Our little entertainer

Gianna is, occassionally, quite a willing entertainer. Tonight was one of those times. Clearly, we are amused by her tricks. We are so in love with our funny little Toot. Apologies for the bad videography.

Christmas and New Home!

So much to say! We had a lovely Christmas in VA with both our parents. DeAngelo's on Christmas Eve with Coughlins there for dinner and at Coughlin's Christmas day with DeAngelos there for dinner. It was so nice that everyone could be together so much. Gianna was a lucky girl to be surrounded by grandparents for Christmas! And she was very excited about opening and distributing presents and she loved all the great toys she got. Below are some pics and a video of her enjoying her new "car" from Grandma and Grandpa. She has finally figured out how to get on and off of it and can even move it by herself!

The video was shot in our new house near Princeton, NJ!!! We closed on December 30 and moved in on January 2nd. So it's been a hectic holiday season! We spent all of last weekend trying to get as much done as we could because Doug started work on Monday. We only have a few more boxes to unpack, but I don't think we'll feel completely settled until we get some furniture, which we hope to do this weekend. So I'll wait a while to post pictures. Until then, you'll just have to get a feel for the place through pics and videos of Gianna. She seems to really like the new house. I think she likes having an upstairs and a downstairs to choose from, but she mostly likes roaming around the downstairs in circles. She's been talking like crazy. Today's favorite was "all done" and finally saying "Elmo" instead of just "Mo." All in all, we're doing quite well. We like our house, we're getting to know and like the area, and we're even close to some family (my cousin is literally less than 5 minutes away). Although, I think Gianna already misses all of her grandparents! She loves to hear their voices on the phone. We will miss being so close for sure!

Santa and silliness

Not much new around here. I just wanted to post 2 things I already posted on Facebook. Here's Gianna with Santa. She loved him from far away, but even with keys for pacification, Santa's lap was far too close.

And here is a video of Geebs playing under the bathroom sink. So cute!

News, haricut, and Thanksgiving

It's been a busy couple of weeks for us! The weekend before Thanksgiving we went house hunting in NJ. Gianna was remarkably well behaved despite the serious disruption in her schedule and being dragged in and out of the car dozens of times. Luckily, we were able to give her some joy by staying with my cousin and her family who provided Gianna with a lot of entertainment. We are so grateful to them for their generosity! And to top it all off, we found a house and got it! We were supposed to close on January 2, but due to loan/moving issues of the current owners that date has been pushed to January 16. It's annoying, but we'll get by. And, Mom and Dad, if you're reading this before I tell you...we're moving in! :) Here's the link if you're interested: http://www.weichert.com/search/realestate/PropertyListing.aspx?P=21810912&cityid=43639&minpr=250&maxpr=290&minbr=3&minba=2

Moving on...Last week, I finally got tired of Gianna's refusal to let me put something in her hair. Resulting in hair in her eyes and ridiculousness like this:

I was afraid the haircut was a little mullet-ish at first, but have decided that it's cute! (This is right after the haircut, which, by the way she did NOT enjoy!)

Thanksgiving was quite the DeAngelo family affair. We went to Doug's aunt and uncle's home in NC where we met up with Doug's parents, sister, brother, sister-in-law, and our niece. Between all of us, our hosts, and their 6 children, we were quite a crowd! We all had a great time. We were so happy to see everyone, but especially to see Gianna's cousin Isabella. The girls are getting so big and don't really seem like babies anymore. It seems their 2 month age difference has shrunk to nothing since they can do basically the same things. Though, Isabella is a much more accomplished dancer, marcher, and mover in general! So cute! We miss you already! Here are some pictures of our visit.

As you can see Gianna really enjoyed herself. She LOVED her Uncle Nick. It was so funny that she was always asking to be held by him and giving him kisses. Maybe she thought she had two daddys. Too cute!

Gianna also took the opportunity to show us how much she can talk during the Thanksgiving weekend. She's said a few things here and there in the past, but not enough for me to be sure that she was saying certain words. But she was trying out all kinds of new words this weekend. It seems her favorites are "go," "mall," (I swear we don't go that much!), and "Pop-pop" (Doug's dad). I'll try to get these on video. In the meantime, here are her animal noises. They're a little hard to hear/understand, but she does get them all right except for cow.

Coats with legs

So I bought Gianna this winter coat. Doesn't she look like a coat with legs? I just had to take a picture even though I returned it! Unfortunately, it wasn't quite roomy enough to guarantee that it would last all winter long. So I bought her the pink one. It's a great coat! Multiple layers, room for her to grow, super cute...it has it all! I just think she looks so hilarious and cute in it...especially with the hat.

We've had our first couple of really cold days so we had to break out the winter wear. Today there were some snow flurries, which were quite fascinating to little Geebs. She just couldn't catch them like she wanted to!

This last one is of GB doing her latest favorite activity: jumping and flopping on the bed. She loves it when Doug knocks her over!

P.S. I'm not sure why the above text is being treated as a hyperlink...I don't know how it happened and I can't make it go away.

Don't mess with Texas

Last weekend our friend Kelly from HBS visited us from Dallas. She is a dear friend and I think Gianna definitely remembered her...and if she didn't, she was won over by her presents. This is where the pink cowboy hat came from. And here's another of her with the box her toy purse came in.

We had a lovely weekend. On Saturday we went to the zoo and Gianna just loved it. We made a point of visiting the bird house because she seems really into birds these days. She loved them and even gave the ducks numerous applause! The highlight for me however was seeing a hippo out of the water and really close up. This was followed by the hippo pooping and using it's little tail to spray the poop at it's admirers. Luckily, Gianna and I got away just in time...I don't think everyone was so lucky!

On Sunday we went to Great Falls. It was the perfect fall day! Gianna loved the leaves and the dogs the most. Here are a few of Gianna enjoying the leaves and a video of her REALLY enjoying the leaves!

Thanks for a great visit, Kelly! And for your photography...especially at Great Falls! We loved getting to see you!

Since I haven't posted in a while I should give an update on what Gianna is doing these days. Napping has become very unpredictable. I won't bore you with the details...let's just say it's a work in progress. That's the only negative though! In the past few weeks, Gianna has begun to sign like crazy. She signs eat, more, change, and drink and she tries to do all the others I show her. "more" is her favorite though...and the only one she does unprompted. She is starting to talk a bit more too. She says nothing very consistently, but she can say mama, dada, balloon, ball, duck, hi, and I think she said cracker yesterday. And yesterday she also added monkey and lion noises to her repertoire. She also loves to dance and "jump" though both feet have yet to leave the ground! It's so much fun to see her learning so much and so fast. We're loving every minute!

Halloween...piggy style

Our little piggy loved Halloween...even if she only tolerated her costume! She did not like wearing the hat, but we managed to get a few pictures with her wearing it. She really enjoyed being out and about with all the other kids at Nonna and Pop-pop's house. Their neighborhood was crawling with trick-or-treaters! Mostly she loved walking and "running" up and down the street. I think she would have walked right out of town if we let her!

Thank goodness things got better after this piggy trial on Halloween morning!

Piggy with Mommy and Nonna