Have you met Leonardo?

I've been meaning to do an exclusive blog just on Leonardo for the longest time... I always feel bad because we don't seem to take many pictures of him, yet he's so darn cute!

I hope you'll enjoy these pictures of Leonardo. He's such a precious boy and always so happy!



The videos are not the greatest quality because we have resorted to using our phones ever since our camera died, but they show some pretty cute moments of the little guy. I added some of when he was young just to show how he has grown. (Just click on the video to watch... I think there are 12 altogether.)

Belated Update

Well folks, with the completion of my STL, I can finally get to some of these things that I have put off.

We haven't updated our blog in six months, so I basically just went through and added a collage of photos. Our digital camera broke sometime in the last 6 months, so we rely on our phones. There are quite a few photos (I think 75), so take your time and enjoy! (Too much has happened in the last six months to summarize here, so I'm hoping the pictures will tell the stories.)

God Bless you all was we await the celebration of Christ's Birth!

We're way behind

Sorry for the long pause! Even though we will soon be seeing most of the family and friends who view this blog, here is a quick update via pictures and videos.



And two amazingly cute videos:

From My Videos

From My Videos

Our House (Part 2)

There is only one more video of the house: the backyard. Not included in the videos is the ground-floor basement that is not finished. It is used for a work-out room and another play room for the boys. The apartment is the last part of the house. It is just a one-bedroom, but it is cute and perfect for Naomi, our nanny. It is an ideal situation. Again, God has tremendously blessed us.



And we found some bonus videos (they were on Theresa's phone):

In the first video Leonardo is only 3 months old.




He was 4 months old in these last two.


Actually, no, Louis did not shrink, that is just an incredibly large chair... you know, kids are so much bigger these days that they have to accommodate with an over-sized chair.


Isn't he such a sweetie?



This last video was just taken this morning. Louis actually started singing this song in bed before we let them out of their room. Gregory chimed in and they were actually singing in unison. We asked them to sing it again for the camera... The funny thing is, they've only seen that show once at their cousins and it was a while ago. I don't even know the name of the show, but they obviously liked the song!

Our House (Part 1)

Well, we're finally getting around to uploading videos of the house. Sorry it has taken us so long, but here you go! Our camera was full after doing this first group, so we'll post another blog with Part 2. Let me just say that we are incredibly blessed to have this house and are grateful to God for his continued generosity to us, his little ones. Enjoy! (It takes about 3 and a half minutes.)










Did you see poor little Louis trying to get in? You can even hear his faint call for mommy. Most of the time all he really has to do is push on the door, but he hasn't learned that yet.

Mardi Gras!

Here's a little look at how the Martin's spent their Mardi Gras:

Finally Updated!

Sorry for the long pause... here are the much awaited updated pictures of Leonardo. The poor little guy doesn't get his picture taken much, but alas, we can only do so much! Leonardo has been a very healthy little boy and has been cooing and smiling at us for some time now. He will finally be baptized on March 7th at our Parish here in Metairie.



Gregory and Louis have been getting along very nicely with each other and have been excellent big brothers to Leonardo. Here are a few pics of them... our camera hasn't gotten a whole lot of use these days as you can see!



Finally, here are a couple of short videos of Leonardo:

The video's a little dark, but it's cute to hear Gregory say Leonardo's name!


In this video Leonardo is getting a lesson from Daddy on how to laugh. Daddy's not so good at it considering the cough that he's had...

Finally, for those of you who would like to see videos of our new home... well, we're still unpacking. We've got pictures up in one room of the house, but it's still a work in progress. Thanks for visiting our blog!

God Bless,

Pete, Theresa, Gregory, Louis & Leonardo!

We're home... again

Well, we made it safely to New Orleans... Praise God! Thank you all for your prayers! We had a lot more work packing the POD than we at first thought, so our departure time was delayed by five hours... we left at midnight and drove a total of 150 miles the first 5 hours! The fact that we had been moving boxes for 7 hours straight on top of the fact that we were both up late the night before made for some pretty rough driving conditions and we spent quite a bit of those hours parked at Rest Areas. It's funny because I decided to drive at one point in the wee hours of the morning and made it as far as the next rest stop! We didn't get to Atlanta until 3 or so the next afternoon.

