The Summer Birthday Celebration Continues

Mama J holding our birthday ice cream cake.

This past weekend, Mama J and I traveled down to Brigantine island to continue the birthday season celebration with her family. Julie (sister), Nikita (cousin), Casey (Nikita's bf), Sally (Nikita's mom), Jay (Sally's bf), Nadine (mom), Jerry (Nadine's bf), and Granny Elaine were all in attendance! Quite a crowd!!

On Friday, Granny Elaine took us out to eat at the Macedonian Grill (which is very much like a diner... oh Jersey!) and then for ice cream. I got spaghetti and meatballs which I had been craving for a long while and was disappointed the last time I ordered it and got large flat noodles instead of actual spaghetti. Of course, finding spaghetti at the Macedonian Grill was no problem and I got to remember back to my childhood when I used to eat spaghetti a lot which I haven't done in many years.

All smiles for Baby J!

On Saturday, we spent all day at the beach even though we didn't get good sun until late in the afternoon. For dinner we grilled out thanks to Nadine's fabulous cooking skills. We had chicken, baked beans, grilled corn on the cob, spinach salad and ice cream cake for dessert. Later, we grabbed a red box movie from Acme with popcorn and treats.

I got a little baseball practice with Jerry and Casey.

On Sunday, we went to Ocean City (NJ) and had a beach and boardwalk day. Unfortunately we had to pay 10 dollars for parking and 5 dollars each for a small amount of beach surrounded by a whole mess of people laying out, throwing footballs, and surfing. I almost never pay to go to the beach especially if it is so crowded that you can't even surf the waves without bumping into someone, but the experience was good. The day was super hot and we broke up the 1.25 mile walk on the boardwalk with frequent stops. We got Mac and Manco's pizza (which Mama J claims to be the best in all the world), fudge samples, taffy, ice cream, caramel popcorn in a large tub, and stopped at the amusement park to ride the Ferris wheel and carousel. Thanks to Mama J's fear of heights we only stayed on the Ferris wheel one time around and the carriages were caged so we couldn't actually get any good pictures of the fabulous views. However, the carousel proved to be a relaxing and enjoyable conclusion to an otherwise rather exhausting and sweltering day!

Relaxing in the sun.

And just because Mama J thinks she can get out of all the great 22 week pictures we took, I am going to post a few here. I just got a brand new Nikon D5000 SLR camera that takes fabulous pictures in preparation for the big day in November and many more memories to come. She doesn't realize that she is a superstar and I want her to know that she looks amazing! I thought pregnant women were supposed to be proud and flaunt their bellies. Now is your time to shine because in about 3.5 months, it's going to be all about Baby J!!!

Stunning in red, white, and blue.

Baby J's a big kicker!

Always a beach bum :)

Keep growing Baby J!

Always a superstar.

Rockin' 22 weeks!

You are always a superstar to me Mama J! :)

Love,
Dada & Mama J

22 Weeks!

I think that this week you can tell that I have gotten bigger without me having to reveal my entire pale stomach! Usually it is J that posts the unflattering pictures, but this week I am taking control!! Not much new to report, spending the week by the ocean in hopes of de-stressing and getting a little R&R before the baby.

Another thing constantly on my mind is NAMES!! We have finally sat down and made a three column Excel spreadsheet -- Favorites, Maybe and Vetoed. This list came after we ran down the top 1,000. That's right, 1,000 names!! While we are both partial to "J" names we went through them all and noticed names like Jam and Jafaru (so far out there they did not even make it onto the Vetoed list.) We do not want unisex names or anything that could lead to a horrible nickname where he is picked on in school. While we plan on keeping it a secret until the baby is born we are always open to suggestions.

So I say, throw out what you like or what we might not have thought of yet...


Love,
Dada & Mama J

Baby J's Heartbeat

I forgot to mention that I recorded the sound of Baby J's heartbeat at the last doctor's appointment. It is truly awesome and amazing and they said his heart rate is a healthy beat!

Love,
Dada & Mama J

Melting Pot

We took way more pictures at the Melting Pot than Mama J decided to post so I figured I would add them now. Maybe she was trying to avoid showing you exacting how big of a feast this was!

Jess so happy that the food is here!

The feast included filet mignon, sirloin, pork tenderloin, chicken, portabella mushrooms, potatoes, broccoli, and white mushrooms. Also there was lobster and shrimp but not for Mama J!

Our friend Cory joined us!

I had one of my favorite dips in my hands ready to go but Mama J didn't really capture the full view.

Cooking it up.

The aftermath. We ate it all! But now dessert...

We got the smores chocolate which came with cheesecake, strawberries, white and chocolate marshmallows, graham crackers, pound cake, brownies, and bananas.

The end of a fantastic birthday season. Let's blow out the candles!

Love,
Dada & Mama J

Birthday Season!

