10 Months, 24 Days: Thanksgiving is around the corner!

I'm so excited for Thanksgiving: long weekend, parents visiting, yummy food...and this is Leif's first Thanksgiving!  I have to admit I've already had a big Thanksgiving meal, thanks to the Connect Thanksgiving Lunch my school put on for faculty and staff yesterday.  The food is usually sub-par, but yesterday it was amazing!  I could live off their stuffing and mashed potatoes.  For this Thanksgiving my folks and I went back and forth on whether or not we'd cook at home.  Last year we ate at our friend's home, the year before that we ate at Black Angus...and this year we'll do the same.  :)  I know it's Leif's first, and it would be nice to have a meal at home, but seriously he won't remember it.  And less clean-up, dishes, less work all together.  My mom is going to make lumpia though which is generally a tradition in our house.

Delicious lumpia, aka Filipino egg rolls.  My mouth is watering right now.

Work has been busy-school is starting something new with our music scholarships, called "Early Action"; basically students can apply early to the university and then audition for the music scholarship early, notification sent out mid-January as opposed to regular action in March/April.  So I've been in charge of getting in touch with applicants, scheduling and I will be working all day Saturday, checking in students and their parents.  This means extra time off later!

Anyway, I know you've all been waiting for Leif's photos of the past week or so,... ;)

Thursday, November 13

Hubs has been on a working-streak (yay!), and the last couple of weeks he's had to get up at the same time as me and get ready, then watch Leif while I get ready.  While I'm getting ready, hubs has been taking Miles and Leif on walks.  Since it's cold, we've been bundling up Leif.  The results are too cute.

My little dino!

Hubs now gets awesome sunrise photos

Saturday, November 15

We decided to grab some lunch and ended up at a pho place.  I had missed good pho, and this place was great-reminded me of home!

Leif just woke up

Every time we put his feet down, he'd prop them back up on the table.  Hubs thought it'd be fun to take a photo.

With all his teeth, it was time to get a toothbrush.  Leif LOVES brushing his teeth, takes after his mama.

Sunday, November 16

Breakfast of champions-super healthy waffles.  Seriously, it's all whole grain with all this other healthy stuff in it.  I tried it and it was okay, but Leif loved it.

He loves to play with anything that is not in his toy box.

For lunch he had a turkey sandwich with cream cheese.  Granted a lot of it ended up in his bib, but he just loves being able to feed himself!

Monday, November 17

My little mouseketeer loves the remote controllers.

Wednesday, November 19

I love this hat!  Doesn't he look adorable?!  He's all dressed up for his walk with daddy.

Thursday, November 20

Today hubs broke out the hiking carrier.  Leif loved it so much that when they returned, he started balling-he didn't have anything wrong with him, so we figured he just loved being in there so much he didn't want to stop.

And here we are today.  The weather has finally cooled down enough that I'm able to go on my lunch runs.  Last week I ran twice, and ran to the gym and used the rowing machine.  Today I'm going to try and run again and going to test out a new Zombie-Run app!  I'll let you know how that goes.

10 Months, 15 Days: Veterans Day

Thank you to my family members who served is the US Military.  I wouldn't be here if my pa didn't serve-or at least, I doubt I'd be filipina and who I am today.  So, thanks Pa!

The week flew by, and Leif is changing in leaps and bounds.  He's so tall now and has six teeth coming in!  He also slept in his crib all night!!  Well, he still woke up every three hours, but we were able to get him back to sleep in his own crib.  Success-?  Although he did wake up at 5am.  That wasn't fun.

Not much really happened, except that Leif finally started to look at his books and touch the fuzzy books/turn pages.  He usually hates being read to!  So there's some progress.  And he talks gibberish all the time.  That's exciting.  As for me, I finally went for a couple runs this past week.  I'm signing up for a 5K on Thanksgiving morning with my friend Michael, so I need to start training again.

Here's my week in photos, er, more like Leif's week in photos...

Monday, November 3

He loves getting into things he's not supposed to

He's a fast crawler

Aaaaaand we're in trouble folks.  Almost there.

 Tuesday, November 4

He's been wearing a bib daily due to the copious amounts of drool.  Those crazy teeth decided to grow in all at once!

Wednesday, November 5

He's such a trouble maker-he refuses to sit in the bath anymore.  Bath time has cut down significantly in time.  Hubs loves this photo.

Happy baby in a tub.  Terrified Mama, scared he's going to slip and fall.

Friday, November 7

I usually don't give him the bowl, but he was being fussy at dinner time

Messy baby licking the apple sauce from the bowl.

After Leif went down to sleep, hubs, Miles and I were able to relax and watch a movie.

Saturday, November 8

We decided to try out this little park a few minutes away from our house.  Yes, it has baby swings and a little playground.  It also has homeless, sketchy people hanging out underneath a large tree and a path that was useless and went for maybe half a mile.  Very disappointing park. 

At least Leif semi-enjoyed the baby swing...

...for a few minutes.  

Sunday, November 9

I absolutely LOVE breakfast and breakfast restaurants.  Hubs is the absolute opposite.  But I roped him into getting breakfast Sunday morning since our power was being shut down from 8am-1pm.   

Can you see those chompers?!  He was pretty good at the restaurant up to the end.

I had to work at a concert that afternoon, but later our friend Daryl came over and while Leif took a long nap, we played Settlers of Catan: Star Trek.  It was fun!

Monday, November 10

I got a deal on printed photos from Shutterfly, so I changed my Mother's Day frame from hubs that sits on my desk at work (it had photos of Leif and me only).  

When we got home from work, I checked the mail and noticed we received a Catholic newspaper for tenants before us-Leif enjoyed looking through it.