I was able to get some sleep there and thanks to that and good strong coffee, was able to drive straight through the night to New Orleans. We were exhausted, but we are very glad to be home.

We slept a few hours that morning and then later that afternoon visited our new house:


It is a huge old house with a lot of charm. We look forward to moving in next week when our POD arrives.

We're home!

There is so much excitement in our home! Little Leonardo is such a cutie and the boys just love him! He's doing just fine... we all had dinner together and Gregory and Louis are very excited and already want to know when he can start playing with them. Here are a couple of recent pictures:

Benvenuto Leonardo Benedetto!

We are pleased to announce the arrival of the third Martin boy: Leonardo Bendetto. Leonardo arrived at 7:27am on November 7th, 2008. He weighed 7lbs, 3 oz. and had blond fuzz. Theresa labored for a very long time and gave birth to Leonardo naturally after only 2 pushes (she was amazing, much to the doctor's dismay who didn't have time to get his gloves on... they in fact told Theresa to stop pushing... yeah, right)!

Leonardo is named after Pete's maternal grandfather Leonard and Pope St. Leo the Great. Benedetto is Italian for Benedict, our current Pope. Leonardo has not "transitioned" well and has been in NICU. His breathing was fast and his blood sugar was low. Being that he was born 1 day before the 38th week, he is technically considered a premie, but all is well now. They just want to make sure that everything is perfect before allowing him into the room with Theresa (which should be soon).

We hope to have Theresa and Leonardo join us at home tomorrow (Sunday), but who knows. Theresa's mother Liz will visit on Monday and stay the week and then my parents will be in town on the 18th and stay for a week. We thank everyone for your prayers and will update this with more pictures when we have Leonardo closer to us!




































Gregory and Louis love to visit and play in the room... they're anxious to meet Leonardo... they saw him from a distance, but since they've both had colds recently, they're not allowed into NICU.

Happy 2nd Birthday Louis!

There has been a lot of excitement around this place! Louis turned two and has also turned into our mockingbird... he repeats everything!



We also celebrated All Saints Eve. The boys got a head start -- on Thursday Sarah, one of the interns at Pete's work, invited us over to the campus of Catholic University to Trick-or-Treat. Here is Buzz Lightyear and his little buddy, Woody... what a couple of cuties!



We've had some very good news lately... Pete was asked to continue his work "remotely" because they were unable to find someone to replace him. He is anxious to get his laptop so that he can work from home although I'm sure he'll really miss going in to work everyday! ;)

The new baby seems anxious to see what all the excitement is about as he continues to push on his mommy and make it uncomfortable (to say the least). The doctors have decided to induce early to help relieve mommy's pain which is great news for all of us as we are all anxious to meet "rocket baby".

With this news (we just found out yesterday)... we have decided to move down to New Orleans early! Pete is going to postpone the defense of his thesis, but will finish the semester of classes. His plan to take time off by calling in sick with a bad case of the "Gottawriteathesis" virus didn't really seem like such a good idea considering the fact that they were nice enough to keep him on! Anyway, he'll finish his thesis and defend it in the Spring.

It will be nice to be home again especially with three children! Please pray for us... we have found the cutest house that we would just love to move into on the first of the year, but we need your prayers to make it work! Thank you!

If you made it this far... here's a couple of treats for you!

Theresa's New Car!

Most everyone has already seen Theresa's Car through e-mail, but I wanted to post the pictures here. In case you're unaware, Theresa earned this brand new 2009 Saturn Vue with her hard work as a Mary Kay Director. It's an amazing accomplishment! Way to go Theresa!


Oh and I added more pictures to Cute Louis' album... he turns two in just two weeks! He is just becoming such a cutie... don't get me wrong, he's always been cute, but he's only recently shown us his cute and unique personality.

