Yogurt!

Maria discovered today that she can feed herself yogurt! I didn't think she had the ability to hold the spoon (or kiddie fork, in this case) and get it into the yogurt container, and then direct back into her mouth. Seems so simple to us, right? Not so much for a 15-month old. I was most amazed at her patience trying to get the fork into the cup - she's not always the most patient one (gee, wonder who she gets that from?). She ate about two-thirds of the cup, until a blob of yogurt went down her shirt (she refuses to wear a bib most days). Of course we had to do a wardrobe change after the yogurt adventure... it was everywhere! Oh, well! Just the third one of the day... and it's only lunch!

Here is the link to a short video of the action on You Tube. Yes...I've been bored today!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_iYZvMl2FA

Jody

Maria Update

Maria is definitely going to be an outside kid this summer. She already has little tan lines on her skinny little legs! When we're not outside, she knocking on the windows or front door at the kids waiting for the school bus, or dog-walkers on the street. She notice so much now! When she sees her stroller, she just squeals with excitement! It's going to be a fun summer for us!

She's also trying to say so many words. She tries to say 'light' (and points at the ceiling), 'kick' when she and daddy play with the soccer ball, 'purple' when we read the purple pages in her books (sounds like 'pu-pu'), and her favorite word is still daddy. Or rather, da-da-DAAAA! We get an occasional 'mama', 'na-na' (for Nonna), 'dzzz' for Daisy, and 'grrrr' for the bears in her books.

She still really loves books (her teacher-mommy is so proud!). She likes to bring you a book then scoot backwards to plop her butt on your lap. That's my favorite part of the day! She points to animal pictures and makes their sounds, too. All cats in books are 'Dzzz', (in reference to our cat, Daisy). And she can't go to sleep without a few books, too. Her favorites are 'Time for Bed', 'Hush little Baby', ' Tickle, Tickle, Teddy' (from Uncle John), and possibly her favorite is 'From Head to Toe' by Eric Carle (mommy's favorite children's author). She makes a sound or motion for nearly every animal on every page. It's not really a relaxing, wind-down book but she loves it at bedtime anyway. And daddy loves that she goes to find the Baby OU Book when we sing the OU fight song, Boomer Sooner. It's adorable!

We've been slacking on taking pictures lately, so I promise to try and post a few this week. Her hair is growing, and... she's got CURLS!!! Mommy is so excited! As much as I wanted a little girl with thick, beautiful, dark Italian hair like Daddy's, I'm secretly excited that she will have that little piece of me. And we've been putting the hair on the top of her head up in a little 'Pebbles Ponytail' - so cute! (Picture to come, I promise!)

Maria just brings us so much joy right now. Everyday her smile just melts away all the craziness of the world and the daily grind. I can't believe she's nearly 15 months old. One part of me wants to keep her at this age for ever, and another part of me can't wait to see the person she will become.

Ok, enough drama from the mama. Better go be productive while she's down for a nap!

Jody

Busy week in Saso-land

It's been a little crazier than normal around the Saso house this week. It's seems it's been non-stop since we returned from New Jersey. With my Parents As Teachers job winding down for the year, I have LOTS of paperwork to do and more visits than usual. Tuesday and Wednesday were 12-hour days for me! Thankfully, the 'school year' is over for me on May 10... I can't wait! Charles had an exceptionally busy week. He agreed to help out by serving an appreciation meal to the overnight workers at his hospital. He got up at midnight on Wednesday night/Thursday morning, and was busy at work until after 1:00 PM on Thursday. He came home and crashed! Then went back for full day on Friday, and worked at DePaul on Saturday. BUSY, BUSY, BUSY! I had more visits on Saturday, and so we finally got to see each other today (Sunday). We'll both be glad when April is over!

Maria has had a fun time spending LOTS of time with Nonna this week. She's been our savior! We don't even want to think about what we'd do without her. And Maria LOVES her 'Nonna Time'! They are two peas in a pod right now - they both just go, go, go! Thankfully the weather has been nice here this week, so they could spend a lot of time outside. We lost track of how many walks Maria has been this week - she just loves them! Her favorite part of the walks is to see dogs. She barks back and smiles from ear to ear! She's a riot! She hears the neighborhood dogs when she wakes up in the morning, so the first sounds we hear out of the baby monitor are barks!!! We get quite a laugh out of that.