Enjoyed tearing it up too.

Since Leif keeps grabbing at our phones, I charged my old iPhone and gave it to Leif.  Yes, it's already began, we've lost our son to technology.

I guess I have to get used to seeing him like this for the next 18 years, right?  Sigh.  And yes, he's Batman.

10 Months, 7 Days: Happy November

I am currently 17 minutes into waiting to speak with someone at Bank of America.  I consider myself a fairly patient person (you have to be with a baby)...but I would like to throw my phone across my office-I've been trying to contact them all morning, and the phone calls would just drop as soon as the automated teller said, "Let me transfer you, please hold".  I finally received the music/call waiting jingles.  Why am I trying to call them-first, I received a few emails over the weekend telling "Nicholas Barnes" that his password was reset for his auto loan.  To my email.  Whaaaa?  Now I can't even log in to my account online.  I'm worried folks.

As I sit here patiently, I will update you into the past week of Mama Nichi's life...

Monday, October 27
Since we have so many Halloween-themed clothing for Leif, he wore a different outfit each day.

One piece skeleton outfit!  He's hard to photograph now; all he does is wiggle and move.  Jeopardy was on, and I was able to have him hold still.  He loves Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune!

***Finally got a hold of someone at BoA.  Online problems, no correlation to the weird Auto Loan emails, which I took care of.  Phew.***

Tuesday, October 28

Pumpkin Leif!

Wednesday, October 29

I finished only ONE skull since it took forever to paint so many details...this will be my new tradition.  Instead of carving pumpkins (which can be a pain), I'll paint a Dia De Los Muertos Skull.

Thursday, October 30

We took a walk after work while Hubs was at work...this is a view from our mailboxes towards the back of the complex.  Cool backdrop, right?  Reminds me of Cars Land in Disneyland except they aren't foam...

Two piece skeleton outfit, courtesy of Nana!

Friday, October 31

Happy Halloween and Happy Birthday Mom!

My little Dinosaur-Leifosaurus!

Next year we'll do better at coordinating costumes, but Wonder Woman gave birth to a dinosaur I guess...(kind of correlates with a pregnancy dream I had about the alligator!  I blogged about that a while ago!)

He wouldn't smile for the camera, but he loved my fake crown.

My friend and co-worker Randy as a transformer!  She got this at Party City, kids size.  She is very petite!

I don't know if you remember me talking about the Halloween decorating contest last year at work, but Facilities won.  They did an all out haunted house.  So this year, they didn't have a decoration contest but Facilities held a bigger Haunted House for fun.  This is the entrance to their building.  They did a great job, but granted they have two stories to work with.  And real chainsaws and tools.  And that's my co-worker Clarisse in the chicken costume, she entered the costume contest later in the afternoon!

Pa bought Leif his early birthday present...not sure where we're going to put this!  It arrived at my work-thanks Pa!

I was on my way to pick up a contract from the business office and totally forgot they were having a costume contest.  All of the business office was at it, so I couldn't really get my work done.  Found another superhero though!

Hubs went all out and bought a bunch of Halloween decorations when I got home.  So I was on Leifosaurus patrol while he finished decorating the porch.

Hubs donned a scary mask but Leif wasn't afraid at all!  In fact he was all giggly.  We have a few videos...that boy is not afraid of anything!

Front porch decorated!

Boo!

Hubs did such a great job, but we only had ONE family trick or treat.  It was sad.  All that effort!

We ended up watching Fallen with Denzel Washington and eating hamburgers.  And lots of candy of course.  We had a torrential downpour that night so it was fun listening to the rain outside!

Saturday, November 1

It was a cold Saturday, but it was nice.  We hung out, getting things done around the house then ran a few errands.  Leif woke up every hour the night before, so we were zombies all day.

We took a walk later on that day, and visited a porch of a house that is currently for rent.  They have an amazing view!

Sunday, November 2

Daylight Savings messed with us-it was nice feeling like we had a long Sunday, but it was weird.

Our little Mickey Mouse loves playing with the dog toys.

As you can see, Leif loves Miles and his dog toys.  This was really cute, hoping they're best buddies as Leif grows.  Right now Miles is kind of scared of Leif-he won't let him pet/touch him for long periods of time.  But at least he's gentle playing with him.

And lastly, while we were winding down, we were watching the Late Night Show.  Leif was playing on the ground, when all of a sudden Chris Rock came on.  Leif couldn't take his eyes off of him.  It was weird, Leif is apparently mesmerized by Chris Rock.

I changed the color of the table from that dark green to a light blue that matches one of our rugs and looks a lot better.  Our house is finally coming along and looks like our home!  I had a really weird thing happen to me this morning though...at around 5am, I heard monkeys/jungle sounds through Leif's monitor (he was asleep next to us).  I picked it up and tried listening harder, but then hubs woke up and saw me, asked what was wrong, and it totally stopped.  He turned the monitor off and said I was hearing things, or it was the music that we leave on.  But when I went to turn off his night lights this morning, I remembered I turned off his music when I picked him up out of his crib in the middle of the night.  Hoping our neighbor had a TV on loud or something...it was really strange.  I think I have new house jitters, and it doesn't help I'm listening to an audio book about Ed & Lorraine Warren's life (the Demonologists, the movie the Conjuring is based off one of their cases!).  It's creepy and I should probably stop listening to it...

I can't believe it's already November!  Before we know it, we'll be flying back to Washington for lots of festivities!  My folks already made plans on visiting us over Thanksgiving break which will be nice.  I'm just happy it's cooling down (a little-it's back in the 80s/90s by Wednesday), and I love fall. Bring on the pumpkin everything (I made pumpkin bread this weekend!).