Christmas Card

In order to save a little money so we could donate it to a local charity for the holidays, we decided to cut back and send out ecards for Christmas. Since we do not have everyone's email address we decided to post our pictures and letter on our blog and facebook too. I know it is a little cheesy but with a new baby it has worked out for the best! Hope you enjoy our Christmas ecard.Merry Christmas and Happy New Year 2010. The Pulcinis have had a busy year. Our biggest news of 2009 was the birth of our second child – Isaac John Pulcini on September 24th. He has been a blessing from God, laid back and full of smiles. Grantham, who is now three, is growing and discovering new things each day. He started pre-school two days a week and is thriving as he learns to write his letters and numbers – though being 100% boy, he mostly enjoys “racing the other racers” in the gym. In addition, he is taking his role as ‘big brother’ very seriously and loves dancing, singing and playing with his little brother. John is enjoying his Allergy-Immunology Fellowship which is rapidly coming to an end in June 2010. His growing interest and research in pediatric food allergy has become recognized by many of his colleges in the allergy world. He is looking forward to a career treating allergic diseases in children and adults. Tabitha is busy being a “stay-at-home” mom of two young boys (which as anyone who has children knows – does not involve staying at home much). She is active in our church Sunday school, the spouses of medical residents/fellows group, along with fitting in a little time once in a while for her favorite past-time: scrapbooking. If you would like to keep up with our family, we have a blog at pulcinifamily.blogspot.com. We would love to hear from you and hope you enjoy celebrating the birth of our King, Jesus Christ.
Merry Christmas
Love, John, Tabitha, Grantham and Isaac

Santa

I hate to admit it but I am seriously slacking when it comes to taking pictures. We have been planning on getting professional pictures done but still have not found the time, maybe after Christmas. Here are a few pictures from when we went to see Santa.
Santa was wonderful! He ask Grantham what he wanted to which Grantham replied Swords. They talked a little bit about Christmas magic and a book Grantham has about Santa. Then before we left Santa reminded Grantham to obey his mom and dad the first time. What a great reminder for a little boy who is easily distracted by all the "gimmes" that this time of year encourages! I also realized how little we have talked about Santa until this year. Grantham was kind of in the dark. It has been fun for him to discover a few facts about Santa and the naughty and nice list! While all these new discoveries have been fun, I hope we still continue to emphasize the importance of Jesus' birth over the holiday that has been taken over with by Santa. We wish you all a very Merry Christmas as you celebrate this wonderful time of year with family and friends!

October - Halloween festivities

Pumpkin Carving - This was our first year to carve a pumpkin. Usually we go to a pumpkin patch and pick out a "special" pumpkin that we then have to carry around the rest of the day. So typically we encourage Grantham to pick out a small pumpkin. This year with Isaac being so young and the weather being VERY rainy we just went to Walmart to pick out our pumpkin. We decided since the picking of the pumpkin was uneventful we would try our hand at carving one.

