The Sprinkler

Last week was HOT! I looked forward to hot weather all winter until I actually got it. Now I don't want it any more. Fickle me. These pictures were taken late one afternoon last week. Amedeo and I had stayed in all day due to the heat. I thought he needed to run around and the sprinkler provided the very necessary entertainment. Pietro enjoyed it too after being in the office all day!



Hey, Mom! It's hot and the water is cold. Isn't that crazy?!?!



Ok, son, you head left, I'll go right and we'll get your mother with the hose. Don't let her get away!



Not sure what is happening here. I bet Amedeo had a reason.



Pietro thought he could hide from the water....no no no. Silly man.



Amedeo asked me what his swim shirt said. Surf Life. Not very applicable to our lives, sadly. More like Suburbia Life. Ha!



ME! I am in charge! You will do what I say because I am wet and covered in grass!



I like this last picture of Amedeo. I feel like it is a little window into what he might look like as he gets older.

So this is TWO posts in a week! Holy Smokes! We are going a little slower with the baby preparations. I have washed lots of clothes and carseat covers and all of that. Now we have a dresser to put the clothes in. I'd say we're ready, but I'm certain something else will come up in the next 4.5 weeks!

One Post a Month?

How have the Bernasconis been entertaining themselves? I shall tell you!

We have been cooking stuff in the bathroom sink. Amedeo seems to enjoy fooling around with water and soap. I hope to have him doing dishes soon.



We have been making helmets out of cereal boxes.



When you wear a helmet over your eyes, it makes driving more challenging. Boys + wheeled vehicles + blindfold = more gratifying thrills.



We have been sitting in baskets while eating bananas and M&Ms. Good times, I tell ya!



Pietro and I have been working very hard on Amedeo's new room! He requested yellow and green, so that's what he got. I made the curtains out of IKEA fabric with room darkening lining from the JoAnns. Also from IKEA is the big leaf canopy, his bedside pouches (hanging on wall...hard to see) and his chest.



Pietro installed new closet doors and painted them. More recently than when this photo was taken, he put knobs on the doors and installed two shelves and a closet pole. Yay, Pietro!
The other fabulous thing he did before we painted, was install bamboo floor in this room, the hallway and the steps. I love it so much more than carpet.



Amedeo has been interested in cooking. He is rarely interested in hat-wearing, so I grabbed at the opportunity to take his picture here.



We have been wearing our swimsuits. Everywhere. It's hot.


I think I posted last month. Here's my post for this month..ha ha, no. I hope to post more often. I am a lazy pregnant woman. Mostly what I want to do is sleep, eat cold things and order my husband around. Only 5 more weeks to go!

Little Gymmers

In Missouri, there was plenty of time for book reading with grandma and grandpa!


There was an open play at the children's gym near their house. So many things to do...we managed to snap a few pictures of them together. Most of the time, they were running in opposite directions.



The foam pit was Amedeo's favorite thing. They could jump from a platform into the blocks. He must have done that 100 times.



Two boys hopping on a balance beam!

On a different day, we visited a tire playground. I'll share a few more of those next time.

I learned that Springtime is a strange season for travel. You have to pack short and long sleeves, plus sweaters, hats, coats, gloves, sun hats, sunglasses, shorts. The temps were anywhere from 40 to 85....very difficult to fit all of that into a suitcase!

Report From MO

We returned from Missouri on Saturday. We traveled with my parents and decided to take only my dad's camera, so I am waiting for them to give me the pictures. I have been assured that it will be soon.

Things went fantastically well. Amedeo traveled like a champ. That might have something to do with the portable DVD player I bought. Bro's house is huge. Like hotel-sized. Amedeo and I slept together in one bedroom, Finn slept in his room upstairs, master br on main floor, and mom and dad slept in the basement bedroom. Top accommodations, I tell you. We each had our own bathroom. Compare that to their previous house where all 7 of us shared two baths.

We did many things...visited a farm, got to "drive" huge trucks, saw their awesome library, went on a hike, went frog hunting, and generally hung out.

I promise, pics will follow...plus bonus pics of Pietro's hard work on the floor.

Kite Flying on Our First Spring Day

We had an unusual schedule last week. Pietro worked through the weekend and took off on Tuesday and Wednesday. We had our weekend in the middle of the week. I only have 4 months left before the baby girl comes, so we are getting going on our ongoing projects.

Amedeo and I are going to visit my brother at the end of March. While we are gone, Pietro is going to put in bamboo flooring on the other bedroom, hallway and stairs. Our carpet is getting a bit ratty, and I hate vacuuming the cat hair off the steps. I can't wait! Pietro did a great job with Amedeo's room, so he is looking forward to some construction work.

Either before or after the floor is done, we're going to paint the bedroom and redo the closet for Amedeo. He'd like to have it green. We'll see. That bedroom has been the guest/computer/junk room, so it has taken a long while to get rid of or redistribute all the accumulated stuff.

Enough with the blah de blah...here are some pictures!

We bought a kite when we were at Costco. Amedeo has wanted to fly it for days. Friday evening, it was warm and breezy, so we gave it a try.




Thank goodness Pietro knows what to do with a kite!





We decided to head to an area with fewer trees.




Amedeo enjoyed "helping" Pietro fly the kite.



We hit the playground once the wind died down.



That isn't how you go down the slide, Pietro!



Of course, Amedeo wanted to try it...


Here's a pic of the baby girl. I'm feeling good these days. It is great to be able to go for walks again now that the winter is mostly gone.


Amedeo in the sandbox. What could be better than visiting 3 playgrounds in one day?

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.