Marino's Room

Marino's "big" Christmas gift from Evan and I was converting his baby room into a big boy room. We decided on a transportation theme, since he loves trucks, cars, planes and trains.

My mom got him a train table for Christmas and it is his favorite thing in the world. He actually calls his room "my train room", even though the train table is the only train related thing in the room. He absolutely loves it and could play with it for hours.

Some of the wall decorations - a personalized street scene.
An alphabet print with a transportation theme.

Airplanes flying towards the ceiling.

Redskins banner, poster collage frame with pictures of Marino with friends and family.

Lightning McQueen bed. The quilt on the bed was made by my friend Sonia's mother when Marino was born. The center panel says "Marino's Aquarium" and each panel has a different sea creature. We absolutely love it - it was such a special gift.

The rocking chair is called "Gramma Chair", since my mom likes to rock Marino in it:)

The street rug was another gift from my mom. The curtains are black out curtains, necessary because the sun in the room is really bright at nap time. On the wall is a "moon in my room" and an ocean scene that Aunt Chelle got for Marino.

5 on Friday

As always, here are 5 special reasons I am loving my boy this week:

5. Marino has always delighted in seeing animals. Lately, we've been seeing lots of bird flocks (presumably returning from a southern vacation). I casually mentioned once to Marino that there must be a bird party. He has taken this idea and run with it. Everytime we see a flock, he says "Mommy, the birds are going to the bird party! They eat cake there?" The other night we saw an airplane which he announced was also on its way to the bird party.

4. Over the weekend, my mom rolled up Marino's pajama sleeves while he was eating breakfast. When he got down from the table, he started shaking his arms and asking his sleeves "Why are you colding me?"

3. Sunday, my mom took Marino for a walk to the playground. She said he walked up to some strange dad there and announced "This is my Gramma. My mommy is busy."

2. When Marino is pretending to be a pirate (which happens more often than you would think), he says "Argh, ladies" (instead of "Argh, matey").

1. We have all had a bad cold this past week. The other night when I was putting Marino to bed, he wouldn't stop talking. I said "It's time to go to bed. Stop talking." "You stop making this sound!" he said, and began a series of exaggerated sniffles.

Quick Update

All three of us have been battling a cold for the past week and a half, so we've been laying low. My mom came to visit this past weekend and she and Marino had a great time together. They spent lots of time in Marino's "Train Room", which is what he now calls his bedroom (that's where his train table is). My mom downloaded a Thomas app on her iPad and Marino was IN LOVE with it! They must have listened to the story (Misty Island Rescue) and the song that came with it about 50 times over the weekend.

Over the weekend, Marino started intermittently running a fever, so I guessed (correctly) that he had an ear infection due to ongoing cold. The doctor put him on antibiotics and seems to be getting better (although he now has a nasty diaper rash, of course).

Here's a cute picture of Gramma and Marino, snuggling.

I took this picture Tuesday after work of my two boys, looking like twins!

Valentine's Dance

Last Friday, Jen and I took the kids to a Valentine's Day dance at her community center. Marino was not particularly compliant with the dancing part of it. Instead, he found a kindred spirit who wanted to run in circles with him and wrestle on the floor of an empty room.
At least he had fun, right?

Sydney and Marino - love her little dress!

Fancy dance moves...

Chatting with his new friend
Running in circles

5 on Friday

As always, here are 5 special reasons I am loving my boy this week:

5. Last weekend, Marino asked me for a popsicle in the morning. I told him no and he asked why. I told him that popsicles have too much sugar for us to eat them for breakfast. "Stop lying to me, Mommy," he said.

4. In the car the other morning, Marino said "I happy." A few minutes later he announced "I still happy!"

3. Marino is starting to appreciate "potty humor." When I was putting him to bed on Tuesday, I asked him "are you tooting?" Noooooo" he said and laughed. Thirty seconds later, he said "Now I tooting."

2. Marino often says things that make me wonder where in the world he heard them. One of his new favorite phrases, after a fall or near fall is "Whoa. That was a close one." Yesterday morning, he was looking in the mirror and he said "That's a biiiiiiig one. I the biiiiig one."

1. Thursday morning Marino woke up and was chatting our ears off. Evan asked him for a kiss, which he gave him. Then he turned to me and said "Now it's Mommy's turn" and gave me a kiss.

Catalina is 3!

This gorgeous cherub girl below? She turned three the weekend before last!

Marino and I went to NJ to celebrate her birthday with her and her friends at My Gym.
Marino had an AWESOME time at the party! He was running, jumping and climbing like a crazy man and happy as a clam!




Playing with Siena

Climbing sisters

Such a sweetie!

The birthday girl - how cute is that skirt?

This girl loves to climb!

All of Cat's friends (minus Marino, who was not in the mood for picture taking)

Cat and her cake

Catalina is the most gracious 3 year old ever! While opening the presents we gave her, she kept saying things like "Oh, is this a craft? What a great gift!" "It's Angelina [Ballerina, her favorite], I don't believe it!"

