Wednesday, November 24, 2010

It's Beginning to Look Alot Like Christmas

Anyone who knows me, knows I don't like anything Christmas BEFORE Thanksgiving. Well, I can't control when the City of Chicago lights the Christmas Tree in Daley Plaza, and our family was all here to go together, so I had to break my rule. It was really cold, and raining, and almost anything that could go wrong went wrong, but we had a ton of fun in the in betweens!

On the train ride downtown, Giuliana started to fuss so we decided to make a bottle, only to find that we had the bottle, the formula, and the water to make the bottle, but no bottle liner! We use the Playtex dropins system, so there is a disposable dropin liner. As backup, I said to Joe, "Ok, well give her some of the banana puffs." He said, "CRAP! I forgot those too. This is the last time I'm in charge of packing the diaper bag." Luckily we had a pacifier that held her over until we arrived downtown and were able to stop at Walgreens and buy a downtown priced pack of dropins!

We headed over to Daley Plaza to see the lighting of the tree. Whew, it was cold and cold raining. As I mentioned, it was pretty cool to see. We took a short video, so if you'd like to see, it's below. Then we walked over to Giordanos for some stuffed pizza. Halfway there, the wind started gusting so strongly, it was practically pushing us and doing the walking for us. However, pushing a double stroller with two crying little ones, against the wind was not an easy task.

We finally made it to Giordanos and were seated quickly and I went to change the girls diapers. With our order placed, we had 35 minutes to entertain Giovanna and Giuliana. I was doing the, "High five. To the side. Down low. Too slow" game with Giovanna. Gunnar was sitting across the table, and was playing the same game with her and whoop, over went a full glass of water on Gunnar's lap. Then after we finished eating, Giuliana became really fussy. I went to pick her up to soothe her and realized she had a poopy diaper that went through on to her clothes (been happening alot lately unfortunately). I asked Joe if he would do the honors, and to my surprise, he agreed! He was gone for quite awhile, but not as long as I had expected him to be. He came back to the table all frazzled and handed Giuliana over to me, nice and dry and in a new set of clothes and hurridly said, "I have to go back in there to clean up." I couldn't help but laugh. He came back and said it was the poo of her life! Up her entire back, down her legs, all over her clothes, she was crying and kicking. Again, I laughed and tried to hold it in but couldn't. I only laughed because I've been there and it's funny when it's not happening to you. Needless to say, it got on his shirt, and luckily, he had on an undershirt, so we were able to add it to the dirty clothes bag, paid our check and headed home.

Unfortunately, we weren't able to stop and see Santa as planned. So we'll have to do that in a few weeks when we go again for our Christmas shopping.

The girls on the Blue Line on the way downtown
all bundled up looking like puffy marshmallows

The family (minus me, I was taking the picture)
in front of the tree

The Lighting of the Tree


Does this count as her first steps?



Sunday, November 21, 2010

Happy 8 Months!

Today is Giuliana's 8 month birthday. I can't believe how fast everything is flying by. Joe and I were talking that we will never have a non-crawler in our house again. And in about 6 more months, she'll be eating at the table with us at dinner, along with walking, and talking. Aye yaye yaye!

On Thursday, Giuliana had another NICU follow-up appointment. These are fun 2 1/2 hrs. She saw an Audiologist to test her hearing. They asked that someone stay in the waiting room with Giovanna for this test, so I stayed behind, and Joe accompanied Giuls to her test. She did not do well, but they are confident it's because she had fluid in her ears from the cold she's been battling for the past 3 weeks. She and Giovanna seem to keep passing it back and forth to one another. Then we all went into an exam room where we saw the Speech Therapist. She said Giuliana is hitting all the marks that she should be at her age, and then some. She gave us a few recommendations of things to practice with to increase Giuliana's awareness of her tongue and it's capabilities. Next came the Occupational Therapist who played with Giuliana for awhile to see where she is with her motor skill development. She scored Giuliana based on what she observed, and ranked her in the 90th percentile! So again, she is meeting her marks and then some. Finally, we saw the doctor, and he did not have any concerns. He would just like to see her again in 4 months at her 1 year NICU follow-up.

Sorry I don't have any pictures to share this week. It's been hectic and we've all been taking turns being sick. I'm glad my sick came on the weekend. It looks like we are all on the road to recovery!

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Funundrum!

We had another FABULOUS fun family outing last night. We went to Ringling Bros. Barnum & Bailey Circus, Funundrum. The whole car ride there, Giovanna kept saying, "I like clowns." Ya she like clowns until the first one walked past her. She ran so quickly, Joe and I couldn't help but chuckle. Giuliana doesn't seem to mind, but we'll see what next year brings.

Giovanna and my favorite part of the show was the elephants. We also got to see baby Barack. The circus started an elephant conservation, and Barack was born on the eve of President Barack Obama's Inauguration. He was the first elephant born as a result of Ringling Bros. invetro fertilization, so they are proud of their accomplishment, and the future of their circus.

Gunnar loved the motorcycles, and Joe's favorite part was the trapeze. Giuliana had her own circus going on on my lap, bouncing, twisting, bending over backwards until she conked out about a half hour in to the show. She was out the rest of the night. The circus has now become a Lee family tradition.


























Monday, November 1, 2010

Trick or Treat!?!

We had such a great Halloween. The girls were healthy Peas & a Carrot. Even though it was cold, Giovanna LOVED trick or treating.

The best was when we walked up the steps of a house, Giovanna said, "I do it." Meaning, she didn't want me to hold her hand. Then I picked her up to ring the doorbell. They had their screen door in, and the front door was open. When I put her down after ringing the doorbell, she stepped to the side and peeked in their house through the screen door and said, "Anybody in there mommy?" My heart melted.

Enjoy the pictures! Sorry I can't put captions, blogspot is acting all goofy all of a sudden and things aren't lining up correctly. I think you're pretty smart and can figure out what's going on in the pictures!





































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