a really long time since i've posted and... a baby fakedir (shedir)

i remember a time when i used to post silly things on my blog, simply because i had the time and the inclination. no one told me having a baby was going to be this much work! yes, i blame my inefficiency and lack of posting to my blog on the baby. she is the cutest time-vortex known to man :)

another thing i was doing was getting ready for our european trip 2008! for family bonding time, we decided to visit marco's family in italy. they had never seen the baby and this was quite possibly the only time they would have to see her quite so much. i took the opportunity to visit some of my side of the family as well. my cousin, pina, just had her baby (who will be turning a month this coming saturday), alana, and i went to germany (specifically bonn) to visit her. it was very fun to see her and the trip included a cool road trip to the didymos (baby wrap) store in ludwigsburg (about 4 hours away from bonn) and a visit to the surrounding castles and an aquarium around bonn.

after a few days in germany, we made our way to italy, where we saw marco's family and soon afterwards were joined by my mom and my aunt who came over for a week and a half. needless to say, family fun ensued! we had a great time. my mother and aunt left today and we are still in italy; we have a couple more weeks to go.

i made a baby shedir for alana so she could wear it on her little newborn head and here she is in all it's splendor. it's a bit long so it's cuffed (which i don't care for) but she looks adorable there. she's only 10 days old in this picture. additional pictures show the hat by itself and the stitch detail :)

here are my pics from the european trip!

belated christmas pictures

it's been a little bit since christmas but here are our christmas pics :) including us trimming our first christmas tree, our family christmas celebration, and our trip on new year's day to christmas in the park (see how much fun mia and I are having?) i wish i had a picture of something i've made so far, but honestly i've been in a creation standstill as far as craftiness... i am working on some projects however... so more to come ;)

is it just me or...

do they look exactly the same???

mine

this has got to be my all time favorite picture of my baby girl. she looks sweet and funny and is trying to talk already :) it's one of those types of pictures that i'm going to love to look at when she's going away to college. the meaning of the name mia is "mine" and i'm so happy she is :)

day trip!

yesterday marco, mia and I decided we would take a little day trip to Pier 39 and pretend to be tourists. we looked around, had dinner and then took little mia to the aquarium of the bay. she was super interested in the fish around her, especially the schooling anchovies! i'm pretty sure she loved it! here we are in our new-to-us mei tai, watching the bat ray swim by!

the anniversary trip to NYC

for our 4 year anniversary, marco, mia and i all went to new york city together. it was sooo much fun! i've always wanted to go to NYC and this was such a great excuse. our main destination was the american museum of natural history, which i wanted to see because it is the type of museum i might want to work for after i'm done with school (whenever that is in the world's longest grad program). we stayed across the street from central park and the museum, and we were super close to the subway, too, so the location was awesome. i got to take lots of great pictures and even marco had a good time. mia definitely did, though! she took a lot of time seeing and examining things very closely, with lots of concentration as if she were trying to figure things out. she was such a doll, too, and didn't cry once the entire time we were in new york. it was so special, really, all three of us being out as a family, having a good time and enjoying each other. we even went to times square in the evening, checking stuff out, doing the touristy thing and generally being out and about. unfortunately, we only had two days in new york but we really hope to go again as we felt so comfortable and at home there. woo hoo manhattan! (for all our pics of our trip to ny and the american musuem, click here.)

marco & his first father's day

i took these two pics in the last vestiges of father's day. marco and his little girl were enjoying those last few minutes of father's day together seeing as marco had to work the whole day. don't they look absolutely adorable together? :)

the long-awaited post

meet our little daughter, mia, born Thursday, May 31, 2007 she's our absolute joy, and we are completely in love :) her newborn pics are here!

yes, i'm finally back. well, "back" is kind of a relative term. technically, i'm back from the hospital, from giving birth, from pregnancy. but i don't really know what's been going on in the rest of the world since last wednesday. honestly, i've talked to very few people (mainly family)and my whole life revolves around the little one. actually both marco and i have wondered how two completely independent, self-sufficient adults have been reduced to the equivelent of one baby-slave. we live our lives in 3 hour cycles and if you get to sleep for longer than two hours then you're super lucky. we haven't really done much more than take care of her. seriously.

oh and just for the record, i took a pic of my very last week (week 39) with a belly. i don't miss the discomfort but kinda miss carrying her around with me...
last but not least, i had yet another baby shower! this shower was thrown by my aunt lupe and cousin debbie and their families. they couldn't make it to my first shower, so they were kind enough to give this one right before little mia was born. i was as big as a house by then, so forgive the huge pics :)

baby things

so first of all here's a belly shot of myself at 36 weeks. i am one week from full term :) and the doctor says the baby can be born any time from here till my due date and she'd be fine. my mom practically wants her to come right now! but i think i can wait at least another week. i reaaaaaallllly want to finish the semester so i can concentrate on her when she gets here.

these next set of pictures are right after my baby shower last saturday. it was so nice! a lot of people came and it was pretty fun for us all. we got a ton of stuff for the baby but the thing that we had to absolutely put together (just in case we needed the carseat) was the travel system (the stroller & carseat set). so marco and i put this baby together... it only took about 20 minutes and it was fun to see it together. we even put our first baby in it to test it out for weight ;) i had read reviews that a lot of people didn't like the weight of the carseat when the baby is in it. so we took rusty and put him in to test out an 11 pounder. it seemed ok, not too heavy for me. and it was easy to click it into the stroller so it all worked out. we love this stroller! hope it is as cool when she's finally here. i can't wait.

RIP Little Nicky

i feel super bad 'cause we had to put my grandfather's dog, nicky, to sleep today. he's been having seizures and problems in the last week and recent x-rays have revealed he has several fused vertabrae which is incredibly painful. he's kind of on the older side for such a HUGE dog (he was around six feet on his hind legs) so we thought it was best that he didn't suffer anymore. poor guy. he was a sweet dog, pretty doofy but really a good boy. the saddest part is we (marco and i) were ready to take him off my grandfather's hands because he's a big guy that needed more strength and training than my grandfather could provide. so he wasn't just grandpa's dog, but he was our dog too. marco had just taught him to sit and we were working on lying down. rip little nicky, hope everything works out in doggy heaven.