Week 23

Here's a little bit of chaos for our 23 week shot - technically, 23 and 3 days. It also includes a photo of our renovated kitchen (since we are slackers and never posted photos of the house improvements..) that I thought you would enjoy.

After viewing the last shot - and simultaneously gasping with horror and blaming the kitchen lighting - I made Taki take another. This one is in the hallway, with our wedding leis in the background.

Here's the comparison shot from '07 (you can compare both the belly and the kitchen!)

Busy Weekend

This past weekend was full of fun and friends.

On Friday night we enjoyed East Bay Happy Hour at the D'Angelo house. I was a photo slacker so here's pretty much the only evidence. It looks like a friendly little picture alright but this is a few minutes prior to No-Share Nikos trying to pelt Marco in the head with a plastic stacking ring. I think Brooke was hiding in the kitchen. Smart kid.

Saturday morning was a drizzly, slightly humid day, evidenced by Nikos' big hair. (You will note there will no be no photos of me from Saturday.) He spent the morning taking calls and making plans for the night.

The Grochol's joined us for a spaghetti dinner. Nikos enjoyed following Ryan around and for her part she was very patient with him. Here's a sample of their conversation:

Nikos (pointing at his giraffe picture): "Uuuh uuh."
Ryan: "Yes Nikos, that's a giraffe."
Nikos (pointing at his giraffe picture): "Uuuh uuh."
Ryan: "Yes, that's a giraffe."
And this same broken record went on for a few minutes. See what I mean about patience? I had to leave the room.

Ryan shows off her Sheeba Shaaba dance while Nikos and Reese count our leftover Halloween candy.
Maybe Nikos didn't trust Reese...here he counts the candy again on his own.

Sunday morning Taki, Nikos and I headed to Habitot. We figured now that we are members we should get our moneys worth!

Back at Spacecamp, Nikos models the XL astronaut helmet. Hey, it is hard to find something that makes his head like small!

Inside the shuttle, Nikos works the controls.

Playing with the water feature.

I demonstrated how to rake leaves and explained how we would most likely have to move somewhere else if he ever wanted to do it in real life. I don't think he was too impressed with the chore.

In the art room he experiments with Gak (sp?) The art room "teacher" said that kids either love it or hate it. Let's put it this way, he was not impressed.

In the grocery store/cafe Nikos rings Taki up for a meal. Luckily he accepted the fake cash as payment.

Niko and I read a book in the Reading Room.

Sunday afternoon Nikos and I drove over to Emeryville to see The Sippy Cups in concert. Yes people, THE SIPPY CUPS. They were playing at a new Kids Club a few miles from our house that has various activities during the day and also boasts a kid friendly restaurant, complete with beer and wine for the adults. It actually wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. It would have been better if I was drinking a beer (in a clear cup with a lid and a straw, like many of the other parents...but I digress.) The venue was a little bit chaotic, but the kids sure were into it. Nikos was a little bit young for the event but he seemed to enjoy himself. He was a big fan of the confetti that fell from the ceiling and the giant balloons the audience and band members were batting around.

Not the best picture - I look like a man and Nikos is pissed because he is having a bad hair day.

Here he is standing on his own (with a little added support from mom), watching the Cups.

Habitot - The Latest Version of Baby Crack

Yesterday Nikos and I decided to go up and try out Habitot for the first time. Habitot is an awesome children's museum that is in downtown Berkeley, not far from our house. We have heard lots of good things from Mel, Meredith and Liz so I was really excited to try it out. If we walk up to the museum it is about 2 miles, or, if we are feeling lazy, we can walk a mile to bart and take it one stop and end up right at the museum.

I bundled Nikos up because it was a still a little cold when we were leaving to walk up there. Here he shows off his new hat that I just got him at Gymboree (love 30% off Circle of Friends sale!) -- I had him try it on to make sure it fit and he refused to take it off for about 2 hours.

How big is Nikos?


Of course, after we arrived at the museum I decided it was so cool and soooo convenient that I would buy the Family Circle pass - which lets us take any 6 people (6 total including us) for free for a year. Since it would have been $15 a visit for Nikos and I (and $22 when Taki was able to come) I figured it would be totally worth it. So feel free to sign up for your free trip in the Comments. :)

We ran into a few playgroups there as well as moms with younger children, so I think that since I am prego solo this time (boo Katie!) I will be crashing here a lot with baby #2. Did I mention there is a Starbucks right on the corner? Ha.

First we headed to the spaceship exhibit, Nikos was a big fan of playing with the Styrofoam-looking blocks and building little towers. Of course, in the midst of all this he also dove full out at a Starbucks cup one of the moms had set down on the makeup/face painting table. I laughed and told her it was because it was the one thing he recognized in the place.

Next up was Brooke's favorite exhibit, the water feature! I learned from Meredith's post and stripped Nikos down to his onesie before putting the little apron on - since I forget to bring an extra set of clothes for the way home.

After playing with the water for awhile we made our way over to the Baby and Toddler Garden. Nikos played with the toy carrots in the garden and a few of the puzzles. He loved climbing in and out of this little playhouse (ha - only a 10%er could fit through that little entry hole!)

Here he spends time bouncing a ball against the wall. Where did he learn this? I think he is practicing to someday beat Pop-Pop at racquetball.

