Shorn like a Sheep

I'm not sure how it happened, but Amedeo has a nice, full head of hair. My hair is baby-fine and on the thin side. Pietro has fine hair that is quickly falling out. I was convinced that he'd be a bald baby for the first 6 years of his life.

Here he is on his birthday...first thing in the morning. I like it when his hair is on the long side, but when he sleeps on it, it tends to be a little crazy. He isn't that fond of combs, so we reached the point of desperation....last week I used my electric trimmers and tamed the coif.


See! It's fairly long...getting-in-his-eyes long.



In the summer, I cut the boys' hair outside, but in the winter, we use the basement. So much junk down there. I promise we're not hoarders.

Before...



After.


Very happy to be done. It doesn't take very long to cut and I try to go fast because a 3 year old can only sit still for so long. When I'm finished, there are always a couple of pieces of hair that somehow lept out of the way of the scissors. (To leap can be conjugated leaped or lept or spelled leapt...I had to look it up because the speller did not like it.) The haircut isn't perfect, but I'll take it!


A whole bunch of hair...between him and the cats, we could stuff a couple of pillows a year!

Valentine's Day

In Pietro's home in the winter, they eat fondue about once a month. He hasn't had ANY, so I decided to try the Trader Joe's pre-made fondue from their refrigerated cheese section for our special Valentine's Day dinner. I planned to make a pork tenderloin and sides, but once we ate all the fondue, we were too full to eat anything else.

Here is the fondue master heating up the cheese. I already cubed the bread and stuck it in a bowl.


Amedeo concluded that any food which involved sharp sticks is great. He kept trying to blow out the candle. This fondue pot works ok. We really need something that is electric or has a fuel burner to keep the cheese melty. Either that or we need to eat it faster!


The boys were tired after all that bread and cheese.


After I took down all the decorations from the party, I couldn't resist harassing Zenzero who was sleeping peacefully. I'm sure he loved it.

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...