Liliana's 1st time out

Oh, there's a first time for everything...

It's Party Time....again?

Today we celebrated Liliana's 2nd birthday.  Nice and small.  Just us, Nonna & Pop-pop, Nana and Gampa, Auntie Alicia and Uncle Ryan.

Whew, my legs are SORE!

This morning I got a new card for my keychain!

Crown Night!

Family night with my sorority family!  A straight line down 8 levels starting with me!

Snow Day!

Today we got about 9" of snow!  The kiddos thoroughly enjoyed it.  And for those who saw last year's snow pictures, please note that the kids aren't wearing plastic bags over their sneakers this year!  Everyone actually has their own pair of snow boots (thanks to hand-me-downs....I refuse to BUY snow boots for growing children...we don't usually get a lot of snow here in Maryland)!

Holy Sh!t she's 2!!

Who said she could get so big?

Daddy-Daughter Moments

I love catching cute photos like this one.  And, no, the man can't put a ponytail in to save his life!

New Pants!

Finished Liliana's new pants just in time for her birthday on Wednesday!

Shake your groove thing!

Today we visited our friends, Tony and Kevin, at their house for lunch and some play time.  Due to CRAZY schedules, we haven't seen them since late August or early September (I forget which!).  We had a lovely lunch and we all got some quality time together.  Then we popped Just Dance 2 in the Wii.  Holy Hannah!!  Hilarious!!  What a fun game!  We were dancing, having fun, breaking a sweat...

Surprisingly, Liliana has some SERIOUS rhythm!  She was moving and grooving in time with the music, trying to copying what was happening on the TV.  It really doesn't get any cuter than this!

It's Party Time! Again!

We went to ANOTHER birthday party today!  This is Sofia's fourth birthday party of the month that she was invited to (third that she attended).  Our good friend Julia's little girl turned 4 on Thursday and she had a crafty birthday party.  A bunch of little girls were furiously making crowns and wands.  It was super cute!  Then they played with toothpicks and marshmallows.  Here's Sofia with her crown and wand!

Why so serious?

Liliana got a hold of a red marker today....that is all...

She's Crafty!

The girls wanted to "do crafts" today.  We just got a new Family Fun magazine yesterday, so I opened it up and found a cute project that just uses cookie cutters, yarn, cornstarch and water.  BINGO!  We have all those things in the house.  So we made some butterfly yarn ornament thingies.  A little messy but easy to clean up!  They're supposed harden once they dry.  Let's see!

They're BOTH up!

Got back from a meeting and BOTH girls were up!  Not sure why Liliana was fussing, but I think Sofia is having growing pains.  So we got some snuggle time on the couch until a little past midnight!

Little People!

And this is why I have THREE Little People houses!  (and Marc grumps at me when I bring toys home from the Kids Nearly New Sale....)

Goodnight Moon...

For well over a year, Sofia has always picked me to be the book reader and bed tucker inner.  But for the past few weeks, I have been trumped by Marc!  Fine by me, because then I get to get nice pictures like this!

 

She has him wrapped around her pinky...

It's Party Time!

This evening Marc took the kids to one of Sofia's classmate's birthday party while I was teaching a class at an all day training in Annapolis.  It was at My Gym in Columbia.  If you've never been to one before, it is actually a lot of fun!  It is basically structured play for the kids, but with lots of games, a ball pit, some slides and a trampoline (among other things).  There are two people who run it, to keep things going smoothly and to engage the kids in activities.

The first time I went I laughed the whole time because the kids are having such a wonderful time and the two employees have a difficult time keeping smiles on their faces when it's getting close to the end of the two hour party.  Some of the other moms and I started doing inner monologues for the male worker..."I hate my job, I hate my job, I hate my life..."  Ah, but it's two blissful hours for US because the kids don't even remember that we're there!

But yesterday, Marc took the kids (and ALL 3 of them at that!).  He tried to get a lot of shots of the kids running around, but Liliana was requiring quite a bit of attention.  Apparently she thoroughly enjoyed climbing to the top of the slide without Daddy looking.  Tada!  But here is one great picture of Seamus and Sofia boogieing down!

Wassup?

Or as Liliana was saying tonight, "I'm cool!"

The year's first tulips!!

I LOVE tulips!!  They are my favorite flower.  My wedding bouquets were yellow tulips (and freesia and roses).  Yellow tulips are my favorite, by far, but I like pretty much every color!  Pink, orange, white, purple...I don't particularly care for parrot tulips, but I digress.  Yesterday I went to the store to get something for snack today at Sofia's school (I was the co-op parent today), and THERE WERE TULIPS THERE!!!  I love this time of year!  Tulips are what make the end of January and all of February bearable for me while I'm waiting for spring and the sun to arrive.  So, here is my first vase of tulips for the year!

"Oh, great..."

For dinner tonight I made a really yummy Weight Watchers recipe - Asian Burgers with Grilled Pineapple.  It was YUMMY!  Sofia thought so, too.  Until she took too big a bite, gagged a little and then very gracefully vomited her dinner back up on her dress and her plate.  Now, I would like to add that Sofia felt like dressing up today and was wearing her Easter dress and heels.  So, yes, she vomited onto her pretty pink and WHITE dress.  What do YOU think a typical 3 year old would say or do if they suddenly found themselves throwing up?  I think most would start crying, maybe run to the bathroom.  What did Sofia do?  She looked down at her dirty dress and mumbled, "Oh, great!"

