Last time I posted, I had short hair!

   It has been a very long time!  These pictures are from December 2012.  Morgan and Debbie and Finn were visiting then

I held dessert hostage until I got smiles!

We went ice skating.  I think Finn and Pietro had the most fun.

Amedeo was very excited to test out his new shovel!

Celeste watched Amedeo play in the snow as hot air from the vent defrosted her feet.

Everyone!

Shennanigans in the hall.  

So, now I don't need another post for a good 6 months, right?

Summertime Snaps

Here are a few photos I threw together.  Honestly, I don't have time to shower.  Why am I blogging?

 Amedeo believes that superheroes wear lab goggles and capes.  

Window crayons are a big hit with Amedeo. If the windows are going to be dirty anyway, they may as well be beyooootiful.

I contemplate you.

 Chocolate yogurt pops!

 Eeeeeee.  They're good.

Celeste is a teensy bit stingy with the sharing.

For Father's Day, Pietro got a train set!  (No, really!  It's what he wanted!)  (No lie!)

I'm only pretending that I can't just walk right out of here!

The end.

Random fun

This, my friends, is poison ivy. Columbia is lousy with the stuff. Take heed!





How hard is it to get my two babies in the same picture with happy expressions? Darned near impossible.





Amedeo's new motto: when in doubt, remove the couch cushions and strew them about the floor to make 'pig dens.' I'm starting to feel like I live with a poltergeist.




When I can pry Amedeo away from his pig dens and tv watching, mostly he wants to hang out by the stream. You know, just in case something needs to be stabbed with a stick.




You might wonder what Celeste was doing while Amedeo was doodling in the stream. Plotting her next coup?



Hey, mom! Let's play a joke on Amedeo while he's sleeping!






xoxo -- Brenna

Long Afternoons

The days are long, but the years are short. That seems to be what is happening to us around here. Celeste naps for less than an hour all day, and for a 10 month old, that isn't enough sleep. I'm pulling my hair out trying to come up with activities for the zillions of hours that she is awake.

As you can see, Amedeo is sleeping on the couch. He never does that!!! I took them for a walk this afternoon. He passed out shortly after arriving home.




Instead of sleeping, Celeste prefers to stick pretzels into the scanner.




I suppose I can see why she isn't sleeping much. In the last two weeks, she has learned how to pull up and 'cruise' on the furniture, cut four teeth, and said her first word (cat). Maybe she'll be tired in June.



xoxo -- Brenna

Sunday chores

We have many things to do today. Exciting things like, clean out the cat litter boxes, check the mailbox that hasn't been checked all week. Grocery shopping, laundry. You know how I feel about this....blech!
So, we decided to get our backpacking tent out instead. A friend is hosting a family camp night in her yard, so we're checking the tent for structural integrity.








Maestro is resting after he caught a vole. Tiring work, being a cat.




Amedeo is digging for dinosaur bones in his sandbox. I made chicken soup this week and he begged me to put the bones in his sandbox.








The tent looks good. We have to decide whether we actually want to sleep in it in May or not. I know what I'm voting for.


xoxo -- Brenna

New uses for Cool Whip

I was the co-op parent for Amedeo's class on Thursday, which means I get to play with him and his friends in the classroom.  It also means that I bring the snack.  Snack is predetermined by the teacher.  She coordinates it with the lesson of the day.  On Thursday, he learned about butterflies, so I brought apples, bananas, vanilla wafers and cool whip, which I styled into fruit butterflies. 

Cool Whip is something I remember from my childhood.  It's probably not the healthiest of foods, wait, is it considered a food??  But, I think it might work for Amedeo as a learning tool.

He is a reluctant to practice writing letters, and since we have almost a metric ton of cool whip left over from school, I thought we could use it to entice him into writing. 


He was amused by it enough to try!  And trying is good. 




 You have to lick your finger after each letter.  Motivation!






How do you erase?  Use your face!





You might be wondering, "What was Celeste doing during all of this?"  Sitting in her high chair, hoping that some cool whip might fly over in her direction.




With any luck, Amedeo will move on to pencil and paper before he's 35, when a grocery list written in cool whip might be a little odd.


xoxo -- Brenna

Test post

This post is a test, as you can see from my clever title. This will hopefully be the first of many posts possibly about dinner, probably about the children.
I got a new app that will allow me to blog from my iPad. This is the first post from that.




I made a pizza with chicken sausage. And then I doused it with hot sauce and washed it down with beer. Amedeo couldn't wait for the dough to rise, so I cooked him a sausage instead. He has requested pizza for breakfast tomorrow. Ok!!




Maybe I'll shoot for a more entertaining topic next time. Maybe I'll just photograph all of our meals instead.
xoxo -- Brenna