School Halloween Party

I told you the Halloween partying never stopped last week. On Friday the 29th Vince's school had a Halloween celebration for the kids. But for some reason this year they banned costumes and asked parents to dress kids in Halloween themed shirts or black and orange. We continued the skeleton theme with a sweatsuit that had a skeleton painted on it. Thank you Nannie for finding us that Mr. Bone outfit!

All Our Love,
The Damicos

Love Bug

It seems everyone around here has caught the love bug. Vince, Matt and I are just crazy about Ellis. We have to monitor Vince's love pretty closely because as a toddler he tends to have a bad case of unecessary roughness! If we let him he would kiss and hug Ellis all day but since his hugs more closely resemble full body slams, we limit him to touching her toes and kissing her on the cheek.

Matt has been on paternity leave and I'm on maternity leave so we get plenty of time to snuggle her solo during the day while Vince is at school.

Click here to see some pictures of us showering our little baby with love in her second week.

All Our Love,

The Damicos

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