Life

Here are a few cute videos of the boys...

From Cute videos

From Cute videos

From Cute videos

Just having fun

A special delivery arrived for Gregory just two days after his surgery and it was such a blessing because it was the first time he was able to laugh. He was so excited to receive both cookies and balloons! Here is a video of both he and Louis playing.



Here are a few pictures from yesterday's fun. With the new baby arriving in just 13 weeks, we were discussing the new sleeping arrangements. The boys came up with a unique solution:

Busy July

July was a busy month for us. We celebrated the 4th of July with friends and also re-celebrated Gregory's birthday as well as my own (Pete).



We also attended John and Kristen's wedding in Pittsburgh. Yeah John and Kristen!! It was a great time:



Here's a cute video of Louis dancing... it's a little misshaped because the camera was turned, but it's still cute.



Now look at the video again and notice the boy behind Louis. That's his cousin Daniel Roy. Here's how he gets his groove on:



And then after that, we flew down to New Orleans where Gregory and Louis got to hang out with Nanna and Grandad and all the cousins while Mom and Dad flew to Dallas for the Annual Mary Kay Seminar:

"I think it's going to be a Louis"

That is a direct quote from Gregory after being asked whether he's going to have a baby sister, or a baby brother. We found out that he's right, it's a boy! Below are some images of the 20 week old baby boy. Please pray that he continually grow strong and healthy.

Oh, by the way, Theresa did earn the car!!!



Gregory and Louis got an additional piece of furniture to go with their new BBQ. Daddy built them a picnic table which is just the right size for them.

Happy 3rd Birthday, Gregory!

Gregory had a very exciting birthday and would love to share it with you:



Here's a video especially for Grandad and Nanna.



Thank you everyone who made this a great day for Gregory!

Celebration Time!

Excitement is in the air at the Martin household. Theresa and I celebrate 7 wonderful years together today, Gregory turns 3 on Friday, someone else turns 31 the following week and John Slattery is getting married to Kristen next month! The new baby is growing strong and healthy (we'll do the 20 week ultrasound soon). And Theresa's business continues to grow strong. She's going to earn her first new car soon! (See the Saturn Vue below) We're all looking forward to that and we constantly are amazed by the good work she has done!



Louis has become the little entertainer. Check out these next two videos to see a glimpse at how our household has changed now that Louis has discovered "his own voice."

--WARNING-- this first video contains children screaming. We would advise that you turn the volume down (or off) and if there are small children watching who may have a tendency to copy what they see, you may not want them to watch.





--FURTHER WARNING-- the following video was too funny for Gregory to handle on a full stomach and hence was cut short because his father had to clean up the mess. Again, if there are small children watching, we would advise that they not watch this while eating or drinking.



So, while Louis is busy entertaining in his own way, Gregory has been learning all sorts of new songs that both he and Louis love to sing. Here's Gregory singing "Three little monkeys." Much thanks goes to our wonderful babysitter who has taught the boys many of these songs!



Theresa loves the way Gregory says "Doctor". Since you're probably going to play the video again now, Gregory worked really hard at learning how to make the telephone... the sheep in the middle of the song comes from Louis who's playing with a farm ... and don't you just love how Gregory finishes his songs?


Finally, a special thanks to Grandma and Grandpa for visiting... we always love to see you!

Viva il Papa!

As promised, here are the photos of the Papal Mass:



Gregory and Louis wanted to do something special for their cousins, Nate and Zach who turn 5 today:

Pete meets the Pope!

There will be more pictures of the Pope's visit (especially since we got to go to the Mass as a family), but I wanted to show off this one right away. I just received it this morning from the Vatican (their photographer took this photo).

So, what the photo doesn't reveal is that I actually shook the Pope's left hand (since the fellow in front of me was kissing his ring.)!! What did you say to him, you ask? Well it was the man's birthday, what do you think I said? "Happy Birthday", of course! What an amazing experience and how blessed I am to have met both JP II and now Pope Benedict!