The picture below is Grantham cleaning off the pumpkin, preparing it to be carved.Daddy did the honors of cutting off the top of the pumpkin and cleaning it.At first Grantham was hesitant to put his hands in to help clean out all the goop.Caution did not last long and he dung in shoulder deep.Grantham found a "carving" knife in our kitchen draw (it was actually a decorative cheese knife -much like a butter knife- we received as a gift from a neighbor for Christmas last year, but he called it his carving knife). He talked about how he was going to carve the pumpkin with it for a week. We thought "What is the harm? He can't really cut a pumpkin with a butter knife" Boy were we wrong. Grantham stabbed that knife so hard it went completely through the pumpkin, leaving a pretty large cut that we then had to use as a part of our pumpkins face:) Never underestimate a determined young boy! Mommy got to do the honors of carving the face on the pumpkin.Our finished product - not too bad for our first carving experienceI am apart of a medical alliance here in MS and each year they throw a few parties for resident and fellows kids. This was a really fun part of this year's Halloween party. Instead of the kids "trick or treating" they dumped about 30 bags of candy on the floor and let the kids dig in. Most of the children are younger than Grantham and this turned out to be the highlight of the whole party. The picture below is of the candy being dumped as the kids waited and watched. yGrantham wasted NO time diving in. He filled his treat bag to the top!John and I started a family tradition of dressing up each Halloween. We have been Cowboys, Doctors, and Pirates. This year Grantham choice the costumes. Can you guess who we are?The Incredibles of course! Grantham loved telling everyone that we were going to be a whole family of "Supers" for Halloween. We even recruited a neighbor girl to be Violet (the older sister Grantham (I mean Dash) doesn't have. If you haven't seen the show the Incredibles you should rent it and have a good laugh at our expense - we hardly look like the characters - although I am proud of how the costumes turned out. One more quick story, Grantham on the morning of Halloween told John he needed to "muscle up." (You see Mr. Incredible is a very strong/large man) We were going to "stuff" John's arms and legs but decided at the last minute against it.A really cute picture of Grantham fighting a "bad guy."Even Isaac dressed up as Baby Jack Jack We had so much fun as a family of Supers. Grantham did a great job of choosing our costumes. I don't know if we will be able to continue the family tradition, but this year was a big success!

Below is another blog I added today. I am trying to catch up.

October - Isaac is one month

Isaac is officially one month. My mom made some adorable matching outfits for the boys. You have to look closely at Grantham's shirt to see the cute sailboats that are just like his brother's. Grantham is getting a little to old for the typical smocked outfits that my mom makes so we are "expanding" our horizons. These new shirts are Polo's with one small smocked image placed where the pocket would typically be. I love them. The boys can have matching outfits for a few years:) These pictures were so much fun to take. After church one day the weather was beautiful so we went in our backyard and used the side of our house for the backdrop. Grantham was in a great mood and kept asking us to take more and more pictures of Isaac and him. Grantham loved having Isaac pose next to him.

Isaac at one monthCould anything be sweeter than this?The best picture we have taken of Grantham (since he started wrinkling his nose and squinting when we try to get him to smile)

Hanging out together

One of the greatest blessing of having two children is watching them discover each other. Grantham has proved to be a wonderful big brother and although during the first two weeks he did ask if we could send Isaac back (I explained that God wanted him to have a brother), now when I ask him to do something to help me with the baby he says "of course anything for my baby brother." In the following pictures the boys are just hanging out being boys (melting their mother's heart)! Talking in Mommy and Daddy's bed. Waiting for their parents to get them dressed for the day!

This picture looks a little scary but it was very endearing in person (snuggle time).

We had many people come visit, bring meals and just offer to rock the baby during the first month of Isaac's life. It was such a blessing! Here is a picture of my sister and brotherinlaw reading to the boys one evening.

Bath Time

For those of you with more than one child this will not be a surprise. But for me with previously only one, who loves his baths, bath time has become a little stressful. This was Isaac's first real bath. I don't know if you can tell from the pictures (I tried to chose internet appropriate ones) but Grantham sat in our large master bath without water while I reached over into the "baby" tub to clean Isaac. I thought having big brother in the tub with us would be a great distraction HA. This turned into the shortest bath time ever! Grantham had a great time splashing Isaac and helping Mommy with the baby. The baby endured:) Hopefully future baths will include Papa and a happier baby! Grantham helping wash his baby brother. I am constantly amazed at how helpful and grown up Grantham is (of course he still likes to jump over his little brother when he is laying on the ground but for the most part he has been a huge help and blessing).

