Fall Ends and Winter Begins...

We've been super busy this fall. Dylan started school at Westfield Co-op Nursery School. He's been loving it. He was doing soccer on saturdays with his friend, Ian. But that's ended for now. We went to Disney with my whole family. The vacation itself was great. The trip home was rough. Dylan got a stomach bug just before we left and then our plane got caught in the October blizzard. Keith ended up catching the bug and spent Halloween in the hospital with dehydration just days before he ran the New York City Marathon. After that, things settled down a bit and we had a nice thanksgiving and are now excited for Christmas. We're hoping for a short winter with not too much snow this year, but we'll see what we get.

summer ends and fall begins...

Well, summer is officially over and we thoroughly enjoyed it. Dylan took swim classes, enrolled in the summer program for Preschool of Rock and went camping for a second time. Swim classes went fine, though they were just a quick course to get comfortable with the water. That much we accomplished so the next round of swim lessons should hopefully introduce the actual swimming part. Preschool of Rock was really fun and I'm sad I don't have the time to keep taking Dylan on Friday mornings. We both enjoyed the singing, dancing, and drum circles once a week.

The first picture below is from the camping trip -- it's John and Keith throwing Dylan back and forth. The place we chose this year had this amazing pool. Our camping group grew to include all the Moreira siblings: Tia (Victoria) and John, Seb and Lala (Lisa), and then 3/4th of the Gonzalez siblings, with Alexa and Bri and their two little ones, Melissa and Brendan, and their brother Jason. They would have had a full crew if Jason hadn't forgotten to invite his twin brother Christian, who he also lives with. :)

After the camping trip we spent a week at the beach with the Mason family. The beginning was a little rocky because the three of us were sick with some sort of flu. Thankfully, no one caught the bug from us during the trip. Keith's turned into pulmonary bronchitis and he spent a few days in bed. Dylan had been the first to get sick so he was the first get better and he enjoyed the entire week playing with his cousins who were so cute and so nice to him (they let him play cards with them and even win at Go-Fish). As usual, we enjoyed our nightly ice-cream runs, we made trips to the aquarium, the boardwalk and played lots of game since the week was a bit rainy. Once I was feeling 100% I got to play tennis with my niece Bryanna and got a haircut from my niece Kayla.

We squeezed everything we could out of summer. A weekend at LBI with the Kurz's, some quality time with the Hallers, some road trips, lots of family time, and an appropriate amount of BBQ-ing. We had a little hurricane party at my parents after my brother and sister were evacuated from Hoboken and are lucky that nobody's homes were impacted too much from Irene. Our town was pretty devastated though -- weeks later there are still schools that never opened and homes with all their stuff on the front yard from all the flooding, so we were lucky.

And now that it's Fall, Dylan started preschool. I signed him up for two days a week at a Co-op preschool so I will be in the classroom with him once a month as a teacher's aide. I'm looking forward to this experience and actually being in class with him. All the moms got together at a playground date so the kids could meet before school started. I was so sad that I had to work but my friend Mindy was wonderful enough to take Dylan to play with the other kids. So his first day of school went pretty smoothly since he already knew other kids. So far, he's had one week of school -- that went pretty well, except that he immediately got sick and stayed home on his third day of school. The pictures below are from his first day of school. So far he likes it. He's also started soccer on Saturday mornings and though he was a bit overwhelmed on his first day, he did play a little more on his second day and hopefully he'll start to warm up to it and have fun. He's in the soccer class with his new good friend Ian ... we seem to have a budding bromance on our hands. Ian is a friend of the family and another little bi-lingual Uruguan boy who lives 10 minutes from our house. It's a perfect match for playdates.

summertime fun

Summer has been great so far. We got back from our trip to SF and got serious about potty-training, which went really well and Dylan picked up really quickly.

In May, I graduated from my Masters program at Rutgers (am now finishing up the PhD), we celebrated Keith's birthday, and Keith completed several long races.

In June, Keith and I got to see Phish a couple of times, Keith's family had a family picnic, we all participated in a brain tumor walk in honor of Carly Nelson and we joined the Cranford Community Pool.

In July, we went to the beach at LBI to visit our friends Chuck and Jane. We celebrated my sister's birthday, we went up to Rochester to visit Uncle Kenny and Aunt Lisa. Dylan started his Preschool of Rock music class on Fridays, and Keith signed up for the New York Marathon. He did not make the lottery drawing -- another way to qualify for the marathon is by raising money for a charity so he has been accepted by the Brain Tumor Foundation Team and has been fundraising for them and training hard. You'll find the link to his fundraising page below. We're so proud of him!

here's the link to donate in honor of Carly and in support of Keith's marathon training: http://www.crowdrise.com/teambtf2011/fundraiser/keithmason

Also, we have had some fun times at Tio Ney and Tia Valeria's pool in South Plainfield, birthday parties, showers, watching Keith play softball and hanging out with the Haller family. Yesterday, July 24 -- Uruguay won the America's Cup in Soccer and Dylan jumped, cheered and high fived through the game and took to the streets of Elizabeth with his grandparents and aunts and uncles to go celebrate.

Coming up we have swim lessons for Dylan starting tonite, a camping trip, hopefully a trip to Sesame Place, some more beach time with the Mason family. Despite the crazy heat waves, the summer has been cool and we want it to last as long as possible!!

"Last Weekend"

Well, lots of things have happened since the last post. If you ask Dylan about any of them, he will tell you they were all "last weekend" since that's what he calls anything that isn't happening right now.