Pretty Easter dress, stain FREE, thanks to the material it's made out of and Melaleuca Pre-Spot!

Dessert time!

I almost forgot to take a picture today, so I grabbed my camera while the kids were eating dessert.  It's a crappy picture, and I tried for a while to get a "good" picture of all three kids.  Yup...never going to happen.  For dessert, Seamus, Sofia and Liliana had cottage cheese, clementines and apples, respectively. 

Where's the flood?

From the day she was born, I knew Liliana was going to be taller than Sofia.  But the other day when I put her in a pair of pants I made for Sofia at the same age, and they looked like this

Taken 1-6-11

I knew I needed to finish the pair I started a few months ago.  Because g'damn it is cold outside!  I should be finished in a few days!  And, yes, there will be photos of them ON!

What happens when Liliana is woken up early from a nap...

yeah...there really isn't anything else to say...

I really do have THREE kids!

I realized I've been taking more pictures of the girls than I have been of Seamus.  Part of that is because Seamus is in school all day long (ahhhhhhhhh!).  So, to prove that I really have three kiddos, here's my oldest!  He'll be 6 two months from today!

It's Alive!

This isn't incredibly exciting for most people, but it is for ME!  Our oven is working again!!!  Yay!!  After almost 3 weeks of not being able to use the oven, the part came in and Daddy was able to install it and it works again!  We're having baked oatmeal for breakfast tomorrow!  YUM!

Yup, she's still awake

So I left for work this evening before the kids went to bed (as usual) and got home at 11:55 PM.  Someone had woken up...

Cheeeeeese!

I know, two Liliana pictures in a row.  But I couldn't NOT post this!  Why do photographers tell kids to say "cheese" to get them to smile?  Because THIS is what you usually get...

My baby feeding her baby (doll)

Liliana will be 2 years old at the end of this month.  Today she sat down to feed her baby doll.  She fed her with a bottle.  It was really cute, but made me kind of sad.  You see, when Seamus and Sofia would feed their baby dolls, they would pull up their shirts and nurse them!  Ha!  Talk about cute!  Sofia watched me breastfeed Liliana and Seamus watched me breastfeed both girls.  So, to them, of course that's how they're going to feed their baby dolls!  But, Liliana is our last and she has never seen me nurse, so she only knows how to feed a baby from what she sees in cartoons.  So, I was a little sad today for two reasons.  One, my littlest is growing up.  And, two, it's a shame they don't show ALL the ways you can feed a baby on TV.

Water, water, everywhere...

No, we didn't have water leak, but I have come to realize I don't drink enough of the wet stuff.  I bought a new Nalgene bottle yesterday so I can keep track of how much I drink.  It's a 32 oz. bottle.  I filled it up at 8:30am.  At 3:30pm, it looked like this:

I know it's hard to see against the red wall, but the water line is at 20 oz...

"There's a whole lot of wop on those stairs!"

Those were the words uttered by my husband when he saw these pictures!

Me and my cousins, Angela, Amy, Gianna, Vince and Anthony

Our "new" cousin, Amy, came into town from TN to visit for a couple of days.  The word new is in "" because she's always been our cousin, we just didn't know she existed until she found us on facebook some time during the summer!  That's a long story I'm not going to get into right now.  But we all went over the my Aunt and Uncle's house for a little gathering tonight.

Amy and my dad, Luigi, and his brothers, Michael and Joe

Now, I know that there are many Italians who find the word "wop" derogatory.  And there are many theories on what wop actually means.  But in our house, wop is used frequently and without restraint.  We call our children our "woplets" and stuff can be labeled as "woptastic," such as my homemade pasta, sauce and meatballs.  And that is why my husband exclaiming, "There's a whole lot of wop on those stairs!" had me laughing as we drove out of the neighborhood!

Brown Bear, Brown Bear, what do you see...

I see a busted lip looking at me!

Sigh....

So, Sofia is a klutz.  Big time.  And she likes to wear her new dress with tights.  All.  The.  Time.  As well as hang out with me in the kitchen.  Do you see where I'm going with this?

While making dinner tonight, Sofia came into the kitchen, twirled, fell, and her face lost a fight with the floor.  I have never seen a lip swell up so QUICKLY in my life.  There wasn't as much blood as when Liliana bit through her lip 2 months ago, but it looked pretty bad.  So, off the Righttime Medical Center we went.

She was a trouper, though!  Once it stopped bleeding, she was all smiles and was very cooperative.  Luckily, she didn't need any stiches.  Whew!

I asked her if I could take a picture of her lip and this is what I got:

She's such a diva!  And thankfully is ASLEEP now!

Happy New Year! And what a great start it is!

I had the privilege of spending New Year's Eve with my best friend, her hubby and my hubby!  We drove to Reading, PA to see Straight No Chaser in concert and stayed the night at the Abraham Lincoln Hotel.  Apparently, John Philip Sousa spent his last few days at that hotel.  Kind of cool!

I know, this is actually two pictures, but how often do you get to see rough drafts of well known music written on random scraps of paper?

Project 365 - 2011

I have always somewhat wanted to create a blog, but figured there was no reason because the likelihood that I would update it is pretty nil.  But today I read about something called "Project 365" where you take a picture every day for a year and post them.  It sounds like fun, so......here we go!  Let's see how long this lasts...