Catch up Time

Wow, it's been a long time since I have posted. Things around here have been crazy for the most part. Shortly after my last blog, Sam was offered an unbelievable job opportunity at PwC which to most of our friends will ring a bell from counting ballots for awards shows. ;-) The other half of our friends know exactly what I mean. It was an opportunity which came out of the blue so you have believe things happen for a reason. He will be spending most of his time developing the Washington DC metro healthcare market so for that reason, we decided to take advantage of the relocation package and put the house on the market with the goal of moving to northern VA. Before putting the house on the market, we put up a new fence, ripped the final wallpaper out of the house and had the upstairs bath painted, framed out the upstairs bathroom mirror, and staged the house following what seemed like a four page email from my mother.

So that is where we are, the house is on the market and the market is slow here so we will see when things happen. Now onto the kiddo updates. Hang in there because this is going to be a long one!


Early in March, we took a trip to DC to see great grandmother and for Sam and I to look at areas in northern VA. Grandma/Grandpa and GG/Papa met us there so it was wonderful to catch up with everyone and have some built in babysitting for Sam and I to go out with a realtor.

Mia showed off her piano skills again.
Days before our long drive to DC, Mia decided that she would potty train. I honestly think it was peer pressure as some of her older friends had started to but she took it very seriously. We spent a lot of time during this trip doing this.....
Mia is now fully potty trained with only an accident here and there and keeps dry most nights and naps too! Hats off to Mia for being such a big girl and putting her mind to it!

Cooper enjoyed his first visit to great great grandma's and enjoyed all of the attention.
Cooper was a trooper during our long trip and his second road trip. He slept most of the time, ate bottles quickly, and still "went to bed" at his regular time even though he was in the car.

On March 10th, we celebrated Mia's 2nd birthday. We can't believe our baby is already 2. The time really goes by fast. Mia celebrated her birthday with cupcakes at school and dancing in the afternoon showers with her new rain gear from grandma/grandpa and gg/papa.
Mia had her "friend" birthday part at the YMCA gymnastics center. To say she had a great time is an understatement. Here are Mia and Maddy on the parachute.
Mia, Peter (her school boyfriend in the striped shirt), and Ben in the "cheese pit."
And Mia and Nick (her play group boyfriend) on the trampoline.
We have been taking as much time as we can to enjoy the spring weather now that it is here. Mia loves the double stroller and Cooper is learning to love it too.
We walked down to the playground at Mia's school and Cooper had his first ride in a swing but I am not sure he knew what to think about it.
Cooper has been getting big fast. I am looking forward to his 4 month appointment but my guess is that he is at least 14-15 pounds which would put him 9/10 pounds away from 2 year old Mia! Here is Cooper practicing his rolling which he thinks is pretty cool. Although you can't tell from the front, Cooper needs a cranial band to help round out the back of his head. We pick it up on Monday so these will be some of the last pictures without his band on for a couple of months.
Uncle Meelad and Brooke came to visit last weekend. Sam and I should have gone away for the weekend because that is how uninterested Mia was in us with the two of them here. :-) Given that Meelad taught Mia how to play bowling last time, he thought that this time she should pick up playing pool. She is surprisingly good with Uncle Meelad's "help."
Cooper wore his orange to cheer on UT basketball while Meelad was here. But apparently it wasn't enough. Meelad...it's because you didn't wear your orange shirt! Sam taught Mia to say "it's just a game." We thought that was pretty funny but Uncle Meelad felt otherwise. Hope the ride home wasn't too bad Brooke!

Phew! That covers the last month or so. Hopefully will get around to posting more often this month. Happy Spring!

Happy 2 Months Cooper

We have had a lot of activity in this house over the last two months. Mom was here for 5 weeks with three trips from dad in the middle. Then GG and Papa came to visit. Now Auntie Erin has been here this week topped by Fran making a trip this evening. Mia has enjoyed all of the visitors and so have Sam and I. It's been a great help and allowed the two of us to get out on many "date nights."

