Valentine's Day

We celebrated Valentine's Day all weekend. On Saturday we celebrated by opening a present from Grandma and Grandpa. She loved all the little treats and surprises in the box!

Later on Saturday Nonna and Pop-pop arrived. She got an awesome princess tea set from them. She had a great time playing with them all weekend and Mark loved having new faces to smile at. Nonna and Pop-pop were kind enough to babysit so we could have an awesome dinner out and then they went out for their own dinner when we got home. Thanks guys! While we were out, Gianna made mint candy hearts with Nonna. She was so proud to share them with us when we returned! Here are a few pictures from the weekend, even if they're a little out of order.

Nonna and Pop-pop ready for their date (it's hard to get G in a picture these days)

Mark and Pop-pop playing

Making snow castles with Daddy

My three sweethearts

Conversations with Gianna

My friend's blog has entries with this title for her son and they always crack me up. So I think I will take her idea to maybe give you all a laugh and to help us remember the funny things our kids say. Thanks EG! So here are some recent conversations/quotes.

Gianna pretends that we are characters. She loves Jungle Book and we all play the roles of Mowgli, Bageira, and Balloo. One morning when I got Gianna out of bed she said, "I'm Mowgli, Mommy's Bageira, and Balloo is at work."

At church while "reading" the hymnal with a picture of Jesus on it: "Jesus is boring."

At church while a brother was playing guitar and singing, "This is kind of strange."

Worst blogger ever

It’s official, I’m the worst blogger ever. Surely I can manage more than once per month! So what have we been up to. Lots of visiting grandparents, playing in the snow, going to doctors, and being cute! Doug and I even managed a night out for his annual work party. Thanks for babysitting Grandma and Grandpa!

Gianna is every bit the two year old these days: charming one minute, in a whining puddle on the floor the next. But, to be fair, we have asked a lot of her lately by giving her a new brother and moving her back across the ocean. So she’s actually done quite well, but after some difficult moments she seems, finally, back to her old self and she’s so much fun! She has an amazing memory and imagination. Every day she is a different princess or cartoon character and Doug and I play other roles and we re-enact her favorite scenes. Too funny! Her most recent accomplishment is sleeping in her big-girl bed. She is proud of her princess sheets and her new kitchen (to replace her crib) and we are SO proud of her for making the transition so easily! Next thing to tackle: potty training! Oh how I dread it. But it is “strongly encouraged” by the preschool she will attend in the fall. She’s growing up so fast!

Mark’s growing fast too. Perhaps that is an understatement. At his 2 month appointment he was 14 lbs, 15 oz and 25 1/8 inches. From what I read this is the 93rd percentile on both counts and is the size Gianna was at 5 months. He is certainly a big boy. And he’s just as cute as can be. He has an easy smile and is starting to laugh a lot. He’ll smile at anyone who smiles at him. Nurses and doctors love him! And we’ve gotten to see quite a few of them in the last month. Mark was circumcised at the end of January as they do not do that in Germany unless there is a medical reason for it. He did great and the healing process was amazingly fast. So, all in all, this was not the traumatic experience that Mom and Dad feared! We’ve seen a couple of doctors for a terrible cough he has had and they’ve both commented on his easy-going nature. He is really a good baby and we couldn’t feel more blessed.

Gianna and Mark seem to enjoy each other as well. It’s so cute to see Gianna interact with him. She likes when we “make him talk” much like we do with her stuffed animals and figures. And Mark is often all smiles when she’s playing with him.

Well, now that the snow is melting and all of our colds are going away, perhaps I can make this a more regular thing!

Happy 2010!

Okay, so clearly keeping up with a blog during the holiday season with 2 kids is not an easy task! (Thanks to Elizabeth for a couple more pictures I needed to complete this entry!) The end of 2009 was full of blessings for us. We are thankful that:

1. We got out of Germany and into the US without any weather or security issues.

2. The kids were unbelievably good on the plane. (Mark slept for 7 1/2 of the 9 hours and Gianna just played and took in all the interesting facets of air travel!)

3. We got to reunite with our ENTIRE family the day we arrived (except for Nick, but Elizabeth did surprise us by being there with the kids).

4. We got to meet our nephew Jack for the first time. (This picture is not from our initial meeting, but isn't he so cute?!)

