Getting ready for baby Christakis

I have not been on this blog for months and months...but wanted to share a few anecdotes about how the Christakis family got ready for baby Christakis.

First, we refinished the basement into a play room/guest bedroom. We can't remember our lives without it!

Next, Katerina needed to move to her new room and her big girl bed. We did that over July 4th weekend...it was 5 days of torture. She didn't want to sleep in her new big bed (full size). Mike would lay with her until she fell asleep. Then in the middle of the night she would walk into our room crying.

In order to go "cold turkey', we had to dismantle the baby room, took the mattress out of the crib, took the pictures down from the wall and told her the bed was broken! Then, we decided to put pillows under the sheets to make the bed "smaller", and we put the gate up at her bedroom door.

That worked. The first night, she got out of her bed, cried for about 1 minute at the door/gate, and then there was silence. Mike and I were shocked and actually we got a little nervous. Why didn't she cry longer? Mike had to go peek to make us feel better that she was alright--and she was--laying down in her bed. Phew!

We then bought little items needed here and there. My last day of work was September 2, right before labor day. I had one day off on the 6th--went out to buy another monitor for the baby's room, a lamp for Katerina's room and buy some more diapers. And I did it just in time, because I went into labor around 3am the next morning.

We went to the hospital on the 7th at 11am (we waited a little too long in my opinion), but then a few hours later at 2:24pm Victoria Ann Christakis was born!

Expecting!!

We are expecting a new arrival on September 8. We are looking forward to growing our family and watching Katerina interact with a new brother or sister.

Katerina doesn't really understand much yet, but if you ask her where Mommy's baby is, she will point to my belly. Sometimes she will give the baby a kiss too. It's really sweet.

More to come soon!

Katerina's First Story

Katerina told her first story last night. She thought it was so interesting that she repeated it again tonight, several times. After the 3rd or 4th time she told me the story, I decided to record it. But before you watch the video, let me put this in context so that you can understand her story.

On Saturday, Katerina was outside playing in the driveway with Mike as he cooked our steaks for dinner. They were playing with a bouncy ball. Apparently Katerina threw the ball and it landed in the snow. Katerina was a bit distraught that she couldn't reach her ball. Since neither one of them was equipped with boots on, Mike went and got a broom to pull the ball towards them. He picked up the ball and gave it back to Katerina, who was extremely pleased! Here is Katerina's version of that story.

Holiday Fun!

Katerina has enjoyed the holidays this year. She loves being the center of attention so any time with extended family is a welcomed treat. We were in Rochester, then Oswego, then CT. She was a great traveler, hardly ever complaining.

Christmas was especially fun because she loved opening presents. It was fun watching her get excited about a toy she just unwrapped and then get frustrated that she couldn't get it out of the plastic wrapping quickly enough.

I think her favorite x-mas holiday character is frosty the snowman. He hangs on her door and we have been singing the song to her. Every time she sees a snowman she starts to break out in song. Santa isn't as exciting...in fact she cried hysterically when we tried to get her to sit on his lap at church as she held on to me with her death grip. But from a distance he's okay. She likes saying "Ho Ho Ho."

Finally, our New Years was very enjoyable. Our friends from College made the trip with their kids (Wilson 2, Kaya 1 mth). Katerina and Wilson played nicely together and Kaya was a perfect baby--even staying up to watch the ball drop with the adults.

Well I need to end this post since Katerina keeps trying to type her own post on the computer... I keep trying to tell her that she has her own blog, but she doesn't seem to understand the concept.

Girls Weekend!

My sisters visited Katerina and I this past weekend. Mike was traveling so we had free reign of the house. Katerina loved having so much entertainment. We ordered Chinese, did some girl talk, and my sisters taught Katerina how to dance like a ballerina. She stands up on her tip toes, puts her arms in first position, and turns around. So cute! Unfortunately, we haven't been able to capture the moment on camera yet, but stay tuned.

On Sunday we took full advantage of having Aunt Aileen around (the official baker in the family) and we baked cookies (well Aileen actually made those for Meghan to take back to campus) and together we all made a carrot cake for Mike's Name Day. Aileen was the lead chef for the carrot cake and Meghan and I were the "sous" chefs. It turned out great--making carrot cake is not really that hard! :)

I made the cream cheese frosting after they had left and Katerina fully enjoyed licking the bowl. It was a relaxing fun weekend with the girls.

Happy Halloween

Katerina truly participated in Halloween this year. We went out around 5pm. She was a little timid at the first house, but then she seemed to get the hang of it. She would follow the other kids on the street, walk up to the front doors and hold out her candy pale. We only went to a few houses, but she loved it and so did Mike and I. I had forgotten how much fun this holiday was.

She was a Buffalo Bills cheerleader--everyone thought she was so cute ...although I don't think most of them were big football fans because we didn't get any condolences. I tried very hard to encourage her to keep her pigtails in...but they were only in her hair long enough for me to take a quick picture and she had them out.

Back at home, Katerina got excited every time the door bell rang, looking forward to seeing the new visitors. She seemed very curious as she watched Mike or I give out candy to some 153 kids--yep, that's right, we keep track! LOL. It was a fun night! Happy Halloween.

"Talking"

Katerina appears to be doing a lot more "talking" these days. She still doesn't say much-her vocabulary really consists of Ba and sometimes Mama, and "uh oh." But she is starting to make noises that sound like other words.

For example, she LOVES dogs. She says "doh" whenever she sees one. Although, she says the same thing for duck...but its a similar sound so I applaud her effort (literally). :)

And tonight she was playing with the phone and Mike and I turned when we heard her say something like "hello."

Mike loves to tell the story about when we were in Newark airport coming back from Greece. Mike raised his hands and said "touchdown Buffalo!" Katerina did the same thing, including saying something that sounded like "touchdown." Mike was ecstatic because he thought it was her first real word. But I don't know if you can count that as her first real word because she hasn't said it since. But in Katerina's defense, maybe that's because Buffalo hasn't been making many touch downs.

Regardless, I think we might start hearing some real words in the next couple of months, which will be great. It can be frustrating when she points and says "ehh" and I don't know what she wants. But as Mike says, I better be careful what I wish for. If she's anything like the Nyman girls...once she starts talking, she won't stop! :)