Mia really enjoyed GG and Papa's visit. GG painted her finger nails and toe nails. They sang all sorts of songs together. And of course her favorite thing was making cookies.

Cooper is growing like a weed. We had his 2 month appointment today and he is 11 pounds 2 ounces and 22.25 inches tall. He is starting to sleep better at night which is great for both of us. He is officially smiling and "coo-ing" and he is working on his tummy time. I can't believe it but we are about to start using his 3-6 month clothing!

We have had quite the cold Charlotte winter thus far. Normally we have a few January and February days where you can break out the flip flops but not this year. In fact, it seems every time someone from Boston visits we have snow. The picture below is our snow from last Friday night. Enough to make a snow man!
This week Auntie Erin has been with us. Most of the week has looked like the below:
Auntie Erin has also done a number of art projects with Mia keeping her entertained as she hasn't felt so well this week.


Cooper and I have officially become mall walkers while Mia is at school....and sometimes Mia gets to come along. We try not to run down the older folks with our stroller. :-) Cooper likes to window shop as I get some well needed exercise in.

Hope everyone is well...till next time!

Welcome Cooper!

Sam, Mia, and I had the most wonderful Christmas present ever. Our little boy, Cooper Samuel, arrived 3 weeks early and in time to spend Christmas at home. We felt he would come early but didn't think he could come at 37 weeks. It was a wonderful surprise. Mommy had a quick and easy labor. If we decide to have a 3rd, let's hope we make it to the hospital in time! Cooper arrived weighing 6 pounds even and was 18 inches long.

Because Cooper was born just after midnight, we were given the option to come home technically a day early. We decided to take this option to get home to Mia as soon as we could. Mia was very happy to meet her little brother. She had waited so long for him to come out that I think she thought he never would appear.
This is pretty much what Cooper's first week looked like.....he's so handsome when he sleeps.

We had a wonderful Christmas complete with grandma and grandpa who arrived on Christmas Eve. Maybe next year, we will get a picture of the four of us all looking at the camera!
Mia and Cooper had matching pj's for Christmas morning courtesy of Auntie Lisa. Mia just loves to hold, hug, and kiss her little brother.
In other news, we have been blessed with Sam being able to take vacation during the holidays then start his paternity leave. During the last 3 weeks, we have been doing lots of things will Mia including her getting her first haircut....riding the bus with daddy, watching planes at the airport, and riding the Linx (subway) into uptown to have lunch with daddy.

Happy New Year to everyone!

Happy Holidays!

We have been busy this month. We are trying to finish last minute preparations for Cooper's arrival and making sure we have time to do all of the holiday related activities we can with Mia. Mia has been reading books about Santa since this summer. This was not our choice but her's. Now that the Christmas tree is up and we have been to "meet" Santa himself Mia is taking it more seriously. She will wake up in the morning or from naps and tell you about how "Santa brought toys for Mia and then went home." She appears to dream about getting cars and a slide. Good thing both of these happen to be on Santa's list. I do however wonder how long our little girl will believe in Santa. The one thing that is very unique about her is how observant she is for her age. You can already see the wheels turning in her head when she see's the different Santa's at the malls or the ymca. It's like she notices they look different and wonders what is going on. Next year should be interesting as I am sure she will verbalize more of what she is thinking.


This weekend we took a trip into "Uptown" as they call it here....really just downtown Charlotte to see the singing Christmas bears. Mia enjoyed dancing to the music and singing along to Jingle Bells which they have been learning at school. Below is a shot of Mia watching the bears last year and this year. It's amazing the different that one year can make!

Although, she enjoyed seeing the bears the highlight of her morning was riding up and down the escalators with daddy. Almost better than going to the airport. And just a side note, I have no idea why my text is underlined right now and I don't have the patience to figure it out. :-)
In terms of Cooper, we are just waiting now. Things are looking good and they expect me to make it until at least 37 weeks again (which is next week). We are hoping for his sake that he either comes a good 5 days before Christmas or waits until after Christmas so his birthday won't get lost in the mix by others. We will keep everyone updated. But until then have a great week and enjoy the holiday season!