Last weekend, (Mid-March), I took and passed my PhD Qualifying exams that I have been studying for for over one year. The process took almost 3 weeks and it's quite a relief to have that behind me.

In the middle of my exams, we celebrated Dylan's birthday. When we asked him what he wanted to eat on the night of his birthday, he said "steak." So, obviously we celebrated his 3rd birthday at a steakhouse. The following weekend, we had a little party for him at my parents' house and that was a fun time.

Also last weekend (early April), right after my exams, I had three back to back trials and immediately after that chaos, we flew to San Francisco for our friends Michael and Emily's wedding. The wedding was beautiful and super fun. The photo above is Dylan at the wedding with his favorite little stuffed animal...I call the picture "Reservoir Doggie." We had a great time in S.F. and in Carmel where the wedding was. The first night we were in Carmel and had a babysitter, I told the babysitter that Dylan would let her know when he was ready for bed (because he often does). When we got home at around 11:30 they were still up playing. Also, we were lucky to stay at our friend's Jane's dad's place in Berkeley (which I absolutely fell in love with). One night we put in a dvd (Cars) and Keith and I both fell asleep while Dylan stayed up watching his movie. There's no doubt that this trip to SF was different for us: our 3 year old stayed up later than us! We're passing on the torch and apparantly raising a little party animal who can stay up late and then sleep-in the following morning as if he was a carefree 20-something year old (I remember that feeling). One morning, while he was just waking up and laying on his air mattress on the floor next to us, I asked him if he wanted to get into bed with us and hang out and he said no, he wanted to stay in his own bed because "waking up is hard."

The trip was also great because we got to see lots of friends who we miss so much, and meet so many new little ones. It was beautiful to meet our friends' new babies and see Dylan playing with other toddlers -- he's still talking about Sammy and all the babies he met.

Now that we're back, I've moved offices and am working mostly out of Rahway, which is just minutes from our house. I've been looking up classes for Dylan -- sports, art, music and hopefully he'll have a fun summer now that I can take him to all these new places.

Also, since returning from SF, we focused on potty training and while it wasn't so easy in the beginning, he's been doing really well without a diaper all day. He was in diapers when we went to SF last month and just last week he was in underwear all week with just a couple of accidents. This last weekend (actual last weekend) we went all over the place and Dylan asked to go potty, went in different bathrooms and had no accidents at all. It was a great mother's day gift. We're keeping our fingers crossed that potty training continues like this.

Big Boy Bed

We're one day away from Dylan's 3rd birthday so I'll post more pictures after that's past. For now, just want to note that Dylan's big boy bed arrived this weekend and he is happily sleeping like a big boy since Saturday night. Keith and I both read him a story on that night and then we tucked him in and that was that. He decided he wanted all his Sesame Street books on the shelves behind him and also a tissue box because he has a little cold. On Sunday night, I tucked him in and as I walked out, he reminded me to turn the light off, which made me laugh.

We've been reminding him that his birthday's coming up and he has promised to start going in the potty full-time once he officially turns 3...so we'll see how that goes. Last weekend we had a fun sing-along with the extended Moreira family ...Dylan playing different instruments and counting off songs like "Twinkle Twinkle," "Old McDonald," "Itsy Bitsy Spider," and "You are my Sunshine." The weekend before that, Dylan visited his grandma for her birthday and got see the whole Mason side of the family so he's been having a lot of fun recently.

I will be taking my Comprehensive Exams for my PhD during these next two weekends so we won't be able to celebrate D's birthday in any big way, but I don't think he'll mind. When someone asks him what he wants for his birthday, he just says "a present" so he's still pretty low-maintenance (for now).

"daddy is my best friend"

Had to share this wonderful little moment from this morning. Dylan and I were getting ready to leave the house. As we were coming downstairs, I always insist that I go down first so I can be below him in case he slips. But he always gets a little frustrated and tells me that his daddy lets him go down the stairs first. So today, the same thing happened...I went down first...he let me know that his daddy lets him go down first...and then he stopped for a second in deep thought and then said "Daddy is my best friend." It was the kind of moment that just filled me with joy. Definitely brought some warmth to this very frigid day (6 degrees this morning!).

This recent picture is from a few weeks ago. I think it goes well with the story... shows the happy BFFs having some fun before bedtime.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

We all had a very nice Christmas weekend, spending Christmas Eve with my family at my parents house, Christmas morning at home opening gifts, Christmas Day at Keith's brother's house with Keith's family and the next day putting things together, sorting through toys and cleaning up. Here's a picture of Dylan with my brother and Lisa's dog, Maddie, both of them are dressed up for the holiday.

Keith and I got to see Phish twice and in between we spent New Year's Eve in Philly at my friend Alexa's house watching the Phish concert live on t.v. Dylan did some dancing and lots of playing while we had a very relaxing but fun night.

December was such a whirlwind but we enjoyed it and were happy to ring in the new year with our little cutie.

We had told Dylan that on New Years, when we visited Mikah (Alexa's one year old baby), Dylan would have to give Mikah his pacifiers because only babies needed pacifiers. Dylan stayed up until 12:15 on New Years Eve, then fell asleep with his pacifier. The next morning (at around 10am) he woke up and announced that he was giving his pacifier (his "te-te" in Spanish) to Mikah. Then he walked downstairs and put the pacifier in Mikah's mouth as soon as he saw him. Since then, he has not used it, or even asked for it. He lets people know that he's a "little big boy" and doesn't need a "te-te"...Mikah has it because he's a baby. We're definitely hoping that potty training is as easy as this was! That will be our next big transition, probably in the Spring.

Hope everyone had nice holidays and has a happy and healthy 2011!