Hush Ya'll!

Joshua is representing Brooklyn by wearing his t-shirt that his uncle Jason and aunt Alice gave him, Philadelphia by wearing his Phillies hat his uncle Harris gave him and the south by carrying his "Hush" paddle that we acquired from a golf tournament. He proceeded to chase Kevin, Jaime and me around the house with his paddle. What were we thinking lettting him play with it!

There's Nothing Like Play Time!

Joshua adding "big sticks" to his stick pile

Joshua riding his new bike that Santa brought him for Christmas

Joshua playing with his new shopping cart and food to go w/it (he's holding the glass of milk)

Christmas 2006

We hope everyone enjoyed their Christmas and had a wonderful time with their friends and family.

What a Christmas we had! Joshua was really into Santa and the holiday spirit this year. We flew down to Florida Friday after Kevin got off of work. And we were totally stressed out given all the crap we had to take with us and we had last year's memory of the flight on our minds. To our pleasant surprise, Joshua was an angel. I think being a year older and having him sit in his car seat made a HUGE difference. Even after sitting on the runway for a 45 minute delay, he was still well behaved - how could he not be when he was alseep before we even reached our flying altitude. He slept both ways, and we were thrilled.

While our trip was short, it was packed with events. We got in late on Friday night and after some pizza and visiting with Grandma "Sue-Anne", Grandpa Jim, Bear the Dope (that's the dog), and TT, we finally retired sometime after 11. On Saturday we went to this play store/center where Joshua got to play with all of these really cool toys and dance with all of the other kids and staff. It's kind of like a combination of a Chucky Cheese w/o the food and a Gymboree w/o the gymnastics but add toys. We headed over to Betty and Nat's for a delicious cook out. Their grandchildren are 2.5 and 4 so all of the kids had a lot of fun and all of the adults stuffed their faces w/ hotdogs, cheeseburgers, chips and dip and the best sausage ever.

Christmas Eve started off by going to the park where Joshua had it out w/ a few ants. He didn't realize he wasn't standing in your ordinary pile of dirt. After a few bites, we all quickly realized what happened and poor Joshua had about 5 or 6 ant bites on his feet and legs. He asked if Bear could kiss his "piggies" to make his feet feel better. We headed down to McDonalds for lunch and playtime at the park since we couldn't find a Chucky Cheese. What a weird exp we had at M-c-P (aka a McDonalds w/ a park - we have to have code words now so we don't disappoint Joshua). At the height of lunch rush hour, the manager locked the doors and would not serve customers in the rest. but would via drive-thru. Odd. His explanation was, "the line was getting too long so we had to close." Wow!

What an eventful day! After our adventure, we headed to our Christmas Eve dinner. We were a little nervous since it's a fancy rest and dinner takes approx 2 hours. Joshua was an angel. He sat in his chair for about 50 mins before he wanted to go for a walk w/ Kevin to look at the boats. When the boys returned, he sat still for another hour. We were impressed. Maybe all the M&Ms I bribed him with helped - ha ha! The company was fabulous and the food was delicious. I even liked the fish Kevin ordered.

Santa came that night and the next morning seeing Joshua's face when he saw all the presents under the tree was priceless. His Grandma and Grandpa spoiled him rotten and made sure that this Christmas was a Christmas he'll never forget. After we opened our gifts, we headed over to GG and Great Grandpa Jim's to open more presents and have Christmas breakfast. Shortly after that, we headed to the airport and came home.

Top 5 most memorable moments:
1. Joshua's face when he saw all of the presents under the tree.
2. Joshua learning to say "Bear you big dope" from Grandpa Jim
3. Joshua telling Kevin that he had to go back inside and that only his Grandma "Sue-Anne" could come outside and play with him.
4. TT and Joshua baking cookies w/ Grandpa Jim supervising
5. The most tasty dinner at Betty and Nat's house - best sausage ever!

Uncle Harris stayed with us Monday and Tuesday while he's in town visiting. We had a nice dinner last night w/ Grandma Stephanie, Uncle Harris, Ann (Harris' girlfriend) and us. We went to a hibachi grill place where again, Joshua was well behaved. Now if we could just get him to eat table food, life would be great!!

Below are a few photos from our Christmas.

Joshua and Grandma Suzanne posing with the Nutcracker

Joshua at the park

Joshua and Great Grandpa Jim

Kevin, Grandpa Jim and Joshua

Grandpa Jim and Joshua checking out the ocean

Joshua helping open Uncle Harris' Christmas present

Happy New Year!!!

Milman Christmas Tradition

We decided to put up a Christmas tree for the first time this year. After debating back and forth wether or not to put one up, we decided to go ahead and do it as long as it's not a real one since both Fox and Nala still have their claws and I don't need anymore cat puke than we already have. Joshua is really into Christmas this year and LOVES to look at all the trees on display at various retail establishments and all of the lights around our neighborhood. He keeps asking us when Santa is coming to his house and this year there were no tears when we visited Santa.

We started a new tradition this year and had a tree trimming party. Stephanie and Jaime came over to help us trim our very first tree. Everybody had their special ornament to hang: Stephanie had a fancy shoe w/ a feather on it; Jaime a cosmo martini; Kevin a basketball net, ball and shoes; Joshua a puppy and I had a penguin and eskimo. As you can imagine, Joshua loved to hang ornaments and he wanted to hang ALL of them. We had to do a little rearranging so all the ornaments were not on the bottom. All in all, it was a huge success and a lot of fun!

Stephanie, Joshua and I getting the decorations out

Joshua hanging his second Santa of the evening

Joshua claiming his ornaments

Kevin topping the tree with our star

Baby Boy Milman

It's official, the baby is a boy! We had our 20 week appointment a week early today, 19 weeks, to make sure the baby is growing and developing properly. And he is! His heart, spine, organs, etc. look great. And all his fingers and toes do too, what a relief!

Baby Boy Milman #2

He looks super cute to me - ha ha, but of course I am biased. I don't think he looks like Joshua though and I think he's going to look more like his Dad than Joshua does. Below is a picture of Joshua around the same gestational age.

Joshua - 20 Weeks

What do you guys think? None the less, Kevin and I are so excited. And I keep thinking, "wow, me and my boys!" Since I ended up having the emergency c-section with Joshua, I'll go ahead and have a planned c-section with baby boy Milman too. They will schedule my c-section for 39 weeks and in the next month or two we'll nail down the date and time. I pray and hope that I'll make it to 39 weeks. I keep thinking I'm going to get sick again and stress myself out and make my blood pressure rise which then makes me think that I'm getting pre-eclampsia again. My OB says that the liklihood is small so I'm hoping she's right! Once I relax, the BP is back to normal - they call it white coat syndrome.

Joshua is going to be happy too since he keeps saying he wants the baby to be a boy. He says he wants a brother and calls the baby, "baby Jake" although Jake isn't a name we're considering, but Jacob is.