Change of Address

As we are nearing the arrival of our new Hunt member, I've realized that maybe it's time to close out our 'Cradle Cap Diaries' and begin a new blog for the whole family. Yes, I know this one has pretty much been about all of us, but I want to make it official. So, we're moving to a new Blogger address. Please see how our Hunt family continues to grow at http://ourteamhunt.blogspot.com/.

We close with some recent photos of our amazing little 2 year old, and big brother-to-be, Vincent Tomi Hunt!

You've come a long way, Baby!

Big boys need protection, too!

Already a ladies man.

This was just some silly fun.

Vincent, we may not be focusing on just you from now on, but you are still our first super sweet baby. It has been amazing to watch you grow up to this point! You're a fantastic kid, and we love you so much! All our love, Mommy & Daddy

Thank you, A-ma!

My mom, Vincent's A-ma, was here this past week. She was here for 8 days! It was great to have her here. Unfortunately for her, she just missed the snow (again!). Like me, she did not grow up in snow, so she finds it to be a novelty. This has happened a couple of times now, where she'll be here, and soon after she leaves, it'll snow. Oh well. I'm just happy it's not heavy snow like a few weeks ago.

While here, we took Vincent to the Children's Museum. She got a good family picture of us outside at the Seattle Center.
She also had the chance to visit Vincent's preschool one day, and his Mandarin class on another day. We went to Miller Community Center twice as well. She said that she has not spent so much time with so many little people in so long. I think this has been the busiest visit for her since he was born. It was really nice to have her help getting up and down our steps outside with Vincent, diaper bag, groceries, and whatever else we had to lug up and down. And, she made dinner a few times, or we would tag-team the cooking on other nights. On top of all the help, Vincent's Mandarin improved quite a bit over the course of her stay.

And, one of the biggest things she did for us was let David and I go on an overnight date while she took care of Vincent. We just went downtown and stayed at the Inn At The Market and had dinner at Cafe Campagne. Our hotel room had the latest copy of Seattle Magazine, and there happened to be a page about good deals on eats at Pike Place Market, so we made sure we had a couple the next day as we wandered around the market. I had forgotten how much I truly love Pike Place Market (for the record, I did vote for the renovations).

Okay, so here's one more picture my mom took. She wanted to make sure that Vincent saw one day how pregnant I was, but still strong enough to hoist him up on my shoulders for a ride through the kitchen. And, since I haven't taken any belly pictures since I was about twenty-something weeks along, here's the latest look at the baby bump (33/34 weeks).

Our Big Boy

I'm still trying to recover from the shock of my little boy turning two years old! He's totally a toddler now. And, not like the toddler he was just a months ago; heck, even a few weeks ago. He's like a little boy!

Much has happened in just the past couple of weeks, but I'm not posting all the photos. The biggest thing that has happened here is Vincent's bedroom undergoing the switch from baby nursery to big boy room.

But, first, here's a photo from New Year's Eve, just before we went out to dinner at Lark.

Here are the photos of his new room. Notice the stark white walls. We're waiting to see what will go up in those spaces. And, we'll probably move those cubbies to a lower spot where he can reach them to put things in and pull things out by himself. We've kept his baby comforter for the bed for now, as the twin-sized ones just seem so big. And, yes, that's Thomas the Tank Engine sheets & pillow case you see. He picked them out himself.

So, how was the transition? Well, it was better than expected, but still a little bit of a work in progress. We made a big deal about shopping for the bed and the bedding. We kept him out of the room all afternoon as we set it up. We also made sure not to make a big deal about the "missing" crib. In fact, I'm not sure he even noticed that it's gone. When we were all set up, we made a big deal about him seeing his new room & his new bed. He loved it. He was WILD with excitement, actually! I find that getting him down for naptime is harder than bedtime. I think mainly because he's tired by the end of the day. And, even though he can now get out of the room whenever he pleases, it's really cute in the mornings when he comes out. This morning, we heard him open and shut his door, and then we heard a knock on our door. A KNOCK! He didn't just barge into our room. So cute. The other morning, he came out, and just sat on the sofa in the dark until we came to greet him.

Other fun things: At his 2 year check up, to keep him distracted while waiting for the doctor to show up, David was looking between Vincent's toes & telling him about "toe jam." They had a whole little conversation about "toe jam." Now, when he takes his socks off, he wants the "toe jam" (which is just sock lint) cleaned out. Or, if he goes into the bathtub and the "toe jam" ends up in the water, he will stand up and say, "toe jam, toe jam, toe jam..." while pointing at it until one of us removes it from the water.

