Our House

Many have asked if I would post some pictures of our house so I have gone and taken a few. I haven't taken pictures of everything yet but here is most of the house for now. We have lived here for nearly six months and still aren't close to being done so it's still a work in progress. We are currently working on Art for the walls.

Our Living room which we just bought art for and is now getting framed:





Kitchen and Dining Room:




Part of Our Room:







Family Room and Steve's Office:






Maxi's Room:









Guestroom and my office for now until our next baby arrives. We haven't done much to it since we will need to decorate it again as a nursery:




Our finished basement (I forgot to take picture of bathroom):






Our Patio where we grill all the time:

Poor Max

Our poor little man has been suffering from severe teething. He has been drooling for about 1.5 months now, but only recently has it really gotten out of control. His bibs last about a half hour before they need to be switched and he now stuffs both hands into his mouth or anything else he can find to soothe his pain. The past two days have been rough since he hasn't been sleeping during the day as much and cries due to the pain. Yesterday he wouldn't stop crying and didn't' want to take his food from the new nanny and so off to the doctor we went. He got a clean bill of health and we were told his first two bottom teeth are about to make an appearance. I can actually see them trying to pierce through, and I can only imagine how painful it must be for the little guy. I remember our dogs teething when they were puppies and that was difficult to handle, I think this is worse because we can't really do anything for him. We did give him some baby Tylenol yesterday which helped. He passed out at 6.30pm and slept for 12 hours straight. He was EXHAUSTED.



On a more positive note, he has found his feet. It was the cutest thing watching him study his feet and legs, and it made it almost impossible to change his diaper since he kept sticking them in the air and kicking my chest. Today is the first day our Nanny is alone with him. Steve went to the office and called me five minutes after leaving the house telling me he is already having a hard time leaving Max...join the club daddy-now you know how I feel.

Max's first day with his Nanny

Today was Max's first day with his new nanny Maria. We hired her last week and for the next few days we are doing a trial run which started today. She came with a glowing recommendation and I instantly felt she was a great fit. Her usual work week will be Monday to Friday but because I wanted to be home on her first day she started on a Sunday. I told her what was most important to me and what I expected of her and she informed me what she needed. We agreed that she would set the day time schedule for him in the next two weeks so she could get to know him more and see what he is like during the day. I told her I wanted him on a set napping schedule during the day in his crib and that she needs to work on that with him. She will also cook and clean when he is napping which is great for us. She played with him all day long while we had friends over and from what I observed things went great. I hope she will be happy here and that things go smoothly. Tomorrow Steve will stay home one last day to make sure things run smoothly here and to take her to our doctors office so she knows where to go if something ever happened. She is a nurse which is great and already informed us that Max's breathing seemed a bit abnormal to her when he sleeps and that we should just get it checked out to make sure it's nothing serious which we will do.

Yesterday was the first time I took Max alone into Manhattan. We drove in to help one of my best friends register for her baby girl and then we had lunch. Max slept in the car both ways and was such a good boy the entire time. Daddy stayed home and got some well deserved quiet time. Here is the soon to be father with Max and I:




Every night Max gets some "naked" time so he can let his butt air out from all the diapers. Here are some photos:






Daddy and Mommy even managed a night out:

From Long to Short...

Ever since I had Max my hair has been falling out in clumps. I can literally pull sections out during showers and it is so messy and annoying. So what else is a girl supposed to do but cut it off...and so I did.

My long hair before I cut it:





My new short hairdo:

Bat Mitzvah, Baptism and lots of LOVE

In the course of a week Max attended both his first Bat Mitzvah and Baptism. Each event lasted past his bedtime and yet he was very well behaved. He loved the music at the Bat Mitzvah and sat in the first row quietly taking things in. Once it got way passed his bedtime and he got hungry and tired I had to walk him around a bit but that is understandable. At the Baptism he was even better and finally got to meet all of Steve's friends and received tons of love. The love fest started at a dinner we had at our house. Lil man got showered with kisses and hugs before he went to bed.







The following day we had our friends daughters baptism in Brooklyn. The event was beautifully planned and we had a great time meeting every ones kids. It was a circus on the dance floor, with kids playing games, clowns juggling, caricature drawings being sketched and a clown making balloon animals. Max spent the entire afternoon being held by friends who were so sweet to him. On the way home he passed out and was out for the night. It was a great and busy weekend.








Steve and I always talk about how good our sons temperament is. He LOVES to smile and never cries unless he is tired or hungry. He is an easy baby and the older he gets the more his personality comes out. He can recognize Steve and my voice in a room, he knows his name although he won't always turn around for it, you can tell he knows it by his reaction. The best moment this week was when I got home from work and we were playing and Max started giggling out loud. He couldn't stop laughing and it touched me more than I ever thought possible. Any smile of his brightens my day, but his giggling out loud is the cutes thing I've ever seen. We are still trying to teach him how to eat since we want him to consume less formula. He continues to drool and go through more bibs then we can count. His hair has grown so long now that we want to buzz it again, but his grandparents are putting up a fight so for now he will keeps his little fuzz. We are going to expand his bedtime to 7.30 from now on since he puts up a fight for a half hour when he goes down at 7 which leads me to believe his circadian rhythm is the cause of it. Hopefully he will go down with less of a fight. As always I'm just counting the seconds until the weekend arrives so I can spend every waking minute with him. We have a lot planned so I'm super excited.

One last note...and it's a great one. I believe we have finally found our nanny. She is a wonderful Brazilian woman who used to work across the street from us. She has ten years of experience and is looking to work somewhere for two years. She was affordable and so we are going to pay her more then she asked for so she will also take care of the house. We have to call her references today, but barring any unforseen events, she will come next weekend for a trial run. Fingers crossed!