonies Mark the Start of Vacation!

The Olympics start tonight. Joe is very excited about this. He's sporting his "Beijing '08 t-shirt"...it's all red with the above logo in black. He ordered it online about a month ago and luckily it arrived yesterday, just in time!

Joe, Laina and I head out for vacation tomorrow which we're all very excited about. Joe and I haven't taken a "real" vacation since before Laina was born between storing up vacation days to use for maternity leave and then putting vacation days toward sick baby/ear infection days, we didn't have many extra days floating around.

We're driving to Rhode Island (via a stop at Grammy & Grampy's house in MA on the way). We'll head to Di's house and hang out there for the day. Laina will spend Saturday through Thursday with Auntie Di, Uncle Tom and Cousin Nik. Joe and I will be staying nearby in a hotel. We are attending the wedding of my college roommate, Carrie and her fiance Alfredo on Sunday evening. Then we'll do fun Newport touristy things like tour some mansions and go shopping. We may drive to Mystic Connecticut. It will be very strange to be apart from Laina for that many days but Joe and I are both looking forward to some down time. Laina will have a great time with Auntie Di who can't wait to get her hands on Laina for that many days.

I'll post some pictures of our vacation when we get back. Keep your fingers crossed for good weather! This rain lately has been crazy!

My Dancing Queen

I know I've said it before, but Laina loooooves to dance. I couldn't resist posting this clip of Laina, Cory and Joe golfing. It's Joe's turn to golf. Laina is waiting for her turn. There's music playing on the loudspeakers at the golf course and there is Laina grooving out. She has no idea I'm filming her. This is what life with Laina is like. She's all dance, all the time. Today we were in Kohl's and there she was dancing around and another shopper remarked to me, "she really likes to dance, huh". I asked her the other day what she wanted to dress up as for Halloween and she said "a dancer". Go figure, huh. Enjoy the clip...

Returning The Favor

A few months ago Laina mastered pedaling a bike. I blogged about how her little friend Antonio from school taught her how to pedal. Her teachers at school told me that Antonio would really work with Laina telling her to push this foot...then push that foot...until finally she got it and now she's a master pedaler! I find this story so touching. Laina has been with Antonio since her first day of school when she was 4 months old and he was 13 months old. At that point, he was just about to start walking and she was a new baby, miles away from taking her first step. Fast forward a few years and he's coaching her on how to pedal a bike.

Well, today I get to school to pick Laina up and Laina and Antonio are on the swings. With a HUGE smile on his face, Antonio shouts to me, "Look what we can do" and they both start swinging and pumping their legs. Laina has been pumping her legs and swinging herself for a while now and her teacher, Amanda told me that she's been teaching Antonio how to do it and today he "got it" and started pumping his legs himself on the swing. I love that a few months ago he taught her a skill and now today she is returning the favor and teaching him a skill.

Here is an old picture of Laina and Antonio from last summer at their trike-a-thon at school.

I struggled with the notion of having to put Laina in daycare when she was first born. It was hard to leave her at four months...probably the hardest thing I've had to do as a mommy. I'm fortunate now and I'm able to work part time so that I spend more time with her but today I have NO regrets that Laina is in daycare. She learns so much from the other kids....and she shares so much of herself with the other kids. It's really so important for her and I know that now...

Emily Rose

We got to enjoy another visit with Emily on Saturday. She's changed a lot in just a week! She's so sweet and mellow...just like her mama! Laina can now say Emily instead of calling her Enemy.

Me and Emily getting to know each other.

Proud Grandma!

Laina and Auntie Nee

In other news...today is Laina's cousin Sloane's THIRD birthday! We hope you're having a very happy birthday Sloane!

Cousin Cory Comes To Visit

Cory came to visit with us for a few days and we had such a great time with him. Laina is in LOVE! She had so much fun with Cory who was wonderful with her and gave her a lot of fabulous one on one time, played whatever game she wanted, drew tons of great pictures for her and basically succumbed to her every whim! Older cousins are great!

