The Nutcracker with Nana!

Nana kicked off a new tradition with Elena this year. On December 5th, Nana, Mom and Elena rode the Charm City Circulator up to the Lyric Opera House in Mount Vernon to see the kid friendly version of the Nutcracker. One hour, with narrator. Perfect for kids. I think that Nana may have enjoyed it more than Elena did.

Daniel Meets Nonna Belardo

Daniel and Elena took a trip to Pheobe Home in Allentown to visit Nonna Belardo this weekend. Nonna had been staying there for a few weeks nursing a broken pelvis. Daniel's smiles brought cheer to all the residents there!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving with the Vargases! It was a team effort to pull together a delicious feast at Felix and Cinzias house. We ate delicious food and celebrated Dad's birthday too!

Daniel's Baptism

On Saturday, November 20, Daniel was Baptised at Holy Cross Church in Baltimore. Uncle Felix and Caroline served as godparents, and he wore a Nana Swaintek Original, made from Mom's wedding gown.

Elena was in full blown binky withdrawel and insisted that no one else could hold "Mommy's Daniel". The ceremony was on hold until I took him back from Caroline.

We celebrated with a feast at Amicci's in Little Italy.

Two Months Old!

Time Flies! Daniel is already two months old. Check out those cheeks.

Here are the stats:
14 lbs, 95th Percentile
23 inches long, 50th Percentile

A Tribe of Monkeys

Happy Halloween! Our two little monkeys had a blast. Mom took Elena to Boo at the Zoo. All week long, Elena was talking about the monkeys and the girraffes and the elephants and how excited she was. We got there and she kept saying, I LOVE Girraffes, Mommy! I LOVE Elephants, Mommy! I LOVE Monkeys, Mommy!

Without fail as we got close to any of the animals she covered her eyes and squealed in fear. I'm fairly certain she saw no actual animals.

We took the tribe out for some trick or treating in Federal Hill in the Monkey Mobile. Elena got lots of candy that mysteriously disappeared.

Happy Halloween!

The Vargas Kids' First Political Rally

Rally to Restore Sanity happened on Saturday. We packed up the kids and took them to the national mall. We completely underestimated the number of people who would be there so it turned into more of a people watching, sign reading experience.

I've posted all the pictures here.

Little Man Smiles!

Little Man started smiling this week. My heart melts every time I see it.

Every day I think, wow these two couldn't be any cuter together. Every day they prove me wrong...

Little Man Sleeps through the Pumpkin Patch

This weekend, we returned to Showvaker's in Manchester Maryland for what is becoming a Vargas Family Tradition. In case you weren't aware, October is hands down Mom's favorite month of the year and she forces the family to take part in all things Autumn.

Elena was slightly frightened of the animals in the petting zoo. She was ok looking, but definitely wanted nothing to do with the petting part of the zoo. After hitting up the animals, we passed a wooden train play structure. This proved to be Elena's very favorite part of the day. I believe there was bribery involved to coerce her into moving on to different activities. She particularly liked the engine car. "Choo Choo".

Next we played in the corn bin. Think sandbox, substitute corn for sand. As you can see, Daniel was captivated. From there we took a bouncy bouncy hay ride through the tree farm. Elena had a nice picnic lunch on the hayride and Mom tried to keep Daniel from bouncing around too much.

Elena and Dad hit up the apply launching station and Mom and Daniel tried to stay away from swarming bees.

All in all, we had a wonderful afternoon, and made it home in time for Sunday afternoon football.

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Daniel David - The Early Days

Happy Birthday Elena!

In the midst of the hub-bub that comes with a new baby, we also got to celebrate Elena's 2nd birthday. She started the day with a big present from Mom and dad...

She celebrated the big day with a Dora themed party. Her aunts and uncles came and she even got to invite her (boy)friend Liam.

Of course with birthday's comes the check in with the doctor too... She weighed just shy of 30 pounds and was 34.5 inches tall- putting her in the 75th percentile for wieght and height.

Announcing...

I promised myself I would document child #2 with the same fervor that I documented Elena's first year. Nine months later I say better late than never.

To start, we got our positive pregnancy test on January 4th. From the beginning, this pregnancy was NOTHING like my my first pregnancy. It didn't take long for the morning sickness to hit with a vengeance. I struggled to keep down any food from weeks six through about week 16 or so. Juan was amazing through the entire ordeal. He totally took the lead with Elena and the house and taking care of me. It was all I could do to make it through a full day at work and get home. Elena time consisted of a lot of cuddling on the couch because it was all I could manage.

We had a few weeks of happy second trimester fun and soon we found out we were having a little boy. Juan was like a kid on Christmas morning when the ultrasound technician gave us the news. Our family would be complete! One little girl and one little boy.

Anyone who looked at me could tell that I was carrying this baby very very high. By early June, Baby V was consistently kicking my right rib cage. Our future soccer player was kicking so hard that he actually bruised the cartilage. Nothing I did made me comfortable. It took acupuncture and a course of prednisone, and finally 8 weeks later the baby dropping for me to get any relief.

The third trimester treated me to the hottest summer on record in Baltimore. I had to stay indoors just about all summer. By mid August I was having non-productive contractions daily.

They say tough pregnancies mean easy deliveries and in my case this was 100% true. As labor day weekend approached, we headed daily to Arundel Mills Mall to walk laps. On September 4, we did two laps (two miles) with no contractions. Disappointed by the lack of progress, I treated myself to a pedicure. With no contractions coming, I went to bed.
At 1:00 am on September 5, I was awoken by a strong contraction. 15 minutes later, another. From there they picked up. At 3:00 am I woke up Juan and took a shower and we started timing the contractions. By 5:00 am they were coming every 7-8 minutes. Juan headed out to get me food as we knew as soon as we got to the hospital I wouldn't be able to eat. At 7:00 am Elena woke up. Every time I had a contraction she got worried and said "Mommy OK?" So mommy had to pretend everything was OK during each contraction. By 7:30 am, we knew it was time to wake up Anna to watch Elena and call the doctor.

We headed to the hospital a little after 8:00 am. They put me on the monitors and checked me, and sent me to walk for an hour. When we came back from walking I was dilated to 3 cm and contracting every 5 minutes. We decided to have the doctor break my water to get things going. From there things went quickly. I got my epidural about 30 minutes later and didn't feel any more contractions after that.

At 4:47, I was feeling that something was happening. They came in to check me and asked me to do some "practice pushes" so we could see what would happen. After only two practice pushes they yelled at me to stop- the baby was ready to come. The doctor rushed to get the room set up and I was asking if I could push as they were finishing. Literally 3 pushes later, Daniel David was here. He came into the world at 5:18 pm weighing 7 pounds 13 ounces. He was given apgar scores of 9 and 9. We immediately fell in love.