Uncle Meelad "MeeMee" Comes to Visit

We had a great weekend here in the Hanna household. Not only was the weather beautiful but Uncle Meelad and his girlfriend Brooke came to visit us from UT. On Friday night, we had "faux" Thanksgiving complete with pies which was super yummy.
Saturday, we went to the park to play in the morning. Mia taught uncle "MeeMee" how to drive.

And in the afternoon, Uncle "MeeMee" taught Mia how to bowl.
Mia had a great time and actually got some pins down. She loved the ball return...
Fell in love with the computer...
But towards the end realized that if she laid on the floor she could feel the vibrations of the balls....which might have been her favorite activity until....
She found the driving game. She instructed daddy to "sit here" and away they went. Our little NASCAR driver.

Thank you to Meelad and Brooke for a great weekend and congratulations to Brooke for winning her first Monopoly game against the Hanna boys which deserves a trophy.

Below is me at 32.5 weeks. Counting down the time to Cooper's arrival! Have a great week!

Happy Halloween!

Mia started her Halloween with some good old pumpkin carving. She tried to eat the eye cut outs kind of like an apple. According to her, they were "yummy."



Then in the afternoon, Mia and Cooper got dressed up to go to a local church Halloween festival. Mia loved that baby "Pooper" was a baby pumpkin.

The festival had a wonderful set up for the preschool crowd including an obstacle course courtesy of My Gym. Mia went straight for flat ladder and climbed it like a champ.
Their tent set up was pretty cool too.
In the tent Mia caught up with her good friend Kathryn who was a kitty cat (you can't see her tail and as you can tell no one wanted to wear their hats because it was too hot.)
Mia amazed mommy and daddy by walking the plank all by herself. Maybe we have a gymnast on our hands?
Our Halloween unfortunately ended with playing with candy in the living room as it has been a total wash out of a Halloween night here. Mia agrees with daddy that KitKats are really "yummy" and is still talking about them in her crib as I type. :-)

Happy Halloween. Hope you had a great one!

September 2009

September is already over....where did it go!? As always, September is the busiest month of the year in the Hanna household. I will do my best to remember the highlights.



Mia had her first official day of preschool. She was a little unsure about the preschool thing in the beginning but now loves to go and chatters all the way home about all the things she did and the songs she sang. She is learning everyone's name, doing art every day, having music class, playing on the playground, and having a great time. Today I arrived to find them all participating in a homemade obstacle course which included squishy stairs, a tunnel, and a tent. They were all having a ball.







We celebrated Daddy's 33rd birthday. Mia now thinks that whenever you sing happy birthday that daddy is the one having the birthday. ;-) And yes this cake looks similar to Sam's birthday cake from last year but all he wants is pound cake!

Grandma and grandpa came to visit. Mia was soooo excited! She had lots of fun playing with grandma and grandpa, we went to the Greek festival where she enjoyed spinach pies for the first time, and Sam and I got a break from chasing her around the house (her favorite activity).

I hit up the September consignment sales and found some great fall/winter clothes and some Christmas presents for Mia. I might have gotten some things that Sam really likes too.....

Auntie Erin came to visit for mommy's 3oth birthday (thank you Jewish holidays).

Auntie Erin brought Mia her first dance outfit complete with new ballet shoes.

Auntie Erin taught Mia how to make cupcakes for mommy's birthday. Mia stirred and put the cupcake papers in the tin. She did a great job!

Overall, we had a great month. We are gearing up for Cooper's arrival. We have his room almost put together, crib, bedding, and all. Mia is learning at least a word a day and is using verbs wonderfully (running/run, walking/walk, broke, etc). It's really wonderful to watch her grow up.

Other pictures:

Me at 25 weeks (although now I am almost 27 weeks and have popped out a little more):

Mia's artwork from school:

Have a great week!