Hanging out the last days of October

It's no secret that my little Jbird despises tummy time. I couldn't get him to stay on the floor more than a minute before he started screaming bloody murder. Since I hate to hear my baby cry, I pretty much gave up on tummy time. When I took him to his 2-month appointment, the Dr told me that his neck muscle was not strong enough and I had to make him do some tummy time.

I had to be creative, I started propping him up on pillows or the boppy, put some fun toys in front of him to get him interested. Sure enough less than 2 weeks later my Jbird started looking super comfortable on the tummy, crying less and less every time we did it. He is doing well on the tummy now, I am so happy.

Go Jbird go, look at him holding his head well now and not crying on the tummy

and of course Tman wants to do everything Jbird does even tummy time

Hi Jbird, you are doing tummy time. I just love watching my babies interact

It's tummy time in our house

Did I tell you how much Tman loves his brother. He is always giving him kisses unprompted and he pouts his lips perfectly. It is just awesome to watch

He also loves to feed him and he is doing a pretty good job

Hanging out on his daddy's shoulder, my baby looks so big already

I love this pic of the boys hanging out with hubby, I am one lucky lady

Oh and our first attempt at a family self portrait. Jbird is not impressed

I just love hanging out with my boys. We totally joke that Tman is a mini-me while Jbird is a mini-hubby. Tman's personality is so similar to mine it's crazy, he is loud and boisterous; if he is in a room you'll definitely notice him. Jbird on the other hand seems to be more like hubby, just mellow and chill; you never hear him, you would totally not notice him. YAY Jbird, way to bring balance back in our house.

Weeken fun - the Halloween edition

What a crazy fun weekend we had. It was busy but definitely a good kind of busy. We had fun and the kids had fun, well at least Tman for sure.

On Friday we went to a Halloween party at a friend's house. It was awesome. We went as a family of skeletons. Tman picked his costume and we loved the idea of making everyone match. Our friends have a huge backyard where the kids got to run around for hours. It was a great success. I wish I could post all the other family costumes, there were some really good ones.

Anyhow, here is my Tman getting excited in the car, my little skeleton

Me and my littlest skeleton, Jbird's costume actually glows in the dark, pretty cool

I love this shot of the boys, you can actually see the whole costume

And the family of bones

Hubby's friend from college Cece came to visit. This was her first time meeting the boys. She was so excited and spent the entire weekend playing with the kids. Cece and Tman just hit it off right away, could be because she let him play with her Iphone all weekend long.

We had our family photos done on Saturday. The photographer came over to the house and took pics of Jbird, Tman, and of course family pics. Tman was not the easiest and I wonder if we'll have any decent pics. She is a great photographer so I hope we do. Cece was a great help during the photoshoot and she had so much fun with us that she said she is definitely coming back.

Cece and Tman playing with blocks and the Iphone. Tman's ability to smile for the camera on demand lately just amazes me. I trained my son well

Cece hanging out with the kids.

Cece brought the boys matching outfit, that's my kind of gift. I decided to put them on the kids the next day so that she can see how nice they looked. We taught Tyler this weekend to put his hand on his mouth when he coughed and clearly it was a great success because he did that over and over.

and Tman's smile is just the best, I absolutely love it

We love having visitors and we really enjoyed Cece's visit

Getting ready to go back to work

Real life is about to kick in. I am getting ready to go back to work full time. It's bittersweet of course because I actually enjoy working as well as spending time with my kids. My middle ground is going to be to spend most of my time off enjoying the kids until I feel that we have a great routine going at which point I will be able to hang out with other people. Basically, the next few months are going to be me just chilling with hubby and the kids on our days off :).

We have lots going on this weekend, we truly are back to our busy ways. On Friday we have a Halloween party. I am so excited, we have costumes for everyone and this is going to be Tman's first Halloween where he knows what is happening. On Saturday we have our photoshoot, we'll do our Christmas pictures and lots of pictures of the boys. We did the professional photographer for Tman's first photoshoot and I think it's only fair to do the same for Jbird. On Sunday we are hanging out with hubby's friend who is visiting from England.

In preparation for the photoshoot, I bought some matching outfit for the boys. I like the festive colors

I took a few pics of Jbird with his outfit to make sure it fits

But also because I hope to recreate this picture of Tman from 2 years ago

Tman actually picked the theme of our Halloween costumes this year and I love it. This means that Jbird will not be a pumpkin. I still took pictures of him in the pumpkin outfit like I did with Tman 2 years ago. Check out my newest pumpkin

Here is Tman 2 years ago wearing the same outfit

In preparation for my return to work, I built up a milk supply. I have enough milk stored to feed the baby for a least 2 weeks

I also experimented some more with flexi rods as I hope to style my hair this way often for work. I got it down to 10 minutes of preparation at night and literally 5 minutes of styling in the morning. It's so easy and I definitely love the results.

The finished product

I think I am ready (as much as I can be) to go back to work full time. I have thoroughly enjoyed my last 12 weeks as a stay at home mom. Now let's go back to reality. I do look forward to our busy weekend and of course our new routine.

Travel - Paris, France

I was born in Paris and I must say this is one of the most beautiful cities in the world. I know I am clearly biased. Hubby and I went to Paris more than 6 times in the past 5 years. I remember our first trip to Paris, we went to visit my family and friends. My hubby had never been to Paris yet we spent 3 days in people's houses, the only thing he really saw was the airport and the train station. Pretty lame I know.

I decided to take him on a special trip to Paris just the two of us. I didn't tell any of my family members I was coming, we stayed at the Marriott on the Champ Elysee (pretty pimp), and I took him to see all that Paris has to offer. We had the best time and did this a few more times. Because we went back so many times, we got to truly enjoy Paris. One trip all we did was go to museums, Musee d'Orsay is my favorite. Another trip was a culinary trip where all we did was try out different restaurants, it was grand.

These pictures are from our first special trip to Paris almost 5 years ago.

We love taking pictures in the mirror

 First stop was the Eiffel Tower and this being the city of love we clearly had to kiss

Hubby used to hate asking people to take pics of us so we used to do lots of self portrait and we were not so good at them :)

 Going up the Eiffel Tower

 View from half way to the top

 Inside the Louvre with Mona lisa

 We had to tour the Louvre of course

 When in France you must have escargot and French onion soup, at least the first time

 Eating at cafes while people watching is standard

 We weren't really proficient at self portrait yet in front of Notre Dame

 Champs Elysee with the Arc de Triumph in the background. I love that we are holding our Starbucks

Being silly at la place d'etoile

I love this face I am making, hubby's game on every trip was to try and get a pic of me not smiling, I guess this was a success for him

 We did Paris by night because the sights are just so beautiful at night

 The Louvre will never be so empty

We went to la roue de paris and turns out they were closing that year, bummer. We did get to ride it one last time

 The Eiffel Tower at night is just so beautiful

The Sacre Coeur at sundown

 We didn't get to see a show but we had to take a picture here :)

This was such a great trip. Hubby was definitely in love with Paris after this, so much so that we came back a few more times. I have enjoyed this trip down memory lane. We are headed to Paris next year with the boys. I can't wait to walk the streets of Paris and show them around. It's going to be great.