We are glad to be doing some outside work today! It's gorgeous here in St. Charles - not a cloud in the sky! It's a great way to end the super-busy week, and gear up for a hopefully-quiet week to come.

Love,
Jody and the St. Charles Sasos

Return to New Jersey

Our trip to NJ was.... well, interesting. Mary Tackett brought us to the airport on Thurs. at 10:30 A.M., and, to make a very long story short, our flight finally left at 8:00PM... Needless to say it was a long day at the airport. Maria was a trooper, though. Charles and I realized just how lucky we are to have a 'good kid'. There were no planes to NJ after our initial flight was cancelled, so we flew into LaGuardia in NYC. So we had an hour+ drive back to East Brunswick, NJ, after we finally landed, found our luggage, and got our rental car.(Free upgrade, though! That was the highlight of the day.) When all was said and done, we checked into our hotel at about 1:30 in the morning, and Maria was still as good as gold. Another long story short, she slept between Charles and I for the next 4 nights, as the crib situation was less than desireable. Poor Maria!

Between visits to numerous Saso family members and NJ friends, we went to the Camden Aquarium in northern NJ. Maria loved the fish and says a work somewhat resembling 'vsh'... it's pretty cute! She liked the clownfish the best, so she now has an "I'm a little clown" t-shirt w/ a cute little clownfish on it! (Mommy wanted the "I'm a little CRAB-by" t-shirt for herself after the flight Thursday!)

We also went to an awesome wedding on Saturday (before the weather took a turn for the worse.) Charles got to see a few old friends and it was cool to see him have such a good time with old friends. Maria loved the dance-floor best! I know this is one trait she gets from her Mommy and aunts!

We spent Sunday with Great Grandma and Great Grandpa Saso. It was cool to see them with her. She loved Great Grandma! The two of them took turns making funny screaming noises at eachother and 'dancing'. What a hoot! Pictures to be posted soon....

Then on Monday, it was time to return to the airport. It couldn't be worse than the trip out, right? We knew we would probably have some delays, as the Nor Easter storm-watch had been all over the news the whole weekend. (East Brunswick had over 7 inches of rain on Sunday alone!) Our original flight was set to leave at 1:55 Monday afternoon, and we finally left around 7:00 that night. Mommy and Daddy took turns watching CNN in the airport and learning about the VT shootings... what a tragedy. But Maria did great again! She took a reclined stroller nap for about an hour, and had a great time pushing her stroller all around the terminal...

Maria was SOOO good for 4 days - missing naps, late bedtimes, sleeping w/ mom and dad, no crib, no routine, etc, etc.... When we finally got home at about 9:00 Monday night, she was so excited, and yet so tired, that she was laughing and crying all at once! She was so excited to see D-Z (Daisy's new name...) Poor thing. Now Maria has a terrible cold, but if that's the worst thing that happened, I think we'll be fine!

Anyway, the 'trip' was interesting (Charles keeps calling it a 'vacation', and I refuse to call it that - there was no 'vacation' involved!) It was great to see family and to be away from work and the daily grind, but we were definitely ready to be home in our own beds on Monday.

That is, until the shower started leaking into the kitchen on Tuesday morning.... But that's another story for another time....

Jody

Our First Family Post!

Well, I've decided to jump into the world of blogs head-first! The Sasos have many out-of-town relatives that we sometimes find hard to keep in touch with, so I thought this would be a good way to stay in contact. A good friend of mine has created a wonderful family blog, and she inspired me to do the same. Thanks, Jenni!

Most of this blog will be centered around our daily happenings - mainly Maria's daily happenings! It seems that she grows and changes so much everyday, it's hard to keep track of it all! Maybe this blog will also help me slow down and appreciate all the little things she does each day. She sure it the center of our world!

I look forward to hearing from everyone.

Jody