5. We celebrated Christmas with both our families.

6. Mark and Jack were baptized two days after Christmas and we got to see even more family members.

7. We decided to go back home to NJ a little bit early (we loved spending so much time with our families, but we were anxious to get home and for Gianna to have a consistent and familiar sleeping environment; let's just say jet-lag and strange places did not make for restful nights for any of us!)

8. We took a day trip to visit Doug's family, including 3 grandparents (great-grandparents for Gianna and Mark). It was so great to see everyone again and to introduce them to Mark and he started smiling just in time, see the picture with Great Grandpa Ray.

9. Staying up till midnight is not important to us...we all got a good night's sleep on New Year's Eve. What a great way to ring in 2010!

A week of firsts

Here are the firsts we experienced this week:

1. First day Mommy was home alone with both kids (not bad, really)

2. First outing for Mommy by herself with the kids (what a workout, I think it was 40 degrees, but I was sweating before we even left the house. Wearing one child and pushing another makes a coat almost unnecessary.)

3. First photo session for Mark for his passport photo. It only took 3 adults and about 20 photos to get a good one. And it is awesome, I love it so much I took a picture of it so I could put it on here.

4. First trip to the US Consulate. This actually went smoothly. We had all our paperwork and made Mark an official citizen. The only problems we had were 1) getting through security (two strollers with a bunch of crap in them = pain in the butt; can't wait to get to the airport next week) and 2) both kids pooped in the consulate (lucky for us, the US Consulate is probably the only women's restroom in all of Munich with a changing table.)

Despite the struggles of dealing with an additional child in our lives, it was a good week. And of course, besides all the "firsts" there was a lot of cuteness this week too! I can only hope that next week goes as well since it will be my first FULL week on my own with Mark and Gianna!

Thanksgiving weekend didn't feel quite the same without any days off for Doug and no Macy's parade and no football! But we tried to make the best of it. Gianna had a lazy morning with Mark, but later we had a delicious dinner: a cooked rotisserie chicken, homemade sweet potatoes (my favorite), instant mashed potatoes, Stove Top stuffing brought from the US by Grandma, and apple crisp. Not quite like home, but delicious anyway!
On Friday morning our friends (our only friends in Munich!) came over to meet Mark and play with Gianna. Lauren and Gianna played great together (they don't always do that) and they looked especially cute on the couch together. Lauren loves to touch Gianna's hair.

On Saturday we made our first visit to the Munich Christmas markets. They are very cool. Lots of things to buy and to eat and almost as much drinking involved as Oktoberfest (only this time it's spiced wine instead of beer). One of the markets we visited had some cool things for kids. Gianna really enjoyed seeing all the displays.

And of course, Mark was around for all the festivities, so here are a few cute pictures of him: yawning and chilling. He's huge, on his one week birthday he weighed 9 lbs already!

Mark Thomas has arrived!

I think everyone knows by now, but let's make it official with a blog post. Mark Thomas DeAngelo arrived (finally) on Friday, November 20 at 4:06 pm local time (that's 10:06 am EST). He weighed 3880 grams (that's 8 lbs, 8 oz) and was 56 cm long (that's 22 inches). So he's a big boy and is continuing to grow fast. On his one week birthday he was already almost 9 pounds!

I'm happy to say that I was able to avoid a second C-section and am extremely grateful to the two midwives and Doug who saw me through labor and delivery...though I am probably more grateful to the anesthesiologist who gave the epidural! It was harder than I expected, but much faster than with Gianna and the fast recovery has been great. It was nice to be able to come home just two days later on Sunday to get back to Gianna and life in general. My mom has made the transition this last week much easier. I hope the transition to not having her on Tuesday goes well...I'm nervous!

So far Mark is a good baby. He doesn't cry much and seems very curious about the world around him...when he's not asleep! Sleeping at night is not his specialty, but it's not horrible and I'm sure that will improve quickly. Although he'll probably figure it out just in time to fly back to the states and adjust to the time change! Bummer! (That's a bouncy seat we borrowed from a friend here in Munich...obviously, their baby was a girl!)

And Gianna is a great big sister! She loves to saw "awww" and "he's so cute." She doesn't always love having him around, but she often likes to tickle him and touch him. It's been nice for her to have Grandma around as a playmate, so I hope she is still good once Grandma is gone.

All in all, life is good. We are very blessed to have another healthy child and look forward to introducing him to everyone back in the US in just two and a half weeks. We can't wait to come home!