All is good

Johnny just hanging out in his pjs in the morning.

Alexandra with Steve's new kitten Frankie.

Alexandra and her baby.

My handsome man.

All is good in the Lazaridis household. Jabba is still busy, busy, busy. He now takes about 4 or 5 steps but still prefers crawling to get around because it is much faster for him. He is into everything and I mean everything. The other day I caught him eating the corner of the wall! He is finally becoming a little less barbaric in the noises that he makes and is starting to make sounds that are related to the english language. He has added "Da" and "Ba" to his vocal skills.

Alexandra is good as well, becoming more and more of a little girl everyday. Some of her favorite things right now are Dora, jumping and dessert! The other day Nick asked her what her last name was. She said Marco! We died laughing. We have no idea how she got that.

In less than 2 weeks Jabba will be 1! They grow up too fast! Alexandra can't wait for his party to eat his cake and open his presents for him!

Christmas

Even though I had surgery a week or so before Christmas I was feeling just fine to fully enjoy the holiday.  My parents, my sister Krissy, Nick's parents and brother Steve celebrated with us.  We had the traditional Marco Christmas Eve of eating fish for about 7 hours and singing terribly. Alexandra LOVED the singing. The two pictures above in her purple and white dress were of her while she was singing.  As you can see she was very, very excited.  She loved hearing the rest of us sing. I don't think she wanted it to end. She kept asking, who's next, who's next.  She was so excited to go to bed that night so that Santa could come. She has never gotten into bed as fast as she did that night.  She woke up to a tree full of presents underneath.  Our toy inventory is ridiculous and their birthdays are in just a month!  Above are one of Alex's and Johnny's favorite gifts. Alex is on her new rocking horse and Jabba is in his new car. 

We didn't do too much on New Years Eve but spent New Years Day with Nick's family.  We have a busy next month with lots of birthdays. Nick turns 36 in just a few days. Johnny will be one at the end of the month.  I'm pretty sure he'll be fully walking by the time his birthday is actually here. He has started to take 2 or 3 steps at a time over the past few days.   And last but not least Alex will be 3 the beginning of February.  Where does the time go..........I uploaded a full album of pictures in the usual spot and there is a video of Alexandra singing her Christmas Eve song, Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer.  I'll post again soon. I promise not to take as long next time!

Personal Update

I am home from the hospital and feeling good. I was able to come home in the afternoon yesterday. My surgery to have my thyroid removed was on Tuesday morning and it went well. I have not been in any pain since the surgery so that is great. The first day I felt like I had a sore throat and my neck was really sore but that was gone by the next day. Now I just have to try to take it easy and rest and be careful how I move so I don't strain my neck while it heals. My parents have the kids down at their house in Bradenton through the weekend which is really nice. When they come back up here my parents will still be here til New Years Eve to help out with them. We really, really appreciate it. I will keep you posted on my recovery. Hopefully, it is quick and continues to be easy! I do have to do radiation and am hoping I can do it before the end of January to get this whole process over with as quick as possible and have this all just be a distant memory, which it will be one day!

Christmas Picture

We attempted to take a picture of the kids together for a Christmas card. It didn't go so well. Johnny did not want to wear the Santa hat......

And he did not want to sit still by his sister!

So it looks like we will just be using a random picture of the two of them that we already have. Oh well!

Happy Thanksgiving!

My cutie pie

Me and Jabba on Thanksgiving Day.

The whole fam on Thanksgiving Day

Johnny has figured out that he is now tall enough to climb into Alexandra's car. Here he is working his way in.

And he is in! He thinks he is so cool and just loves it.

Happy Thanksgiving! We spent ours here in Tampa with Nick's parents and brother. It was a great day where as usual we ate way too much food. Our Christmas tree is up now and we are counting the days down to Christmas, my favorite holiday!!

Jabba the Hut!

I haven't been very good about taking pictures since we have been back from Wisconsin so the only new ones I have are of Jabba. He is very busy these days. Walking with whatever he can hold on to and getting into Alexandra's toys and things as much as he can. I don't think his sister is liking him too much these days! We have seen him a few times now stand without holding onto anything. Between that and his love to walk as much as possible with assistance I think walking may be in the near future. Yikes!

Wisconsin

Johnny and his best bud, cousin Donovan. They shared, stole toys and pushed each other over and followed each other around and had a great time doing it all together.

Jabbah and his new cousin Audri.

Alexandra and Jaelynn. They had so much fun together.

Our Alexandra was a perfect, sweet Minnie for Halloween!

Our Jabbah, a lion for Halloween, was 9 months this weekend. He is getting too big, 21 lb and 31.5 inches!

We just returned from 10 great days in Wisconsin. We got to hang out with everyone in my family at various points. The kids got to go to a pumpkin patch and went trick-or-treating in true fall weather that Halloween is meant to be in. We got to meet the new addition to the Marco clan, Audri. She is an adorable peanut. We were very sad to leave but can't wait to go back for Christmas. (There is a full album of pictures from our trip to the right.)