The Lombardi Spot

Annie’s Birthday

As an icebreaker, they had each kid say their name and then have them knock down this padded ramp.

They they played a game of following simple fun instructions involving a little red cloth.

Meanwhile, Claire sorta did her own thing.

And the parents were up against the wall with their cameras.

One of the hardest things for Matthew was to stand still on the little spot.

Then they did a little tumble routing, each person taking a turn.

They also had some yummy cake and played with balloons. It was a lot of fun and what a treat Annie had to spend her Birthday with friends in such a exciting place.

The Claw

Perhaps I should create a photo album of all of Claire’s defense moves and we can start the Claire School of Self Defense. Even while brother is using both hands to immobilize her, she manages to perform the claw move.

A Veggie Cross

Recently, Matthew has found it fun to eat some food items with a toothpick. It started when we sampled some sausages at Costco. They used the little toothpicks to serve them. I served the little slices of sausage on a plate and he wanted to eat them with a “stick”. It took forever to figure out what he wanted because it had already been days since our Costco trip and we had long forgot. Matthew kept saying “stick, stick!”. And he wouldn’t eat the sausages. In our normal manner we probably said something like, “no, we’re not playing with sticks right now, eat the sausage”. But he was very insistent and pointing up above the microwave saying “stick”. Well, we keep the toothpicks above the microwave and after deep blank thought, and by the grace of God I finally, I realized he wanted to eat the sausages with a toothpick. “Oh, you mean a toothpick?” Matthew agreed. So now he likes to eat various foods with a toothpick. He pleasantly surprised us recently when he suddenly said, “look, Jesus cross.” And we turned to see his veggies put to good use. And he ate his veggies too. Click Here for all photos of Matthew and the Veggie Cross.

Sayrah’s Photo Shoot

Here we asked Matthew to put his head real close to her.

This is very typical of Claire to get excited and bang on something. But isn’t she just adorable when she’s doing it? Oh yeah, we should discourage this behavior. Oops, I was distracted by her cuteness.

She Looks So Innocent

Sometimes Matthew grabs her and because she’s just starting to walk she can easily fall over and get hurt. Sometimes we hear her crying and we come to see the aftermath, but we’re not quite sure what happened. Here’s a photo of a precarious situation. Looks lovely and sweet, but it’s really an unstable situation. We just hope Claire can survive her brother’s hugs.

Oh, okay, here’s that sweet girl that we signed up for. This is what makes every bad moment worth the trouble.

Click Here to See the entire Gallery

Photos from Jenn

Jenn is taking some photos these days. Some of them sat on her point and shoot HP camera for nearly a year. Here’s a photo of Matthew and I at his 2nd birthday party. Yeah, it’s old considering he’s now 3 years old. So it’s actually amusing to see how different Matthew looks. There’s also some photos of Jenn while she was pregnant with Claire. Click Here for the Gallery of Jenn’s Photos

Grapes Can Harm Your Children

My wise wife has always been on my case about grapes and not giving whole grapes to our children when they are too young. I resistively followed her advice, cutting grapes into quarters whenever we would serve them. On most grocery outings we would skip the grapes altogether because Jenn just didn’t want to have the stress of knowing that a stray grape might be left under a couch for Clarie to choke on. Currently we struggle with my mother, who still insists on giving cherry tomatoes to Claire. Well, very recently, a young boy choked on a grape in San Jose and is has a severely damaged brain as a result. Read the story at the Mercury News and tell me if your not now convinced that foods like grapes, hotdogs, popcorn, cherry tomatoes can be a severe choking hazard for kids. Baby Boy Chokes On Grape Consider, it’s one thing to cut them up, but also consider that if you have older kids even though they may be old enough to eat them whole, it’s very easy for the parent to be distracted, leave the older child to eat his grapes, and then find that the older child had left the bowl of grapes on the floor and the younger one is crawling to get them! To alleviate the stress of having to keep track of where individual grapes, etc may roll, you may find Jenn’s position easier. Don’t buy grapes until all your children are old enough that they are not a choking hazard.

My Brother’s Blog

My brother Mike started a new blog where he describes daily experiences as a “fractional pilot”. His life involves spending an entire week flying the country and then an entire week back at home. So a fraction of his life is spent in the air, at airports, hotels, and interesting cities around the country and some of the nearby vacation islands. He’s a pilot for a private jet company that provides private jet service for people able to pay the huge price tag. So he’s often in nice vacation spots and interesting small airports, describing his experiences. His latest experiences include hurricanes, secret service agents, mexican cola, huge yachts, and more. For someone who probably barely passed English courses in high school, he has a very nice writing style too. Click Here for Mike Lombardi’s Blog

Dominic Accident and Recovery

A little boy had a bike accident with a car which caused serious injuries. We first became aware of it because of our church email prayer list. He’s recovering now and learning to do many things over again. He can’t move his right side much at all, he’s going through speech therapy and many other things. It really tugs at our hearts because we also have a small little boy and parents have so many hopes and dreams for the life of their child that you can only imagine how your whole life is derailed because of things like this. The parents put up a website where you can see some photos of Dominic at his birthday party and updates on his condition. The website has ways to donate money. Please support and pray for them if you are compelled to do so. Dominic’s Blog and Website

Claire’s Morning Routine

Jenn will get up and use the restroom while I sit, drinking my latte, and eating my sandwich. Claire is used to Jenn being by her side and so Claire inevitably begins to awaken and sometimes make her fussy noises and sometimes not. But she will soon notice my sandwich and make her way towards it, even with eyes mostly closed. If she was making fussy noises, they stop as she becomes focused on getting my sandwich.

Some mornings I’m more prepared to break off a piece, and other mornings she just grabs the whole thing. Then I have to fight my way to get some. But in every case, she is not interested in eating the sandwich. She wants to open the bread, and pick out the cut pieces of fruit that are gooey with peanut butter and honey. What’s left is a couple pieces of bread with some peanut butter and honey, and Claire with hands and mouth full of the same. Thankfully, the baby wipes are in reach for both diaper changes and situations like this.

It’s funny to watch her because she’s still half a sleep, but very content to do this routine. It’s a fair compromise, considering she would otherwise cry away while Jenn is using the restroom and getting some warmer morning clothes on. Now I just have to remember to cut a piece ahead of time because this routine of Claire’s is becoming more common.

The funny thing about this, is that it is very similar to Matthew’s routine when Matthew was Claire’s age. However, he would not take the sandwich apart. Claire is truly a very unique and special little girl.