Next up the art room and by far Nikos' favorite exhibit in the whole place. He LOVED painting. I, of course, found it adorable so took way too many pictures. Enjoy our little budding Picasso.




Did I mention both of us ended up pretty much covered in paint? So fun! Good thing I was only wearing my "Knocked Up" shirt and Juicy sweats and not something fancy. The wall he was painting was like a dry erase board of sorts, that the staff could just wash down when the kids were finished. They also had little pieces of construction paper that you could pin up for the kids to paint and then hang them to dry and take them home. I think we will do this next time. We probably spent an hour in this room. He even enjoyed standing at the sink to be washed off - I think we went through the paint/wash cycle like three times.

After painting until our hearts were content, we headed over to the wind tunnel to play with the leaves, baskets and brooms. Niko spent most of the time putting the leaves into one of the baskets. Obviously he sees me piling a bunch of our junk into baskets at home and he has never seem me sweep, so he was stumped on what to do with the broom. (I am sure if they would have had an iron in this exhibit he would have been equally confused.)

After the wind tunnel we headed over to the grocery store where Nikos piled a bunch of fruit into his cart. Much like real life, he avoided the vegetable section like it was the plague. I think he has been spending too much time with Uncle Vernie.

Next up - the trains! Here we worked on sharing (which we have had a bit of an issue with lately) but he did okay. At least he didn't try to knock anyone over or grab their train car.

...Sorry, had to take a small break from blogging to visit the Crayola website to see if their sidewalk chalk was edible...or at least nontoxic. While I have been blogging Nikos has been playing on his chalkboard and with his little plastic pumpkins. He just crawled over to me and his mouth was surrounded by green and the green chalk crayon was suspiciously missing from view. Good news is that all Crayola products are nontoxic and I found the Green chalk...well, most of it anyway...

After the trains we were back to the Space Shuttle. Nikos played with the controls and took a call from Mission Control. I think he I heard him saying "Houston, we don't have any problems."

After a few hours of play I packed Nikos up into the stroller and we walked home. He feel asleep on the way so I took advantage of it and stopped for a few slices at Gioia. What a perfect day!

Nikos Does His Best Taki Imitation

So we've been a sick household lately. I had bronchitis forever and now Taki is sick. It looks like Nikos is just trying to fit in.

Happy Election Day!

Two Election Day Tips from Nikos.

Vote Early.

Bathe Often.

A Weekend to Make Bubba Gump Proud...Shrimp Swim Class and Garlic Shrimp

We kicked off a wonderful rainy weekend with Niko's last Shrimp swim class. Grammy and Pop-Pop joined us and I flouted the rules and had Grammy get in the pool with us. Ha! The pictures aren't the best quality since my dad was taking them through the viewing window but I thought I would share them anyway.

I think this one was taken during the Wheels on the Bus. Nikos is laughing because he loves the song and my mom and I are laughing because the Berkeley lyrics. Instead of the babies on the bus crying "waah waah waah" the babies on the bus laugh "Ah ha ha, ah ha ha!" In addition, the parents in Berkeley would never "shh shh shh" their kids on the bus so the parents say "I love you, I love you." Hee hee! Since this is our second round of swim classes I had gotten used to the lyrics, my mom on the other hand had to be quickly corrected when she had the children on the bus crying.


Here's my mom and Nikos during the Hokey Pokey. I made her do all the heavy lifting.

Sunday found us at the End-of-Summer Rib (and Shrimp) Party at the Kienzle Family Clubhouse. Attendees included the Roberts Five, the Romios family + Grandma Linda as well as special guests Gai, Christian and Brayden. I know, I know, November 2nd is hardly the end of summer...I think my dad was going by the Australian seasons or something. I guess when you have 2 kids, 4 grandkids and multiple vacations its hard to find a free weekend.

Here's a cute picture of Kira as she is about to start off on her wounded man army crawl. I would also like to title this picture - Look at this cute outfit that Baby Romios #2 will be wearing next year!


The Kienzle Family Clubhouse makes great use of its abundant outdoor space. Although there recently have been some aesthetic changes to the Spooky Forest...all changes have been approved by Maile.

Nikos and Maile enjoy the sand feature of the Clubhouse. Here they learn hand-to-eye coordination as well as sharing.


As evidenced by the shovel full of sand that Nikos just dumped on his own head, Nikos is still working on the coordination aspect.


Busy at the outdoor art feature, Mason water paints some rocks. (In case you hadn't guessed, Taki and I have had a few preschool tours lately and I am picking up the lingo...)


After enjoying dinner al fresco, the kids enjoyed music time with guest teacher Miss Gail. (This followed geography and science time where the tag team of Miss Melanie and jr. teacher Miss Maile taught the kids about Mt. Everest, food chains and flying cranes. We won't mention the failed teachings of Mr. Taki - which involved telling the kids that the crane was a stork and that Ross Webber was a paleontologist. In the interest of full disclosure, he did have the job correct for Ross, Miss Gail just had to correct him that his last name was Gellar. And he was correcting Miss Heather when I told the kids that Indiana Jones was an paleontologist. Damn! Of course, lest you think Miss Gail is little-miss-perfect, the her music time involved the beat to Baby Got Back or something of that vein.

Mason, Kira, Brayden and Nikos.


Kira and Brayden pose for a picture.

Walking the Lion