Spooky Season

Matt and I have always been pretty social but man we've got nothing on Vince. That kid has a social calendar that would make a celebrity jealous. The day after his big Yo Gabba Gabba adventure he was invited to a Halloween party thrown by his daycare at a local park. Our whole family loves Halloween and Vince could not wait for the festivities to start. He even told me "Mommy I don't want to go trick or treating just to parties." His wish was our command.

Matt and Vince dressed up as matching skeletons except that Vince refuses to call them skeletons, he would like you all to refer to them as Mr. Bone Man. Vince had a great time at the party. Matt almost passed out from exhaustion after chasing Vince for two hours straight while dressed in an adult skeleton costume and Nannie and I spent the whole party talking to other mothers who were fawning over Ellis in her little pumpkin costume. Click here to see pictures from the party. And I really hope you like Halloween pictures because Vince made the rounds and went to 3 parties and trick or treating twice with two different costumes... more spooky posts to come.

All Our Love,

The Damicos

Mini Model

Teetee came to babysit Ellis last weekend while we took Vince on his special big brother adventure. Apparently Ellis is her muse because she spent hours taking photos of her. Click here to see all of her great photos of our little sweet pea. You may want to grab a gatorade and a snack because there are a LOT of them and it will take you a while. She spent hours taking pictures!

All Our Love,
The Damicos

Overcompensating

Months and months before Ellis was born I had a mini pregnancy hormone and insomnia related breakdown. I was reading all these articles about introducing your toddler to a new sibling and I was just convinced that Vince would feel all heartbroken and betrayed that we had brought a newer baby into the house. One of the articles suggested that we do things with just Vince every once in a while so that he would know that he was still going to get attention. Fate would have it that about 2 weeks after his sister was due one of Vince's favorite TV shows Yo Gabba Gabba was going to be on tour live in Atlanta.

If you've never seen Yo Gabba Gabba, it's hard to describe. The characters are strange, the premise is basic and most of the time I think that the parents love it more than the kids.

I without hesitation decided that we MUST take Vince. You know to convince him that we still loved him (work with me people, hormones work in strange ways). So I went online to buy tickets and lo and behold I must not be the only loving guilt ridden parent out there because almost all of the tickets were sold out. And I say almost because there were two kinds of tickets left: too far away to see anything and mortgage the house expensive. Guess what kind I bought? Knowing that if we were too far away to see the stage Vince would never sit still and we would have wasted all kinds of money, I decided to clean out our entertainment budget for the entire year and buy the good tickets. Not just good... front row good (remember hormones make you do crazy, crazy things).

Flash forward and not only is Vince not jealous of his sister, she was born late, so he didn't even have time to realize that he would be with her 24/7 for the rest of his life before the showtime. So 7 days after Ellis arrived, Matt, Vince, Nannie and me were off to see Yo Gabba Gabba live. Teetee drove in from Tennessee for the day to babysit Ellis. Vince had no idea why the heck he was being treated like prince for a day, and he wasn't about to question it. 

When the show started the look on his face was priceless. He was so ecstatic it was like Christmas morning times 100. I don't know if it was the complete lack of sleep because of the newborn at home or the gaping hole in my bank account but when I saw that little look of shock and amazement I started bawling like a baby. So I guess all of the Metro Atlanta YGG fans now think I'm some sort of deranged groupie for those large freakish stuffed animals but whatever. Vince had a great time, I didn't regret spending the money (ummm maybe a little) and Teetee got several hours of baby alone time.

Click here to see all of our Gabba fun... and don't be surprised if most of the pictures are a side view of Vince's face with a dumbfounded look.

All Our Love,

The Damicos

Second But Not Second Best

In an effort to prove to Ellis (and myself) that being the second child doesn't mean you're second best, I've been busting my tail trying to take pictures of her and man is it a challenge! You're going to see a lot of random pictures of her sitting in her bouncy chair (ignore that it's blue and that it was Vince's) and in her little crib (also Vince's, I promise she does have a lot of her own stuff). Without head support there are only so many places she can go.

Vince loves to start every day by talking to his baby sister. He doesn't seem to care if she's awake or not. He tells her good morning and then bombards her with questions. I feel like I am a toddler to newborn translator; both languages are grueling to learn trust me. I can't wait for the day she can answer them and take me out of the equation.