We bought Vincent a safety set for when he's on a wheeled vehicle, like his razor scooter or tricycle. It's more to get him in the habit of it now, rather than to try and keep him safe. He doesn't got that fast overall. But, since he's getting more coordinated and such, he's getting faster, and with David's track record for head injuries as a kid, we thought we should start getting into safety habits now.

Two Year Check Up

Happy New Year!

The year ended with us taking Vincent to his two year check up. It went very well. He got to stand with shoes & jacket off, but the rest of his clothing on, on a regular scale, and get his height measured while standing up against the wall ruler. He liked the scale, but not the ruler. He weighed in at 25.8 lbs, which is 50.75%, and he is 35 inches tall, which is 75%. His doctor said that he can now go on either 2%, 1% or fat free milk - our choice. David wants to stick to 1%, but I do the shopping around here, so I voted for fat free. I've been looking forward to buying just one type of milk! Fear not, my love, David, whole milk will be back in this household again in just over a year - unless baby #2 is allergic to dairy.

The cutest part about this two year check up is this:

A Week In Review

Well, the sun is partially shining today, the snow has almost completely melted, and the year is almost over. David, Vincent and I made it through our week of messy, snow covered roads and cabin fever. Looking back, it was a really good week. It was a bit stressful to have to constantly play things by ear, and guess if we would actually make it out for whatever we had planned. In the end, we were able to enjoy the Christmas festivities with people we care about and with each other. David returned to work this morning. Here's a recap of our week together.

Monday, 12/22/08 - Vincent's birthday (see previous post).

Tuesday, 12/23/08 - 1) We got a call that our bags arrived in Long Beach, and were on their way back to Seattle. Unfortunately, that flight was delayed 2 hours, which made it too late for David to make the trek to SeaTac. 2) We head to our neighbors' house, 2 doors north, and enjoy holiday celebrations & very delicious shrimp etoufee.

Wednesday, Christmas Eve - Snowing again! 1) After much pondering and waiting to see how the weather pans out, we finally decide to head to SeaTac and collect our bags. They only had 3 out of 4 of our bags, and 2 of them have been damaged. At least we got our Christmas gifts in time for the big day. No car seat. We were lucky to borrow one from a neighbor. 2) After the airport, we head to Federal Way to have dinner with Lucy's family. We get there late, but are welcomed with plates of delicious food upon entering. Lucy's oldest brother takes over watching Vincent and does a fantastic job playing with him. We all open some gifts after eating, and then it's time to head home for Vincent's bedtime. We had changed him into a fresh diaper and pajamas before leaving, which was a good thing because he was sacked out from all the playing he did with Robert & Halina. I was able to carry him to his room & place him right into bed.

Thursday, Christmas - More snow! 1) When Vincent woke up, we both led him out of his room into a dark living room with just the Christmas tree lit up. Under the tree were all the gifts that were in our luggage, wrapped and ready to be opened. We thought he would have some profound reaction, but he just went straight to one of the gifts (still in the dark) and tried to open it. The gift opening was a lot of fun, but I think Vincent woke up on the wrong side of the crib. We did a web call with David's family, and Vincent was acting wild and cranky. 2) After Vincent's nap, the snow had turned to rain, and we head over to The Hildebrandts for an early dinner. Thankfully, Vincent was in a much better mood after his nap. It was just the thing our little family needed. A relaxing evening shared with our good friends.

Friday, 12/26/08 - 1) They found our car seat! David drops Vincent and I off at Southcenter Mall to play in the kids area, and maybe do a little after Christmas bargain shopping, while he goes to retrieve the car seat. The plan was to have lunch at the mall together before heading home. David has an easy time getting back to car seat, but I have a tough time with a sort of rough playing toddler. After 10 minutes of circling the parking lot at the mall, David calls me and picks us up...we'll go eat in the International District back in Seattle, instead. I think the rest of the day continued pretty uneventfully, except for 2) Jen Beatty has her baby boy, Maxton Scout Beatty!

Saturday, 12/27/08 - 1) We had our most successful outing all week. We bought Vincent a new twin mattress. We had no idea it would be like buying a car. Somehow we got him to knock off about $200, just for standing around thinking about what to do. We also do a big grocery trip at Wholefoods. It felt good to stock our fridge again. 2) I got to visit Jen and Max at the hospital with my friends, Kari & Brian. On our way out of the hospital, the three of us get stuck in the elevator. Luckily, it was only for about 10 minutes, and I didn't go into labor. 3) Nog Night our at neighbors' house. We only stay for about an hour, but during that time, I met a woman named, Sparrow Hawk, who dangles a needle and thread over my belly and predicts I will have a baby boy! 4) David goes to the Thunderbirds hockey game with friends.