When Cory first arrived, Laina couldn't totally remember what his name was so she kept calling him "little boy"....as in, "what's that little boy doing"....and "when is that little boy going to wake up".....After a day she locked in his name and she then kept calling him Cory but the "little boy" phase was adorable given that she's almost 3 and he's 15 years old.

Another funny moment has to do with her beloved stuffed animal, Kittyhugs (KH). A few months ago she found one of her old baby burp clothes and she decided it was Kittyhugs' blanket. She likes the blanket to be wrapped around KH's body in a certain way. For the longest time, only I had the proper (as in Laina approved) technique down. Then after some intense tutorials, Daddy passed the big test and gained Laina approval with his wrapping technique. Well when Cory was here she asked him to wrap KH up and he had no idea what she wanted. I was not in the room at the time. So Laina came running over to me and said "Mommy....Cory not know how to wrap Kittyhugs"! So I showed Cory what she was talking about and explained the whole process to him. So a day or so passes and Cory says to me "Auntie Sandy, I did it - I wrapped Kittyhugs the right way for Laina!!!" It was so funny. Cory was proud that he had passed the Laina test and Laina was excited that Cory did it the right way. Cute little moments...

We also went mini golfing and it was Laina's first experience with golfing. She did a great job! Cory and Daddy coached her along the way and she had a lot of great shots. Here are some pictures of our visit with Cory...hanging out at home and on the golf course!

Cory is a great artist. Here he is drawing for Laina with the Doodle.

Isn't this great! At Laina's request he drew all the Mickey's Clubhouse characters. This one was my favorite - because I'm a big fan of Minnie!

Laina watching her golf ball head toward the hole. Will it be a hole in one?

Right in the hole!

Me, Cory & Laina on the boat at the golf course.

Another great shot!

An ice cream treat to cool off. It was SO HOT!
She's smiling at Cory in this shot.

Loving her ice cream.

Cute Cousins...

Laina Got A Care Hut

I can understand about 99.999% of what Laina says. Most people can understand 99.999% of what Laina says. But this one just had me stumped! For days Laina kept talking about how Matthew (a kid at school) got a care hut. I had NO idea what she was talking about. I kept trying to ask her questions to figure this one out.....do you mean a carrot? NO she would reply...a CARE HUT. I don't know what a care hut is Laina....tell me more about it....what color is it, what shape is it, etc. And she just got louder and louder...a CARE HUT....A CARE HUT! As if talking to me LOUDER would make me understand. So we finally just agreed to not talk about it any more. So a few days passed and I didn't think much of the old care hut.

Joe had gotten his hair cut one day and at dinner Laina said to him...."Daddy, you got a care hut" and finally it clicked.. Care hut means.....HAIR CUT! Then it all came together. Matthew at school had this long floppy hair and then one day he came in with a buzz cut and yes, boy oh boy did Matthew ever get a "care hut" or hair cut as it were!

These kinds of things crack me up. I love the whole learning language stuff. The other cute one is that Renee's new baby's name is Emily and Laina is having a hard time saying Emily so she calls her "enemy" which is just funny because little baby Emily is sooooooo not the enemy!

In any event, here's a cute picture of Laina wearing my Pittsburgh Pirates hat, eating her ham and cheese sandwich and showing off her new "care hut". Don't her bangs look adorable when they are freshly cut!

A Visit With Emily

Today we drove down to MA to meet Baby Emily! It was so exciting to meet her and see proud mama and papa, Renee & Mike. They look GREAT and seem very relaxed and mellow which is awesome. Emily slept most of the visit but did open her eyes a few times. She is a very laid back little girl. Here are some photos of our visit...

And baby makes three!

Happy Mama

Daddy's Little Girl

Baby Feet! Does it get any sweeter?

Laina's first picture with Baby Emily

Best friends....and their daughters...too cool.

Look at that sweet face!

Joe with Ms. Emily...July 2008

And Joe with our Laina - September 2005. Same sweatshirt!