Ellis had a little day/night confusion on her first few days home. Much like Lindsay Lohan she was content to sleep all day and stay awake all night puking in her own hair. We helped her realize that day was way more fun by taking her for some sunny stroller rides. Vince assumes that she wants to go where he wants to go... to construction sites. After the first two or three days at home Ellis has realized that night is boring and the perfect time to sleep and daytime is fun and the perfect time to play with Daddy and let him take ridiculous pictures of her sitting with Vince's toys.

Click here to see pictures from our (thankfully) uneventful first week at home. Hey dull can be good sometimes.

All Our Love,
The Damicos

Coming Home

After two and a half really long days at the hospital Ellis' levels of jaundice were low enough that we could all go home. Picking her going home outfit was no small feat. I had at least 4 options in my bag. Babies bigger than 8 lbs don't fit in newborn clothes so I had to have two different sizes and "fall" in Georgia means you might "fall" for the con that it's going to actually be cool outside. It wasn't. It was about 80 balmy degrees the evening we took Ellis home on October 18th. 

Matt says I picked the most difficult outfit to put on a newborn but I loved it. It was a short sleeved dress with built in bloomers (modesty first you know) with a cardigan sweater (in case that phantom fall weather showed up). And besides who cares if the outfit was cute, the pictures of Matt sweating while trying to put it on her where worth it!

Vince was very excited that we were finally home and that we brought Ellis with us. Please ignore the giant booger and dirty t-shirt in this picture!! Our first night home was uneventful and slowly but surely we are inching our way towards being a fully functional family of four.

Click here to see the photos from that first night at home.

All Our Love,

The Damicos







Damico Party of Four

So this blog which started out as a clever way to share news about our newborn baby Vince is morphing into something different... a family blog. Our darling baby Vince is a full blown little boy who loves to "hunt monsters" and beg for candy. He now has a darling baby sister who is slowly learning that being the second child means sacrifice... like your name is not the title of the blog ha ha.

Another change to the blog. I've promised to include more pictures of myself so that my children will remember that I was their every day too... not just their handsome photogenic Dad!

We've been loving our sweet baby girl for 11 days now, but trust me she was in no hurry to get here. She was due on October 11th but for the entire last 6 weeks of our pregnancy every doctor, friend and random stranger kept telling us she was going to come early. We weren't surprised because Vince showed up 2 weeks early. My doctor's even had me stop working in September because they kept saying "any day now." Well our stubborn sweet little girl proved them wrong and made it to her due date and beyond. Thankfully our doctor scheduled us for an induction on Saturday October 16th.

Despite assurances that once they induced she would come quickly, she continued to take her sweet old time. After 11 and 1/2 hours of a very easy and relatively pain free labor Ellis Catherine Damico arrived at 8:23pm Saturday October 16th. She weighed 7lbs 14 oz and was 19 inches long. Our joy of course couldn't be measured :) She was a beautiful dark haired little newborn clone of her brother. Neither one of use could believe how much they looked alike at birth.

Even though I was a little bummed that Ellis didn't get to pick her own birthday, we picked it for her, I loved the perks of having her on a schedule. That gave my Mom and Dad her Nannie and Poppie and my sister and brother in law her Teetee and Uncle Troy plenty of time to drive to Georgia so they were all here when she was born. We let her get some rest Saturday night but Sunday was a full day of visitors... including the most important and anticipated visitor of all... her brother.

Now if you've read this blog at all or ever met Vince you know he's uh well uh "spirited." Vince has more energy than a room full of people combined. When you mix that with a very healthy dose of curiosity and the vocabulary of someone twice his age, you often get quite an adventure. We spent many hours discussing, fretting and wondering about what Vince would think of this new baby who was coming to dethrone him as center of the freaking universe. In true Vince fashion he kept us guessing until the very end and his response was very unexpected. He was happy and downright bored with her. He could care less that we were giving her attention because not only did she not eat fun food, she can't even talk. What a bore! Not to say there won't be some naughty jealous days in the future but for now our greatest fears have been unconfirmed... phew.

Click here for pictures from October 16th and yes they include pictures of Ellis looking like an alien and me looking like I'm on death's door (hey there's only so much photoshop can do).

Click here to see pictures of Ellis day 2 as she welcomed her first visitors and had her battle with jaundice. Not to worry it wasn't a big deal. I had it when I was a baby, Vince had it and now Ellis can post it on her resume. I just couldn't resist taking pictures of her looking like a cast member of the Jersey Shore in what looks like a tiny tanning bed.

More to come, don't want to overwhelm you all in one post.

All Our Love,

The Damicos