JJ's Three!

I'm 3!

JJ turned 3 yesterday.  Where did the time go?!?!  He really isn't a toddler anymore and is quickly becoming a kid!  We spent the morning going to Cuma and walking around in the ancient Roman ruins.  JJ loves being outdoors and it was a lot cooler for a change, which was great.  As you can see, my dad is now in town too.  It's so fun to have family visiting and JJ loves having extra people to play with!  Tomorrow is the first day of preschool, so he really is growing up. 

Our First Visitor.

Can you spot the tourist?!?

My mom has been here for two weeks and will be here for another three which has been a great help.  She was here for a few days before Owen was born and we took her on her only Naples sightseeing so far which was to the Caserta Palace Gardens.  It was really hot but nice to walk for awhile.  

JJ has been keeping her very busy with reading books, playing tag, and lots of playing cars.  She watched JJ for two nights while we were at the hospital and they both survived.  It was JJ's first time away from us for a night and  he still climbed into our bed in the middle of the night, it just wasn't us in the bed.  Hopefully we can take her on a few more outings in the next few weeks.

Owen Timothy Harris!

Owen has made his entrance into the world!  As the labor and delivery nurse kept saying, he came "fast and furious!"  My water broke at 1 pm on Tuesday (Aug 14), "real" contractions started about 3-ish, after progressing from dilated 3 cm to 9.5 cm in about 3.5 hours I felt the need to push and refused.  The doctor, a Navy Captain yelled at me (which Brian thinks is funny that I've now been yelled at by a captain) since I had to get the baby out and after 2 hard pushes, he was born that evening at 7:20 pm!  He weighed 9 pounds, 1 oz and is 20.5 inches long.  By the time I was refusing to push, I was dying for pain medicine but it was waaay too late, so I'm living proof that a completely natural childbirth can actually happen!    

JJ was really sweet with him when Brian brought him to visit at the hospital.  He keeps calling him "my Owen."  He seems less enamored as he is in the house longer, but that's not too surprising.  Luckily my mom got here last week so she was able to watch JJ while we were at the hospital and she agrees to run and play with him all day long which is a good distraction for him.  

We are all settling in nicely, although Owen is definitely getting his days and nights confused.  Brian and I aren't overly exhausted though since we haven't slept through the night since before JJ was born.  I guess having a horrible sleeper in the house for three years prepares you pretty well for a newborn.

So now I'll be posting about all the boys adventures together.  JJ actually wanted to play tag with Owen today, but we had to explain it would be awhile before he could do that.  I'm sure Owen will want to keep up with him sooner than later though.  Should be a fun adventure!

Almost 3 Going on 13!

I don't have any pictures that really go with the theme of this post, so here are some pictures of JJ in the "airplane" that Brian made for him recently.  JJ drew on the "controls" and loves to have Brian push him around in it all the time!

JJ has been whining A LOT lately and it's been driving me insane!  He spends half the day saying "I want. . . I want. . . I want. . ."  He's also been very demanding saying "Get me. . . Get me now. . ." which we've been working on how to ask nicely.  Then the last few days, I could swear he's turning into a teenage girl!

When we found out we were having another boy, I thought I'd be lucky and miss out on the emotional roller coaster that is a 14-year-old girl (if you knew me back then, you know I wasn't a pretty sight and caused my family lots of sleepless nights, sorry mom and dad!), but apparently I'm getting one in the form of JJ as a 3-year-old!

JJ's been wanting everything lately and his favorite thing to ask for is new games on the iPad.  He knows how to go into the App Store and picks out games and then cries and whines about wanting them.  Of course we've bought him games in the past, but those .99 cent games add up, so I'm done!  Yesterday, he was whining about wanting a new one and I said, "JJ, I already said no" and his response was "but I said yes!!!"  Then today we were doing puzzles at the table and he started crashing his car into the table.  I said, "JJ, please stop slamming your car into the table" at which time he glared at me and screamed "Stop it!  You can't say that to me!"  How did he already learn how to talk back to me?!

It's going to be a hard adjustment for all of us when the baby is born and I'm sure JJ's whining will only get worse because I won't be able to wait on him hand and foot anymore.  Here's hoping his attitude doesn't last as long as mine did when I was a "real" teenage girl!!!

Playing Games.

Playing Wii Fit hula hoop.  Nice form boys : )

One of the fun things about JJ getting older is that he's more into playing games now.  He loves playing games on the iPad, the Wii, and now board games.  Brian's mom sent JJ HiHo Cherry-O and Candy Land and JJ has been having fun playing both games lately.  Honestly, Candy Land drives me a little crazy, but JJ seems to enjoy it.  I don't know why the box says it's a 15 minute game, I swear it takes us 45 minutes to finish the game!  I'm sure family game night is in our future.

Anzio.

This is in the Chapel where they listed all the names of the soldiers that died during WWII at the Battle of Anzio.

We headed up to the beach town of Anzio last Friday and it was a really nice day trip.  The town is the site Operation Shingle during WWII which was an allied forces shore landing on January 22, 1944 and also has lots of Roman history.  We first went to the American cemetery, which we were surprised to find out is almost as large as the cemetery in Normandy.  Then we had a nice lunch outside before heading to some other sites in the town.  

Brian had done lots of research on things to do and we headed to the Roman villa ruins, which included the villa for Emperor Nero, a wildlife preserve and hike that ended at some additional ruins and the beach, and the beachhead museum.  Unfortunately, we were there in the middle of the day and this town runs by "standard" Italian hours, so everything was closed for at least 3 hours in the middle of the day, which was right when we wanted to go to see everything! We drove to each site with the same outcome - closed for at least 2.5 more hours from when we were there.  Soooo, with Brian discouraged, we headed to the beach.  No luck again!  The beaches that were accessible to where we were are all privately owned by the local hotels, so available to hotel guests only.  We can say that we've been to Anzio, but we might head up there again sometime to actually see the things that Brian really wants to see : )

Cumae.

For some reason JJ was scared of these caves because he was convinced lions were living in there.  Not sure where he came up with that. . .

Sorry, not the best picture, but the view was amazing.

We've heard that people who live here forget that there's lots to do in Napoli, instead they always go to other towns.  So Brian has started looking into what's available in our own back yard.  He came home from work a few weeks ago and said he'd read about some ancient Greek ruins about 15 minutes from our house.  So after JJ's nap, during the hottest part of the day, we decided it was the perfect time to go hiking through the ruins.  It's an area called Cumae and was the first Greek colony on the mainland of Italy (cite Wikipedia : ) ).  We didn't get to explore very long before all three/four of us were melting, but it's definitely somewhere that we'll be taking guests when they visit, we'll just remember to go first thing in the morning before it's too hot.