Sunday, 12/28/08 - David's last day of vacation. The roads are almost completely cleared. It's raining. 1) We have a delicious breakfast at Portage Bay Cafe, and head to Target for some bargains. Totally underwhelmed by the Christmas selection, but we did get new sheets for Vincent's new bed! 2) As a fun ending to David's time off, we decide to take Vincent to his first major sporting event, a Thunderbirds game. Yes, that's two in a row for David. We head to Queen Anne & grab a few slices of pizza at Pagliacci before the game. It was so cute to see Vincent holding the half slice of pizza and taking bites. He seemed to have a good time at the game. He immediately loved "Cool Bird" the mascot. We lasted only two periods, but it was still a very fun family event. This is about as crowded as I think we can handle with Vincent for a sporting event. We'd like to try a Mariner's game soon, but we'll see.

Happy 2nd Birthday Vincent!

The snow continues to fall here, in Seattle. Actually, it didn't snow today. The sun was shining at times and the some snow started to melt. The day before was pretty crazy. But, first, let me take you back a few days...

Friday night, we had the Demseys over for a little mini birthday celebration for Vincent. I made a cake. I'm not much of a baker, and I made the mistake of putting sugar sprinkles on the side and refrigerating the cake. I had forgotten that sugar melts in refrigeration, so you can see some sugar syrup here in this photo. Nonetheless, Vincent enjoyed having us sing to him and blowing out the candles, and especially eating the cake.

The next morning, Christmas came early. We had a web call with Vincent's grandparents in Cleveland, and we all opened our gifts from them, since we planned to be in L.A. for the holiday. We all received some great gifts, but the top gift in this household was definitely the Thomas and Friends train track set, along with a few trains from his grandparents and friends.

As I mentioned, the snow continued here. We were supposed to leave for So Cal on Sunday afternoon for a week trip to visit my family. David and I were on the ball getting to the airport. Everything went pretty smoothly through checking in, baggage drop, security, lunch and getting to the gate on time. Once we were at the gate, things sort of snowballed (no pun intended) from there. The flight out to Palm Springs ahead of us at the gate was still there & delayed. In fact, the passengers had been on the plane, and were now all getting off. They were moved to another gate, which gave us hope that we may get our plane soon. Not the case. At around 2pm, when we should've been boarding, they announced that our flight was cancelled. We were to go to baggage claim to retrieve our luggage, & strongly encouraged to go home and call Alaska Airlines reservations from there, rather than going to ticketing.

Baggage claim was a nightmare. Bags everywhere, people everywhere, and lines that nobody really seemed to know for sure where they lead. We happened to run into some friends who had been there longer than we had and were at the head of one line. They got some useful information, which actually helped us because we waited in the same, shorter line as they did. We ended up leaving our bags there, after giving the agent all our info, and headed for home.

The drive home wasn't too bad but scary. We drove very slowly. Unsure of the best route, we chose to go up one road that our friends had luck with a couple days prior. We had almost made it to the top of the hill when our car couldn't go any further. Luckily, David was able to turn us around, and we headed back on to the highway and tried another route, through downtown. We almost got stuck again, but somehow we made it home all in one piece.

So, here we are, in Seattle. Our trip to L.A. has been cancelled all together. But, we are making the best of it, even though all our gifts are either in already opened, in L.A. or in our luggage at SeaTac. Yes, this includes our stockings. For Vincent's actual birthday, we took a walk up to 15th Ave & found an artificial tree with lights for $20, and a few little cars to wrap up for Vincent as birthday and Christmas gifts. We also took him to Vios for lunch, so that we'd have a nice hot meal & Vincent could do a little playing. The street next to Vios was closed off, and there were kids sledding down the hill.

Here's David putting the first ornament on our new tree.

I baked Vincent a Betty Crocker cake out of a box & iced it with some whipped cream. We asked our neighbors to come over after dinner to help us sing "Happy Birthday" and have cake. Vincent was happy to have another cake & even did a better job blowing out his candles. He loved the cars & Playdoh we got him, and he didn't know the difference at all.

More snow and holiday cheer!

It's snowing again today, even harder than it did over the weekend. The roads outside look crazy. Busses are stuck up the street. In fact, I just looked out the window and the one that was trying to come down the street about an hour ago is still there, now with it's hazard lights blinking.

In anticipation for the bad weather yesterday, David's Microsoft commuter bus was cancelled completely for the day. David drove into work for a little bit yesterday. When he got home, we took advantage of the lack of snow and took the bus down to the Seattle Center for their Winterfest ice skating rink. Here are a few photos from our pre-snowday outing. Good thing we went yesterday, because we are stuck inside today!

On the bus.

Gettin' ready to take the ice!

A little wobbly.