Another year and another round of birthdays!! This was the last one that we are going to spend as a family of two!! Next year we can have Baby J help us celebrate and blow out the candles!! We finished the season off with a four course meal from the Melting Pot, which of course I loved and devoured. I did treat myself to some shopping, for new clothes, stretchier clothes-- I have not needed for almost six months!! Let me tell you it is a whole new sense of freedom, living life with an elastic waistband and "Secret Fit Belly" shorts!!

I have also started to "clean" my room out for the nursery. While that might sound easy, I have not lived in this room for over six years and just piled 30 boxes into it last month when I moved from Mahwah. So this is no small task, but it needs to get done...we do not want Baby J sleeping in a room full of boxes!! I am excited to start the fun parts of it -- picking out paint and carpet and boarders and everything else that will make it feel like a nursery and not just a storage location!! So if you are reading this and would like to help, I could always use a hand...hint, hint J!!

Below is a picture of J at one of the many baby stores I have taken him to in which I made him model a Baby Bjorn, very attractive!! He even demonstrated where Baby J's little arms would come out of. Let's hope he is still this excited when there is a 10-20lb. baby in there!!






Love,
Dada & Mama J

21 Weeks!

This is Baby J living inside Mama J's belly at 21 weeks. Not too much to say here. We still have about 3 more weeks before we have to go back to the doctor.

This week was birthday season for Mama J and I so we had some celebration dinners and did some shopping. I think Mama J is buying one item per week for Baby J but of course he will not even be able to use any of it until maybe a year from now! Mama J also picked up her first maternity clothes from the dependable Macy's yesterday. Apparently the word is that they are the most comfortable clothes ever. Maybe they have some for me too after all the food I ate this weekend! :P

This is a pic from Friday before we went out to a fun Cuban restaurant close by the water in Newport. After the stress of holding up Baby J all day anyone can appreciate a quick 3 minute massage! I am sure Baby J is smiling in there somewhere.

Love,
Dada & Mama J

20 Weeks!

Today we went for a full anatomy scan and all is well inside Mama J's growing belly :) The ultrasound nurse gave us a little card to celebrate!

I also asked if we could have copies of some of the other pictures and they are quite fun. We got a good look at Baby J's hands, feet, arms, legs, heart, brain, face, and yes, his penis. The nurse commented that "he is not shy!"

His head/brain.

His face. And you can see the four chamber heart in the lower left!

His face (zoomed out).

His feet.

His penis. The nurse felt it was necessary to redundantly label this one just in case we were confused. We definitely were not confused haha.

Jess before the ultrasound.

Jess this morning posing for the 20 week mark.

Jess' favorite is the feet picture, but I really enjoyed seeing the four chambers in the heart. One of our friends that saw the pictures today mentioned that "he has such a big heart!" Indeed he does and I hope he is feeling all the love from the outside.

Love,
Dada & Mama J

It's Like We're Spying on Him!!

I'm sitting in Starbucks after both myself and BabyJ got a clean bill of health at the doctor's!! This is only one of about eight pics we got of the little guy today!! We went to get an anatomy scan done since I am just over FIVE months along. Basically to make sure he his heart was on the correct side, look inside of his brain, his kidney's were there, arms, legs and YES all fingers and toes were present and accounted for!! The ultra sound technician did not know we had found out the sex a few weeks ago and when she was checking on the sex she said, "OHHH yah, it's definitely a BOY and he is NOT shy about letting us know." J thought it was as if we were spying on him since we got to see his every movement up on the TV!!

Don't worry more pictures will be posted soon, but for now I am going to drag J to yet another baby store -- which I know he loves (scarcasm!)


Love,
Dada & Mama J

Macaroni Grill

This is one of those places that we will have to come back to after Baby J is born because they allow you to write on the tables with crayons! This is what we all collaborated to draw before the food came out. Unfortunately I am not much of an artist so I wouldn't take this as a realistic portrait of what Baby J looks like right now. For that, you should refer to the ultrasound in the upper right corner :P

In any case, Mama J had a blast as you can see in this picture!

Love,
Dada & Mama J

19 Weeks

This is Baby J at 19 weeks. This was taken on July 3rd to be exact. We were getting ready to go to the beach and I believe Mama J gave Baby J a little preview of swimming in the ocean :) Cross your fingers for a bigger Baby J at 20!

Love,
Dada & Mama J

18 Weeks

Mama J will probably hate me for posting this, but I said that we have to keep track of weekly belly shots to see how Baby J is growing from the outside. I promise that I will let her dress up a little bit more for the next weeks but we already missed the first four months so I figured we had to get on it right away.

Love,
Dada & Mama J

Under Construction

Baby J is somewhere between a bell pepper and a banana. We'll update you with the news once we get everything organized :)

Keep cookin' Baby J!

Love,
Dada & Mama J