More Vince...

We have been a bit lax on the pics this week - but just an update on Vince - he is a very good baby, we had some minor jaundice issues but that seems to be alleviating itself steadily. Will post more soon, with some pics of big brother CR too.

Welcome Vincent Michael!

Announcing the arrival of Vincent Michael Russo. Vince showed up a week ahead of schedule on March 15th, this was much to my relief as I had a long and uncomfortable weekend, topped off with early labor all Sunday night. We had a Dr appointment on Monday morning at 7:45AM, I had my bag packed, we dropped CR off at daycare, went to the Dr, and she sent us to the hospital for which I was so thankful. Later that afternoon Vince entered the world, and has been a content baby ever since, Charlie and I have enjoyed his company all day today. We go home tomorrow...

Christmas

Thanksgiving / Family Pictures / Snow!

We stayed here in Houston this Thanksgiving, and the Orgerons invited us over for Thanksgiving dinner (thank you!). We had a great time with Greg, Michelle, Laura, Josh and Greg and Michelle's parents - AND Baby Daniel who was just one week old! Welcome Baby Daniel!


The day after Thanksgiving we went out to Firethorne and took our first 'formal' family pictures, it was a cold morning, but we had a good time. Afterwards as a treat for CR we went to one of the playgrounds in Firethorne, it is a small playground for smaller kids, and the jungle gym has a big fish in the middle - so CR immediately named it the 'goldfishie' playground. It is one of his favorite outings and we have returned many times since.


Then a week after Thanksgiving we had snow here in Houston - now this is the third time this has happened since we lived here - making up a full 3/4 of the times snow has fallen in the place where I live. But this was by far the best snowfall - I wish I had a picture of the white out from the windows downtown (25th floor) - it was a truly stunning sight. Of course the city shut down early so I went home, and had to make sure to take a short video of the snowfall at our house before getting on my snuggly clothes and calling it a day.

The next morning there was still snow in lots of places and CR enojyed making snow balls and throwing them, he remembered this for quite a few weeks after and requested 'snowballs? ice?' when we went outside to play. Who would have thought after the summer we had (when I was icing down the pool) that we would have such a cold winter? No complaints, I am loving it - this beats being pregnant in the summer by a long shot.

Charlie's 2nd Birthday

Charlie Ross celebrated his second birthday with a visit from his Grammy and Grandpa, a day at Dewberry Farm, and a birthday party with his family (Grammy and Grandpa, Aunt Gina, Uncle Dan, David and Danielle) and friends (the Orgerons).

The pictures are a bit out of order, but we started out with Dewberry farm on Saturday, there was so much to see and do (maybe too much) - CR enjoyed seeing the animals and a play area with lots of farm toys and tunnels to play in, the play area was for little kids only and a closed in area so he could run around to his heart's content. He enjoyed that very much but got tired quickly - the farm is only open seasonally in the Fall and we are looking forward to going again next year when we can (maybe) try out the hayrides and pumpkin patch.

The next day was CR's birthday, we had a low key get together with a Go Diego Go theme, we put eveything together when CR took his nap, and when he woke up it was a flurry of gifts, cupcakes, and friends.

On Monday - his birthday - I stayed home and we all had a low key day, CR and Grammy went out for a 'run', an activity he enjoys very much. For several weeks after he associated this directly with wearing this Elmo shirt (below) and could not have one without the other.

At two years old CR is very fond of trains, cars, and Dora and Diego. In the car he likes to listen to his favorite songs, some of which he requests by name, and he enjoys singing along - Wheels on the Bus, Old McDonald, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and Freres Jacques are some of his favorites. Non-sing along favorites are Three Little Birds (Bob Marley), Ghostbusters (Theme Song), and Into Yesterday (Sugar Ray, from Surf's Up).

Catch Up

Please bear with me for the lack of posts over the past 2 (!) months, it has been a busy time. I will kick off with some pictures from early October at the Katy Rice Harvest Festival (so backtracking just a bit more from before Halloween).


CR's Maw-Maw joined us, and CR took some (impromptu) pictures at a photo booth of a local photographer. You would never know it from the pictures but it was actually an overcast day and these pics were taken outside!


More posts to follow....

It's a Boy!

Just a quick announcement - we had the big ultrasound this morning and found out we are having a boy! I wish we could get ultrasounds every week - it is so fun to see the baby and this one was so clear (and it was not even 4D).

Happy Halloween!

Charlie Ross enjoyed his first real Halloween thoroughly - leading up to it he enjoyed seeing all the pumpkin (Oh! Pumpkin!) and ghost (Ghost! Boo!) and monster (Monster! Scary!) decorations everywhere. He had a Halloween party with pizza and got to wear his costume to school on Friday. And he discovered candy corn, which Charlie and I started having to dole out carefully.

But on Halloween night it was on (!), there was the Annual Halloween parade in the neighborhood. We had never gone before, and were surprised at the turn out. The organizers from prior years were ready to pass the baton, and in a move that was totally out of character for me I volunteered to lead up the preparations - which really was not much, everyone loves a parade - the hardest part was navigating through the red tape to be sure the local volunteer Fire Department showed up to lead the parade. But they did and it turned out to be a great parade, we all brought potluck and there was no end to all the cookies and cupcakes CR could eat.

In particular someone made these eyeball pops, which was red velvet cake balls on a stick with white icing and piping to look like eyes. In nearly all of the pictures below that is what he is gobbling up or smiling around.

He was raring to go with all that sugar - he enjoyed climbing and touching the fire truck, and when the parade started he wanted to RUN! FORREST! RUN! (or, in his words, 'I running!!') - he ran over a quarter of the parade route and then walked with Gina, Charlie, David and me, the whole rest of the way, which was pretty impressive. We enjoyed walking the parade and waving at the other neighbors who came outside to see.

Now with every up there's a down and the sugar crash happened not too long after the parade's end, but we were able to get in some trick or treating - about five houses which I thought was not too bad after all that other activity.

It went like this: Charlie, David and CR go knock on the door - making sure CR did not completely assault the Jack-O-Lantern, CR says 'trick or treat' and gets the candy and says 'thank you', the door closes and he melts down on the front porch as though Halloween had just shut down completely, Charlie convinces him there is more trick or treating at the next house, he finally calms down and looks up, sees me, and comes running down the walk saying 'Mommy! Mommy!' to show me what he got. Repeat for four more houses, at the last one, there was barely any convincing him to move on - luckily it was across the street from our house so we trick or treated at our own door - where Aunt Gina was giving out candy. We went in, CR and David dug through their stash, ate some more candy then we had roast beef sandwiches - and then called it a night.

All in all a fun evening - I love Halloween. The best part is Daylight Savings was the next day which means Charlie comes home from work an hour early for the next few months (yea!).

So I am just going to post a bunch of pictures, to give a full view of the night - but all the pictures posted backwards - so the bottom pictures happened fist and so on. Not too many of the actual trick or treating because it got dark. (Oh, CR went again as Darth Vader this year because he really did not get to use the costume last year - I thought he was cute in it and we got him to say 'I scary!').