Two Brothers Meet

Sorry I am a little behind with pictures. But I know that everyone understands. I am going to try to catch up over the next day or two:) Here are some cute pictures of when the boys met for the first time. Grantham stayed with his grandparents in Georgia while I was in the hospital. Sunday evening Grantham returned home. In order that he could be the first to welcome his brother home, John, Isaac and I drove around the neighborhood so Grantham and Nana could "beat us home from the hospital." When I walked in with Isaac in my hands, the first thing Grantham said was "what is that?" (with an ever so sarcastic tone) Needless to say he warmed up to Isaac quite quickly. For the first week, behavior was questionable as we went through a million be carefuls and don't do that to OR with the baby. But as you can see from the pictures it was love at first sight. our favorite "shshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh"

Sorry I didn't turn this picture.

Isaac John Pulcini

He's Here!

Isaac John Pulcini - born September 24th 2009 at 7:35am.

Weight 7lbs 10oz and length 20.5 inches.

One Mile Family Fun Run

Grantham and his daddy ran in a one mile race two weeks ago. Grantham was so excited and told everyone HE was going to win. John said that Grantham did great the first half mile but then got distracted at the water break area (saying hi to everyone and checking out the police cars). On the way back to the finish line (3/4 mile), Grantham realized that he didn't have his water cup and made daddy go back to get it. Needless to say Grantham did not come in first. In fact, he even took a few stops to wave the police car behind him to "pass." Daddy tried to explain the police were there to keep other cars from hurting him but Grantham just kept insisting that the car pass him:) We are very proud though because our three year old was the youngest participate to complete the race! After the race was over we asked Grantham would he want to do this again and he said NO. I guess it is back to sprinting for this family:)

Before the race
At the starting line, Grantham did not like the loud gun shot that started the race

A great picture someone from our church took of Grantham

What a great stride:)

Right before he crossed the finish line (there were two people who finished behind him-one was his daddy)

Crossing the finish line!

Finished the baby's room, NOW Counting Down

With the baby' s room finally done, we are in count down mode T minus 5 days!!!! Keep an eye here for pictures of the new baby. John will probably post them for me.

Grantham has been so excited about his new baby brother, Isaac. We decided to make a chain to help him understand how much longer he had until the baby arrived - this is the chain when we first started it about a month ago.The baby bed and view when you first enter the room.To the right of the bed is this chair. Beside the chair is a little bookcase that has been used over and over - I am pretty sure it was used in my room when I was a baby.


as you leave the room, the changing table. Hope you enjoyed the tour of the baby's room - we had a blast creating it!

School Days

If you are connected to my Facebook, you already know this. Grantham had a wonderful first day of "school." We decided that it was time for Grantham to be in a structured environment besides home. With the baby on the way, I knew I could use some down time and Grantham could use some special attention. Convincing Grantham that school was going to be fun was a challenge at first. he kept saying that he just wanted to stay home with Mommy and snuggle. Such a sweet thought but so far from reality of what would really happen:) Anyway, he goes two days a week for about 3 hours. With two days under our belts, the first day being wonderful and the second day a little of a struggle, we are hopeful that "school" is the right fit for our family. Below are a few first day of school pictures. Showing off his new backpack that he picked out.I love the pictures of the kids walking away (either to the bus or into the school). Since Grantham and I walked into school together the first two days, I took this picture to mimic the walking away pictures:) Still adorable even though it was staged!Grantham went straight into class and began working/playing. Even though there were other kids crying around him, he seemed unaffected. He even asked another little boy who was crying if he wanted to play with him. He gave me a kiss goodbye, waved once and went right back to work. I am such a proud Mommy!!!! I hope everday is that easy. When I picked him up, he ran right to me and said " I had fun." (code words for I will try this school thing out again)

A few pictures just because:

Grantham's first person drawing. While we waited to see the OB, we pulled out the crayons to write on the paper covering the exam table. Usually we draw letters or I draw balloons but today Grantham decided to draw someone with a big belly (wonder who that could be:) ). I was quite surprised. This is totally his creation without any direction from me. I had never seen him draw a person before.

Grantham loves helping his dad mow the lawn. Thanks to the man across the street they were able to have a special treat and use a riding lawn mower. If you look closely Grantham is mowing by himself (there are circles all over the lawn)!