Partieeeee for the 3 year old.

As promised, here are some photos from the party. I don't think I managed to get everyone, sorry about that!

Here's Emily and Jack, Kristin and Sonny, my mom, Melanie, Jessica and Jillian, James and Nicky and Jane...and our birthday boy who is waiting for his cake.


We were happy to see Pontus and Saga (and Petra who isn't pictured.) We rarely see these folks since they had a little one....we know how that goes!



Kinu, Anthony and Ayaka joined us too!


Chris and Natalie had a good time with our dining room light. I must say that I love Natalie's animal print dress.


Amedeo and his cake. I think he inherited my heavy duty sweet tooth. He LOVES cake.



Yummy yum yum. How can you go wrong with buttercream on your 3rd birthday?



This was our first birthday that we invited our friends to come. Mostly we have done just family parties, but I felt that Amedeo might enjoy one last party before our new little one comes along. The day before we had the party, Amedeo told me that he didn't want anyone to come to the party. Silly child. Too bad, was what I told him. I was glad to see that he did have fun. I did too. I'm about a month behind with blogging...hopefully I can catch up soon!

Happy Birthday, Amedeo!

February 10, 2011 was an excellent day to become 3!!!

Dear Amedeo,

You are a very special little boy. You are sweet and kind and enthusiastic. I think you'll be a great big brother. I can only imagine the fun we will have this year!

Love,

Mama and Poppy

As far as his actual day went, Amedeo had a good birthday. We started out with a trip to Dunkin Donuts. Almost anything you do after DD is great because we WENT TO DUNKIN DONUTS and everything is AWESOME because we had LOTS OF SUGAR! Even going to the grocery is fun after you have been to DUNKIN DONUTS!!! We did lots of RUNNING in the grocery and managed to buy some food too.

We had a party the Sunday before for him and his buddies. I'll post some pics of that later.

Winter: Indoors and Out

I enjoy winter, particularly when snow is abundant! This year we haven't had as much as I like, but it is enough to enjoy.

This was some very wet snow...it stuck to the trees like crazy. We had a few limbs break, but nothing big. Maybe we'll have less pruning to do in the spring?


The Walgreens is completely obscured by the snow covered branches. This makes me want to have snow for the entire winter. Too bad that I am not in charge.


While it is fun going out in the snow to play, it does have some drawbacks. It can take 20-30 minutes to wrangle all the snow gear onto Amedeo.

I wish I had come up with this idea on my own...bringing snow indoors is a good compromise. Amedeo wanted to play in the snow at 5pm, when I wanted to start dinner. Instead, we brought some inside, he could play, and I could make dinner.


Very little gear is required....just some mittens!



I hope the temps don't melt the snow too fast. Amedeo loved this activity!

It's a Miracle!

The miracle is that I made a menu plan for the week. When I am left to dream up my own recipes, we have pasta twice, potatoes and eggs and chicken nuggets. Boring stuff.

I have a Rachael Ray cookbook and a few other favorites that have creative recipes. I managed to make up a list and went grocery shopping this morning! This is all a miracle because right now I am suffering from pregnant brain syndrome. I have enough energy, but my lack of focus makes it hard to do useful things.

Anyway, here's the plan:

1. Marinated flank steak and blue cheese biscuits with arugula, tomatoes, and sour cream
2. Pasta con aglio, oglio, e pepperoncino con cecci, formaggio e spinaci. (Garlic, oil, hot peppers and garbanzo beans on pasta...I usually also add cheese and spinach).
3. Five Spice burgers with warm mu shu topping, pineapple and exotic chips. (fancy turkey burgers)
4. Mushroom casserole from Molly Katzen's cookbook.
5. Something from the freezer or takeout.

Next, I need to finish up organizing for Amedeo's party next weekend. I am concerned about mid-week mobility because of the snow, so I will try to have most things ready and in the house by tomorrow.

And here is our little Amedeo repairing his car. He's drawing a picture of the problem on his little green board.

That was a long break!

It has been a loooong time since I have posted. Things are going really well here. I think I'll do a little bit of reviewing with pics. Since Pietro's birthday, we've had Christmas, and a visit from Morgan Etc., and half of January. Here we go!

Amedeo is busy. I try to find activities for him that are entertaining for both of us. Here he is eating a Cheerio necklace. He had a good time stringing the "beads" but I think eating them was the best part!


And we do a little cooking too. A very big hit that day was making Ants on a Log. He was thrilled to get a very dull knife, peanut butter, raisins and celery to create his own snack. I couldn't believe that he ate almost all of what he made.



One thing to note, there has not been enough snow for our liking. Pathetic, Mother Nature!!! We need at least 6 inches for sledding and building.


Partway through December, Morgan, Debbie and Finn arrived! Finn turned three in June. Amedeo had a great time playing with him. I didn't get many pictures of all of them together. That was when I had the most morning sickness, which for me was just all day nausea, plus icky headaches. I was not very energetic either...so we're going to go visit them in their new house in March/April.

This day was our entire extended family on mom's side getting together for a Christmas lunch. It was lots of fun to have everyone over, minus the men who had to work.

Lisa, JoAnna, Uncle Rich, Matthew and Debbie:

Aunt Linda, Mom and me:

Lacey (my 2nd cousin) and Amedeo...he fell in love with her. He followed her around the entire time. Lacey was very sweet and tolerant.

Morgan and Matthew playing Wii.


All the kids together....and for a change all of them are looking happy, but not necessarily at the camera!


And, everyone in the pic...the last time we had one of these was probably in 1985.


And then, Christmas morning...
Amedeo was so excited. We noticed after a few presents were opened that he wasn't giving us as good a reaction as usual. There was no jumping up and down, or giggly laughter. Later, we realized that he had a fever! Poor child. Hopefully we can avoid that next year!

Next...more photos from Christmas...

Pietro's Birthday

This is a little after Tday. I remember making hand-turkeys in kindergarden. The teacher painted each finger a different color. That was my very favorite project the whole year. I wanted to try it with Amedeo. He really liked it! I'm glad because he has been anti-art lately.


And December 5th is Pietro's birthday. Traditionally, this is the first day we get any signifigant snow fall. We got a few flurries, but nothing good like in years past.
As you can see, he is VERY excited about his present.


Grandpa and Pietro playing tennis together. Pietro has been staying up very late playing his games...I am glad it's a hit, but I hope he is getting enough sleep.


I made a chocolate pudding cake for dessert. It has cake on the top and the pudding on the bottom. It goes together in a crazy way...you make a batter and put it in the bottom, then you sprinkle dry ingredients on top. Then you pour coffee all over, making what looks like a giant cake-y disaster. It was delicious. I would make it again and again.


One very happy Pietro.

Zoo Day

The Wednesday before Thanksgiving, we went with James and his sister and parents to the Baltimore Zoo. The boys had a great time together. It was rather cold...but we saw lots of activity from the animals.

The train ride was fun for the boys. It doesn't take you near many of the animal exhibits...and it is short...but, boys and trains are hard to keep apart.



Cookies!!!

They enjoyed the children's part of the zoo...lots of animals to pet and fun things to see...



Amedeo fell asleep in the car on the way home. I managed to carry him in and put him on his bed. When I checked on him 2 hours later, he was in this position, sound asleep. He is still in diapers for naps and bedtime. I didn't put one on him this time since he was already asleep...so his clothes and shoes were soaked with pee. I learned that soaking the shoes in Simple Green and water works well. The drying rack in our dryer works great to get them dry again.




Next...a few pics from Pietro's birthday...