Caputo Family - Three + Zeee

This is being written by Steve...
Those of you who follow our blog know that Sara is the main family blogger.
Along with her own business blog - Radiant Organizing
(Sara says, "Thanks for the plug honey...")

Zackary Steven Caputo was born on 12/30 at 9:57am by a planned c-section. It was Dr. Shaikh's last delivery as an OB and it was nice to be part of that history. She doesn't know exactly how many deliveries she has done but she guessed it was around 6000!

All went well and he was a 9.9 on the apgar scale. Then Papa and Zack went down to the nursery to take his vitals and get his footprints

We hung out and had a chance to bond while Sara recovered in Labor and Delivery. One of the perks of working at the hospital is that I know a lot of people... One of the first projects I worked on here was helping the staff at the Goleta Birth Center transition to the Santa Barbara Hospital when that center closed - and it just happened that 3 of the nurses that took care of Sara and Zack were from that center... so it was nice to reconnect and they really took great care of them (and me too!)

Ben and Zack got to meet yesterday afternoon at about 4:30 and it was sweet to see them interact. Zack gave Ben a toy train as a "thank you for being my big brother gift" and Ben liked it alot - he went up to Zack and put his hand on his head and said, "Thank you Zack" at which point Zack cried and I sat down with Ben and explained how that's how he talks.

Later that night when I put Ben to bed he wanted a song and he wanted to sing Happy Birthday to Zack. Then Ben let out a screech of sorts and said that's how Baby Zack would say he liked it.

Zack has been feeding well and had his first Doctor's appointment and his circumcision - so he is resting right now - ready to hang out with Ben again today. If you want to walk down memory lane (Sara and I did) take a look at Ben's first post!

2007	2010

Minute to Win It Christmas Competition

Christmas night was rainy, cool and ripe for competition at the Caputo household this year. We held our first annual Minute to Win It game night and made pizza's, had lots of kids running around (all boys) and more wine & fudge than any one body should be allowed.

If you have never seen the show on NBC called Minute to Win It, then click HERE for a full preview. We chose 5 strategic holiday based games and spent 2 hours with 3 other couples battling it out... I think the Caputo's were the winners, weren't they? :) Didn't matter because it was a great way to spend Christmas night.... yummy food, good friends & lots of Steve's creative pizza-making... We are looking forward to the Spring re-match!

christmas day 2010

Christmas day was chiiilllly in Santa Barbara... it didn't stop us from having a great day though... our final Christmas day as a family of 3! (see the pic of our new baby's name)! :) We opened gifts, had a yummy breakfast, played at the beach, hit starbucks for hot cocoa & played endlessly with the new marble game/set/thingamajig that Ben got from Santa. Good thing he was a good boy because Ben is obsessed with this thing - I have never seen anything hold his attention longer. It's fantastic! :) Ben got me slippers for Christmas, which I absolutely love... it's official, I am old!

Part 2 of Christmas Day coming soon!

christmas eve 2010

We had a great night with Steve's brother and family in Simi Valley on Christmas Eve... our traditional Cioppino dinner, gifts, church and home to Santa Barbara to put out cookies (for Santa), carrots & celery (for Rudolph & Blitzen) and write a special note to Santa (if you click on the note, you can read it better). I love the picture of Ben & Steve in intense conversation about what to write to Santa... pictures tell the story of our evening from the bottom up!

Hodge Podge weekend review

It was a wild & wintry weekend here in Santa Barbara... rain, rain, rain. I love it! :) We went to the Winter Funderland at the Museum of Natural History (where Steve & I were married) and had a ball on Saturday... so many fun things to do... gingerbread house-making, Santa with reindeer (for free as opposed to the ridiculous price of Santa downtown), storytelling, planetarium time, singing and lots of puddle jumping for the boys!

We also did some shopping, gift-wrapping and had Steve's Annual Holiday Party for Cottage Hospital on Saturday night. Ben was in a crafty mood (which doesn't happen very often) so he and Jacquie (our sitter) made a gingerbread house while we enjoyed ourselves at the party and our final social event of the year before the baby comes! (T-minus 11 days!) :)

weekend wrap-up

It was such an odd weekend here... odd as in... Christmas is 2 weeks away and it was over 80 degrees today. Bleck! From bottom to top, the pictures tell the story of a great weekend in spite of the heat...

Book Club Adult Party -- I am part of an awesome book club and we decided to have an adult holiday party this year... was so fun and festive... adults only, left the kids at home and did what we do best - gabbed, drank, ate and laughed! The pictures are very random because my battery died near the beginning of the night. :( Might have been a good thing. :)

On Saturday, after what very well could be my final workout at the Y, (this baby is coming in 2 weeks so having to pee every 5 minutes doesn't let me get such a great workout in anymore) we ran a ton of errands, stopped & saw Santa so Ben could specifically tell him that he wants a marble game (?), home for rest, Steve's bro & wife and kiddos came for an overnight. The purpose was to stay here and the guys were going to run the Santa to the Sea 1/2 Marathon early on Sunday morning together. We went to Pizza Guru (our new fave pizza joint) and enjoyed a fun night and slumber party together of lots of screaming kids and giggling.

Sunday morning, Mike & Steve hit the road at 5 am to get to the start in Ventura and the rest of us joined them at the finish line around 10 am. The heat was HORRIBLE and while no personal bests were set, the guys had a blast and it was a really fun event to watch. They even had a large pile of snow! Costumes were encouraged and while some were hilarious and creative, Mike's "Christmas Tree" costume took the cake!

Was so great to hang out with all of them - this is Steve's sixth & final 1/2 marathon of the year ~ with another kiddo on the way, he's unsure of what it'll look like next year, but my guess is that he'll be hitting a few races. We noted that this was our last time as just a 3-some -- next race, there will be 4 of us! ;)