Christmas Day

Christmas at the Lamitie-Mirrione house is an all day event. It's full of food, music and presents. We woke up to a beautiful snow fall that lasted all day. Gotta love a white Christmas.

Here we are opening presents. I've just opened the card that says (via a poem written by Maggie) that a donation of ducks (through Heifer International) was made in Leo's name.

This is an ornament with a picture of Maggie and Leo that was taken the night we arrived.

Leo experiences his first snow right as Maggie Lamitie arrives to join in the Xmas day celebration. Baby's first snow!
Of course dinner was another big production which included homemade cannoli. Here Tom rolls out the dough for the shells while wearing Leo in the Moby wrap. Mike and Tom work as a team. Mike operates the deep fryer to create the crispy shells.
The finished product (even more delicious than they look).

Christmas Eve

The Sunday before Christmas Eve we had a good day. Leo attended his first musical and got to see his aunt Maggie perform with a local theater company. He slept through the first half, nursed, and then was awake and attentive for the final number.

Christmas Eve we braved Whole Foods to stock up what we needed for the next two nights' meals. I wore him in the Moby wrap and he slept through the experience (which wasn't as bad as I anticipated for a xmas eve shopping trip). That night everyone got in on the cooking as Tom and Mike headed up the effort to create homemade manicotti. Every element was made from scratch--the pasta, the sauce, even the ricotta cheese. It was amazing tasting but time consuming, so we didn't eat until 10pm.

Hanging with Grandpa Joe. Getting love from Grandma Carrie. Showing off his "Baby's First Christmas" onesie and candy cane hat.

Traveling

I owe you a lot of posts and I'll try to put up a ton of pictures from our Denver trip in the next couple of days. I'll start with the traveling. Leo did awesome both ways. The voyage there went super smooth.

Here's Leo and Tom waiting at the Denver airport to be picked up by Mike.

The trip home was more of a challenge. Denver had some "weather" and the snow caused many delays and cancellations. We arrived at 1:15pm to find out our 3pm flight was canceled and we were on the 6pm flight. The flight was delayed an hour and a half, and we spent a good amount of time waiting for the plane to be de-iced. (This was a first for me.) Once again, Leo was a trooper and an excellent baby.

Here he is after being changed on the airport floor. And yes, he is wearing the same outfit he wore on the trip there (a gift from his Ito and Grandma Sharon). It was soft and warm and perfect for travel (until he pooped all over it).

This is at about hour six. Tom's face says it all.

Finally home.

Merry Christmas!

We're headed to Denver tomorrow (we'll be back on the 27th). I'm an equal mix of excited to see everyone and anxious about traveling with the baby. I know it will go fine, but I have to worry. That's my job.

I'm not sure if I'll get an opportunity to post while we're away so I just wanted to wish everyone a happy holiday.

We exchanged gifts here at home last night.

I gave Leo this book. He looks pretty excited. Here he is with all his gifts from last night (except his stocking, which we'll take with us to Denver).

And finally, Merry Christmas from the cutest Santa ever!

Strollin'

My friend Cara and I took the babies on a walk today. We met Cara and her husband in our childbirth class and it is great to have someone to hang out with whose life revolves around breastfeeding and poop. Her little girl, Addison, was born a little less than a month after Leo.

All set to go...

Also, Leo is going bald (just like his Ito, Humberto).

Spreading holiday cheer

Last year was Tom's first holiday season at his current job. We were not aware that his co-workers exchanged gifts and felt pretty bad that he was empty handed. This year we made up for it with homemade gifts in very cute packaging.

We started with peanut brittle (this is the second batch; I burnt the first one). Then we added three kinds of fudge...

Here's Tom assembling...
The end product

Activity gym

Tom's Aunt Marie sent Leo an activity gym a while back as an early Christmas present. He wasn't too into it at first, but now he really digs it. Here are some pics from Saturday.

He doesn't love "tummy time", but apparently very few babies do. He looks cute doing it though. Here he is cracking himself up...
A size comparison... 5 1/2 weeks old... Almost 10 weeks old...
I love this picture because I think we look like best friends that met in drama class and took pictures of ourselves to post in our lockers...or on myspace.

Baby's first cold

Despite my best efforts to keep him cootie-free, Leo has a case of the sniffles and a cough. So far, he isn't running a fever. We picked up a humidifer today (shaped like a frog), so that should help. He's still super smiley and cheerful though.

Big outting

We headed up to our old stomping ground today to look for the perfect all-terrain stroller. We checked out two strollers at two different stores in the Oakland/Berkeley area. We found one we really like, and bought it on eBay when we got home for a great price (the downside is the bright purple color, which wouldn't be our first choice, but we can't resist a deal).

The stroller shopping was fun, but the best part of our visit was seeing friends. Our first stop was our friends Lauren and Aaron's new house. It is a killer pad. They have a rumpus room; need I say more? We also saw our friends Adam and Elaine. They have a t-shirt business, the girl and rhino, and gave us one of their baby shirts when Leo was born. I dressed him in the shirt this morning to show our support, but by the time we reached Oakland, Leo had spit up all over it (he also peed his pants). This time, I had a back-up outfit. We visited them at their booth at the Telegraph Street Fair. Our last stop was to see Tom's college friend, also named Leo, his wife Vandy and their son Truman.

Overall, it was a great day, but very tiring.

Here are some pictures.

All ready to go...(he's turning into a little porker)

Meeting Adam and Elaine.

Baby's first office party

Tom and his co-workers had a little holiday gathering after work yesterday. I brought Leo to show him off. Everyone was really impressed with what a content, happy baby he is. And no one seemed to mind that I required them to use hand sanitizer before holding the baby (yep, I'm that kind of mom).

Here's Leo with Manisha and her son. She is one of the women who threw us that awesome baby shower back in September.

Sujatha is a very nice woman and Leo is only making fussy face because he was pretty over being held by others and wanted to be back with mom.

Silly

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1295334245

Gulp and Gawk

When I was pregnant, I heard about "sip and see" parties. Apparently, you serve tea (sip) and show off the baby (see). We had our own version yesterday. We called it a gulp and gawk, and served baked ziti, seven-layer dip, cookies, fudge and spiked egg nog. Leo was dressed to impress and was very charming for his guests. He did get a little over stimulated a few times and fell asleep as soon as he was handed off to me. I had my camera out to take lots of pictures, but got too distracted. Here are a couple of Leo hanging out with Julie and Jacob, who is 13 months old.

Christmas countdown

We're getting ready for the holidays. It's extra fun with Leo around, even though he doesn't fully appreciate it. He likes looking at the lights on our tree, and he got to visit Santa.
Here's the pic.

I'm having trouble with my computer's internet connection, but I'll try to continue posting regularly.

Mama's Little Piggy

Leo had his two month check up. He's a normal, healthy, growing boy. His weight is up to 11 pounds 8 ounces. Wow! This is so great since we had issues with his weight in the beginning. But anyone who has visited us knows I spend a lot of my day nursing. He's still in the lower percentile for head size (but moving up, so that good), which explains why I'm having so much trouble finding a winter hat that fits. He also had his vaccinations. I cried more than he did. He seems to be tolerating it well.
How about a little size comparison?

Three days old on his way home from the hospital.


This was taken on Saturday. He was 7 weeks, 5 days old (and yes, we put shoes on him).

Grandma Ruth

We had a very nice visit with Grandma Ruth. She loved meeting Leo. It will be strange not to have visitors for a while. But very soon we'll be headed to Denver for Christmas.
Here's some pictures of the family.