Marino and Cat are adorable together. After her party, she told us "Marino is my first boy ever." "What does that mean?" Sonia asked, "Your first boyfriend ever?". "Yes. He's so cute. I really like him", she told us. They ended up staying awake until 10PM playing together (very nicely) and then asking if they could sleep together. They settled for letting Cat tuck us into bed.

Can't wait to see our friends again next month!

5 on Friday

As always, here are 5 special reasons I am loving my boy this week:

5. Tuesday it was super windy. When we went out in the morning, Marino said "It's windy windy. The wind is touching your hair!"

4. Marino and I always pretend like the Ghostlight (from Cars/Mater) is coming to get us. Wednesday night in the bath he pretended the Ghostlight was coming and said "Save me, Mommy!" I put my hand on his back and launched into a three minute tirade against the pretend Ghostlight. One of the (12000) things I said was "You can't have my baby! He's mine!" After I was done, Marino said "Save me again. Say I'm your baby again. Say I'm yours again". Of all the things I said, how adorable is it that he picked up on those things and wanted to hear them again?

3. Wednesday night, Marino woke up and came in my room as I was going to bed. "Koko is scared of the owl!" he told me (Koko is a character from Chuggington - referred to as "Chuggingtrain" in our house - and I have no idea if there is an episode about an owl because Chuggington makes me want to stab my eyeballs). "Owls are not scary" I said. "Owls are our friends, they watch out for us at night." "Owls are not scary?" Marino asked, "Okay, Koko feels better now."

2. Our dog's birthday was this week. Marino and I were discussing this on the way home from work/school and he sang a rendition of "Happy Birthday to my Maxis" (adorable). I told him I had gotten a special treat for Max and that we would give it to him when we got home. "Is it cake?" he asked. "No, dogs can't eat cake; it makes them sick", I said. After a minute he replied "I eat the cake?"

1. The majority of Marino's friends are girls, so it's always fun to see him interact with little boys. At daycare, he has 2 friends that are four-year-old boys. The things they discuss are so funny. One day they were pretending to be dinosaurs, which inevitably led to a debate about who is "the biggest dinosaur" ("NO, I'M THE BIGGEST DINOSAUR!!!!!"). Today at breakfast, they were having a lengthy conversation about Go, Diego, Go ("I have a rescue pack", "I'm an animal rescuer").

5 on Friday (with video!)

As always, here are 5 special reasons I am loving my boy this week:

5. When Marino uses (or attempts to use) scissors (which he inexplicably sometimes calls "yissors"), he opens and closes his mouth when opening and closing the scissors.

4. Love this video of Marino. He currently loves singing and dancing - all the time!



3. When we drove by the Washington Monument on the way to the Smithsonian on Saturday, Marino said "Look! It's a castle!"

2. Every time we drive on an overpass, Marino says "We're up here, Mommy."

1. While putting him to bed the other night, he accidentally poked me in the eye. I said "ouch" and he said "MAWINO! Don't DO that!"

Dinosaurs, Bugs and Friends - Oh My!

Marino and I were home Thursday and Friday due to power outages at work and daycare after Wednesday evening's "thundersnow" storm. We were both happy to get out of the house and have some fun this weekend.

Evan, Marino and I headed down to DC to the Smithsonian Natural History Museum. I hadn't been there since I was a kid, so it was equally exciting for me as it was for Marino. He could not stop asking "Are we going to see dinosaurs?" As we were leaving, he excitedly told our neighbors "I going to see dinosaurs!" "Big ones?" they asked. "No, small ones" he said, very seriously. I was slightly concerned he would be afraid of the dinos but he was nothing but excited.

We also got a chance to see Nemo and Dory!

A couple short videos from Marino's exploration of the insect exhibits...



Sneaky fox...

He did end up having a nightmare that night about a crocodile "getting" his face (we saw a huge stuffed crocodile there). He seemed to forget about it in a couple days.

Since Marino napped on the ride home, we still had a full afternoon of entertaining the boy ahead of us. We played with Play-doh (primarily Marino picks up various creations we make and asks if he can throw them...he gets this devilish grin and asks "I throw this? No? I roll it?"). We also baked snowman and gingerbread man sugar cookies. We gave Marino the spoon to like which he did and then stuck the spoon in the rolled cookie dough where we were cutting out shapes. I think he liked the dough better than the baked cookies!

On Sunday, we went to visit our friends Kristal and Gabrielle. Kristal is now over 25 weeks pregnant and doing great! I told her this is the first time I've seen her pregnant and standing up! They hope to welcome their new baby girl in April.

Gabrielle was a sweetie, as always. She decided to count in Spanish for us, "uno, dos, tres, quatro, cinco, gracias"!! So sweet.

Some pics of her and Marino sharing a snack.

We got to see their yorkie getting a bath in the sink, which Marino LOVED! He is such an animal lover!

This is his silly face. If you see this face, do not believe anything he is saying!!

Love this sweet face!

Such a doll!