Merry Christmas!!!

Well, here we are in Seattle and it is Christmas already. We have had a busy few weeks, moving from temp housing into our new house. Chris started his new job and seems to come home excited every night, which is nice to see! We feel pretty settled in already and every day gets easier. More updates on our move to come.

In the mean time, we wanted to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas! We are having a wonderful Christmas filled with lots of good memories so far. On Christmas Eve we went to the famous Pikes Place Market to get fresh fish for our adaptation of the Italian Feast of the Seven Fishes Christmas Eve dinner. We also went to church in the evening (we lasted about 40 minutes, which I was happy with). Since we didn't get home from church until late, there wasn't enough time for Nicholas to par-take in our "grown-up meal" so we gave him a very special Christmas treat of nuggies and fries from McDonalds. Nicholas loved it, I on the other hand felt very guilty! It was nice for Chris and I to have a very nice quiet meal of our own though, after Nicholas was in bed.

Yummy! My special Christmas treat, I was such a good boy at church!

My husband, the master chef..am I lucky or what!?!

Delicious meal!

Manja, manja!

This morning Nicholas woke up with lots of presents from Santa. It was great to see how excited he was. His favorite was his train tracks and his new train Gordon, who he said all day is the "strong engine" with crazy emphasis on the word STRONG! Thanks Mom-mom and pop-pop for the gift, you made his (and our) Christmas! Thanks to all the gifts from the aunts too! Here are some pictures from our eventful day.

Wow, did Santa bring me all of this!?

Look Daddy, my new trains!

Setting up my new train tracks

I even got some new books!

What's in my stocking mommy!?!

A new rug to drive my cars on!

More presents!

Now my Thomas Train set is complete!

Yummy, Mommy made my favorite bannana walnut waffles for us.


Later on Christmas night...still playing with my toys...we made it a pajama day! I actually made it into sweats to go for a walk while Nicholas napped.



Whooo, what a day. Nicholas is in bed for the night and we had another seafood dinner of broiled salmon. Yes, Chris and I decided to go all out seafood holiday this Christmas since everything was so fresh at Pike's Place.

Goodbye NYC, Hello Seattle!!!

Well, this is our final week here in NYC. Thanksgiving with the family and then on to Seattle. Even though it was such a short time, we feel blessed for what it was; a LIFE SAVER (literally!) I loved our time here and will truly miss our friends and family so close in Philly and of course the beautiful area here along the Hudson, but now it's time for bigger and better things. A real place for Chris and I to lay down our roots, hopefully this is our long term! The funny thing is, of our almost 4 years of marriage, this will be the 4th state that we have lived in. I hope we are done for a very long time. Friends and family on both coasts come and see us as soon!

Happy Birthday Mimi!!!

We wanted to wish Mimi a happy birthday a little late, as her birthday was actually on the 9th. But we got to spend a great couple of days together! We are so happy to have been able to spend the happy day with you and have everyone come up to our place for dinner! Thanks for being such a great mom and grandmother to NIcholas!

Big Boy Potty

I recently purchased a Babybjourn potty training seat and a book called "My Big Boy Potty." I didn't really have a plan to start training Nicholas yet, I just wanted to have it for when we were ready. He has recently been telling me after he goes "poo-poo" and occasionally says "mommy change diaper." Nicholas was so excited to see the potty seat! After I read him the book once I said "Does Nicholas want to sit on the potty?" and he said "OK!" This was on Saturday and he went pee right away. Since then he goes pee-pee on the potty several times a day. I can't wait for him to go poo-poo on the potty! It seemed like he was trying to push something out the one sitting he had with Chris. I have no idea what I'm doing and totally winging it, maybe I should get a potty training guide; but in the meantime our casual approach seems to be working just fine! We all get so excited with every pee-pee, even Nicholas claps and says "yay!" SO EXCITING!! Maybe he will be out of diapers before the next one comes along!?!

Nicholas totally loves the potty book. I would recommend it to anyone with a boy!


And More Halloween Pics...
Nicholas is still too young to understand the joys of trick-or-treating but it was fun to hear him say "trick-or-treat" and "thank you!" Other than that it was too much candy for mommy and daddy to eat so we didn't want to go to too many doors! We took him to a Halloween Dog parade right down the street and then later on in the eve we took him for maybe a half hour of trick or treating.
Yummy! Thanks Aunt Jeanne for sending cupcakes up with Mimi, they were delicious!

Our little monkey boy!

Look at me!

"Cheeeeeeeese" with Daddy!

Happy Boy!

Halloween Party

Our building put on a Halloween Party last night in the playroom. It was lots of fun to see all of the little ghouls and goblins running around! Nicholas felt pretty cool in his skeleton costume. They are actually pj's that Grammy bought for him - thanks Mimi!




Nicholas costume was glow in the dark, he loved us turning out the lights so he could look at himself move around in the mirror. This was a spooky shot of him in the pitch dark looking into the red camera light.

I LOVE SUSHI!!!

We are pretty lucky in that Nicholas eats almost everything we eat (or he doesn't eat anything at all!) He devours California rolls and avocado rolls!


Other meal time favorites are fajitas with peppers, black beans, cheese, and of course, his favorite, avocado! We really miss the good old California days where we had a huge avocado tree in our backyard, we had so many that we didn't know what to do with them all! Paying $2 a piece just kills me.

What a ham!!!


I still haven't figured out exactly what he likes for breakfast though, any suggestions?

We're Having Another Boy!!!

And here is the newest picture of our little man!

Our Day at the Philadelphia Zoo - 10/11/09

What a great way to spend a beautiful fall day!

These Are a Few of My Favorite Things

Thomas the Train!

My Thomas pj's. I have worn these for two weeks straight and refuse to wear anything else to bed.



Going for walks with my stroller and penguin bag!



Fire Trucks!


My friend Coen!


And eating cake at my friend's birthday party.

Now if I just had a picture with a trash truck my list would be complete!